Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/210

 key of the wine-cellar and he and his chaplain (Dr. Lushington) would go and lock themselves in and be merry. Then first he layes down his episcopal hat—“There layes the Dr.” Then he putts off his gowne—“There lyes the bishop.” Then 'twas “Here's to thee, Corbet,” and “Here to thee, Lushington.”’ Wood says that Corbet ‘loved to the last boy's play very well,’ and Aubrey, who describes his conversation as ‘extreme pleasant,’ gives some very entertaining examples of it. Ben Jonson was always on intimate terms with him, and repeatedly stayed with him at the deanery of Christ Church. Jonson wrote a poem on Corbet's father (printed in, Underwoods), which attests the dramatist's affectionate regard for both father and son. Corbet appears to have built a ‘pretty house’ near Folly Bridge, Oxford, where he often stayed after leaving Christ Church.

Corbet's poems are for the most part in a rollicking satiric vein, and are always very good-humoured, with the single exception of his verses ‘upon Mrs. Mallet, an unhandsome gentlewoman that made love to him.’ The well-known ‘Fairies Farewell,’ a graceful and fanciful piece of verse, is his most serious production. The ‘Iter Boreale,’ an account of the holiday tour of four Oxford students in the midlands north of Oxford, is the longest, and probably suggested Brathwaite's ‘Drunken Barnabees Journal.’ One of Strafford's correspondents describes Corbet as ‘the best poet of all the bishops of England.’ The poems were first collected and published in 1647, under the title of ‘Certain Elegant Poems written by Dr. Corbet, bishop of Norwich,’ with a dedication to ‘the Lady Teynham.’ A part of this collection appeared in 1648, under the title of ‘Poetica Stromata,’ and it is probable that that volume was edited by some of the bishop's friends. In 1672 the former collection was reissued with a few additions, some typographical corrections, and a dedication to Sir Edmund Bacon of Redgrave. In 1807 Mr. Octavius Gilchrist republished all Corbet's printed poems, and added several from Ashmolean and Harleian MSS., together with the funeral oration on Prince Henry from an Ashmolean MS. and a complete memoir. Alexander Chalmers reprinted Gilchrist's volume in his collection of the poets. In ‘Notes and Queries’ (3rd ser. ii. 494–5) is a version of Corbet's poem on the Christ Church bell—‘Great Tom’—printed from an Ashmolean MS., which is far longer than any other printed version. Some verses before Richard Vaughan's ‘Waterworks’ (1610), subscribed Robert Corbett, are attributed to the bishop. A manuscript volume of satires in the library of Canterbury Cathedral, dated about 1600, and entitled ‘The Time's Whistle, a New Daunce of the Seven Sins and other poems, compiled by R. C., Gent.,’ was printed for the first time by J. M. Cowper for the Early English Text Society in 1871. Mr. Cowper suggested that the author—‘R. C., Gent.’—was the bishop. Internal evidence gives some support to the theory, but the description of the author and the date of the collection destroy it.

Corbet married Alice, daughter of Leonard Hutton, vicar of Flower, Northamptonshire, by whom he had a daughter, Alice, and a son, Vincent (b. 10 Nov. 1627). Some exquisitely tender lines, addressed to the latter when three years old, are printed among Corbet's poems, but young Corbet disappointed his father's hopes. ‘He went to school at Westminster with Ned Bagshawe,’ writes Aubrey, ‘a very handsome youth, but he is run out of all and goes begging up and down to gentlemen.’

A portrait of Corbet by Cornelius Jansen is in Christ Church Hall, Oxford.



CORBET, ROBERT (d. 1810), captain in the navy, of an old Shropshire family, attained the rank of lieutenant on 22 Dec. 1796; and having served with distinction during the operations on the coast of Egypt in 1801, in command of the Fulminette cutter, was promoted to be commander on 29 April 1802. On the renewal of the war he was appointed to the Bittern brig, and sent to the Mediterranean, where he won high praise from Nelson, then commander-in-chief of the station, and especially by the capture of the Hirondelle privateer (Nelson Despatches, vi. 51, 58, 363). In April 1805 he was appointed, by Nelson, acting captain of the Amphitrite, but he was not confirmed in the rank till 24 May 1806. Shortly afterwards he commissioned the Néréide frigate, and in her took part in the operations in the Rio de la Plata. He then passed on to the Cape of Good Hope, and in August 1808 was sent to Bombay to refit. His conduct at Bombay, in taking on himself the duties of senior officer and breaking through the routine of the station, drew