Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Holland, Abraham
HOLLAND, ABRAHAM (d. 1626), poet, a son of Philemon Holland [q. v.], was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1616–17 (Camb. Univ. Reg.) He published in 1622 ‘Naumachia, or Hollands Sea-Fight. Non equidem invideo,’ 4to, with a dedication to George, lord Gordon, son and heir to the Marquis of Huntly, and commendatory verses by Michael Drayton and others. ‘Naumachia’ gives a description of the battle of Lepanto; it is preceded by an amusing ‘Caveat to his Muse.’ Appended to the 1625 edition of John Davies of Hereford's ‘A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors’ is ‘A Continued Inquisition against Paper-Persecutors by A. H.,’ undoubtedly by Abraham Holland, and very similar in character to the ‘Caveat.’ He died 18 Feb. 1625–6. In 1626 appeared ‘Hollandi Posthuma. … The Posthumes of Abraham Holland, sometimes of Trinity College in Cambridge,’ &c., Cambridge, 4to, edited by his brother, Henry Holland [q. v.], who dedicated the volume to George, lord Gordon. The collection consists of elegies on King James and Henry, earl of Oxford, a poem on the plague of 1625, a poetical epistle to Philemon Holland, a ‘Resolution against Death,’ prose meditations and prayers, and his own epitaph composed by himself. The poem on the plague was appended in 1630 to ‘Salomon's Pest-House or Towre-Royall. … By I. D.’ In Ashmole MS. 36–7, fol. 157, is a poem by Holland ‘To my honest father, Mr. Michael Drayton, and my new, yet loved friend, Mr. Will. Browne.’
[Hunter's Chorus Vatum, Addit. MS. 24488, f. 262; Corser's Collectanea.]