Matthew Green

The son of nonconformist parents and an admirer of the Quakers, Matthew Green worked as a clerk in a customhouse and wrote occasional verse. He is author of The Grotto, a Poem (1732), about Queen Caroline’s Grotto in Richmond. He is best known for his aphorisms and The Spleen, an Epistle Inscribed to His Particular Friend Mr. C.J. (1737), a poem in octosyllabic meter that praises the simple, contemplative life.

His poetry was admired by Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray. Little is known about his life; one story maintains that when the government was planning to stop the allowance that provided milk for the customhouse cats, Green intervened with a petition in the cats’ names and their milk allotment was saved.

Green died at Nag’s Head Court, Gracechurch Street, London.