Richard Leigh

Richard Leigh (1650–1728) was an English poet of gentry stock, whose work is classed as metaphysical poetry. He engaged in a pamphlet dispute with John Dryden. Life He was the younger son of Sir Edward Leigh (1603–1671), of Rushall, Staffordshire (a scion of the ancient family of West Hall, High Legh, Cheshire and cousin of the Lords Leigh), and Elizabeth Talbot (died 1707), a relative of the Earls of Shrewsbury. In 1666, aged 16, he entered Queen's College, Oxford. Sources rumour that after university, Leigh left Oxford for London and became an actor in the Duke of York's or King's Company. There were two other actors named "Leigh" during that period in the company, Anthony Leigh and John Leigh, but no records of a Richard Leigh in either company survive. While he was a young man, Leigh wrote a prose tract attacking poet John Dryden (1631–1700), entitled "The Censure of the Rota on Mr. Dryden's Conquest of Granada, an attack which annoyed Dryden who subsequently called Leigh "the Fastidious Brisk of Oxford". Some of Leigh's works include "Poems on Several Occasions and to Several Persons", "Greatness in Little" (1675), "Sleeping on her Couch", and "The Eccho".