(Francis), the son of James Quarles clerk to the board of green cloth and purveyor to queen Elizabeth, was born in 1592. He was educated at Cambridge; became a member of Lincoln's Inn; and was for some time cup-bearer to the Queen of Bohemia, and chronologer to the city of London. It was probably on the ruin of her affairs that he went to Ireland as secretary to archbishop Usher; but the troubles in that kingdom forcing him to return, and not finding affairs more at peace in England, some disquiet he met with were thought to have hastened his death, which happened in 1644. His works both in prose and verse are numerous, and were formerly in great esteem, particularly his Divine Emblems: but the obsolete quaintness of his style has caused them to fall into neglect, excepting among particular classes of readers.

The memory of Quarles, says a late author, has been branded with more than common abuse, and he seems to have been censured merely from the want of being read. If his poetry failed to gain him friends and readers, his piety should at least have secured him peace and goodwill. He too often, no doubt, mistook the enthusiasm of devotion for the inspiration of fancy; to mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon in the same cup, was reserved for the hand of Milton; and for him, and him only, to find the bays of Mount Olivet equally verdant with those of Parnassus. Yet, as the effusions of a real poetical mind, however thwarted by untowardness of subject, will be seldom rendered totally abortive, we find Quarles original imagery, striking sentiment, fertility of expression, and happy combinations; together with a compression of style that merits the observation of the writers of verse. Grofs deficiencies of judgment, and the infelicity of his subjects, concurred in ruining him. Perhaps no circumstance whatever can give a more complete idea of Quarles's degradation than a late edition of his Emblems; the following passage is extracted from the preface: 'Mr Francis Quarles, the author of the Emblems that go under his name, was a man of the most exemplary piety, and had a deep insight into the mysteries of our holy religion. But, for all that, the book itself is written in so old a language, that many parts of it are scarce intelligible in the present age; many of his phrases are so affected, that no person, who has any taste for reading, can peruse them with the least degree of pleasure; many of his expressions are harsh, and sometimes whole lines are included in a parenthesis, by which the mind of the reader is diverted from the principal object. His Latin mottoes under each cut can be of no service to an ordinary reader, because he cannot understand them. In order, therefore, to accommodate the public with an edition of Quarles's Emblems properly modernized, this work was undertaken.' Such an exhibition of Quarles is chaining Columbus to an oar, or making John Duke of Marlborough a train-band corporal.'