Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Kynder, Philip
KYNDER, PHILIP (fl. 1665), miscellaneous writer, born on 12 April 1597, was second son of William Kynder of Snenton, Nottinghamshire, by Katherine, daughter of William Dunn of Nottingham (Reliquary, xv. 167). He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1615–1616, and received a license to practise physic (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 380). In 1620 he was practising at Leicester. He was at York when Charles I was preparing for his expedition against the Scots in 1640, and compiled a description of York Minster and of the coats of arms therein, but his notes were stolen, or perished at the plunder at Nottingham in 1643. In October 1643 he was employed at Oxford to draw the patent for creating Henry Hastings (d. 1667) [q. v.] (second son of Henry, earl of Huntingdon) Baron Loughborough, and was appointed an agent for all other affairs at court, but he complains of being ill requited for his services. For some years he received an annuity from Robert, earl of Kingston, which probably ceased at the latter's death in 1643. In 1654 he was in great distress, and had to remind various influential acquaintances of their promises to help him. These appeals he afterwards collected together in manuscript, under the title of ‘The Aqua-vitæ Bottle, or Letters Expostularie.’ He sought relief from his troubles in angling, and in the society of his friends Charles Cotton and Selden. Another of his favourite diversions was composing ornate Latin epitaphs on his deceased friends and relations. He raised an imposing cenotaph to his father's memory at Snenton (Reliquary, vol. xvi.) In August 1665 he was living at Nottingham. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of John Barkley of Warwickshire.
Kynder's only known publication is entitled ‘The Surfeit. To A. B. C.’ [anon.], 8vo, London, 1656, reprinted by Philip Bliss in the appendix to his ‘Reliquiæ Hearnianæ.’ The authorship of this curious volume was long attributed to Philip King, archdeacon of Lewes (Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. xix. 220–1). He has verses before William Sampson's ‘Virtus post funera vivit,’ 1636; and in Latin before Sir John Beaumont's ‘Poems,’ 1629; and was a contributor to the collection of elegies on the death of Henry, lord Hastings of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, entitled ‘Lachrymæ Musarum,’ 1649 and 1650. He was also author of the Latin monumental inscription to Lord Hastings which is printed on a folded leaf bound up with the elegies. He wrote complimentary verses on Charles Cotton's ‘Poems.’ Kynder's ‘Booke,’ a collection of miscellaneous tracts, observations, letters, and poems by him, is preserved in the Bodleian Library (MS. Ashmol. 788). It contains eighty-six different pieces relating to theology, medicine, poetry and the drama, astrology, genealogy, mathematics, topography, stenography, and the universal character. He incidentally mentions that at the age of eighteen he wrote a Latin comedy or pastoral founded on Sir Philip Sidney's ‘Arcadia,’ entitled ‘Silvia.’ The most valuable piece in the collection, his quaint ‘Historie of Darbyshire,’ was transcribed in 1882 by the Rev. W. G. Dimock Fletcher, and printed in the ‘Reliquary’ (vol. xxii.)
[Addit. MS. 24488, ff. 334–5; Black's Cat. Ashmol. MSS., cols. 404, 408, 410; Lysons's Magna Britannia, ‘Derbyshire,’ p. iv and elsewhere.]