Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jerome, Stephen
JEROME, STEPHEN (fl. 1604–1650), miscellaneous writer, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1604, and M.A. in 1607. In 1619 he was a preacher at St. Nicholas's Church, Newcastle (cf. Ambrose Barnes, Memoirs, p. 305, Surtees Society). Writing from Ireland in 1624, he describes himself as ‘domesticke chaplain to the Rt. Hon. Earl of Corke,’ and in his old age he seems to have resided at Greenwich (see his Minister's Mite, Pref.)
Jerome's first work of any interest was ‘Origen's Repentance: after he had sacrificed to the Jdols of the Heathen; gathered from Svidas, Nicephorus, Osiander, and the Greeke and Latine coppies in Origen's Works. Illustrated and applied to the case of every poore penitent who in remorse of soule shall have recourse to the Throne of Grace,’ London (by Jn. Beale for Roger Jackson), 1619, sm. 4to (Arber, Stationers' Comp. Reg. 20 July 1618). This tract, written in doggerel verse, is of great rarity; it is divided into three sections, each section containing a ‘century of stanzaes.’ Extracts from the interesting preface, dated ‘from my house at Newcastle, May 12th,’ are given in Barnes's ‘Memoirs.’ Jerome's best-known work is his ‘Ireland's Jubilee; or Ioye's Io-paean, for Prince Charles his Welcome home. With the Blessings of Great Brittaine … pressed and expressed,’ Dublin, 1624, 4to. The avowed object of this work, a curious mosaic of scriptural and other quotations and allusions, is to congratulate the Prince of Wales on his safe ‘reduction from Spain;’ but it is in reality more a commentary upon biblical than upon contemporary personages and events. According to Dibdin (Libr. Comp. i. 255) the book is second only in rarity to Cranford's ‘Teares of Ireland.’
Jerome also wrote: 1. ‘Moses his Sight of Canaan,’ London, 1614, 8vo. 2. ‘Seaven Helps to Heaven … ,’ 2 pts., 3rd edit., London, 1620, 4to. 3. ‘A Minister's Mite. Cast into the stocke of a weake Memory: helpt by Rules and Experiments. With a Winter Night Schoole's Tutoring Discourse to Generous Youth,’ London, 1650.
[Cooper's Memorials of Cambridge, ii. 115; Hazlitt's Handbook, 1st ser.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 144; Brit. Mus. Cat.]