Joseph Warton

Joseph Warton (April 1722 – 23 February 1800) was an English clergyman, academic, and literary critic.

His family later moved to Hampshire, where his father, the Reverend Thomas Warton, became vicar of Basingstoke.

A few years later in Basingstoke, Joseph's sister Jane, also a writer, and his younger brother, Thomas Warton, were born.

In 1755, he returned to his old school to teach, and from 1766 to 1793 was its headmaster, presiding over a period of bad discipline and idleness, provoking three mutinies by the boys.

Like his brother, Warton was a friend of Samuel Johnson, and was part of the literary coterie centered around publisher Robert Dodsley.