John Jortin (1698–1770), a writer on theological subjects, was the son of a Protestant refugee from Brittany, and was born in London 23rd October 1698. In his tenth year he entered Charterhouse school, and in 1715 he became a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge, where his reputation as a Greek scholar led the classical tutor of his college to select him to translate certain passages from Eustathius for the use of Pope in his translation of Homer. He graduated B.A. in 1719 and M.A. in 1722. In the latter year he published a small volume of Latin verse entitled “Lusus Poetici.” Having received priest’s orders in 1724, he was in 1726 presented by his college to the vicarage of Swavesey in Cambridgeshire, an appointment which he resigned in 1730 to become preacher of a chapel in New Street, London. In 1731, along with some friends, he began a publication entitled “Miscellaneous Observations on Authors Ancient and Modern,” which appeared at intervals during two years. In 1737 he was presented to the vicarage of Eastwell in Kent, and in 1751 he became rector of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East. Shortly after becoming chaplain to the bishop of London in 1762, he was appointed to a prebendal stall of St. Paul’s, and to the vicarage of Kensington, and in 1764 he was made archdeacon of London. He died at Kensington, September 5, 1770. The principal works of Jortin are “Discussions Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion,” 1746; “Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,” 1751; “Life of Erasmus,” 2 vols., 1750, 1760, founded on the life by Le Clerc, but containing a large amount of new matter; and “Tracts Philological, Critical, and Miscellaneous,” 1790. All his works display great learning and some acuteness both of research and criticism, but though written in a lively style they do not bear that stamp of originality which confers permanent interest.

Personal

  He was a man of great learning, fine taste, and much vivacity of imagination, an accomplished critic, and a warm friend to the diffusion of sound knowledge.

  The fact was that Jortin was a scholar in every sense of the word; Warburton is none: and in the matter of the disagreement between them, Jortin shows as much above Warburton in magnanimity as he is in learning.

General

  Good sense and sound morality appear in them [Sermons], not, indeed, dressed out in the meretricious ornaments of a florid style, but in all the manly force and simple graces of natural eloquence…. Will always be read with pleasure and edification.

  Jortin’s sermons are very elegant.

  The ease, simplicity, and vigour of this engaging writer (I speak of the biographer), who negligently scatters learning and vivacity on every subject which he treats, are here [“Life of Erasmus”] exercised on a most congenial topic.

  As to Jortin, whether I look back to his verse, to his prose, to his critical or to his theological works, there are few authors to whom I am so much indebted for rational entertainment or for solid instruction.

  Once, and rarely more than once, he rose to eloquence; and that was in the preface of his “Remarks,” &c., which the late Dr. Gosset told me he regularly read through, every year, with undiminished delight…. They are excellent,—pithy, learned, candid, and acute; presenting us with the marrow of his predecessors.

  Critical [“Remarks on Ecclesiastical History”] but wanting in more important things.

  Besides being a writer of elegant sermons in an age when pulpit literature had greatly decayed, may be remembered as the author of various contributions to ecclesiastical history, in which he showed liberality of thought. Jortin was persistent and fairly successful in controversy with Warburton.

  Jortin’s “Erasmus,” based on the life by Jean Le Clerc, is a respectable piece of work, but has long been superseded. His five volumes of contributions to ecclesiastical history are still valuable, not merely for the store of curious material which they contain, illustrating the history of Christian ideas up to the Reformation, but for keen judgments of men and manners, and an engaging lightness of style, spiced with epigram. “Wit without ill-nature and sense without effort,” says Dr. Parr, “he could at will scatter upon every subject.” By John Hey and later writers Jortin is unduly decried as flippant. He thought and wrote like a cultured layman. Though he regarded the niceties of theological speculation as “trifles,” he treated them in detail, with a mind utterly disengaged from ecclesiastical bias. From one of his posthumous tracts it is clear that he interpreted the obligations of subscription in the laxest sense. His personal character was remarkably gentle and kindly. He was fond of music, and played the harpsichord.