Beaumont Brothers, Sir John and Francis

(1583-1627)

   John, the elder, 1583-1627 From Leicestershire, on the death of his father in 1598, John had to leave university, and like his brother, he preferred literature to law. In 1602 he published anonymously "Metamorphosis of Tobacco," a mock-heroic poem. "Of His Dear Son, Gervase" pours out his grief over his son's death at age seven. Some of his other poems: "A Description of Love," "Bosworth Field," "Epitaph upon My Dear Brother, Francis Beaumont," "Thou Who Art Our Author and Our End," "Of Sir Philip Sidney," "Of True Liberty," "Richard III's Speech," "The Assumption," "To His Late Majesty Concerning the True Form of English Poetry," "Upon a Funeral." Francis, the younger, 1584-1616 Thrown off course by the premature death of his father, Francis failed to graduate from Oxford, and fared no better at law. His collaboration with John Fletcher - who apparently replaced Shakespeare around 1609 as chief dramatist of the King's Menlasted seven years and produced 54 plays. Among those were three masterpieces: The Maides Tragedy, Philaster, and A King and No King. He collaborated with John Fletcher in writing the Faithful Shepherdess (?1610). Beaumont's first play, the prose comedy The Woman Hater (1605), was written for the popular children's company Boys of St. Paul's. The brothers are buried together in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Some of his poems: "Aspatia's Song," "Away, Delights," "Bridal Song," "Lay a Garland on My Hearse," "On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey," "The Author to the Reader," "The Glance," "The Indifferent," "The Month of May," "To the True Patroness of all Poetry, Calliope," "True Beauty."

   Sources: An Anthology of Catholic Poets. Joyce Kilmer, ed. Fredonia Books, 2003. 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 Life and Works of Francis Beaumont (www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/beaumont). Stanford University libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). 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 National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 2004. The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed (New edition, revised and enlarged, Oxford University Press, 1939. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).