Calvert, Frederick, sixth Lord Baltimore 1731-1771, eldest son of Charles, fifth lord, by Mary, youngest daughter of Sir Theodore Janssen, was born in 1731. Carlyle, in his Life of Frederick the Great, refers to the father in 1739 as something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in portraits, and by some of his doings in the world. In 1753 Frederick married Diana Egerton, youngest daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater. In 1768 he was tried at Kingston on a charge of rape, but acquitted (Report of trial in Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 180-8). He died at Naples on 14 Sept. 1771, without legitimate children. His remains were brought to England in order to be interred in the family vault at Epsom, and for some time lay in state in Exeter Exchange, Strand. The moment his body was removed the populace plundered the room where it had lain (ib. xlii. 44). The title became extinct on his death, and by his will he bequeathed the province of Maryland, in America, to Henry Harford, a child, and the remainder of his estates in fee to his younger sister. Winckelmann characterises him as one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, who had lost all moral and physical taste. He was the author of a Tour in the East in the years 1763 and 1764, with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Also Select Pieces of Oriental Wit, Poetry, and Wisdom, regarding which Lord Orford declared it no more deserved to be published than his bills on the road for post-horses. In 1769 he printed at Augsburg ten copies of a book entitled Gaudia Poetica Latina, Anglica, et Gallica Lingua composita. It forms a volume of 120 pages, beautifully printed, and richly decorated with head and tail pieces. It consists of a Latin poem translated into English and French, with some smaller pieces, and several letters which had passed between him and Linnæus, to whom he had dedicated the volume. Linnæus had been so much flattered by the dedication that he refers to the book in extraordinary terms of eulogy, and designates it an immortal work. Baltimore also published Cælestes et Inferi, Venice, 1771, 4to.

Sources:
     Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors (Park), v. 278-82
     Morris's The Lords Baltimore, 52-61.

Contributor: T. F. H. [Thomas Finlayson Henderson]

Published: 1886