James Merrick (1720–1769) was an English poet and scholar; M.A. Trinity College, Oxford, 1742: fellow, 1745: ordained, but lived in college. It is said that "[h]e entered into holy orders, but never could engage in parochial duty, from being subject to excessive pains in his head". He published poems, including The Chameleon; translated from the Greek and advocated the compilation and amalgamation of indexes to the principal Greek authors; versified the Psalms, several editions of which were set to music. His work was featured in Oxford religious poetry anthologies.

Works

Merrick wrote: Now best known for his short poem The Chameleon, Merrick contributed to the verses which were issued by the university of Oxford on the accession of George III (1761), his marriage (1761), and the birth of his heir (1762), and many poems by him are in the collections of Dodsley, ed. 1766, George Pearch, Bell's Fugitive Poetry, and in Dodsley's Museum. Four English lines of his composition were placed over the debtors' gate of the old county gaol in Castle Street, Reading.

Associations

Observations by Merrick on a fragment ascribed to Longinus are published by Nathaniel Lardner in the ‘Collection of Testimonies of Ancient Heathens on the Truth of the Christian Religion’ (Works, ed. 1838, vi. 380–1), and John Taylor, in the preface to ‘Marmor Sandvicense,’ 1743, wrote of obligations to him. Many letters to him from John Ward, and one from Bernard de Montfaucon, are in the British Library. By April 1739 he was corresponding on classical subjects with Hermann Samuel Reimar, the Dutch philologist, and there are references to his ‘Notes on Tryphiodorus’ in Johannes Alberti's final volume of "Hesychius".

Legacy

Merrick bequeathed scarce and valuable books to John Loveday of Williamscote, near Banbury, and £400 to Trinity College.