William Walsh was born on 6 October 1662 at Abberley Hall in Worcestershire, into a world in which inherited land, family connection, political loyalty, and literary cultivation could reinforce one another. He died on 15 March 1708, only forty-five years old, having lived as a country gentleman, Member of Parliament, court servant, poet, playwright, critic, and, perhaps most memorably, an early patron and adviser of…
“They ought to be smooth, clear, tender, and passionate. The thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated than in pastoral.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Thomas Stanley, born on 3 September 1625 and dead on 12 April 1678, was one of the most cultivated English writers of the seventeenth century: a lyric poet of the Cavalier age, a translator of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish literature, an editor of Aeschylus, a patron and friend of writers, and the author of the first substantial history of philosophy written in English. His name has never carried the imm…
“It is manifest that the original of the Greek Philosophy is to be deriv'd from Thales, who travelling into the East, first brought Natural learning, Geometry, and Astrology thence into Greece.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair