RICHARD

See also:

• RICHARD BRATHWAIT (1588—1673)

BRATHWAIT (1588—1673)  , English poet, son of Thomas Brathwait, was born in 1588 at his father's manor of Burneshead, near Kendal, Westmorland . He entered Oriel College, Oxford, in 1604, and remained there for some years, pursuing the study of poetry and Roman history . He removed to Cambridge to study law and afterwards to London to the Inns of Court . Thomas Brathwait died in 161o, and the son went down to live on the estate he inherited from his father . In 1617 he married Frances Lawson of Nesham., near Darlington . On the death of his elder brother, Sir Thomas Brathwait, in 1618, Richard became the head of the family, and an important personage in the county, being deputy-lieutenant and justice of the peace . In 1633 his wife died, and in 1639 he married again . His only son by this second marriage, Sir Strafford Brathwait, was killed in a sea-fight against the Algerian pirates . Richard Brathwait's most famous work is Barnabae Itinerarium or Barnabees Journall [1638], by " Corymbaeus," written in English and Latin rhyme . The title-page says it is written for the " travellers' solace " and is to be chanted to the old tune of Barnabe." The story of " drunken Barnabee's" four journeys to the north of England contains much amusing topographical information, and its gaiety is unflagging . Barnabee rarely visits a town or village without some notice of an excellent inn or a charming hostess, but he hardly deserves the epithet " drunken." At Banbury he saw the Puritan who has become proverbial, " Hanging of his cat on Monday For killing of a Mouse on Sunday." Brathwait's identity with " Corymbaeus " was first established by Joseph Haslewood . In his later years he removed to Catterick, where he died on the 4th of May 1673 .

Among his other

works are: The Golden Fleece (1611), with a second title-page announcing " sonnets and madrigals," and a treatise on the Art of Poesy, which is not preserved; The Poets Willow; or the Passionate Shepheard (1614); The Prodigals Teares (1614); The Schollers Medley, or an intermixt Discourse upon Historicall and Poeticall relations (1614), known in later editions as a Survey of History (1638, &c.); a collection of epigrams and satires entitled A Strappado for the Divell (1615), with which was published in-congruously Loves Labyrinth (edited, 1878, by J . W . Ebsworth); Natures Embassie; or, the wildemans measures; danced naked by twelve satyres (1621), thirty satires finding antique parallels for modern vices; with these are bound up The Shepheards Tales (1621), a collection of pastorals, one section of which was re-printed by Sir Egerton Brydges in 1815; two treatises on manners, The English Gentleman (163o) and The English Gentle-woman (1631); Anniversaries upon his Panarete (1634), a poem in memory of his wife; Essaies upon the Five Senses (162o); The Psalmes of David . . . and other holy Prophets, paraphras'd in English (1638); A Comment upon Two Tales of . . . Jeffray Chaucer (1665; edited for the Chaucer Soc. by C . Spurgeon, 19o1) . Thomas Hearne, on whose testimony (MS. collections for the year 1713, vol . 47, p . 127) the authorship of the Itinerarium chiefly rests, not inappropriately called him " the scribler of those times," and the list just given of his works, published under various pseudonyms, is by no means complete . A full bibliography is given in Joseph Haslewood's edition of Barnabee's Journall (ed . W .

C .

Hazlitt, 1876) . See also J . Corser, Collectanea (Chetham Soc., 186o, &c.) .