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nius, teaching the belles lettres and the Aristotelian philosophy. During the same time he was employed in translating several Greek authors into Latin, which induced Nicholas V. the successor of Eugenius, to make him apostolic secretary. These translations he was thought to have executed well, but his reputation declined so far on one occasion as to end in his disgrace. He had received orders from the pope to translate the Almagest of Ptolemy, and to add a commentary, or notes. This he performed in 1451, and the following year was banished from Rome on account of this work. What there was so offensive as to bring upon him this punishment is not known, or at least not clearly expressed by his biographers; but it seems not improbable, that his general temper, which was irritable, had disgusted some of his contemporaries, and that the pope had listened to the insinuations of his enemies. Many errors had been detected in his translations by some of those able scholars whom Nicholas V. had assembled at his court, and this probably rendered Trapezuntius more apt to take offence. It was probably while in this temper, that a disgraceful quarrel took place between him and the celebrated Poggio, in Pompey's theatre, where the pontifical secretaries were assembled, for the purpose of correcting certain official papers. It was occasioned by some satiric remarks of Poggio, which provoked Trapezuntius to give him a blow on the face. Poggio returned it, and continued the battle until, as we may suppose, the combatants were parted.

Trapezuntius now retired to Naples with his family, and wrote to his old protector Barbaro, but found he had been dead about a month. The good offices of Philelphus, however, made his peace with the pope, and Philelphus wrote to him, that he might not only return to Rome by permission, but that the pope even wished it; and he was accordingly reinstated in his former office. He had always defended the peripatetic philosophy against the Platonists with great vehemence and acrimony, and now wrote his "Comparison of Aristotle and Plato," full of bitter invective. This involved him in a controversy with Gaza, and particularly with Bessarion; the particulars of which we have already given in our account of the latter. His first quarrel with Gaza was owing to their having jointly undertaken the translation of Aristotle, " On Animals," each claiming to himself the exclusive merit of having overcome

the difficulties which arose from the great number of names of animals which are found in that work.

Trapezuntius appears to have met with some reverse after this controversy, for in 1549 he was again at Venice, supplicating the aid of the State, and was in consequence appointed professor of the belles-lettres. While in this office he wrote his Art of Rhetoric, dedicated to the Venetians, which appeared under the title of "Rhetorica Trapezuntina," but was not printed until 1470, at Venice, in folio, and then only the first book. In 1464 and 1465, he took a voyage to Crete, and another to Constantinople. On his return, being informed that one of his scholars was now pope, under the name of Paul II. he went to Rome, in hopes of being well received; but all he received was an order to be imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, where he remained for four months, and was afterwards under confinement in his house. The most probable cause of this treatment was his having returned to Rome without leave; but this is merely conjecture; the pope, however, at length condescended to forgive him, and he remained at Rome much respected. In his latter years his faculties began to decay, and before his death, which took place in 1484, in the ninetieth year of his age, all traces of memory and understanding were gone.

Among the translations executed by Trapezuntius, are several parts of the works of Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nyssen, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Aristotle, Plato, Ptolemy, &c., but in many of these he is neither accurate nor faithful, having made unpardonable variations, omissions, or additions.1

TRAPP (JOSEPH), an English divine, and voluminous translator, was the grandson of the rev. John Trapp, vicar of Weston-upon-Avon, and schoolmaster at Stratford in Warwickshire, who wrote large commentaries upon almost all the books of the Old and New Testament, published in several quarto volumes, 1646, &c. and other tracts on subjects of divinity. He never had, nor wished to have, any preferment besides his vicarage, which lay at the convenient distance of two miles from his school. His character, as a man and as a preacher, would have recommended him to higher promotion; but he always refused

1 Hody de Græcis Illustribus.-Tiraboschi.-Bullart's Academie des Sciences.-Landi Hist. de la Litt. d'Italie.-Shepherd's Life of Poggio.-Fabricii Bibl. Lat. Med. Av.-Saxii Onomast.

to accept it, as his condition was equal to his wishes. He died Oct. 17, 1669, aged sixty-eight.

Our author's father, the rev. Joseph Trapp, rector of Cherrington in Gloucestershire, was a master of arts, and bad formerly been student of Christ-church, Oxford, and was inducted into Cherrington in 1662, where he was buried Sept. 24, 1698, with a Latin inscription, immediately over his grave, in the North chancel. His son, the subject of the present account, was born, probably in November, as he was baptised on the sixteenth of that month, $679. After some education at home under bis father, he was removed to the care of the master of New-collegeschool, Oxford, and became so good a scholar, that in 1695, at sixteen years of age, he was entered a commoner of Wadham-college, and, in 1696, was admitted a scholar of the same house. In 1702, he proceeded master of arts, and in 1704, was chosen a fellow. In 1708, he was appointed the first professor of poetry, on the foundation of Dr. Birkhead, sometime fellow of All-Souls-college, and continued in the same for ten years, the period allotted by the founder. In 1709-10, he acted as a manager for Dr. Sacheverell on his memorable trial; and in 1711, was appointed chaplain to sir Constantine Phipps, lord chancellor of Ireland, and one of the lords justices of that kingdom.

