Scroope (Scrope), Sir Carr

(1649-1680)

   Born in Cockerington, Lincolnshire, he was created M.A. from Wadham College, Oxford (16661667), and took over the title when his father, Sir Adrian Scrope, was executed in 1667 for his part in the capture and execution of Charles I. In London Sir Carr was one of the companions of Charles II. Scroope's poem "In Defense of Satire" was an attack on John Wilmot (see Rochester, John Wilmot) who, so Scroope believed, had lampooned him in "Allusion to the Tenth Satire of the First Book of Horace." They then engaged in a war of words. He died at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was buried at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields; the baronetcy thereupon became extinct. At some stage he made a translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon, which was included in Ovid's Epistles Translated by Various Hands, of which numerous editions were published between 1681 and 1725. Two other poems are attributed to him: "Song: I cannot change as others do," "The Author's Reply."

   Sources: Anthology of Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660-1714. George de F. Lord, ed. Yale University Press, 1975. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org).