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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
John Hookham Frere (1769–1846)
Frere, John Hookham. An English poet, translator, and diplomatist; born in London (not Norfolk), May 21, 1769; died in Malta, Jan. 7, 1846. He was a Cambridge graduate, and one of the founders of the Anti-Jacobin (see Canning). After a career in the diplomatic service, he produced his original ‘Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National Work … Relating to King Arthur and his Round Table’ (1817), better known as ‘The Monks and the Giants’; a literary burlesque, but full of charming verse and of excellent character-drawing. It naturalized in English the ottava rima afterward used by Byron in ‘Beppo’ and ‘Don Juan.’ A version of a large part of Aristophanes succeeded this effort.