Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Freeman, Thomas
FREEMAN, THOMAS (fl. 1614), epigrammatist, a Gloucestershire man, 'of the same family of those of Batsford and Todenham, near to Morton-in-Marsh' (Wood, Athenæ) became a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1607, and took his degree of B.A. 10 June 1611 (Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 341). 'Retiring to the great city and setting up for a poet,' he published in 1614 a collection of epigrams in two parts, 4to, dedicated to Thomas, lord Windsor. 'Rvbbe and a Great Cast' is the title of the first part, and 'Rvnne and a Great Cast. The Second Bowle' of the second. It is a scarce and interesting volume. There are epigrams on Shakespeare, Daniel, Donne, Chapman, Thomas Heywood, and Owen, the epigrammatist; also an epitaph on Nashe. One of the pieces, 'Encomion Cornubiæ,' is reprinted in Ellis's 'Specimens,' 1811, iii. 113.
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, ii. 155–7.]