Nicolas Tindal - Other Works and Life

Other Works and Life

Tindal continued his translations with that of Prince Cantemir's History of the Othman Empire' (sic) in 1734. The 'Guide to Classical Learning, or Polymetis abridged, for Schools', of which he was editor, was a rare classical text-book which remained of importance throughout the century.

Tindal appears to have attracted some controversy during his life. Aside from that relating to his 'Continuation', he was engaged in a bitter dispute with one Eustace Budgell about his apparent disinheritance by his uncle, Matthew Tindal. Budgell had adopted some of Tindal's freethinking views and assisted him in publishing his 'Christianity as Old as the Creation'. However, he had fallen on hard times, losing up to £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble. It was therefore of some surprise that Matthew Tindal had apparently left the greater part of his fortune to this man, to the exclusion of Tindal, who had been named in a previously published will. Budgell was prosecuted for forgery but committed suicide by drowning himself in the Thames before the case came to trial. Whether Tindal was ever repaid the 2000 guineas of which he had been defrauded is unclear, though Alexander Pope declaimed:

Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on my quill,

And write whate-er he please, except my Will.

Tindal himself was recorded as saying of Garrick that 'The deaf hear him in his action, and the blind see him in his voice.'.

Tindal's long association with Greenwich Hospital and the Naval Office is commemorated by a portrait by Knapton, now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich From this was taken the engraving that illustrates this article.