Chapter Stockton to Strype of S by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Strode, William (1600-1645).—Poet, only son of Philip Strode, who belonged to an old Devonshire family, he was born at Plympton, Devonshire, and showing studious tendencies, was sent to Westminster School and Oxford While at the University he began to manifest his poetic talents,and generally distinguished himself, being elected in 1629 Public Orator. He took orders and, on Richard Corbet (q.v.) becoming Bishop of Oxford, became his chaplain. Later he was Rector of E. Bredenham, Norfolk, and of Badley, Northants, and Canon of Christ Church. On the outbreak of the Civil War he attached himself warmly to the cause of the King. He was a High Churchman, and had a reputation as “a witty and sententious preacher, an exquisite orator, and an eminent poet.” It is therefore singular that, until the recovery of his poems by Mr. B. Dobell, he had fallen into absolute oblivion. As a poet he shines most in lyrics and elegies. With much of the artificiality of his age he shows gracefulness, a feeling for the country, and occasional gleams of tenderness. His play, The Floating Island, a political allegory, was produced in 1633 and played before the Court then on a visit to Oxford, where it was a subject of complaint that it had more moralising than amusement. Mr. Dobell, who edited his poems in 1907, claims for Strode the poem on “Melancholy” (“Hence all you vain delights”), hitherto attributed to Fletcher.

Strype, John (1643-1737).—Ecclesiastical historian, born at Hackney, and ed. at St. Paul’s School and Cambridge, took orders and, among other livings, held the Rectory of Low Leyton, Essex, for upwards of 60 years. He made a large collection of original documents, chiefly relating to the Tudor period, and was a voluminous author. Among his works are Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer (1694), Life of Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI. and Elizabeth (1698), Annals of the Reformation (1709- 31), and Ecclesiastical Memorials (1721); besides Lives of Bishop Aylmer and Archbishops Grindal, Parker, and Whitgift. Strype, who was a painstaking and honest, but dull and unmethodical, writer, remains an authority.