423 



SETTLE, ELKANAH. 



SEVAJEE. 



the Ottoman empire. He was afterwards employed by Sir Robert 

 Ainslie, the English ambassador at the Porte, to collect medals for him. 

 Subsequently he went with Mr. Sullivan as far as Bushire, and returned 

 to Constantinople in 1782. The published narratives of his journeys 

 are : 1, ' Lettere scritte dalla Sicilia e dalla Turchia h, diversi amici in 

 Toscana,' 7 Vols. 12mo, translated into French at Paris in 1809; 2, 

 'Lettere Odeporiche,' 1785, translated into French under the title of 

 ' Voyage dans la Grece Asiatique, a la Pdninsule de Cyzique, a Brusse 

 et a Nicde,' with a Flora of Mount Olympus, Paris, 1789 ; 3, ' Viaggio 

 da Costantinopoli a Bucharest,' Rome, 1794 ; 4, 'Viaggio da Costauti- 

 nopoli a Bassora e ritorno,' also translated into French ; 5, ' Viaggi ed 

 Opuscoli Diversi,' 8vo, Berlin, 1807 (this work contains the account of 

 a journey made by the author in 1781 from Vienna to Rukschuk by 

 the Danube, and thence by Varna to Constantinople ; an account of 

 the sect of the Yezidis, which was afterwards inserted by Sylvestre de 

 Sacy in his ' Description du Pachalik de Bagdad ; ' a treatise on the 

 ' murex ' of the ancients, &c.) ; 6, ' Viaggio Curioso, Scientifico, 

 Antiquario, per la Valachia, Transilvania, ed Ungheria sino a Vienna,' 

 Florence, 1815 ; 7, ' Agricoltura Prodotti e Commercio della Sicilia,' of 

 which only one volume was published at Florence, 1777. 



From Constantinople Sestini returned to Italy, where he published 

 several of his works. He sailed again for the Levant in 1793, and 

 went to Salonichi, where he became acquainted with Cousine'ry, the 

 French consul and antiquarian ; he thence returned to Tuscany, and 

 from Tuscany to Germany. He resided many years at Berlin, which 

 he left after the battle of Jena. He then repaired to Paris, and in 

 1810 he returned to Florence, where he was appointed antiquarian to 

 the Grand Duchess Elise, Napoleon's sister. After the restoration in 

 1814 he was appointed by the Grand Duke Ferdinand honorary pro- 

 fessor in the University of Pisa. He afterwards repaired to Hungary, 

 where he remained sometime occupied in arranging the rich collection 

 of medals of Count Wiczay at Hederwar, of which Father Caronni, a 

 Baruabite and an antiquarian, who went over part of the same ground 

 as Sestini, but was inferior to him in judgment and experience, had 

 published an imperfect catalogue in 1812. The present Grand Duke 

 of Tuscany, Leopold II., appointed Sestini to the office of royal anti- 

 quarian ; and after his death, which took place at Florence in 1832, he 

 purchased his valuable library and numerous manuscripts, among 

 the rest his great work on numismatics, ' Sisteina Numismatico,' 14 

 vols. fol. 



Among the published works of Sestini on his favourite science of 

 numismatics, which he illustrated by means of geography, and vice 

 versft, the following deserve especial mention : 1, ' Classes generales 

 Qeographise Numismaticse, seu Mouetse Urbium, Populorum, et Regum, 

 ordine geographic et chronologico dispositse secundum systema Eckeli- 

 anum,' 4to, Leipzig, 1797, a work more complete than those of Eckel, 

 Lipsius, and Pinkerton (in the first part Sestini gives a series of medals 

 of more than 1000 cities, and of 240 sovereigns ; and in the second is 

 a list of cities to which Goltz and Ligorio have attributed apocryphal 

 medals, and of many more to which medals have been erroneously 

 distributed and misapplied) ; 2, ' Cousiderazioni sulla Confederazione 

 degli Achei,' with plates of all the medals of the confederate cities ; 

