Thomas Edwards (18th century)

This article is about the 18th-century English poet and critic. For the 16th-century English poet, see Thomas Edwards (16th century).

Thomas Edwards (1699-1757). Courtesy Eighteenth Century Poetry Archive.

Thomas Edwards (1699 - 3 January 1757) was an English poet and literary critic, best known for a controversy with William Warburton over the latter's editing of Shakespeare.

Life

Youth and education

Edwards was born in 1699. We learn from his sonnet upon 'a family picture' that all his 4 brothers and 4 sisters died before him.

His father and grandfather had been barristers, and Edwards, after a private education, was entered at Lincoln's Inn, where he took chambers in 1721. A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine (lii. 268) states, upon the alleged authority of Edwards himself, that he was educated at Eton, and elected to a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge, and was allowed to retain his fellowship after accepting a commission in the army. However, Edwards was never at Eton or King's College, and was probably never in the army.

Adult life

His father dying when Edwards was a young man, he inherited a good estate. He preferred literature to law, and resided chiefly upon his paternal estate at Pitshanger, Middlesex.

In 1739 he bought an estate at Turrick, Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, where he lived from 1740 till his death.

Edwards & Warburton

Edwards is chiefly known by his controversy with William Warburton. Edwards is said to have originally attacked Warburton in a Letter to the Author of a late Epistolary Dedication addressed to Mr. Warburton, 1744.

In 1747, upon the appearance of Warburton's edition of Shakespeare, Edwards published a Supplement,' which professes to carry out a plan which Warburton (as he said in his preface) had once contemplated, of giving explicitly his "Canons of Criticism." Edwards satirically remedied the omission by providing an intentionally absurd code of criticism, illustrated with examples from Warburton's notes. It is a very brilliant exposure of Warburton's grotesque audacities.

The Supplement reached a 3rd edition in 1748, and was then called The Canons of Criticism; and a Glossary; being a Supplement to Mr. Warburton'd edition of Shakspear, collected from the Notes in that celebrated work and proper to be bound up with it. By the other Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn. The 1st Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn was Philip Carteret Web, who published a pamphlet under that name in 1742. The Canons of Criticism reached a 6th edition in 1758 and a 7th edition in 1765. Johnson, who had a kindness for Warburton, admits that Edwards made some good hits, but compares him to a fly stinging 'a stately horse' (Croxer, Boswell, ii. 10). Edwards's assault was "allowed (as Warton says) by all impartial critics to have been decisive and judicious."

Warburton retorted by a note in a fresh edition of the Dunciad, referring to him as "a gentleman, as he is pleased to call himself, of Lincoln's Inn; but, in reality, a gentleman only of the Dunciad", who "with the wit and learning of his ancestor Tom Thimble in The Rehearsal, and with the air of good-nature and politeness of Caliban in The Tempest, hath now happily finished the Dunce's progress, in personal abuse". This greatly annoyed Edwards, who took it for an attack upon his gentility, and replied indignantly in a preface to later editions. Warburton disavowed this meaning, but in very offensive terms, in further notes. Other opponents of Warburton naturally sympathised with Edwards, and Akenside addressed an ode to him upon the occasion.

Later years

Edwards had a large number of literary friends, with whom he kept up a correspondence. Among them were R.O. Cambridge, Thomas Birch, Isaac Hawkins Browne, Arthur and George Onslow, Daniel Wray, and Samuel Richardson. Many of his letters are printed in the 3rd volume of Richardson's correspondence. 6 volumes of copies of his letters now in the Bodleian Library include these, with unpublished letters to Richardson, Wilkes, and others. Richard Roderick, F.R.S. and F.S.A., of Queens' College, Cambridge, was another close friend, who helped him in the Canons of Criticism.

Edwards died 3 Jan. 1757 while visiting Richardson at Parson's Green. He was buried in Ellesborough churchyard, where there is an epitaph by his 'two nephews and heirs, Joseph Paice and Nathaniel Mason.'

Writing

Edwards was a writer of sonnets, of which about 50 are collected in the last editions of the Canons of Criticism, many from Dodsley's and Pearch's collections. They are of very moderate excellence, but interesting as being upon the Miltonic model, and attempts at a form of poetry which was then entirely neglected. Among them is an answer to an ode from the "sweet linnet,'" Mrs. Chapone. Most of the others are complimentary addresses to his acquaintance.

To the Canons of Criticism (1758) is annexed an "Account of the Trial of the letter y, alias Y." He also wrote a tract, published after his death, called Free and Candid Thoughts on the Doctrine of Predestination, 1761. It "contained nothing new."

Recognition

Edwards was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries 20 October 1745.

13 of his sonnets were included in Dodsley's Collection of Poems in Six Volumes; by several hands, and an additional 8 in Pearch's Collection of Poems in Four Volumes; by several hands.

Publications

Poetry

• Sonnets. London: C. Bathurst, 1758.
  • Sonnets (edited by Dennis G. Donovan). Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, 1974.

Non-fiction

• A Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakepear. London: M. Cooper, 1748.
  • The Canons of Criticism; and glossary: Being a supplement to Mr. Warburton's edition of Shakespeare; to which are added The trial of the letter [upsilon], alias Y; and Sonnets. London: C. Bathurst, 1765; New York: A.M. Kelley, 1970.
• An Account of the Trial of the Letter y alias Y. London: William Owen, 1753.
• Free and Candid Thoughts on the Doctrine of Predestination. London: J. Noon / J. Buckland / J. Johnson, 1761.
• The Scripture Doctrine of Predestination Explained and Vindicated. London: J. Buckland / E. Dilly / J. Henderson / T. Toft, 1762.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Stephen, Leslie (1889) "Edwards, Thomas (1699-1757)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 17 London: Smith, Elder, p. 129  . Wikisource, Web, June 10, 2016.

External links

Poems

• "Sonnet on a Family Picture" at Poetry Nook
• Thomas Edwards (1699-1757) info & 10 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• Thomas Edwards at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (21 sonnets)

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: Edwards, Thomas (1699-1757)