James Hampton (1721–1778) was an English cleric and writer, known as the translator of the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

historian

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

Life

Baptized on November 2, 1791, Hampton was the son of James Hampton of

Bishop's Waltham Bishop's Waltham (or Bishops Waltham) is a medieval market town situated at the source of the River Hamble in Hampshire, England. It has a foot in the South Downs National Park and is located at the midpoint of a long-established route betw ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

. He entered

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

in 1733, and was elected a scholar of

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12t ...

, matriculating on 20 July 1739. At Oxford Hampton was noted for his scholarship and violent behavior, on one occasion provoking a quarrel by kicking over a tea table in the rooms of William Collins with whom he'd been at school. He graduated B.A. in 1743, and M.A. in 1747, and took holy orders. Lord-chancellor Henley presented Hampton, in 1762, to the rectory of Monkton-Moor, Yorkshire on the basis of his Polybius translation: Hampton dedicated to Henley the second edition of the work. In 1775 he obtained the

sinecure A sinecure ( or ; from the Latin , 'without', and , 'care') is an office, carrying a salary or otherwise generating income, that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval ch ...

rectory of

Folkton Folkton is a small village and civil parish at the foot of the Yorkshire Wolds and on the edge of the Vale of Pickering on an area known as Folkton Carr ( carr meaning low lands) in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. Unti ...

, Yorkshire, which he held with his other benefice. Hampton died at

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End. Toponymy Knightsbridge is an ancien ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

, apparently unmarried, in June 1778. He left his property to William Graves of the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and ...

Works

In 1741 Hampton began on Polybius by publishing ''A Fragment of the 6th Book, containing a Dissertation on Government, translated, with notes, by a Gentleman'', London. This was followed by a translation of the first five books and part of the fragments (2 vols., London, 1756–61), which between that date and 1823 went through at least seven editions. Hampton's other works were: * ''An Essay on Ancient and Modern History'', Oxford, 1746, which contains an evaluation of

Gilbert Burnet Gilbert Burnet (18 September 1643 – 17 March 1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academi ...

as a historian. * ''A Plain and Easy Account of the Fall of Man. In which the distinct agency of an evil spirit is asserted, and the objection, taken from the silence of Moses upon that point, fully answered'', London, 1750. * ''Two Extracts from the sixth Book of the general history of Polybius, . . . translated from the Greek. To which are prefixed some reflections tending to illustrate the doctrine of the author concerning the natural destruction of mixed governments, with an application of it to the state of Britain'', London, 1764.

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Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Hampton, James 1721 births 1778 deaths 18th-century English Anglican priests English classical scholars English translators English male non-fiction writers 18th-century British translators