Born, at East Ruston, Norfolk, 25 Dec. 1759. Early education at village schools, and by the curate of the parish. At Eton, Aug. 1774 to 1778. To Trin. Coll., Camb., Oct. 1778; Scholar, 1780; Craven Scholar, 1781; B A., 1782; Chancellor’s Prize Medal, 1782; Fellow of Trin. Coll., 1782; M.A., 1785. Obliged to give up Fellowship, owing to his not having taken holy orders, July 1792. Annuity purchased for him by his friends. Settled in rooms in the Temple, 1792. Regius Prof. of Greek, Cambridge, Nov. 1792. Continued to reside in London. Pursued classical studies. Contrib. to “Maty’s Review,” “Gentleman’s Mag.,” “Monthly Review,” “Morning Chronicle,” etc. Married Mrs. Lunan, Nov. 1796; she died, 12 April 1797. Principal Librarian of newly-founded London Institution, April 1806. Died, in London, 25 Sept. 1808. Buried in chapel of Trin. College, Cambridge. Works: “Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis” (from “Gentleman’s Mag.”), 1790; Edition of Toup’s “Emendationes in Suidam,” 1790; Edition (anon.) of Æschylus, 1794; Editions of Euripides’ “Hecuba,” 1797, “Orestes,” 1798, “Phœnissæ,” 1799, and “Medea,” 1801; Edition of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” (with Grenville and others), 1800. Posthumous: “Ricardi Porsoni Adversaria,” ed. by J. H. Monk and C. J. Blomfield, 1812; “Tracts and Miscellaneous Criticisms,” ed. by T. Kidd, 1815; “Aristophanica,” ed. by P. P. Dobree, 1820; Edition of the “Lexicon of Photius,” ed. by P. P. Dobree (2 vols.), 1822; “The Devil’s Walk,” ed. by H. W. Montagu [1830]; “Correspondence,” ed. by H. R. Luard, 1867.

Personal

  I have been furnished with many opportunities of observing Porson, by a near inspection. He has been at my house several times, and once for an entire summer’s day. Our intercourse would have been frequent, but for three reasons: 1. His extreme irregularity, and inattention to times and seasons, which did not at all comport with the methodical arrangement of my time and family. 2. His gross addiction to that lowest and least excusable of all sensualities, immoderate drinking. And, 3. The uninteresting insipidity of his society; as it is impossible to engage his mind on any topic of mutual inquiry, to procure his opinion on any author of any passage of an author, or to elicit any conversation of any kind to compensate for the time and attendance of his company. And as for Homer, Virgil, and Horace, I never could hear of the least critical effort on them in his life. He is, in general, devoid of all human affections; but such as are of the misanthropic quality; nor do I think that any man exists for whom his propensities rise to the lowest pitch of affection and esteem.

  Two famous men of a preceding generation, Porson, the Grecian and Simeon, the Methodist, came within my sight, but nothing more, while I was at the university. They were both remarkable for their appearance, and on that account their portraits are still, as it were, before me in the mind’s eye. Porson, when I saw him, was in cap and gown, a thin middle-sized figure, with lank black hair and cheeks of the palest cast. He walked at a stealthy pace, and seemed to have a book which he hugged parentally under his arm.

  In giving a relation of the facts concerning the illness of Mr. Porson, I cannot let the opportunity escape me, our official situations bringing us a good deal together, of lamenting in common with his most intimate friends, the loss of so pleasing and so valuable an acquaintance; for to the most gigantic powers of learning and criticism were united the manners of a gentleman, and the inoffensive habits of a child; and I am sorry to have occasion to observe, in concluding this narrative, that, especially since the Professor’s decease, there should be found persons, who have used no common industry in representing his failings in such pointed terms, as totally to shade the numerous good qualities which were inherent in his nature; so that it cannot but be remarked with pity, that those persons should be deficient in one of those excellent qualities, which he possessed in an eminent degree, never speaking ill of any one.

