- Richard Stanihurst
Richard Stanyhurst (1547 – 1618), was an Irish alchemist, translator, poet and historian, born in
Dublin .His father,
James Stanyhurst , was recorder of the city, and Speaker of theIrish House of Commons in 1557, 1560 and 1568. Richard was sent in 1563 toUniversity College, Oxford , and took his degree five years later. At Oxford he became intimate withEdmund Campion . After leaving the university he studied law atFurnival's Inn andLincoln's Inn . He contributed in 1587 to Holinshed's "Chronicles" "a playne and perfecte description" ofIreland , and a history of the country during the reign of Henry VIII, which were severely criticized inBarnabe Rich 's "New Description of Ireland" (1610) as a misrepresentation of Irish affairs written from the English standpoint.After the death of his wife, Janet Barnewall, in 1579, Stanyhurst went to
the Netherlands . After his second marriage, which took place before 1585, to Helen Copley, he became active in theCatholic cause. He lived in thebishopric of Liège , where he got in touch with theParacelsan movement gathered aroundErnest of Bavaria (1554-1612). From then, Stanihurst analysed the relationships between medicine and chemistry.In the early 1590 he was invited to
Spain by King Philip II, who became seriously ill. Stanihurst worked at the great alchemical laboratory in El Escorial. At the same time he informed the state on Catholics interest in England. After his wife's death in 1602 he tookholy orders , and became chaplain to the Archduke Albert of Austria in theNetherlands . His son wasWilliam Stanyhurst .He never returned to England, and died at
Brussels , according toAnthony à Wood . He translated into English "The First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis" (Leiden, 1582), to give practical proof of the feasibility ofGabriel Harvey 's theory that classical rules ofprosody could be successfully applied to English poetry. The translation is an unconsciousburlesque of the original in a jargon arranged in what the writer called hexameters.Thomas Nashe in his preface to Greene's "Menaphon" ridiculed this performance as his"heroicall poetrie, infired ... with an hexameter furie a patterne whereof I will propounde to your judgements. Then did he make heaven's vault to rebounde, with rounce robble hobble Of ruffe raffe roaring, with thwick thwack thurlery bouncing."
This is a parody, but not a very extravagant one, of Stanyhurst's vocabulary and metrical methods.Only two copies of the original Leiden edition of Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil are known to be in existence. In this edition his
orthographic al cranks are preserved. A reprint in 1583 byHenry Bynneman forms the basis of J. Maidment's edition (Edinburgh, 1836), and ofEdward Arber 's reprint (1880), which contains an excellent introduction. Stanyhurst's Latin works include "De rebus in Hibernia gestis" (Antwerp, 1584) and a life ofSt Patrick (1587).External links
* [http://www.revistaazogue.com/stanihurst.htm The Alchemical Works of Richard Stanyhurst]
*References
*1911
Further reading
*Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst the Dubliner, 1547-1618: A Biography, with a Stanihurst Text, on Ireland's Past", Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981.
*Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst," "The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500-1660, Second Series", Detroit: Gale, 2003, pp. 296-303.
*Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst and Old English Identity," "Irish Historical Studies", vol. 21, 1978, pp. 121-143.
*Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst's 'Spanish Catholicism': Ideology and Diplomacy in Brussels and Madrid," "Irland y la monarcquía Hispánica: Kinsale 1601-2001", Madrid, 2002, pp. 75-88.
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