Benjamin Heath (April 10, 1704 - September 13, 1766), English classical scholar and bibliophile, was born at Exeter.
He was the son of a wealthy merchant, and was thus able to devote himself mainly to travel and book-collecting. He became town clerk of his native city in 1752, and held the office till his death. In 1763 he had published a pamphlet advocating the repeal of the cider tax in Devonshire, and his endeavours led to success three years later. As a classical scholar he made his reputation by his critical and metrical notes on the Greek tragedians, which procured him an honorary DCL from Oxford (March 31, 1752). He also left manuscript notes on Burmann's and Martyn's editions of Virgil, on Euripides, Catullus, Tibullus, and the greater part of Hesiod. In some of these he adopts the whimsical name Dexiades Ericius. His Revisal of Shakespear's Text (1765) was an answer to what he saw as the insolent dogmatism of Bishop Warburton. The Essay towards a Demonstrative Proof of the Divine Existence, Unity and Attributes (1740) was intended to combat the opinions of Voltaire, Rousseau and Hume. Two of his sons (among a family of thirteen) were Benjamin, headmaster of Harrow (1771-1785), and George, headmaster of Eton (1796). His collection of rare classical works formed the nucleus of his son Benjamin's famous library (Bibliotheca Heathiana). An account of the Heath family will be found in Sir WR Drake's Heathiana (1882).
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
