Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Loveday, Robert
LOVEDAY, ROBERT (fl. 1655), translator, came of an old family seated at Chediston, Suffolk. He studied at Cambridge, but did not matriculate on account of the civil war. During the Commonwealth he resided with Lady Clinton as an upper servant, and found time to acquire a good knowledge of French and Italian. He translated into English the first three parts of La Calprenède's romance of ‘Cleopatra,’ under the title of ‘Hymen's Præludia, or Love's Master-Piece,’ which appeared respectively in 1652, 1654, and 1655. Prefixed to part i., which, says Loveday, had long since ‘look'd upon the light, if I had not the sin to answer for of trusting a bookseller,’ are commendatory verses by Richard Brathwaite, James Howell, and others. In the complete version of the romance issued in 1665 and again in 1674, Loveday is credited with the translation of pts. iv–vi. After his death his brother Anthony edited a selection from his correspondence, with the title of ‘Loveday's Letters, Domestick and Forrein, to several persons, occasionally distributed in subjects Philosophicall, Historicall, & Morall,’ 8vo, London, 1659 (other editions, 1662, 1669, and 1673). The plan of the work was obviously suggested by Howell's popular ‘Letters.’ Prefixed is his portrait by Faithorne.
[Loveday's Works; Granger's Biog. Hist. of Eng. 2nd ed. iii. 123.]