The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland | Page 8

In 1615, he entered into holy orders[1], and was in a short time taken notice of as an eloquent or rather popular preacher, by which he had two benefices confered on him both in the diocese of Oxford.
In the year 1618 he went as chaplain to Sir Francis Stewart, when he accompanied to Spain the Count Gundamore, after he had continued several Years at our court as embassador, in which journey Holyday behaved in a facetious and pleasant manner, which ingratiated him in the favour of Gundamore[2].
Afterwards our author became chaplain to King Charles I. and succeeded Dr. Bridges in the archdeaconry of Oxon, before the year 1626. In 1642 he was by virtue of the letters of the said King, created, with several others, Dr. of divinity. When the rebellion broke out, he sheltered himself near Oxford; but when he saw the royal party decline so much that their cause was desperate, he began to tamper with the prevailing power; and upon Oliver Cromwell's being raised to the Protectorship, he so far coincided with the Usurper's interests, as to undergo the examination of the Friers, in order to be inducted into the rectory of Shilton in Berks, in the place of one Thomas Lawrence, ejected on account of his being non compos mentis. For which act he was much blamed and censured by his ancient friends the clergy, who adhered to the King, and who rather chose to live in poverty during the usurpation, than by a mean compliance with the times, betray the interest of the church, and the cause of their exiled sovereign.
After the King's restoration he quitted the living he held under Cromwell, and returned to Eisley near Oxon, to live on his archdeaconry; and had he not acted a temporizing part it was said he might have been raised to a see, or some rich deanery. His poetry however, got him a name in those days, and he stood very fair for preferment; and his philosophy discovered in his book de Anima, and well languaged sermons, (says Wood) speaks him eminent in his generation, and shew him to have traced the rough parts, as well as the pleasant paths of poetry.
His works are,
1. Three Sermons, on the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Saviour, Lond. 1626.
2. Two Sermons at Paul's Cross.
3. A Sermon on the Nature of Faith.
4. Motives to a godly Life, in Ten Sermons, Oxon, 1657.
5. Four Sermons against Disloyalty, Oxon, 1661.
Technogamia; or the Marriage of Arts, a Comedy, acted publicly in Christ's Church Hall, with no great applause 1617. But the Wits of those times being willing to distinguish themselves before the King, were resolved, with leave, to act the same comedy at Woodstock, whereupon (says Wood) the author making some foolish alterations in it, it was accordingly acted on Sunday night the 26th of August 1621, but it being too grave for the King, and too scholastic for the Audience, or as some said, that the actors in order to remove their timidity, had taken too much wine before, they began, his Majesty after two acts offered several times to withdraw; at length being persuaded by some of those who were near to him, to have patience till it was ended, lest the young men should be discouraged, he sat it out, tho' much against his will; upon which these Verses were made by a certain scholar;
At Christ Church Marriage done before the King Lest that those Mates should want an offering, The King himself did offer; what I pray? He offered twice or thrice to go away.
6. Survey of the World in Ten Books, a Poem, Oxon, 1661, which was judged by Scholars to be an inconsiderable piece, and by some not to be his. But being published just before his death, it was taken for a posthumous work, which had been composed by him in his younger Days[3].
He translated out of Latin into English the Satires of Persius, Oxon. 1616, in apologizing for the defects of this work, he plays upon the word _translate_: To have committed no faults in this translation, says he, would have been to translate myself, and put off man. Wood calls this despicable pun, an elegant turn.
7. Satires of Juvenal illustrated with Notes, Oxon. folio 1673. At the end of which is the Fourth Edition of Persius, before mentioned.
8. Odes of Horace, Lond. 1652; this Translation Wood says, is so near that of Sir Thomas Hawkins, printed 1638, or that of Hawkins so near this, that to whom to ascribe it he is in doubt.
Dr. Holyday, who according to the same author was highly conceited of his own worth, especially in his younger Days, but who seems not to have much reason for being so, died at a Village called Eisley on the 2d