Thomas Stanley
born 1625, Cumberlow, Hertfordshire,
Eng.
died April 12, 1678, London
English poet, translator, and the first English
historian of philosophy.
Stanley was the son of Sir Thomas Stanley,
himself the grandson of Thomas Stanley, a
natural son of Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of
Derby. The younger Stanley was educated by
William Fairfax, son of the translator of
Torquato Tasso. He became a good classical
scholar and an enthusiastic student of French,
Italian, and Spanish poetry. Stanley entered
Pembroke Hall (later College), Cambridge, in
1639 and studied there and at the University of
Oxford, graduating with an M.A. in 1641.
Stanley was the friend of many poets and
himself a prolific translator and writer of
verse. He traveled on the European continent
during the English Civil Wars and on his return
lived in the Middle Temple, London, where he
devoted himself to literary work. His first
volume of poems appeared in 1647. Subsequent
volumes included translations from Anacreon,
Bion, Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Battista Guarini,
Giambattista Marino, Petrarch, Pierre de
Ronsard, and others. His classic renderings of
the Anacreontic poems were published in 1651,
and the same collection contains his version of
Pico della Mirandola’s A Platonick Discourse
upon Love. Stanley’s The History of Philosophy,
which long remained a standard work, was
published in 1655–62, and his edition of
Aeschylus with Latin translation and commentary
in 1663. He had a graceful if tenuous gift as a
lyrical poet and was a versatile and
accomplished translator.
