James Bramston (c. 1694–1743) was an English poet who specialised in satire and parody. He was also a pluralist cleric of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Family

The son of Col. Francis Bramston, a guards officer, he was born at Skreens, near

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, and educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

.Mark Anthony Lower: ''The Worthies of Sussex: Biographical Sketches'' (1865), pp. 58–59
Retrieved 13 August 2017.
/ref> Sir John Bramston (1577–1654), Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was his great-grandfather.James Sambrook, "Bramston, James (1694? – 1743)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004
Retrieved 13 August 2017.
/ref>

Priesthood

Bramston took holy orders in the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church and was appointed Chaplain to the 2nd Dragoon Guards in 1721. By 1724 he was married, and in that year became Rector of

Lurgashall Lurgashall is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, 6.5 km (4 ml) north west of Petworth, just inside the South Downs National Park. The population at the 2011 Census was 609. History The church has ...

in 1724, then Vicar of neighbouring

Harting Harting is a civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is situated on the northern flank of the South Downs, around southeast of Petersfield in Hampshire. It comprises the village of South Harting and the hamlets of Eas ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

in 1725. He was reinstated at Lurgashall in 1739 and named Vicar of

Westhampnett Westhampnett (or West Hampnett) is a village and civil parish in the district of Chichester in West Sussex, England, located northeast of Chichester on the former A27 road, now by-passed. The village is pre-Norman and is home to many listed bui ...

, near

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ci ...

on the same day. He held these and some other preferments as a pluralist until his death. Bramston's legacy to Lurgashall Church partly paid for rebuilding the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

. He died on 22 December 1743 and was buried at

Chalton, Hampshire Chalton is a small English village and former civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire. It is in the civil parish of Clanfield, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north-east of Horndean and just east of the A3. The nearest railway station i ...

. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth.

Verses

Bramston's verses include ''The Art of Politics'' (1729), in imitation of

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

's '' Ars Poetica'', ("What's not destroy'd by Time's devouring Hand? Where's Troy, and where's the Maypole in the Strand?") and ''The Man of Taste'' (1733), in imitation of

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

("Sur loins and rumps of beef offend my eyes,/Pleas'd with frogs fricasseed and coxcomb pies.")Quoted in Marijka Meier Drees and Sonja de Leeuw (eds): ''The Power of Satire'' (John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2015), p. 252. . His ''Ignorami lamentatio super legis communis translationem ex Latino in Anglicum'' (1736), dedicated by "Ambi-dexter Ignoramus" to "Dulmannum", satirizes lawyers. It is written in

Dog Latin Dog Latin or cod Latin is a phrase or jargon that imitates Latin, often by "translating" English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them as if they were Latin words. Dog Latin is usually a humorous devi ...

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

s. He also parodied

John Philips John Philips (30 December 1676 – 15 February 1709) was an 18th-century English poet. Early life and education Philips was born at Bampton, Oxfordshire, the son of Rev. Stephen Philips, later archdeacon of Salop, and his wife Mary Wood. H ...

's "The Splendid Shilling" in "The Crooked Sixpence".

References

External links

James Bramston
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
* * * 1694 births 1743 deaths 18th-century English poets English male poets New Latin-language poets Church of England priests People educated at Westminster School, London Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford 18th-century English male writers {{England-writer-stub