676 



STATIUS, P. PAPINIUS. 



STAYNER, SIB RICHARD. 



676 



display any great religious zeal, with the want of which he was 

 accordingly reproached by his enemies, yet there is no reason what- 

 ever for suBpecting him of religious indifference, and his personal 

 virtues were of the highest kind, as his patriotism was of the noblest 

 stamp. He died on the 20th of January 1806, and, in addition to the 

 disposal of his estate at Rubieszow, as before mentioned, left consider- 

 able bequests to various public institutions and churches, including 

 200,000 zlots to the Hospital of Jesus, 100,000 to the Chemical 

 Institute, and 45,000 to the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at 

 Warsaw. 



STA'TIUS, P. PAPI'NIUS, a Roman poet, was born at Naples, in 

 A.D. 61. His father was an eminent grammarian and poet, and was in 

 consequence much distinguished by the patronage of Domitian. The 

 son was educated at Rome, and his early genius met with like encou- 

 ragement from the emperor. He gained the prizes in the poetical 

 contests held at that time at Alba and elsewhere. His popularity is 

 described by Juvenal ('Sat.,' vii. 82). His tragedy or poem of 'Agave' 

 has not been preserved ; neither is the poverty of Statius, which is 

 spoken of by Juvenal, noticed or accounted for elsewhere, though 

 such inconsistencies of circumstance are not unusual in the lives of 

 poets. In the year 80, according to Dodwell ('Annales Statiani'), he 

 married Claudia, a widow, of whom he makes frequent and affectionate 

 mention in his writings : having no issue by her, he adopted a son. 

 His great success drew upon him the jealousy and ill-will of his rivals, 

 among whom Martial is thought to allude to him under the name 

 Sabellus, and to have slightingly omitted his name while making 

 honourable mention of his contemporaries generally. When no 

 longer able to maintain his superiority in the poetical contests, Statius 

 withdrew to the retirement of Naples, where he died in 96. He 

 wrote 1. 'Sylvse,' a collection of 32 poems distributed in 5 books, on 

 various subjects, such as passing events or passing thoughts would 

 suggest. They are more of a lyric than of an epic character, and are 

 written chiefly in hexameters, and occasionally in the alcaic, sapphic, 

 and other metres. The last book appeared in the last year of the 

 author's life. 2. ' Thebais,' an epic poem in 12 books, giving an 

 account of the Theban war between Eteocles and Polynices : in this 

 work he has borrowed much from Greek sources, and in particular 

 from the ' Thebais ' of Antimachus. 3. ' Achilleis/ an unfinished epic 

 poem in 2 books, the further progress of which was arrested by the 

 death of the poet. 



The ' Sylvso ' are the most interesting of the poems of Statius. In 

 them we find examples of trifling subjects treated with lyric playful- 

 ness of fancy ; the poet's thoughts appear in the easy garb of private 

 life ; and his domestic feelings and affections are unaffectedly revealed 

 (see the beautiful address to his wife, ' Sylvse,' iii. 5). Many curious 

 particulars illustrative of the manners and way of life of the Romans 

 of that time may be gathered from this work. 



As an epic poet, Statius belongs to a school of later Roman writers, 

 the successors and imitators of Virgil, and, like them, he is charac- 

 terised by a learned obscurity of allusion, a tasteless and unskilful use 

 of metaphor, and a strained yet feeble mode of expression, masking in 

 pompous language the simplest thoughts, and seeking to surprise the 

 reader by rhetorical artifice rather than to call up the feelings which 

 true poetry suggests. The few facts in the life of Statius are nearly 

 all furnished by passages in his own poems, which are quoted at length 

 by Crusius (' Lives of the Roman Poets,' i., 12mo), and the principal 

 dates are fixed by Dodwell, ' Annales Statiani : ' other authorities 

 quoted by Baehr, ' Geschichte der Romischen Literatur,' are Crinit., 

 <De Poett. Latt. ;' Lil. Gyrald., 'De Latt. Poett. Diall. IV. ;' Voss, 

 'De Poett. Latt.;' Funcc., 'De imminent. L. L. senectat. ;' Fabricii, 

 'Bibl. Lat.,' ii. ; 'Saxii Onomast.,' i. 273. The principal editions of 

 Statius are Edit, princ., 1470, folio, Venet., 1483; Bernartius, Antwerp, 

 1595; ed. Fr. Tiliobroga (Lindenbrog), 4to, Paris, 1600; rec. Crusius, 

 4to, Paris, 1618 ; J. Fr. Gronovii, 24mo, Amstel., 1653, cum comment, 

 ed. F. Hand., Lips., 8vo, 1817. Very useful editions of the poems of 

 Statius are those in Lemaire's Paris, and in Teubner's Leipzig Greek 

 and Roman Classics. 



STAUNTON, SIR GEORGE LEONARD, was the eldest and only 

 surviving son of Colonel George Staunton of Cargin in the county of 

 Galway, Ireland, a gentleman of small fortune, but descended from a 

 very ancient English family. He was born at Cargin on the 19th of 

 April 1737, and received his education partly in Galway and partly in 

 Dublin, until he entered his sixteenth year, when a tendency to con- 

 sumption rendered necessary an immediate removal to a warmer 

 climate. His father accordingly sent him to Montpellier in the south 

 of France, where he remained some years, and having completed his 

 studies in the college of that city, he took a medical degree. 



