Edward Benlowes
| Edward Benlowes | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 12 July 1603 |
| Died | 18 December 1676 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | English |
| Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge |
| Genre | Poetry |
Edward Benlowes (July 12, 1603 – December 18, 1676) was an English poet.
The son of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex, he matriculated at St Johns College, Cambridge, on 8 April 1620.
On leaving the university he travelled with a tutor on the continent, visiting seven courts of princes. Wood says that he returned tinged with Romanism; but according to Cole he had been bred in the Roman Catholic religion from his earliest years. On the death of his father he became possessed of the estate of Brent Hall, but being a man of a very liberal disposition he contrived 'to squander it mostly away on poets, flatterers (which he loved), in buying of curiosities (which some called baubles), on musicians, buffoons, &c.' (Wood). He often gave his bond for the payment of debts contracted by his friends, and on one occasion, being unable to meet the obligation he had incurred, was committed to prison at Oxford. To his niece at her marriage, he granted a handsome portion, and many poor scholars experienced his bounty. When he left Cambridge he made a valuable donation of books to St. John's College. Among his friends, he numbered many distinguished men. In 1638, Phineas Fletcher dedicated to him The Purple Island. Sir William Davenant, Francis Quarles, Payne Fisher, and others, dedicated works to him or complimented him in epigrams.
Benlowes spent the last eight years of his life at Oxford, studying much in the Bodleian Library, and enjoying 'conversation with ingenious.' He died after, he marched off in a cold season, on 18 December 1676, at eight o'clock at night.
Benlowes' chief work is entitled Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice, a divine poem. Written by E. B. Esq. Several parts thereof set to fit aires, by Mr. J. Jenkins, 1652, fol. The poem is divided into thirteen cantos, most of which are preceded by large plates of Hollar and others. Prefixed to the first canto, which is entitled the Prelibation to the Sacrifice, is an engraving of a full-length figure (presumably the author) seated at a writing-table. The volume is valued rather for the engravings than for the text; but a reader who is not dismayed by the author's conceits and extravagances will be rewarded by finding passages where subtlety of thought is joined to felicity of diction. Later writers were exceedingly severe on Benlowes's poetry.
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