William Boscawen, younger son of the above General George Boscawen, was educated at Eton, where he became a great favourite of Dr. Barnard. He became a Gentleman Commoner of Exeter College, and on settling in London studied law under a Cornish lawyer, Mr. Justice Buller, about 1770, and went the Western Circuit. William Boscawen does not appear to have taken his degree at Oxford; but Wordsworth, in his 'Scholæ Academicæ,' points out that it was not unusual during the last century, and at the commencement of the present, for gentlemen intending for the law to leave the University without taking a degree. He published two or three law treatises, was a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, and in 1785 he was made a Commissioner of the Victualling Office. By his marriage with Charlotte Ibbetson he had five daughters. He was much attached to literary pursuits, and translated, first the 'Odes,' 'Epodes,' and 'Carmen Seculare' of Horace, then the 'Satires,' 'Epistles,' and 'Art of Poetry;'--and in many respects his translation was considered superior to Francis's. He was much indebted for his 'notes' to Dr. Foster, of Eton College. In 1801, he published some original poems and other works. A friend who met him in the Strand a few days before his death noticed that he was looking very ill; and on the 8th May, 1811, he died of asthma, at Little Chelsea. He was of an affectionate and benevolent disposition; and the Literary Fund he considered almost as his own child, writing the annual verses for it till within five years of his death. A contemporary critic says of his literary productions, that if in them 'he does not take a lead among his contemporaries, he at least discovers an elegant taste, a poetical mind, and a correct versification.' 'Could his character be truly drawn, it would exhibit a consummate picture of everything that is amiable and estimable in human nature.' 'Incapable of _being_ an enemy, it was never known that he had one; and his friends were as numerous as his virtues.' As a specimen of his powers as a translator, his rendering of the well-known fifth ode of the 1st Book of Horace, will, I venture to think, compare, not altogether unfavourably, with the productions of his mightier predecessors in the task--Milton and Cowley. 'What youth bedew'd with moist perfume Courts thee, O Pyrrha! graceful maid, With neat simplicity array'd In the sweet bower where roses bloom? 'For whom dost thou in ringlets form Thy golden locks?--Oft shall he wail Thy truth, swift changing as the gale, View the wild waves, and shudder at the storm. 'Who now, all credulous and gay, Enjoys thy smile? on whose vain pride Thy fickle favour shines untry'd, And soft, deceitful breezes play? 'My fate the pictur'd wreck displays; The dripping garments that remain In mighty Neptune's sacred fane Record my glad escape, my grateful praise.'