Rev. Richard Jago

The son of Richard Jago, rector of Beaudesert in Warwickshire, Richard Jago studied with at the grammar school at Solihull where he met his longtime friend William Shenstone (William Somervile was another friend). Jago entered University College Oxford as a servitor in 1732 (B.A. 1736, M.A. 1739). He was vicar of Kimcote (1746) before obtaining the living at Snitterfield (1754) from Lord Clare, afterwards Earl of Nugent. Jago contributed several poems to Dodsley's Collection; his once-famous elegy on blackbirds was published in The Adventurer as by Gilbert West.

TEXT RECORDS:

1758The Scavengers. A Town Eclogue. In the Manner of Swift.

PUBLICATIONS:

The causes of impenitence consider'd. 1755.
The nature and grounds of a Christian's happiness ... in death. A sermon. 1763.
Edge-Hill, or the rural prospect delineated and moralized: a poem. 1765.
Labor and genius: a fable. 1768.
Poems, moral and descriptive. 1784.
William Shenstone, Letters, ed. Marjorie Williamson. 1939.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Solihull Grammar School
University College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts

clergyman
poet

Joseph Cockfield
Rev. William Dodd
Robert Dodsley
Rev. Richard Graves
Charles Jennens
William Shenstone
William Somervile

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 51 (May 1781) 242; Annual Register for 1782 (1782) 179; Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); life by John Scott Hylton in Jago, Poems (1784); Bell's Fugitive Poets (1789-97); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Richard Jago" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 4 (25 February 1804) 60-62 [from Anderson]; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Henry Francis Cary, "Richard Jago" in London Magazine 6 (November 1822) 419-20; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature 3rd ed. (1876); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Wright, West-Country Poets (1896) 271-72; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); I. D. Lind, Jago: a Study in Eighteenth-Century Localism (1945); Butt, OHEL (1979); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Michael F. Suarez, ed., Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1997).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Richard Jago:

1.	1754  William Shenstone to Richard Graves, 15 July 1754; Letters, ed. Mallam (1939) 297.
2.	1766  Joseph Cockfield to Weeden Butler, 5 June 1766; in John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIII Century (1817-58) 5:766.
3.	1772  Anonymous, in "Catalogue of the most celebrated Writers" Letters concerning the present State of England (1772) 378.
4.	1804  Joseph Dennie, "Headnote to Life of Richard Jago" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 4 (25 February 1804) 60.
5.	1807  Robert Southey, in Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 3:199.
6.	1809  Nathan Drake, in Essays Illustrative of the Rambler (1809-10) 2:164-65.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Richard Jago:

1.	1781  Anonymous, Obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 51 (May 1781) 242.
2.	1782  Isaac Reed, in Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1782) 4:334n.
3.	1789  Anonymous, in Bell's Classical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry (1789-97) 8:176-77.
4.	1795  Robert Anderson, "The Life of Jago" Works of the British Poets (1795) 11:675-78
5.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 6:27-28.
6.	1810  Alexander Chalmers, in Works of the English Poets (1810) 17:281-83.
7.	1812  John Nichols, in Literary Anecdotes of the XVIII Century (1812-15) 3:50-51n.
8.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 564.
9.	1822  Henry Francis Cary, "Lives of the Poets: Richard Jago" London Magazine 6 (November 1822) 419-20.
10.	1876  Robert Carruthers, in Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature, 3rd ed. (1876; 1879) 3:191.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1751  William Shenstone:   Richard Jago, "To William Shenstone, on receiving a Gilt Pocket-Book" 1751; Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1757) 5:70-72.
2.	1780 ca.  Francis Quarles:   Richard Jago, "Hamlet's Soliloquy imitated" 1790 ca.; Knox, Elegant Extracts (1805) 2:757.