Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rogers, Thomas (1660-1694)
ROGERS, THOMAS (1660–1694), divine, son of John and grandson of Thomas Rogers, successively rectors of Bishop's Hampton (now Hampton Lucy), Warwickshire, was born at Bishop's Hampton on 27 Dec. 1660, and educated at the free school there. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, matriculating, on 15 March 1675–6, under the tutorship of John Willis. He shortly afterwards transferred himself to Hart Hall, and graduated thence on 23 Oct. 1679, and M.A. on 5 July 1682 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.; Wood, Fasti, ii. 383; Athenæ Oxon. iv. 400). He took holy orders, and on Low Sunday 1688 performed in St. Mary's Church the part of repetitioner of the four Easter sermons; he was inducted in April 1690 to the small rectory of Slapton, near Towcester in Northamptonshire. He died of small-pox in the house of Mr. Wright, a schoolmaster, in Bunhill Fields, on 8 June 1694. He was buried in the church of St. Mary Overy, Southwark (Wood; Colvile, Warwickshire Worthies).
Rogers wrote: 1. ‘Lux Occidentalis, or Providence displayed in the Coronation of King William and Queen Mary and their happy Accession to the Crown of England, and other remarks,’ London, 1689, 4to (poem of twenty-eight pages under the running title of ‘The Phœnix and Peacock’). 2. ‘The Loyal and Impartial Satyrist, containing eight miscellany poems, viz. (1) “The Ghost of an English Jesuit,” &c.; (2) “Looking on Father Peter's Picture;” (3) “Eccebolius Britannicus, or a Memento to the Jacobites of the higher order,”’ London, 1693, 4to. 3. ‘A Poesy for Lovers, or the Terrestrial Venus unmask'd, in four poems, viz. (1) “The Tempest, or Enchanting Lady;” (2) “The Luscious Penance, or the Fasting Lady,”’ &c., London, 1693, 4to. 4. ‘The Conspiracy of Guts and Brains, or an Answer to the Twin Shams,’ &c., London, 1693. 5. ‘A True Protestant Bridle, or some Cursory Remarks upon a Sermon preached [by William Stephens, rector of Sutton in Surrey] before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London on 30 January 1693, in a Letter to Sir P. D.,’ London, 1694. 6. ‘The Commonwealths Man unmasqu'd, or a just Rebuke to the Author of the “Account of Denmark,” in two parts,’ London, 1694, 8vo; a wearisome and bigoted tirade against the advanced whig principles embodied in the book of Robert Molesworth, first viscount Molesworth [q. v.] There is a prefatory epistle addressed to William III.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 401, giving a list of minor pieces by Rogers which appear to be no longer extant; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies; Bodleian Libr. Cat.; Rogers's Works in Brit. Mus. s.v. Rogers, Thomas and R. T.]