Background
Richard Porson was born on December 25, 1759, at East Ruston, near North Walsham, Norfolk, the eldest son of Huggin Porson, parish clerk. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker from the neighbouring village of Bacton.
Richard Porson was born on December 25, 1759, at East Ruston, near North Walsham, Norfolk, the eldest son of Huggin Porson, parish clerk. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker from the neighbouring village of Bacton.
He was sent first to the Bacton village school, kept by John Woodrow, and then to that of Happisburgh, kept by Mr Summers, where his extraordinary powers of memory and aptitude for arithmetic were discovered. His literary skill was partly due to the efforts of Summers, who long afterwards stated that in fifty years of scholastic life he had never come across boys so clever as Porson and his two brothers. He was well grounded in Latin by Summers, remaining with him for three years. His father also took pains with his education, making him repeat at night the lessons he had learned in the day. He would frequently repeat without making a mistake a lesson which he had learned one or two years before and had never seen in the interval.
Porson entered Eton College in 1773 and four years later went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a fellowship in 1782.
There is little record of the years until 1788, when the Letters to Travis (published in 1790) began to fulfill the great promise of Porson's youth and to confirm a reputation hitherto founded on anecdotes and on articles in London periodicals. The letters were written in answer to Archdeacon Travis, who had attacked Edward Gibbon for deciding on the spuriousness of the seventh verse in the fifth chapter of the first epistle of St. John. The work is of high quality--greater in volume than all the other writings in his lifetime put together--and reveals an elegant persuasive style and a wonderful display of erudition, accuracy, and good judgment. In 1792, his fellowship being no longer tenable by a layman, Porson was appointed regius professor of Greek at Trinity College. The years 1795-1802 saw the publication of the books on which (after the Letters to Travis) his fame chiefly depended--the conjectures in Aeschylus and the editions of four plays of Euripides (Hecuba, Orestes, Phoenissae, and Medea). He contributed very little to an interpretation of the texts; however, he is considered among the most brilliant correctors of the texts of Aeschylus and Euripides. In 1806 he was appointed librarian to the London Institution. On Sept. 19, 1808, Porson collapsed on a London street and died six days later. In his heyday Porson stood alone--high above any contemporary scholar in Britain. His knowledge of French literature, of Shakespeare, Milton, and Swift was equaled by few; of ancient authors by none. He published little; what opened the doors of the great or the literate to Porson was not print but conversation. His wonderful powers of memory, his literary knowledge, his fluency, aptness of phrase, and quick, brilliant humor made an instant and lasting impression wherever he went.
The Greek typeface Porson was based on his handwriting.
Quotations: “Wit is, in general, the finest sense in the world. I had lived long before I discovered that wit was truth. ”
From an early age he revealed exceptional abilities: industry, quickness of comprehension, a remarkable memory, and a particular precocious talent for mathematics and Latin.
Yet Porson had one failing: he was an excessive drinker. He took no care of his health and appearance, and could be rude and boorish in company; however, his friends delighted in his wit and learning and his store of anecdotes and quotations and admired him for his devotion to truth, his indifference to worldly success, and his readiness to communicate knowledge.
He married Mrs Lunan in November 1796. Porson then drank less; but she died a few months after her marriage (12 April 1797), and he returned to his old habits.
