mosthenes' Greek orations, “De Coronâ.” … When I came to his house near the public schools he sent for me up into a chamber, where I found him sitting in a chair, with his legs upon a table that stood by him. He neither stirred his hat nor body, but only took me by the hand, and instantly fell into discourse (after a word or two, of course, passed between us) touching matters of learning and criticisms. He was of personage big and tall, long-faced and ruddy coloured, and his eyes very lively, although I took him to be at that time at least seventy years old’ (Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Autobiography, ed. Halliwell, i. 139, 141).
In his seventy-seventh year, after having worthily held the regius professorship of Greek for thirty-nine years, he was reluctantly compelled to vacate the chair, but the usual stipend was continued by the university. He now retired to the village of Coton, near Cambridge, but before the expiration of the year he died, on 2 Feb. 1627–8. A mural monument, with a Latin inscription to his memory, was placed in the parish church.
His works are: 1. ‘Eratosthenes, hoc est, brevis et luculenta Defensio Lysiæ pro cæde Eratosthenis, prælectionibus illustrata,’ Greek and Latin, Cambridge, 1593, 8vo, with dedication to Robert, earl of Essex, dated from Trinity College, Cambridge. 2. Notes in the appendix to Sir Henry Savile's edition of St. Chrysostom, vol. viii. (1613). 3. ‘Prælectiones in Philippicam de Pace Demosthenis,’ with the text in Greek and Latin, London, 1621, 8vo. Dedicated to James I. These prælections are reprinted in Christian Daniel Beck's edition of the ‘Oratio de Pace,’ Leipzig, 1799, and in William Stephen Dobson's edition of the works of Demosthenes and Æschines, 9 vols. Lond. 1827. 4. Letters in Greek to Isaac Casaubon, printed in ‘Casauboni Epistolæ.’ The originals, beautiful specimens of Greek caligraphy, are preserved in the Burney MS. 363, f. 252 seq. 5. Greek verses on the death of Dr. Whitaker, master of St. John's College, appended to vol. i. of his works; and Greek and Latin verses at the end of Nethersole's ‘Oratio funebris’ on the death of Prince Henry in 1612.
[Addit. MSS. 5805 f. 18, 5867 f. 9, 17083 f. 109; Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, ii. 377 n., Baker's St. John's (Mayor), pp. 289, 326, 333, 598, 1149; Birch MS. 4224, f. 178; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Leigh's Treatise of Religion and Learning, p. 183; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 660; Lewis's Hist. of Translations of the Bible (1818), p. 312; Lysiæ Orationes et Fragmenta, ed. Taylor (1739), præf. p. xv; Parr's Life of Usher, pp. 329, 546, Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, 1st edit. II. viii. 47–9; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1601–3) p. 116, (1603–10). pp. 478, 506, 513.]
DOWNES, JOHN (fl. 1666), regicide, had purchased, 25 March 1635, the comfortable place of auditor of the duchy of Cornwall (Hardy, Syllabus of Rymer's Fœdera, ii. 888). He was a member of the Long parliament, being elected for Arundel, Sussex, on 20 Dec. 1641, in succession to Henry Garton, deceased (Lists of Members of Parliament, Official Return, pt. i. p. 494). He joined the parliamentary army and was made a colonel of militia. Of a timid, wavering nature, he was, as he himself asserts, ‘insnared, through weakness and fear,’ into becoming one of the king's judges, and signing the death-warrant. Another episode of his parliamentary life was a wrangle with John Fry, member for Shaftesbury, whom he accused of blasphemy to the House of Commons. In his published answer to the charge (The Accuser Sham'd, 27 Feb. 1648–9) Fry hinted pretty plainly that Downes was regarded as a mere tool of Cromwell. Downes did not fail to grow rich during the Commonwealth. At the sales of bishops' lands in August 1649 he purchased Broyle Farm, Sussex, for 1,309l. 6s. (Nichols, Collectanea, i. 286), having six years previously, in April 1643, robbed the bishop (Henry King) of his corn and household stuff at Petworth, demolished his house in Chichester, and appropriated the leases of Broyle and Streatham (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 290). In July 1649, when the act passed for the sale of the duchy of Cornwall lands, he sold his auditorship to the government for 3,000l. (ib. 1649–1650, p. 233). He must have been possessed of considerable business talent, as on his election to the council of state, 25 Nov. 1651, he was forthwith placed on the committee of the army, where he had at first the sole conduct of matters, and also served on the committee for Ireland (Commons' Journals, vii. 42, 58). On 1 Jan. 1651–2 the parliament voted him 300l. in recognition of ‘his pains and service for the public in the committee of the army for the last year’ (ib. vii. 62). He was again appointed to the council of state, 14 May 1659 (ib. vii. 654), and was one of the five commissioners for the revenue elected on the following 20 June (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1658–9, pp. 349, 382). At the Restoration, Downes hastened to publish ‘A True and Humble Representation touching the Death of the late King, so far as he may be concerned therein,’ which cannot be said to err on the side of truth. Describing himself as ‘a weak, imprudent man,’ he adds, ‘I have wore myself out, lost my office, robbed my relations, and now am ruined.’ He was
