112 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°« S. VI. 13G., Aug. 7. '58. 



culars of the closing portion of the life of Cham- 

 bers, or other matter concerning him ; for, accord- 

 ing to a statement contained in my volume, of his 

 advanced age of 62 in the year 1810, it maybe 

 supposed he has long ere this paid the debt of na- 

 ture. J. Dacres Berlin. 



[James Chambers, " Student in Philolog}', Phytology, 

 and Theology, and author of Reflections on Storms and 

 Tempests, &c." and commonly called the " Itinerant 

 Poet," long wandered over the county of Suffolk as a 

 pedlar, and selling his own effusions. He was born at 

 Soham in Cambridgeshire in 17-18, and died at Stradbroke 

 in 1827. So used was he to wander about, that though 

 some friends put him into decent cottages at Woodbridge, 

 Worlingworth, &c., and gave him proper clothes, yet he 

 cotild not be induced to settle, but preferred a life of 

 wandering privation to the comforts of a Lome.] 



Miss Sophia Woodroffe. — Can you give me 

 any account of Miss Sophia WoodroflFe, author of 

 Lethe and other Poems, 16mo., 1844. I think, there 

 is a short notice of the authoress at the beginning 

 of the volume, written by the Rev. Dr. Faber. 



R. Inglis. 



[Dr. Faber has only prefixed a " Preface," not a bio- 

 graphical sketch. In it he states that Miss Woodroffe 

 died in the arms of her aiHicted mother, on Saturday, 

 May 11, 1844, at the house of a valued clerical friend of 

 the family, Mr. Aurio), where, during some time, she 

 had been on a visit.] 



ME. THOMAS CARET, "A POET OF NOTE," AND 

 THOMAS CAREW THE WELL-KNOWN POET. 



(2"'i S. vi. 12. 38. 133.) 



Is there not some confusion between two poets 

 of somewhat similar names — Thomas Carew and 

 Thomas Carey ? I believe that the extract given 

 by Mb. Yeowell from Izaak AValton's MS. col- 

 lections for a Life of John Hales, refers to Mr. 

 Thomas Carey, " son to the Earle of Monmouth, 

 and of the Bedchamber to his late Majesty," and 

 not to the well-known poet Thomas Carew, "Gen- 

 tleman of the Privy Chamber, and Sewer in Ordi- 

 nary to Charles the First." 



Wood {Fasti, i. 352.), speaking of Henry Carey, 

 the frequent " translator of books," afterwards 

 Earl of Monmouth, says he was admitted B.A. of 

 Exeter College, Feb. 17, 1613, and then adds the 

 following : — 



" Thoji. Carey of the same coll. was admitted on the 

 same day. This Thomas, who was younger brother to 

 the said Henry Carey, was born in Northumberland while 

 his father Sir Robert Carej' was Warden of the Marches 

 towards Scotland, proved afterwards a most ingenious poet, 

 and was author of several poems printed scatteredly in 

 divers books ; one of which, beginning ' Fareivel Fair 

 Saint,' Sec, had a vocal composition of two parts set to it 

 by the sometime famed musician Henry Lawes. Upon 

 the breaking out of the rebellion in 1G42, he adhered to 

 his Majesty, being then of the bedchamber to, and much 

 esteemed by, him. But after that good king had lost his 



head, he took it so much to heart, that he fell suddenly 

 sick, and died before the expiration of the year 1648, 

 aged 53, or thereabouts. Soon after his body was buried 

 in a vault (the burying-place of his family) under St. 

 Job. Bapt. chappel within the precincts of St. -Peter's 

 church in Westminster." 



Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Memoirs of the 

 Peers of England during the Reign of James the 

 First, p. 434., giving an account of the Carey 

 family, adds in a note, — 



" Mr. Malone somewhere, I think, doubts the existence 

 of two poets of the names of T. Carey and T. Carew, and 

 supposes them the same. But if so, he is mistaken." 



In the Memoirs of Marshal de Bassompierre's 

 Embassy to England in 1626, p. 104., I find the 

 following passage : — 



"Monday, 23rd. Viscount Semilton [ Wimbledon'], Gor- 

 ing, Chery, and others came to dine with me. Afterwards 

 1 was to take leave of the Dutch ambassador." 



Upon the obscure name, Chery, the learned 

 English translator of the book in question (the 

 late J. W. Croker) adds an interesting note, which 

 I quote at length : — 



"Chery. I have no doubt that this was one of the sons 

 of the Earl of Monmouth ; and, as the elder brother was 

 now Lord Lcppington, this was probably Thomas Cary, 

 gentleman of the king's bedchamber. We are not sur- 

 prised to find him in the society of painters and ingenious 

 persons (see p. 101.), for he was a literary man, the author 

 of several poems, some of which have come down to us. 

 He died a little after the king, of a broken heart for the 

 fate of his royal master and friend, aged fifty-three ; so 

 that he was now about thirty. 



" It is said (Bridges's Mem. i. 434.) that Mr. Malone 

 somewhere melts down into one, two poets of this age, 

 Thomas Cary and Thomas Carew. I do not recollect the 

 passage ; but they are, 1 believe, sometimes confounded. 

 Walpole mentions Thomas Carew, a wit and poet of the 

 time, and gentleman of King Charles's privy chamber, 

 whose portrait was painted by Vandyke, with that of Henry 

 Killegrew. (_Anec. 222.) 1 have sometimes doubted whe- 

 ther Thomas Carew was of the privy chamber, ajid sus- 

 pected that his name was confounded vnth that of Thomas 

 Cary, son of Lord Jlonmouth, gentleman of the bed- 

 chamber, and the person (I have no doubt) mentioned in 

 the text ; but there are so many evidences to show that 

 Thomas Carew was honoured with this office, that 1 can 

 doubt no longer ; though certainly such a near similarity 

 of christian and surnames, of talents, and characters, and 

 offices, in two different persons, is, at first sight, very im- 

 probable. Rymer has preserved a grant of • pension of 

 500/. a year for life to Thomas Cary, groom of his ma- 

 jesty's "bedchamber, dated 28th of May, 1625. (Foed. 

 xviii. 95.) Thomas Carew was the author of that beau- 

 tiful song, so often reprinted, — ' He that Joves a rosie 

 cheek.' It is singular, that Mr. Campbell, in his late edi- 

 tion of fragments of the English Poets, should have in- 

 serted this poem — one of the best known in our language 

 — twice over in the same volume; once as the production 

 of Carew, and again as that of an anonymous author." 



I do not wonder that Malone was confused with 

 the two poets of similar names, for Carew's was 

 doubtless pronounced, as it was sometimes spelt, 

 Cary; as also was the author's of the Survey of 

 Curmvull. The similarity, too, of their appoint- 

 ments in the household of Charles I., and the 



