CREECH, THOMAS (1659–1701), well known for his translations of the ancient classics, was born near Sherborne, Dorsetshire. He received the elements of his education under Mr Curganven of Sherborne, to whom he afterwards dedicated a translation of one of the Idylls of Theocritus;
and in 1675 he was entered as a commoner of Wadham College, Oxford. Wood states that his father, Thomas Creech, was a gentleman; but Giles Jacob, in his Lives and Characters of English Poets, says that the circumstances of his parents not being sufficient to afford him a liberal education, his disposition and capacity for learning raised him up a patron in Colonel Strangeways, whose generosity supplied that deficiency. In 1683 Creech took the degree of master of arts, and not long afterwards was elected probationer fellow of All Souls College; to which, Jacob observes, the great reputation acquired by his translation of Lucretius recommended him. Wood mentions that upon this occasion he gave singular proofs of his classical learning and philosophical attainments. He also took the degree of B.D. in 1696. In 1699, having taken holy orders, he was presented by his college to the living of Welwynn, Hertfordshire; but he had not long enjoyed his preferment when he put an end to his own life. The motives which urged him to the deed have been variously represented, as springing from slighted affection or from his own morose temper; but from an original letter of Arthur Charlett, preserved in the Bodleian Library, it seems to have been caused by the refusal of an intimate friend to grant him a sum of money, which his narrow circumstances constrained him to borrow.
Creech's principal works are, A translation of Lucretius; A translation of Horace, in which, however, he has omitted some few odes; The Idylls of Theocritus, with Rapin's Discourse of Pastorals; A translation of Manilius's Astronomicon; besides translations of several parts of Virgil, Ovid, and Plutarch, printed in different collections.