Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bosworth, William
BOSWORTH, WILLIAM (1607–1650?), poetical writer, belonged to a family (whose name is sometimes spelt Boxworth) of Boxworth, near Harrington, Cambridgeshire. He wrote much poetry in his youth, but published nothing himself. He died about 1650, and in the following year an admiring friend (R. C.) issued, with a dedication to John Finch, Bosworth's essays in poetry. The volume bears the title, ‘The Chast and Lost Lovers Lively shadowed in the persona of Arcadius and Septa .... To this is added the Contestation betwixt Bacchus and Diana, and certain Sonnets of the Author to Avrora. Digested into three Poems by Will. Bosworth, Gent.,’ London, 1651. In the preface R. C. states that the author studied to imitate ‘Ovid's Metamorphosis,' ‘Mr. Marlow in his Hero and Leander,’ Sir Philip Sidney, and ‘Mr. Edmund Spe[n]cer,’ Five copies of verses signed respectively L. B., F[rancis] L[ovelace], E[dmund] G[ayton], S. P., and L. C., lament Bosworth's death. The chief poem of the volume (the ‘Historie of Arcadius and Septa,’ in two books) is followed by ‘Hinc Lachrimæ, or the Avthor to Avrora’ —an appeal to Azile, a disdainful mistress, verses ‘to the immortal,' memory of the fairest and most vertuous Lady, the Lady ——,' and 'to his dear Friend, Mr. John Emely, upon his Travells.’ The first poem is a very promising performance for a youth of nineteen, Bosworth's age at the date of its composition. A portrait of Bosworth, ‘æt. 30, 1637’ (engraved by G. Glover), is prefixed to the volume.
[Corser's Collect. Anglo-Poetica. ii. 318-23; Ritson's Bibl, Anglo-Poet.; Gent. Mag. lxxxi. pt. ii. 124; Phillips’s Theatrum Portarum; Hunter’s MS. Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus.]