ing the tranflator's youth, it is by far the most spirited and elegant version in the whole collection, and it is to be regretted that he did not undertake all the reft. He feems to have been perfuaded by his friends, who were of the graver fort, that poetry was only one of the lighter accomplishments of a young man, and that it fhould foon give way to the more weighty pursuits of literature. The first act of his OEDIPUS begins with thefe lines, spoken by Oedipus. The night is gon, and dreadfull day begins at length t' apeere, And slaughter which the night hath made, shall day bring forth to light. Doth any man in princely throne reioyce? O brittle ioy! How many ills, how fayre a face, and yet how much annoy, In thee doth lurk, and hidden lies? What heapes of endles ftrife? They iudge amiffe, that deeme the Prince to haue the happie life .. Nevyl was born in Kent, in 1544', and occurs taking a master's degree at Cambridge, with Robert earl of Effex, on the fixth day of July, 1581*. He was one of the learned men. whom archbishop Parker retained in his family': and at the time of the archbishop's death, in 1575, was his secretary He wrote a Latin narrative of the Norfolk infurrection under Kett, which is dedicated to archbishop Parker, and was printed in 1575". To this he added a Latin account of Norwich, printed the fame year, called NORVICUS, the plates of which were executed by Lyne and Hogenberg, archbishop Parker's domestic engravers, in 1574°. He published the Cambridge verfes on the death of fir Philip Sydney, which he dedicated to lord Leicester, in 1587'. He projected, but I fufpect never completed, an English translation of Livy, in 1577'. He died in 1614'. The HERCULES FURENS, THYESTES, and TROAS, were tranflated into English by Jasper Heywood. The HERCULES FURENS was first printed at London in 1561, and dedicated to William Herbert lord Pembroke, with the following pedantic Latin title. "Lucii Annaei Senecae tragoedia prima, quæ in"fcribitur HERCULES FURENS, nuper recognita, et ab omni Lond. 4to. The title is, "KETttus, "five de furoribus Norfolcienfium Ketto "duce." Again at London, 1582, by Henry Binneman, 8vo. And in English, 1615, and 1623. The disturbance was occafioned by an inclofure in 1549, and began at an annual play, or fpectacle, at Wymondham, which lafted two days and two nights, according to antient cuftom, p. 6. edit. 1582. He cites part of a ballad fung by the rebels, which had a moft powerful effect in fpreading the commotion, p. 88. Prefixed is a copy of Latin verfes on the death of his patron archbifhop Parker. And a recommendatory Latin copy by Thomas Drant, the first translator of Horace. See alfo Strype's PARKER, p. 499. Nevile has another Latin work, APOLOGIA AD WALLIÆ PROCERES, Lond. for Binneman, 1576. 4to. He is mentioned in that part of G. Gascoigne's poems called DEVISES. His name, and the date 1565, are infcribed on the CARTULARIUM S. GREGORII CANTUARIE, among bishop More's books, with two Latin lines which I hope he did not intend for hexameters. • It is fometimes accompanied with an engraved map of the Saxon and British kings. See Hollinfh. CHRON. i. 139. P Lond. 4to. viz. "Academiæ Canta brigienfis Lacrymæ tumulo D. Philippi "Sidneii facratæ." See Note in the Regifter of the Stationers Company, dated May 3, 1577. Regiftr. B. fol. 139. b. It was not finished in 1597. Octob. 4. Battéley's CANTERB. App. 7. Where fee his Epitaph. He is buried in a chapel in Canterbury cathedral with his brother Thomas, dean of that church. The publication of Seneca's OEDIPUS in English by Studley, or rather Gascoigne's JOCASTA, produced a metrical tale of ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES, in "THE "FORREST OF FANCY, wherein is con"tained very pretty APOTHEGMES, and "PLEASANT HISTORIES, both in meeter " and profe, SONGES, SONETS, EPIGRAMS, "and EPISTLES, &c. Imprinted at Lon"don by Thomas Purfoote, &c. 1579." 4to. See SIGNAT. Bij. Perhaps Henry Chettle, or Henry Conftable, is the writer or compiler. [See fupr. p. 292.] At least the colophon is, "Finis, H. C." By the way, it appears, that Chettle was the publifher of Greene's GROATSWORTH OF WIT in 1592. It is entered to W. Wrighte, Sept. 20. REGISTR. STATION. B. fol. 292. b. • In 12mo. bus "bus mendis quibus fcatebat fedulo purgata, et in ftudiofae ju"ventutis utilitatem in Anglicum tanta fide converfa, ut carmen pro carmine, quoad Anglica lingua patiatur, pene redditum "videas, per Jafperum Heywodum Oxonienfem." The THYESTES, faid to be faithfully Englished by Iafper Heywood felow of Alfolne colledge in Oxenforde, was also first separately printed by Berthelette at London, in 1560'. He has added a scene to the fourth act, a foliloquy by Thyeftes, who bewails his own misfortunes, and implores vengeance on Atreus. vengeance on Atreus. In