John Paradise

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John Paradise (1743–1795) was an Anglo-Greek linguist, known as a friend of Samuel Johnson and Fellow of the Royal Society.

Life

He was born at

Thessalonica in April 1743, the son of Peter Paradise (died 1 February 1779), who was the English consul there, and of a half-Greek half-English mother.[1] Paradise was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, and apparently not a convert but born into it.[1] He was educated at Padua, then lived in London for most of his life in London. He knew ancient and modern Greek, Latin, Turkish, French, Italian, and English.[2] Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson encouraged him to come to America.[3]

In correspondence with the latter in the 1780s, Paradise assisted Jefferson in studying the Greek language.[4]

On 14 April 1769 Paradise was created M.A. of Oxford University, and on 3 July 1776 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred on him.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, when discussing the club, enumerated him among the "very learned". He was one of the mourners at Johnson's funeral.[2]

Paradise, a friend of

Semyon Romanovich Woronzow.[6]

Family

On 18 May 1769, he married Lucy Ludwell (1751–1814), daughter of Philip Ludwell III, a plantation owner from Virginia.[7] Lucy, like John, was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.[1] Around 1805, after the death of her husband and two daughters she returned to Williamsburg, where she lived in the Ludwell–Paradise House.[2]

Notes

  1. ^
    ISSN 0042-6636
    .
  2. ^ a b c d Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Paradise, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 43. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. ISBN 978-1-351-51669-3
    .
  4. ^ Archibald Bolling Shepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williamsburg (Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1942), p. 212.
  5. ^ s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Paradise, John
  6. JSTOR 4245654
  7. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21258. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)

External links

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Paradise, John". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 43. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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