This poetical divine was born in 1735, at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland.
Left fatherless at four years old, his mother fulfilled her double charge
of duty with great tenderness and assiduity. He was educated at Appleby,
and subsequently became assistant at the free-school of Wakefield, took
deacon's orders, and gave promise, although very young, of becoming a
popular preacher. After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, and
publishing a number of works in prose and verse, Langhorne repaired to
London, and obtained, in 1764, the curacy and lectureship of St John's,
Clerkenwell. He soon afterwards became assistant-preacher in Lincoln's
Inn Chapel, where he had a very intellectual audience to address, and
bore a somewhat trying ordeal with complete success. He continued for a
number of years in London, maintaining his reputation both as a preacher
and writer. His most popular works were the 'Letters of Theodosius and
Constantia,' and a translation of Plutarch's Lives, which Wrangham
afterwards corrected and improved, and which is still standard. He was
twice married, and survived both his wives. He obtained the living of
Blagden in Somersetshire, and in addition to it, in 1777, a prebend in
the Cathedral of Wells. He died in 1779, aged only forty-four; his death,
it is supposed, being accelerated by intemperance, although it does not
seem to have been of a gross or aggravated description. Langhorne, an
amiable man, and highly popular as well as warmly beloved in his day,
survives now in memory chiefly through his Plutarch's Lives, and through
a few lines in his 'Country Justice,' which are immortalised by the well-
known story of Scott's interview with Burns. Campbell puts in a plea
besides for his 'Owen of Carron,' but the plea, being founded on early
reading, is partial, and has not been responded to by the public.