Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beedome, Thomas

1218177Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 04 — Beedome, Thomas1885Arthur Henry Bullen

BEEDOME, THOMAS (d. 1641?) poet, is the author of a scarce little volume of verses, posthumously published in 1641 under the title of 'Poems Divine and Humane,' 12mo. The collection was edited by Henry Glapthorne, the dramatist and poet, who prefixed a short prose address 'to the reader,' which is followed by commendatory verses of Ed. May, Henry Glapthorne (in English and Latin), W. C[hamberlaine ?], Em. D. (two copies), H. S., H. P., R. W., J. S., Tho. Nabbes, and Fran. Beedome (the author's brother). The chief poem in the collection is entitled 'The Jealous Lover, or the Constant Maid;' it is a juvenile performance (in six-line stanzas), showing some smoothness of versification. Songs, epistles, epigrams, elegies, and devotional poems follow. Two epigrams are addressed 'to Sir Henry Wotten, Knight,' another is in praise of Wither. There are also epigrams 'to his deare friend William Harrington,' 'to the heroicall Captaine Thomas James' (two), and 'to the memory of his honoured friend, Master John Donne, an Eversary.' The author appears to have died at an early age, and of his life nothing is known. His poems have very little value; but the poetaster Henry Bold seems to have thought well of them, for the first fifty pages of his 'Wit a Sporting,' 1657, are taken verbatim from Beedome's book. A copy of commendatory verses by Beedome is prefixed to Farley's 'Light's Morall Emblems,' 1638.

[Poems Divine and Humane, 1641; Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, ii. 246-50, 311.]