Linche (Lynche), Richard

(d. 1601)

   The details of the life of this Elizabethan poet have been lost. However, it is assumed with some certainty that he is the author of a collection of thirtynine sonnets under the title Deilia, along with the Amorous Poeme of Dom Diego and Gineura dated 1596. The Story of Dom Diego is taken from the Tragicall Discourses (1567) of Sir Geoffrey Fenton. Linche also wrote The Fountaine of English Fiction, which tells the stories of the ancient gods. Another work is An Historical Treatise of the Travels of Noah into Europe. It covers the kings, governors, and rulers up to the time of the first building of Troy by Dardanus (from whom Dardanelles is derived); though based on Greek mythology, it is thought to relate to real history. Linche is the subject of the sonnet In Praise of Music and Poetry by Richard Barnfield (see entry). Some of the sonnets from Dielia: "End This Enchantment, Love, of My Desires," "Love's Despair," "Soon as the Azure-Colored Gates of th' East," "Weary with Serving Where I Nought Could Get," "What Sugared Terms, What All-Persuading Art."

   Sources: Anno Mundi Books: From Noah to Dardanus, by Richard Linche (http://www.annomundi.com/history/ noah_to_dardanus.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Elizabethan Lyrics. Norman Ault, ed. William Sloane Associates, 1949. The Anchor Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Verse, Vol. II. Louis L. Martz and Richard S. Sylvester, ed. Doubleday Anchor Books, 1969. 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 Sonnet: An Antholog y. Robert M. Bender and Charles L. Squier, eds. Washington Square Press, 1987. The Sonnet-Series: Page Seventeen by John Erskine, The Elizabethan Lyric. Macmillan Company, 1903, reprinted by Columbia University Press, 1916. The Sonnet Series, Richard Linche (http://www.sonnets.org/erskineq.htm).