James Merrick

MERRICK, James. b. Reading, Berkshire, 8 January 1720; d. Reading, 5 January 1769. Educated at Reading School and Trinity College, Oxford (BA 1739, MA 1742) he was ordained and became a Probationer Fellow of Trinity College in 1744 and a full Fellow in 1745. Although he was ordained, he had no parochial duties, and retired to Reading, ca. 1749, where he interested himself in the welfare of the soldiers in the garrison and the debtors in the gaol. He died there after a long illness. Merrick was a precocious author, publishing The Messiah, a Divine Essay in 1734 at the age of 14, and The Destruction of Troy. Being the Sequel of the Iliad. Translated from the Greek of Tryphiodorus at the age...