Robert Fabian was born and bred in London as witnesseth Bale and Pits; becoming one of the Rulers thereof, being chosen Sheriff, Anno 1493.  He spent his time which he had spare from publick Employments, for the benefit of posterity; writing two large Chronicles:  the one from Brute to the Death of King Henry the Second; the other, from the First of King Richard, to the Death of Henry the Seventh.  He was (saith my Author) of a merry disposition, and used to entertain his Guests as well with good Discourse as good Victuals:  He bent his Mind much to the Study of Poetry; which according to those times, passed for currant.  Take a touch of his Abilities in the Prologue to the second Volume of his Chronicle of England and France.

  Now would I fayne,
  In words playne,
  Some Honour sayne,
    And bring to mynde;
  Of that auncient Cytye,
  That so goodly is to se,
  And full true ever hath be,
    And also full kynde,
  To Prince and Kynge
  That hath borne just rulynge,
  Syn the first winnynge
    of this Hand by Brute. 
  So that in great honour
  By passynge of many a showre,
  It hath euer borne the flowre;
    And laudable Brute, &c.

These Verses were made for the Honour of London; which he calleth Ryme Dogerel, and at the latter end thereof, excuseth himself to the Reader in these words: 

  Who so him lyketh these Versys to rede,
  With favour I pray he will theym spell;
  Let not the rudenes of theym hym lede
  For to dispraue thys Ryme Dogerell: 
  Some part of the honour it doth you tell
  Of this old Cytye Troynouant;
  But not thereof the halfe dell;
  Connyng in the Maker is so adaunt: 
  But though he had the Eloquence
  Of Tully, and the Moralytye
  Of Seneck, and the Influence
  Of the swyte sugred Armony,
  Or that faire Ladye Caliope,
  Yet had he not connyng perfyght,
  This Citye to prayse in eche degre
  As that shulde duely aske by ryght.

Sir John Suckling, a prime Wit of his Age, in the Contest betwixt the Poets for the Lawrel, maketh Apollo to adjudge it to an Alderman of London; in these words;

  He openly declar’d it was the best sign
  Of good store of Wit, to have good store of Coyne,
  And without a syllable more or less said,
  He put the Lawrel on the Alderman’s Head.

But had the Scene of this Competition been laid a hundred and fifty years ago, and the same remitted to the Umpirage of Apollo, in sober sadness he would have given the Lawrel to this our Alderman.

He died at London, Anno 1511, and was buried at St. Michael’s Church in Cornhil, with this Epitaph;