Thomas Russell (1762-July 31, 1788) was an English poet born atBeaminster early in 1762. He was the son of John Russell, an attorney atBridport, inDorsetshire, and his mother was Miss Virtue Brickle, ofShaftesbury. He was educated at the grammar school of Bridport and in 1777 proceeded toWinchester, where he stayed three years under Dr. Joseph Warton, and Thomas Warton the professor of poetry.^[1]

In 1780 Russell became a member ofNew College, Oxford. He graduated with aB.A. in 1784 and was ordained a priest in 1786. During his residence at the university, he devoted himself to French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, and even German literature. His health, however, broke down, and he retired to Bristol Hotwells to drink the waters, but in vain, for he died there fromconsumption on the 31st of July 1788. He was buried in Powerstock churchyard,Dorset.^[1]

In 1789 was published a thin volume, containing his sonnets, and Miscellaneous Poems, now a very rare book. It contained twenty-threesonnets, of regular form and a few paraphrases and original lyrics. The sonnets are the best, and it is by right of these that Russell takes his place as one of the most interesting precursors of the romantic school. War, Love, the Wizard, and the Fay he sung in other words, he rejected entirely the narrow circle of subjects laid down for 18th century poets. In this he was certainly influenced both byChatterton and byCoffins. But he was still more clearly the disciple ofPetrarch, ofBoccaccio and ofCamoens, each of whom he had carefully and enthusiastically studied. HisSonnet Suppos'd to be Written at Lemnos, is his masterpiece, and is unquestionably the greatest English sonnet of the 18th century.^[1]

The anonymous editor of Russell's solitary volume is said to have beenWilliam Howley (1766–1848), long afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who was a youthful bachelor of New College when Russell, who had been his tutor, died. His memoir of the poet is very perfunctory, and the fullest account of Russell is that published in 1897 byThomas Seccombe.^[1]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Russell, Thomas".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 865.
• Collection of Thomas Russell sonnets, edited by Howley in 1789^[usurped]

• 1762 births
• 1788 deaths
• 18th-century English clergy
• 18th-century English poets
• 18th-century deaths from tuberculosis
• English male poets
• People from Beaminster
• Alumni of New College, Oxford
• 18th-century English male writers
• Tuberculosis deaths in England

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