[22] After the King's restoration he quitted the living he held under Cromwell, and returned to Eisley near Oxon, to live on his archdeaconry; and had he not acted a temporizing part it was said he might have been raised to a see, or some rich deanery. His poetry however, got him a name in those days, and he stood very fair for preferment; and his philosophy discovered in his book de Anima, and well languaged sermons, (says Wood) speaks him eminent in his generation, and shew him to have traced the rough parts, as well as the pleasant paths of poetry.
His works are,
- Three Sermons, on the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Saviour, Lond. 1626.
- Two Sermons at Paul's Cross.
- A Sermon on the Nature of Faith.
- Motives to a godly Life, in Ten Sermons, Oxon, 1657.
- Four Sermons against Disloyalty, Oxon, 1661.
- Technogamia; or the Marriage of Arts, a Comedy, acted publicly in Christ's Church Hall, with no great applause 1617. But the Wits of those times being willing to distinguish themselves before the King, were resolved, with leave, to act the same comedy at Woodstock, whereupon (says Wood) the author making some foolish alterations in it, it was accordingly acted on Sunday night the 26th of August 1621, but it being too grave for the King, and too scholastic for the Audience, or as some said, that the actors in order to remove their timidity, had taken too much wine before, they began, his Majesty after two acts offered several times to withdraw; at length being persuaded by some of those who were near to him, to have patience till it was ended, lest the young men should be discouraged, he sat it out, tho' much against his will; [23] upon which these Verses were made by a certain scholar;
- At Christ Church Marriage done before the King
Lest that those Mates should want an offering,
The King himself did offer; what I pray?
He offered twice or thrice to go away. - Survey of the World in Ten Books, a Poem, Oxon, 1661, which was judged by Scholars to be an inconsiderable piece, and by some not to be his. But being published just before his death, it was taken for a posthumous work, which had been composed by him in his younger Days[3].
- He translated out of Latin into English the Satires of Persius, Oxon. 1616, in apologizing for the defects of this work, he plays upon the word translate: To have committed no faults in this translation, says he, would have been to translate myself, and put off man. Wood calls this despicable pun, an elegant turn.
- Satires of Juvenal illustrated with Notes, Oxon. folio 1673. At the end of which is the Fourth Edition of Persius, before mentioned.
- Odes of Horace, Lond. 1652; this Translation Wood says, is so near that of Sir Thomas Hawkins, printed 1638, or that of Hawkins so near this, that to whom to ascribe it he is in doubt.
Dr. Holyday, who according to the same author was highly conceited of his own worth, especially in his younger Days, but who seems not to have much reason for being so, died at a Village called Eisley on the 2d day of October 1661, and was three days after buried at the foot of Bishop King's monument, under the south wall of the aisle joining on the south side to the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, near the remains of William Cartwright, and Jo. Gregory.
Footnotes:
Thomas Nabbes.
A writer, in the reign of Charles I, whom we may reckon, says Langbaine, among poets of the third rate, but who in strict justice cannot rise above a fifth. He was patronized by Sir John Suckling. He has seven plays and masks extant, besides other poems, which Mr. Langbaine says, are entirely his own, and that he has had recourse to no preceding author for assistance, and in this respect deserves pardon if not applause from the critic. This he avers in his prologue to Covent-Garden.
He justifies that 'tis no borrowed strain,
From the invention of another's brain.
Nor did he steal the fancy. 'Tis the fame
He first intended by the proper name.
'Twas not a toil of years: few weeks brought forth,
This rugged issue, might have been more worth,
If he had lick'd it more. Nor doth he raise
From the ambition of authentic plays,
Matter or words to height, nor bundle up
Conceits at taverns, where the wits do sup;
His muse is solitary, and alone
Doth practise her low speculation.