JORTIN (John), a very learned and ingenious English clergyman, was born in Huntingdonshire, about the year 1701. Having some private fortune of his own, and being of a peculiar disposition that could not solicit promotion, he remained long without preferment. In 1738, lord Winchester gave him the living of Eastwell in Kent; but the place not agreeing with his health, he soon resigned it. Archbishop Herring, who had a great value for him, about the year 1751 presented him to the living of St Dunstan's in the East; and bishop Osbaldiston in 1762 gave him that of Kensington, with a prebend in St Paul's cathedral, and made him archdeacon of London. His temper,
temper, as well as his aspect, was rather morose and saturnine; but in company that he liked, he was at all times facetious, yet still with a mixture of sal censura superiorum. His sermons were sensible and argumentative; and would have made more impression on his hearers, had he been more attentive to the advantages flowing from a good delivery: but he appeared to greater advantage as a writer. His remarks on ecclesiastical history, his six dissertations, his life of Erasmus, and his sermons, were extremely well received by the public. He died in the year 1770.