Page images
PDF
EPUB

tons to his own. This work was nothing else but his fummary greatly inlarged, which he dedicated to archbishop Whitgift. It was reprinted five years after with additions; but even in this improved state it was no more, than an abridgement of a much larger history of this nation, which he had been above forty years collecting out of a multitude of ancient authors, registers, chronicles, lives, and records of cities and towns; and which he intended now to have published, if the printer, probably fearing the success of it, after the late appearance of fo large a chronicle as that of Holinfhead, had not chofe rather to undertake this abstract of mr. Stow's work.

Towards the latter end of his life, finding himself reduced to narrow circumstances, for his purfuits had been rather expenfive than profitable to him, he addressed the lord mayor and aldermen, that, in confideration of his fervices to the city, and in order to affift him in farther defigns, they would grant him two freedoms of the city and some years after, he prefented another petition to them, fetting forth, that he was of the age of threefcore and four; that he had for the space of almoft thirty years laft paft, fet forth divers works to them, and that he therefore prayed them to bestow on him a yearly penfion, whereby he might reap fomewhat towards his great charges. Whether thefe applications had any fuccefs is not known; nor do we find that he received any reward from the city, equal to the extraordinary pains he had taken for its glory, unless we reckon for fuch his being appointed the feed-chronicler of it: yet no great falary could be annexed to this place, fince he was obliged to request a brief from king James I. to collect the charitable benevolence of well-difpofed people for his relief. What the city contributed upon this occafion may be estimated from what was collected from the parishioners of St. Mary Woolnoth, which was no more than seven shillings and fix-pence. He died of a stone cholic the 5th of April 1605, and was interred in the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, where a decent monument was erected to him by his widow; from which it appears, that he was then in his 80th year. His perfon and temper are thus described by mr. Edmund Howes, who knew him very well: "He was

[blocks in formation]

" tall of ftature, lean of body and face; his eyes fmall and "chryftalline; of a pleafant and chearful countenance; his "fight and memory very good; and he retained the true "ufe of all his senses to the day of his death. He had an "excellent memory; was very fober, mild, and courteous "to any that required his inftructions. He always protefted "never to have written any thing either for envy, fear, or "favour, nor to feek his own private gain or vain-glory; "and, that his own pains and care was to write truth."

As to his literary character, he was an unwearied reader of all English history, whether printed or in manuscript ; and a feacher into records, regifters, journals, original charters, inftruments, &c. Nor was he contented with a mere perufal of these things, but was ambitious of poffeffing them as a great treasure; and by the time he was forty years of age, he had raised a confiderable library of fuch. His ftudy was ftored, not only with ancient authors, but likewife. with original charters, registers, and chronicles of particular places. He had the greater opportunity of enriching himfelf with these things, as he lived shortly after the diffolution of the monafteries, when they were difperfed and fcattered abroad into divers hands out of thofe repofitories. It was his cuftom to tranfcribe all fuch old and ufeful books, as he could not obtain or purchase; thus he copied fix volumes of collections for his own ufe, which he afterwards fold to mr. Camden, who gave him for them an annuity of eight pounds for life. He was a true antiquarian, fince he was not fatisfied with reports, nor with the credit of what he found in print, but had recourfe to the originals: and he made use of his own legs, for he could never ride, travelling on foot to many cathedrals and churches, where ancient records and charters were, to read them. With regard to his religion, he was at firft in all probability a favourer of popery; for in 1568, the ftate had a jealoufy of him, which occafioned an order of council to dr. Grindal, bishop of London, to caufe his library to be fearched for fuperftitious books, of which fort feveral were found there. And it is very likely, that his known inclination that way might be the ground of other troubles, which he underwent either in the ecclefiaftical commiffion, or in the ftar-chamber; for it

is certain, that about the year 1570, he was accufed, though falfely, as appeared upon trial, before the ecclefiaftical commiffioners, upon no lefs than a hundred and forty odd articles. Papift or proteftant, he was an honeft and generous man, unspotted in his life, and useful in his generation.

To conclude, is it not a little extraordinary, that Stow, our most famous antiquarian, and Speed, our most famous hiftorian, fhould both have been taylors?

STRABO, an excellent writer of antiquity, who died at the beginning of the emperor Tiberius's reign, and has left us a very valuable work, in feventeen books, De rebus geographicis. His family was ancient and noble, and originally of Choffus, a city of Creta; but he was born at Amafia, a town of Pontus. The greateft care was taken of his education; for, as we learn from himself, there was, not a school in Afia, whofe mafter had any reputation, that he was not sent to. He was fent to Nyfa when he was very young, to learn rhetoric and grammar, and afterwards ap plied himself to philofophy, and heard the masters of the feveral fects. Xylander, his Latin tranflator, fuppofes him to have embraced the Peripatetic doctrines and difcipline; but this, as the learned Cafaubon and others have obferved, is exprefsly against feveral declarations of his own, which fhew him plainly enough to have been a Stoic. Ancient authors have faid fo little about him, that we know fcarcely any circumstances of his life, but what we learn from himself. He mentions his own travels into feveral parts of the world, into Egypt, Afia, Greece, Italy, Sardinia, and other iflands: he fays, that he went from Armenia weftward, till he came to that part of Hetruria, which is over against Sardinia; and fouthward, from the Euxine fea to the extremities of Æthiopia. He did not go fo far as Germany, on which account it is lefs to be wondered, if he has not defcribed the countries this way with his ufual clearness and accuracy: Cluver says, that he has not; yet others have commended even this part of his geography. He mentions feveral of his contemporaries, and several facts, which fhew him to have lived in the reigns of Auguftus and Tiberius; but the year of his death is not known,

