Was the second son of Judge Francis Beaumont, and an elder brother of Francis, the celebrated dramatic poet. He was entered a gentleman commoner of Broadgates’ Hall, (now Pembroke College,) Oxford, in 1596. After some attention to the study of law, he retired to the family seat at Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire. Anth. Wood ascribes to him the “Crown of Thorns,” a poem in 8 books, never printed. His son gave his father’s writings to the world, under the title of “Bosworth Field, with a Taste of the Variety of Other Poems,” 1629. Pages 181–2 are missing in all copies.
| This book will live; it hath a genius; this | |
| Above his reader, or his praiser, is. |
| Thy care for that, which was not worth thy breath, | |
| Brought on too soon thy much-lamented death. | |
| But Heav’n was kind, and would not let thee see | |
| The plagues that must upon this nation be, | |
| By whom the Muses have neglected been, | |
| Which shall add weight and measure to their sin. |
The former part of his life he successfully 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.
Herbert is lower than Crashaw, Sir John Beaumont higher, and Donne, a good deal so.
“Bosworth Field” may be compared with Addison’s “Campaign,” without a high compliment to either. Sir John has no fancy, but there is force and dignity in some of his passages; and he deserves notice as one of the earliest polishers of what is called the heroic couplet.
The commendation of improving the rhythm of the couplet is due also to Sir John Beaumont, author of a short poem on the battle of Bosworth Field. It was not written, however, so early as the “Britannia’s Pastorals” of Browne. In other respects, it has no pretensions to a high rank.
From high up in the seventeenth century careful students have detected a tendency towards the smoother and correcter, but tamer prosody. I do not think that the beginnings of the classical heroic couplet in England can be explored with advantage earlier than in the works of Sir John Beaumont, who, dying in 1627, left behind him a very carefully written historical poem of “Bosworth Field.”
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 John Beaumont, Baronet: and dedicated to the Kings most excellent Maiestie.” “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.”
