Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, Robert
ANDREWS, ROBERT (d. 1766?), a translator of Virgil, was descended from an eminent nonconformist family which had lived for nearly two centuries at Little Lever and at Rivington Hall, near Bolton, Lancashire. He received his theological education under Dr. Caleb Rotheram, at Kendal. He was chosen in 1747 minister of the presbyterian congregation at Lydgate, in the parish of Kirkburton, Yorkshire. He continued to hold this charge till about 1753, when he became minister of Platt Chapel, a place of worship for protestant dissenters in Rusholme, Lancashire. His stay there did not exceed three years. He afterwards presided over a presbyterian congregation at Bridgnorth, where he remained till his health broke down and he became mad.
He was a man of considerable taste and scholarship. In the earlier part of his life he sent to the press a criticism on the sermons of his friend, the Rev. John Holland, and some animadversions on Dr. Brown's ‘Essays on the Characteristics.’ His ‘Virgil Englished,’ 1766, 8vo, was dedicated to the Hon. Booth Grey. It is in blank verse, and has the strange peculiarity of conveying the sense of Virgil, or what Andrews conceived to be such, line for line. This rare book, printed by Baskerville, now finds a place among the curiosities of literature. There is no copy in the British Museum Library. Another work of his, called ‘Eidyllia,’ is a volume of poems, 1757, 4to, dedicated to the Hon. Charles Yorke. The preface contains a violent attack on rhyme.
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Sutton (C. W.), Lancashire Authors, iv. 150; Morehouse's Kirkburton, 191; Booker, Birch Chapel (Chetham Soc.), 169.]