Griffin, Bartholomew

(f1. 1596)

   He was possibly from Northamptonshire or Coventry and may have been buried at Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, in 1602 (his will was proved in 1603). It is thought he might have been an attorney because of his sixty-two sonnets, Fidessa, More Chaste Than Kinde, published in 1596, his only known work. The frontispiece reads, "To the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court," and says that it is the first of his writing, which is dedicated to William Essex of Lamborne, Berkshire. He does go on to say that if his poem pleases, then in the next term he will submit a Pastoral. Sonnet 1 starts with a Latin tag: "It is said that fortune favors a winner." The poem is rich in imagery and symbolism. Some of his sonnets/poems: "Clip Not Sweet Love the Wings of My Desire," "For I Have Loved Long, I Crave Rewarded," "Grief Urging Guest, Great Cause Have I to Plain Me," "My Spotless Love That Never Yet Was Tainted," "Oh She Must Love My Sorrows to Assuage," "Well May My Soule Immortal and Divine," "When Silent Sleep Had Closed Up Mine Eyes."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Elizabethan Sonnets. Maurice Evans, ed. J.M. Dent, 1977. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). For the complete sonnets of Bartholomew Griffin see www.sonnets.org. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org).