Author: Streeter, F.
Biography:
STREETER, Folly (b c. 1738 d 1815: ancestry.com)
pseudonym Timothy Scribble
Named for his father’s landlord and friend, Rowland Folly, the poet was the second boy and only surviving child of Thomas Streeter and his wife, Elizabeth Curd. Baptized at Chatham at St Mary the Virgin on 17 Dec. 1738, he was buried in its churchyard on 7 July 1815. It is unclear if he married. He might have done so for in 1808 a “Miss Spree,” granddaughter of Mr. Streeter of Chatham, married H. E. Llewellen at Chepstow; and “Mrs. Streeter,” the wife of Mr. Streeter of the Brook, Chatham, died in Nov. 1815. In Biographia Dramatica, Baker reported that Streeter was a tradesman; that may have been so as Streeter himself recorded that he was engaged in “a laborious vocation” and in a 1778 “Advertisement” to Hampton Court: A Descriptive Poem, he mentions his “want of a liberal education.” Acting was his avocation. He appeared on stage at least twice at the Rochester Theatre in Feb. 1777. On those occasions he supplied epilogues; acted “a Character in two interludes;” and, “for his own Amusement,” played the lead in Tragedy of George Barnwell and in a comedy, Spanish Friar. About his acting, a newspaper writer was effusive, “so masterly … as gained him universal Applause.” His only known drama, a farce, Physical Metamorphosis; or, A Treble Discovery, is included in Hampton Court. Otherwise, in 1773 as “Timothy Scribble” he published an attempt at wit, “To the Printer of the Town and Country Magazine;” and, in the following year under the same pseudonym, The Weeds of Parnassus. All else that is known about the poet is gleaned primarily from subscription lists. He subscribed to several of his friends’ books, those of William Woty, John Nichols, and William Perfect (qq.v.), poetasters who called themselves “the Parnassians.” Streeter and Perfect were especially close. Perfect named one of his daughters Folliott Augusta; the ten poems in Perfect’s The Laurel-Wreath that are distinguished by a manicule are Streeters; and Streeter returned the compliment: the seven poems in The Weeds of Parnassus distinguished by an obelus are Perfect’s. Both men subscribed to William Hawkins’ (q.v.) Miscellanies (1774), who might also have been in their circle. (ancestry.com 4 Dec. 2024; Town and Country 5 [1773], 687-88; Public Advertiser, 14 Feb. 1777; D. E. Baker et al, Biographia Dramatica [1812], 694) JC