Rev. Henry More

The youngest of twelve children, Henry More studied at Eton and Christ's College Cambridge in 1631 (B.A. 1636, M.A. 1639, D.D. 1661). More corresponded with Descartes and was one of the Cambridge Platonists; he twice turned down the offer of a bishopric. Joseph Beaumont, another Cambridge Spenserian, was, it is said, elected Professor of Divinity for challenging More's Mystery of Godliness (1665). More was one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society (1664). There is no evidence that he was a friend of Milton, as was once assumed.

TEXT RECORDS:

1642Psychodia Platonica. Canto II.
1642Psychodia Platonica. Canto III.
1642Psychodia Platonica. Psychozoia.
1642To his dear Father Alexander More, Esquire.
1646Cupid's Conflict.
1646Democritus Platonissans.
1647Antimonospsychia or the Fourth Part of the Song of the Soul.
1647Antipsychopannychia or the third Book of the Song of the Soul.
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book I Canto 2.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book I Canto 3.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book II Canto 1.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book II Canto 2; Book III Canto I.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book III Canto 2.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book III Canto 3.]
1647Immortality of the Soul. [Book III Canto 4.]
1647Insomnium Philosophicum.
1647Psychathanasia or the second Part of the Song of the Soul.
1647The Praeexistency of the Soul.
1647The Sleep of the Soul. [Canto II.]
1647The Sleep of the Soul. [Canto III.]
1653Conjectura Cabbalistica.
1660An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness.
1662The Defence of the Moral Cabbala.
1664The Apology of Dr. Henry More.

PUBLICATIONS:

Psychodia Platonica: or a Platonicall song of the soul, consisting of four severall poems. 1642.
Democritus platonissans: or an essay upon the infinity of worlds out of Platonick principles. 1646.
Philosophical poems. 1647.
Observations upon Anthroposophia theomagica and Anima magica abscondita. 1650.
The second lash of Alazonomastix. 1651.
An antidote against atheism: or an appeal to the natural faculties of the mind of man. 1652; 1655.
Conjectura cabbalistica: or a conjectural essay of interpreting the mind of Moses. 1653.
Enthusiasmus triumphatus. 1656.
The immortality of the soule, so farre forth as it is demonstrable. 1659.
An explanation of the grand mystery of godliness. 1660.
Free-Parliament proposed to tender consciences. 1660.
A collection of several philosophical writings. 1662.
A modest enquiry into the mystery of iniquity. 1664.
Epistola H. Mori ad V. C. quae apologiam complecitur pro Cartesio. 1664.
Enchiridion ethicum. 1667; trans., 1690.
Divine dialogues, containing sundry disquisitions & instructions. 1668; 1713; 3 vols, 1743.
An exposition of the seven epistles to the seven churches; together with a brief discourse of idolatry. 1669.
Philosophiae teutonicae censura. 1670.
Enchiridion metaphysicum. 1671.
A brief reply to a late Answer to Dr Henry More. 1672.
Henrici Mori cantabrigiensis opera. 3 vols, 1675-79.
Remarks upon two late ingenious discourses. 1676.
Aditus tentatus rationem reddendi nominum et ordinis decem sephirotharum. 1677.
Apocalypsis Apocolypseos: or the Revelation of St John the Divine unveiled. 1680.
A plain and continued exposition of the several prophecies or divine visions of the Prophet Daniel. 1681.
Tetractys anti-astrologia, or, the four chapters in the explanation of the grand mystery of Godliness. 1681.
Two choice and useful treatises. 1682.
An answer to several Remarks upon Dr Henry More. 1684.
An illlustration of ... the Book of Daniel, and the Revelation. 1685.
Paralipomena prophetica; containing several supplements and defences of Henry More. 1685.
A brief discourse of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. 1686.
The theory and regulation of love ... to which are added letters philosophical and moral between the author [John Norris] and Dr. Henry More. 1688.
Dicourses on several texts of Scripture. 1692.
Letters on several subjects. 1694.
A collection of aphorisms, in two parts. 1704.
Divine hymns. 1706.
Theological works. 1708.
Complete poems, ed. A. B. Grosart. 1878.
Philosophical writings, ed. Flora Isabel Mackinnon. 1925.
Philosophical poems, ed. Geoffrey Bullough. 1931.
The immortality of the soul, ed. Alexander Jacob. 1987.
Platonick song of the soul, ed. Alexander Jacob. 1998.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Eton College
Christ's College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Doctor of Divinity
Fellow of the Royal Society

