Robert Vansittart (December 28, 1728 - January 31, 1789) was an English law professor and antiquarian. He was also a notorious rake and an occasional poet.==Life==
Oxford in 1730. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Vansittart was born on 28 December 1728 in London at Great Ormond Street, the 2nd son of Arthur van Sittart of Shottesbrook, Berkshire, by his wife Martha, eldest daughter of Sir John Stonhouse, bart., of Radley, Berkshire, comptroller of the household to Queen Anne. Henry Vansittart, governor of Bengal, was his younger brother.[1]
Robert was educated at Reading and at Winchester.[1]
He matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, on 3 April 1745, was elected a fellow of All Souls' College, and earned a B.C.L. in 1751 and a D.C.L. in 1757.[1]
Career[]
In 1753 Vansittart was called to the bar by the society of the Inner Temple. On 17 May 1760 he was nominated high steward of Monmouth, in 1763 recorder of Maidenhead, in 1764 recorder of Newbury, and in 1770 recorder of Windsor.[1]
In 1767 he was appointed by the crown regius professor of civil law in the university of Oxford, a post which he held till his death. For some years previous to his appointment he had performed the duties of public orator for his predecessor, Robert Jenner.[1]
In person Vansittart was tall and very thin, and the members of the Oxford bar gave the name of ‘Counsellor Van’ to a sharp-pointed rock on the river Wye from a fancied resemblance (see Bloomfield, Banks of Wye, 1823, p. 23).[2] He was a close friend of painters George Knapton and William Hogarth, as well as with poets Paul Whitehead and William Cowper.[1]
He was a friend of Dr. Johnson, who regarded him with much affection, and who was invited to visit India with him by his brother Henry. In 1759, in a festive moment, Dr. Johnson, while on a visit to Oxford, proposed that they should scale the walls of All Souls' together. On another occasion, while Vansittart was edifying James Boswell with a lengthy story of a flea, Johnson burst in with "It is a pity, sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a time that a lion must have served you for a twelve-month."[1]
Vansittart, who was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 4 June 1767, amused his leisure with antiquarian studies. In the year of his election he edited Certain Ancient Tracts concerning the Management of Landed Property (London, 8vo), which consisted of reprints of Gentian Hervet's translation of Xenophon's Treatise of the Householde, 1534; Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Boke of Husbandry, 1534; and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Surveyinge, 1539.[1]
Vansittart was a man of licentious and debauched habits, and, like his brother Henry,[1] was a member of the ‘Franciscans of Medmenham,’ otherwise known as the ‘Hell-fire Club.’ To this society he presented with great pomp a baboon sent from India by Henry, to which Sir Francis Dashwood was accustomed to administer the eucharist at their meetings.[2]
Vansittart died at Oxford, unmarried, on 31 January 1789, and was buried in a vault in the chapel of All Souls' College.[2]
Recognition[]
Vansittart's ode on "The Pleasure of Poetry" was included in Dodsley's Collection of Poems in Six Volumes; by several hands.[3]
2 portraits of Vansittart exist: by Hogarth representing him as a young man, with a kerchief in the colors of the ‘Franciscans,’ wound in turban fashion over the head, embroidered with the motto ‘Love and Friendship;’ and by Sir Joshua Reynolds, depicting him in later life. Both were formerly in the Shottesbrook collection.[2]
In popular culture[]
Goethe named a character in a comedy after Vansittart, whom he had met in Italy.[2]
References[]
Carlyle, Edwin Irving (1899) "Vansittart, Robert" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 58 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 144-145 Wikisource, Web, May 2, 2021.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- Robert Vansittart at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive ("The Pleasure of Poetry: An ode")
- About
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Vansittart, Robert
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