this scene, the speaker's application of all the torments of hell, to Atreus's unparalleled guilt of feafting on the bowels of his children, furnishes a fort of naufeous bombaft, which not only violates the laws of criticism, but provokes the abhorrence of our common fenfibilities. A few of the first lines are tolerable. O kyng of Dytis dungeon darke, and gryfly ghost of hell, of care; In 12mo. It is dedicated in verfe to fir John Mafon. Then follows in verse alfo, "The tranflatour to the booke." From the metrical Preface which next follows, I have cited many ftanzas. See fupr. P. 273. This is a Vifion of the poet Seneca, containing 27 pages. In the course of this PREFACE, he laments a promifing youth juft dead, whom he means to compliment by faying, that he now "lyues "with Joue, another Ganymede." But he is happy that the father furvives, who feems to be fir John Mafon. Among the old Roman poets he mentions Palingenius. After Seneca has delivered him the THYESTES to tranflate, he feels an unufual agitation, and implores Megaera to inspire him with tragic rage. "O thou Megaera, then I fayd, hell) "That thus dyfturbeth mee, This fayde, I felt the Furies force Enflame me more and more: And ten tymes more now chafte I was My haire stoode vp, I waxed wood, My teethe began to quake. He then enters on his tranflation. Nothing a Mad. Where Furies fight on beds of steele, and heares of crauling fnakes, Where Gorgon gremme, where Harpies are, and lothfom limbo lakes, Where most prodigious" vgly things the hollow hell doth hyde, If yet a monster more mishapt, &c. In the TROAS, which was first faultily printed in or before 1560", afterwards reprinted in 1581 by Newton, he has taken greater liberties. At the end of the chorus after the first act, he has added about fixty verses of his own invention. In the beginning of the second act, he has added a new scene, in which he introduces the spectre of Achilles raised from hell, and demanding the facrifice of Polyxena. This fcene, which is in the octave stanza, has much of the air of one of the legends in the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES. To the chorus of this act, he has fubjoined three ftanzas. Instead of tranflating the chorus of the third act, which abounds with the hard names of the antient geography, and which would both have puzzled the tranflator and tired the English reader, he has fubftituted a new ode. In his preface to the reader, from which he appears to be yet a fellow of All Souls college, he modeftly apologises for these licentious innovations, and hopes to be pardoned for his seeming arrogance, in attempting" to fet forth in English this present piece of the flowre of all writers Seneca, among fo many fine "wittes, and towardly youth, with which England this day "florifheth *.' Our tranflator Jasper Heywood has several poems extant in the Paradife of Daintie Deuifes, published in 1573. He was the son of John Heywood, commonly called the epigrammatist, and born in London. In 1547, at twelve years of age, he was sent to Oxford, and in 1553 elected fellow of Merton college. But inheriting too large a fhare of his father's facetious and free difpofition, he fometimes in the early part of life indulged his feftive vein in extravagancies and indifcretions, for which being threatened with expulfion, he refigned his fellowship. He exercifed the office of Christmasprince, or lord of misrule, to the college: and feems to have given offence, by fuffering the levities and jocularities of that character to mix with his life and general conversation". In the year 1558, he was recommended by cardinal Pole, as a polite scholar, an able difputant, and a steady catholic, to fir Thomas Pope founder of Trinity college in the fame university, to be put in nomination for a fellowship of that college, then just founded. But this fcheme did not take place. He was, however, appointed fellow of All Souls college the fame year. Difsatisfied with the change of the national religion, within four years he left England, and became a catholic priest and a Jesuit at Rome, in 1562. Soon afterwards he was placed in the theological chair at Dilling in Switzerland, which he held for seventeen years. At length returning to England, in the capacity of a popish miffionary, he was imprisoned, but released by the intereft of the earl of Warwick. For the deliverance from fo perilous a fituation, he complimented the earl in a copy of English verses, two of which, containing a moft miferable paronomafy on his own name, almost bad enough to have condemned the writer to another imprisonment, are recorded in Harrington's Epigrams. At length he retired to Naples, where he died in 1597. He is faid to have been an accurate critic in the Hebrew language. His tranflation of the TROAS, not of Virgil as it |