CREECH, THOMAS (1659-170o), English classical scholar, was born at Blandford, Dorsetshire, and received his early educa tion from Thomas Curgenven, master of Sherborne school. In 1675 he entered Wadham college, Oxford, and obtained a fellow ship in 1683 at All Souls. He was headmaster of Sherborne school from 1694 to 1696, and in 2699 he received a college living. In June 1700 he hanged himself. Creech's fame rests on his transla tion of Lucretius (1682) in rhymed heroic couplets, in which, according to Otway, the pure ore of the original "somewhat seems refined." He also published a version of Horace (1684), and translated the Idylls of Theocritus (1684), the Thirteenth Satire of Juvenal (1693), the Astronomicon of Manilius (1697), and parts of Plutarch, Virgil and Ovid.