Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Payne, Robert
PAYNE, ROBERT (fl. 1589), writer on agriculture, was born apparently in Nottinghamshire. He subsequently described himself of Poynes-End, co. Cork. He was presumably the author of ‘Rob. Payn his Hillman's Table, which sheweth how to make Ponds to continue water in high and drie grounde, of what nature soeuer. Also the Vale-man's Table, shewing how to draine moores, and all other wette grounds, and to lay them drie for euer. Also how to measure any roufe ground, wood or water, that you cannot come into,’ &c., 1583 (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. iii. 1662). In consequence of the exceptional inducements offered by government to Englishmen to settle in Munster after the suppression of the rebellion of Gerald Fitzgerald, fifteenth earl of Desmond [q. v.], Payne and twenty-five of his neighbours proposed to remove thither. But Englishmen were chary of risking their lives and fortunes in Ireland, and it was accordingly thought advisable to send Payne over to report on the situation. The result was: ‘A Briefe Description of Ireland: Made in this Yeere 1589, by Robert Payne. Vnto xxv. of his partners, for whom he is vndertaker there. Truely published verbatim, according to his letters, by Nich. Gorsan, one of the said partners, for that he would his countrymen should be partakers of the many good Notes therein conteined. With diuers Notes taken out of others, the Authoures letters written to the said partners, sithenes the first Impression, well worth the reading. At London, printed by Thomas Dawson, 1590.’ The first edition, though mentioned by Ames (Typogr. Antiq. ii. 1127), is not known to be extant. The pamphlet was reprinted and edited for the Irish Archæological Society in 1841 by Dr. Aquilla Smith; but whatever its utility may have been to Payne's partners, it cannot be regarded as of any great value for historical purposes. Payne, on the whole, wrote favourably of the situation: there were good undertakers as well as bad; the natives were not so black as they were painted; justice was firmly administered; the prospect of a Spanish invasion was remote; the country was rich and fertile, and prices were low. But from the absence of Payne's name from the survey of 1622, it may probably be conjectured that he did not settle permanently in Munster.
[Payne's Brief Description of Ireland, ed. Aquilla Smith (Irish Archæol. Society); Ames's Typogr. Antiq.]