The son of a saddler, Thomas Morell attended Eton (1715-21) before being admitted to King's College Cambridge on a scholarship 1722 (Fellow 1725-38, B.A. 1727, M.A. 1730, D.D. 1743). He was Curate of Kew (1731) perhaps Master of Kelvedon school until 1734, and Rector of Buckland, Hertfordshire (1737-84) — also F.S.A. (1737) and F.R.S. (1768). A scholar, librettist for Handel, and acquaintance of the Wartons, Morell was a neighbor of Thomson, Hogarth, and Garrick. He edited Chaucer; the old DNB, following Nichols and Chalmers, wrongly describes him as an editor of Spenser.
TEXT RECORDS:
1742To Mr. Thompson, on his unfinish'd Plan of a Poem, called The Castle of Indolence, in imitation of Spenser.
1746A New Occasional Oratorio.
PUBLICATIONS:
Poems on divine subjects, original and translated. 1732.
Canterbury Tales in the original ... and as they are turn'd into modern language by Dryden, Pope and other hands. 1737.
A sermon occasioned by the death of ... our late Gracious Queen. 1737.
The Christian's epinikion ... a paraphrase... of Paul. 1743.
Hope; a poetical essay on that Christian grace. 1745.
Judas Maccabeus, a sacred drama. 1746.
The use and importance of music in the sacrifice of thanksgiving. 1747.
Alexander Balus. An oratorio. 1748.
Euripidis Hecuba, Orestes et Phoenissae. 1748.
Hecuba translated from the Greek. 1749.
Solomon, an oratorio. 1749.
Theodora, an oratorio. 1750.
Jeptha, an oratorio. 1751?
Joshua. A sacred drama. 1752.
The charitable disposition of the present age. A sermon. 1753.
The triumph of time and truth. An oratorio [Pamfili, trans.] 1758.
Thesaurus Graecae Poesis. 2 vols, 1762.
Nabal, an oratorio. 1764.
Graecum lexicon manuale [Hederich, ed. Morell] 1766.
Aeschyli Prometheus vinctus. 1767.
The game of chess ... translated [Vida]. 1769.
Gideon, a new oratorio. 1769.
A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting of the Sons of the Clergy. 1772.
Gradus ad Parnassum ... novissimam hanc editionem recensuit. 1773.
Dictionary, Latin and English [Ainsworth, ed. Morell]. 1783.
The epistles of Seneca. 2 vols, 1786.
Index ad Sophoclem. 1787.
Notes and annotations on Locke on the human understanding. 1794.
Studies in history. 1813.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Eton College
King's College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Doctor of Divinity
Fellow of Society of Antiquaries
Fellow of the Royal Society
clergyman
schoolmaster
musician
antiquary
editor
translator
poet
dramatist
Gentleman's Magazine
William Cole
David Garrick
Handel
William Hogarth
George Lyttelton
James Thomson
Rev. Joseph Warton
Rev. Thomas Warton
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 54 (February 1784) 154; Gentleman's Magazine 67 (Supplement 1797) 1088; Poetical Register for 1804 (1805); Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Dr. Thomas Morell" Censura Literaria 3 (1807) 107-08; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15) 1:651-56; Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIII Century (1817-58); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Eton College Register, 1698-1752 (1927); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Thomas Morell:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Thomas Morell:
