William Stewart Rose

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William Stewart Rose (1775–1843) was a British poet, translator and

Member of Parliament, who held Government offices.[1]
From a Tory background, he was well-connected in the political and literary world, and made a mark by his championing of Italian poets and a burlesque style of verse based on their influence as satirists.

Life

Rose was born the second son of

Sir William Rose and the Countess of Morton
.

Rose was successively appointed Surveyor of Green-wax Monies (1797–1800), Clerk of Pleas at the Exchequer (1797–1837) and

Member of Parliament (MP) for Christchurch from 1796 to 1800, partnering his father.[1] His post as Clerk of Pleas was considered by William Cobbett to be a sinecure;[4] and Nathaniel Wraxall saw Rose's appointments as an example of his father's nepotism.[5] In any case Rose treated all his posts as sinecures.[6]

During 1814–5 Rose travelled in continental Europe, while Napoleon was on

Stratford Canning.[9] In 1817 Rose went to the Veneto, for about a year.[5]

Suffering a

Kingston-by-the-Sea: Townsend wrote the brief memoir for the 1864 edition of Rose's Ariosto translation. Charles Macfarlane, an admirer who became a friend, met Rose at an evening in Brighton given by Horace Smith in 1827.[2][10][11][12]

Henry Crabb Robinson's diary records Rose at a breakfast given by Samuel Rogers, 6 January 1834: "a deaf and rheumatic man, who looks prematurely old".[13] Eventually there was a mental decline: according to Rogers, Rose was an imbecile by the time of his death in Brighton, on 29 April 1843.[2]

Associations

In 1803 Rose met

Ettrick Forest.[5][14]

Rose was associated with wits of the Anti-Jacobin circle, such as George Canning and John Hookham Frere, Tories who also gravitated to the group around the Quarterly Review. They were interested in the burlesque aspects of Italian poetry.[15] Another possible influence on Rose was John Herman Merivale, translator of Luigi Pulci.[2]

Frere met

Arthurian burlesque published by Frere, for Rose, as Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work (1817), and later (after expansion) known as The Monks and the Giants (1818). The digressive and satiric style was then worked out more completely in Don Juan.[16][17] Byron understood that Rose was the author. Given the Tory provenance, from political opponents, of the "Whistlecraft" verse, Byron was as much provoked to competition as influenced.[15]

Frere initially thought Beppo was by Rose.[2] Rose, in his verse epistle to Frere, published 1834, called Frere "father of his [Byron's] final song", with a footnote:

In which I comprehend Beppo and Don Juan, and to warrant my assertion, it is fitting I should mention that Lord Byron made this avowal to me at Venice, and said he should have inscribed Beppo to him that had served him as a model, if he had been sure it would not have been disagreeble, supposing (as I conclude) that some passages in it might have offended him.[18]

Despite his Tory background, and personal connection to followers of

Holland House set of Whigs.[19]

Works

Rose's major work was the translation of the

Bohn Library (1864, 2 vols.).[20] Margaret Fuller told Charles Sumner in the 1840s that Rose's translation, better than the one he had been reading by John Hoole, was in fact the best.[21] A modern view calls it "lumpen and over-literal", and it is not preferred to the Elizabethan version of John Harington.[22]

The Court and Parliament of Beasts (1819), was a free verse translation from Gli Animali Parlanti of Giovanni Battista Casti.[23] Philip Hobsbaum in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography called this animal tale Rose's main claim to critical attention. It is divided into seven cantos, each prefaced by a personal dedication.[2] The dedications were addressed, in order, to: Ugo Foscolo; John Hookham Frere (called "our British Berni"); his Hampshire house Gundimore; Henry Hallam; Bartholomew Frere; Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet; and Walter Scott.[24] The 1819 edition by John Murray was preceded by a limited one, by William Bulmer (1816), which Rose may have shown Byron who knew the work by 1818.[7]

Other works were:

Rose wrote five articles in the Quarterly Review, in 1812–3 and 1826.[30]

Family

From 1817, for around a year, Rose was in Venice, and there began in 1818 a relationship with a married woman, Countess Marcella Maria Condulmer Zorzi. She returned to England with him, and they lived as man and wife. After her husband had died, they were married in 1835, in Brighton, where they had settled.[7][2] They had no children.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Rose, William Stewart (1775-1843), of Gundimore, nr. Mudeford, Hants". History of Parliament. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
  2. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24100. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ "Rose, William Stewart (RS794WS)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ^ Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. 1936. p. 265.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Rose, William Stewart" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 46. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  6. ISBN 978-0-674-80613-9
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-674-80613-9
    .
  8. ISBN 978-1-107-63639-2
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-107-63639-2
    .
  10. ^ "Townsend, Charles (TWNT809C)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  11. ^ The Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto. G. Bell and sons. 1864. p. viii.
  12. ^ MacFarlane, Charles; Tattersall, John F. (1917). Reminiscences of a Literary Life. London, J. Murray. pp. 29–30.
  13. ISBN 978-1-108-02490-7
    .
  14. ^ Scott, Sir Walter (1858). Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field. Groombridge and Sons. p. 1.
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-90-420-1857-0
    .
  16. ^ a b Grosskurth, Phyllis (1997). Byron: The flawed angel. Houghton Mifflin. p. 88.
  17. ^ "John Hookham Frere: ["The Monks and the Giants." Cantos I and II.]". spenserians.cath.vt.edu.
  18. ^ Rose, William Stewart (1834). To the Right Honble. J. H. Frere in Malta. William Stewart Rose presents with such kind cheer And health as he can give John Hookham Frere. [An epistle in verse.]. p. 9.
  19. ^
    ISBN 978-1-108-61101-5
    .
  20. ^ The Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto. Translated by William Stewart Rose. G. Bell and Sons. 1864. p. i.
  21. ISBN 978-0-19-506313-4
    .
  22. ISBN 978-0-19-924784-4
    .
  23. ^ The British Critic, and Quarterly Theological Review. F. and C. Rivington. 1819. p. 479.
  24. ISBN 978-0-674-80613-9
    .
  25. ^ Aikin, Arthur (1803). The Annual review and history of literature, A. Aiken ed.
  26. ISBN 978-1-107-63639-2
    .
  27. ^
    ISBN 978-1-107-63639-2
    .
  28. ^ a b c Allibone, Samuel Austin (1878). A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, Living and Deceased, from the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century. J.B. Lippincott & Company.
  29. ^ Rose, William Stewart (1825). Thoughts and Recollections. J. Murray.
  30. ISBN 978-0-674-80613-9
    .

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
William Stewart Rose
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Rose, William Stewart".
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
George Rose
George Rose
 		Succeeded by
George Rose
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Stewart_Rose&oldid=1210386762"