Aubrey notes that he was of 'Cambr.'; and gives in trick the
coat:--'sable, 9 plates between two flaunches argent,' and adds, 'the
crest is a wyld man.'
=Edmund Spenser= (1553-1598/9).
[986]Mr. Edmund Spencer was of Pembrooke-hall in Cambridge; he misst
the fellowship there which bishop Andrewes gott. He was an acquaintance
and frequenter of Sir Erasmus Dreyden. His mistris, Rosalind, was a
kinswoman of Sir Erasmus' lady's. The chamber there at Sir Erasmus'
is still called Mr. Spencer's chamber. Lately, at the College
takeing-downe the wainscot of his chamber, they found an abundance of
cards, with stanzas of the 'Faerie Queen' written on them.--from John
Dreyden, esq., Poet Laureate.
Mr. Beeston sayes he was a little man, wore short haire, little band
and little cuffs.
[987]Edmund Spenser:--Mr. Samuel Woodford (the poet, who paraphras'd
the Psalmes) lives in Hampshire neer Alton, and he told me that Mr.
Spenser lived sometime in these parts, in this delicate sweet ayre;
where he enjoyed his muse, and writt good part of his verses. I
have said before that Sir Philip Sydney and Sir Walter Ralegh were
his acquaintance. He had lived some time in Ireland, and wrote[988]
a description of it, which is printed with Morison's History, or
Description, of Ireland.
Sir John Denham told me, that archbishop Usher, Lord Primate of Armagh,
was acquainted with him, by this token: when Sir William Davenant's
_Gondibert_ came forth, Sir John askt the Lord Primate if he had seen
it. Said the Primate, 'Out upon him, with his vaunting preface, he
speakes against my old friend, Edmund Spenser.'
In the south crosse-aisle of Westminster abbey, next the dore, is this
inscription:
[Sidenote: ☞]
'Heare lies (expecting the second comeing of our Saviour Christ
Jesus) the body of Edmund Spencer, the Prince of Poets of his tyme;
whose divine spirit needs no other witnesse then the workes which
he left behind him. He was borne in London, in the yeare 1510, and
dyed in the yeare 1596.'
=William Stafford= (1593-1684).
=Robert Stafford= (1588-1644).
[989]William Stafford, of Thornbury in com. Gloc., esq., descended of
the family of the duke of Buckingham, was a student of Christ Church,
Oxon. Old Dr. Fell[990] was his tutor. About 30 yeares + since[991] he
printed a pamphlet, viz. _The reasons of the warre_. I thinke he was
a parliament man--but of that party he was. He dyed about May last,
1684, aged ... <at> Thornbury.
[992]Dorothy, sister to William Stafford aforesayd, married to her
first husband, <Robert> Stafford, her kinsman, who was of Exeter Coll.,
and pupill to Dr. John Prideaulx. He wrote a thin 4to Geographie, which
I have read. I remember he begins thus:--
'Indignation made Juvenal a poet and me a geographer.'
=Thomas Stanley= (1625-1678).
[993]Thomas Stanley, esqr., son to Sir Thomas Stanley, born at
Cumberlow....
His praeceptor, Mr. William Fairfax, in his father's howse.
Was of Pembrooke hall in Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master
of Arts.
Was admitted _ad eundem gradum_ in Oxford.
Writ his poems about the years 1646, 1647.
His History of Philosophy, in the years 1655, 1656.
His Aeschylus about the same time.
Dy'd April 12, 1678. Buried at St. Martin's in the Fields, in the
middle isle.
His eldest sonne is Thomas Stanley, esq., of the Middle Temple,
jurisconsultus[994]. He hath left two other sonnes, viz. 2. George, 3.
Charles.
Thomas Stanley, the sonne, aforesayd, translated Aelian's _Variae
Historiae_ at 14 yeares of age. He was also of Pembrooke-hall in
Cambridge.
Quaere his sonne pro nativitate patris and also of what age he was when
he went to Cambridge.
=Richard Staper= (15--- 1608).
[995]Richard Staper, alderman of London:--On the south wall of
St. Martin Outwich church, London, is a faire monument with this
inscription, viz.--
Here resteth the bodie of the worshipfull Richard Staper,
elected alderman of this citty anno 1594. He was the greatest
merchant in his time, the chiefest actor in the discovery
of the trades of Turkey and East India, a man humble in
prosperity, painfull and ever ready in affaires publique, and
discreetly carefull of his private, a liberall howsekeeper,
bountifull to the poore, an upright dealer in the world, and
a divout aspirer after the world to come, much blessed in his
posterity, and happy in his and their allyaunces. He dyed the
last June anno Domini 1608.
Intravit ut exiret.
Besides the figures of himselfe and wife are 5 sonnes and 4 daughters.
At the top of the monument is a shippe.
_Note._