Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/134

Rh L'Estrange is also credited with having begun in 1680 a translation from the Spanish of Don Alonso de Castillio Sovorcano of ‘The Spanish Polecat, or the Adventures of Seniora Ruefina, in four books, being a Detection of the Artifices used by such of the Fair Sex as are more at the Purses than at the Hearts of their Admirers.’ This was completed by Ozell in 1717, and published by Curll. It was reissued as ‘Spanish Amusements’ in 1727.

L'Estrange was also one of the ‘hands’ who were responsible for ‘Terence's Comedies made English,’ London, 1698, 2nd edit., and for the translation of ‘Tacitus’ in the same year (Hatton Correspondence, ii. 235). He was author of ‘A Key to Hudibras,’ printed in Butler's ‘Posthumous Works,’ vol. ii. (1715), from an exact copy supplied by ‘the learned Dr. Midgeley;’ and he wrote the preface to Fairfax's translation of Tasso's ‘Gerusalemme Liberata,’ 1687.

Clarendon speaks of L'Estrange as ‘a man of a good wit and a fancy very luxuriant, and of an enterprising nature’ (Rebellion, iv. 334). Pepys calls him ‘a man of fine conversation I think, but I am sure most courtly and full of compliments’ (Diary, 17 Dec. 1664, ii. 192). Evelyn describes him as ‘a person of excellent parts, abating some affectations.’ Fuller respected him and dedicated to him his ‘Ornithologie, or Speech of Birds’ (1655). L'Estrange was well acquainted with contemporary French and Spanish literature, and his frequent references to Bacon's ‘Essays’ and his occasional quotation from a poet like Lord Brooke show that he was well read in English. Despite his quarrel with Milton, his name figures among the subscribers to the fourth edition of ‘Paradise Lost’ in 1688. According to all accounts, he was personally attractive, and as a professional journalist he adhered to his principles with creditable tenacity, although he was a coarse controversialist, and sinned repeatedly, as in his attacks on Milton and Baxter, against the canons of good taste and feeling. Boyer, a contemporary biographer, writes that ‘he was certainly a very great Master of the English Tongue’ (Annals, iii. 243). Burnet, an unfriendly critic, draws attention to his ‘unexhausted copiousness in writing.’ His fluency was undoubtedly irrepressible. He wrote clearly, but in his endeavours to make himself intelligible to all classes he introduced much contemporary slang. Granger writes that ‘he was one of the great corrupters of our language by excluding vowels and other letters not commonly pronounced, and introducing pert and affected phrases’ (Biog. Hist. iv. 70). Macaulay (Hist. i. 186) calls his literary style ‘a mean and flippant jargon.’ Hallam, who regarded him as ‘the pattern of bad writing,’ yet credited him with ‘a certain wit and readiness in raillery, which, while making him a popular writer in his own day, enable some of his works to be still read with some amusement’ (Lit. of Europe, iii. 555–6). In the history of journalism he holds a prominent place. Dr. Johnson regarded him as the first writer upon record who regularly enlisted himself under the banners of a party for pay, and fought for it through right and wrong (Lit. Mag. 1758, p. 197). The influence of his ‘Observator’ was far-reaching. Its title and form were plagiarised by journalistic disciples even in his own lifetime (cf., Lit. Anecdotes, i. 79 sq.; and art. ). It was familiar to Defoe, Addison, and Steele, and suggested much of their own work in the same direction. But L'Estrange is seen to best literary advantage in his translations. Occasionally, as in his ‘Quevedo’ and ‘Æsop,’ he foisted on them his own views and unwarranted allusions to current events. But although not literal they are eminently readable. He was not more moral than his contemporaries, and his choice of contemporary French authors for purposes of translation is not above reproach.  LE STRANGE,  THOMAS (1494–1545), of Hunstanton, Norfolk, born in 1494, son of Robert le Strange (d. 1511), sixth in descent from Hamo le Strange, brother of John le Strange, sixth baron of Knockyn [see under, d. 1260], was esquire of the body to Henry VIII, and attended the king when he went to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520; he was knighted by Henry at Whitehall in 1529, and served as high sheriff of Norfolk in 1532. Extracts from the ‘Household Accounts’ kept at Hunstanton in the time of Sir Thomas and his successor, from 1519 to 1578, were published in the ‘Archæologia’ for 1833. Sir Thomas was in attendance on Anne Boleyn at her coronation in 1533, her father, Sir Thomas