RICHARD,** author of Leonidas, was born in 1712 in London. His father was a Hamburg merchant, and, as Richard was intended to join him in business, the youth's school-education was of the commonest kind. He early displayed a love of letters, however, and at the age of sixteen wrote a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, which was highly thought of at the time. In 1737 (the year of his marriage) appeared the work with which his name is now always associated—his Leonidas. This is an epic poem on the subject of the great Persian war with Greece; but as it was believed by some of the leading statesmen of the day to have a present political significance, it was very warmly commended by the regent and his court, by Lord Lyttleton, and the novelist Fielding. Through their influence the poem enjoyed a success altogether beyond its real merit, and in less than two years passed through three editions. Like the tragedies of Boudicca and Medea, published respectively in 1753 and 1761, the Leonidas exhibits a well-cultivated taste, some skill in versifying, and a good ear for music; but no passion, no poetry—none of the qualities, in short, which are the soul and marrow of the epic. In 1739 Glover wrote his London, or the Progress of Commerce, and a ballad entitled Hosier's Ghost, with a view, it is said, to rousing the nation to a Spanish war. This ballad is certainly effective, if it be nothing more, and was in its day nearly as popular as Cowper's ballad of John Gilpin at a later period. Glover was twenty-seven years of age when he wrote Hosier's Ghost, and he used to sing it regularly himself to the end of his life, though Hannah More, who tells us that she heard him sing it in his last days, is mistaken in saying that he was then past eighty. He died in November 1785, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

During his lifetime Glover was highly esteemed for his practical qualities. He was distinguished as a city political leader, and ably advocated liberal views in opposition to Walpole. On entering parliament in 1760, as member for Weymouth, he made a considerable figure in the house as a speaker, but was valued still more highly for his sound and sagacious views on commercial questions. (Johnson's English Poets; Chalmers's Biog. Diet.; Craik's English Lit.; Spalding's English Lit.)