Life

He was born at Lanhigan in Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, son of a brother of Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...

. When he went to Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

 at the late age of eighteen, he could neither read nor understand one word of any language but Welsh. He soon, however, acquired much classical learning.

He carried on an extensive correspondence with all the prominent men of his generation. His profession was that of a schoolmaster, first in a boarding school at Tottenham High Cross (Middlesex), and later as master of the Mercers' School, London, where he remained for upwards of twenty years. He died 31 May 1723.

Works

His first publication was a Latin grammar, called De Analogia, sive arte Linguae Latinae Commentariolus ... in usum provectioris adolescentiae, 1679.

He made his mark at abound by his Anacreon

Anacreon

Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets.- Life :...

, published in 1695. Later opinion pronounced it over-bold in its readings. It was reprinted in 1710. Joshua Barnes

Joshua Barnes

Joshua Barnes , was an English scholar.He was born in London, the son of Edward Barnes, a merchant taylor.Educated at Christ's Hospital and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he was in 1695 chosen Regius Professor of Greek, a language which he wrote and spoke with the utmost facility.One of his first...

 charged Baxter with borrowing largely in the second edition from his edition of Anacreon of 1705, but Barnes afterwards retracted the charge. In 1701 appeared Baxter's Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, which J. M. Gesner made the basis of his edition, published in 1752 and also in 1772. Baxter's edition was republished in 1725 and in 1798. Robert Lowth

Robert Lowth

Robert Lowth FRS was a Bishop of the Church of England, Oxford Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar.-Life:...

 pronounced it 'the best edition of Horace ever yet delivered to the world.' In 1788 Zeunius incorporated in an edition of Horace all Baxter's and Gesner's notes. Baxter's Horace includes abuse of Richard Bentley

Richard Bentley

Richard Bentley was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge....

.

In 1719 he published his dictionary of British antiquities under the title of Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, sive Syllabus Etymologicus Antiquitatum Veteris Britanniae atque Iberniae temporibus Romanorum. This work was republished by Moses Williams

Moses Williams

Moses Williams was a Welsh antiquarian scholar.He was born the son of Samuel Williams, Vicar of Llan Dyfriog and Rector of Llan Gynllo, Cardiganshire, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Jenkin Powell Prytherch, in Y Glaslyn, near Llandysul, Ceredigion, in south-west Wales.He was ordained a deacon...

. The same editor brought out Baxter's fragmentary posthumous work, his glossary of Roman antiquities, under the title of Reliquiae Baxterianae, sive W. Baxteri Opera Posthuma. It went only through the letter A. There is a life of the author written by himself accompanying it. He had prepared an edition of Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

 with commentary and notes; but, in spite of Moses Williams's proposals, it never appeared.

Baxter from the outset pursued physiological studies and other subsidiary investigations, in the 'Philosophical Transactions' and Archaeologia. He was 'one of the hands' in the translation of Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

's Morals (1718).