Horace Keats echoed the opening of Horace's "Epodes" 14 in the opening lines of "Ode to a Nightingale". The Roman poet was presented in the nineteenth century as an honorary English gentleman. William Thackeray produced a version of "Odes" in which Horace's questionable 'boy' became 'Lucy', and Gerard Manley Hopkins translated the boy innocently as 'child'. Horace was translated by Sir Theodore Martin (biographer of Prince Albert) but minus some ungentlemanly verses, such as the erotic "Odes" and "Epodes" 8 and 12. Lord Lytton produced a popular translation and William Gladstone also wrote translations during his last days as Prime Minister.
Alexander Geddes on as far as the Book of Second Chronicles and the Prayer of Manasseh which was published in 2 volumes (1792–1797). A translation of "Psalms" was published in 1807. This was followed by "Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures" (1800), in which he largely anticipated the German school of Higher Criticism. The result of this publication was Geddes's suspension from all ecclesiastical functions. Geddes was also a poet, and wrote "Linton: a Tweedside Pastoral", "Carmen Seculare pro Gallica Gente" (1790), in praise of the French Revolution. He died without recanting, but received absolution at the hands of a French priest,