The son of Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls, William Temple was admitted fellow-commoner of Emmanuel College Cambridge where he was a student of Ralph Cudworth; he later served as a diplomat under Charles II, was Master of the Rolls, a member of the Irish Parliament, and the patron of Jonathan Swift, who later edited Temple's papers. Some of Temple's poetry is reprinted in Nichols, Select Collection (1780-84).
TEXT RECORDS:
PUBLICATIONS:
Upon the death of Mrs Catherine Philips. 1664.
Lettre d'un marchand de Londres a son amy a Amsterdam. 1666.
Poems by Sir W. T. 1670?
An essay upon the advancement of trade in Ireland. 1673.
Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands. 1673.
Miscellanies. 1680-1701.
Memoirs of what past in Christendom, from the war begun in 1672 to the peace concluded in 1679. 1692.
An essay upon taxes. 1693.
An answer to a scurrilous pamphlet. 1693.
An introduction to the history of England. 1659.
The temple of death. 1695.
Works. 2 vols, 1720.
Letters of Dorothy Osburne to William Temple, ed. G. C. M. Smith. 1928.
Early essays and romances, ed. G. C. M. Smith. 1930.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Emmanuel College Cambridge
Member of Parliament
courtier
diplomat
essayist
poet
historian
Dorothy Osborne
Katherine Philips
Rev. Jonathan Swift
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
[Portrait in Works]; Abel Boyer, Memoirs of the Life and Negotiations of Sir William Temple (1714); Lady Gifford (sister), Life and Character of William Temple (1728); Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 6:3915-23; "Life of William Temple" Universal Magazine 6 (April 1750) 161-69 [portrait]; John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); "Life of Sir William Temple" Literary Magazine and British Review 4 (February 1790) 81-88 [portrait]; "Life of Sir William Temple" Walker's Hibernian Magazine (April 1790) 326-32; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Blackwood's Magazine 15:549, 24:757; T. P. Courtney, Memoirs of the Life, Works and Correspondence, 2 vols (1836); Thomas Bablington Macaulay, "Sir William Temple" Edinburgh Review (1836); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); C. Marburg, Temple: Seventeenth-Century Libertine (1932); H. E. Woodbridge, Temple: the Man and his Work (1940); Bush, OHEL (1945).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Sir William Temple:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Sir William Temple:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)