Symonds, JOHN ADDINGTON

Symonds, JOHN ADDINGTON, English man of letters, was born at Bristol on 5th October 1840, was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford, won the Newdigate prize, and was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College in 1862. His first book, Introduction to the Study of Dante (1872), was a sort of commentary on the great Italian's poem; it was followed by a laudable endeavour to present in readable English the results of the investigations of scholars in Greek learning—Studies of the Greek Poets (2 vols. 1873-76). But his most notable achievement is The Renaissance in Italy, a history of an eventful period written in a highly polished style, with fairly good judgment, and an extensive knowledge of the actors and events of the epoch described. It embraces four parts and a couple of supplementary volumes—The Age of the Despots (1875), The Revival of Learning (1877), The Fine Arts (1877), Italian Literature (2 vols. 1881), and The Catholic Reaction (2 vols. 1886). Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama, published in 1884, contains the results of thoughtful study in English literature. Symonds has written, besides the books named, two or three volumes of travel sketches in Italy and elsewhere; the monographs Shelley and Sir Philip Sidney for the English Men of Letters series and Ben Jonson for the English Worthies series; a translation of the Sonnets of Michaelangelo and Campanella (1878), one of Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography, and an interesting collection of students' Latin songs of the 12th century under the title of Wine, Women, and Song; Mediæval Songs in English Verse (1884); Life of Michaelangelo (2 vols. 1892); some volumes of verse; and an account of his enforced residence at Davos (1892). He died at Rome, 18th April 1893. See his Miscellanies (1895); and the biography by Horace F. Brown (1894).