Fleming, Abraham

, a miscellaneous writer in the sixteenth century, and a classical translator, was a native of London. In 1575 he published a version of the “Bucolics of Virgil,” with notes, a plain and literal translation verse for verse. In 589 he published a new version, both of the “Bucolics and Georgics” with notes, dedicated to John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury. This is in the regular Alexandrine verse, without rhyme. He supervised, corrected, and enlarged the second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicle in 1585. He translated “Ælian’s Various History” into English in 1576, which he dedicated to Goodman, dean of Westminster, und^r the title of “Ælian’s Registre of Hystories,” 4to. He published also “Certaine select Epistles of Cicero into English,” Lond. 1576, 4to; and in the same year he imparted to our countrymen a fuller idea of the elegance of the ancient epistle, by his “Panoplie of Epistles from Tully, Isocrates, Pliny, and others,” Lond. 4to. He translated Synesius’s Greek “Panegyric on Baldness,” which had been brought into vogue | by Erasmus’s “Moriae Encomium,” Lond. 1579', 12mo; at the end is his “Fable of Hermes.” Among some other pieces he Englished many celebrated books written in Latin about the fifteenth century and at the restoration of learning, which was a frequent practice, after it became fashionable to compose in English, and our writers had begun to find the force and use of their own tongue. Among his original pieces are, 1. “A memorial of the charitable almes deedes of William Lambe, gentleman of the chapel under Henry VIII. and citizen of London,” Lond. 1580, 8vo. 2. “The Battel between the Virtues and Vices,” ibid. 1582, 8vo. 3. “The Diamant of Devotion, in six parts,” ibid. 1586, 12mo. 4. “The Cundyt of Comfort,” 1579, &c. Verses by him are prefixed to various works published in his time. Sir William Cordall, the queen’s solicitor-general, was his chief patron. He had a brother, Samuel, who assisted in compiling the index to Holinshed, and who wrote an elegant Latin life of queen Mary, never printed. He has also a Latin recommendatory poem to Edward Grant’s “Spicilegium of the Greek Tongue,” &c. Lond. 1575, 8vo. ¹