Henry Peacham (born 1578)
Henry Peacham (born 1578, d. in or after 1644) was a poet and writer, known today primarily for his book, The Compleat Gentleman, first printed in 1622.
The son of Henry Peacham the Elder, like his father Peacham was a graduate of the University of Cambridge.[1] In 1603, at the age of twenty-five the younger Peacham was a schoolmaster at Kimbolton Grammar School. In 1612 he published a book of printed emblems called Minerva Britanna, based on a manuscript which is believed to have been presented to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1610.[2]
Peacham's The Compleat Gentleman is presented as a guidebook on the arts for young men of good birth. In it, he discusses what writers, poets, composers, philosophers, and artists gentlemen should study in order to become well-educated. Because he mentions a large number of contemporary artistic figures, he is often cited as a primary source in studies of Renaissance artists.
A representative passage from The Compleat Gentleman:
- "For composition, I prefer next Ludovico de Victoria, a most judicious and a sweet composer: after him Orlando di Lasso, a very rare and excellent Author, who lived some forty years since in the court of the Duke of Bavier."
Further reading
- Edward Chaney, The Evolution of English Collecting (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2003)
- John Horden, "Peacham, Henry (b. 1578, d. in or after 1644)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
- Alan R. Young, Henry Peacham, Boston: Twayne, 1979.
Notes
- ↑ "Peacham, Henry (PCN592H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ↑ Elizabeth Hageman, Katherine Conway, Resurrecting Elizabeth I in Seventeenth-century England (2007), p. 73
References
- Peacham, Henry (1664). The worth of a penny: or, A caution to keep money. London: S. Griffin, for William Lee, 1664. p. 40. Retrieved 2010-03-24.
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