Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hopkins, John (fl.1700)
HOPKINS, JOHN (fl. 1700), verse-writer, second son of Ezekiel Hopkins [q. v.], bishop of Londonderry, and younger brother of Charles Hopkins [q. v.], was born on 1 Jan. 1675. A John Hopkins graduated B.A. in 1693, and proceeded M.A. in 1698 from Jesus College, Cambridge. Hopkins published in 1698 two Pindaric poems: ‘The Triumphs of Peace, or the Glories of Nassau … written at the time of his Grace the Duke of Ormond's entrance into Dublin,’ 8vo, and ‘The Victory of Death; or the Fall of Beauty,’ &c., 8vo, on the death of the Lady Cutts. In the following year he issued ‘Milton's Paradise Lost imitated in Rhyme. In the Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Books: Containing the Primitive Loves. The Battel of the Angels. The Fall of Man,’ 8vo, apologising in the preface for his audacity on the ground that ‘when I did it, I did not so well Percieve the Majesty and Noble air of Mr. Milton's style as now I do.’ His last work was a collection of indifferent love-verses and translations (from Ovid), ‘Amasia, or the Works of the Muses … In three volumes,’ 1700, with a general dedication to the Duchess of Grafton, and dedications of particular sections to various persons of distinction. Referring in the preface to his brother's renderings of Ovid (‘very well performed’) he observes, ‘mine were written in another kingdom before I knew of his. The author's portrait, engraved by Van Hove and subscribed with his assumed name, ‘Sylvius,’ is prefixed. There is a derisive notice of Hopkins in ‘A Session of the Poets,’ 1704–5.
[Hopkins's Works; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Nichols's Poems; Graduati Cant.]