Brief Lives, Vol. 1

Chapter 367: Philemon Holland (1551-1637).

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Biographies History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches compiled from the author's manuscript notes, offering anecdotal portraits of a wide range of literary, scientific, political, and social figures across several generations. Entries blend remembered quotations, learned citation, personal recollection, and occasional gossip, producing uneven but vivid character sketches. Material is presented alphabetically and supplemented by antiquarian notes, a short theatrical piece, and facsimiles of manuscript drawings and plans. An introduction outlines editorial principles and reproduces the manuscript spellings and citations where appropriate, preserving the informality and immediacy of the original notes.

Philemon Holland (1551-1637).

[1699]Philêmon Holland was schoole-master of the free-schoole at Coventrey, and that for many yeares. He made a great many good scholars. He translated T. Livius, anno 15—, with one and the same pen, which the lady ... (vide at the end of his translation of Suetonius) embellished with silver, and kept amongst her rare κειμηλια [1700]. He wrote a good hand, but a rare Greeke character; witnesse the MS. of Euclid's Harmoniques in the library belonging to the schoole. He translated severall Latin authors,—e.g. Tit. Livius, Plinii Hist. Natur., Suetonius Tranquillus: quaere +.

One made this epigram on him:—

'Philêmon with 's translations doeth so fill us, He will not let Suetonius be Tranquillus.'