The son of a Yorkshire clergyman, James Scott attended St. Catherine's College Cambridge (B.A. from Trinity, 1757, Fellow 1758, M.A. 1760, B.D. 1768, D.D. 1775); he won the Seatonian prize for poetry in 1760, 1761, and 1762. Scott was a lecturer at St John's, Leeds (1758-69), curate at Edmunton (1760-61), and rector of Simonburn, Northumberland (1771-91); he edited The Scrutator (1764) and in the Public Advertiser contributed political diatribes under the pseudonym "Anti-Sejanus." After Scott was given the Simonbourn (said to be worth £5000 p.a.) by the libertine Lord Sandwich, he engaged in a legal battle over tithes and was forced to flee when his parishioners attempted to murder him.
TEXT RECORDS:
1760Heaven: a Vision.
1761A Spousal Hymn, or an Address to his Majesty on his Marriage.
1761On Despair.
1761On Pleasure.
1761On Sleep.
1761To Friendship.
1761To Wisdom.
1762An Hymn to Repentance.
1763The Redemption: a Monody.
1763To the Right Honourable the Earl of Bute.
1767The Vanity of Human Life, a Monody.
PUBLICATIONS:
Heaven, a vision. 1760.
Odes on several subjects. 1761.
Purity of heart, a moral epistle. 1761.
A spousal hymn, or an address to his Majesty. 1761.
An hymn to repentance. 1762.
Every man the architect of his own fortune: or the art of rising in the church: a satire. 1763.
Redemption, a monody. 1763.
How far a state of dependence and a sense of gratitude should influence our conduct. A sermon. 1764.
The perils of poetry, an epistle to a friend. 1766.
A farewell sermon preached at Trinity Church in Leeds. 1769.
A sermon preached at the visitation held at Wakefield. 1769?
A sermon preached at Huntington. 1770.
Bethesda; or, the house of mercy. A sermon. 1777.
A sermon preached at York ... for the benefit of the lunatic assylum. 1780.
A sermon preached at York. 1781.
A sermon [on] the day appointed for a general fast. 1793.
Equality considered and recommended. A sermon. 1794.
Sermons on interesting subjects. 1816.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Bradford School
St. Catherine's College Cambridge
Trinity College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Bachelor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity
College Fellow
clergyman
editor
poet
journalist
The World
Public Advertiser
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); Gentleman's Magazine 53 (1783) 537, 710; Bell's Fugitive Poets (1789-97); Poetical Register for 1808-09 (1812); Nathan Drake, Essays illustrative of the Rambler (1810); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 84 (December 1814) 601-03; Annual Register for 1814 (1814) 140; obituary in Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature 10 (March 1815) 188-89; Gentleman's Magazine 86 (1816) 527-31; John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); memoir by S. Clapham in Scott, Sermons (1816); 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); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); Michael F. Suarez, ed., Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1997).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. James Scott:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. James Scott: