Born in 1731, died in 1800; son of a clergyman; educated at
Westminster School; admitted to the bar in 1754, but
melancholia unfitted him for practise; temporarily confined
in an asylum in 1763; afterward lived in private families,
being subject to repeated attacks of mental disorder tending
to suicide, ending in permanent insanity; published "The
Task" in 1785, a translation of Homer in 1791.
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