Item I/ii/19 - Poems with the Muses Looking-glasse; and Amyntas

RANDOLPH, THOMAS, second son of William Randolph, Hamsey, near Lewes, Sussex, Steward to Edward, 11th Baron Zouch, and his first wife Elizabeth, dau. of Thomas Smith, Newnham-cum-Badby, Northants; b. 15 Jun 1605; adm.; KS; elected to Trinity Coll. Cambridge 1623, adm. scholar 1624, matr. Easter 1624; BA Jan 1627/8; MA 1631 (incorp. Oxford 1631); Minor Fellow, Trinity Coll. 22 Sep 1629, Major Fellow 23 Mar 1631/2; showed early talent as a writer; became acquainted with Ben Jonson (qv), who is said to have always called him his son after their first meeting; became famous at Cambridge as a writer of English and Latin verse, and as an organiser of dramatic performances by the students of pieces of his own composition; went to London in 1632; “accounted one of the most pregnant witts of his age” (Wood, Ath. Oxon., i, 565); author, Aristippus or the Jovial Philosopher, and The Jealous Lovers, 1630; his Poems with the Muses’ Looking Glass and Amyntas were published posthumously in 1638; the loss of one of his little fingers in a duel is the subject of an elegy by William Hemming (qv); buried Blatherwycke, Notrthants 17 Mar 1634/5, aged 29. DNB.