Holdsworth, Edward

, a very polite and elegant Scholar, son of the rev. Thomas Holdsworth, rector of North Stoneham, in the county of Southampton, was born Aug. 6, 1688, and trained at Winchester-school. He was thence elected demy of Magdalen college, Oxford, in July 1705; took the degree of M. A. in April 1711; became a college tutor, and had many pupils. In 1715, when he was to be chosen into a fellowship, he resigned his demyship, and left the college, because unwilling to swear allegiance to the new government. The remainder of his life was spent in travelling with young noblemen and gentlemen as a tutor: in 1741 and 1744 he was at Rome in this capacity, with Mr. Pitt and with Mr. Drake and Mr. Townson. He died of a fever at lord Digby’s house at Coleshill in Warwickshire, Dec. 30, 1746. He was the author of the “Muscipula,” a poem, esteemed a masterpiece in its kind, written with the purity of Virgil and the pleasantry of Lucian, and of which there is a good English translation by Dr. John Hoadly, in vol. V. of “Dodsley’s Miscellanies,” and another among Dr. Cobden’s poems. He was the author also of a dissertation entitled “Pharsalia and Philippi; or the two Philippi in Virgil’s Georgics attempted to be explained and reconciled to history, 1741,” 4to; and of “Remarks and Dissertations on Virgil; with some other classical observations, published with several notes and additional remarks by Mr. Spence, 1768,” 4to. Mr. Spenoe speaks of him in his Polymetis, as one who understood Virgil in a more masterly manner than any person he ever knew. The late Charles Jennens, esq. erected a monument to his memory at Gopsal in Leicestershire. 1

1

Nichols’s Bowyer and Hist. of Leicestershire.—Gent. Mag. vol. LXI.