 3, ' Relazione su i Moderni Falsificatori,' in which he exposes the tricks 

 of those who coin medals which they pass for ancient ; 4, ' Descriptio 

 Nummorum Veterum ex Muscis Ainslie, Bellini, Bonducca, Borgia, 

 Casoli, Cousine'ry, Gradenigo, San Clemente, Von Schellersheim, 

 Verita,' &c., fol., Leipzig, 1790'; 5, 'Descrizione degli Stateri Antichi, 

 illustrati colle Medaglie,' 4to, Florence, 1817 ; 6, ' Lettere Numis- 

 matiche,' 9 vols., published at different periods, and containing many 

 valuable dissertations, such as upon Armenian coins, upon the era of 

 the Arsacidae, upon a rare set of medals of Ptolemy, son of Juba II., 

 upon a medal of Aeropus III., king of Macedonia, &c. ; 7, ' Descrizione 

 di alcune Medaglie Greche del Museo Fontana,' 3 vols. 4to, Florence, 

 1822-29; 8, 'Descrizione di alcune Medaglie Greche del Museo del 

 Barone di Chaudoir,' 4to, 1831 ; 9, 'Catalogus Nummorum Veterum 

 Musei Arigoniani, dispositus secundum sistema geographicum,' fol. ; 



10, 'Descrizione delle Medaglio Greche e Romane del fu Benkowitz ;' 



11, ' Illustrazione d'un Vaso di Vetro con edifizi e leggende' (the vase 

 was found at Populonia, near Piombino); 12, ' Dissertazione intorno 

 al Virgilio di Aproniano, codice piezioso della Laurenziana ' (this is an 

 account of a manuscript copy of Virgil on parchment, which exists in 

 the Laurentian or Medici library at Florence, written by a certain 

 Apronianus, who is supposed to be Turcius Rufius Asterius Apronianus, 

 who was consul A.D. 494) ; 13, 'A Catalogue, with Illustrations, of the 

 valuable Museum Hederwar in Hungary,' 3 vols. 



Sestini ranks among the first numismatists of any age or country. 

 He was in correspondence with the most learned of his contemporaries, 

 and was ultimate with Eckel, Neumau, Cardinal Borgia, Cousine'ry, and 

 others ; and was a member of the academies of Paris, St. Petersburg, 

 Munich, &c. 



(Necrologia di Domenico Sestini, in the Antologia, of Florence. 

 July, 1832.) 



SETTLE, ELKANAH, is remembered, not for his literary merits, 

 out for the extraordinary fact that he, a person of very small talents, 

 was for a time the successful rival of one of the greatest poets of the 

 nation. The particulars of his history, with specimens of his works, 

 may be gathered from various parts of Scott's edition of the works of 

 Dryden. Settle, born in 1648 at Dunstable, was entered a commoner 



of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666 ; but left the university without a 

 degree, and came to London as a literary adventurer. He first rose 

 into reputation in 1671 by the success of his tragedy of ' Cambyses ;' 

 and the profligate Rochester, desirous to humble Dryden,' eagerly 

 adopted the new dramatist as his instrument. Settle's next tragedy, 

 ' The Empress of Morocco,' introduced by its unscrupulous patron, 

 enjoyed the honour (never vouchsafed to Dryden, the laureate) of being 

 first acted at Whitehall by the lords and ladies of the court : on being 

 transferred to the theatre it was acted to full houses for a month 

 successively ; the printed copies of it were sold for double the usual 

 price ; and the author, intoxicated by his undeserved success, prefixed 

 to it a vaunting preface, animadverting severely upon Dryden. 

