THOMAS CHURCHYARD,
One of the assistants in the Mirror of Magistrates. He was born in the town of Shrewsbury[1] as himself affirms in his book made in verse of the Worthiness of Wales. He was equally addicted to arts and arms; he had a liberal education, and inherited some fortune, real and personal; but he soon exhausted it, in a tedious and unfruitful attendance at court, for he gained no other equivalent for that mortifying dependance, but the honour of being retained a domestic in the family of lord Surry: during which time by his lordship's encouragement he commenced poet. Upon his master's death he betook himself to arms; was in many engagements, and was frequently wounded; he was twice a prisoner, and redeemed by the charity of two noble ladies, yet still languishing in distress, and bitterly complaining of fortune. Neither of his employments afforded him a patron, who would do justice to his obscure merit; and unluckily he was as unhappy in his amours as in his circumstances, some of his mistresses treating his addresses with contempt, perhaps, on account of his poverty; for tho' it generally happens that Poets have the greatest power in courtship, as they can celebrate their mistresses with more elegance than people of any other profession; yet it very seldom falls out that they marry successfully, as their needy circumstances naturally deter them from making advances to Ladies of such fashion as their genius and manners give them a right to address. This proved our author's case exactly; he made love to a widow named Browning, who possessed a very good jointure; but this lady being more in love with money than laurels, with wealth than merit, rejected his suit; which not a little discouraged him, as he had spent his money in hopes of effecting this match, which, to his great mortification, all his rhimes and sonnets could not do. He dedicated his vorks to Sir Christopher Hatton; but addresses of that nature don't always imply a provision for their author. It is conjectured that he died about the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, and according to Mr. Wood was buried near Skelton in the Chancel of St. Margaret's, Westminster. By his writings, he appears a man of sense, and sometimes a poet, tho' he does not seem to possess any degree of invention. His language is generally pure, and his numbers not wholly inharmonious. The Legend of Jane Shore is the most finished of all his works, from which I have taken a quotation. His death, according to the most probable conjecture, happened in 1570. Thus like a stone (says Winstanley) did he trundle about, but never gathered any moss, dying but poor, as may be seen by his epitaph in Mr. Camden's Remains, which runs thus:
Come Alecto, lend me thy torch
To find a Church-yard in a Church-porch;
Poverty and poetry his tomb doth enclose,
Wherefore good neighbours, be merry in prose.
His works according to Winstanley are as follow:
The Siege of Leith.
A Farewell to the world.
A feigned Fancy of the Spider and the Gaul.
A doleful Discourse of a Lady and a Knight.
The Road into Scotland, by Sir William Drury.
Sir Simon Burley's Tragedy.
A lamentable Description of the Wars in Flanders in prose, and dedicated to Walsingham secretary of state.
A light Bundle of lively Discourses, called Churchyard's Charge 1580, dedicated to his noble patron the Earl of Surry.
A Spark of Friendship, a treatise on that writer, address'd to Sir
Walter Raleigh.
A Description and Discourse on the use of paper, in which he praises a paper-mill built near Darthsend, by a German called Spillman.
The Honour of the Law 1596.
Jane Shore, mistress to King Edward IV.
A Tragical Discourse of the unhappy Man's Life.
A Discourse of Virtue.
Churchyard's Dream.
A Tale of a Fryar and a Shoemaker's Wife,
The Siege of Edinburgh Castle.
Queen Elizabeth's reception into Bristol.
These twelve several pieces he bound together, calling them Churchyard's Chips, which he dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton. He wrote beside,
The Tragedy of Thomas Moubray Duke of
Norfolk.
Among the rest by fortune overthrowne,
I am not least, that most may waile her fate:
My fame and brute, abroad the world is
blowne,
Who can forget a thing thus done so late?
My great mischance, my fall, and heavy state,
Is such a marke whereat each tongue doth shoot
That my good name, is pluckt up by the root,
[Footnote 1: Winst. 61.]
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