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William Sotheby (1757-1833). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05

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William Sotheby (1757-1833). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Charles Wells Moulton, ed.  Library of Literary Criticism.  1901–05. William Sotheby (1757–1833) William Sotheby, an accomplished scholar and translator, was born in London on the 9th of November 1757. He was of good family, and educated at Harrow School. At the age of seventeen he entered the army as an officer in the 10th Dragoons. He quitted the army in the year 1780, and purchased Bevis Mount, near Southampton, where he continued to reside for the next ten years. Here Mr. Sotheby cultivated his taste for literature, and translated some of the minor Greek and Latin poets. In 1788, he made a pedestrian tour through Wales, of which he wrote a poetical description, published, together with some odes and sonnets, in 1789. In 1798, he published a translation from the “Oberon” of Wieland, which greatly extended his reputation, and procured him the thanks and friendship of the German poet. He now became a frequent competitor for poetical fame. In 1799, he wrote a poem commemorative of the battle of the Nile; in 1800, appeared his translation of the “Georgics” of Virgil; in 1801, he produced a “Poetical Epistle on the Encouragement of the British School of Painting;” and in 1802, a tragedy on the model of the ancient Greek drama, entitled “Orestes.” He next devoted himself to the composition of an original sacred poem, in blank verse, under the title of “Saul,” which appeared in 1807. The fame of Scott induced him to attempt the romantic metrical style of narrative and description, and in 1810, he published “Constance de Castille,” a poem in ten cantos. In 1814, he republished his “Orestes,” together with four other tragedies; and in 1815, a second corrected edition of the “Georgics.” This translation is one of the best of a classic poet in our language. A tour on the continent gave occasion to another poetical work, “Italy.” He next began a labour which he had long contemplated, the translation of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” though he was upwards of seventy years of age before he entered upon the Herculean task…. Mr. Sotheby’s translation of the “Iliad” was published in 1831, and was generally esteemed spirited and faithful. The “Odyssey” he completed in the following year. He died on the 30th of December 1833.—Chambers, Robert, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.    

1 General

  My acquaintance with this admirable poem, [“Oberon”] being hitherto through the medium of a very different French version, it was with much pleasure and expectation I took up the volumes of Mr. Sotheby; nor have I been disappointed. The versification is usually free and harmonious, and the diction in many places glows with a curious felicity of expression. The various descriptions of female beauty, and the numerous sketchings in landscape with which the “Oberon” abounds, are given con amore. The elegant and happy machinery, too, of this poem, unfolding to so much advantage the luxuriant and sportive imagination of Wieland, has been transfused with energy and ease.—Drake, Nathan, 1798–1820, Literary Hours, vol. II, p. 103.    

2   A scriptural subject treated in blank verse unfortunately brings Milton to the thoughts of most readers; and the name of the translator of Oberon raises expectations which it is not easy to answer. This poem has certainly disappointed us. It is not very like Milton; except in the multitude of Hebrew names: and it is strikingly inferior to Mr. Sotheby’s other composition, even in those points where we reckoned with certainty on improvement. There was great beauty of diction in the Oberon; and, considering the difficulty of the measure, an unusual flow and facility of versification. When we found the author writing in blank verse, therefore, we naturally looked for still greater freedom and variety of composition; and expected to be charmed with all those natural graces of expression, which are necessarily excluded, to a certain degree, by the bondage of an intricate stanza. The very reverse is the case, however, with the work now before us. Mr. Sotheby’s blank verse is as remarkable for harshness, constraint, and abruptness, as his stanzas were for ease and melody; and his muse, we are afraid, is like one of those old beauties, who, having been long accustomed to move gracefully in tight stays, high shoes, and hooped petticoats, feels her supports withdrawn when disencumbered of her shackles, and totters and stumbles when there are no longer any restraints on her movements.—Jeffrey, Francis, Lord, 1807, Sotheby’s Saul, Edinburgh Review, vol. 10, p. 206.    

3   Sotheby was full of his translation of Homer’s Iliad, some specimens of which he has already published. It is a complete failure, more literal than that of Pope, but still tainted with the deep radical vice of Pope’s version, a thoroughly modern and artificial manner. It bears the same kind of relation to the Iliad that Robertson’s narrative bears to the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis.—Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1831, To Hannah M. Macaulay, June 10; Life and Letters, ed. Trevelyan.    

4   Mr. Sotheby was a man of rare scholarship, deeply imbued with the spirit of classical literature, and his numerous writings, consisting of translations from the Greek, Latin, and German, and original English poems, ill deserve the neglect to which they have recently been consigned.—Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, 1844, The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century, p. 22.    

5   Sotheby was never great, except when treading in some beaten path. His “Saul,” an epic poem, and his “Constance de Castille,” a romance in the manner of Scott, as well as his “Italy,” a descriptive poem, contain each fine and spirited passages; but even these are, almost always, reflections of what has attracted his own particular admiration in others. As a translator, it would be difficult to name his superior. He had the good sense to discover that his great forte lay in the transfusion of ideas from one language into another; and he not only enthusiastically, but industriously, employed himself in thus enriching English Literature.—Moir, David Macbeth, 1851–52, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century, p. 38.    

6   Sotheby, wrote Byron, “has imitated everybody, and occasionally surpassed his models.” Although his poems and plays were held in high esteem by his friends, his 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. 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. Sotheby’s intimate relations with men of high distinction in literature give his career its chief interest.—Lee, Sidney, 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIII, p. 268.    

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