Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
His _The Phœnix in Her Flames_, a tragedy in four acts, had been
published in 1639. _The Innocent Lady, or the Illustrious Innocence_,
translated from the French of R. de Ceriziers, was published in 1654.
Now in Holland he worked hard at other translations, and he was the
more able to do this at ease, as the Princess Royal Mary of Orange
seems to have taken him into her retinue at the Hague. If the Court
was anything like what it was when James Howell was there, it must
have been vastly dull for the lively and dissolute Sir William Lower.
But his stay was enlivened by the arrival of Charles and the intrigues
there carried on with the well-affected in England.
At the Hague he issued a thin royal folio, with many plates, entitled
"A relation in form of Journal of the voiage and residence which the
most excellent and most mighty Prince, Charles the II, King of Great
Britain, etc., hath made in Holland, from the 25th of May to the 2nd
of June, 1660, rendered into English from the original French. By Sir
W. Lower, Knt. Printed by Adrian Ulack." This was published in Dutch,
French, and English, and at the end of the volume Sir W. Lower
inserted his poems, and an apology for the "tardive appearance (of the
book) due to those men who grave the plates."
Such "poems" as he has given as his own show conclusively enough that
he was not a poet, but a mere hammerer together of rhymes.
In June, 1660, calculating on his services rendered to Charles I and to
the sumptuous book on the residence in Holland of Charles II that he had
brought out, Lower appealed to Secretary Nicholas from The Hague to
obtain for him some place in the King's service. But the death of his
cousin Thomas, only son of Sir William Lower, of Treventy, who died on
5th February, 1661, by which he became sole heir, executor, and chief
representative of the family, recalled him to England. He did not,
however, enjoy ease long, for he died in the ensuing year, 1662, leaving
an only child, Elizabeth, who probably died early, for nothing further
is known of her than that she was in existence when her father died. Who
the wife of Sir William Lower was is not known.
His cousin, Dr. Richard Lower, of S. Paul's, Covent Garden, who gave
Wood information relative to his kinsman, described him as "an ill
poet and a worse man."
His long residence abroad, his dissociation from Cornwall for all his
life save his early boyhood, his separation from his kinsmen, had
broken all the ties that linked him to his family and county; and when
he inherited the estates and was in a position to assist his kinsmen
who had been greatly reduced by the civil wars, "he did not, but
followed the vices of poets."
THE PIRATES AT PENZANCE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account