brawl, is possible (Harl. MS. 6395, quoted by Rimbault, Who was Jack Wilson? 1846). But these coincidences are not of sufficient weight to establish identity. On the other hand, there is a letter of 21 Oct. 1622 from Mandeville to the lord mayor and aldermen, soliciting for John Willson the place of one of the servants of the city for music and voice, vacant by the death of Richard Balls (Remembrancia, viii. 48, 121), and a list of musicians for the ‘waytes,’ 17 April 1641, records the same name. It is unlikely that Wilson commenced his career by these city appointments, which may be presumed to have been enjoyed by a humbler namesake, John Wilson, actor and singer.
The Playfords published airs and glees by Wilson in (1) ‘Select Ayres,’ 1652; (2) ‘Catch that catch can;’ and (3) ‘Pleasant Musical Companion,’ 1667. In Clifford's ‘Collection’ (2nd edit. 1664) are the words of (4) Wilson's ‘Hearken, O God;’ (5) ‘Psalterium Carolinum, the devotions of His Sacred Majestie in his solitude and suffering, rendered in verse by T. Stanley, and set to musick for three voices and an organ or theorbo,’ 1657; (6) ‘Cheerful Ayres or Ballads, first composed for one single voice, and since for three voices,’ Oxford, 1660, 3 vols. This was the first attempt at music printing at Oxford. In manuscript there are at the British Museum many of Wilson's songs in Additional MS. 29396, most of which is said to be in the handwriting of Ed. Lowe; an Evening Service in G (vol. v. of Tudway's ‘Collection’) and nine songs and part-songs in Additional MSS. 10337 and 11608; and at the Bodleian Library music to several ‘Odes’ of Horace and to passages in Ausonius, Claudian, Petronius Arbiter, and Statius. Among Wilson's compositions was the air ‘From the fair Lavinian shore,’ from which (and Savile's ‘The Waits’) Sir Henry Bishop compounded the popular glee ‘O, by rivers.’
[Burney's Hist. of Music, iii. 389; Hawkins's Hist. ii. 582; Grove's Dict. iv. 462; Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal, p. 13; Abdy Williams's Degrees of Music, pp. 36, 82; Davey's Hist. pp. 279, 284, et seq.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Charles I and Charles II; will in Westminster Act Book, fol. 86; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 171, viii. 418, 6th ser. x. 455; Coll. Top. et Gen. vii. 164; authorities cited.]
WILSON, JOHN (1627?–1696), playwright, the son of Aaron Wilson, a native of Caermarthen, who has, however, been claimed as of Scottish descent, was born in London in 1627.
The father, Aaron Wilson (1589–1643), matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 16 Oct. 1607, as ‘cler. fil. æt. 18.’ He graduated M.A. in 1615, and D.D. on 17 May 1639. He was collated rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, in December 1625, was appointed chaplain to Charles I and installed archdeacon of Exeter in January 1634; in this same year he became vicar of Plymouth (St. Andrew's), to which benefice he was instituted by Charles I. He and his flock quarrelled over temporalities, and he took proceedings in the Star-chamber, but failed to prove the alleged encroachments. The corporation, nevertheless, thought it wise to surrender the right of presentation to the king, who regranted it under conditions. When the civil war broke out, the vicar was sent prisoner by the townsfolk to Portsmouth; he died at Exeter in July 1643, bequeathing to his son an unswerving faith in the greatness of royal prerogative (see Worth, Plymouth, p. 241; Lansd. MS. 985, f. 31; Hennessy, Novum Repert. p. cliv).
John Wilson matriculated from Exeter College on 5 April 1644, aged 17, but did not proceed to a degree; he was admitted of Lincoln's Inn on 31 Oct. 1646 (Register, i. 254), and was called to the bar from that inn about 1649. His plays made his name known to the courtiers, and his high views on the subject of the prerogative commended him to James, duke of York, who recommended him for a place to James Butler, first duke of Ormonde. He may have accompanied Ormonde to Ireland in 1677; in any case, he was appointed about 1681 to the office of recorder of Londonderry, and in 1682 he issued from a Dublin press his ‘Poem. To his excellence Richard, Earl of Arran, lord deputy of Ireland.’ Two years later he dedicated to Ormonde ‘A Discourse of Monarchy, more particularly of the Imperial Crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland … as it relates to the Succession of His Royal Highness James, Duke of York,’ London, 8vo. Early in the following year he was ready with ‘A Pindarique to their Sacred Majesties James II and his Royal Consort Queen Mary, on their joynt Coronation at Westminster, April 23, 1685,’ London, folio. James probably mentioned his deserts to Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, and there is a suggestion that Wilson was employed by the new viceroy during 1687 in the capacity of secretary. His loyalty was equal to every strain, and in 1688 he produced his erudite and casuistical ‘Jus regium coronæ, or the King's Supream Power in Dispensing with Penal Statutes’ (London, 1688, 4to), which he dedicated ‘to the Honorable Society of Lincoln's
