CARY, REV. HENRY FRANCIS, was born at Birmingham in 1772, and was entered a commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1790; having however already commenced author by the publication of 'An Irregular Ode to General Elliott' in 1787, and of a 4to pamphlet of Sonnets and Odes' in 1788. 'While at the university he devoted much of his time to the study of Italian, French, and. English litera ture, as well as of Greek and Latin. Having taken his degree of M.A. in 1796, he was in 1797 presented by the Marquis of Anglesey to the vicarage of Bromley Abbot's, in Staffordshire, worth 187/. a year, with a residence. The same year he published An Ode to General Kosciusko.' In 1805 appeared his translation of the ' Inferno' of Dante in English blank verse, accompanied with the original Italian ; and in 1814 his entire version of the ' Divine Commedia.' It was some years however before this work, to which Cary principally owes his literary reputation, attracted much attention. It was first brought into general notice by Coleridge, who spoke of it with warm praise in his lectures at the Royal Institution, and who is said to have become acquainted with it and with Cary himself about the same time. Ultimately its merits were generally acknowledged, and the author had the satisfaction of bringing out a fourth edition of it before his death. It is not only unusually careful and exact, but deserves the praise of very considerable force and expressiveness. It must however
bo considered as a defect detracting materially from its claim to be regarded as a faithful representation of the 'Divine Commedia' that it is in blank versa : rhyme is an essential element of the Gothic spirit and character of Dante's poetry. Cary afterwards produced verse translations of the 'Birds' of Arustophanes, and of the ' Odes.' of Pinder ; a series of 'Lives of English Poets,' in continuation of Johnson's, and another of ' Lives of Early French Poets,' in the London Magazine ;' besides editions of the works of Pope, Cowper, Milton, Thomson, and Young. In 1826 he was appointed assistant librarian in the British Museum, but he resigned that situation in 1832, on the claim that he and his friends conceived he had to the office of keeper of the printed books being passed over in favour of another person. He some years afterwards received a pension of 200/. a year from the crown, which he enjoyed till his death, which took place at his house in Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury, 14th of August, 1844. He was interred on the 21st in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey.
(Memoir of the Rev. 11. F. Cary; with Literary Journal and Letters, by his son, the Rev. H. Cary.)