GEORGE, was born in 1730, and educated at Kingston School, after which he went to Geneva, where he resided for some years, and became acquainted with Voltaire. When he had made the tour of Europe, he became a student in the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar, but did not meet with such encouragement as to induce him to persevere. In the year 1760 he published his Ancient and Modern Rome, a poem which was received with considerable approbation; and the following year he gave to the world a short Account of the Ancient History, present Government, and Laws, of the Republic of Geneva, 8vo, dedicated to Voltaire, who once intended to translate it into French, but afterwards abandoned his design.

In 1762 he produced an Epistle from Lady Jane Grey to Lord Guildford Dudley; and next year The Alps, a poem, believed to be the best he ever wrote, for truth of description, vigour of fancy, and beauty of versification. In 1764 appeared Netley Abbey; and, in 1765, the Temple Student, an Epistle to a Friend, in which he rallies his own deficiency in application to the study of the law, and his consequent want of success in that profession. In 1766 he published a poem to the memory of Mrs Cibber, of whose talents as an actress he entertained a very high opinion. He married, in 1769, Miss Hudson; and about the same period he published Ferney, an Epistle to Voltaire. Having praised with energy the beauties of that philosopher's poetical works, he introduces a panegyric on Shakspeare, whom Voltaire used every effort to depreciate, probably from a spirit of envy. This eulogium induced the mayor and burgesses of Stratford to present our author with a standish mounted with silver, made out of the fa- mous mulberry tree which is said to have been planted by Shakspeare himself.

In 1775 appeared his Monument in Arcadia, a dramatic poem; and in 1779 he published his Sketches from Nature, taken and coloured in a Journey to Margate, justly allowed to be an elegant composition. In the year 1787 came out The Distressed Poet, a serio-comic poem, in three cantos, occasioned by a long and vexatious law-suit. His last work was perhaps the most creditable of the whole, both to his head and to his heart. Captain Wilson, of the Antelope packet, having suffered shipwreck on the Pelew Islands, was refused any further command, and reduced to distress; a circumstance which induced the humane Keate to publish an account of these islands, for the benefit of that gentleman, which, it is said, brought him about nine hundred guineas in the space of a year. This work is written with much elegance, although it is probable that the manners of the natives of Pelew, in as far as regards their alleged amiability, are somewhat highly coloured.

The life of Keate was spent without any vicissitudes of fortune; he was possessed of an ample estate, which he never attempted to increase, except by prudence in the management of it. He was a man of beneficence and hospitality, and enjoyed in a high degree the favour of his countrymen. He died in June 1797, leaving one daughter.