Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Roche, Robert
ROCHE, ROBERT (1576–1629), poetaster, born about 1576, a native of Somerset of lowly origin, was admitted of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in November 1594, being then aged 18, and graduated B.A. 9 June 1599. He was presented to the vicarage of Hilton in Dorset in 1617, and held the benefice until his death on 12 May 1629. A Latin inscription in the aisle of Hilton church marks the common grave of Roche and a successor in the vicariate, John Antram; an English quatrain is appended. Roche's son Robert graduated B.A. from Magdalen Hall, 23 Jan. 1630, and became vicar of East Camel.
Roche was author of ‘Eustathia, or the Constancie of Susanna, containing the Preservation of the Godly, Subversion of the Wicked, Precepts for the Aged, Instructions for Youth, Pleasure with Profitte … Dominus mea rupes. Printed at Oxford by Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold in Paules Churchyard at the Sign of the Bible,’ 1599, b.l. 8vo. It contains seventy-four pages of didactic doggerel, of which a long specimen is given in Dr. Bliss's edition of Wood's ‘Athenæ,’ on the ground of its extreme rarity. The only copy known is in the Bodleian; it once belonged to Robert Burton.
[Univ. Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc. ii. 206, iii. 215; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. 682; Bibl. Bodleiana, 1843; Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 516; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 357, 359; Hunter's Chorus Vatum (Add. MS. 24491, f. 194); Madan's Early Oxford Press, p. 47.]