BEING

APOETICAL TRANSLATION

OF

THE BASIA

OF

JOANNES SECUNDUS NICOLAIUS.

WITH THE ORIGINAL LATIN TEXT.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,

AN ESSAY ON HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES,
PATERNOSTER-ROW,

By J. Gillet, Crown-court, Fleet-street.

16 JAN 1963

AN

ESSAY

ON THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

SECUNDUS.

Of all the modern Latin poets, none perhaps has remained longer in obscurity than Joannes Secundus, owing to what cause we shall not pretend to determine; yet no author has been more esteemed by the few who have read him, as well for the purity and elegance of his language, as for the singular beauty of his thoughts. Considering, then, that obscurity in which he has so long continued, it is not very wonderful that so few circumstances can be collected with regard to his history. For the following anecdotes of his life we are chiefly indebted to a little treatise in the last edition of his works, published by Scriverius in the year 1631; and these anecdotes are not regularly drawn up into a complete life of our author: therefore, if