Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/420

 BATMAN, STEPHEN, D.D. (d. 1584), translator and author, was born at Bruton in Somersetshire, and, after a preliminary education in the school of his native town, went to Cambridge, where he had the reputation of being a learned man and an excellent preacher. It is supposed he was the Bateman who in 1534 took the degree of LL.B., being at that time a priest and a student of six years' standing. Afterwards Archbishop Parker selected him as one of his domestic chaplains, and employed him in the collection of the library now deposited in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Batman asserts that he collected 6,700 books for the archbishop, though this is probably an exaggeration. In 1573 he was rector of Merstham in Surrey. He was also D.D. and parson of Newington Butts in the same county. In 1582 he was one of the domestic chaplains of Henry Cary, Lord Hunsdon. He resided for some time at Leedes, in Kent. His death occurred in 1584.

He wrote: 1. ‘Christiall Glass for Christian Reformation, treating on the 7 deadly Sinns,’ Lond. 1569, 4to. 2. ‘Travayled Pilgreme, bringing Newes from all Parts of the Worlde, such like scarce harde before’ [London, by John Denham], 1569, 4to. An allegorical-theological romance of the life of man, in verses of fourteen syllables, in which are introduced characters and historical incidents relative to the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. 3. ‘Joyfull Newes out of Helvetia, from Theophr. Paracelsum, declaring the ruinate fall of the papal dignitie: also a treatise against Usury,’ Lond. 1575, 8vo. 4. ‘The golden booke of the leaden goddes, wherein is described the vayne imaginations of heathen Pagans and counterfaict Christians: wyth a description of their several Tables, what ech of their pictures signified,’ Lond. 1577, 4to. This curious volume, which is dedicated to Lord Hunsdon, contains first the description of a considerable number of the heathen deities for gods of the gentiles. An account of the gods of superstition, as belonging to the Roman catholic church, follows, among which are the names of Arrius, Donatus, Henry Nicolas, &c., with ‘certaine vpstart Anabaptisticall Errours.’ At the head of the sectarian gods is placed the pope for his heresy. Shakespeare is supposed to have consulted this book. 5. Preface to I[ohn] R[ogers]'s ‘Displaying of an horrible Secte of grosse and wicked Heretiques naming themselves the Family of Love,’ 1579. 6. ‘The Doome warning all men to the Judgement: Wherein are contayned for the most parte all the straunge Prodigies hapned in the Worlde, with divers secrete figures of Revelations tending to mannes stayed conversion towardes God: In maner of a generall Chronicle, gathered out of sundrie approved authors,’ Lond. 1581, 4to. Dedicated to Sir Thomas Bromley, knight, lord chancellor of England. 7. ‘Batman uppon Bartholome, His Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum; newly corrected, enlarged, & amended, with such Additions as are requisite, unto every severall Booke. Taken foorth of the most approved Authors, the like heretofore not translated in English. Profitable for all Estates, as well for the benefite of the Mind as the Bodie,’ Lond. 1582, fol. Dedicated to Lord Hunsdon. 8. Notes upon Richard Robinson's ‘Auncient Order, Societie, and Unitie Laudable, of Prince Arthure and his knightly Armory of the Round Table,’ 1583. 9. ‘The new arrival of the three Gracis into Anglia, lamenting the abusis of this present age,’ Lond. n. d. 4to.

[Brydges's British Bibliographer, i. 114, 125, iv. 40–45; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 80; MS. Addit. 5863, f. 67; Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry (1840), iii. 393; MS. Baker, xxxix. 46; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 508; Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 263; Ames's Typog. Antiquities, ed. Herbert; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, i. 128; Huth Library, i. 117; Cat. of the Library at Chatsworth, i. 133.]  BATMANSON, JOHN (d. 1531), prior of the Charterhouse in London, studied theology at Oxford, but there is no evidence of his having taken a degree in that faculty, ‘though supplicate he did to oppose in divinity.’ Whether the John Batemanson, LL.D., who was sent to Scotland in 1509 to receive James IV's oath to a treaty with England, and who acted on several commissions to examine cases of piracy in the north of England from that date till 1516, is the same man, is doubtful, but probable, as the name is by no means a common one. In 1520 he was already a Carthusian, and was employed by Edward Lee (afterwards archbishop of York) in connection with his critical attack upon Erasmus. Erasmus (from whose letters we learn this fact) gives a spiteful sketch of his character—‘unlearned, to judge from his writings, and boastful to madness.’ In 1523, according to Tanner, on the authority of a manuscript belonging to Bishop Moore, he was prior of the Charterhouse of Hinton in Somerset; but his name has escaped the researches of Dugdale and his later editors, both in connection with Hinton and London. On the death of William Tynbigh, prior of the London Charterhouse, in 1529, Batmanson was elected to succeed him. He died on 16 Nov. 1531, and was buried in the convent chapel. This is the date given by