Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/166

154 but soon after lost all his means in the collapse of the South Sea Company. After producing another drama, The Captive, he pub. his Fables (1727), which added to his reputation, and soon after, in 1728, achieved the great success of his life in The Beggar's Opera, a Newgate pastoral, suggested by Swift, in which the graces and fantasticalities of the Italian Opera were satirised. A sequel, Polly, was suppressed by the Lord Chamberlain as reflecting upon the Court, but was pub. and had an enormous sale. The last few years of his life were passed in the household of the Duke of Queensberry, who had always been his friend and patron. He d. after three days' illness, aged 47. G. was an amiable, easy-going man, who appears to have had the power of attracting the strong attachments of his friends, among whom were Pope and Swift. He seems to have been one of the very few for whom the latter had a sincere affection. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Of all he has written he is best remembered by one or two songs, of which the finest is Black-eyed Susan.

 Author:Alexander Geddes (1737-1802).—Theologian and scholar, of Roman Catholic parentage, was b. at Ruthven, Banffshire, and ed. for the priesthood at the local seminary of Scalan, and at Paris, and became a priest in his native county. His translation of the Satires of Horace made him known as a scholar, but his liberality of view led to his suspension. He then went to London, where he became known to Lord Petre, who enabled him to proceed with a new translation of the Bible for English Roman Catholics, which he carried on as far as Ruth, with some of the Psalms, and which was pub. in 3 vols. (1792-6). This was followed by Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, in which he largely anticipated the German school of criticism. The result of this publication was his suspension from all ecclesiastical functions. G. was also a poet, and wrote Linton: a Tweedside Pastoral, Carmen Seculare pro Gallica Gente (1790), in praise of the French Revolution. He d. without recanting, but received absolution at the hands of a French priest, though public mass for his soul was forbidden by the ecclesiastical powers.

 Author:Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100?-1154).—Chronicler, was probably a Benedictine monk, and became Bishop of St. Asaph. He wrote a Latin History of British Kings. Merlin's Prophecies, long attributed to him, is now held to be not genuine. The history is rather a historical romance than a sober history, and gave scandal to some of the more prosaic chroniclers who followed him. It was subsequently translated into Anglo-Norman by Gaimar and Wace and into English by Layamon.

 Author:Alexander Gerard (1728-1795).—Philosophical writer, s. of Rev. Gilbert G., was ed. at Aberdeen, where he became Prof., first of Natural Philosophy, and afterwards of Divinity, and one of the ministers of the city. As a prof. he introduced various reforms. In 1756 he gained the prize for an Essay on Taste which, together with an Essay on Genius, he subsequently pub. These treatises, though now superseded, gained for him considerable reputation.

 Author:Edward Gibbon (1737-1794).—Historian, was b. at Putney of an ancient Kentish family. His f. was Edward G., and