_Captain John Stevens_ (Vol. ii., p. 359.).--This ingenious man, as to whom
your correspondent inquires, was one of the hard-working translators in the
early part of the last century. The materials for his biography are very
scanty. He was a Roman Catholic, and at the Revolution followed the
fortunes of his abdicating master, in whose service he accepted a
commission, and accompanied him in the wars in Ireland. He was also
employed in several other services, and died October 27, 1726. See
_Biographia Dramatica_, vol. i. p. 691., edit. 1812. He is not noticed in
Chalmers's _Biographical Dictionary_, though as the continuator of
Dugdale's _Monasticon_ he unquestionably ought to have been. Watt gives a
list (_Bib. Brit._, vol. i. p. 880.) of his books and translations; but it
is, as usual, very defective and erroneous. It does not include his
translation of _Don Quixote_, of _Dupin_, of _An Evening's Intrigue_ (1707,
8vo.), and a great number of other works; and it ascribes to him the
_History of the Wars of Charles XII., King of Sweden_, London, 1715, which
was written, as it needs no great sagacity to discover, by Daniel Defoe,
though Chalmers and Wilson have not noticed it.