Author: LYCOPHRON
Biography:
LYCOPHRON (fl 3rd century BCE: EB)
The Hellenistic Greek poem Alexandra, which consists of a messenger’s speech reporting prophecies of Cassandra, is a notoriously difficult text traditionally attributed to Lycophron of Chalcis, author of a treatise on comedy of which only fragments remain and of tragedies of which nothing remains. The attribution is now considered dubious but it was accepted in the eighteenth century. The English translator was a recent graduate when he produced his version, later praised by the eminent classicist Richard Porson (1759-1808). Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston, was born on 7 May 1784 and baptised at St. Marylebone, London, on 5 June, the eldest child of the third earl of Hardwicke (also Philip Yorke, 1757-1834) and his wife Elizabeth Lindsay, q.v.. From Harrow he went up to St. John’s, Cambridge (matric. 1802, MA 1803). He raised a regiment of fencibles for the Cambridgeshire militia at his own expense, himself holding the rank of captain. In 1806, before he set out for travels in Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, he entrusted his translation, Cassandra, to his friend Henry Pepys to be privately printed; Pepys later included it among Royston’s Remains in 1838. Royston, who never married, died in the wreck of a ship he had purchased to take himself and some other English travellers to Sweden on 7 Apr. 1808; he was buried at the family seat of Wimpole in Cambridgeshire. (EB 23 Feb. 2025; Harvey; Remains of the late Lord Viscount Royston ed. Rev. Henry Pepys [1838], 8-10; findmypast.com 23 Feb. 2025; ACAD; Star [London] 5 May 1808) HJ