OTWAY was bred at St. John's College, Cambridge. But though his
tragedies are still received with "tears of approbation," he lived in
penury, and died in extreme misery, choked, it is said, by a morsel of
bread given him to relieve his hunger, the 14th of April, 1685. BEN
JONSON, "Rare Ben," also "finished his education" at St. John's, nor
did I ever tread the mazes of its pleasant walks, but imagination
pictured him and his gifted contemporaries and successors, from the
time of the minstrel of Arcadia to the days of Kirke White,
In dalliance with the nine in ev'ry nook,
A conning nature from her own sweet book.
But Ben, though "the greatest dramatic poet of his age," after he left
Cambridge, "worked with a trowel at the building of Lincoln's Inn,"
and died poor in everything but fame, in 1637. Ben, however,
contrived to keep nearly as many "jovial days" in a year, as there are
saints in the Roman calendar, and at a set time held a club at the
same Devil Tavern, near Temple-bar, to which the celebrated Cambridge
professor, and reformer of our church music, Dr. Maurice Greene,
adjourned his concert upon his quarrel with Handel, which made the
latter say of him with his natural dry humour, "_Toctor Creene was
gone to de tavil_." There Ben and his _boon_ companions were still
extant, when TOM RANDOLPH (author of "The Muses' Looking-Glass," &c.,)
a student of Trinity College, Cambridge, had ventured on a visit to
London, where, it is said, he stayed so long, that he had already had
a _parley with his empty purse_, when their fame made him long to see
Ben and his associates. He accordingly, as Handel would have said,
_vent to de tavil_, at their accustomed time of meeting; but being
unknown to them, and without money, he was peeping into the room where
they sat, when he was espied by Ben, who seeing him in a _scholar's
thread-bare habit_, cried out "_John Bo-peep_, come in." He entered
accordingly, and they, not knowing the wit of their guest, began to
rhyme upon the meanness of his clothes, asking him if he could not
make a verse, and, withal, to call for his quart of sack. There being
but four, he thus addressed them:--
"I, John Bo-peep, to you four sheep,
With each one his good fleece,
If that you are willing to give me five shilling,
'Tis fifteen pence a-piece."
"By Jesus," exclaimed Ben (his usual oath,) "I believe this is my son
Randolph!" which being confessed, he was kindly entertained, and Ben
ever after called him his son, and, on account of his learning,
gaiety, and humour, and readiness of repartee, esteemed him equal to
Cartwright. He also grew in favour with the wits and poets of the
metropolis, but was cut off, some say of intemperance, at the age of
twenty-nine. His brother was a member of Christ Church, Oxford, and
printed his works in 1638. Amongst the _Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ_ of
Milton is the fact, that his personal beauty obtained for him the
_soubriquet_ of
"THE LADY OF THE COLLEGE;"
And that he set a full value on his fine exterior, is evident from the
imperfect Greek lines, entitled, "_In Effigie ejus Sculptorem_," in
Warton's second edition of his Poems. Some have supposed he had
himself in view, in his delineation of the person of Adam. Every body
knows that his "Paradise Lost" brought him and his posterity less than
20_l._: but every body does not know that there is a _Latin_
translation of it, in twelve books, in the Library of Trinity College,
Cambridge, in MS., the work of one Mr. Power, a Fellow of that
Society, who printed the First Book in 1691, and completed the rest at
the Bermudas, where his difficulties had obliged him to fly, and from
whence it was sent to Dr. Richard Bentley, to publish and pay his
debts with. However, in spite of his creditors, it still remains in
MS. The writer obtained, says Judge Hardinge, alluding I suppose, to
"the tempest of his mind and of his habits," the _soubriquet_ of the
"_Æolian Exile_." There is also a bust of Milton in the Library of
Trinity College, and some of his juvenile poems, &c., in his own
hand-writing. Cowley was bread at Trinity College. His bust, too,
graces its Library, and his portrait its Hall.