Richard Brathwait

Richard Brathwait of Kendal, Westmorland entered Oriel College Oxford in 1604 at the age of 16; he was later a justice of the peace, army captain, Royalist, and a very prolific writer of pamphlets; among his many publications is a commentary on Chaucer. The nineteenth-century bibliophile Thomas Frognall Dibdin described him as "a most extraordinary man in poetry and in prose."

TEXT RECORDS:

1614The Poets Willow.
1615A Panegyrick Embleame, intituled, Saint George for England.
1615An Eglogue betweene Billie and Jockie called the Mushrome.
1615An Epigram called the Courtier.
1615Upon the Generall Sciolists or Poettasters of Britannie. A Satyre.
1621Shepheards Tales: The First Eglogue. Technis Tale.
1621Shepheards Tales: The First Eglogue: Corydons Tale.
1621Shepheards Tales: The Second Eglogue. Dorycles Tale.
1621Shepheards Tales: The Second Eglogue. Sapphus Tale.
1621Shepheards Tales: The Third Eglogue. Dymnus Tale.
1621Shepheards Tales: The Third Eglogue. Linus' Tale.
1621The Prelude to his Shepheards Tales.

PUBLICATIONS:

The golden fleece. 1611.
The poets willowe: or the passionate shepheard. 1614.
The Prodigals teares. 1614.
The schollers Medley, or an intermixt discourse upon historicall and poeticall relations. 1614.
A Strappado for the Devil. 1615.
Essays upon the five senses. 1620.
Nature's Embassie. 1621.
The English gentleman. 1630.
The English gentlewoman. 1631.
Barnabee's journal. 1638.
The psalms of David. 1638.
A comment upon the two tales of Chaucer, the Miller's tale and the Wife of Bath. 1665.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Oriel College Oxford
Trinity College Cambridge
Gray's Inn
Inns of Court

military
poet
essayist

Lancelot Andrewes
Thomas Heywood

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

[Portrait in English Gentleman (1630), Survey of History (1638)]; Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry (1774-81); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); Samuel Egerton Brydges, Censura Literaria (1805-09, 1815); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (1815) 3:986-92; Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 2 (1815) 286-87, 3 (1815) 145-60, 196-210, 303-04, 339-44; "Brathwait and Barnabee's Journal" Gentleman's Magazine 88 (April 1818) 329-30; "Barnabee's Journal" Gentleman's Magazine 91 (May 1821) 440-42; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Joseph Haslewood, memoir in Brathwait, Barnabee's Journal (1820); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica II (1861) 336-456; Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); M. W. Black, Brathwait: an Account of his Life and Works (1928); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Richard Brathwait:

1.	1781  Thomas Warton, in History of English Poetry (1774-81; 1840) 3:464-65.
2.	1790 ca.  William Cole, Collectanea for Athenae Cantabrigienses, 1780 ca.; Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 3 (1815) 66.
3.	1820  John Payne Collier, in Poetical Decameron (1820) 2:54-55.
4.	1824  Thomas Frognall Dibdin, in Library Companion (1824; 1825) 2:603-08.
5.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 48.
6.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in Lives of Sacred Poets (1834) 346-47.
7.	1847  Edward Farr, in Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847) xxxii.
8.	1866  John Payne Collier, "A Strappado for the Divell" in Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books (1866) 1:4-97.
9.	1866  John Payne Collier, "Shepherds Tales, 1623" in Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books (1866) 4:26-28.
10.	1914  Edmund Gosse, in "Samuel Rowlands" Seventeenth-Century Studies (1914) 82-83.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Richard Brathwait:

1.	1675  Edward Phillips, in Theatrum Poetarum (1675) 2:156.
2.	1690  Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721) 2:516-17.
3.	1769  James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 3:158.
4.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 6:459-60.
5.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 256.
6.	1878  J. W. Ebsworth, introduction to Strappado for the Divell (1878) v-xxx.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1615  Christopher Brooke:   Richard Brathwait, "To the Poet-tasters" in Strappado for the Devil (1615) 23-24.
2.	1615  George Wither:   Richard Brathwait, "To the Poet-tasters" Strappado for the Divell (1615) 23-24.
3.	1638  Thomas Heywood:   Richard Brathwait, in Survey of History (1638) 114n; Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 3 (1815) 358.