clergyman
tutor
poet
essayist

John Aubrey
Rev. Nathaniel Ingelo

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

[Portrait in Opera Theologica (1675)]; Richard Ward, The life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More (1710), ed. M. F. Howard (1911); Biographia Britannica (1747-66); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; William Preston, "Psychodia Platonica" Censura Literaria 3 (1807) 3:40-42; Robert Southey, "Henry More's Song of the Soul" in Omniana (1812) 2:155-77; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Retrospective Review 5 (1822) 223-38; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Robert Aris Willmott, in English Sacred Poets (1834; 1839); Robert Aris Willmott, "The Destruction in 1643. Henry More and Joseph Beaumont" in Conversations at Cambridge (1836) 219-34; Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); T. Parker, "Dr. Henry More" The Christian Examiner 26 (1839); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Edward S. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (1850); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Richard Ward, The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr. Henry More, ed. M. F. Howard (1911); Marjorie Hope Nicholson, "More's Psychozoia" Modern Language Notes 37 (1922) 141-48; Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Marjorie Hope Nicholson, Conway Letters (1930); Geoffrey Bullough, ed., The Philosophical Poems of Henry More (1931); Bush, OHEL (1945); Roberta Florence Brinkley, ed., "Henry More" in Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century (1955); Ahron Lichtenstein, Henry More (1962); C. C. Brown, in Review of English Studies 20 (1969) 445-54; Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); Frederic B. Burnham, "The More-Vaughan Controversy: The Revolt Against Philosophical Enthusiasm" Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (1974) 33-49; William B. Hunter, The English Spenserians (1977); Noel L. Brann, "The Conflict between Reason and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England: A Case Study of the Vaughan-More Debate" Huntington Library Quarterly 43 (1980) 103-26; Arlene Miller Guinsberg, "Henry More, Thomas Vaughan and the Late Renaissance Magical Tradition" Ambix 27 (1980) 35-58; George Klawitter, "The Poetry of Henry More" (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1981); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Alexander Jacob, "Henry More's 'A Platonick Song of the Soul': A Critical Study" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1988); A. R. Hall, Henry More: Malic, Religion, and Experiment (1990); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Platonick Song of the Soul, ed. Alexander Jacob (1998) [bibliography].

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Henry More:

1.	1709  John Reynolds, in Death's Vision (1709) 3-5.
2.	1715  Gilbert Burnet, in Bishop Burnet's History of his own Time (1715; 1823) 1:322.
3.	1757  Richard Hurd, in Letter to Mr. Mason on the Marks of Imitation (1757) 21-22.
4.	1763  Anonymous, in Biographia Britannica (1763) 6:3807.
5.	1772  Samuel Johnson, 1772; Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791); ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 2:186.
6.	1783  Hugh Blair, in Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) 2:296.
7.	1791  Isaac D'Israeli, in "Modern Platonism" Curiosities of Literature (1791; 1866) 810.
8.	1812  Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 24 December 1812; Selections from the Letters, ed. Warter (1856) 2:312.
9.	1814  George Dyer, in History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1814) 2:216.
10.	1820 ca.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebook 18, p. 302; Brinkley, Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century (1955) 617-18.
11.	1820  Charles Lamb to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1820; Works of Charles Lamb, ed. Lucas (1903-05) 6:544.
12.	1822  Anonymous, in Retrospective Review 5 (1822) 224-5.
13.	1824  James Silk Buckingham?, "The Retrospective Review" in Oriental Herald and Colonial Review 2 (August 1824) 495.
14.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 58-59.
15.	1828  John Wilson, et. al., in Blackwood's Magazine (November 1828); Noctes Ambrosianae, ed. Mackenzie (1854) 3:139.
16.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in English Sacred Poets (1834; 1839) 1:337.
17.	1836  Richard Cattermole, in Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836) 2:255.
18.	1842  C. H. Timperley, in Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote (1842) 2:570.
19.	1859  David Masson, in Life of John Milton (1859-94; 1965) 6:305.
20.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 2:219-22.
21.	1868  George Macdonald, in England's Antiphon (1868; 1890) 223.
22.	1881  George Saintsbury, in History of Elizabethan Literature (1887) 379.
23.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 105.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Henry More:

1.	1690  Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91) ed. Bliss (1815) 3:724.
2.	1769  James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 5:46-47.
3.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 22:352-57.
4.	1814  George Dyer, in History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1814) 2:216.
5.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 297.
6.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in Lives of Sacred Poets (1834) 326-34.
7.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:452-53.
8.	1850  Edward S. Creasy, "Henry More" Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (1850) 137-45.
9.	1878  Alexander B. Grosart, in "Introduction" Complete Poems of Dr. Henry More (1878) ix-xxix.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1653 ca.  Rev. Thomas Vaughan:   Henry More to Lady Conway (1653 ca.); Conway Letters, ed. Nicholson (1930) 75.
2.	1661  Rev. Nathaniel Ingelo:   Henry More to Lady Conway, 14 September 1661; Conway Letters, ed. Nicholson (1930) 192-93.
3.	1664 ca.  Rev. Joseph Beaumont:   Henry More to Lady Conway (ca. 1664-65); Conway Letters, ed. Nicholson (1930) 233.
4.	1671  Dr. Henry Stubbe:   Henry More to Lady Conway, 14 March 1670-71; Conway Letters, ed. Nicholson (1930) 327.