Volume I Part 26 (1/2)

IV.

O may her arms wax black and blue Only by hard encircling you: May she round about you twine Like the easy twisting vine; And while you sip From her full lip Pleasures as new As morning dew, Like those soft tyes, your hearts combine.

[Footnote 1: Memoirs, p. 422.]

[Footnote 2: Atheniae Oxon. p. 274.]

[Footnote 3: ibid. vol. ii. col. 34.]

[Footnote 4: Athen. Oxon. col. 35.]

[Footnote 5: Preface to his Poems in 8vo. London, 1651.]

[Footnote 6: Wood.]

GEORGE SANDYS,

A younger son of Edwin, Archbishop of York, was born at Bishops Thorp in that county, and as a member of St. Mary's Hall, was matriculated in the university in the beginning of December 1589; how long he remained at the university Wood is not able to determine. In the year 1610 he began a long journey, and after he had travelled through several parts of Europe, he visited many cities, especially Constantinople, and countries under the Turkish empire, as Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land[1]. Afterwards he took a view of the remote parts of Italy, and the Islands adjoining: Then he went to Rome; the antiquities of that place were shewn him by Nicholas Fitzherbert, once an Oxford student, and who had the honour of Mr. Sandys's acquaintance. Thence our author went to Venice, and from that returned to England, where digesting his notes, he published his travels.

Sandys, who appears to have been a man of excellent parts, of a pious and generous disposition, did not, like too many travellers, turn his attention upon the modes of dress, and the fas.h.i.+ons of the several courts which is but a poor acquisition; but he studied the genius, the tempers, the religion, and the governing principles of the people he visited, as much as his time amongst them would permit. He returned in 1612, being improved, says Wood, 'in several respects, by this his 'large journey, being an accomplished gentleman, as being master of several languages, of affluent and ready discourse, and excellent comportment.' He had also a poetical fancy, and a zealous inclination to all literature, which made his company acceptable to the most virtuous men, and scholars of his time. He also wrote a Paraphrase on the Psalms of David, and upon the Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testament, London, 1636, reprinted there in folio 1638, with other things under this t.i.tle.

Paraphrase on the Divine Poems, on Job, Psalms of David, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, and Songs collected out of the Old and New Testament. This Paraphrase on David's Psalms was one of the books that Charles I. delighted so much to read in: as he did in Herbert's Divine Poems, Dr. Hammond's Works, and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, while he was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight[2].

Paraphrase on the Divine Poems, viz. on the Psalms of David, on Ecclesiastes, and on the Song of Solomon, London, 1637. Some, if not all of the Psalms of David, had vocal compositions set to them by William and Henry Lawes, with a thorough ba.s.s, for an Organ, in four large books or volumes in 4to. Our author also translated into English Ovid's Metamorphoses, London, 1627. Virgil's first book of aeneis printed with the former. Mr. Dryden in his preface to some of his translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses, calls him the best versifier of the last age.

Christ's Pa.s.sion, written in Latin by the famous Hugo Grotius, and translated by our author, to which he also added notes; this subject had been handled handled before in Greek, by that venerable person, Apollinarius of Laodicea, bishop of Hierapolis, but this of Grotius, in Sandys's opinion, transcends all on this argument; this piece was reprinted with figures in 8vo. London, 1688. Concerning our author but few incidents are known, he is celebrated by cotemporary and subsequent wits, as a very considerable poet, and all have agreed to bestow upon him the character of a pious worthy man. He died in the year 1643, at the house of his nephew Mr. Wiat at Boxley Abbey in Kent, in the chancel of which parish church he is buried, though without a monument, only as Wood says with the following, which stands in the common register belonging to this church.

Georgius Sandys, Poetarum Anglorum sui saeculi Princeps, sepultus suit Martii 7 stilo Anglico. Anno Pom. 1643. It would be injurious to the memory of Sandys, to dismiss his life without informing the reader that the worthy author stood high in the opinion of that most accomplished young n.o.bleman the lord viscount Falkland, by whom to be praised, is the highest compliment that can be paid to merit; his lords.h.i.+p addresses a copy of verses to Grotius, occasioned by his Christus Patiens, in which he introduces Mr. Sandys, and says of him, that he had seen as much as Grotius had read; he bestows upon him like wife the epithet of a fine gentleman, and observes, that though he had travelled to foreign countries to read life, and acquire knowledge, yet he was worthy, like another Livy, of having men of eminence from every country come to visit him. From the quotation here given, it will be seen that Sandys was a smooth versifier, and Dryden in his preface to his translation of Virgil, positively says, that had Mr.

Sandys gone before him in the whole translation, he would by no means have attempted it after him.

In the translation of his Christus Patiens, in the chorus of Act III.

JESUS speaks.

Daughters of Solyma, no more My wrongs thus pa.s.sionately deplore.

These tears for future sorrows keep, Wives for yourselves, and children weep; That horrid day will shortly come, When you shall bless the barren womb, And breast that never infant fed; Then shall you with the mountain's head Would from this trembling basis slide, And all in tombs of ruin hide.

In his translation of Ovid, the verses on Fame are thus englished.

And now the work is ended which Jove's rage, Nor fire, nor sword, shall raise, nor eating age.

Come when it will, my death's uncertain hour, Which only o'er my body bath a power: Yet shall my better part transcend the sky, And my immortal name shall never die: For wheresoe'er the Roman Eagles spread Their conqu'ring wings, I shall of all be read.

And if we Prophets can presages give, I in my fame eternally shall live.

[Footnote 1: Athen. Oxon. p. 46. vol. ii.]

[Footnote 2: Wood, ubi supra.]