Thomas Francklin

Thomas Francklin (1721–1784) was an English academic, clergyman, writer and dramatist

Life

Francklin was the son of Richard Francklin, bookseller near the Piazza in Covent Garden, London, who printed William Pulteney's paper The Craftsman. Francklin was admitted to Westminster School in 1735. On the advice of Pulteney he was educated for the church: but Pulteney gave him no subsequent help in life. In 1739 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted on 21 June 1739, and took the degrees of B.A. in 1742, M.A. 1746, and D.D. in 1770. In 1745 he was elected to a minor fellowship, was promoted in the next year to be "socius major", and resided in college until the end of 1758.[1]

He was for some time an usher in his old school, and then on 27 June 1750 was elected as Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. Later in the same year he was involved in a dispute with the heads of the university. Forty-six old boys of Westminster met between eight and nine o'clock on 17 November at the Tuns Tavern to commemorate, as was their custom, the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and Francklin was in the chair. The party was about to separate at eleven o'clock, when the senior proctor appeared and called on them to disperse: hot words ensued. Several pamphlets were published, and among them was one from Francklin entitled An Authentic Narrative of the late Extraordinary Proceedings at Cambridge against the W … r Club, 1751.[2]

He resigned his professorship in 1759, and that year was instituted, on the presentation of his college, to the vicarage of Ware, Hertfordshire, which he held in conjunction with the lectureship of St Paul's, Covent Garden, and a proprietary chapel in Queen Street, London. He was appointed king's chaplain in November 1767, and was selected to preach the commencement sermon at St. Mary's, Cambridge, on the installation of Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, as chancellor of the university in 1770. Through the favour of Archbishop Frederick Cornwallis he was appointed in 1777 to the rectory of Brasted in Kent, and vacated the living of Ware.

Francklin died in Great Queen Street, London, on 15 March 1784. He married, on 20 January 1759, Miss Venables, the daughter of a wine merchant; she died in Great Queen Street on 24 May 1796.

Works

For most of his life Francklin wrote for the press and for the stage. Two of his plays were successful through good acting. He brought out in 1757 a periodical paper of his own composition entitled ‘The Centinel,’ and he was one of the contributors to Tobias Smollett's ‘Critical Review.’ Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds were among his friends, and through their influence he became chaplain to the Royal Academy on its foundation, and on Oliver Goldsmith's death in 1774 succeeded to the professorship of ancient history.

With other literary men he was unpopular. One of his victims in the ‘Critical Review’ was Arthur Murphy, who solaced his feelings of indignation in ‘A Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M.’ Charles Churchill, in the ‘Rosciad,’ sneeringly says that ‘he sicken'd at all triumphs but his own.’

Francklin's most solid works consisted of translations and tragedies. His first was an anonymous rendering of Cicero's treatise, Of the Nature of the Gods; it appeared in 1741, was reissued in 1775, and, after revision by Charles Duke Yonge, formed a part of one of the volumes in Bohn's Classical Library. In 1749 he published ‘The Epistles of Phalaris translated from the Greek; to which are added some select epistles of the most eminent Greek writers.’ His translation of the tragedies of Sophocles was long considered the best in the English language. It came out in 1759, and was reprinted in 1809 and 1832; large selections from it were included in Ezekiel Sanford's ‘British Poets,’ vol. l., and it was included in Henry Morley's Universal Library (vol. xliv.), while a separate impression of the Œdipus Tyrannus was made in 1806.

His version of ‘The Works of Lucian from the Greek,’ which was produced in 1780 in two volumes, and appeared in a second edition in 1781. The whole work was dedicated to Richard Rigby, and parts were inscribed to other eminent men. His translation of Lucian's ‘Trips to the Moon’ formed vol. lxxi. of Cassell's ‘National Library,’ edited by Henry Morley.

Francklin's plays are:

Francklin's other literary productions were numerous. Their titles were:

Between 1748 and 1779 Francklin printed nine single sermons preached on special occasions, including that delivered at St George's, Bloomsbury, in May 1756, on the death of the Rev. John Sturges, from which it seems that he had hoped to succeed him. A volume of his sermons on ‘The Relative Duties’ was published in 1765, and passed to a fourth edition in 1788.

He died without leaving much provision for his family, and in 1785 there appeared for his widow's benefit two volumes of ‘Sermons on Various Subjects,’ followed by a third in 1787. Francklin lent his name, in conjunction with Smollett, to a translation of Voltaire's works and letters, but the ‘Orestes’ (produced at Covent Garden Theatre 13 March 1769 for the benefit of Mrs. Yates) and the ‘Electra’ (brought out at Drury Lane 15 October 1774) are believed to have been his sole share in the publication.

Some of his fugitive pieces were embodied in the ‘Miscellaneous Pieces’ brought together by Tom Davies, and there are many of his letters in the ‘Garrick Correspondence.’

Notes

  1. ↑ "Francklin, Thomas (FRNN739T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ↑ Further particulars on subsequent proceedings in the vice-chancellor's court will be found in Christopher Wordsworth's Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 70–5.

References

External links