Sir John Beaumont

Sir John Beaumont — the older brother of the dramatist Francis Beaumont — attended Broadgates Hall (Pembroke College) Oxford and studied at the Inner Temple before marrying and inheriting the family estates in 1605; the following year he was in Newgate Prison, being declared a recusant. He lived most of his life in London, where he knew Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and Edmund Bolton; his poetry was admired by Alexander Pope, among others. Sir John, an ally of Buckingham, was made a baronet by James I in 1626; he was buried in Westminster Abbey the following year.

TEXT RECORDS:

1602The Metamorphosis of Tabacco.
1621The Shepherdesse.

PUBLICATIONS:

The metamorphosis of tobacco. 1602.
Bosworth Field, with a taste of the variety of other poems. 1629, 1710.
Poems, ed. A. B. Grosart. 1869.
The theatre of Apollo: an entertainment written by Sir John Beaumont in 1625, ed. W. W. Greg. 1925.
Shorter poems of Sir John Beaumont, ed. Roger D. Sell. 1974.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Catholic
Dissenter

Pembroke College Oxford
Inner Temple
Inns of Court
courtier

poet

Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont the Elder
Edmund Bolton
William Browne of Tavistock
Michael Drayton
Hugh Holland
James I
Charles I
Ben Jonson

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) 145-46; Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); Henry Headley, Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787); "Sir John Beaumont" Town and Country Magazine 20 (March 1788) 126 [from Headley]; George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); Censura Literaria 9 (1809) 194-96; Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (1815) 2:434-37; Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); Robert Chambers, Cyclopedia of English Literature (1844); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica II (1861) 231-37; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Charles Mills Gayley, Francis Beaumont (1910); G. Williams, "The Pattern of Neo-Classical Wit" Modern Philology 33 (1935); Mark Eccles, "A Biographical Dictionary of Elizabethan Authors" in Huntington Library Quarterly 5 (1942) 293-300; Bush, OHEL (1945); Randolph Lincoln Wadsworth, Jr, "The Gound, and Frontier of our Poetrie: A Study of Sir John Beaumont (1583-1627)" (Dissertation, Stanford University, 1967); Roger D. Sell, "The Authorship of the Metamorphosis of Tabacco and Salamacis and Hermaphroditus" Notes and Queries (January 1972); Roger D. Sell, life in Shorter Poems of Sir John Beaumont (1974); Mark Eccles, "Brief Lives" Studies in Philology 79 (1982); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Sir John Beaumont:

1.	1602  W. B., in Beaumont, Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) sig. A3-A3v.
2.	1602  Z. D., in Beaumont, Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) sig. A3.
3.	1602  H. H., in Beaumont, Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) sig. A3v.
4.	1629  Michael Drayton, "To the deare Remembrance of his noble Friend, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet" Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) sig. a2-a2v.
5.	1629  Ben Jonson, "On the honor'd Poems of his honored Friend, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet" Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) sig. (a)v.
6.	1629  Francis Beaumont, "Upon the following Poems of my deare Father, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet, deceased" Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) sig. A8-A8v.
7.	1629  George Fortescue, "Upon these Poems of his dearest Brother, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet" Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) sig. (a).
8.	1629  Thomas Neville, "An Elegy to the living Memory of his deceased Friend, Sir John Beaumont, Baronet" Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) sig. A4-A4v.
9.	1730  Alexander Pope, May 1730; Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters ed. Singer (1820) 22.
10.	1811  William Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, November 1811; Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. Knight (1907) 1:532-33.
11.	1820  William Hazlitt, in Lectures chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820; 1845) 140-41.
12.	1836  Richard Cattermole, in Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836) 2:101.
13.	1837  Henry Hallam, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries (1837-39; 1882) 3:252.
14.	1847  Edward Farr, in Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847) xxi.
15.	1897  Edmund Gosse, in Short History of Modern English Literature (1897) 157.
16.	1910  Charles Mills Gayley, in Francis Beaumont (1910) 60-61.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Sir John Beaumont:

1.	1687  William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) 145-46.
2.	1690  Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721) 1:524.
3.	1787  Henry Headley, in Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787) 1:xxxiv-v.
4.	1810  Alexander Chalmers, in Works of the English Poets (1810) 6:3-4.
5.	1817  Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838) 291-92.
6.	1819  Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 105.
7.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:117-18.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1602  Michael Drayton:   Sir John Beaumont, "To my loving friend Master Michael Drayton" Beaumont, Metamorphosis of Tobacco (1602) sig. A2.
2.	1603  Michael Drayton:   Sir John Beaumont, "To Master Michael Drayton" Drayton, The Barrons Wars (1603) sig. A4v.
3.	1610  Edmund Bolton:   Sir John Beaumont, "A Letter to the Author, from the learned young Gentleman, I. B. of Grace-dieu in the County of Leicestershire Esquire" Bolton, The Elements of Amories (1610) sig. A.
4.	1616  Francis Beaumont:   Sir John Beaumont, "An Epitaph upon my deare Brother, Francis Beaumont" 1616; John Beaumont, Bosworth-field (1629) 164.