Barten Holyday
{{Short description|English clergyman, author and poet}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| death_date = 2 October 1661
| education = Christ Church, Oxford (DDiv)
| title = Archdeacon of Oxford
| birth_date = 1593
| death_place = Iffley, Oxfordshire, England
| appointed = 1626
| name = Barten Holyday
}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2015}}
Barten Holyday or Holiday (1593 – 2 October 1661) was an English clergyman, author and poet.F. D. A. Burns, 'Holyday , Barten (1593–1661)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Career
He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and earned a Doctor of Divinity degree.{{Cite web |title=Hieron-Horridge {{!}} British History Online |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp706-747 |access-date=2022-07-13 |website=british-history.ac.uk}} He entered the clergy in 1615; he was appointed Archdeacon of Oxford by King Charles I in 1626. Technogamia was his only play. In 1618, the year it was produced, Holyday served as Sir Francis Stewart's chaplain on Stewart's embassy to Spain. Holyday translated the Odes of Horace and works of Juvenal and Persius, and wrote A Survey of the World, in Verse (1661), plus sermons and miscellaneous works.Alexander Chalmers, ed., The General Biographical Dictionary, London, J. Nichols & Son, et al., 1814; Vol. 18, pp. 95–6. He was summed up by one commentator as "a good scholar, a shrewd critic, and a fair wit."Adolphus William Ward, A History of English Drama to the Death of Queen Anne, London, Macmillan, 1899; Vol. 3, pp. 176–8. His translations show strong fidelity to their originals, and have often been considered the best of his works. Samuel Johnson said in Idler 69 that his translations were those of "only a scholar and a critick" not a poet.
He was subject of a derisory poem called "Whoop Holiday", published in 1625 by Peter HeylinAnthony Milton, 'Heylyn, Peter (1599–1662)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
Personal life
Holyday died at Iffley in Oxfordshire on 2 October 1661, "of the new epidemicall disease that rageth now abroad" and was buried at Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford.{{cite book |editor-last1=Clark |editor-first1=Andrew |title=The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary of Oxford, 1632-1695, Described by Himself |date=1891 |publisher=Oxford Historical Society |location=Oxford |page=416 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4u81AQAAMAAJ&q=buried&pg=PA132 |access-date=9 January 2020}}
References
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Category:17th-century English clergy