Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/227

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NAHUM TATE.
213

that Fracastorius died of apoplexy at seventy, having contracted many friendships, and having deservedly no enemy.

To criticise either the Latin or English would take us beyond our limits. Tate appears to have been compelled to work for the booksellers, as a translator of prose as well as verse. In 1686, he published, under the title of "Triumphs of Love and Constancy," a translation of the "Æthopics" of Heliodorus. This work is the earliest and best Greek romance, and narrates what are called "The Heroic Amours of Theagenes and Chariclea." Its author was born at Emesa, in Syria, and lived at the end of the fourth century, under the reign of Theodosius and his sons. He wrote the "Æthiopics" in his youth, and upon his being appointed Bishop of Tucca, it is said, that a provincial Synod decreed that the author must burn his romance or lay down his bishopric. Heliodorus chose the latter alternative. The whole story, however, sounds very apocryphal; and its improbability is heightened by the fact that, although as a love story it offends against modern notions of delicacy, its tendency is to exalt virtue. It was twice translated into English before Mr. Tate and his coadjutor, who is described as a person of quality, undertook it. A version has since been given by Mr. Payne in 1792. The Greek manuscript was strangely preserved. Although well known in earlier, it was in modern times, almost forgotten, until, at the sacking of Ofen, in 1526, the manuscript was found in the library of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and as it was decorated and illuminated it attracted the cupidity of a soldier who brought it into Germany, where falling into the hands of Vincentius Opsopæus, it was printed at Basil in 1534.

Tate also published a translation from the French of "The Life of the Prince de Condé." We must, however,