Ancients and Moderns
Wotton began his scholarly career as the translator of Louis Dupin’s A new history of ecclesiastical writers, (13 vols. 1692-99). However, he is chiefly remembered for his share in the controversy about the respective merits of ancient and modern learning. In his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1694, and again 1697) he took the part of the moderns, although in a fair and judicial spirit. Some have regarded as one of the most balanced and well informed contributions to come out of the debate. He was attacked for pedantry by Swift in The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub. Wotton responded calling Swift's A Tale "one of the profanest banters upon the religion of Jesus Christ, as such, that ever yet appeared." He also began to write a biography of the chemist Sir Robert Boyle, but his notes were lost and the work was never completed.
Wotton wrote a History of Rome in (1701) at the request of Bishop Burnet, which was later used by the historian Edward Gibbon. In recognition, Burnet appointed him as a prebend of Salisbury from 1705. In 1707 Wotton was awarded a "Lambeth degree" of Doctor of Divinity by Archbishop Thomas Tenison in recognition of his writings in support of the established Church of England against the Deists. Around 1713 Wotton also developed ideas concerning the relationship between languages introducing the concept of an early proto-language by relating Icelandic, the Romance languages and Greek. This pre-dated Sir William Jones’ famous lecture comparing Sanskrit with the Classical languages, by more than seventy years. These theories were later published after Wotton's death, as A discourse concerning the confusion of languages at Babel (1730).
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