  Porson had a very lofty mind, and was tenacious of his proper dignity. Where he was familiar and intimate, he was exceedingly condescending and good-natured. He was kind to children, and would often play with them, but he was at no pains to conceal his partiality, where there were several in one family. In one which he often visited, there was a little girl of whom he was exceedingly fond; he often brought her trifling presents, wrote in her books, and distinguished her on every occasion, but she had a brother to whom, for no assignable reason, he never spoke, nor would in any respect, notice. He was also fond of female society, and though too frequently negligent of his person, was of the most obliging manners and behaviour, and would read a play, or recite, or do any thing that was required…. Much has been said of his irregularities.—That odious theme is left to others. With all his errors and eccentricities he who wrote this, loved him much, bowed with reverence to his talents, and admiration to his learning, and acknowledged with gratitude the delight and benefit he received from his society and conversation. Yet Porson by no means excelled in conversation; he neither wrote nor spoke with facility. His elocution was perplexed and embarrassed, except where he was exceedingly intimate; but there was strong indication of intellect in his countenance, and whatever he said was manifestly founded on judgment, sense, and knowledge. Composition was no less difficult to him. Upon one occasion, he undertook to write a dozen lines upon a subject which he had much turned in his mind, and with which he was exceedingly familiar. But the number of erasures and interlineations was so great as to render it hardly legible; yet, when completed, it was, and is, a memorial of his sagacity, acuteness, and erudition.

  I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him except as drunk and brutal, and generally both; I mean in an evening, for in the hall he dined at the Dean’s table, and I at the Vice-master’s, so that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public,—commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private party of undergraduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson’s that of Silenus. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went, which were only at William Bankes’s (the Nubian discoverer’s) rooms. I saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the “Cobbler of Messina,” insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man’s intoxication.

  The Fieldings to dinner. Talked of Porson; one of his scherzi, the translation of “Three blue beans in a blue bladder;” τρεις κυαγοὶ κναμοὶ, &c. The coolness with which he received the intelligence (which Raine trembled to communicate to him) of the destruction by fire of his long laboured “Photius,” he merely quoted “To each his sufferings, all are men,” adding, “let us speak no more on the subject,” and the next day patiently begun his work all again.

  I was at first greatly struck with the acuteness of his understanding and his multifarious acquaintance with every branch of polite literature and classical attainments. I also found him extremely modest and humble, and not vain-glorious of his astonishing erudition and capacity. I was not less struck with his memory. Taking tea one afternoon in his company at Dockerell’s coffee-house, I read a pamphlet written by Ritson against Tom Warton. I was pleased with the work, and after I had read it I gave it to Porson, who began it, and I left him perusing it. On the ensuing day he drank tea with me, with several other friends, and the conversation happened to turn on Ritson’s pamphlet. I alluded to one particular part about Shakspeare, which had greatly interested me, adding, to those who had not read it, “I wish I could convey to you a specific idea of the remainder.” Porson repeated a page and a half, word for word. I expressed my surprise and said, “I suppose you studied the whole evening at the coffee-house and got it by heart?” “Not at all; I do assure you that I only read it once.”

  There is one quality of the mind in which it may be confidently maintained that Mr. Porson had no superior—I mean, the most pure and inflexible love of truth. Under the influence of this principle, he was cautious, and patient, and persevering in his researches; and scrupulously accurate in stating facts as he found them. All who were intimate with him bear witness to this noble part of his character, and his works confirm the testimony of his friends.

  His head was remarkably fine; an expansive forehead, over which was smoothly combed (when in dress) his shining brown hair. His nose was Roman, with a keen and penetrating eye, shaded with long lashes. His mouth was full of expression; and altogether his countenance indicated deep thought. His stature was nearly six feet.

  I was once or twice in company with Porson at college. His gift was a surprising memory; he appeared to me a mere linguist, without any original powers of mind. He was vain, petulant, arrogant, overbearing, rough and vulgar. He was a great Greek scholar; but this was a department which very few much cultivated, and in which therefore he had few competitors. What are the extraordinary productions which he has left to posterity? Where is the proof that he has left of energetic sentiments, of deep sagacity, of powerful reasoning, or of high eloquence? Admit that he has shown acuteness in verbal criticism, and verbal emendation;—what is that? He was one of those men, whose eccentricities excited a false notice.

  I first saw Porson at the sale of Toup’s library in 1784, and was introduced to him soon after. I was on the most intimate terms with him for the last twenty years of his life. In spite of all his faults and failings, it was impossible not to admire his integrity and his love of truth…. At one period of his life he was in such straitened circumstances, that he would go without dinner for a couple of days. However, when a dinner came his way, he would eat very heartily (mutton was his favourite dish), and lay in, as he used to say, a stock of provisions. He has subsisted for three weeks upon a guinea.

