Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, Robert (fl.1650)
HEATH, ROBERT (fl. 1650), poet, was not improbably the Robert Heath (born in London) who entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1634, and has Latin verses before Gabriel Dugres's ‘Grammaticæ Gallicæ Compendium,’ 1636. He may also be the ‘R. H.’ who published in 1659 ‘Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems.’ His chief work, ‘Clarastella; together with Poems occasionall, Elegies, Epigrams, Satyrs,’ 8vo, was issued by Humphrey Moseley in 1650. From Moseley's address to the reader it appears that the book was published without Heath's knowledge. The first part consists of a series of love-poems to ‘Clarastella;’ among the ‘occasional poems’ are some verses headed ‘To a friend wishing peace,’ describing the inconveniences of civil war, and earnestly pleading for the establishment of peace; the third part includes elegies on Sir Bevil Grenvil, William Lawes, the musician, and other friends who had fallen in the wars; the fourth part is a collection of epigrams; and the volume concludes with a batch of satires. Some of the poems addressed to ‘Clarastella’ are hardly inferior to Carew's best love-verses.
[Cole's Athenæ; Retrospective Review, ii. 227.]