THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



cisms on Maittaire, and then see what manner of man he 

 really was from his correspondence. In the library at Bel- 

 voir there are four volumes of his letters to the Duke, 

 beautifully written in a neat handwriting, which, without the 

 aid of the graphologist, tells of his accurate, painstaking 

 character. 



Michael — or, as he sometimes writes it, Michel — Maittaire 

 was born in France about the year 1668. His parents were 

 Protestants, and took refuge in this country about the time 

 of the Edict of Nantes. Young Michael obtained a King's 

 scholarship at Westminster, and from the first he found favour 

 with the great Busby, at that time head-master. Maittaire 

 showed a natural bent for accurate scholarship, and on leaving 

 school he travelled on the Continent, visiting, among other 

 places, Paris and the Hague. He then went up to Oxford, 

 and after taking his degree at Christ Church, he returned to 

 Westminster School, where he was a master from 1695- 1699. 

 After resigning this post, he started a private school, and at 

 the time of his connection with the Duke he was living at 

 King Street, Bloomsbury. He gained fame by his writings, 

 both in this country and abroad, though his works are per- 

 haps more creditable to his industry than his genius. He 

 was only spared an undesirable immortality in the "Dunciad" 

 at the intercession of Lord Oxford, but though the lines were 

 erased from the poem, they have survived, as Pope's suppressed 

 satires so often did. 



" On yonder part what fogs of gathered air 

 Invest the scene, there museful sits Maittaire." 



Although the prejudice of Pope against critical scholarship 

 is well known, and was perhaps not unnatural in the author 

 of Pope's Ho7ner, he was not apparently much beside the 

 mark in this case, for a greater authority on such matters 

 than he. Dr. Johnson, referring to the Stephanoruni Historia 

 and the Dialectic says : " Maittaire's account of the Stephani 

 is a heavy book. He seems to have been a puzzle-headed 

 man, with a large share of scholarship, but with little geo- 

 metry or logic in his head, without method, and possessed of 



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