Richard Brathwait

This article is about the poet. For the philosopher, see R. B. Braithwaite.

Richard Brathwait
Born	1588 near Kendal, Cumberland
Died	1673 (aged 84–85) Catterick, Richmondshire
Nationality	English
Occupation	poet
Notable work	Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys

Richard Brathwait or Brathwaite (1588 – 4 May 1673) was an English poet.

Life

He was born at Burnishead, near Kendal, and educated at Oxford. He is believed to have served with the Royalist army in the Civil War. He was the author of many works of very unequal merit, of which the best known is Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys, which records his pilgrimages through England in rhymed Latin (said by Southey to be the best of modern times), and doggerel English verse. The English Gentleman (1631) and English Gentlewoman are in a much more decorous strain. Other works are The Golden Fleece (1611) (poems), The Poet's Willow, A Strappado for the Devil (a satire), and Art Asleepe, Husband?

An extract from both “Drunken Barnaby” and his “epitaph to Frances, (his wife)” appears in “The Bishoprick Garland” by (Sir) Cuthbert Sharp.

Richard Brathwait was married at Hurworth, 4 May 1617, to Frances, daughter of James Lawson, of Nesham Abbey. His wife pre-deceased him and on her death he wrote her epitaph.

See also

• Geordie dialect words
• Cuthbert Sharp
• The Bishoprick Garland 1834 by Sharp

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.

External links

• Template:Worldcat id

• Barbara A. Reed, "Richard Brathwait: A Case Study of Publishing and Conduct Literature in Seventeenth-Century England," (M.A. Thesis, Arizona State University, 2000).
• Bishoprick Garlands