An Essay on the Clergy
Subtitle: Their Studies, Recreations, Decline of Influence, &c. &c.
By: By the Reverend W. J. Temple, LL.B. Rector of Mamhead, in Devonshire.
Publisher: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly
Published: 1774
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 100
Notes: Dedication leaf and list of 'Contents' precede the main text; the essay is in twelve chapters with a 'Conclusion'.

The DNB states that as 'an amiable man of cultivated and literary tastes, Temple while at Cambridge was admitted into close friendship with Gray, and during a visit to London in February 1766 Boswell introduced him at the Mitre tavern in Fleet Street to Dr. Johnson. Through his association with these three men his name is remembered ... During a visit to London in May 1773 Temple dined at the house of the brothers Dilly, the publishers in the Poultry, meeting Johnson, Goldsmith, Langton, Boswell, and others, [? perhaps Percy] and in April 1775 Boswell paid him a visit at Mamhead. In the meantime (1774) his essay on the clergy had revealed to his diocesan his literary skill ... this [essay] was much admired by Bishop Horne'.

Half-title leaf reading: 'An Essay on the Clergy'; two quotations on verso: the first, in Latin, from Seneca, 'De Tranquillitate Animi'; the second, in French, from Montesquieu; running title: 'Essay on the Clergy'.

ESTC532T2.