Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/288

  assigned to Randolph, viz. ‘Πλουτοφθαλμία Πλουτογαμία, a pleasant comedie entituled Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery. Translated out of Aristophanes his Plutus by Tho. Randolph. Augmented and published by F. J[aques?],’ London, 1651, 4to. This is a very free adaptation of Aristophanes, and contains so many allusions to events subsequent to Randolph's death as to render his responsibility for it improbable. Charles Lamb included selections from it in his ‘Specimens.’ Mr. Hazlitt is doubtless accurate in assigning to Randolph two poems printed together in 1642 as by ‘Thomas Randall,’ viz. ‘Commendation of a Pot of good Ale,’ and ‘The Battle between the Norfolk Cock and Cock of Wisbech.’

Mr. Hazlitt did not include a witty but indelicate Latin comedy called ‘Cornelianum Dolium, comedia lepidissima, auctore T. R. ingeniosissimo hujus ævi Heliconio’ (London, 1638, 12mo), which is traditionally assigned to Randolph. There is a curious frontispiece by William Marshall. Mr. Crossley more probably attributed it to Richard Brathwaite (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 341–342). Another claimant to the authorship is Thomas Riley of Trinity College, Cambridge, a friend of Randolph, to whom the latter inscribes a poem before ‘The Jealous Lovers;’ but even if Riley's claim be admitted, it is quite possible that Brathwaite had some share in it as editor. On 29 June 1660 a comedy by ‘Thomas Randall,’ called ‘The Prodigal Scholar,’ was licensed for publication by the Stationers' Company, but nothing further is known of it.

Randolph achieved a wide reputation in his own day, and was classed by his contemporaries among ‘the most pregnant wits of his age.’ Fertile in imagination, he could on occasion express himself with rare power and beauty. But his promise, as might be expected from his irregular life and premature death, was greater than his performance. Phillips, in his ‘Theatrum Poetarum,’ 1675, wrote: ‘The quick conceit and clear poetic fancy discovered in his extant poems seems to promise something extraordinary from him, had not his indulgence to the too liberal converse with the multitude of his applauders drawn him to such an immoderate way of living as, in all probability, shortened his days.’

The younger brother, Robert (1613–1671), who edited the ‘Poems,’ was also educated at Westminster as a king's scholar, and was elected in 1629 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 24 Feb. 1631–2, aged 19. He graduated B.A. on 1 June 1633, and M.A. (as Randall) on 3 May 1636. Wood describes him as ‘an eminent poet.’ He took holy orders, and was vicar successively of Barnetby and of Donnington. He was buried in Donnington church on 7 July 1671 (, Fasti, i. 430;, Alumni Oxon.; , Alumni Westmonast. p. 901).

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 564–7; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum, 24487, ff. 300–4; Baker's Northamptonshire, ii. 280; Academy, 23 April 1892; Madan's Oxford Press, ‘1468’ to 1640, pp. 209, 222; Retrospective Review, vi. 61; Fleay's Biogr. Chron. ii. 164 sq.; Hazlitt's Introduction to his edition of Randolph's Works.]  RANDOLPH, THOMAS (1701–1783), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, son of Herbert Randolph, recorder of Canterbury, was born in that city on 30 Aug. 1701, and educated there in the king's school. On 19 Nov. 1715, being then little more than fourteen years of age, he was elected to a Kentish scholarship at Corpus, and on 22 Feb. 1722–3 became probationer fellow. He took the usual degrees, including that of D.D., and in comparatively early life attracted the attention of John Potter [q. v.], then bishop of Oxford and regius professor of divinity, who, on his translation to Canterbury, collated him to the united livings of Petham and Waltham in Kent, and subsequently to the rectory of Saltwood, with the chapelry of Hythe annexed. Through the archbishop's influence he also became deputy to Dr. Rye, Potter's successor in the chair of divinity; but, failing on the vacancy of the chair to obtain the succession, he retired to his livings. The first work which brought Randolph into notice as a theological champion on the orthodox side was a short treatise entitled ‘The Christian's Faith, a Rational Assent,’ published in 1744, a second part being published in the following year. This work was a reply to a pamphlet entitled ‘Christianity not founded on Argument,’ &c., by H. Dodwell the younger. On 23 April 1748 Randolph was elected, without his knowledge or any communication from the electors, to the presidency of Corpus, and thenceforth he made Oxford his principal place of residence and the scene of his work. In 1756 he became vice-chancellor, and held that office for three years, during which period there was an important reorganisation of the delegacy of the press. In 1767 Bishop Lowth appointed him to the archdeaconry of Oxford, and in 1768 he was unanimously elected to the Margaret professorship of divinity, to which office a canonry at Worcester was then attached. He died on 24 March 1783, and was buried in the college cloister, where a monument was erected to his memory. He married, on 22 Aug. 1738, Thomazine, sister of