Richard Hurd

Bishop Richard Hurd (1720-1808). Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Bp. Richard Hurd (13 January 1720 - 28 May 1808) was an English poet, prose writer, and divine, who served as bishop of Worcester.

Life

Youth and education

Hurd was born at Congreve, in the parish of Penkridge, Staffordshire, where his father was a farmer, on 13 January 1720.

He was educated at the grammar-school of Brewood and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He earned a B.A. degree in 1739, and in 1742 he earned an M.A. and became a fellow of his college. In the same year he was ordained deacon, and given charge of the parish of Reymerston, Norfolk, but he returned to Cambridge early in 1743.

Career

Hurd was ordained a priest in 1744. In 1748 he published some Remarks on an Enquiry into the Rejection of Christian Miracles by the Heathens (1746), by William Weston, a fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

He prepared editions (which won the praise of Edward Gibbon) of the Ars poetica and Epistola ad Pisones (1749), and the Epistola ad Augustum (1751), of Horace. A compliment in the preface to the edition of 1749 was the starting-point of a lasting friendship with William Warburton, through whose influence he was appointed a preacher at Whitehall in 1750.

In 1765 he was appointed preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1767 he became archdeacon of Gloucester. In 1768 he received a D.D. from Cambridge, and delivered at Lincoln’s Inn the inaugural Warburton lectures, which were published in 1772 as An Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies concerning the Christian Church.

He became bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1774, and 2 years later was selected to be tutor to the prince of Wales and the duke of York. In 1781 he was translated to the see of Worcester. He lived chiefly at Hartlebury Castle, where he built a fine library, to which he transferred Alexander Pope’s and Warburton’s books, purchased on the latter’s death.

He edited the Works of William Warburton and the Select Works (1772) of Abraham Cowley, and left materials for an edition (6 volumes, 1811) of Joseph Addison.

Hurd was extremely popular at court, and in 1783, on the death of Archbishop Cornwallis, the king pressed him to accept the primacy; but Hurd (who was known, says Madame d’Arblay, as “The Beauty of Holiness”) declined it as a charge not suited to his temper and talents, and much too heavy for him to sustain.

He died, unmarried, on the 28th of May 1808.

Writing

Hurd's earliest literary effort took the shape of Remarks on a late Book [by William Weston] entitled "An Enquiry into the rejection of the Christian Miracles by the Heathens," London, 1746, 8vo.

In 1748 he contributed an English poem of very modest merit on the blessings of peace to the Gratulatio Academies Cantabrigiensis, published on the occasion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

In 1759 Hurd published a volume of Moral and Political Dialogues, in which he introduced historical personages as interlocutors. Henry More and Waller discourse 'On Sincerity in the Commerce of the World,' Cowley and Sprat 'On Retirement,' the Hon. Robert Digby, Arbuthnot, and Addison 'On the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth,' Sir John Maynard, Somers, and Burnet 'On the Constitution of the English Government.' The dialogues were much admired, although Johnson was offended by their 'wofully whiggish cast.'

Hurd's reputation was further enhanced by the publication in 1762 (London and Dublin, 8vo) of a volume of Letters on Chivalry and Romance by way of sequel to the dialogue 'On the Age of Elizabeth,' in which he discussed the origin of knight-errantry, and vindicated Gothic literature and art from the imputation of barbarism. Hurd’s Letters on Chivalry and Romance retain a certain interest for their importance in the history of the romantic movement, which they did something to stimulate.

2 dialogues 'On the Uses of Foreign Travel,' in which Shaftesbury and Locke were the speakers, followed in 1763, and a complete edition of the Dialogues' and 'Letters was published at Cambridge in 1765, 3 vols. 12mo.

Hurd wrote two acrimonious defences of Warburton: On the Delicacy of Friendship (1755), in answer to Dr J. Jortin; and a Letter (1764) to Dr Thomas Leland, who had criticized Warburton’s Doctrine of Grace.

Recognition

In 1768 Hurd received a Doctorate of Divinity from Cambridge.

An extract from his long poem "On the Peace of Aix La Chapelle" was included in Pearch's Collection of Poems in Four Volumes; by several hands.

Hurd's works appeared in a collected edition in 8 volumes in 1811.

Publications

Non-fiction

• On the Delicacy of Friendship. London: M. Cooper, 1755.
• A Letter to Mr. Mason: On the marks of imitation. Cambridge, UK: W. Thurlbourn & J. Woodyer, 1757.
• Moral and Political Dialogues; being the substance of several conversations between divers eminent persons of the past and present age. Dublin: Peter Wilson / Richard Watts, 1760.
• Letters on Chivalry and Romance. London: 1762
  • (edited by Hoyt Trowbridge). Los Angeles, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, 1983; Millwood, NY: Kraus Reprint, 1975
  • Hurd's Letters on chivalry and romance: with the third Elizabethan dialogue (edited by Edith J Morley). London: H. Frowde, 1911.
• Dialogues on the Uses of Foreign Travel. London, W.B. for A. Millar / W. Thurlbourn & J. Woodyer, Cambridge, 1764.
• A sermon preached before the Right Honorable the House of Lords. London: T. Cadell, 1786.
• An introduction to the study of the prophecies concerning the Christian church; ... in twelve sermons. London: J. Nichols, for T. Cadell, 1788.
• Moral and Political Dialogues; with Letters on chivalry and romance. London: T. Cadell, 1788.

Collected editions

• Works. (8 volumes), London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1811; New York: AMS Press, 1967. Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III, Vol. IV, Vol. V, Vol. VI, Vol. VII, Vol. VIII

Letters

• Correspondence of Richard Hurd and William Mason and Letters of Richard Hurd to Thomas Gray. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

References

 Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Hurd, Richard". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 958.  Wikisource, Web, July 17, 2020.

External links

Poems

• Richard Hurd at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive ("On the Peace of Aix La Chapelle")
• 'Dialogues of the Uses of Foreign Travel', (1764)

About

• Hurd, Richard in the Dictionary of National Biography