Robertson provides a somewhat slanted take on the tradition of the preferment-seeking Hanoverian cleric; he was educated in the dissenting tradition, conformed to the established church, and then left it over scruples about asking anyone to commit to a human-written liturgy. Essentially he spent the first twenty-odd years of his life preparing for the dissenting ministry, then spent his working life into his late fifties in the established church, then spent the last two decades of his life cobbling together an income as a schoolmaster.

Ridley exemplifies the central stream of Anglican clerical piety and scholarship--many printed sermons from various official state and philanthropic occasions, some controversial writings in defense of the thirty-nine articles, and a few poems on political and theological themes.

Richardson was not a poet--he was a periodical writer, letter writer, and author of novels. But he did write a poem at least once, and publish it in the GM (and he may have some original verses in the novels as well, I can't remember).

Richard was a successful and respected schoolteacher--he ran his school from 1735-40, closed it for six years to engage in further classical studies himself, and then reopened it in 1746 (DNB doesn't suppy further history). He taught and was friends with several other 18c Welsh poets. His own output was small, and he doesn't seem to have any publications recorded in ESTC (though DNB says one of his pastorals was published at Shrewsbury in 1776). His work was included in Welsh anthologies from early 19c on.

Riccaltoun taught (and, in Thomson's account, inspired) James Thomson. He does not seem to have otherwise sought a reputation as a poet--his entire career was spent as minister of a single parisha nd his publications are all controversial divinity.

DNB describes Rhydderch as a "competent if not imaginative poet, best known for carols and ballads." His greatest significance is as a patriotic Welsh printer and bookseller, offering almanacs, a dictionary and grammar, devotional and moral works, and chapbooks and ballads for an increasingly literate Welsh-language audience. His almanacs promoted the idea of an eisteddfod. Interest in Welsh cultural history and poetic institutions is here paired with a business interest in bringing modern print culture to Wales.

Relph presents an interesting amalgam of the clerical man-of-letters and working-class/regional poet archetypes. He was born into an Anglican clerical family and was ordained, but he attended Glasgow (taking no degree) rather than one of the English universities and spent his short life (he died at 30) as a curate drawing £30 p.a. His poems are written in Cumbrian dialect, but judging from the first one they're framed by verse introductions in standard English, implying a code-switching regional speaker who also knows the national standard.

"Ramsay was an early avatar of the primitivists and folklorists of the ; 1760s and thereafter, who wrote and collected at a time when it may yet ; have seemed possible to him that the preservation and defence of the ; culture of his native land might serve a political purpose rather than a; cultural or literary one." Ramsay was an Edinburgh burgesses and businessman, a member and founder of various Scottish Enlightenment clubs, a Jacobite and Scottish nationalist, and renowned as a poet throughout Britain.

Ralph appeared in England after leaving a wife and daughter in Philadelphia--failing to find work in London, he assumed the name of his friend (and creditor) Benjamin Franklin and worked as a schoolteacher in Berkshire. Returning to London he seems to have sought to live by writing, first poetry, then drama, then political journalism and finally history. He worked with Fielding from c. 1730-1750, and beginning in the 40s received a series of pensions from various Whig political figures.

There is little evidence regarding Frowde's activities in the first two decades of the 18th c., but apparently he did not start seriously writing for money until his late 40s (DNB). His two tragic plays were mildly successful.