 Dryden, alarmed and jealous, assisted Shadwell and Crowne in writing 

 scurrilous ' Notes and Observations ' on the play, which the author 

 answered in the same strain. Political differences embittered the 

 quarrel thus begun. But poor Settle's fame was short-lived; and 

 Dryden had little cause to fear him when he was so ill-advised as to 

 advocate the cause of his Whig patrons by publishing, in answer to 

 the ' Absalom and Achitophel,' a poem entitled ' Absalom Senior, or 

 Achitophel Transposed.' Nevertheless, the nefr offence was thought 

 worthy of punishment ; and, under the name of Doeg, Elkanah became 

 the victim of some of those contemptuous verses which Dryden contri- 

 buted to the second part of ' Absalom and Achitophel.' Three of 

 these stanzas, commemorating his smoothness of versification, his 

 bombast, and his real poverty, both of thought and fancy, may be 

 accepted as no unfair criticism on his works in general : 



Doeg, though without knowing how or why, 



Made still a blundering kind of melody ; 



Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin, 



Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in ; 



Free from all meaning, -whether good or bad, 



And, in one word, heroically mad. 



Down to.this time Settle had been a trusted servant and pamphleteer 

 of Shaftesbury and the other Whig leaders, and in November 1680 he 

 superintended with much approbation the burning of the pope in effigy. 

 Soon afterwards however he suddenly changed his party, recanting 

 his political heresies in a narrative which he published in 1683. By 

 this change he perhaps preserved for the time his place as poet-laureate 

 for the city, and writer of verses for pageants and other civic festivities ; 

 but with the revolution his prospects were completely blighted. 

 Although he retained his place as city-poet, he was reduced to great 

 poverty. He had literally to suffer the fate satirically prophesied for 

 him by Dryden, of writing plays for shows at Bartholomew fair in 

 Smithfield ; and in one of these he actually performed in person the 

 part of the Dragon slaughtered by St. George, a fact which Pope has 

 chronicled in the ' Dunciad.' At length, in his desolate old age, he 

 was received into the Charter-House, and died there in 1723. He was 

 the author of sixteen original plays that were printed, and of a good 

 many occasional and political pieces both in verse and in prose. 



SEVAJEE, surnamed BOSLA, the founder of the Mahratta power in 

 India, was born in May 1627 at Poonah, the ' jagheer,' or fief, of which 

 was held by his father, Shahjee, under the kingdom of Ahmednuggur, 

 and, after its dissolution, from the Beejapoor monarchy. His restless 

 and ambitious character appears to have developed itself at a very 

 early age, as in 1647 he had supplanted his father at Poonah, and iu 

 the following year possessed himself of all tho Northern Concan. The 

 Beejapoor government was then fully occupied in guarding against the 

 aggressions of the Delhi Moguls ; and Sevajee continued for several 

 years to extend his power by progressive encroachments without 

 coming to an open rupture, till his spoliations became so daring that 

 in 1658 a large force was sent against him under Afzul Kahn, a leader of 

 reputation. He succeeded however in assassinating the general at an 

 interview ; routed and dispersed his army ; and maintained himself in 

 the field till 1662, when a peace with Beejapoor left him in possession 

 of his acquisitions. But he now came into collision with the formidable 

 power of Auruugzebe, with whose armies in the Dekkan he was unable 

 to cope ; and though he succeeded by a sudden irruption (January, 

 1664) in surprising and sacking the distant emporium of Surat, from 

 which he brought off an immense booty, he found it expedient iii the 

 following year to make his submission to the emperor, and, co-operating 

 with the Mogul troops in their invasion of Beejapoor, did distinguished 

 service in the campaign. He was disgusted however by the haughty 

 reception which he met with at the court of Delhi ; and having mado 

 his escape with difficulty from the capital, lie re-occupied his former 

 territories, which he greatly enlarged at the expense of the falliug 

 kingdoms of Beejapoor and Golconda, avoiding for eome years to renew 

 hostilities with the Moguls. This interval he employed in settling 

 his dominions, and introducing a strict system of discipline into his 

 army; and when the war with Aurungzebe broke out anew (1670), he 

 not only ravaged the country with his light cavalry, and inflicted a 

 second sack on Surat, but in 1672 for the first time engaged and 

 defeated a regular Mogul force in a pitched battle. To this period is 

 also assigned the commencement of the ' chout,' a sort of tribute, or 

 blackmail, consisting of the fourth of the revenue, on the payment of 

 which any province was exempted from devastation, and which long 

 continued a principal source of Mahratta revenue. 



He had for several years previous assumed tho title of Raja, and the 



