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Significant Scots
John Ogilvy |
OGILVY, JOHN, a poet and geographer, was born in
the year 1600, at or near Edinburgh. While he was very young, his parents
removed with him to London, where his father, some time after, fell into
debt, and was confined in the King’s Bench prison. Notwithstanding family
misfortunes, the subject of this memoir was able to pick up a slender
knowledge of Latin grammar. What is still more to his praise, he put himself
apprentice to a teacher of dancing, and with the first money he procured
from his master, freed his father from confinement. A sprain which he got in
dancing at a masque put a temporary stop to his career in this profession,
and made him slightly lame ever after, yet he is found to have been retained
by the celebrated earl of Strafford as teacher of dancing in his lordship’s
family, at the same time that he accompanied the earl to Ireland, as one of
his troop of guards. At this time he wrote a humorous piece, entitled "The
Character of a Trooper." Under favour of the earl of Strafford, he became in
time Master of Revels, and built a theatre in Dublin. The civil war,
however, which had made shipwreck of the fortunes of his patron, seems to
have also blasted the prospects of Ogilvy, who, about the time of its
conclusion, arrived in a necessitous condition in London, and soon after
applied himself at Cambridge to remedy the defects of his original
education. In the latter object he succeeded so far as to be able to
publish, in 1649, his translation of Virgil into English verse; which was
followed in 1660 by a similar version of Homer. In 1651 he produced "The
Fables of AEsop, paraphrased in verse," in a quarto volume, with
recommendatory verses prefixed by Sir William Davenant, and James Shirley,
the dramatic poet. Four years afterwards he published another volume of
translations from AEsop, with some fables of his own. Ogilvy was a fertile
writer of original verses. We are fortunately saved the trouble of making an
estimate of his literary character, by Winstanly, whose panegyric, utterly
preclusive of all rivalry, is as follows:— "John Ogilvy was one who, from a
late initiation into literature, made such progress as might well style him
the prodigy of his time; sending into the world so many large volumes;
his translations of Homer and Virgil, done to the life, and with
such excellent sculptures; and, what added great grace to his
works, he printed them all on special good paper, and of a
very good letter." Miserable as his translation of Homer is allowed to
have been, it was a favourite of Pope in his younger days, and it is
impossible to say to what extent we may be indebted for the beautiful
versions of the latter writer to the early bias thus given to his taste. It
is also to be mentioned, to the honour of Ogilvy, that the elegance of the
typography of his translations was in a great measure owing to his own
exertions for the improvement of that art. The engravings, moreover, which
he caused to be executed for his Virgil were of such superior merit for
their time, as to be afterwards employed in illustrating an edition of the
original poet, and subsequently for the decoration of Dryden’s translation.
At the Restoration, our author was replaced in his situation of Master of
the Revels in Ireland, and once more erected his theatre in the capital of
that kingdom. His chief attention, however, seems to have been now devoted
to the composition of an epic poem, entitled the "Carolics," in honour of
Charles I., the manuscript of which was lost in the great fire of London,
when his house was burnt down. He immediately commenced reprinting all his
former publications, and sold them, as he had previously done, by means of a
lottery, whereby he now raised £4210, which enabled him to set up a printing
office, for the purpose of producing geographical works, he having received
the appointment of cosmographer and geographic printer to the king. In this
capacity he projected a general Atlas of the world, of which he only lived
to complete the parts descriptive of China, Japan, Africa, Persia, Britain,
&c. He also produced several topographical works, one of which, entitled,
"The Traveller’s Guide," describing the roads of England from his own actual
survey, was long a well-known and serviceable book. Mr Ogilvy concluded an
active, and, upon the whole, useful life, in 1676. |
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