Thomas Russell (1762July 31, 1788) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

poet born at Beaminster early in 1762. He was the son of John Russell, an attorney at Bridport, in

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

shire, and his mother was Miss Virtue Brickle, of Shaftesbury. He was educated at the grammar school of Bridport, and in 1777 proceeded to

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

, where he stayed three years, under Dr. Joseph Warton, and Thomas Warton, the professor of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

. In 1780 Russell became a member of New College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. He graduated B.A. in 1784 and was ordained priest in 1786. During his residence at the university he devoted himself to French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Provenal and even German literature. His health, however, broke down, and he retired to Bristol Hotwells to drink the waters; but in vain, for he died there from consumption on the 31st of July 1788. He was buried in Powerstock churchyard,

. In 1789 was published a thin volume, containing his ''Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems'', now a very rare book. It contained twenty-three

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

s, of regular form, and a few paraphrases and original lyrics. The sonnets are the best, and it is by right of these that Russell takes his place as one of the most interesting precursors of the romantic school. War, Love, the Wizard, and the Fay he sung in other words, he rejected entirely the narrow circle of subjects laid down for

18th century The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave tradi ...

poets. In this he was certainly influenced both by Chatterton and by Coffins. But he was still more clearly the disciple of

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, of Boccaccio and of Camoens, each of whom he had carefully and enthusiastically studied. His ''Sonnet Suppos'd to be Written at Lemnos'', is his masterpiece, and is unquestionably the greatest English sonnet of the 18th century. The anonymous editor of Russell's solitary volume is said to have been William Howley (1766–1848), long afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who was a youthful bachelor of New College when Russell, who had been his tutor, died. His memoir of the poet is very perfunctory, and the fullest account of Russell is that published in 1897 by

Thomas Seccombe Thomas Seccombe (1866–1923) was a miscellaneous English writer and, from 1891 to 1901, assistant editor of the ''Dictionary of National Biography'', in which he wrote over 700 entries. A son of physician and episcopus vagans John Thomas Se ...

References

Sources

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''Collection of Thomas Russell sonnets, edited by Howley in 1789''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Thomas 1762 births 1788 deaths 18th-century English clergy 18th-century English poets 18th-century deaths from tuberculosis English male poets People from Beaminster Alumni of New College, Oxford 18th-century English male writers Tuberculosis deaths in England