Rev. James Hervey

The son of a clergyman, James Hervey was educated at the Northampton grammar school and Lincoln College Oxford, where he was a classmate of John Wesley. He was curate at Dummer in Hampshire, chaplain to Paul Orchard of Stoke Abbey in Devonshire (1738) and curate at Bideford, Devon (1740). Hervey later held his father's livings at Weston Favell and Colingtree, and took his M.A. from Clare Hall Cambridge (1752). While there was a falling-out with Wesley, Hervey's own publications proved immensely popular with evangelical readers, the Meditations reaching a 25th edition by 1791.

TEXT RECORDS:

1756 ca.[Spenser too lubricious.]
1758[On a new Edition of Giles and Phineas Fletcher.]

PUBLICATIONS:

Meditations among the tombs. 1746.
Meditations and contemplations. 2 vols, 1748.
Remarks on Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the study and use of history. 1752.
Theron and Aspasio: or a series of dialogues and letters. 3 vols, 1753.
A collection of the letters of James Hervey, to which is prefixed an account of his life and death. 2 vols, 1760.
Sermons and miscellaneous tracts. 1764.
Works of the late reverend James Hervey. 6 vols, 1769.
The life of James Hervey, to which is added a collection of his letters. 1770.
Letters ... illustrative of the author's character, never before published, by James Hervey. 1811.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Northampton school
Lincoln College Oxford
Clare College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts

clergyman
poet
essayist

Samuel Boyse
Rev. Moses Browne
Dr. Nathaniel Cotton
Rev. John Ogilvie
Samuel Richardson
Rev. John Wesley

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

John Ogilvie?, "To the Memory of Mr. Hervey" Scots Magazine 21 (January 1759) 35; Life by Thomas Birch in Hervey, Letters (1760); "Life of James Hervey" Edinburgh Magazine 4 (September 1760) 453-58; "Mr. Hervey's Epitaph" Gentleman's Magazine 66 (June 1796) 488-89; John Foster, "Hervey's Letters" Eclectic Review 14 (1811); Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Cole, Herveiana, or graphic and literary sketches, illustrative of the life and writings of Rev. James Hervey (1823); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Boase and Courtney, Bibliotheca Cornubiensis (1874-82) 1:236, 3:1229; Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature 3rd ed. (1876); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Alan D. McKillip, "Nature and Science in the Works of Hervey" SE 28 (1949); F. Baker, "Hervey, Methodist Prose Poet" London Quarterly 182 (1957); L. E. Porter, "Hervey: a bicentenary Appreciation" Evangelical Quarterly 31 (1959); Jim Corder, "Limitations of Nature in the Landscapes of Hervey" Notes and Queries (January 1965).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. James Hervey:

1.	1748  Countess of Hertford to Lady Luxborough, 1748; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:397.
2.	1748  William Shenstone to Lady Luxborough, 16 June 1748; Letters, ed. Mallam (1939) 109.
3.	1748  Anonymous, "To a Lady with Hervey's Meditations, &c." British Magazine 3 (March 1748) 128.
4.	1749 ca.  Samuel Boyse to James Hervey, 1749 ca.; Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:251.
5.	1749  R. C., "Written before Mr. Hervey's Meditations" Gentleman's Magazine 19 (January 1749) 38.
6.	1749  John Duick, "To Mr. Hervey on his Meditations" Gentleman's Magazine 19 (September 1749) 422.
7.	1753  N. N., "On Reading Mr. Hervey's Meditations, in the West Indies" 1753; London Magazine 23 (January 1754) 39-40.
8.	1755 ca.  Matilda, "To the Rev. Mr. James Hervey (written some Years before his Death)" 1755 ca.; London Chronicle (20 August 1765) 174.
9.	1758 ca.  John Jones, "Mr. James Hervey" 1758 ca.; Gentleman's Magazine 53 (February 1783) 103.
10.	1758  J. B., "On Mr. Hervey's Theron and Aspasio" London Magazine 27 (August 1758) 422-23.
11.	1759  John Ogilvie, in "To the Memory of the late pious and ingenious Mr. Hervey" Scots Magazine 21 (January 1759) 35.
12.	1759  Anonymous, "Epitaph on the Rev. Mr. James Hervey" Edinburgh Magazine 3 (January 1759) 30-31.
13.	1760  Anonymous, "Lines on Hervey" London Chronicle (23 August 1760) 189.
14.	1760  Anonymous, "On the Death of the late Rev. Mr. Hervey, Author of the Meditations, &c." Royal Magazine 2 (January 1760) 44.
15.	1765  C. S., "Inscription under a Bust of the celebrated Mr. Hervey, in a Gentleman's Arbour near Edinburgh" Newcastle Journal (20 April 1765).
16.	1773  Samuel Johnson, 24 October 1773; Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791); ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 5:400-01.
17.	1783  Hugh Blair, in Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) 2:385.
18.	1789  W., Note on James Hervey; European Magazine 15 (February 1789) 99.
19.	1811  G. J., "The Two Herveys" St. James's Chronicle (17 January 1811).
20.	1815  Anonymous, in John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15) 9:488-89.
21.	1817  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Biographia Literaria (1817); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:397.
22.	1823  Rev. Charles Burton, in The Bardiad; a Poem (1823) pp. 8, 64-67n.
23.	1828  Leigh Hunt, in "Pocket-Books and Keepsakes" The Keepsake (1828) 10.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. James Hervey:

1.	1796  A Relation, "Mr. Hervey's Epitaph" Gentleman's Magazine 66 (June 1796) 488-89.
2.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 17:413-16.
3.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:325-26.
4.	1876  Robert Carruthers, in Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature, 3rd ed. (1876; 1879) 4:328.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1730 ca.  Rev. Isaac Watts:   James Hervey, "Written in a Blank Leaf of Dr. Watts's Lyric Poems (being a Present to a Lady)" 1730 ca.; Universal Magazine 29 (Supplement, 1761) 166.
2.	1747  Samuel Richardson:   James Hervey to Samuel Richardson, 3 November 1747; Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, ed. Barbauld (1804) 2:180-82.
3.	1749  Samuel Boyse:   James Hervey, 7 June 1749; Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:249.
4.	1750  Rev. Moses Browne:   James Hervey to Moses Browne, 1750 ca.; Hervey, Works (1760; 1802) 6:87-88.
5.	1752  Dr. Nathaniel Cotton:   James Hervey, 1752 ca.; in Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:39-40.
6.	1752 ca.  Rev. William Thompson:   James Hervey, 1752 ca.; Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:123-24.
7.	1756 ca.  Dr. John Armstrong:   James Hervey, 1756 ca.; in Works (1769; 1802) 6:295.
8.	1756 ca.  Rev. William Mason:   James Hervey, 1756 ca.; in Collection of Letters of James Hervey (1760) 2:191-92.