(the Reverend Jonathan), was descended from a family formerly settled in Dorsetshire. His grandfather, Onophorus Toup, had been a man of good property, and patron as well as incumbent of Bridport, in that county; but he appears to have been embarrassed in his circumstances before his death, as he parted with the advowson, and left a numerous family very slenderly provided for. His second son Jonathan was bred to the church, and was curate and lecturer of St Ives in Cornwall. He married Prudence, daughter of John Bufvargus, Esq; of Bufvargus in Cornwall, and by her had issue Jonathan, the subject of this article, and one daughter.

Mr Toup lost his father while he was a child; and his mother some time after marrying Mr Keigwyn, vicar of Landrake in Cornwall, his uncle Bufvargus (the last male of that family) took him under his care, and considered him as his own child. He bore the whole charge of his education both at school and at college, and procured for him the rectory of St Martin's near Looe.

Mr Toup was born at St Ives in Cornwall in the year 1713. He received the first rudiments of his education in a grammar school in that town; and was afterwards placed under the care of Mr Gurney, master of a private school in the parish of St Merryn. Thence he was removed to Exeter College in Oxford, where he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts. His master's degree he took at Cambridge in the year 1756. He obtained the rectory of St Martin's in 1750; was installed prebendary of Exeter in 1774; and instituted to the vicarage of St Merryn in 1776: the last preferments he owed to the patronage of Bishop Kepel of Exeter. By the death of his uncle Bufvargus without issue in 1751, Mrs Keigwyn (father to Mr Bufvargus, and mother to Mr Toup) succeeded as heir at law to his estate and effects. She died in 1773, and left a will bequeathing the whole of her estates to her son Mr Jonathan Toup.

In the year 1760 Mr Toup published the first part of his Emendationes in Suidam, and in 1764 the second part of the same work. These books procured him the notice of Bishop Warburton, who from the time of their publication honoured him with his correspondence and patronage. The Bishop, in one of his letters, laments his having a fee without any preferment on it; "had it been otherwise, he should have been too selfish to invite any of his brethren to share with him in the honour of properly distinguishing such merit as Mr Toup's. All, however, that the Bishop could do, he did with the warmth and earnestness of sincere friendship. He repeatedly recommended Mr Toup to Archbishop Secker, Seeker, to the Trustees for disposing of his Options, to Lord Shelburne, and to Bishop Keppel; and the favours this prelate bestowed on Mr Toup were owing to the solicitations of Bishop Warburton. The third part of the Emendations in Suidam was published in 1760. In the following year Archbishop Seeker expressed a desire that Mr Toup would lend his assistance towards a new edition of Polybius, which was then in contemplation. Bishop Warburton strongly pressed his compliance with this wish, and that he would lay by for a while the Notes he was preparing for Mr Warton's edition of Theocritus. In the year 1767 Mr Toup's Epistola Critica ad virum celeberrimum Gul. Epifop. Gloc. made its appearance. In the year 1770, Mr Warton's edition of Theocritus was printed at the university press in Oxford. Mr Toup was a large contributor towards the corrections and annotations of this edition. A note of his on Idyll. xiv. 37, gave such offence to some persons, that the vice chancellor of Oxford prevailed on the editor to cancel the leaf on which it was printed, and substitute another in its room. In 1772 Mr Toup published his Appendiculum Notarum in Theocritum, in which the sublance (A) of the cancelled note was inserted. He concludes his preface to this work with these words: "Sed vero scripsimus ad xiv. 37. verum eft et beneftum. Sed rem pro singulari fua fugacitate minus ceperunt nonnulli Ossonienfes; qui ei me fugitare baud erubuerunt; hominibus eruditione mediocris, ingenio nullo; qui in Hebraicis per omnem fere vitam turpiter volutatis, in literis elegantioribus plane bofipices funt." Mr Toup's next work was the Appendiculum Notarum in Suidam, published in 1775. In 1778 his Longinus was published from the Oxford press in quarto. A second edition has since been printed in octavo.

As a writer of great learning, and of singular critical sagacity, Mr Toup needs no encomium. The testimonies of Mr T. Warton, of Bishop Warburton, and of every person in any way distinguished for classical learning at home; of Erasmus, Hemsterhuis, Runkhenius, Valckenier, Brunck, Kluit, D'Anfe de Villolion, L'Archer, &c., &c., in all parts of Europe, sufficiently establish his reputation as an author. To most or all of these he was afflicting in the several works they published.

As his whole life was past in literary retirement, his character as a man was known but to few. It will appear from his works that he was not wholly untinctured with that self complacency which is the almost inseparable companion of too much solitude; and by those who best knew him, he is said to have been unhappy in his disposition. His virtues, however, were respectable, and his learning was confessedly great. His theological studies were well directed; he sought for the truths of religion where only they can be found, in the Scriptures; not in the glosses and comments of men: it will be needless to add, that he was a liberal and tolerant divine. He was punctual and serious in the discharge of the duties of his profession; and in his preaching singularly plain and forcible. He died on the 19th of January 1785, just entering into the 72nd year of his age, and was buried under the communion-table in his church of St Martin's.

Mr Toup was a Christian from conviction; not merely from the accident of having been born in a country where Christianity was professed. He fulfilled the duties of life conscientiously, and from principle, without parade or ostentation. In his pursuit of learning he was actuated by the most honourable motives; by the desire of improving his own mind, and of amusing himself and others. If in Bishop Warburton he found a patron, capable of distinguishing merit, and zealous to reward it, let it be remembered, to the honour of both parties, that the Bishop's patronage was offered, not solicited. In the year 1764 he was repeatedly pressed by another prelate to quit his retirement at St Martin's, and to settle either in London or in Oxford, where he might have access to books, and might place himself in the way of notice and preferment. He was assured, at the same time, that the bishop of his diocese would himself make a tender of his countenance at his non-residence, without any application from Mr Toup on the subject. But every proposal of this nature he constantly rejected; for he considered the non-residence of the parochial clergy as a neglect of duty, for which no apology can be made. He was never married, and rather capriciously left his fortune, amounting, it has been said, to £12,000, to a niece whose mother was his half-sister, taking not the least notice in his will of his other nephews and nieces, whose mother was his full-sister.