Cartwright, William

(1611-1643)

   Brought up in Gloucestershire, Cartwright attended Westminster School as a king's scholar and in 1668 went to Christ Church, Oxford, then took holy orders. He was junior proctor of Oxford University in 1643. Accomplished in Greek, Latin, French and Italian, he was an excellent orator and an admirable poet. Cartwright's plays and poems were published in one volume by Humphrey Moseley in 1651. His successful play The Royal Slave was played before Charles I in 1636 and again at Hampton Court on command of the Queen. The king wore black on the day of Cartwright's funeral, so highly did he hold him in his esteem, and he was mourned by many great men of the day. Some of his poems: "A Dream Broke," "Beauty and Denial," "The Dead Sparrow," "Falsehood," "Francis and Saint Benedight," "Love But One," "A New Year's Gift," "No Platonic [or Platonique] Love," "On a Gentlewomans Silk-hood," "On the Queen's Return from the Low Countries," "The Chambermaids Posset," "To Chloe Who for His Sake Wished Herself Younger," "Upon the Dramatick Poems of Mr. John Fletcher."

   Sources: Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets. Hugh MacLaen, ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1974. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib. utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Gift of Great Poetry. Lucien Stryk, ed. Regnery Gateway, 1992. The Oxford Book of English Verse. Christopher Ricks, ed. Oxford University Press, 1999. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.