Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beaumont, John (1583-1627)
BEAUMONT, Sir JOHN (1583–1627), poet, was the second son of Francis Beaumont, judge [see Beaumont, Francis]. His mother was Anne, daughter to Sir George Pierrepoint, knt., of Holrne-Pierrepoint, Nottinghamshire, and relict of Thomas Thorold, of Marston, Lincolnshire. He was born (probably) at the family seat of Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, in 1582. There are no entries of the baptisms of the Beaumonts at Grace-Dieu, the explanation being that the rite would most naturally be administered in the metropolis, where the judge resided permanently. According to the funeral-certificates in the College of Arms, John Beaumont, 'second sonne,' was 'at the tyme of the death of his father [22 April 1598] of the age of fourteen years or thereabouts' (Nichols, Leicestershire). He proceeded to Oxford in 1596, and entered as a gentleman commoner at Broadgates Hall 4 Feb. 1596-7, when, according to Wood, he was 'aged fourteen' (Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 437, also 434-5). Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, was the principal nursery in Oxford for students of the civil and common law. With his brothers Henry and Francis, who went with him to Oxford, John quitted the university without taking a degree on the death of his father in 1598. Henry succeeded to his father's estates in Leicestershire; was knighted in 1603, but died in 1605, aged twenty-four (Dyce, p. xxi), when John succeeded his brother. John, with his brother Henry, was admitted student of the Inner Temple in November 1547 (List of Students admitted to Inner Temple, 1571-1625, pp. 80, 82). But it appears that he soon gave up residence – in all likelihood on coming into possession on the death of Sir Henry.
During his college residence, and while in London, he must have begun his poetic studies. 'In his youth,' say Wood and the 'Biographia Britannica' and other authorities, 'he applied himself to the muses with good success' (Biogr. Brit. (1747) i. 621). While in his twentieth year (1602) he published anonymously his 'Metamorphosis of Tobacco' – a mock-heroic poem; and prefixed to it, among others, were dedicatory lines to Michael Drayton and the first printed verses of his brother Francis [q. v.].
In the same year (1602) appeared Francis Beaumont's 'Salmacis and Hermaphroditus,' and among the commendatory verses prefixed is a little poem signed 'I. B.' – doubtless by his elder brother.
The Duke of Buckingham was his patron, and introduced his poems to the king. A cavalier and a royalist, he was made a baronet in 1626. But he was a puritan in religion.
He died, according to Anthony à Wood and all the old authorities, 'in the wintertime of 1628;' but in the register of burials in Westminster Abbey it is stated that he was buried 19 April 1627, 'in the broad aisle on the south side' of the Abbey. William Coleman, in his appendix to his 'La Dance Machabre, or Death's Duell,' has some fine lines dedicated to his memory.
He married a lady of the family of Fortescue, whose brother, George Fortescue, added a grateful and graceful poem to the posthumously published volume of Sir John's poems (1629). By her he had four sons – John, Francis, Gervase, and Thomas. The first, who succeeded his father, and lovingly edited his poems, fell at the siege of Gloucester in the service of the king in 1644. Francis – sometimes confounded with his uncle – became a Jesuit. Gervase died in his seventh year, and very pathetic is his father's poem to his memory. Thomas ultimately came into possession of the family property and title.
Beaumont's son and heir, Sir John, piously prepared and published in 1629 his father's poems for the first time under the title: 'Bosworth Field, with a Taste of the Variety of other Poems, left by Sir John Beaumont, Baronet, deceased: Set forth by his Sonne, Sir Iohn Beaumont, Baronet: and dedicated to the Kings most excellent Majestie.' 'Bosworth Field ' is written in heroic couplets of ten syllables. The preserving fragrance of the book must be looked for, not in his secular, but in his sacred poems. Very strong religious feeling is apparent in many of his poems, especially in his 'In Desolation,' 'Of the Miserable State of Man,' and 'Of Sinne.' The genuineness of his Christianity is well attested by the quotations made from his works by Dr. George Macdonald, in his 'Antiphon' (pp. 143, 145). Beaumont's 'Act of Contrition,' 'Of the Epiphany,' 'Vpon the Two Great Feasts of the Annunciation and Resurrection,' and other of the 'Sacred Poems,' are of a high level for sincerity of sentiment and literary quality.
It is commonly stated, even by Dyce, that Sir John Beaumont's poetry belonged solely to his youth. The dates and names of various of his elegies and other verses disprove this. He seems to have written poetry to the close. Throughout his life he yearned after a true poet's renown, and wrote:–
- No earthly gift lasts after death but fame.
His friend Michael Drayton referred in a poem written after his death to his thirst after celebrity:–
- Thy care for that which was not worth thy breath
- Brought on too soon thy much-lamented death.
The work upon which Sir John evidently put forth all his resources a poem entitled the 'Crown of Thorns: in eight books' – has unhappily disappeared. It must have been printed, for in his admirable elegy on Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton the author thus refers to it:
- His onely mem'ry my poore worke adornes:
- He is a father to my crowne of thornes.
- Now since his death how can I ever looke
- Without some teares vpon that orphan booke?
Sir Thomas Hawkins also celebrates the poem. Sir John seems to have dedicated certain hours daily to the gratification of his literary tastes. He tells us something of his studies in a letter prefixed to Edmund Bolton's 'Elements of Armories' (1610). It is entitled 'A Letter to the Author, from the learned young gentleman I. B. of Grace-Dieu in the County of Leicester, Esquier.'
Burton, the historian of Leicestershire, wrote of Sir John Beaumont: 'A gentleman of great learning, gravity, and worthiness; the remembrance of whom I may not here omit, for many worthy respects' (Nichols). Anthony à Wood remarks: 'The former part of his life he had fully employed in poetry, and the latter he as happily bestowed on more serious and beneficial studies, and had not death untimely cut him off in his middle age he might have prov'd a patriot, being accounted at the time of his death a person of great knowledge, gravity, and worth' (Athenæ Oxon. ii. 434-5).
[Dr. Grosart's Introduction to the first collected edition of Sir John Beaumont's work in Fuller's Worthies Library, where all that is known of the poet may be found; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum; Campbell's Specimens; Wordsworth's Poems.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.20
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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