Author: Jenyns, Soame
Biography:
JENYNS, Soame (1704-87:ODNB)
Born in London, only child of Sir Roger Jenyns and his second wife, Elizabeth (née Soame), and raised on the family estate at Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, he was home tutored before attending St John’s College, Cambridge, while not feeling it necessary to complete a degree. Jenyns married Mary Soame (1726) and, subsequently, Elizabeth Gay, a cousin (1754), but had no children. In 1740 he inherited his wealthy father’s estate and sat as an MP, representing either the county or borough of Cambridge for most of that time, A diligent parliamentarian, he rarely spoke in the House, preferring committee work. A prolific versifier, his first work, a mock-heroic treatise on The Art of Dance, was published in 1729, but involvement in urban, political life produced a more satirical style, his imitations of Horatian odes providing amusing commentaries on current affairs. His work proved sufficiently popular for Dodsley to publish a collected edition (1752). A 1790, posthumous, collection reveals only a few pieces of verse written after 1770. Of these, a caustic epitaph for Dr Johnson (d. 1784), judged “Religious, moral, generous, and humane/He was; but self sufficient, proud, and vain,/Fond of, and overbearing in dispute,/A Christian, and a Scholar – but a Brute”, was doubtless prompted by Johnson’s criticism of Jenyns’ political and moral writings. These were expounded in such controversial pamphlets as A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757) and The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies, by the Legislature of Great Britain (1765). A paradoxical character, both as writer and politician, Jenyns sat in Parliament in the Whig interest while espousing conservative principles decidedly at variance with Whig philosophy. A landowner and supporter of the status quo, he ridiculed the contemporary call for change in his final pamphlet, Thoughts on a Parliamentary Reform (1784). Although Elizabeth Sheridan judged him “the most hideous mortal” she had ever seen, in 1757 Joshua Reynolds’ magic produced a portrait that Jenyns’ biographer, Rev. Mr Cole, described as “the most flattering Likeness I ever beheld.” Despite his appearance, Jenyns, witty, amusing, and polite, was popular in society, a particular favourite of Mrs Montagu’s Bluestocking Circle. He died in London on 18 Dec. 1787 and was buried at Holy Trinity church, Bottisham. (ODNB 23 July 2023; R. Rompkey, Soame Jenyns [1984]; S. Jenyns, The Works of Soame Jenyns, ed. C. N. Cole, vol. 1 [1790]). EC