Rev. Joseph Beaumont

The son of a Suffolk clothier, Joseph Beaumont attended the Hadleigh Grammar School and Peterhouse Cambridge (B.A. 1634, M.A. 1634, Fellow 1636, D.D. 1660). At Cambridge he befriended Richard Crashaw and published an elegy in the collection containing Milton's Lycidas. Ejected from the University, Beaumont retired to the country, where he wrote most of his poetry. Patronized by Bishop Wren (his father-in-law) he was canon of Ely (1646), royal chaplain (1660), master of Jesus College (1662), Peterhouse (1663), and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1674-99).

TEXT RECORDS:

1648Psyche. Canto I. The Preparative.
1648Psyche. Canto II. Lust Conquered.
1648Psyche. Canto III. The Girdle, or Love-Token.
1648Psyche. Canto IV. The Rebellion.
1648Psyche. Canto IX. The Temptation.
1648Psyche. Canto V. The Pacification.
1648Psyche. Canto VI. The Humiliation.
1648Psyche. Canto VII. The Great Little One.
1648Psyche. Canto VIII. The Pilgrimage.
1648Psyche. Canto X. The Marvels.
1648Psyche. Canto XI. The Traitor.
1648Psyche. Canto XII. The Banquet.
1648Psyche. Canto XIII. The Impeachment.
1648Psyche. Canto XIV. The Death of Love.
1648Psyche. Canto XIX. The Antidote.
1648Psyche. Canto XV. The Triumph of Love.
1648Psyche. Canto XVI. The Supply.
1648Psyche. Canto XVII. The Cheat.
1648Psyche. Canto XVIII. The Poyson.
1648Psyche. Canto XX. The Mortification.
1648Psyche. Canto XXI. The Sublimation.
1648Psyche. Canto XXII. The Persecution.
1648Psyche. Canto XXIII. The Dereliction.
1648Psyche. Canto XXIV. The Consummation.

PUBLICATIONS:

Psyche: or loves mysterie. 1648, 1702.
Some observations upon the Apologie of Dr. Henry More for his Mystery of Godliness. 1665.
Remarks on Dr. Henry More's Expositions of the Apocalypse and Daniel. 1690.
Original poems in English and Latin, ed. John Gee. 1749.
Complete poems, ed. A. B. Grosart. 2 vols, 1877.
Minor poems, ed. Eloise Robinson. 1914.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Hadleigh School
Peterhouse College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Doctor of Divinity
College Fellow
courtier

clergyman
tutor
painter
professor
poet

Richard Crashaw
Rev. Samuel Woodford

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

[Portrait in Psyche (1702)]; Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Life by John Gee in Beaumont, Poems (1749); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Retrospective Review 11 (1824) 288-307, 12 (1825) 229-48; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); John Mitford, "Poems of Beaumont" Gentleman's Magazine NS 5 (1836) 157-60; Robert Aris Willmott, Lives of Sacred Poets (1834); Robert Aris Willmott, "The Destruction in 1643. Henry More and Joseph Beaumont" in Conversations at Cambridge (1836) 219-34; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); F. M. Bird, "An Overlooked Poet" Hours at Home 11 (1870); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Herbert E. Cory, "Spenser, The School of the Fletchers, and Milton" University of California Publications in Modern Philology 2 (1912) 311-73; P. H. Osmond, Mystical Poets of the English Church (1919); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); John Gee, Memoir [of Beaumont], ed. T. A. Walker (1934); Bush, OHEL (1945); Paul Grant Stanwood, "Joseph Beaumont's Psyche: Or Loves Mysterie (1648): Canto XIX, 'The Dereliction,' A Critical Edition" Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1961; Paul Grant Stanwood, "A Portrait of Stuart Orthodoxy" Church Quarterly Review 165 (1964); Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); Natalie Maynor, "Joseph Beaumont's Psyche in the Seventeenth-Century Context" Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Tennessee, 1978; Philip Herzbrun, "Joseph Beaumont's Psyche and Joseph Spence as 'Sir Harry Beaumont'" Notes and Queries 30 (February 1983) 43-44; James A. Means, "Keats's 'Ode on Melancholy' and Beaumont's Psyche" Notes and Queries 32 (September 1985) 341; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Joseph Beaumont:

1.	1664 ca.  Henry More to Lady Conway (ca. 1664-65); Conway Letters, ed. Nicholson (1930) 233.
2.	1730 ca.  Thomas Hearne, ca. 1730; Restituta or ... English Literature Revived 1 (1814) 164.
3.	1814  George Dyer, in History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (1814) 2:22-23.
4.	1826  Richard Ryan, in Poetry and Poets: being a Collection of the choicest Anecdotes relative to the Poets of every Age and Nation (1826) 3:221-22.
5.	1836  Robert Aris Willmott, in "Henry More and Joseph Beaumont" Conversations at Cambridge (1836) 227.
6.	1857  Leigh Hunt to John Hunter, 5 February 1857; Correspondence of Leigh Hunt (1862) 2:229-30.
7.	1858  Samuel Austin Allibone, in Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882) 1:151.
8.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 2:309-10.
9.	1887  George Saintsbury, in History of Elizabethan Literature (1887) 379.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Joseph Beaumont:

1.	1720  Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 7-8.
2.	1769  James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 5:44-45.
3.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 4:286-88.
4.	1834  Robert Aris Willmott, in Lives of Sacred Poets (1834) 335-38.
5.	1834  G. G. Cunningham, in Memoirs of Illustrious Englishmen (1834-37) 3:367.