FullReads

The translation of ‘Juvenal’ and ‘Persius’ by Dryden, with help of his two sons, and of Congreve, Creech, Tate, and others, was first published in 1693. Dryden translated Satires 1, 3, 6, 10, and 16 of Juvenal, and the whole of Persius. His Essay on Satire was prefixed.

‘Cassandra’ and ‘Cleopatra’ were romances from the French of Gautier de Costes, Seigneur de la Calprenede, who died in 1663. He published ‘Cassandra’ in 10 volumes in 1642, ‘Cleopatra’ in 12 volumes in 1656, besides other romances. The custom was to publish these romances a volume at a time. A pretty and rich widow smitten with the ‘Cleopatra’ while it was appearing, married La Calprenede upon condition that he finished it, and his promise to do so was formally inserted in the marriage contract. The English translations of these French Romances were always in folio. ‘Cassandra’, translated by Sir Charles Cotterell, was published in 1652; ‘Cleopatra’ in 1668, translated by Robert Loveday. ‘Astraea’ was a pastoral Romance of the days of Henri IV. by Honore D’Urfe, which had been translated by John Pyper in 1620, and was again translated by a Person ‘of Quality’ in 1657. It was of the same school as Sir Philip Sydney’s ‘Arcadia’, first published after his death by his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, in 1590, and from her, for whom, indeed, it had been written, called the Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

Sir Isaac Newton was living in the ‘Spectator’s’ time. He died in 1727, aged 85. John Locke had died in 1704. His ‘Essay on the Human Understanding’ was first published in 1690. Sir William Temple had died in 1699, aged 71.

The ‘Grand Cyrus’, by Magdeleine de Scuderi, was the most famous of the French Romances of its day. The authoress, who died in 1701, aged 94, was called the Sappho of her time. Cardinal Mazarin left her a pension by his will, and she had a pension of two thousand livres from the king. Her ‘Grand Cyrus’, published in 10 volumes in 1650, was translated (in one volume, folio) in 1653. ‘Clelia’, presently afterwards included in the list of Leonora’s books, was another very popular romance by the same authoress, published in 10 volumes, a few years later, immediately translated into English by John Davies, and printed in the usual folio form.

Dr. William Sherlock, who after some scruple about taking the oaths to King William, did so, and was made Dean of St. Paul’s, published his very popular ‘Practical Discourse concerning Death’, in 1689. He died in 1707.

Father Nicolas Malebranche, in the ‘Spectator’s’ time, was living in enjoyment of his reputation as one of the best French writers and philosophers. The foundations of his fame had been laid by his ‘Recherche de la Verite’, of which the first volume appeared in 1673. An English translation of it, by Thomas Taylor, was published (in folio) in 1694. He died in 1715, Aged 77.

Thomas D’Urfey was a licentious writer of plays and songs, whose tunes Charles II. would hum as he leant on their writer’s shoulder. His ‘New Poems, with Songs’ appeared in 1690. He died in 1723, aged 95.

The ‘New Atalantis’ was a scandalous book by Mary de la Riviere Manley, a daughter of Sir Roger Manley, governor of Guernsey. She began her career as the victim of a false marriage, deserted and left to support herself; became a busy writer and a woman of intrigue, who was living in the ‘Spectator’s’ time, and died in 1724, in the house of Alderman Barber, with whom she was then living. Her ‘New Atalantis’, published in 1709, was entitled ‘Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of Quality of both sexes, from the New Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean.’ Under feigned names it especially attacked members of Whig families, and led to proceedings for libel.

La Ferte was a dancing master of the days of the ‘Spectator’, who in Nos. 52 and 54 advertised his School

‘in Compton Street, Soho, over against St. Ann’s Church Back-door,’ adding that, ‘at the desire of several gentlemen in the City,’ he taught dancing on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the neighhourhood of the Royal Exchange.]

[Footnote 3: that]