, whom Warton calls one of the minor pastoral poets of the reign of
, whom
Warton calls one of the minor pastoral poets of the reign
of James I. was the second son of Thomas Brathwaite, of
Warcop, near Appleby, in Westmoreland, descended of
a respectable family. He was born in 1588, and at the
age of sixteen became a commoner of Oriel-college, Oxford, being matriculated as a gentleman’s son, and a native
of Westmoreland. While he continued in that college,
which was at least three years, Wood informs us, that
“he avoided as much as he could the rough paths of logic
and philosophy, and traced those smooth ones of poetry
and Roman history, in which, at length, he did excel.
”
He afterwards removed to Cambridge, where he spent
some time “for the sake of dead and living authors,
”
and then going into the north, his father gave him the
estate of Barnside, where he lived many years, having a
commission in the militia, and being appointed deputylieutenant in the county of Westmoreland, and a justice
of peace. In his latter days he removed to Appleton, near
Richmond, in Yorkshire, where he died May 4, 1673,
and was buried in the parish church of Catterick, near
that place, leaving behind him, says Wood, the character
of a “well-bred gentleman, and a good neighbour.
”
Wood has enumerated as his publications: 1. “Golden
Fleece, with other poems,
” Lond. The
Poet’s Willow, or the passionate shepherd,
” ibid. The Prodigal’s Tears, or his farewell to vanity,
” The Scholar’s Medley, or an intermixt discourse upon historical and poetical relations,
&c.
” Essays upon the Five Senses,
”
Nature’s Embassy, or the
wild man’s measures, danced naked by twelve Satyrs,
”
Time’s curtain
drawn: divers poems,
” The English
Gentleman,
” The English
Gentlewoman,
” Discourse of Detraction,
” The Arcadian
Princess, or the triumph of justice,
” Survey of History, or a nursery for gentry; a discourse historical and poetical,
” A spiritual
Spicery, containing sundry sweet tractates of devotion
and piety,
” Mercurius Britannicus,
or the English intelligencer,
” a tragi-comedy, acted at
Paris, and a satire upon the republicans, 16-H, second
edit. 4to. 15. “Time’s Treasury, or Academy for the
accomplishment of the English gentry in arguments of
discourse, habit, fashion, &c.
” Congratulatory poem on his Majesty, upon his happy
arrival in our late discomposed Albion,
” Regicidium,
” a tragi-comedy, Panedone, or health from Helicon,
” The
description of a Good Wife, or a rare one among women,
”
Arcadian Princess.
” It appears to us, that in his poetry, as
in his prose, he excels’most as a painter of manners, a subject which he had studied all his life, and of which he
delivered some of the earliest precepts. His style, however, must still render his works more acceptable to the
curious, than to the common reader.