A Skeltonicall Continued Ryme, In Praise Of My New-Found-Land (Robert Hayman)

#3743

A Skeltonicall Continued Ryme, In Praise
Of My New-Found-Land (Robert Hayman)

Although in cloaths, company, buildings faire,
With England, New-found-land cannot compare;
Did some know what contentment I found there?
Alwayes enough, most times somewhat to spare,
With little paines, lesse toyle, and lesser care;
Exempt from taxings, ill newes, lawing, feare,
If cleane, and warme, no matter what you weare;
Healthy and wealthy, if men carefull are,
With much much more, then I will now declare:
(I say) if some wise men knew what this were,
(I doe beleeve) they'd live no other where.

From: The First Booke of Qvodlibets, #117~
Composed and done at Harbor-Grace in
Britaniola, anciently called Newfound-Land
by Governor Robert Hayman – ℗1628.

From: Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador ~
Robert Hayman (1575-1629) is often credited as
being the first known Canadian and Newfoundland
poet. Born in Walborough, Devon, England, his
father, Nicholas, married John Raleigh's daughter,
elder half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, well known
English explorer, colonialist, poet and patron to
Queen Elizabeth I of England. Hayman's father had
an active political career in Totnes, acting as the
Secretary of the Merchant's Company, representing
Totnes in the Parliament between October 1586 to
March 1587, and becoming mayor of Totnes in 1589.
Following his father, Robert Hayman also dabbled in
politics, particularly as an explorer and governor of
the Harbour Grace colony in Newfoundland, where
from 1618-1628, he spent ten successive summers
and one fifteen-month stretch. A graduate of Exeter
College, Oxford University in 1590, Hayman
published his book of epigrams and verse, Quodliblets
Lately Come Over from New Britaniola, Old Newfound-
land in 1628, after having been exiled from Harbour
Grace and returning to England before continuing
on his expeditions, particularly to Guinea where
he apparently died of an infection causing a
"burning fever and flux" during a canoeing
expedition in 1629.

From: Wikipedia ~
Totnes is a market town and civil parish at
the head of the estuary of the River Dart in
Devon, England within the South Devon Area
of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about
21 miles (34 km) south-southwest of Exeter
and is the administrative centre of the
South Hams District Council. Totnes has
a long recorded history, dating back to
907, when its first castle was built.
By the twelfth century it was already
an important market town, and its
former wealth and importance may be
seen from the number of merchants'
houses built in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Today, the town
is a thriving centre for music, art,
theatre and natural health.

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Newfoundland And Labrador

(AD 1628 through 2020)

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