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…
“What is most particular, by its nearer affinity with us, hath greatest influence upon us.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
William Oldys, born on 14 July 1696 and dead on 15 April 1761, belongs to that remarkable class of literary figures whose influence exceeds their modern fame. He was a poet only intermittently, an editor often anonymously, a biographer by patient accumulation, a bibliographer before bibliography had fully become a profession, and an antiquary whose chief subject was the survival of the written past. To encounter Oldy…
“We hardly ever find the worth of books till we lose them; and it is then too late to value them.”
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Peace
