Robert Hayman

, a Devonian born, was entred a Sojourner of Exeter coll. while he was very young, an. 1590, where being noted for his ingenuity and pregnant parts, became valued by several persons who were afterwards eminent; among whom were Will. Noy, Arth. Duck his kinsman, Will. and George Hakewill, Tho. Winniff, Rob. Vilvaine, Sim. Baskervile, &c. all of that House, Will. Vaughan of Jesus coll. Charles Fitzgeffry of Broadgates, &c. Afterwards he retired to Lincolns Inn without the honour of a degree, studied for a time the municipal Law, but his Genie being well known to be poetical, fell into acquaintance with, and received encouragement to proceed in his studies from, Mich. Drayton, Ben. Johnson, John Owen the Epigrammatist, George Wither the puritanical Satyrist, John Vicars of Ch. Ch. Hospital, &c. and at length writing several specimens of his wit, which I think are quite lost, had, tho phantastical, the general vogue of a poet. After he had left Linc. Inn and had arrived toward the fortieth year of his age he was made Governour of the plantation of Harbor-Grace in Bristol-hope in Britaniola, anciently called New found-land, where, after some time of residence, he did, at spare hours, write and translate, these matters following.

Quodlibets, lately come over from New Britaniola, antiently called New-found-land.

Epigrams, and other small parcels, both moral and divine. —These two, divided into four books, were printed at London 1628. in qu. the author of them being then there. He also translated from Lat. into English verse, Several sententious epigrams and witty sayings out of sundry authors both ancient and modern, (especially many of the epigrams of Joh. Owen.) Lond. 1628. qu. As also from French into English, The two railing Epistles of the witty Doctor Francis Rablais. On the 17. of Nov. in 1628. he being then bound to Guiane in America to settle a Plantation there, made his Will, a copy of which I have (a)(a) In the Will-Office near to S. Pauls Cath. in reg. Russel, part. 1. seen, wherein he desires to be buried where he dies. 1632 On the 24. of January in sixteen hundred thirty and two, issued out a Commission from the Prerog. Court of Canterbury to a certain person, who had moneys owing to him by Hayman, to administer the goods, debts, chattels, &c. of him the said Rob. Hayman, lately deceased. So that I suppose he died beyond the Seas that year, aged 49. or thereabouts.