Benlowes, Edward (1603 -1676)

Edward Benlowes was the son and heir of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall in Essex. After receiving his education at St John's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated Fellow Commoner at Easter 1620, age 16, he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn 30 January 1622, and then travelled abroad. He was of considerable note in his own day as a poet, his best known work being Theophila, or Love's sacrifice. London, 1652. He lived for a time with great extravagance and ultimately died in poverty at Oxford in 1676. When he left Cambridge he gave his college a large gift of books with his arms on the side and an engraved bookplate on the verso of the titlepages.