Robert Potter (translator)


Rev. Robert Potter was an English clergyman of the Church of England, a translator, a poet and a pamphleteer. He established the convention of using blank verse for Greek hexameters and rhymed verse for choruses. His 1777 English version of the plays of Aeschylus was the only one available for the next fifty years.

Life

Potter was born in Podimore, Somerset, the third son of John Potter, a prebendary of Wells Cathedral. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and graduated BA in 1742, when he was also ordained. He married the daughter of Rev. Colman of Hardingham, Norfolk. His children included a daughter, Sarah, referred to in a letter. Potter became curate of Reymerston and vicar of Melton Parva, but the combined emoluments of these were less than £50 a year. He later became curate of Scarning, Norfolk, as well as the master of the local Seckar's School from 1761 to 1789, but spent much of his time writing and translating.
Among his pupils was Jacob Mountain, the first Anglican bishop of Quebec.
In 1788, Lewis Bagot, Bishop of Norwich, presented Potter as vicar to the combined parishes of Lowestoft and Kessingland, Suffolk, and as a prebendary of Norwich Cathedral, through the patronage of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, who had attended Seckar's School. According to one account, Thurlow and Potter had been schoolfellows at Seckar's, which seems unlikely, as Potter was ten years his junior. For whatever reason, when Potter approached Thurlow to ask for a £10 subscription to his Sophocles translation, he received a valuable cathedral stall instead.
Robert Potter died aged 83 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, and was buried in the parish churchyard. There is a 1789 etching of a bewigged Potter in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Writings

Potter completed English versions of the plays of Æschylus, Euripides and Sophocles that remained in print throughout the 19th century. Of the three, the Æschylus was best known, as there was no other translation of the author available before the 1820s. His scheme of using blank verse for Greek hexameters and rhymed verse for the choruses was widely adopted by other translators. He also published copious poetry, some sermons, and some political pamphlets, targeted, for instance, at the "pretended inspiration of the Methodists" and at the Poor Laws.
It emerges from a letter from Sarah Burney to her sister Frances Burney on 1 August 1779 that Samuel Johnson, Hester Thrale and their circle thought little of Potter's poetic abilities. Potter, on the other hand, developed reservations about Johnson's literary judgement, which he expanded on a few years later. Johnson may have described Potter's poetry as "verbiage", but Horace Walpole was welcoming: "There is a Mr. Potter too, I don't know who, that has published a translation of Aeschylus, and as far as I have looked is a good poet."

External sources