  When Porson dined with me, I used to keep him within bounds; but I frequently met him at various houses where he got completely drunk. He would not scruple to return to the dining-room, after the company had left it, pour into a tumbler the drops remaining in the wine-glasses, and drink off the omnium gatherum. I once took him to an evening party at William Spencer’s, where he was introduced to several women of fashion, Lady Crewe, &c., who were very anxious to see the great Grecian. How do you suppose he entertained them? Chiefly by reciting an immense quantity of old forgotten Vauxhall songs. He was far from sober, and at last talked so oddly, that they all retired from him, except Lady Crewe, who boldly kept her ground. I recollect her saying to him, “Mr. Porson, that joke you have borrowed from Joe Miller,” and his rather angry reply, “Madam, it is not in Joe Miller; you will not find it either in the preface or in the body of that work, no, nor in the index.” I brought him home as far as Piccadilly, where, I am sorry to add, I left him sick in the middle of the street.

  Great as were Porson’s deviations from the even tenour of sobriety, great as were his disagreements with the social habits of the generality of mankind, great also must have been his merit, which, with such aberrations and eccentricities, secured him, not only the praise, but the regard, of all men of learning and intellect that had intercourse with him. Whoever knew Richard Porson, felt that he knew a man of high and noble mind, who, with all his irregularities, and all his inclination to sarcasm and jest, had a sincere love of truth and honesty, and who, with an utter contempt for pretence and presumption, was ever ready to do justice to genuine worth. His life is an example, and an admonition, how much a man may injure himself by indulgence in one unhappy propensity, and how much an elevated mind may suffer by long association with those of an inferior order. A Porson cannot day after day descend to the level of a Hewardine, without finding it difficult at length to recover his original position above it.

  The humour of Professor Porson lay in parodies, imitations, and hoaxes, ready wit and repartee; in his oddities of dress and demeanour; and his disregard for certain decencies of society is very deplorable, though at the same time mirthful in its very extravagances…. He had for some time become notorious at Cambridge. His passion for smoking, which was then going out among the younger generations, his large and indiscriminate potations, and his occasional use of the poker with a very refractory controversialist, had caused his company to be shunned by all except the few to whom his wit and scholarship were irresistible. When the evening began to grow late, the Fellows of Trinity used to walk out of the common room, and leave Porson to himself, who was sometimes found smoking by the servants next morning, without having apparently moved from the spot where he had been left overnight…. The most remarkable feature in Porson’s love of liquor was, that he could drink anything. Port wine, indeed, was his favourite beverage. But, in default of this, he would take whatever he could lay his hands on. He was known to swallow a bottle of spirits of wine, an embrocation, and when nothing better was forthcoming, he would even drench himself with water…. Porson was very odd in his eating. At breakfast, he frequently ate bread and cheese; and he then took his porter as copiously as Johnson took his tea.

  Great linguists have always been noted for their power both of retention and reproduction. Porson declared that he could repeat Smollett’s “Roderick Random” from beginning to end, and that he would undertake to learn by heart a copy of the London “Morning Chronicle” in a week. One day he called upon a friend who chanced to be reading Thucydides, and who asked him the meaning of a certain word. Porson, on hearing the word did not look at the book, but at once repeated the passage. His friend asked how he knew that the word was in the passage. “Because,” replied the great linguist, “the word occurs only twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page in your edition, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly knew to which passage you referred.”

  This human monument of learning happened to be travelling in the same coach with a coxcomb who sought to air his pretended learning by quotations from the ancients. At last old Porson asked: “Pri’ thee, sir, whence comes that quotation?” “From Sophocles,” quoth the vain fellow. “Be so kind as to find it for me?” asked Porson, producing a copy of Sophocles from his pocket. Then the coxcomb, not at all abashed, said that he meant not Sophocles, but Euripides. Whereupon Porson drew from another pocket a copy of Euripides and challenged the upstart to find the quotation in question. Full of confusion, the fellow thrust his head out of the window of the coach and cried to the driver: “In Heaven’s name, put me down at once; for there is an old gentleman in here that hath the Bodleian Library in his pocket!”

  The irony which pervades so much of Porson’s writings, and the fierce satire which he could occasionally wield, were intimately connected with this love of accuracy and candour. They were the weapons which he employed where he discovered the absence of those qualities. He was a man of warm and keen feelings, a staunch friend, and also a good hater. In the course of life he had suffered, or believed himself to have suffered, some wrongs and many slights. These, acting on his sensitive temperament, tinged it with cynicism, or even with bitterness. He once described himself (in 1807) as a man who had become “a misanthrope from a morbid excess of sensibility.” In this, however, he was less than just to himself. He was, indeed, easily estranged, even from old acquaintances, by words or acts which offended him. But his native disposition was most benevolent. To those who consulted him on matters of scholarship he was liberal of his aid. Stephen Weston says “he told you all you wanted to know in a plain and direct manner, without any attempt to display his own superiority, but merely to inform you.” Nor was his liberality confined to the imparting of his knowledge. Small though his means were, the strict economy which he practiced enabled him to spare something for the needs of others.

