Twining

Twining, THOMAS, translator of Aristotle's Poetics, was born the son of a prosperous tea-merchant in 1734, but, preferring study to business, entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1760. He took orders, and became in 1768 rector of White Notley in Essex, in 1770 also of St Mary's, Colchester. A pious and scholarly man, of wide reading and good critical powers, he discharged his clerical duties with zealous honesty, finding his solace in music, letter-writing, and travelling over England, and died, after a well-spent life, 6th August 1804. His translation of the Poetics of Aristotle—a sound piece of scholarship—appeared in 1789. His great-nephew published in 1883 a selection from his correspondence under the title Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the 18th Century. Its success induced a further book, the much less interesting Selections from Papers of the Twining Family (1887), the chief contributor in which is not the clergyman, but his brother, Richard Twining, head of the tea-business.