Thomas Randolph

Thomas Randolph ( 15 June 1605March 1635) was an English poet and dramatist, recognised by his mentor Ben Jonson as being a promising writer of comedy, and amongst his contemporaries had a reputation as a wit.

Early life and family Thomas was born at Newnham, Northamptonshire, near Daventry, England, eldest son of William Randolph (1572–1660) and Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Smith, of Newnham. He was baptized on 18 June 1605. (A few sources list 15 June as his baptismal, not birth, date.) However, the majority have it as listed. He was the uncle of American colonist William Randolph. and then Trinity College, Cambridge in 1624 at the age of 18. He was awarded his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1628, promoted to Master of Arts in 1631, and became a major fellow of his college in the same year.

Prior to official publication, Randolph wrote several pieces before entering Westminster, including several epitaphs for people close to the family, the first written when he was 16 in the year 1621. While at Cambridge, he contributed what was probably his first official literary contribution: a poem that was included in a collection celebrating the marriage of King Charles to Princess Henrietta Maria.

Randolph's reputation as a wit is attested by the verses addressed to him by his contemporaries and by the stories attached to his name. His earliest printed work is Aristippus, Or, The Joviall Philosopher. Presented in a private shew, To which is added, The Conceited Pedlar (1630). (These are two separate works: Aristippus, or, The Joviall Philosopher, written circa 1626 and The Conceited Pedlar written in 1627.) In 1630, they were published together as one book. The Muse's Looking-Glass is hardly a drama. Roscius presents the extremes of virtue and vice in pairs, and last of all the "golden mediocrity" who announces herself as the mother of all the virtues. Amyntas, or The Impossible Dowry, a pastoral printed in 1638, with a number of miscellaneous Latin and English poems, completes the list of Randolph's authenticated work. Hey for Honesty, down with Knavery, a comedy, is doubtfully assigned to him. Randolph has been proposed as the author of the anonymous manuscript play, The Fairy Knight, though the attribution has not won much approval from critics.

His works were edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1875.