[Anthony[39] Wood in his Hist. <et Antiq. Univ. Oxon.>, lib. 2, p. 273, sayes he was borne in Westminster: that (at riper yeares) after he had studied at Cambridge he came of his owne accord to Oxon and there entred himselfe in Ch. Ch. and tooke his Master's degree in Oxon (or conferred on him) anno 1619.]
His mother, after his father's death, maried a brick-layer; and 'tis generally sayd that he wrought sometime with his father-in-lawe[40] (and particularly on the garden-wall of Lincoln's Inne next to Chancery-lane—from old parson <Richard> Hill, of Stretton, Hereff., 1646), and that ... ..., a knight, a bencher, walking thro' and hearing him repeat some Greeke verses out of Homer, discoursing with him, and finding him to have a witt extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to maintaine him at Trinity college in Cambridge, where he was ... ... (quaere).
Then he went into the Lowe-countreys, and spent some time (not very long) in the armie[41], not to the disgrace of ..., as you may find in his Epigrammes.
Then he came over into England, and acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtaine, a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse, somewhere in the suburbes (I thinke towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell)—from J. Greenhill.
Then he undertooke againe to write a playe, and did hitt it admirably well, viz. 'Every man ...' which was his first good one.
Serjeant John Hoskins, of Herefordshire, was his father. I remember his sonne (Sir Bennet Hoskins, baronet, who was something poeticall in his youth) told me, that when he desired to be adopted his son: 'No,' sayd he, ''tis honour enough for me to be your brother; I am your father's son, 'twas he that polished me, I doe acknowledge it.'
He was (or rather had been) of a clear and faire skin; his habit was very plaine. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say that he was wont to weare a coate like a coach-man's coate, with slitts under the arme-pitts. He would many times exceed in drinke (Canarie was his beloved liquour): then he would tumble home to bed, and, when he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as old woemen used, and as Aulus Gellius is drawen in.
When I was in Oxon, bishop Skinner (of Oxford), who lay at our College, was wont to say that he understood an author as well as any man in England.
He mentions in his Epigrammes a sonne that he had, and his epitaph.