Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.6
Gallery Label:
The Revd. Dr. Charles Symmons (1749-1826), who is shown here wearing academic dress (Oxford, D.D.), was rector of Narberth and Lampeter Velfrey, Pembrokeshire, two of the most valuable "livings" in the Welsh diocese of St. David's. Besides being a comfortably established clergyman and country gentleman, Dr. Symmons was a poet and a man of letters. He preached and published several staunchly whiggish sermons-including one at Richmond upon death of Charles James Fox-all in the hope of ecclesiastical preferment, evidently without success. He produced a weird tragedy called Inez, published in 1796; a dramatic poem called Constantia (1800); biographies of John Milton and William Shakespeare, as well as an impressionistic translation of the Aeneid. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