General

  Mr. Porson … is a giant in literature, a prodigy in intellect, a critic whose mighty achievements leave imitation panting at a distance behind them, and whose stupendous powers strike down all the restless and aspiring suggestions of rivalry into silent admiration and passive awe.

  I consider Mr. Porson’s answer to Archdeacon Travis as the most acute and accurate piece of criticism which has appeared since the days of Bentley. His strictures are founded in argument, enriched with learning, and enlivened with wit; and his adversary neither deserves nor finds any quarter at his hands. The evidence of the three heavenly witnesses would now be rejected in any court of justice: but prejudice is blind, authority is deaf, and our vulgar bibles will ever be polluted by this spurious text, “sedet æternumque sedebit.”

  Mr. Professor Porson’s “Letters to Archdeacon Travis” are conspicuous for their erudition, acuteness, accuracy, virulence, bitterness, and invective.

  PORSON.—Removed alike from the crowd and the coterie, I have always avoided, with timid prudence, the bird-cage walk of literature. I have withholden from Herman and some others, a part of what is due to them; and I regret it. Sometimes I have been arrogant, never have I been malicious. Unhappily, I was educated in a school of criticism where the exercises were too gladitorial. Looking at my elders in it, they appeared to me so ugly, in part from their contortions, and in part from their scars, that I suspected that it must be a dangerous thing to wield a scourge of vipers; and I thought it no very creditable appointment to be linkboy or pander at an ally leading down to the Furies. Age and infirmity have rendered me milder than I was. I am loth to fire off my gun in the warren which lies before us; loth to startle the snug little creatures, each looking so comfortable at the mouth of its burrow, or skipping about at short distances, or frisking and kicking up the sand along the thriftless heath.

  This Greek professor, Porson—whose knowledge of English was so limited that his total cargo might have been embarked on board a walnut-shell on the bosom of a slop basin, and insured for three halfpence—astonishes me, that have been studying English for thirty years and upwards, by the strange discoveries that he announces in this field. One and all, I fear, are mares’ nests.

  I read Porson’s “Letters” to Archdeacon Travis, and compared the collected letters with the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” in which they originally appeared. The book has a little suffered from the awkwardness of turning what were letters to Sylvanus Urban into letters to Archdeacon Travis; but it is a masterly work. A comparison between it and the Phalaris would be a comparison between Porson’s mind and Bentley’s mind; Porson’s more sure-footed, more exact, more neat, Bentley’s far more comprehensive and inventive. While walking, I read Bishop Burgess’s trash in answer to Porson, Home, and read Turton’s defence of Porson against Burgess; an impenetrable dunce, to reason with whom is like kicking a woolpack. Was there ever such an instance of the binding power of bigotry as the fact that some men, who were not absolute fools, continued, after reading Porson and Turton, to believe in the authenticity of the text of the Three Witnesses?

  Richard Porson was one of the profoundest Greek scholars and the greatest verbal critic that any age or country has produced. He possessed every quality which is necessary to the information of a scholar—a stupendous memory, unwearied application, great acuteness, strong sound sense, and a lively perception both of the beautiful and the ludicrous. Besides these qualifications he enjoyed the rare faculty of conjecturing from the imperfect data of corrupt readings the very words of the author whose text he sought to restore; in the last particular we know of no one, with the single exception of Bentley, who can be named in comparison with him, and in some points we should not hesitate to place Porson before the great Aristarchus of criticism.

  With the single exception of Porson, not one of the English scholars has shown an appreciation of the beauties of his native language.

  The delicacy of whose Greek scholarship almost amounted to a sense.

  Giant as he was, Porson had but small hands, that played with words as with marbles, and delighted in nothing so much as in good penmanship. One is astonished in reading through his edition of Euripides, to see how he wrote note upon note, all about words, and less than words—syllables, letters, accents, punctuation. He ransacked Codex A and Codex B, Codex Cantabrigiensis and Codex Cottonianus, to show how this noun should be in the dative, not in the accusative; how that verb should have the accent paroxytone, not perispomenon; and how by all the rules of prosody there should be an iambus, not a spondee, in this place or in that. Nothing can be more masterly of its kind than the preface to the “Hecuba,” and supplement to it. The lad who hears enough of this wonderful dissertation from his tutors at last turns wistful eyes towards it, expecting to find some magical criticism on Greek tragedy. Behold it is a treatise on certain Greek metres. Its talk is of cæsural pauses, penthemimeral and hepthemimeral, of isochronous feet, of enclitics and cretic terminations; and the grand doctrine it promulgates is expressed in the cannon regarding the pause which, from the discoverer, has been named the Porsonian, that when the iambic trimeter, after a word of more than one syllable, has the cretic termination, included either in one word or two, then the fifth foot must be an iambus! The young student throws down the book thus prefaced, and wonders if this be all that giants of Porsonian height can see or care to speak about in Greek literature. Nor was Porson alone; he had disciples even worse.

