Jago, Richard

(1715-1781)

   The son of a clergyman, of Cornish stock, he was born at Beaudesert, Warwickshire, and educated at Solihull, West Midlands. He graduated from University College, Oxford, in 1736, was ordained in 1737 and soon had three livings in Warwickshire, which he retained until 1771, when he moved to the more valuable rectory of Kimcote in Leicestershire. He died at Snitherfield, Warwickshire, and was buried in a vault which he had constructed for his family under the middle aisle of the church. He published several sermons and Labor and Genius: A Fable (1768). Two of his poetry publications: The Blackbirds, 1753 (an elegy, which was set to music by the organist of Worcester Cathedral), and Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect delineated and moralized, 1767 (a poem in four books). Some of his poems: "Absence," "Adam; an Oratorio," (compiled from Paradise Lost), "Elegy on the Goldfinches," "Female Empire. A True History," "Hamlet's Soliloquy Imitated," "Labour, and Genius: Or, the Mill-Stream, and the Cascade," "The Scavengers. A Town Eclogue," "The Swallows," "Valentine's Day."

   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). 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 Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed (New edition, revised and enlarged, Oxford University Press, 1939. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Bird Poetry. Peggy Munsterberg, ed. 1984.