John Weever, of Lancashire, entered Queen's College Cambridge as a pensioner (B.A.1598); he travelled on the Continent before returning to pursue antiquarian investigations in London. Remembered for his verses on Shakespeare, John Weever was an antiquarian friend of John Seldon, Sir Simonds d'Ewes, and Robert Cotton. His Ancient Funerall Monuments (1631) was of considerable use to later researchers.
TEXT RECORDS:
1599In Obitum Ed. Spencer Poetae Prestantiss.
1599Lectores, quotquot, quales, quicunq; estis.
1599The Fifth Weeke. Epig. 7. In Braggadochionem.
1599The First Weeke. Epig. 3. In Elizabetham.
1600Faunus and Melliflora.
1601Rochester Bridge.
1601The Mirror of Martyrs.
PUBLICATIONS:
Epigrammes in the oldest cut and newest fashion. 1599.
Faunus and Melliflora: or the original of our English satyres. 1600.
An agnus Dei. 1601.
The mirror of martyrs: the life and death of Sir John Oldcastle. 1601.
The whipping of the satyre [by Weever?] 1601.
Ancient funerall monuments. 1631.
Rochester Bridge; a poem written in 1601, ed. W. B. Rye. 1887.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Queen's College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
antiquary
poet
Robert Allott
Robert Cotton
Rev. William Covell
Michael Drayton
Ben Jonson
John Selden
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
[Portrait in Ancient Funerall Monuments (1631)]; Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England (1662); William Oldys, "Ancient Funerall Monuments" British Librarian (June 1737) 344-64; "Weever's Epitaph" Gentleman's Magazine 58 (July 1788) 600; Joseph Ritson, Bibliographia Poetica (1802) 390; "John Weever" Censura Literaria 2 (1806) 149; James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Samuel Egerton Brydges, Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800); "John Weever" Gentleman's Magazine 76 (Supplement, 1806) 1198; William Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature 6 (1812) 156-60; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); A. Davenport, Weever, Ovid, and Shakespeare" Notes and Queries 194 (1949) 524-25; Hallett Smith, in Elizabethan Poetry: A Study in Conventions, Meaning, and Expression (1952); Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); E. J. A. Honigmann, John Weever, a Biography (1987); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
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