From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nicholas Hookes (1632–1712) was an English poet, best known for Amanda, a sacrifice to an unknown goddesse. [1]

Life

Hookes was born in London and was educated at Westminster School under Richard Busby. He gained a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1649, and graduated B.A. there in 1653. His tutor was Alexander Akehurst. [2] [3] Akehurst was expelled from Trinity the following year, for "blasphemous statements", and accused by his student Oliver Heywood of being a Quaker. Hookes wrote of him that he concealed his head "among the clouds of alchemists". [4]

Hookes died on 7 November 1712; and was buried in St Mary-at-Lambeth. [1] A monumental inscription there remembered him as loyal to the Stuarts. [3]

Works

The Amanda verses published by Hookes in 1653, his year of graduation, were generally in the Cavalier poet amatory style, conventional from a literary point of view but "overtly royalist" in terms of politics under the Commonwealth of England. The book was dedicated to Edward Montagu, a Westminster and Cambridge contemporary and son of Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton. [3]

The same year Hookes published also Miscellanea poetica, mostly Latin verse in the elegy genre: this work sought patronage. [3]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Lee, Sidney, ed. (1891). "Hookes, Nicholas" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 27. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^ "Hookes, Thomas (HKS649N)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ a b c d Davidson, Peter; McLellan, Ian William. "Hookes, Nicholas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/13700. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ Birkhead, Tim (2016). Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby FRS (1635-1672). Brill. pp. 101–102. ISBN  978-90-04-28532-3.