Author: Weston, Stephen
Biography:
WESTON, Stephen (1747-1830: ODNB)
Pseudonym Terrae Filius
Born in Exeter in Devon, he was privately baptised on 8 June 1747 and received into the Church at Exeter Cathedral on 10 July, the son of Stephen Weston, registrar of Exeter, and his wife Elizabeth Oxenham. His grandfather Stephen Weston (1665-1742) had been bishop of Exeter. He was educated at Eton and at Exeter College, Oxford (matric. 1764, BA 1768, Fellow 1768-84, MA 1770, BD 1782). After ordination as deacon (1776) and priest (1777), he held the livings of Mamhead (1777-90) and of Little Hempston alias Arundel (1784-1823), both in Devon. Weston, as a tutor, accompanied a young gentleman on his Grand Tour and developed an appetite for travel on the Continent that is reflected in much of his later work. On 11 July 1784 at St. James, Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire, he married Penelope Tierney (b 1758) and gave up his college fellowship. They had no children and she died of consumption at Caen, France, perhaps early in 1790: her will was proved in July 1790. (Her husband’s translation of Florian, q.v., was published at Caen in 1789.) Weston was a thorough scholar of ancient, modern, and Oriental languages, and a prodigious author on a very wide range of subjects. He published three prose accounts of Paris, the first written while he was there in 1791 during the Revolution (1792) and others in 1803 and 1814. The Englishman Abroad (1824) is an anthology of translations covering authors from Greece, Italy, Persia, China, Russia, Germany, France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal. There were scores of contributions to such journals as Archaeologia and the Classical Journal. Having been a silent contributor to editions of Shakespeare in 1785 and 1793, he published further Short Notes on Shakespeare in 1808. He was elected FRS and FSA in 1792 and 1794 respectively, and proudly displayed his honours on later title-pages. He was one of the contributors to the Society of Antiquaries’ report on the Rosetta Stone in 1812. He died at his home in London on 8 Jan. 1830. (ODNB 9 May 2024; ancestry.com 9 May 2024; findmypast.com 9 May 2024; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 9 May 2024; LES 11 Jan. 1830) HJ
Other Names:
- S. Weston