In 1720, Mr. Trapp was, by the favour of the earl of Peterborough, presented to the rectory of Dauntzey, in Wiltshire, which he resigned in 1721 for the vicarage of the united parishes of Christ-church, Newgate-street, and St. Leonard's, Foster-lane. In February 1727, in consequence of the merit and usefulness of his two books, entitled " Popery truly stated," and "Answer to England's Conversion," both printed in that year, he was presented by the university of Oxford with a doctor of divinity's degree by diploma. In 1733, he was, on the demise of Robert Cooper, M. A. and archdeacon of Dorset, preferred to the rectory of Harlington, Middlesex, on the presentation of the celebrated lord Bolingbroke, to whom he had been appointed chaplain by the recommendation of dean Swift, and in defence of whose administration he had written a number of papers in the "Examiner," during 1711 and two following years. In 1734, he was elected one of the joint-lecturers of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields: and dying at Harlington of a pleurisy, Nov. 22, 1747, aged sixtyseven, was interred on the North side of the entrance into

the chancel of Harlington-church. He desired in h's will, that each of his parishioners in Christ-church and St. Leonard's Foster-lane, and in Harlington, Middlesex, who were housekeepers, might, from the highest to the lowest, "have a copy of his little book, entitled 'The Four last Things,' beseeching them, for the sake of their inmortal souls, to read it, and practise it, and recommend it to their children and servants, and all others committed to their charge." His parishioners of Christ-church had so grateful a sense of his memory, as to erect a monument by subscription in their church, with an inscription apparently taken from some lines in the poem which he bequeathed them.

Dr. Trapp was in person of a middle stature, slender habit, olive complexion, and a countenance of uncommon openness and animation, arising from the concurrence of an arched high forehead, fine eyebrows, and expressive vivid eyes, which, accompanied with an erect attitude, gave him an air of consequence and dignity, prepossessing his audience, at his first appearance in the pulpit, with a favourable expectation of what he was about to deliver. The portrait of him in the Oxford picture-gallery is a striking resemblance. In his temper, he was somewhat impatient and hasty, but in general had a considerable command over it, where professional decorum was necessary. Being a man of wit, he could unbend agreeably among his intimate friends, and had seen much of the world, and conversed with men of all parties in an age strongly marked with party-spirit. Like most divines about the commencement of the last century, he was challenged to personal controversies with those of the popish persuasion, but always resisted them. "Disputes by word of mouth," he says, in the preface to Popery truly stated, "I always declined, and always will: I never knew any good come of them: much harm, I am sure, may, and I believe often does : much empty wrangling at the time of the debate, and much misreport and misrepresentation after it. And therefore I chose writing rather than talking."

He was so much addicted to books, that it was the late bishop Pearce's opinion that he studied harder than any man in England. In consequence of this he was liable to absence of mind, as it is called, and frequently ordinary matters and occurrences passed unheeded before him. When at college, according to the imperfect account of

him in the Supplement to the "Biographia Britannica," he was somewhat dissipated, and was led to pursuits not becoming his intended profession. When he applied to Dr. Robinson, bishop of London, for orders, that prelate censured him, with much warmth, for having written a play ("Abramule"); but, after taking on him the sacred profession, he was uniform in a conduct which did credit to it. And his consistency in this respect for a series of years, during the most turbulent times, both in church and state, procured him the greatest honours and respect from persons of the first order and character. The university of Oxford, who confers her honours only by the test of merit, and the rules of propriety, could not express her opinion of his merit more significantly than by presenting him with a doctor of divinity's degree, by diploma, in full convocation. When he preached his assize sermon at Oxford, 1739, it was observed, that the late rev. Dr. Theophilus Leigh, master of Baliol-college, and then vice-chancellor of Oxford, stood up all the time of his preaching, to manifest his high sense of so respectable a character. Nor was he regarded only by those of his own church and country, for he was much esteemed by foreigners, and even by those of the Romish communion, against whom he stood foremost in controversy, and that with some acrimony. When, in 1742, his son was at Rome, he was asked by one of the cardinals, whether he was related to the great Dr. Trapp, and the cardinal being informed that he was his son, he immediately requested, that on his return to England, he would not fail to make his particular respects to the doctor.

Dr. Trapp acquired fame in his day by a great variety of writings, theological, critical, controversial, political, and poetical. He seems to have valued himself as a translator, in which he was confessedly unsuccessful. When appointed poetry professor, he gave a regular course of lectures in very elegant Latin, which were published in 1718, in three vols. octavo, under the title of "Prelectiones Poetica." A translation appeared afterwards: but, although he acquitted himself in these lectures as a good critic, he was not able to exemplify his own rules, and his translation of Virgil bears no resemblance to the original, owing to an imprudent choice of words and figures, and a total want of harmony. He had most success in a Latin translation of "Anacreon," for Latin poetry was his forte; but failed

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