Vincent Bourne Biography | Poet

BOURNE, VINCENT (1695-1747), English classical scholar, familiarly known as “Vinny” Bourne, was born at Westminster in 1695. In 1710 he became a scholar at Westminster school, and in 1714 entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1717, and obtained a fellowship three years later. Of his afterlife exceedingly little is known. It is certain that he passed the greater portion of it as usher in Westminster school. He died on; the 2nd of December 1747. During his lifetime he published three editions of his Latin poems, and in 1772 there appeared a very handsome quarto volume containing all Bourne’s pieces, but also some that did not belong to him. The Latin poems are remarkable not only for perfect mastery of all linguistic niceties, but for graceful expression and genuine poetic feeling. A number of them are translations of English poems, and it is not too much to say that the Latin versions almost invariably surpass the originals. Cowper, an old pupil of Bourne’s, Beattie and Lamb have combined in praise of his wonderful power of Latin versification.