Marana, John Paul

, the author of the Turkish Spy, a book cried up far beyond its merits, for a long time, both in France and England, was born about 1642, at or near Genoa. When he was only twenty-seven or twentyeight, he was involved in the conspiracy of Raphael de la Torre, who was desirous to give up Genoa to the duke of Savoy. After being imprisoned four years, he retired to Monaco, where he wrote the history of t&at plot, printed at Lyons, in 1682, in Italian. It contains some curious particulars.

Marana, who had always wished to visit Paris, in 16S2 went to settle there; and his merit being distinguished, he found patronage from several people of consequence. He there wrote his “Turkish Spy,” in 6 vols. duodecimo, to which a seventh was added in 1742, when the last edition appeared. Tnough the style of this work was neither | precise, correct, nor elegant, it was greatly relished by the public. The author had the art to interest curiosity by an amusing mixture of adventures, half true and half fictitious, but all received at the time as authentic, by persons of confined information. Few supposed the author to be a real Turk, but credit was given to the unknown European, who, under a slight fiction, thus delivered opinions and anecdotes, which it might not have been safe to publish in a more open manner. The first three volumes were most approved; the next three, which are in reality much inferior, were received with a proportionable degree of attention. The whole are now the amusement of tew except very idle readers. Many other spies of a similar kind have been formed upon this plan. Marana lived at Paris, rather in a retired manner, which suited his taste, to 1689, when the desire of solitude led him to retire into Italy, where he died in 1693. ¹