Author: Warton, Thomas
Biography:
WARTON, Thomas (1728-90: ODNB)
Although many of them had been composed and published earlier, the collected editions of Warton’s poems that began appearing in 1777 and that included some recent or previously unpublished work had a direct influence on later generations of writers, even as his literary scholarship established standards for historians and editors after him. Thomas Warton, son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Richardson) Warton, was born on 9 Dec. 1728 and baptised on 25 Dec. at Basingstoke, Hampshire, where his father was the vicar. Both his father and his elder brother Joseph (1722-1800) also wrote poetry, and his father gave him his early education. On 16 Mar. 1744 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, where he spent the rest of his life (matric. 1744, BA 1747, MA 1750, Fellow, BD 1767). He took orders in 1754 and held various livings, mainly in Oxfordshire (Woodstock, 1755-74; Kiddington, 1771-90) but he devoted most of his time and energy to writing from his student days onward. His verses began to appear in 1745. He and his brother Joseph in 1748 joined in editing a posthumous volume of poems by their father to which they added, anonymously, some poems of their own. He contributed essays and verses to many anthologies, periodicals, and works of reference. His most notable publications were his Observations on Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1754, rev. ed 1762), The Oxford Sausage (anonymously 1764), The History of English Poetry (3 vols. of a projected 4, 1774-81), a decisive rejection of the Rowley poems by Chatterton (q.v.) (1782), and an edition of Milton’s Poems on Several Occasions (1785). He was elected professor of poetry at Oxford (1757-67), FSA (1771), Camden Professor of History at Oxford (1785-90), and Poet Laureate (1785-90). According to the contemporary newspaper reports he died on 19 (not 20) May 1790 “of a paralytic stroke which had been preceded by a lingering indisposition.” The stroke happened in the Senior Common Room of Trinity and he was buried on 27 May in the ante-chapel of the College. He died unmarried, leaving his papers and effects to his brother Joseph. (ODNB 23 Apr. 2024; findmypast.com 23 Apr. 2024; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 23 Apr. 2024; Derby Mercury 20 May 1790)
Other Names:
- T. Warton