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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Richard Porson (1759–1808)
Porson, Richard. An eminent English scholar and critic; born in Norfolk, Dec. 25, 1759; died in London, Sept. 25, 1808. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and regius professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1792 till his death. He possessed phenomenal powers of memory, great critical acumen, and a knowledge of Greek unequaled in his day. His emendations and critical notes on the Greek writers are accepted as authoritative. He wrote for the literary reviews on many subjects; edited Æschylus (1795); the ‘Hecuba,’ ‘Orestes,’ ‘Phœnissæ,’ and ‘Medea’ of Euripides (1797–1801); and published ‘Adversaria’ (1812); ‘Tracts and Criticisms’ (1815); ‘Aristophanica’ (1820); ‘Photii Lexicon’ (1822); ‘Notæ in Suidam’ (1834). His Letters to Archdeacon Travis on the spurious verse, John 1, 7, are monuments of analytic and argumentative power.