Author: JORTIN (John):
Title: Six Dissertations upon Different Subjects.
Description: London, Printed for J. Whiton, and B. White..., 1755. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 2015 x 125 mms., pp. [iv[, 324, contemporary calf, faded morocco label; joints cracked, top and base of spine chipped, binding a bit dried, with an the Oxford Bookplate of John Williams, 1783, on the front paste-down end-paper. with a note in his hand at the top margin of the recto of the front free end-paper indicating that he purchased the book in London for 10/6 in 1783; below that is the autograph of another Williams, dated 1823. John Jortin (1698 - 1770) was a gifted mathematician and musician, translator, classicist, essayist, and fine stylist, who seems never to have attracted the scholarly attention that he should have. The entry in ODNB by B. W. Young gives a short but an exemplary account of his literary career, recording in conclusion that his "writings enjoyed a considerable afterlife in the closing decades of the eighteenth century before falling into undeserved obscurity in the mid-nineteenth century; they offer an attractive insight into the workings of the literary and religious culture of the eighteenth century." Young comments that the dissertations here are on historical, moral, and legal matters, with the sixth dissertation describing the treatment of the dead by Homer and Virgil. His comments contradicted and thus irritated the easily-irritated William Warburton, whose disciple, Richard Hurd, attacked Jortin. In a spirit of true Christian charity, Warburton complimented Hurd on his attack: "next to the pleasure of seeing myself so finely praised, is the satisfaction I take in seeing Jortin mortified."

Keywords: essays CONTROVERSY prose


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