Robert Potter (translator) facts for kids

Robert Potter (1721 – 9 August 1804) was an English clergyman of the Church of England and a translator, poet, critic and pamphleteer. He established the convention of using blank verse for Greek hexameters and rhymed verse for choruses. His 1777 English version of the plays of Aeschylus was frequently reprinted and the only one available for the next 50 years.

Life

Potter was born in Podimore, Somerset, the third son of John Potter (fl. 1676–1723), a prebendary of Wells Cathedral. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and graduated BA in 1742, when he was also ordained. He married the daughter of Rev. Colman of Hardingham, Norfolk. His children included a daughter, Sarah, referred to in a letter. Potter became curate of Reymerston and vicar of Melton Parva, but the combined emoluments of these were less than £50 a year. He later became curate of Scarning, Norfolk, as well as the master of the local Seckar's School from 1761 to 1789, but spent much of his time writing and translating.

Among Potter's pupils was Jacob Mountain (1749–1825), the first Anglican bishop of Quebec.

Until 1788, Potter struggled to support his family on his meagre stipends and support from aristocratic patrons. He was at last made financially secure when he was appointed a prebendary of Norwich Cathedral through the patronage of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, who had attended Seckar's School. According to one account, Thurlow and Potter had been schoolfellows at Seckar's, which seems unlikely, as Potter was ten years his junior. For whatever reason, when Potter approached Thurlow to ask for a £10 subscription to his Sophocles translation, he received a valuable cathedral stall instead. This meant he could resign other offices and move to Norwich. In June 1789 Lewis Bagot, Bishop of Norwich, presented Potter with the valuable vicarage of the combined parishes of Lowestoft and Kessingland, Suffolk, and in 1790 he moved again to Lowestoft, where died on 9 August 1804 and was buried in the parish churchyard.

Assessment

The antiquary Craven Ord found Potter "narrow in his circumstances with a disagreeable wife... rather an entertaining and well-behaved gentleman, with some singularities of thinking." A letter from Sarah Burney to her sister Frances Burney on 1 August 1779 states that Samuel Johnson, Hester Thrale and their circle thought little of Potter's poetic abilities. Johnson may have called Potter's poetry "verbiage", but Horace Walpole was welcoming: "There is a Mr. Potter too, I don't know who, that has published a translation of Aeschylus, and as far as I have looked is a good poet."

Portraits

There is a 1789 portrait of Potter by George Romney (painter) and an etching in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

External sources

• Potter's draft autobiography is present in the National Library of Wales, Ms 125021, Wigfair 21.
• Robert Potter at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
• An imitation of Spenser written by Potter is available at [1]. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
• Potter's is one of the translations covered in Reuben A. Brower's "Seven Agamemnons", Mirror on Mirror: Translation, Imitation, Parody (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974) ISBN: 0-674-57645-4.