Lockman, John

, a man of much literary industry, and known for half a century as a translator, was born in 1698. Of his early history we find no particulars recorded. He appears to have been acquainted with Pope, and to have been respected by that poet, doubtless, on account of his amiable and inoffensive character, which procured him, among the wits of that time, the name of the Lamb. The only time he ever deviated from the gentleness of this animal was when Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, abused his poetry to his face. On this provocation Mr. Lockman proved his relationship to the genus irritabile, by retorting, with a quickness not usual to him, “It may be so; but thank God! my name is not at full length in the Dunciad.” Mr. Lockman’s poetical talents were certainly not very extensive, as the greatest part of his effusions are only a few songs, odas, &c. written on temporary subjects, and set to music for Vauxhall and other places of public entertainment. Mr. Reed, however, found two pieces of the dramatic kind, both of them designed to be set to music; but only the second of them, he thinks, was ever performed, viz. 1. “Rosalinda, a musical drama, 1740,” 4to. 2. “David’s Lamentations, an oratorio;” which we believe were not successful.

In 1762, he issued proposals for a complete edition of his poems, to be printed, by subscription, in two volumes 4to. He frequently went to court to present his poems to the royal family and after he became secretary to the | British herring-fishery, tendered to the same illustrious personages presents of pickled herrings, &o. all which, both poems and herrings, he took care to inform the public “were most graciously received.” He was employed in compiling some of the lives in the “General Dictionary, including Bayle;” and translated various works from the French. In all his employments he maintained an amiable and unblemished character, and died much lamented at his house in Brownlow-street, Long Acre, of a paralytic stroke, Feb. 2, 1771. ¹