JOSEPH of Exeter.

Joseph of Exeter was born at the City of Exeter in Devonshire, he was also sirnamed Iscanus, from the River Isk, now called Esk, which running by that City, gave it formerly the denomination of Isca. This Joseph (faith my Author) was a Golden Poet in a Leaden Age, so terse and elegant were his Conceits and Expressions. In his younger years he accompanied King Richard the First, in his Expedition into the Holy Land, by which means he had the better advantage to celebrate, as he did, the Acts of that warlike Prince, in a Poem, entituled Antiochea. He also wrote six Books De Bello Trojano, in Heroick Verse, which, as the learned Cambden well observes, was no other then that Version of Dares Phyrgius into Latine Verse. Yet so well was it excepted, that the Dutchmen not long since Printed it under the name of Cornelius Nepos, an Author who lived in the time of Tully, and wrote many excellent pieces in Poetry, but upon a strict view of all his Works, not any such doth appear amongst them; they therefore do this Joseph great wrong in depriving him the honour of his own Works. He was afterwards, for his deserts, preferred to be Arch-bishop of Burdeaux, in the time of King John, about the year 1210.