The Times/1895/Obituary/John Ormsby

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Layout 2The Athenæum records the death of Mr. John Ormsby at Ramsgate on October 30. Born at Gortner Abbey, Mayo, in 1829, Mr. Ormsby was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and won a silver medal for chemistry at the University of London. A member of the Middle Temple, Mr. Ormsby was never called to the Bar, for his literary tastes were developed early, and articles from his pen appeared in the Saturday Review, in Fraser's Magazine, in the Quarterly Review, the Cornhill, and Pall Mall Gazette. In 1862 Mr. Ormsby—then a prominent member of the Alpine Club—contributed to the second series of "Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers" an account of his ascent of the Pic de Grivola, in the Graian Alps. Two years later appeared his "Autumn Rambles in North Africa," a sketch of two years of wanderings between Constantine and Carthage; and in 1876 he collected his "Stray Papers" in a volume. But he will be remembered best by the work which he did in the domain of Spanish literature. His acquaintaince with Spain and its political and literary history was both deep and wide. Published in 1879, his translation of the "Poema del Cid" is, except Frere's fragmentary renderings, the only version in English. His rendering of "Don Quixote" in 1885 is valuable both for its accurate scholarship and its bibliographical appendices.