Richard Corbet

“ The earl of Nottingham here glanced at was Charles lord Howard of Effingham, lord high admiral of England under queen Elizabeth and king James the First. He died in 1624.
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From Leicester to Nottingham (twenty-five miles) the travellers pass without noticing any thing on their way, until approaching the latter place they cross the Trent, pray to St. Andrew as they ride up hill, into the town, and observe that the people burrow, like conies, in caverns, from whence the smoke ascends at the feet of the woman who stands on the surface watching, down the chimney, the cooking of her dinner. ”

“ An eye-witness declares, “Though I endured a great deal of penance by the way for this little pleasure, yet I would not have missed it, for that I see thereby the partiality of both sides—the Cambridge men pleasing and applauding themselves in all, and the Oxford men as fast condemning and detracting all that was done; wherein yet I commended Corbet’s modesty, whilst he was there; who being seriously dealt withal by some friends to say what he thought, answered, that he had left his malice and judgment at home, and came there only [xv] to commend [7] .” ”

“ Lushington, was a very learned and ingenious man, and they loved one another. The Bishop would sometimes take the key of the wine-cellar, and he and his chaplaine would go and lock themselves in and be merry; then first he layes down his episcopal hood, ‘There layes the doctor;’ then he putts off his gowne, ‘There layes the bishop;’ then ’twas, ‘Here’s to thee, Corbet;’—‘Here’s to thee, Lushington.’ ”

“ The Castle of Kenilworth was once the splendid residence of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, one of the favourites of queen Elizabeth, and on his death, in 1588, passed to his son, Robert Dudley, who used the title of earl of Leicester,—but by a decree of the Star-Chamber was declared to be illegitimate, and from disgust at that sentence retired into Italy, under a license for three years ”

“ In 1628 Corbet suffered a severe privation in the loss of his patron Villiers duke of Buckingham, assassinated by Felton on the 23d of August, who, whatever were his political crimes, was, like his amiable and indulgent master, a liberal promoter of literature and science, and to his death an encourager of Corbet’s studies. ”

“ The pleasure of this part of their journey was not diminished by their reception at Newark, where they met with a friend, out of respect to whom the town united as a family to give the travellers a hearty welcome; and even the landlord of one inn did not repine that they had passed his house to go to another, and the landlord of the inn where they rested was more solicitous of their approbation than his own profit. The very beggars rather prayed for their friend than begged of his guests, and the Puritans were willing to “let the organs play,” if the visitors would tarry. ”

“ The poet might still compliment the giants at Guildhall; but of Holmeby (Holdenby House, Northamptonshire, built by queen Elizabeth’s lord chancellor, sir Christopher Hatton,) not one stone remains upon another: nay, the very memory of the giants might have perished but for the Iter Boreale. ”

“ Henry Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, was the first founder of the hospital in the Newark at Leicester in the year 1330, which was considerably enlarged and improved, and converted into a college by his son Henry, the good duke of Lancaster, in 1355; but there is a more general sense in which the word Founder is used, namely, that in which it is extended to all those who inherit, either by descent or by purchase, the patronage under the original founder. ”

“ Upon the evening of the same Sunday, the students of Christ-Church, willing to show their respect for the royal visitor, obtained leave to present a play before the King; and they chose, with no great display of taste, Barten Holyday’s ΤΕΧΝΟΓΑΜΙΑ, or “The Marriage of the Arts,” which had been acted in Christ-Church hall the 13th of February, 1617. The play was so little relished, that the king was with difficulty persuaded to sit till its conclusion: the “enactors” became subjects of ridicule to the University; and, though Corbet and King rhymed in their favour, the laugh went against them. ”

“ By the further provisions of his testament, his son was to be joined with Anne Hutton in the administration upon his attaining the age of seventeen; and in case of the decease of both, the whole was to devolve upon his daughter Alice.
Such was the end of this learned and ingenious prelate and poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, and in collecting the scattered memorials for whose biography,
et etiam disjecta membra poetæ, I have, I hope not unprofitably to myself or others, employed some leisure hours. ”

“ A note on the older editions of Corbet calls this gentleman the Parson of Heathcot: but there is no place of the name of Heathcot in that neighbourhood; and as, by comparison with other parts of the tour in which miles are mentioned, one mile will be invariably found to signify one and a half at the least; and as less than two reputed miles is accounted only one mile in the distance of places, I presume it was Ayleston, and not Heathcot, where the party rested, and were regaled with stale beer. ”

“ Should Christ say that to us now which he said once to the Jews, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again:’ we would quickly know his meaning not to be the material temple. Three years can scarce promoove three foot. ”

“ Paul installed, where Diana is thrust out. It did magnify the creation, it was taken out of the [xliii] darkness: light is not the clearer for it, but stronger and more wonderful: and it doth beautify this church, because it was taken from pollution. The stones are not the more durable, but the happier for it. It is worthy the standing for the age, the time since it was built, and for the structure, so stately an edifice is it: it is worthy to stand for a memorial of it from which it is redeemed, but chiefly for his house that dwells therein. ”

“ Daniel Price was the eldest son of Thomas Price, vicar of Saint Chad’s, Shrewsbury, in which borough he was born and educated. From St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he was entered in 1594, he removed to Exeter college, where he took the degree of master of arts, and entered into holy orders. He afterwards became dean and residentiary canon of Hereford, rector of Worthyn in Shropshire, and of Lantelos in Cornwall ”

