Sewell, George

(?1690-1726)

   Born at Windsor and educated at Eton College, he graduated B.A. from Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1790. After studying medicine at Leyden, Holland, he graduated as a physician from Edinburgh in 1725. His London medical practice was not a success, so he became a booksellers' hack, publishing numerous poems, translations, and political and other pamphlets. He died of tuberculosis at Hampstead, London, in great poverty, and was given a pauper's funeral. His 1715 True Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Burnet (?1635-1715) was a satirical attack on Burnet's book Sacred Theory of the Earth (1684). Sewell's best-known work of general literature was Tragedy of Sir Walter Raleigh, acted at the theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1719. Several of his poems are in Collection of Poems (1709) by Matthew Prior (see entry). He contributed to Miscellanies in Verse and Prose (1725) by Joseph Addison (see entry). Some of his poems: "Anacreontic," "Apology for Loving a Wid," "Psalm the Sixth Paraphras'd," "Upon His Majesty's Accession," "The Character of Cato," "The Favourite," "The Patriot," "Verses to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Great Books Online (www.bartleby.com). Poems on Several Occasions by George Sewell. E. Curll and J. Pemberton, 1719. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org).