Author: Dunster, Charles
Biography:
DUNSTER, Charles (1750-1816: ODNB)
pseudonym Marmaduke Milton
Dunster was baptized on 25 July 1750 in Worcestershire, the son of Mary (Inett) Dunster (1719-1786) and her husband, the Rev. Charles Dunster (1719-1750), prebendary of Grimston and Yatminster, Salisbury Cathedral. A shy and bashful student of moderate ability, his earliest teacher was the Rev. Samuel Pritchett, rector of Knightwick. From there, he attended his grandfather’s school, Westminster, in 1754-65. He matriculated, Feb. 1767, at Oriel College, Oxford (BA 1770), migrated to Balliol in 1771, and, two years, later to Trinity (MA 1775). Ordained deacon in 1772 and priest in 1774, he was curate of Aylton in 1772; from 1774 domestic chaplain to the third earl of Egremont (an Old Westminster); rector of Oddingley (1776-89); of Naunton Beauchamp (1776); of Mordiford (1777-87); of Stoke Edith with West Hide (1787-88); and, concurrently from 1789 to his death, of Tillington, Sussex, and Petworth, Sussex. He resided for most of his life at New Grove, Petworth. On 30 May 1782, at All Saints, Hereford, he married Mary Brydges (1756-1828), the daughter of the Rev. John Brydges, vicar of Much Cowarne, and his wife, Elizabeth (Haylings) Brydges. Their only child did not survive infancy. In 1784, he published a translation of Aristophanes’ The Frogs and in 1791 an edition of John Philips’s poem Cyder. He was an informed reader of Milton, as evidenced in his Considerations on Milton’s Early Reading (1800) and his influential 1795 variorum Paradise Regained (1795; reissued 1800), a copy of which may have been read by William Blake (q.v.). St. James's Street, a poem, in blank verse. By Marmaduke Milton (1790) is attributed to him. His several Biblical textual studies left no mark. His circle included William Combe, Edmund Lechmere, Deane Swift, and Theophilus Swift (qq.v.). Following a lingering illness, he died in Apr. 1816 and was buried at Petworth. (ODNB 25 May 2023; CCEd 25 May 2023; PROB 11/1582; PROB 11/1750; Oxford Journal, 27 Nov. 1784; Westminster School GB-2014-WSA-00574; J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes [1815], 9:236; New Monthly Magazine [June 1816], 465; GM [1816], 472; J. Chambers, Biographical Illustrations [1820], 551-61; T. Festa, “Dunster, Todd and the Making of the Variorum Paradise Regained,” N&Q [Sep 2011], 434-37) JC