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This chapter discusses the talented circle of poets who gathered under the patronage of the wealthy royalist gentleman Thomas Stanley in the aftermath of the first civil war. Returning from a four-year grand tour Stanley based himself in the Inns of Court in London and turned his rooms in the Middle Temple into a meeting place for poets such as Richard Lovelace, John Hall, James Shirley and Edward Sherburne. The circle was particularly interested in translation of classical, neo-Latin and continental verse, and called itself the ‘Order of the Black Riband’ to commemorate the king's defeat. This chapter recovers Marvell's friendship with Hall and Lovelace and argues that some of Marvell's early lyrics should be placed in the context of the culture of friendly experimentation and literary patronage in Stanley's circle. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is discussed extensively as a test case for Marvell's association with the circle.

This chapter focuses initially on John Hall of Durham, who had been under Stanley's patronage since 1642 and was a key member of his London literary group. Hall was also an avid reader of Milton's prose and an associate of the educational reformer and intelligencer Samuel Hartlib, who regarded the dissolution of the court as an opportunity to reform learning in England. The first section of the chapter examines Hall's correspondence with Hartlib and his (failed) effort to bring the Stanley circle and Hartlib network together. The second section looks at Milton's sonnets in the mid-1640s and examines in particular how Milton's anti-Presbyterianism in these sonnets is accompanied by a softening attitude towards the Cavalier culture that he previously attacked. There is an extended reading of Milton's sonnet to his old Cavalier friend, the musician Henry Lawes. The third section traces the development of both Hall's Parliamentarianism and his anti-Presbyterianism.

This chapter recovers Herrick’s association with a formidable, secretive, and almost unknown literary circle which formed in London in the aftermath of the first Civil War, and whose raison d’être was to encourage translation and imitation of classical, neo-Latin, and continental verse. I suggest that when Herrick prepared Hesperides for publication, he was close to, or was perhaps even a member of the poetic community that gathered in the Middle Temple rooms of Thomas Stanley and included prominent royalist writers such as Richard Lovelace and James Shirley.

This chapter presents four case studies of translators which illustrate the diversity of translating careers or translating lives in the early modern era. The four figures were taken from different parts of the period, had diverse backgrounds and educations, worked in a range of different genres and languages, and achieved different degrees of prominence in the eyes of their contemporaries and of posterity. These are George Chapman (c.1559–1634), Anthony Munday (1560–1633), Mary Sidney Pembroke, and Thomas Stanley (1625–1678).

During the Commonwealth period, manuscript circulation networks continued to disseminate texts although at a lesser level than in the 1620s. Some were formed prior to the war at the Universities or Inns of Court, others were based on family or geography, and some had international reach. Samuel Hartlib’s extensive correspondence network circulated information between England and the Continent, while informal networks of friends and family likewise sustained communications. Catholic families had well-developed networks for circulating manuscripts, books, and people. Others such as Katherine Philips in Wales developed networks of literary friends. Thomas Stanley supported numerous friends and family, including Andrew Marvell and Robert Herrick, as they engaged on translation projects and collected their poems for publication.