Lane, John

(fl. 1620)

   Lane's poems suggest that he was from Somerset and that he was without any academic education. Nothing else is known of him. His poem of 1600, Tom Tel-troths Message and His Pens Complaint, in 120 six-line stanzas, is dedicated to Master George Dowse and is a vigorous denunciation of the vices of Elizabethan society. Lane describes it as "the first fruit of my barren brain." It was reprinted by the New Shakespere Society in 1876. In 1603 he wrote An Elegie vpon the Death of the High and Renowned Princesse Our Late Soueraigne Elizabeth. In Squire's Tale, 1615, Lane completed in manuscript Chaucer's unfinished poem, adding ten cantos to the original two and carrying out the hints supplied by Chaucer with reference to the chief characters, Cambuscan, Camball, Algarsife, and Canace. Some of his poems: "Æolus Trumpet to His Foure Winds," "Alarum to Poets," "Lane's Fresh Dedication," "Poetries Complaint," "The Muse to the Fowre Windes," "To the Gentlemen Readers."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html).