FAIRFAX, EDWARD, a poet of considerable note, who flourished in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, in the county of York. The precise date of his birth is uncertain; and it has even been supposed that he was illegitimate; but there does not seem to be any good ground for such a supposition. The family of which he was descended had a strong propensity for the military profession; and his father having passed his youth in the wars of the Continent, was present at the sacking of Rome under Charles Duke of Bourbon, in the year 1527. In 1591 the poet's elder brother, Thomas, who afterwards became the first Lord Fairfax, received the honour of knighthood, before Rouen, on account of the bravery he had displayed whilst serving with the army sent to the assistance of Henry IV.; and the same individual afterwards signalized himself on many occasions in Germany. A younger brother, Charles, also distinguished himself in arms, having been present at the battle of Newport in 1600, and commanded at the famous siege of Ostend, where he received a wound in the face from a splinter of the skull of a marshal of France, who was killed near him by a cannon ball. But whilst his brothers were thus employed in military service abroad, Edward Fairfax devoted himself to the peaceful pursuits of literature at home, and the acquirements he made were such as would have qualified him to fill with credit any employment either in church or state. But an invincible modesty, joined to a love of retirement and a contemplative turn of mind, induced him to prefer the groves and cascades of Denton, and the forest of Knaresborough, to all the advantages of worldly distinction; and, accordingly, having fixed himself as a private gentleman at Fuyistone, he devoted his leisure to composition both in prose and in verse, and to the education of his own and the children of his brother, Lord Fairfax, who are said to have profited much by his instructions. In his book on Demonology, Fairfax has given the following character of himself:—"I am in religion," says he, "neither a fantastic puritan nor a superstitious papist, but so settled in conscience, that I have the sure ground of God's word to warrant all I believe, and the commendable ordinances of our English church to approve all I practise; in which course I live a faithful Christian and an obedient subject, and so teach my family." In these principles he persevered until his death, which took place about 1632, at Newhall, in the parish of Fuyistone, between Denton and Knaresborough. Fairfax's first, and indeed his principal work, was his translation of Tasso, which he executed when very young, and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. The merits of this performance were at one time much overrated; and, latterly, it has been in some measure superseded by the translation of Hoole, which, though not a little stiff and formal, possesses greater equality, and is perhaps also superior in point of accuracy: but it must at the same time be confessed, that the diction of Fairfax is remarkable for its purity, freedom, and elegance; that his numbers are often highly musical; and that he is one of the few writers, if not the only one, down to the time of Sir William Davenant, who does not require an apology to be made for him on account of the age in which he lived. "Fairfax," says Hume, "has translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which for that age are surprising." But the poetical exertions of Fairfax did not terminate with this translation. He also composed eclogues, twelve in number, relative to the manners, the characters, and the incidents of the times; compositions
Fairfax, which he seasoned with many fine touches of piquant satire, and dignified with useful lessons both in public and private morality. The fourth in order of these eclogues was printed in the Muses' Library in 1737; but it is somewhat surprising that the whole of them should never have been published, and it is not improbable that the manuscripts are now lost. Of the prose writings of Fairfax, most of which related to the controversy with the church of Rome, none has ever appeared in print; and even his treatise on Daemonology, if yet extant, still remains in manuscript. This last production, which is entitled "A Discourse on Witchcraft, as it was acted in the family of Mr Edward Fairfax of Fuyistone, in the county of York, in 1621," and of which a copy was in the possession of Mr Isaac Reed, would no doubt, if published, throw considerable light on the superstitious opinions and feelings of the age when it was written, and might also perhaps contribute indirectly towards the true exposition of those spectral illusions and phantasms which, while they commanded the unhesitating belief, exercised so powerful an influence over the minds of our forefathers. Fairfax left several children, sons as well as daughters, the eldest of whom, William, a scholar of much the same temper with his father, though rather more cynical, translated Dionysius Laertius from Greek into English.