Sandys, George

Sandys, George, 1578–1644, English poet and traveler, b. Yorkshire, son of Archbishop Edwin Sandys. He was educated at Oxford and in 1610 began an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East, which he wrote about in A Relation of a Journey (1615). In 1621 he became a treasurer of the London Company. He accompanied (1621) the new governor, Sir Francis Wyatt, to Virginia, where he remained until 1631, serving three terms on the governor's council. While in Virginia, Sandys produced his most famous work, a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1626). His other works include paraphrases of the Psalms, hymns, and a translation of a work of Grotius under the title Christ's Passion: A Tragedy (1640).

Bibliography

See his works, ed. by R. Hooper (1968); biography by R. B. Davis (1955); study by J. Haynes (1986).