JOHN

See also:

• JOHN HOOLE (2727-1803)

HOOLE (2727-1803)  , English translator and dramatist, son of a watchmaker and machinist, Samuel Hoole, was born at Moorfields, London, in December 1727 . He was educated at a private school at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, kept by James Bennet, who edited Ascham's English works . At the age of seventeen he became a clerk in the accountants' department of the East India House, and before 1767 became one of the auditors of Indian accounts . His leisure hours he devoted to the study of Latin and especially Italian, and began writing translations of the chief works of the Italian poets . He published translations of the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso in 1763, the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto in 1773-1783, the Dramas of iMetastasio in 1767, and Rinaldo, an early work of Tasso, in 1792 . Among his plays are: Cyrus (1768), Timanthes (1770) and Cleonice, Princess of Bithynia (1775), none of which achieved success . The verses of Hoole were praised by Johnson, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, but, though correct, smooth and flowing, they cannot be commended for any other merit . His translation of the Orlando Furioso was superseded by the version (1823—1831) of W . S . Rose . Hoole was also the friend of the Quaker poet John Scott of Amwell (1730-1783), whose life he wrote; it was prefixed to Scott's Critical Essays (1785) . In 1773 he was promoted to be chief auditor of Indian accounts, an office which he resigned in 1785 .

In 1786 he retired to the parsonage of

Abinger, Surrey; and afterwards lived at Tenterden, Kent, dying at Dorking on the 2nd of April 1803 . See Anecdotes of the Life of the late Mr John Hoole, by his surviving brother, Samuel Hook (London, 1803) . Some of his plays are re-printed in J . Bell's British Theatre (1797) .