The RECORD is indebted to Mr. GEORGE TAWSE Bookseller 735 Broadway New York, for the following sketch of George Sandys: George Sandys (or as it is sometimes spelled Sandes,) who has the honor of having written the first Book penned in what is now the United States-was a traveller and a Poet, and was the youngest son of Dr. Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York. He was born at the Palace of Bishopsthorpe near York, in 1577, and received a liberal and polished education at the University of Oxford, having taken fellowship at Corpus Christi College, He formed an acquaintance with Prince Charles the second son of James the First, which afterwards ripened into friendship reciprocated by that unfortunate Prince, and it continued undisturbed through all the perils and troubles which beset the King, down to the period of Sandys' death. In August 1610, he set out on a lengthened tour through the East, visiting Italy, Turkey, Greece, Egypt and the Holy Land. It does not appear who his companions were, but he spent about two years on his travels. On his return he employed himself in writing out his observations, and accordingly in 1615, he published Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Chase & Town, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. A RELATION of a Iourney begun in FOVRE BOOKS Containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of Ægypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote parts of Italy, and Islands ad ioyning. LONDON: Printed for Philip Chetwin 1615. Sandys (George's eldest brother) being closely connected with him in the management of the affairs of the Virginia company of London. George, Edwin and others of their kinsmen were stock holders or adventurers in the Virginia Company from its start to its close. In April, 1619, Sir Edwin Sandys was elected Treasurer of Virginia, and he was succeeded by the Earl of Southampton in the following year. In April, 1621, on the occasion of the election of a new Treasurer for the Colony of Virginia, "it pleased my L. of Southampton to propose a gentleman "well known unto them all [the Virginia Company] as a man very fitt to take that charge upon him named Mr. George Sandys, who was generally so well reported of for his approved fidelity, sufficiency and integrity as they conceived a fitter man could not be desired." Proposed by so eminent a man, and in such flattering terms, Mr. Sandys was elected without opposition. The term "Treasurer" had been hitherto applied to the office of Governor, and had been borne by the previous occupants of the office, but just before this the title of Governor had been substituted for that of Treasurer, and the latter title was therefore restricted to that officer who performed the duties of Cashier, Accountant, and Storekeeper. In July, 1621, George Sandys sailed for Virginia to cast in his lot with the young and unsettled colony. It is dedicated "To the Prince" i. e. Charles I. who had then been seated about a year on the throne.1 His Book of Travels, which was among the first written in a pleasing style, and with judgment, soon became popular, and ran through several editions. In 1673, it had reached a seventh edition, a considerable popularity for the then stormy times. The book displays a vast and interesting acquaintance with classic lore. Every point of Greece and its surrounding classic regions which he visited, he touches up with illustrations and quotations from the writers of antiquity. It is also written with great sagacity, and a fervid anxiety to speak the truth pervades it. His description of Jerusalem and the Holy Land is particularly full and entertaining; and the work being enlivened by "Fifty Graven Maps and Figures," it Prior to this he had been engaged on a has become one of the authorities appealed translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses and to in the discussions which have arisen in had published a translation of the first five later times respecting the Holy places. books. About the time in which he sailed, Of course the universal credence in the his little book,-for it was in 16mo, and supernatural, characteristic of that age, is consisted of 141 pages, with an introducpartially displayed in his pages, but that tion, attained a second edition, and doubtprobably is not much out of place in less he presented copies of it to his literary Travellers' Tales." brethren and friends, most probably as a parting gift. At all events his friend Michael Drayton's attention was attracted to it, and he thus alludes to it in a rhyming letter after Sandys reached Virginia: "And worthy George, by industry and use, Let's see what lines Virginia will produce. Go on with Ovid, as you have begun With the first five books; let your numbers run Glib as the former, so shall it live long And do much honor to the English tongue." The family would seem to have been on terms of intimacy with Henry, Earl of Southampton-Shakespeare's "Earl of Southampton" to whom the gentle Will dedicated his Venus and Adonis, Sir Edwin 1 Dr. Whitaker in his Life of Archbishop Sandys, states that "the Prince" to whom the work was dedicated was Henry Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James. This could not be, as the book was first published in 1615, and Prince Henry died in 1612. The dedication continued unaltered during Sandys' life, and that of King Charles. The The infant Colony of Virginia was then passing through great tribulation. At home dissension existed in the management, and a powerful party at Court was thwarting every measure, and moving for a repeal of the charter of the Company, in which they were ultimately successful. In Virginia every thing went wrong; the Colonists could not grow sufficient for their own sustenance, and had to be supported from the Mother Country; the expectations both in minerals, tobacco and other produce were completely disappointed, and as a commercial undertaking bankruptcy stared "the Adventurers" in the face. Add to all this, the presence and numerical strength of "the Red Man," and the hostility and treachery which he speedily evinced against the few and scattered settlers. On Friday the 22nd of March 1622, a dreadful calamity befel the struggling colony. Indians, with whom they had been living. on terms of such friendship that all suspicion of danger was asleep, suddenly arose and "not sparing eyther age or sex, man woman