  In some respects the greatest of modern Greek scholars…. In claiming for Porson the very high place he has always occupied among Greek scholars, it is with those who went before him that he must be compared, if we would judge fairly of the advances he made in the knowledge of the language. In learning he was superior to Valckenaer, in accuracy to Bentley. It must be remembered that in his day the science of comparative philology had scarcely any existence; even the comparative value of MSS. was scarcely considered in editing an ancient author. With many editors MSS. were treated as of pretty much the same value, whether they were really from the hand of a trustworthy scribe, or what Bentley calls “scrub manuscripts” or “scoundrel copies.” Thus, if we are to find fault with Porson’s way of editing, it is that he does not make sufficient difference between the MSS. he uses, or point out the relative value of the early copies whether in MS. or print.

  Richard Porson, the profound scholar, linguist, and wit, reared many monuments of classic learning, which have however crumbled away, leaving his name familiar to us only as a writer of jeux d’esprit; but these are admirable. He was full of the sunshine of wit; and though sarcastic and personal, as the nature of his bon-mots compelled, he had no bitterness in his reflections, and uttered them with a good-natured laugh.

  Johnson had observed very rightly that “the justness of a happy restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticism, ‘quod dubitas ne feceris.’” Of no emendations is this more true than of Porson’s. Unlike those of such critics as Bentley and Wakefield—for, immeasurable as was Bentley’s superiority to Wakefield in point of ability and attainments, in temper and taste he was as rash and coarse—they are seldom or never superfluous. If they do not succeed in satisfying us that the word restored is the exact word lost, they afford us the still higher satisfaction of feeling that nothing which could be recovered could be an improvement on what has been supplied…. Porson’s perception, indeed, of what stupidity, carelessness, or ignorance, had disguised or obscured in the text of an ancient poet, resembled clairvoyance. And even when he failed, his fine and delicate sense of the niceties of rhythm, his exquisite taste, his refined good sense, his sobriety, his tact, kept him at least from going far astray, and from making himself and his author ridiculous, as Bentley habitually did.

  He possessed in almost the highest degree that power of divination, based on accurate knowledge, which distinguishes the scholar, and it is, as has been said, nearly certain that he would have been a brilliant writer in English on any subject he chose to take up.

  Textual criticism was the work to which Porson’s genius was mainly devoted. His success in it was due primarily to native acumen, aided—in a degree perhaps unequalled—by a marvellous memory, richly stored, accurate, and prompt. His emendations are found to rest both on a wide and exact knowledge of classical Greek, and on a wonderful command of passages which illustrate his point. He relied comparatively little on mere “divination,” and usually abstained from conjecture where he felt that the remedy must remain purely conjectural. His lifelong love of mathematics has left a clear impress on his criticism; we see it in his precision and in his close reasoning. Very many of his emendations are such as at once appear certain or highly probable. Bentley’s cogent logic sometimes (as in his Horace) renders a textual change plausible, while our instinct rebels; Porson, as a rule, merely states his correction, briefly gives his proofs, and convinces. His famous note on the “Medea,” vv. 139 f., where he disengages a series of poetical fragments from prose texts, is a striking example of his method, and has been said also to give some idea of the way in which his talk on such subjects used to flow. Athenæus, so rich in quotations from the poets, afforded a field in which Porson did more, perhaps, than all former critics put together. He definitely advanced Greek scholarship in three principal respects: (1) by remarks on countless points of Greek idiom and usage; (2) by adding to the knowledge of metre, and especially of the iambic trimeter; (3) by emendation of texts. Then, as a master of precise and lucid phrase, alike in Latin and in English, he supplied models of compact and pointed criticism. A racy vigour and humour often animate his treatment of technical details. He could be trenchantly severe, when he saw cause; but his habitual weapon was irony, sometimes veiled, sometimes frankly keen, always polished, and usually genial. Regarding the correctness of texts as the most valuable office of the critic, he lamented that, in popular estimation, it stood below “literary” criticism.