William Sotheby

William Sotheby (1757-1833). Engraving by Frederick Christian Lewis Sr. (1779-1856), after Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). Courtesy Artprints.

William Sotheby (9 November 1757 - 30 December 1833) was an English poet and translator.

Life

Overview

Sotheby belonged to a good family, and was educated at Harrow. In early life he was in the army. He published a few dramas and books of poems, which had no great popularity, and are now forgotten; his reputation page 350rests upon his admirable translations of the Oberon of Wieland, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Iliad and Odyssey. The last 2 were begun when he was upwards of 70, but he lived to complete them. His Georgics is considered 1 of the best translations from the classics in the language.

Family

Sotheby was the elder son of William Sotheby, colonel of the Coldstream guards, by his wife Elizabeth (d. 1790), daughter of William Sloane, esq., of Stoneham, Hampshire. His younger brother, Thomas (1759–1831), entered the navy, was captain of the Marlborough when she was wrecked off the Isle of Giouat, France, and rose to be an admiral of the white (cf. Gent. Mag. 1831, ii. 177–8). The father, who was elected F.S.A. on 8 December 1743, died in 1766.

Family, youth, and education

William Sotheby was born in London on 9 November 1757, and baptizaed at St. George's Church, Bloomsbury, on 19 December, His guardians after his father's death were Charles Philip Yorke, 4th earl of Hardwicke, lord chancellor, and his maternal uncle, Hans Sloane, and he succeeded to the estate of Sewardstone, on the borders of Epping Forest, which had been the property of the family since 1673.

He was educated at Harrow, but at the age of 17 purchased a commission as ensign in the 10th dragoons, and, obtaining leave of absence, studied at the military academy of Angers. Subsequently he was stationed with his regiment at Edinburgh, and there made the acquaintance of young Walter Scott (cf. Lockhart, chap. xv.).

Adult life

On 17 July 1780 he increased his resources by marrying Mary, youngest daughter of Ambrose Isted of Ecton, Northamptonshire, by Anne, sister and coheiress of Sir Charles Buck, bart., of Hanby. Thereupon he retired from the army, and, purchasing the residence of Bevis Mount, near Southampton, settled down with every material advantage to a literary life, initially devoting himself mainly to a close study of the Latin and Greek classics.

Sotheby's earliest publication was a volume of Poems (1790), which chiefly consisted of a narrative of a walking tour which he and his brother Thomas made through north and south Wales in 1788. To this were appended a number of sonnets with an epistle in heroics on physiognomy (Bath and London). A reissue in 1794 was embellished by 13 engravings by J. Smith.

In 1791, Sotheby moved to a house in London, and from then on divided his time between the metropolis and his property at Sewardstone, where he occupied Fair Mead Lodge. Like his predecessors in the ownership of Sewardstone, he acted as a master-keeper of the adjoining Epping Forest.

In London literary society Sotheby soon became a prominent figure. He joined the Dilettante Society in 1792, and was thenceforth one of its leading spirits. He entertained the best known men of letters of the day, and benevolently interested himself in the struggles of young authors.

Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Samuel Rogers, Sir George Beaumont, Mrs. Siddons, Joanna Baillie, Maria Edgworth, Byron, Tom Moore, Southey, and Hallam were among his guests and intimate associates. Scott, who "ever retained for him a sincere regard," owed to him on his visits to London "the personal acquaintance of not a few of their most eminent contemporaries in various departments of literature and art" (ib. chap. xv.)

In 1798, after rapidly acquiring a knowledge of German for the purpose, he published a translation of Wieland's German poem Oberon, which had already achieved European popularity. A 2nd edition, with illustrations by Fuseli, appeared in 1805. In 1802 Sotheby based on it a masque in 5 acts of blank verse called Oberon; or, Huon of Bourdeaux, which he dedicated to George Ellis.

An equally good reception awaited Sotheby's verse translation of Virgil's Georgics, which appeared in 1800 (2nd edition 1815). It was reissued in the sumptuous Georgica Publii Virgilii Maronis Hexaglotta (London, 1827, fol.). This finely printed volume was issued at Sotheby's expense, and was presented by him to many of the sovereigns of Europe. He vainly appealed to Scott to review it. Besides Sotheby's English version, it included a Spanish version of the Georgics by John de Guzman, a German version by J.H. Voss, an Italian version by Francesco Soave, and a French version by James Delille.

Sotheby also wrote several historical tragedies for the stage, of which 1 was acted. Before 1790 a tragedy by him, Bertram and Matilda, was acted privately at Winchester by himself and his friends. Subsequently he published at least 6 other historical tragedies — all in 5 acts and in blank verse. The earliest was The Cambrian Hero; or, Llewelyn the Great: An historical tragedy (Egham, no date). There followed in separate volumes The Siege of Cuzco (1800); Julian and Agnes; or, The monks of the great St. Bernard (1801), dedicated to the Earl of Hardwicke, and subsequently revised and renamed successively The Confession (1814) and Ellen; or, The confession (1816); and Orestes, dedicated to the Marquis of Abercorn (1802, 4to).

