Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reynolds, John (1584-1614)
REYNOLDS or REINOLDS, JOHN (1584–1614), epigrammatist, born at Tuddington, Bedfordshire, in 1584, was elected in 1597 to a scholarship at Winchester College. Thence he proceeded to New College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 12 Feb. 1601–2. He was elected fellow in 1602, and graduated B.C.L. in 1607. He was esteemed ‘a good Grecian orator and poet,’ and projected a collection of a thousand Latin epigrams on kings, bishops, barons, doctors, knights, and the like, to be arranged in ten centuries. A very small part of the design was executed. A first instalment, consisting of 111 distiches on British kings and queens, appeared in 1611 with the title ‘Epigrammata Avctore Joanne Reinolds in LL. Baccalaureo Novi Collegij socio’ (Bodleian). A second part, dealing with bishops, was published, according to Wood, in 1612; but no copy seems known, and the scheme went no further. Reynolds contributed some Greek verses to a collection of poems by members of New College, to the memory of Ralph Warcop, entitled ‘Encomion Rodolphi Warcoppi,’ Oxford, 1605, and Bliss identifies him with the author of a pedestrian English poem, entitled ‘Dolarnys Primerose in the first part of the Passionate Hermit,’ 1606; Dolarnys is a transposition of ‘Raynolds’ (cf. Collier, Poet. Dec. ii. 15–17; Park, British Bibliographer, i. 153; Lowndes, Bibl. Manual, ed. Bohn). He died in 1614, and was buried in New College cloister.
A contemporary John Reynolds (fl. 1620–1640), ‘merchant of Exeter,’ and a native of that city, who travelled in France on business, published in 1621 a first instalment of stories translated from the French, entitled ‘The Triumphs of God's Revenge against the crying and execrable Sinne of (Wilfull and Premeditated) Murther.’ Five other like collections followed in separate volumes. In 1635 the six parts were collected in a single volume, the ‘thirtie severall Tragicall Histories’ being ‘digested into sixe bookes,’ with separate titles and dedications to each book. It was reissued in 1639 and in 1640 (the ‘second edition’). A Dutch translation appeared at Amsterdam in 1667, 8vo. A sixth edition, dated 1669 and illustrated by woodcuts, was edited by Samuel Pordage, who dedicated it to Lord Shaftesbury, and added an unpublished piece assigned to Reynolds, ‘God's Revenge against the abominable Sin of Adultery, containing ten several Histories’ (later editions appeared in 1708 and 1770). In 1650 Reynolds published a tedious imitation of the ‘Arcadia,’ entitled ‘The Flower of Fidelitie: displaying, in a continuate historie, the various adventures of three foreign princes’ (London, 1650, 8vo); a seventh edition, with alterations, bore the alternative title of the ‘Garden of Love’ (London, 1721, 8vo). Reynolds dedicated his romance to Richard Waltham, his father-in-law. Much verse is interspersed (cf. Brydges, Restituta, iv. 161 sq.). Reynolds was also author of two translations: ‘A Treatise of the Court’ (1622), from the French of E. du Refuge, which is dedicated to Charles, prince of Wales, and ‘The Judgment of Humane Actions,’ from the French of L. de Marande. He is further credited with a poem, formerly among Heber's manuscripts (No. 1274), entitled ‘Love's Laurel Garland’ (cf. Hunter, Chorus Vatum, Addit. MS. 24490, f. 252).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 148–50; Madan's Early Oxford Press, 1895; Hazlitt's Handbook and Collections and Notes.]