Richard Jago

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Richard Jago (1715 – May 8, 1781), was an English poet. He was the third son of Richard Jago, Rector of Beaudesert, Warwickshire.

1 Education
2 Priesthood
3 Poetry
4 References

[edit] Education

Jago was educated at Solihull School, where one of the school's five houses bears his name. From there, he went up to University College, Oxford, in 1732, taking his degree in 1736.

[edit] Priesthood

In 1737, Jago was ordained to the curacy of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, becoming rector in 1754; and, although he subsequently received other preferments, Snitterfield remained his favorite residence and it was there that he would die at the age of 66. He was twice married.

[edit] Poetry

Jago's best-known poem, The Blackbirds, was first printed in Hawkesworths Adventurer (No. 37, March 13, 1753), and was generally attributed to Gilbert West, but Jago published it in his own name, with other poems, in Robert Dodsley's Collection of Poems (vol. iv., 1755). In 1767 appeared a topographical poem, Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect delineated and moralized; two separate sermons were published in 1755; and in 1768 Labor and Genius, a Fable. Shortly before his death Jago revised his poems, and they were published in 1784 by his friend, John Scott Hylton, as Poems Moral and Descriptive.

See a notice prefixed to the edition of 1784; A. Chalmers, English Poets (vol. xvii., 1810); F. L. Colvile, Warwickshire Worthies (1870); some biographical notes are to be found in the letters of William Shenstone to Jago printed in vol. iii. of Shenstones Works (1769).