“ When twas noe more a body, nor good clay,
But a huge ulcer. O thou heav’nly race,
Thou soule that shunn’st th’ infection of thy case,
Thy house, thy prison, pure soule, spotless, faire,
Rest where no heat, no cold, no compounds are!
Rest in that country, and injoy that ease,
Which thy frayle flesh deny’de, and her disease!
[131]
ON THE
CHRIST-CHURCH PLAY.
The failure of success in the representation of this play has been detailed in the Life of the Bishop: indeed it seems to have subjected the Oxonians to much ridicule, which the elegant bishop King [74] joined with Corbet in retorting. ”

“ Richard Corbet, successively bishop of Oxford and Norwich, was born at the village of [vii] Ewell in Surrey, in the year 1582: he was the only son of Bennet, or Benedicta, and Vincent Corbet, who, from causes which I have not discovered, assumed the name of Poynter. His father, a man of some eminence for his skill in gardening, and who is celebrated by Ben Jonson in an elegy [1] alike [viii] honourable to the subject, the poet, and the friend, for his many amiable virtues, resided [ix] at Whitton, a hamlet in the parish of Twickenham, where the poet passed his declining days. ”

“ The Divine thus satyrized by Corbet is lauded by Fuller in high strains of eulogy. He was born at Marston near Coventry, and was educated at Christ College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. Having obtained the living of St. Andrew’s parish in that university, he resided there till his death.—“He would pronounce the word damme with such an emphasis,” says Fuller, (Holy State, p. 80. fol. 1652.) “as left a doleful echo in his auditors’ ears a good while after.” This passage is of itself a sufficient illustration of the poet. ”

“ Their congregations were scattered over the kingdom; and at this period there was at Norwich one of the Dutch, and one of the Walloons, the latter of which carried on an extensive manufacture of woollen cloths, for the vending of which, they in 1564 obtained a lease of the chapel of St. Mary the Less, which they fitted up as a hall or [xxxvii] market-place for that purpose. Where they performed divine service before the year 1619 I know not, but in that year Samuel Harsnet licensed the Walloon congregation to use during his pleasure the Bishop’s chapel, or chapel of the Virgin Mary [25] . ”

“ A very man, who had no cloven feete;
Though William, still of little faith, doth doubt
Tis Robin, or some sprite that walkes about:
Strike him, quoth hee, and it will turne to ayre;
Crosse your selves thrice and strike it: Strike that dare,
Thought I, for sure this massy forrester
In stroakes will prove the better conjurer. [192]
But twas a gentle keeper, one that knew
Humanity, and manners where they grew;
And rode along soe farr till he could say,
See yonder Bosworth stands, and this your way.
And now when wee had swett ’twixt sunn and sunn,
And eight miles long to thirty broad had spun ”

“ He was “a learned man, and as great a lover and encourager of learning and learned men, especially of mathematicians, (he being one himself) as any man in his time.”
He had a son, William, who was a man of learning, and tutor to the two sons of his father’s patron, Villiers, but died issueless in Jamaica in the service of Cromwell in the same year with his father: and a daughter, Frances, (sole heir of her father and brother) who, in 1634, became the [87] wife of Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, and was grandmother to queen Mary the Second, and to queen Anne. ”

“ And now the Trojan horse sets loose his knightes;
The triumph moues: O what could added bee,
Save your accesse, to this solemnitye?
Which I expect, and doubt not but to see ’t,
When the kings favour and your worth shall meete.
I thinke the robes would now become you soe,
St. George himselfe could scarce his owne knights know
From the lord Mordant: Pardon mee that preach
A doctrine which king James can only teach;
To whome I leaue you, who alone hath right
To make knightes lords, and then a lord a knight. ”

“ The Puritans will let the organs play.
Would they pull downe the gallery, builded new,
With the church-wardens seat and Burleigh-pew,
Newarke, for light and beauty, might compare
With any church, but what cathedralls are.
To this belongs a vicar [100] , who succeded
The friend I mention’d; such a one there needed; [187]
A man whose tongue and life is eloquent,
Able to charme those mutinous heads of Trent,
And urge the Canon home, when they conspire
Against the crosse and bells with swords and fire. ”

“ Since shee hath chang’d her window for a grave;
From whence shee us’d to dart out witt so fast,
And stick them in their coaches as they past! [127]
Who now shall make well-colour’d vice looke pale?
Or a curl’d meteor with her eyes exhale,
And talke him into nothing? Who shall dare
Tell barren braines they dwell in fertill haire? ”

“ Corbet appears, says Headley [9] , to have [xvi] been of that poetical party who, by inviting Ben Jonson to come to Oxford, rescued him from the arms of a sister University, who has long treated the Muses with indignity, and turned a hostile and disheartening eye on those who have added most celebrity to her name [10] .
We do not find that Ben expressed any [xvii] regret at the change of his situation: companions whose minds and pursuits were similar to his own, are not always to be found in the gross atmosphere of the muddy Cam, though easily met with on the more genial banks of the Isis ”

“ Thomas Hariot, styled by Camden “Mathematicus Insignis,” was a pensioner and companion of sir Walter Raleigh in his voyage to Virginia (1584) , of which upon his return he published an account. He was held in high estimation by the earl of Northumberland, sir Thomas Aylesbury, and others, for his mathematical knowledge, but, like his patron, Raleigh, was a deist in religion.—Ob. 1621. See Wood’s Athenæ, vol. i. p. 460. ed. ”

“ Since Christmas I was sued to (and I have it under the hands of the minister and the whole parish) that I would give way to the adorning of the church within and without, to build a stone wall about the church-yard which till now had but a hedge. I took it for a flout at first, but it proved a suit indeed; they durst not mend a fault of forty years, without a licence. Churchwardens, though they say it not, yet I doubt me most [xlvi] of them think it, that foul spirits in the Gospel said, ‘O thou Bishop or Chancellor, what! ”