Thomas Bastard

The Reverend Thomas Bastard (1565/1566 – April 19, 1618) was an English clergyman famed for his published English language epigrams.

Life

Born in Blandford Forum, Dorset, England, Bastard is best known for seven books of 285 epigrams entitled Chrestoleros published in 1598.

He initially attended

Bastard became notorious for libeling the sexual doings of various Oxford clergy and academics via a published tract entitled An Admonition to the city of Oxford, &c. Despite disavowing authorship, he was nonetheless expelled from his Oxford fellowship in 1591.

He still maintained a few supporters and admirers, primarily,

Prior to Bastard's death, admirer Sir John Harrington said in a poem:

"To Master Bastard, a minister, that made a pleasant Book of English Epigrams:

You must in pulpit treat of matters serious;

As it beseems the person and the place;

There preach of faith, repentance, hope, and grace;

Of sacraments, and such high things mysterious:

But they are too severe, and too imperious,

That unto honest sports will grant no space.

For these our minds refresh, those weary us,

And spur out doubled spirit to swifter pace."

Sources

• "Bastard, Thomas" in S. Austin Allibone. A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors Living and Deceased from the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, London, c1886, vol. 1, p. 139. (OCLC 12491596) (Full-text at Internet Archive)
• "Bastard, Thomas" in
  ISBN 0-19-861411-X), (OCLC 56655031
  )

Wikiquote has quotations related to Thomas Bastard.