1757 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1757. Events February 16 – Jonathan Edwards becomes President of the institution that will become Princeton University. May 3 – The Irish-born actress Peg Woffington, playing Rosalind in As You Like It, suffers a stroke on stage at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London and never acts again. May 6 – Asylum confinement of Christopher Smart: The poet Christopher Smart is confined to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London. May – The Baskerville typeface, designed by John Baskerville of Birmingham, England, is first used in a wove paper quarto edition of Virgil (Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et Æneis). September – Pierre-Augustin Caron begins using the name Beaumarchais. September 9 – The Parlement of Toulouse orders a public burning of Jesuit author Hermann Busenbaum's Medulla Theologiae Morales because of its treatment of the subject of regicide. December 11 – On the death of Colley Cibber as Poet Laureate of Great Britain, the post is declined by Thomas Gray and passes to William Whitehead. unknown dates Angelo Maria Bandini is appointed librarian of the Laurentian Library in Florence. Robert Raikes becomes proprietor of the Gloucester Journal. Horace Walpole begins the Strawberry Hill Press. Thomas Warton is appointed Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. New books Prose John Brown – An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times Edmund Burke – A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful John Dalrymple – An Essay Towards a General History of Feudal Property in Great Britain Samuel Derrick (probable compiler) – Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1st edn) Adam Ferguson – The Morality of Stage-Plays Seriously Considered Sarah Fielding – The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia Edward and Elizabeth Griffith – A Series of Genuine Letters between Henry and Frances vols. i – ii. David Hume – The Natural History of Religion Soame Jenyns – A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil Richard Price – Review of the Principal Questions in Morals Madame Riccoboni – Lettres de Mistriss Fanny Butlerd. Tobias Smollett – A Complete History of England Horace Walpole – A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien Chi at Peking William Warburton – Remarks upon Mr.