Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/212

 calls him ‘a miracle of the age in classical composition.’ His chief poem, however, was long current under the names of Dares Phrygius and Cornelius Nepos. Leland was the first to recognise its real merit and author. The poems ascribed to Joseph are: 1. ‘De Bello Trojano,’ in six books; this would appear from the reference to the young King Henry to have been written before 1183, in which year the prince died; and since the poem was dedicated to Baldwin when archbishop, it must have been completed after 1184. There seems to be no reason to suppose that Joseph had made use of the ‘Roman de Troie’ of Benoît de Sainte More, which appeared in 1184. Joseph took for the foundation of his poem the works which pass under the names of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis. In his style he approaches most nearly to Statius, but he shows acquaintance with Virgil (e.g. lib. i. ll. 179, 290; cf., pp. 68–9). There is a manuscript at Westminster Abbey; others are Digby 157 in Bodleian Library; Magdalen College, Oxford, 50; Bibl. Nationale 15015. The last named is doubtless one of two which Leland says he had seen at Paris; it contains some notes in a thirteenth-century hand, which are probably Joseph's own. The ‘De Bello Trojano’ was first printed at Basle in 1558, 8vo, as ‘Daretis Phrygii … de Bello Trojano … libri sex a Cornelio Nepote in Latinum conversi,’ and again at Basle in 1583 with the ‘Iliad,’ in folio, Antwerp, 1608, 8vo, and Milan, 1669, 12mo, all under the name of Cornelius Nepos. It was published under Joseph's name with notes by Samuel Dresemius, Frankfort, 1620 and 1623, 4to; by J. More, London, 1675; with Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius, ‘in usum serenissimi Delphini,’ Amsterdam, 1702, and London, 1825. None of these editions are a great advance on the first, which Leland described as ‘so corrupt an offspring that its father would scarce know it;’ but Dresemius restored the passages which palpably showed the poem to be mediæval, and which had been omitted by his predecessors. M. Jusserand has edited the first book from the Paris manuscript, together with the notes given there (De Josepho Exoniensi, ad fin.) 2. ‘Antiocheis,’ a poem in which Joseph celebrated the first crusade; Leland says that he long sought for a manuscript without success, but at length discovered a dust-covered fragment at Abingdon, from which one could ‘estimate the remainder as a lion from its claws.’ Warton says that he had been told that there was a copy in the library of the Duke of Chandos at Canons. All trace of it has, however, disappeared, and the only known fragment of the poem is preserved by Camden in his ‘Remaines’ (ed. 1870, pp. 338–9; see also, Hist. Engl. Poetry, i. 226–9). Leland says that in the fragment which he found at Abingdon Joseph celebrated his native town. 3. ‘Panegyricus ad Henricum;’ this is probably simply a passage of the ‘De Bello Trojano’ in praise of Henry II. 4. ‘De Institutione Cyri.’ 5. ‘Nugæ Amatoriæ.’ 6. ‘Epigrammata.’ 7. ‘Diversi generis Carmina.’ The last four have disappeared, if, indeed, they ever existed. 

JOSEPH, GEORGE FRANCIS (1764–1846), portrait and subject painter, said to be a native of Dublin, was born 25 Nov. 1764. He became a student at the Royal Academy in 1784, and in 1792 gained the gold medal for a ‘Scene from Coriolanus.’ He sent his first contribution to the Academy in 1788, and became a constant exhibitor both there and at the British Institution. In 1797 he painted ‘Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse.’ In 1811 the directors of the British Institution awarded him one-third of their combined premiums of 350 guineas for his ‘Return of Priam with the dead body of Hector,’ and in 1812 one hundred guineas for his ‘Procession to Calvary.’ In 1813 he was elected an associate of the Academy. Joseph painted many fancy subjects, and made designs for book-illustrations, but is best known as a portrait-painter. His portraits both in oil and miniature are very numerous, and some of them have been engraved. He practised in London until 1836, when he retired to Cambridge; there he died in 1846, having continued to exhibit at the Academy until that year, and was buried in St. Michael's churchyard. His portraits of Spencer Perceval, painted in 1812, and Sir Stamford Raffles (1817) are in the National Portrait Gallery, and the print room of the British Museum possesses an interesting portrait of Charles Lamb at the age of forty-four, drawn by Joseph in water-colours. 

JOSEPH, SAMUEL (d. 1850), sculptor, is said to have been son of the treasurer of St. John's College, Cambridge, although the