John Weever

John Weever (1576–1632) was an English antiquary and poet. He is best known for his Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion (1599), containing epigrams on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other poets of his day, and for his Ancient Funerall Monuments, the first full-length book to be dedicated to the topic of English church monuments and epitaphs, which was published in 1631, the year before his death.

Weever was a native of Preston, Lancashire. Little is known of his early life, and his parentage is not certain. He may be the son of the John Weever who in 1590 was one of thirteen followers of local landowner Thomas Langton put on trial for murder after a riot which took place at Lea Hall, Lancashire.

He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a sizar on 30 April 1594. Weever's first tutor at Cambridge was William Covell, himself a native of Lancashire and author of Polimanteia (1595) which contains one of the first printed notices of Shakespeare. Another of Weever's tutors was Robert Pearson, whom in later life he mentions with gratitude as a "reverend, learned divine". It is possible that Weever considered a career in the church himself but after receiving his degree on 16 April 1598 he appears to have left Cambridge and travelled to London, where he immersed himself in the literary scene.

He was in York in 1603 and later apparently in Lancashire. However, he eventually settled in London and married, buying a house in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell.

In late 1599 Weever published Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion, containing epigrams on Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, William Warner and Christopher Middleton, all of which are valuable to the literary historian. The epigram on Shakespeare is particularly interesting since it follows the typical Shakespearean sonnet form: this may indicate Weever had seen actual examples of Shakespeare's sonnets, which at that date circulated only in manuscript. Many other epigrams however relate to persons Weever knew at Cambridge and presumably were composed while he was still a student there. The book also has commendatory verses by some of Weever's Cambridge friends.

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