Niceron, vol. xliii., Art. Porta.
See Tiraboschi, vol. vii. cap. 4, Accademie, and Quadrio's Della Storia e della Ragione d'ogni Poesia. In the immense receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the curious may consult the voluminous Index, art. Accademia.
Ugo Foscolo was born in Padua, where he achieved an early success as an author. He entered the Italian army in 1805, but soon quitted it, and became Professor of Literature in the university of Pavia; but his lectures alarmed Napoleon by their boldness of speech, and he suppressed the professorship. He came to England in 1815, and was exceedingly well received; he wrote much in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, besides publishing several books. He died in 1827, and is buried at Chiswick.
Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics.
In a pamphlet entitled "Mercurius Menippeus; the Loyal Satyrist, or Hudibras in Prose," published in 1682, and said to be "written by an unknown hand in the time of the late Rebellion, but never till now published," is the following curious notice of Sir Samuel, which certainly seems to point him out as the prototype of Hudibras;
Whose back, or rather burthen, show'd
As if it stoop'd with its own load.
The author is speaking of Cromwell, and says, "I wonder how Sir Samuel Luke and he should clash, for they are both cubs of the same ugly litter. This Urchin is as ill carved as that Goblin painted. The grandam bear sure had blistered her tongue, and so left him unlicked. He looks like a snail with his house upon his back, or the Spirit of the Militia with a natural snapsack, and may serve both for tinker and budget too. Nature intended him to play at bowls, and therefore clapt a bias upon him. One would think a mole had crept into his carcass before 'tis laid in the churchyard, and rooted in it. He looks like the visible tie of Æneas bolstering up his father, or some beggarwoman endorsed with her whole litter, and with a child behind."
Bavius and Mævius were Dr. Martyn, the well-known author of tha dissertation on the Æneid of Virgil, and Dr. Russel, another learned physician, as his publications attest. It does great credit to their taste, that they were the hebdomadal defenders of Pope from the attacks of the heroes of the Dunciad.
There is great reason to doubt the authenticity of this information concerning a Devonshire tutelar saint. Mr. Charles Butler has kindly communicated the researches of a Catholic clergyman, residing at Exeter, who having examined the voluminous registers of the See of Exeter, and numerous MSS. and records of the diocese, cannot trace that any such saint was particularly honoured in the county. It is lamentable that ingenious writers should invent fictions for authorities; but with the hope that the present authors have not done this, I have preserved this apocryphal tradition.
He was buried outside the church in the angle at the north-west corner, where the wall originally stood which bounded the churchyard.