A 4

[blocks in formation]

His.

17971

Antiq.

Germ. I. iii,

c. 1.

His books of geography are indeed a very precious remain of antiquity. The two first are employed in fhewing, that the study of geography is not only worthy of, but even necessary to a philofopher; the third defcribes Spain; the fourth Gaul, and the Britannic ifles; the fifth and fixth Italy, and the adjacent ifles; the feventh, which is imperfect at the end, Germany, the countries of the Getæ and Illyrii, Taurica, Cherfonefus and Epirus; the eighth, ninth, and tenth Greece, with the neighbouring ifles; the four following Afia within Mount Taurus; the fifteenth and fixteenth Afia without Taurus, India, Perfia, Syria, Arabia; and the feventeenth Egypt, Ethiopia, Carthage, and other places of Africa. It has been ufual to confult this work, just as we should confult a geographical dictionary; but it richly deferves a continued and attentive reading, not on account of its geogra phical knowledge only, but for many philofophic remarks and hiftorical relations, that are to be found in it: for Strabo was a man of great thought and judgment, as well as readng and travelling; and therefore did not content himself with barely noting the names and fituations of places, but very frequently explains the customs, manners, policy, and religion of particular nations, and alfo takes occafion to fpeak of their famous men.

Strabo's work was published with a Latin verfion by Xylander, and notes by Ifaac Cafaubon, at Paris 1620, in folio; but the best edition is that of Amfterdam in 1707, in two volumes folio, by the learned Theodore Janfonius ab Almelooveen, with the intire notes of Xylander, Cafaubon, Meurfius, Cluver, Holftenius, Salinafius, Bochart, Ez. Spanheim, Cellarius, and others. To this edition is fubjoined the Chreftomathiæ, or epitome of Strabo, which, according to mr. Dodwell, who has written a very elaborate and learned differtation about it, was made by fome at prefent unknown perfon between the years of Chrift 676 and 996. It has been found of some use, not only in helping to correct the original, but in fupplying in some measure the defect in the feventh book. Mr. Dodwell's differtation is prefixed to this edition. Strabo compofed other works, of which we can only deplore the lofs, as we may with the justest reafon.

STRADA

STRADA (FAMIANUS) a very ingenious and learned jefuit, was born at Rome the latter end of the fixteenth century; and taught rhetoric there, in a public manner, for fifteen years. He wrote feveral pieces upon the art of oratory, and published fome orations, probably with a view of illustrating by example, what he had inculcated by precept. But his Prolufiones academicæ, and his Hiftoria de bello Belgico, are the works which raised his reputation, and have preserved his memory. His Hiftory of the war of Flanders was published at Rome, the first decad in 1640, the second in 1647, the whole extending from the death of Charles V. which happened in 1558, to the year 1590. It is written in good Latin, as all allow; but its merit in other respects has been variously determined. Scioppius attacked it in his manner, in a book intitled, Infamia Famiani: but Scioppius was a man of great malice and paffion, as well as great parts and learning, which make his cenfures of any thing little regarded, even where they may happen to be well grounded and true. Bentivoglio, in his Memoirs, affirms, that Strada's hiftory is fitter for a college, than a court, because he has meddled fo much with war and politics, neither of which he understood any thing of. The jefuit Rapin, fpeaking of the viciousness of a compound and Reflex. for multiform ftyle in hiftory, fays, "this was the fault of "Strada, who, by the beauty of his imagination, and the "great variety of his reading, has mixed fuch different "characters and manners: but fuch a mixture, as he shews "in his way of writing, how agreeable foever it may be "thought, lofes much of perfection." The late lord Bolingbroke, in his Letters upon hiftory, has been very Letter V. fevere upon Strada: he calls him "a Rhetor," and fays, "that one page of Tacitus outweighs whole pages of him. "I fingle him out," adds his lordship, " among the mo "derns, because he had the foolish prefumption to cenfure "Tacitus, and to write history himself."

His Prolufiones academicæ fhew great ingenuity, and a mafterly skill in claffical literature; that prolufion especially in which he introduces Lucap, Lucretius, Claudian, Ovid, Statius, and Virgil, each of them verfifying according to his own ftrain. They have been often printed, and, as they

are

la hift.

« PreviousContinue »