Thomas Twining

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Twining (born January 8, 1735 in Twickenham, London, England; died August 6, 1804 at Colchester) was an English classical scholar.

The son of Daniel Twining, tea merchant of London, he was originally intended for a commercial life, but his distaste for it and his fondness for study decided his father to send him to the university. He entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (fellow, 1760), took orders, and after his marriage in 1764 spent the remainder of his life at Fordham (Essex) and Colchester, where he died on the 6th of August 1804. His reputation as a classical scholar was established by his translation, with notes, of Aristotle's Poetics (1789). Twining was also an accomplished musician, and assisted Charles Burney in his History of Music.

Selections from his correspondence can be found in Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century (1882) and Selections from Papers of the Twining Family (1887) edited by his grand-nephew (Richard Twining); see also Gentleman's Magazine, Ixxiv. 490, and J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. iii. (1908).

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.