Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neville, William (fl.1518)
NEVILLE, WILLIAM (fl. 1518), poet, was second son of Sir Richard Neville, second baron Latimer [q. v.], and Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford, his wife. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Giles Greville, and resided at Penwyn (now Pinvin), Worcestershire, where he left issue, which became extinct in 1631. He was the author of a poem entitled ‘The Castell of Pleasure; the conveyaunce of a dreme how Desyre went to the Castell of Pleasure, wherein was the garden of affeccyon, inhabyted by Beaute, to whome he amerously expressed his love, upon the whiche supplycacion rose grete stryfe, dysputacion, and argument betweene Pyte and Dysdayne.’ On the back of the title-page are stanzas to the author by the printer, Robert Copland, who also writes L'Envoy in French at the end of the poem, from which it appears that William Nevyl ‘tres honoré fils du Seigneur Latimer’ is the author. This is followed by an English stanza, asking pardon if ‘without your licence I did them impresse,’ and the notice, ‘Here endeth the Castell of Pleasure, emprynted in Powle's churchyarde, at the sygne of the Trynyte, by me, Hary Pepwell, in the yere of our lorde, 1518.’ A copy, in 4to, is in the British Museum Library. Another, with a different cut on the title, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, is described in Dibdin's ‘Typographical Antiquities’ (ii. 371).
[Edmundson's Baronag. Geneal. ed. Segar, iv. 350–1; Nash's Worcestershire, ii. 250, Suppl. p. 59; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 1780; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. s.v. Nevil.]