A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices/Bentley, Richard

by John Hutchinson

Layout 2

Admitted 16 August, 1720.

Only son of Rev. Richard Bentley, S.T.P., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the famous scholar. He became a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of ten, and a Fellow at fifteen. He was a man of great ability but lacking in industry. He possessed artistic tastes and supplied the drawings for Walpole's edition of Gray's Poems (1753). In 1761 he composed a Comedy, entitled The Wishes, which was acted at Drury Lane; and another, entitled The Prophet, was produced there after his death (1788). He was the author also of A Mock Heroic, entitled Patriotism (1763). He died in Westminster, Oct. 1782.