Rev. William Alabaster

Born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, William Alabaster attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1588, M.A. 1591, D.D. 1614). As the author of a tragedy, Roxana (before 1592) he enjoyed a reputation as a Latin poet. Alabaster was chaplain to Essex on the Cadiz expedition (1596); the following year he converted to Catholicism, but upon imprisonment returned to Anglicanism, eventually becoming a royal chaplain. He was rector of Therfield in Hertfordshire (1614) and Little Shelford in Cambridgeshire (1622). Spenser praises Alabaster for his anti-Catholic "Elisaeis;" Alabaster commemorated Spenser in a Latin epitaph.

TEXT RECORDS:

1600Epigrammata: in Edouardum Spencerum, Britannicae poeseos facile principem.

PUBLICATIONS:

Apparatus in revelationem Jesu Christi. 1607.
De bestia apocolyptica. 1621.
Roxana. Tragaedia, olim Cantabrigiae acta. 1632.
Ecce Sponsus venit. 1633.
Spiraculum tubarum. 1633.
Lexicon pentaglotton. 1635.
Sonnets, ed. G. M. Story and Helen Gardner. 1959.
Elisaeis, tr. Michael O'Connell. Studies in Philology Texts and Studies 76 (1979).

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Catholic
Anglican
Dissenter

Westminster School
Trinity College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Doctor of Divinity
Gray's Inn
Inns of Court
courtier
Prebendary of St. Paul's

clergyman
poet
dramatist

Earl of Essex
Rev. Robert Herrick
Hugh Holland

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England (1662); Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675) 2:189; Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; "William Alabaster" Town and Country Magazine 10 (June 1778) 229; Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Joseph Haslewood, British Bibliographer 1 (1810) 543-46; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (1815) 5:i 259-60; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Old Westminsters (1928); Louise Imogen Guiney, Recusant Poets (1938); Eleanor Coutts, "The Life and Works of William Alabaster, 1568-1640" (Diss. University of Wisconsin, 1956); Sonnets, ed. G. M. Story and Helen Gardner (1959); Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); Mark Eccles, "Brief Lives" Studies in Philology 79 (1982); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Alabaster" (1990) 11.

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. William Alabaster:

1.	1595  Edmund Spenser, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595); Poetical Works, ed. De Selincourt (1909) 540.
2.	1598  John Racster, Dedication to Essex, A Book of the Seven Planets (1598); British Bibliographer 1 (1810) 544-45.
3.	1632  Hugh Holland, in Alabaster, Roxana (1632).
4.	1648  Robert Herrick, "To Doctor Alablaster" Herrick, Hesperides (1648) 302.
5.	1779  Samuel Johnson, in "Life of Milton," Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); ed. Hill (1905) 1:87-88.
6.	1790  Edmond Malone, in Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (1790; 1821) 2:260-63.
7.	1825  Anonymous, in Retrospective Review 12 (1825) 19.
8.	1837  Henry Hallam, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries (1837-39; 1882) 3:269.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. William Alabaster:

1.	1662  Thomas Fuller, in History of the Worthies of England (1662) 3:70.
2.	1675  Edward Phillips, in Theatrum Poetarum (1675) 2:189.
3.	1690  Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721) 1:F 144.
4.	1769  James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 2:351-52.
5.	1805  Henry John Todd, in Works of Spenser (1805) 1:c-cii.
6.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 1:273-74.
7.	1814  George Dyer, in History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1814) 2:292.