JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE BIOGRAPHY

FRERE, JOHN HOOKHAM (1769-1846). —Diplomatist, translator, and author, eldest s. of John F., a distinguished antiquary, was born in London, and ed. at Eton and Camb. He became a clerk in the Foreign Office, and subsequently entering Parliament was appointed Under Foreign Sec. In 1800 he was Envoy to Portugal, and was Ambassador to Spain 1802-4, and again 1808-9. In 1818 he retired to Malta, where he d. He was a contributor to the Anti-Jacobin , to Ellis's Specimens of the Early English Poets (1801), and to Southey's Chronicle of the Cid . He also made some masterly translations from Aristophanes ; but his chief original contribution to literature was a burlesque poem on Arthur and the Round Table , purporting to be by William and Robert Whistlecraft. All F.'s writings are characterised no less by scholarship than by wit.