or childe" savagely murdered 347 persons. The Council at home reluctantly recommended that the Red men should be punished for this "atrocious massacre," but in this they had been forestalled by the Colonists. "We have anticipated your desires by settinge uppon the Indians in all places. Mr. Tren [George Sandys] firste fell uppon the Tapahatonaks in two several expeditions, Sir George Yardly [the Ex Governor] uppon y° Wyanokes" &c. &c. wrote the Governor home. The colonists, who had really attempted to reclaim and Christianize their Indian neighbours, at length wrote home that it was easier to extirpate than to "civilize" these " treacherous Saluages," and accordingly by the aid of "blood hounds and mastiffs" they set to work to effect a clearance. Amid such surroundings, then fighting with the Tapahatonaks, and other Indian Tribes for dear life, on the one hand, and combatting with an ungenerous soil for material existence on the other, George Sandys cultivated the Muses and completed in Virginia his translation of the remaining ten books of Ovid. When he left Virginia, we have failed to ascertain, but on his return to London he published his work in Folio in 1626. The same success which attended the edition of the five books, also attended this the completed work, for it went into another edition in 1627. When a further edition was called for Sandys amplified his work by collecting out of the Greek and Latin Poets as well as the schoolmen of antiquity, the philosophic sense of Ovid's Fables, tracing and explaining the Mythology of his Author in very clear and erudite dissertations upon each of the Fifteen Books; and also embellished with fifteen spirited and well executed Engravings drawn by Francis Clein. In 1632 this, which is sometimes called the third, but is in reality the fifth, and the best edition, was issued from the Press at Oxford and bore the following title page. OVID'S ENGLISHED Represented in Figures IMPRINTED AT OXFORD An Dom MDCXXXII Cum Privilegio ad imprimendum hanc Ovidij TRANSLATIONEM. 1 The Editor of the RECORD has a perfect copy of this first edition which has an illustrated title page, engraved by Thomas Cecil, an English artist of considerable eminence for the delicacy of his lines. In the design, Earth, Air, Fire and Water are represented by figures of gods and goddesses, accompanied by Venus and her son, and Pallas Athena, indicating that all the elements are united in one harmonious whole by Love and Wisdom. The title runs thus: "OVID'S METAMORPHOSIS Englished by G. S. Imprinted at London MDCXXVI Cum Privelege." The portrait of Ovid, in this first edition, is within an eliptical border supported by Mercury and a laurelled figure, who are holding over him a civic-crown. It was designed and engraved by William Marshall, an English engraver of the time. On the opposite page is the autograph of Miles Standish, with the date, in his hand writing, of 1643. The other illustrations were mostly designed by Francis Clein, a descendent of Johann Clein, an engraver on wood and copper, who practiced the art in Nuremburg from 1478 to 1520, in an indiffe rent manner. This work also contained a translation of the first book of Virgil's Æneid which he had made some years before, and was published at the recommendation (or by command, as is the phrase in such cases) of the King. Why his translation of the Æneid never went further we do not know. Sandys dedicated his book to King Charles, saying in his dedication, "this Peece being limn'd by that vnperfect light which was snatcht from the houres of night and repose. For the day was not mine, but dedicated to the service of your great father, and your selfe1 which had it proved as fortunate as faithfull in me, and others more worthy, we had hoped, ere many years had turned about, to have presented you with a rich and well-peopled Kingdome from whence now, with myselfe, I onely bring this Composure. "Inter Victrices Hederam tibi serpere Laurus." It needeth more than a single denization being a double stranger; sprung from the stocke of the ancient Romanes but bred in the New-World of the rudenesse whereof it cannot but participate; especially having Warres and Tumults to bring it to light in stead of the Muses." Scattered through his dissertations brief allusions to America now and then crop up, generally slight though sometimes curious, but as may be expected from the classical nature of his subject none of them very important. Respecting the merits of Sandys' translation the best judges are agreed. Dryden pronounced him to be the best versifier of the last age, and Pope in his notes to the Iliad said that English poetry owed much of its present beauty to Sandys' translation.' 1 His allusion to the service of James the First I have failed to make out. Could it be that he had held office at the Court of King James, or that he had been in the employment of the Virginia Company prior to 1614? 2 The following extract we give not as a specimen of Sandy's Translation of Ovid, (for it is considerably beneath the average merit of his poem) but as what was probably the earliest portion of it which he wrote in Virginia; and, if so, therefore the earliest literary effort made in what now constitutes a part of the United States. "Tritonia to the Muse, attention lends; After his return from Virginia Sandys entered the Court by being appointed one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber to the King. In 1636 he again appeared as an author. In that year he published "A Paraphrase upon the Psalms of David, and upon the Hymnes dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments by G. S. London at the Bell St. Paul's Churchyard 1636." 12mo. pp. xiv and 271. It, like all his previous books, was again inscribed to his royal friend and master the king, and in the following style: "To the Best of Men and Most Excellent of Princes by the Grace of God King of Great Britaine France and Ireland, Lord of the foure seas of Virginia, the vast Territories adjoyning and dispersed Islands of the Western Ocean The Zealous Defender of the Christian Faith George Sandys The humblest of His Servants, Presents and Before her curious webs, her owne preferd; Whether she orbe-like roule the ruder wooll เ Old age hath somthing which we need not shun: Experience by long tract of time is won. Scorn not aduice; with dames of humane race Contend for fame, but giue a Goddesse place." |