In 1760 he returned to England, and resided for some time in 

 London, where he occupied himself in contributing some valuable 

 essays to the periodical publications of that day, and formed an 

 acquaintance with many eminent literary men of the time, especially 

 Dr. Johnson, who, in the year 1762, upon his intended embarkation 

 for the West Indies, wrote him an affectionate valedictory letter. This 

 letter is preserved in Boswell's 'Life of Dr. Johnson,' and beare a very 

 high testimony to Mr. Staunton'a merits at that early period. Mr. 

 Staunton practised for a short time in the Wast Indies as a physician, 

 but he held at the same time considerable oflicial situations in the 

 islands, and having acquired a competent fortune, which he invested 



in estates in the island of Granada, he returned to England in 1770. 

 In 1771 he married Jane, the second daughter of Benjamin Collins, 

 Esq., of Milford, near Salisbury, and a banker in that city; but the 

 disorder into which his West Indian property fell ia his absence 

 obliged him very soon to return to Granada, where he continued to 

 reside until the capture of the island by the French in 1779. 



During this period Mr. Staunton devoted himself with considerable 

 success to the practice of the law, a profession much more congenial 

 to his talents and habits than that of medicine, and he was appointed 

 by the crown, attorney-general of the island. In 1774 Lord Macartney 

 went out to Granada as governor, and a warm friendship was soon 

 formed between that nobleman and Mr. Staunton, which ended only 

 with their lives. Upon the capture of the island by the Freuch, Lord 

 Macartney and Mr. Staunton were both sent to France as prisoners of 

 war. Lord Macartney immediately proceeded to England on his 

 parole, but Mr. Staunton remained some time longer at Paris, and had 

 the address and good fortune to obtain, under circumstances of 

 peculiar difficulty, his lordship's exchange as well as his own. Lord 

 Macartney was thus enabled to avail himself of the appointment 

 which the East India Company had conferred upon him, of the 

 government of Madras, and Mr. Staunton accompanied him to India 

 as his confidential secretary. In this character he was in fact bis 

 lordship's chief adviser on all the various transactions of his arduous 

 and upon the whole successful government. Nothing could have been 

 apparently more adverse to Mr. Staunton's interests than the capture 

 of Granada. His house and plantation, which lay in view of the 

 enemy when they were landing, were totally pillaged and destroyed. 

 Everything moveable was taken away ; and the land itself was after- 

 wards in part confiscated and given away to Frenchmen. The 

 recovery of any part of the wreck of his fortune was rendered hopeless 

 by his sudden and compulsory departure from the island, and he was 

 reduced to the necessity of commencing, as it were, the world anew. 

 These circumstances were nevertheless in the end of great advantage 

 to him, for they led to his immediate removal to a more suitable 

 sphere for the exercise of his talents. While in India Mr. Stauntou 

 was engaged in a series of missions of great importance. On a very 

 critical occasion, when the civil and military authorities at Madras 

 were at issue, he undertook the delicate and possibly hazardous office 

 of executing an order of the government, placing under arrest the 

 commander-in-chief of the army, Major-General Stuart ; and he thus 

 preserved, by his vigour and promptitude, both the tranquillity of the 

 settlement and the supremacy of the civil government. But the 

 transaction in which his diplomatic abilities were chiefly displayed 

 was the negociation of a treaty of peace with Tippoo Sultan in 1784, 

 by which the safety of our Indian possessions was secured at a crisis 

 of great difficulty and peril. For this service he was immediately 

 raised to a baronetcy, and the East India Company conferred on him 

 a pension of 500i. a year for life. On his return to England he also 

 received the degree of Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University 

 of Oxford. 



Lord Macartney, as well as Sir George Staunton, remained at home 

 unemployed from this time until 1792, when the determination of the 

 government to send a splendid embassy to the court of Pekin called 

 them both again into active service. At this period, Sir George, having 

 succeeded to his patrimonial estate by the death of his father, and 

 having made a moderate yet sufficient addition to it by his own 

 exertions, was little covetous of further public employment ; but the 

 novelty of this undertaking, and the very extensive sphere of public 

 utility to which it seemed to lead, gave it a degree of interest in his 

 mind altogether independent of its pecuniary advantages. Although 

 the negociations were to have been opened by Lord Macartney, it was 

 to Sir George Staunton that the government chiefly looked for the 

 complete accomplishment of the objects of the mission, and with this 

 view he was provided with separate credentials as minister-plenipoten- 

 tiary, to be acted on in the absence or after the departure of the 

 ambassador. 



Sir George's health fell a sacrifice to his exertions upon this occasion. 

 A few mouths after his return to England he was seized with an attack 

 of paralysis, from which >he never entirely recovered, and after a 

 painful struggle of about six years, he gradually sunk into the grave, 

 retaining however his intellectual faculties in full vigour to the last. 

 He gave to the world a remarkable proof of this, in his published 

 narrative of the proceedings of the Chinese embassy, a work which 

 was not only read with great interest and avidity at the time, but is 

 still referred to aa one of the first authorities on all matters connected 

 with China. Sir George died in London, on the 14th of January 1801, 

 in the sixty-fourth year of bis age, and was buried in Westminster 

 Abbey, where an elegant monument, by Chantrey, was some years 

 after erected to his memory. 



STAYNER, SIR RICHARD, was a naval commander under the 

 Protectorate and during the early part of the reign of Charles II. 

 Nothing is known of his parentage or of the date of his birth. He is 

 first noticed as having, in conjunction with Captain Smith, taken a 

 Dutch East Indiatnan of 800 tons burden, which had four chests of 

 silver on board. In 1656 Captain Stayner had three frigates under his 

 command, when he fell in with the Spanish flotilla, which consisted 

 of eight sail. He attacked them : two were captured, one burnt, two 

 sunk, two driven on shore, and one escaped into Cadiz. Stayner is 



