FRANCIS, a poet and miscellaneous writer of some note, was born in the spring of 1592 at Stewards, in Romford Town Ward, in the county of Essex. He received his early education at a country school, where he is said to have "surpassed all his equals." He subsequently entered Christ's College, Cambridge, and was a resident member of that university in 1608. Passing from the university, he entered Lincoln's Inn, where he spent some time in the study of law, and was afterwards promoted to the office of cup-bearer to the Queen of Bohemia. In the spring of 1621 he seems to have left her majesty's service, for we find him in Dublin at that period, from which place he dates his History of Argalus and Parthenia. This was not his first effort, however. He had before written The Feast of Worms, or the History of Jonah, a somewhat singular poem, in which strength, coarseness, and breadth of colouring are all equally visible. On visiting Ireland, he became secretary to the learned Usher, recently elevated to the see of Meath. Quarles wrote, about this period, his Quintessence of Meditation and his History of Queen Esther. His next work consisted of a paraphrase upon Job, interspersed with original meditations. In 1625 Quarles lost one of his most esteemed friends by the plague, in Dr Aylmer, archdeacon of London, and son of Bishop Aylmer. The poet wrote an Alphabet of Elegies in honour of his memory, in which there are some of the most precious tributes of sincere affection to be found in our language. He printed during the same year Zion's Elegies, a paraphrase upon the songs of mourning "wept by Jeremie the prophet." In 1631 was published his History of Sampson, and in 1635 the first issue of his Emblems, suggested by the Pia Desideria of Herman Hugo. He occasionally strikes out in these Emblems, as indeed in all his poetry, images of very great sublimity. In one of these he represents the sword of justice swinging through the universe with ever-increasing power. His next eccentricity was his Hieroglyphics, "an Egyptian dish, drest in the English fashion." Prefixed to one of these he represents a lighted taper, with the winds of eternity fanning the flame.

On Quarles' return to England, which must have been before February 4, 1639, he was appointed "Chronologer" to the city of London, with a salary of L33, 6s. 8d. The Enchiridion, a collection of brief essays and aphorisms, appeared in 1641; a piece, according to Mr Headly, which had it "been written at Athens or Rome, its author would have been clasped with the wise men of his country." But the vigour, eloquence, and piety of the sentiments do not alone for the frequent use of antithesis, often of the most perverse and self-willed description. They possess a novelty at first, which leads the reader forward, but he will infallibly break down long before reaching the end. The calamities which befell his "king and country" involved Quarles, whose love to both, says his widow, caused him many "prayers and tears." His Thoughts upon Peace and War, full of mild wisdom as they were, did not prevent him from being plundered of his "books and some rare manuscripts." A petition "full of unjust aspersions," says his widow, was preferred against him, from which he did not recover. He died on the 8th of September 1644.

After his death were published Solomon's Recantation; A Paraphrase on Ecclesiastes; the Virgin Widow, a comedy, "an innocent production;" and the Shepherd's Oracles. Quarles's School of the Heart and Hieroglyphics were published in London in 1658, and his Emblems in 1659, with illustrations. A copy of the Enchiridion of Francis Quarles has recently been published by Russell Smith in the "Library of Old Authors." The most complete biography of the poet is that by Robert Aris Willmott, in his Lives of Sacred Poets, London, 1835. Of Quarles' very numerous family, John is alone remembered, whose compositions seem to have been very numerous. He was by some "esteemed a good poet," though falling considerably short of his father, both in power and originality. He was carried off by the plague in 1665.