Simon Grahame, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, led a dissolute life as a traveller, soldier, and courtier on the Continent of Europe. He appears to have been a good scholar, and wrote the Passionate Sparke of a Relenting Minde, and Anatomy of Humours, the latter of which is believed to have suggested to Robert Burton his The Anatomy of Melancholy. He became an austere Franciscan.