[1][2][3] His first work consisted of fragments from the minor Greek poets, with notes (Elegiaca Graeca, 1759); and in 1763 he published a fine edition of the inscriptions among the Arundel marbles, Marmora Oxoniensia, with a Latin translation, and a number of suggestions for supplying the lacunae.
In 1764 he was introduced by Robert Wood, who had produced the Ruins of Palmyra to the Society of Dilettanti and sent by them, accompanied by Nicholas Revett, an architect, and William Pars, a painter, to explore the antiquities of Ionia and Greece (1764-1766).
Having explored numerous sites in Anatolia and Ionian Islands, they continued to Athens, where they purchased fragments of sculpture from the Parthenon: "We purchased two fine fragments of the frieze which we found inserted over the doorways in the town, and were presented with a beautiful trunk which had fallen from the metopes, and lay neglected in the garden of a Turk".
His Life of Bishop Waynflete, Lord High Chancellor to Henry VI, appeared in 1811.
A complete edition (with notes by Nicholas Revett) of the Travels in Asia Minor and Greece was published by Ralph Churton (Oxford, 1825), with an Account of the Author.