, a truly great and original genius, is said by Dr. Burn to have
, a truly great and original genius, is said by Dr. Burn to have been the descendant of a family originally from Kirkby Thore in Westmoreland. His grandfather, a plain yeoman, possessed a small tenement in the vale of Bampton, a village about fifteen miles north of Kendal in that county, and had three sons. The eldest assisted his father in farming, and succeeded to his little freehold. The second settled in Troutbeck, a village eight miles north-west of Kendal, and was remarkable for his talent at provincial poetry. The third, Richard, educated at St. Bee’s, who had been a schoolmaster in the same county, went early to London, where he was employed as a corrector of the press, and appears to have been a man of some learning, a dictionary in Latin and English, which he composed for the use of schools, being still extant in manuscript. He married in London, and kept a school in Ship-court in the Old Bailey. The subject of the present article, and his sisters Mary and Anne, are believed to have been the only product of the marriage.