The Poems of Richard Corbet, late bishop of Oxford and of Norwich: 4th editionCorbet, Richard
General
The Poems of Richard Corbet, late bishop of Oxford and of Norwich: 4th edition
Corbet, Richard
English poetry
With sir Fulk Greville they found a prelate of the church, an archdeacon,
whom a note in the old editions calls archdeacon Burton. This, I presume,
was Samuel Burton, A. M. of Christ-Church, Oxford, who paid first-fruits
for the archdeaconry of Gloucester, in the cathedral of Gloucester, the
9th of May, 1607, and died the 14th of June, 1634, and was buried at
Dry-Drayton in Gloucestershire. He is described as sufficiently corpulent
to deserve the displeasure of the Puritans, whom our author never loses
an opportunity of lashing.
From Warwick they arrive at Flore, (about twenty-one miles,) having been
able to make both ends (of their purse) meet; and, after staying there
four days, arrive at Banbury on St. Bartholomew’s day, (24th of August,)
desirous to see what sport the saint would produce there. At this place
(where they rested at the sign of the Altar-Stone) the tourist finds
the altar converted into an inn, and, judging by the sign, lodged in a
chapel, but, by the wine, in a bankrupt tavern; and yet, by the coffins
converted into horse-troughs, a church. But though you may judge, by what
is found at the inn, that the church is full of monuments, you will be
disappointed; for there was not an inscription in the church except the
names of the last year’s churchwardens,—with buckets and cobwebs hanging,
instead of painted saints, in the windows. In short, the town seems to
have been a strange collection of sectaries differing from each other.
From hence he returns to Oxford, twenty-two miles, with as little coin in
his purse as sir Walter Raleigh brought from his unsuccessful expedition
to Guiana in 1618; between which period and 1621 it is clear the poem was
written.
ITER BOREALE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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