GIFFORD, WILLIAM, a political writer and critic of no small influence in his lifetime, was born at Ashburton. in Devonshire, iu April 1757. He was descended of a family oneo of some name in the county; but the indiscretion of his ancestors gradually wasted the property, and the early death of both parents left him at the age of thirteen penniless, homeless, and friendless. His godfather, on a claim of debt, took pone/pion of their scanty effects, clogged with the charge of the orphan. From him Giflbrd received little kindness. He spent some time as cabin-boy on board a little comting.vessel : at the ago of fifteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Ashburton.. In spite of a neglected education, his talents showed themselves in a strong thirst for knowledge. Mathematics at first were his favourite study; and lie relates that, in the want of paper, ho used to hammer scraps of leather smooth, and work his problems on them with a blunt awl.
Ws master, finding his services worth nothing, used harsh means to wean him from his literary tastes; and Gifford, hating his business, sunk into a sort of savage melancholy. From this state he was with.
drawn by the active kioduess of Mr. Cookealey, a surgeon of Ash burton, who, having become acquainted with his first rude attempts at poetry, and with his sad story, conceived a atom; regard for him, and taxed his own purse and interest so effectually as to raise the means of freeing him from his indentures, placing him at school, and sending him, after two well•spent years, to Exeter College, Oxford.
lie appears to have commenced residence about the age of twenty-two or twenty.three. Not long after be sustained a most severe affliction in the untimely death of Mr. Cookealey. But a more efficient and equally sincere friend was soon raised up in the person of Earl Grosvenor, who, In consequence of the casual perusal of a letter, became interested in Gifford% character and fortunes, gave him a home under his own roof, in or about the year 1782, and in great measure entrusted to him the charge of his sou, with whom, though widely differing in politics, Gifford maintained through life an intimate and unvarying friendship. It appears that he did not remain long
enough at Oxford to take a degree. Here ends the romantic' part of his history ; the rest of his life is simply the chronicle of his works.
The first of these, in order of publication, was the ' Baviad,' a paraphrastic Imitation of the First Satire of I'ersius, 1791, a strong stern attack on what was called the Della Cruscau style of poetry, which for its utter folly and emptiness deserved no quarter. A short account of its rise is given in the preface to the Baviad; which put an end to this aflbetation. Less successful, though not less powerful iu execution, was the 'Monied,' a similar satire directed against the puerilities and extravagance of the modern drama. The peculiar talent displayed in these two pieces indicated the author's fitness to undertake a translation of Juvenal, a task which he had commenced even before his residence at Oxford, and had never altogether aban doned, though the untimely death of Mr. Cookesley, to whose care the revision of these early efforts was entrusted, had caused it to be laid aside for a time in disgust. The translation of Juvenal was published in 1802, with a short autobiography prefixed, which for its unaffected candour and manliness is worthy of all praise. The diction and versification of the translation are powerful and flowing; and the honest anger, the fearless crushing invective, the stinging sarcasm of the Latin poet, are rendered in so congenial a spirit as to convey to the English reader a satisfactory idea of the originaL Some of his minor pieces are tender and beautiful, and indicate that he might have succeeded as a poet iu a softer strain. He had paid much attention to old English poetry, the fruit of which appeared in his editions of Massinger, 4 vols. 8vo, 1805; Ben Jenson, 9 vols., 1816; Ford, 2 vole., 1827; and Shirley, 6 vols., 1833; the two last were posthumous. Ho is said to have meditated an edition of Shakspere.