Relph, Josiah

(1712-1743)

   Born at Churchtown, a small estate belonging to his father in the parish of Sebergham, Cumberland, he had a good education and went to Glasgow, presumably to the university, for on his return he became master of his local grammar school. He then took holy orders and became the priest of Sebergham, where he toiled in the education of the children of the parish. He died young, although there is no mention of how. His poetical works, A Miscellany of Poems, published in Glasgow in 1747, were edited by Thomas Sanderson, who supplied a life of the author and a pastoral elegy on his death. A second edition appeared at Carlisle in 1798, with the life of the author and engravings by Thomas Bewick. His Songs and Poems were published in Edinburgh in 1866. Relph's best verses are in the dialect of his native county; they show talent and appreciation of natural beauty. Some of his poems: "HayTime; Or, the Constant Lovers. A Pastoral," "Idylls [Of Theocritus]," "The Hour-Glass," "The WormDoctor," "Translated From Seneca," "The Husbandman and the Horse," "The Boy and the Sparrows."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www. lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984. The Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation. Adrian Poole and Jeremy Maule, eds. 1995.