Only 1 of these pieces was accorded a public representation on the stage. Julian and Agnes was acted on 25 April 1800 at Drury Lane, with Mrs. Siddons in the part of the heroine, and Kemble, whose rendering was said to be "peculiarly fine," in that of the hero (Genest, vii. 503–5). At an impressive point in the play Mrs. Siddons by an unhappy accident struck the head of a dummy infant that she was carrying against a door-post, and the audience was unseasonably convulsed with laughter, in which the actress joined. There was no second performance. Although the other pieces were offered to Drury Lane, "the barbarous repugnance of the principal actors (according to Byron) prevented the performance" (Byron, Works, xv. 48).

Sotheby made in 1800 elaborate manuscript corrections in the proof-sheets of Richard I,’ a tedious poem by his friend Sir James Bland Burges (these sheets are now in the British Museum).

In 1806 Sotheby took Scott to Hampstead to visit Joanna Baillie, at whose house Rogers recorded a meeting with Sotheby and Mrs. Siddons at dinner a year earlier (Clayden, Rogers, i. 22).

In 1809 Sotheby joined another friend, Sir George Beaumont, in encouraging Coleridge to bring out The Friend, and in 1812 he, with Beaumont and Sir Thomas Barnard, received subscriptions for Coleridge's Lectures on the Drama at Willis's Rooms (Lamb, Letters, ed. Ainger, i. 255; Coleridge, Works, with memoir by J. Dykes Campbell, 1893, lxxxv; Knight, Wordsworth, ii. 102).

His plays The Confession and Orestes reappeared with 3 hitherto unpublished tragedies, Ivan, The Death of Darnley, and Zamorin and Zama,’ under the general title of Five Tragedies, in 1814. In 1816 Byron good-naturedly induced the Drury Lane management to accept Ivan, but after 3 or 4 rehearsals it was withdrawn "upon some tepidness on the part of Kean or warmth on that of the author" (ib. iii. 174, 229). Kean declared himself unable to make anything of the title-rôle (Genest, x. 233). Sotheby at once republished the piece. Byron insisted at the time that he was "capriciously and evilly entreated" (Clayden, Rogers, i. 239), but afterwards uncivilly expressed regret at having befriended Sotheby's "trash" (ib. p. 255).

Final years

Sotheby, who had been greatly distressed by the death on 1 August 1815 of his eldest son, William, colonel in the guards, now sought distraction from his troubles in a long tour in Italy. He left England in May 1816 with his family and 2 friends, Professor Elmsley and Dr. Playfair. They returned by way of Germany at the close of the following year. He published his impressions in Farewell to Italy, and occasional poems (1818), most of which he reissued with additions in Poems (1825; another edition, 1828).

On resuming residence in London, Sotheby mainly devoted himself to a verse translation of Homer. The First Book of the Iliad, a Specimen of a New Version of Homer, appeared in 1830, and was well received. The whole of the Iliad (in heroics) followed in 1831. Christopher North extolled the rendering in 5 articles in Blackwood's Magazine. The Odyssey followed in 1834 with a reissue of the Iliad, and 75 illustrations engraved by Henry Moses from Flaxman's designs (4 volumes).

Sotheby maintained his many literary friendships till the end. Byron, on some trivial pretence, seems alone of Sotheby's early acquaintances to have renounced friendly relations with him; in 1818 he wrote malevolently of "the airs of patronage which Sotheby affects with young writers, and affected both to me and of me for many a good year" (Clayden, Rogers, i. 255).

Sotheby delivered an eloquent speech on 31 March 1822 before the Dilettante Society on the death of his friend Sir Henry Charles Englefield, and it was privately printed. On 22 April 1828 Scott was Sotheby's guest at a dinner party at his London house, when "that extraordinary man" Coleridge orated on Homer and other topics (Lockhart).

In the summer and autumn of 1829 Sotheby made a tour in Scotland, and visited Scott at Abbotsford. In June 1833 he attended the 3rd meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, and penned a poem on the proceedings, which was published posthumously with a memoir and verses written in 1831-1832 on Scott's declining health and death.

Sotheby died at his residence in Lower Grosvenor Street on 30 December 1833, and was buried on 6 January 1834 in the family vault in Hackney churchyard, Middlesex. Hallam attended his deathbed.

Wordsworth wrote to Rogers of his grief at the death of "the veteran Sotheby" (Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries, ii. 87). Joanna Baillie, a close friend of Sotheby's for "nearly thirty years" mourned his passing: "A more generous, high-minded, amiable man never lived, and this, taken together with his great talents & acquirements, makes a Character which cannot be replaced."

Sotheby's widow, Mary Isted, who was born on 28 December 1759, died on 14 October 1834.

Writing

Original verse

Sotheby, wrote Byron, "has imitated everybody, and occasionally surpassed his models." Although Byron also described Sotheby, in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), as someone who wrote poetry with sincerity, small success attended the publication of the original verse which flowed abundantly from his pen.

