Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/67

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Carew
61
Carew

Sidney, in presence of 'the Earls Leicester, Warwick, and divers other great personages.' What the issue of the contest was Carew has omitted to state, but later historians have added that the dispute resulted in a drawn battle. The family estates passed to him early in life, and in the verses on his ancestors and his issue which he incorporated in his 'Survey of Cornwall' (pp. 246-7, ed. 1811) it is recorded that he was the fifth of his race to inherit the patrimony. In 1577 he married Juliana, the eldest daughter of John Arundel of Trerice, by his first wife, Catherine, daughter of John Coswarth, and through his marriage he inherited a part of the Coswarth, property. He devoted himself with great zeal to the discharge of his duties as a country gentleman, and solaced his leisure hours with inquiries into the history and antiquities of his native county, and with the study of foreign languages, until he had become a master of five tongues—the epitaph which he wrote on himself specifies the languages of Greece, Italy, Germany, France, and Spain—by reading, 'without any other teaching.' In 1581 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and in 1586 he was called upon to act as high sheriff of Cornwall. As he was the owner of large estates near several Cornish boroughs, and his connections embraced the principal gentry of the country, he had little difficulty in obtaining a seat in parliament. In 1584 he was returned for Saltash, and in 1597 he sat for Michell. He was one of the deputy-lieutenants of Cornwall, and he served under Sir Walter Raleigh, the lord-lieutenant of the county, in the posts of treasurer of the lieutenancy and colonel of the regiment, five hundred strong; which had for its charge the protection of Cawsand Bay. Of the Society of Antiquaries first established by Archbishop Parker, Carew became an active member in 1589, and about the same time began the task of compiling an historical survey of his native county. Among the gentry of Cornwall he took the first place, and the antiquaries of London accepted him as their equal. Spelman, who addressed to him an 'Epistle on Thithes,' and Camden were his intimate friends, and in Ben Jonson's 'Execration upon Vulcan' he is classed with Cotton and Selden. John Dunbar has two Latin epigrams to Carew (Centuriæ Sex epigrammaton, 6th Centur., 51 and 52), laudding his knowledge of history, poetry, and the law, and punning on his name; while Charles Fitzgeoffry, in his 'Affaniæ,' book iii., praises his linguistic attainments. He died on 6 Nov. 1620, 'as he was at his private prayers in his study (his daily practice) at fower in the afternoon,' and was buried in Antony Church. Against its north wall stands a plain tablet of black marble bearing a long inscription to his memory. Another epitaph was written for him by Camden, which dwells on the modesty of his manners, the generosity of his disposition, his varied learning, an his christian zeal. Both epigraphs, together with some verses written by the historian immediately before his death, are printed in the 'Parochial History of Cornwall,' i. 24. The earliest work of Carew is the translation of the first five cantos of Tasso's 'Godfrey of Bvlloigne, or the recouerie of Hiervsalsm,' a very rare volume which appeared in 1594, and according to some copies 'imprinted by Iohn Windet for Thomas Man,' an in others 'by Iohn Windet for Christopher Hunt of Exceter,' who served his time to Man. The fourth book of the translation was reproduced in S. W. Singers reprint of Fairfax's translation, 1817, vol. i. xxxiii-lvii, and the whole work was issued by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart in 1881 in an edition limited to sixty-two copies. Carew was for some time unaware that his translation was being passed through the press, and when it came to his ears the first five cantos only were issued because he commanded 'a staie of the rest till the sommer,' a summer which never arrived. The accuracy of his translation has been much commended, but it has generally been allowed that its effect is weakened by his endeavour to make the English version an exact copy, line by line, of the original. It contains several passages Of much beauty, and great praise is given to many extracts from it in an elaborate article in the 'Retrospective Review,' iii. 32–50. In the same year (1594) there appeared a rendering of 'Examen de Ingenios. The examination of man's wits by John Huarte. Translated out of the Spanish Tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished out of his Italian by R. C[arew], Esquire,' which was reprinted in 1596, 1604, and 1616. Huarte’s work is a dull treatise of little value, on the corporeal and mental qualities of men and women. Carew's translation is dedicated to Sir Francis Godolphin, who lent him Camilli’s version, a loan recorded in the words, 'Good Sir, your books returneth vnto you clad in a Cornish gabardine.' An anonymous poem, called 'A Herring's Tayle,' which was published in 1598, has been assigned to Carew on the strength of a statement in Guillim's 'Heraldry' (1611), p. 154, and as the assertion was made during the lifetime of Carew by one of like tasteswith himself, its accuracy can be accepted. This poem, which contains some vigorous lines, is not free as a whole from the charge of obscurity. The subject is