Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/83

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Sherburne
73
Sherer

man, Sir Nicholas Sherburne of Stonyhurst, provided for his necessities in his later years.

He died unmarried on 4 Nov. 1702, and was buried in the chapel of the Tower of London. A memorial tablet, erected by his kinsman Sir Nicholas, bears a long Latin inscription said to be composed by himself.

Besides the two works mentioned, Sherburne published:

  1. ‘Salmacis, Lyrian, and Sylvia, Forsaken Lydia, the Rape of Helen, a Comment thereon, with several other Poems and Translations,’ London, 1651, 8vo; reprinted in Chalmers's ‘English Poets,’ 1810, vi. 601, and again in 1819, with memoir &c. by S. Fleming, 12mo. The volume was dedicated by Sherburne to his friend, Thomas Stanley, and contains most of his extant original verse, which at times reminds the reader of Waller, but is very unequal. His melodious translations from Horace show him at his best.
  2. ‘The Sphere of Marcus Manilius made an English Poem, with annotations and an astronomical appendix,’ London, 1675, folio, dedicated to Charles II. The elaborate appendix contains among other things a ‘Catalogue of Astronomers, Ancient and Modern,’ which is valuable for its notices of contemporary writers. The work is noticed with commendation in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ No. 110 (abridgment, ii. 185). He contemplated another work on Manilius, but handed over his collection of papers to Dr. Richard Bentley.
  3. ‘Troades, or the Royal Captives: a Tragedy, from Seneca,’ 1679, 8vo.
  4. ‘Francis Blondel's Comparison of Pindar and Homer,’ englished by E. S., London, 1696, 8vo.
  5. ‘The Tragedies of L. Annæus Seneca the Philosopher, Medea, Phædra and Hippolytus, and Troades, or the Royal Captive,’ translated into English verse, with annotations, to which is prefixed ‘The Life and Death of Seneca the Philosopher,’ London, 1701, 8vo; re-issued with five plates in 1702; dedicated to Richard Francis Sherburne, son of Sir Nicholas of Stonyhurst. There is added ‘The Rape of Helen, out of the Greek of Coluthus,’ originally printed in the volume of 1651. Sherburne contended that these three tragedies were all that survive of Seneca's plays.

He also wrote commendatory verses to Alleyn's ‘Henry VII,’ 1638; to his brother John Sherburne's translation of Ovid's ‘Heroical Epistles,’ 1639; to W. Cartwright's ‘Comedies,’ 1651; and Thomas Stanley the younger's translation of ‘C. Ælianus his various History,’ 1665.

[Art. by Mr. J. Brander Hatt in Stonyhurst Magazine, March 1885, ii. 61 seq.; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 30; Biogr. Brit. 1763, vi. 3670; Gent. Mag. June 1796, p. 462; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. xxvii. 453; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 453; Fleming's Memoir in reprint of Sherburne's Poems, 1819; Wood's Life and Times (Oxford Hist. Soc.), vols. ii. iii. iv.; Sherburne's Letters to Wood are preserved at the Bodleian Libr. (Wood MSS. F. 44); Hearne's Collections (Oxford Hist. Soc.), i. 158; Correspondence of Richard Bentley, D.D. 1842, i. 36, 41, 172; Hazlitt's Handbook to Popular Literature, and Gray's Index to Hazlitt's Collections; Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, is dedicated to Sherburn and Stanley; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1659–60 to 1665–6; Corresp. of Scientific Men (Rigaud), 1841.]

C. W. S.

SHERER, MOYLE (1789–1869), traveller and author, youngest son of Joseph Sherer, esq., of Southampton, was born in that city on 18 Feb. 1789. He was lineally descended, through his grandmother, from the Moyles of Bake in Cornwall. At twelve years of age he was sent to Winchester College, but left on obtaining a commission in the 34th, now called the Border regiment. In 1809 his corps was ordered to Portugal, and was soon engaged in the war in the Peninsula. The regiment took part in the engagements of Albuera, Arroyo dos Molinos, and Vittoria. In the summer of 1813, when Soult was endeavouring to force the English back from the Pyrenees, Sherer was taken prisoner at the pass of Maya, and was removed to France, where he remained for two years, living chiefly at Bayonne.

In 1818 the 34th went out to Madras, and from that presidency Sherer sent home the manuscript of his first book, ‘Sketches of India.’ It was published in 1821, and went through four editions. Its author returned to England in 1823 by the Red Sea, and, encouraged by his previous success as an author, produced his ‘Recollections of the Peninsula,’ which was also popular and reached a fifth edition. In 1824 his ‘Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and Italy’ followed, being an account of his pioneering experience of an overland route. In 1825 Sherer turned to romance, and wrote ‘The Story of a Life,’ in 2 vols., which passed through three editions. In the same year a visit to the continent produced a volume entitled ‘A Ramble in Germany’ (1826). While in India, Sherer had imbibed evangelical religious views, and, anxious to promote them among his comrades in the army, published in 1827 a little treatise named ‘Religio Militis.’ But in 1829 he returned to fiction, and brought out his ‘Tales of the Wars of our Times,’ in 2 vols. This work proved less successful than some of its predecessors. Of a ‘Life of Wellington,’ which he contributed to Dr. Lard-