Item I/iii/02 - The Poems of Thomas Randolph

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.