Poor Robin was an English 17th and 18th-century satirical almanac series, appearing as Poor Robin's Almanack from 1663. Other similar writings by the pseudonymous Poor Robin were published later, in America and into the 19th century.
The earliest volume published under the pseudonym of 'Poor Robin' was an almanac calculated from the meridian of Saffron Walden, which is said to have been originally issued in 1661 or 1662. It was taken over by the Stationers' Company, and was continued annually by various hands until 1776. The identity of its original author has been disputed, but is assigned as William Winstanley by Sidney Lee, in the Dictionary of National Biography , who dismisses the claim that Robert Herrick wrote it. He notes the discovery in the parish registers of Saffron Walden for 14 March 1646-7 relating to Robert Winstanley (a nephew of William and a younger brother of Henry Winstanley) but argues that Robert would still have been a boy when the first almanacs were written; a listing for Robert's publications was given by H. Eckroyd Smith. [1] [2] On internal grounds, namely the verse style of William Winstanley in his known works, Lee argues for the latter, and mentions a 1667 portrait of William Winstanley with the caption 'Poor Robin,' with verses by Francis Kirkman, in a volume called Poor Robin's Jests, or the Compleat Jester'.
In the Dictionary of National Biography article on Robert Pory, by Joseph Hirst Lupton, it is said that Pory, at the time of the first edition in 1663 archdeacon of Middlesex, had his name taken in vain with the claim that he had licensed the almanac. [3]
Another volume in verse by 'Poor Robin,' in which the tone of John Taylor the water-poet is closely followed, was called Poor Robin's Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London performed this Month of July 1678 (London, 1678,); the doggerel poem deals largely with the alehouses on the road, and Lee assigns it to William Winstanley. [4]
"Poor Robin" established a tradition of parody, reporting the trivial and inconsequential juxtaposed with the serious, in parallel chronologies—set in rhymed couplets —of the "Loyal" and the "Fanatic", which began in 1663 and became Old Poor Robin with the 1777 issue. [5] Poor Robin offered deadpan prognostications of the obvious, and substituted parodic saints' days under the "Fanatic" rubric. From the turn of the 18th century, the satire becomes blunted and wise homilies of prudence take their place. It observes the continued use of cucking stools in 1746.
Other works purporting to be by 'Poor Robin' and attributed to Winstanley or his imitators are:
In the 18th century editors included Thomas Peat. [6]
James Howard, 3rd Earl of Suffolk, KB, and 3rd Baron Howard de Walden (1619–1688), eldest son of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk. Howard was honoured with knighthood in the Order of the Bath in 1626, and was a joint-commissioner of the parliament to Charles I the same year. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War, and was a courtier after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. He was lord-lieutenant of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire and gentleman of the bedchamber, 1660–1682.
Samuel Pordage was a 17th-century English poet. He is best known by his Azaria and Hushai (1682), a reply to John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.
Elizabeth Boutell, was a British actress.
Henry Savile was an English courtier, diplomat and Member of Parliament.
Baptist Levinz, sometimes Baptiste or Baptist Levinge, was an Anglican churchman. He is known as a bishop and also for the part he played in the dramatic election at Magdalen College, Oxford.
William Winstanley was an English poet and compiler of biographies.
Thomas Comber (1645–1699) was an English churchman, Dean of Durham from 1689.
Thomas Turner was an English churchman and academic, Archdeacon of Essex and President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
William Blackmore was an English ejected minister.
William Clagett (1646–1688) was an English clergyman, known as a controversialist.
Gabriel Towerson (1635?–1697) was an English clergyman and theological writer.
Robert Cary (1615?–1688) was an English churchman, for a short while archdeacon of Exeter, known as a chronologist.
Anthony Scattergood (1611–1687) was an English clergyman and scholar.
James Wallace (1642–1688) was a Scottish minister in Orkney and topographical writer.
Robert Pory or Porey (c.1608?–1669) was an English churchman, archdeacon of Middlesex from 1660.
Henry Coley was an astrologer and mathematician, and amanuensis of William Lilly.
Richard Steele was a nonconformist theologian.
George Parker (1654–1743) was an English astrologer and almanac maker, known as a controversialist.