In 1799 Sotheby issued an ode, The Battle of the Nile (1799), and dedicated it to Lord Spencer, 1st lord of the admiralty. His 2nd son took part in the engagement. There followed A Poetical Epistle to Sir George Beaumont, Bart., on the Encouragement of the British School of Painting (1801); an ambitious epic called Saul, a blank-verse poem in 2 parts (1807); Constance de Castille (1810), an imitation of Scott's Lady of the Lake; and A Song of Triumph on the Peace (1814).

Sotheby also made strenuous efforts in tragedy, but developed no genuinely dramatic power.

Translations

Although his poems and plays were held in high esteem by his friends, it was by his skill as a translator that Sotheby secured for himself a wide literary reputation. In 1798, after rapidly acquiring a knowledge of German for the purpose, he published a translation of Wieland's poem Oberon. The author, to whom Sotheby sent a copy of his performance with a sonnet, expressed unbounded satisfaction.

An equally good reception awaited Sotheby's verse translation of Virgil's Georgics, which appeared in 1800 (2nd edition 1815). Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review (July 1804), somewhat oracularly declared it "capable of being advanced to the high distinction of being the most perfect translation of a classic poet now extant in our language." John Wilson (‘Christopher North’) asserted that it "stamped" Sotheby "the best translator in Christendom" (Noctes Ambros. ed. Mackenzie, iii. 456–7).

As a translator of Homer, Sotheby, who owed much to Pope, failed to reproduce Homer's directness of style and diction. The translation, although eminently readable, was a work of supererogation (cf. Matthew Arnold, On Translating Homer, 1896, 10–11).

Sotheby's translations of Virgil and Wieland alone deserve posthumous consideration. They are faithful to their originals and betray much literary taste, if they are not of the stuff of which classics are made.

Sotheby's intimate relations with men of high distinction in literature give his career its chief interest. His literary correspondence is preserved at Ecton.

Recognition

In 1794 he was elected a fellow both of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries.

Sotheby's portrait was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the picture was engraved by F.C. Lewis. An unfinished drawing in crayons, also by Lawrence, was executed in 1814. Both painting and drawing are now at Ecton, the property of Major-general F. E. Sotheby.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems: Consisting of sonnets, odes, etc. Bath, UK: R. Cruttwell, for R. Faulder, London / T. Baker, Southampton, 1790.
• A Tour through Parts of Wales, sonnets, odes, and other poems. London: J. Smeeton, for R. Blamire, 1794.
• The Battle of the Nile: A poem. London: Hatchard / Rivingtons / Cadell & Davies / Faulder, 1799.
• A Poetical Epistle to Sir George Beaumont. London: John Wright, 1801.
• Saul: A poem, in two parts. London: W. Bulmer, for T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1807; Boston: David Carlisle, for John West, 1808.
• Constance de Castile: A poem; in ten cantos. London: W. Bulmer, for T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1810; Boston: West & Blake, 1812.
• A Song of Triumph. London: W. Bulmer, for J. Murray, 1814.
• Farewell to Italy, and occasional poems. London: W. Bulmer, 1818.
• To the Members of the Society of Diletanti. London: 1822.
• Poems. London: W. Nicol, 1825.
• Italy, and other poems. London: J. Murray, 1828.
• Lines Suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association. London: G. & W. Nicol, 1834.
• The Battle of the Nile / A song of triumph / Farewell to Italy. New York: Garland, 1978.

Plays

• The Cambrian Hero; or, Llewellyn the great: An historical tragedy. Eggham, UK: Wettons, [1800?]
• The Siege of Cuzco: A tragedy, in five acts. London: W. Bulmer, for J. Wright, 1800.
• Julian and Agnes; or, The monks of the St-Bernard: A tragedy, in five act London: S. Gosnell, for J. Wright, 1801.
• Oberon; or, Huon de Bourdeaux: A mask; and Orestes: A tragedy. Bristol, UK: J. Mills, for T. Cadell, Jun. & W. Davies, London, 1802.
• Tragedies. London: W. Bulmer, for J. Murray, 1814.
• Ellen; or, The confession: A tragedy, in five acts. London: J. Murray, 1816.
• Ivan: A tragedy, in five acts. London: J. Murray, 1816.

Translated

• Christoph Martin Wieland, Oberon: A poem. London: Cadell & Davies / Edwards / Faulder / Hatchard, 1798;
  • (with introduction by Donald H. Reiman). New York: Garland, 1978. .
• Virgil, The Georgics. London: S. Gosnell, for J. Wright, 1800.
  • printed with Virgil, The Eclogues (translated by John Dryden). (2 volumes), London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1830; New York: Harper, 1846.
• Homer, The first book of 'The Iliad'. London: John Murray, 1830.
• Homer, The Iliad. London: John Murray, 1831.
• Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey. London: G. & W. Nicol, 1833 London: John Murray, 1834.

Edited

• Georgica Publii Virgilii Maronis Hexaglotta. London: privately published, 1827.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Lee, Sidney (1898) "Sotheby, William" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 53 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 265-268 . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 2, 2018.

External links

Poems

• William Sotheby at Poetry Nook ("Netley Abbey: Midnight")
• William Sotheby (1757-1833) info & 10 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830

Books

• William Sotheby at Amazon.com

About

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Sotheby, William