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Author: Hoccleve, Thomas

Biography:

HOCCLEVE, Thomas (c. 1367-1426: ODNB)

Though a near contemporary of Chaucer, Hoccleve earns a place in this bibliography thanks to the antiquarian interests of George Mason (1735-1806), landscape gardener and book collector, who published some of his (Hoccleve’s) poems for the first time in 1796. Hoccleve was a career civil servant, a clerk of increasing seniority and salary in the office of the Privy Seal. Neither the names of his parents nor that of his wife, to whom he was married by 1410, is known. His most celebrated work is The Regiment of Princes (c. 1411), a long poem of advice about what constitutes a good ruler, addressed to the prince who became Henry V in 1413. He died in the spring of 1426, after a final reimbursement for supplies for his office on 4 Mar. and before the transfer of a privilege from “Thomas Hoccleve now deceased” on 8 May. George Mason, baptised in London on 17 Sept. 1735, was the second surviving son of a wealthy London distiller, John Mason, and his wife Amelia (d 1782), an illegitimate daughter of General George Wade. In 1752 Mason was admitted to the Middle Temple, London, to train for the bar, and in Jan. 1753 he matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. By the death of his father in the same year he inherited money and property, and eventually left Oxford without proceeding to a degree. His mother remarried in 1755 but he retained a share in her business interests. He was called to the bar in 1761 and became a manager of the Sun Fire Office in 1770. He never married but lived comfortably as a country gentleman and bibliophile. He published an influential essay on garden design (1768, revised and expanded 1795). He died at his home, Aldenham Lodge, Hertfordshire, on 4 Nov. 1806. He selected the previously unpublished Hoccleve poems from a manuscript in his possession and edited them with a Foreword and notes shortly before selling off most of his library in a series of sales in 1798. (ODNB 15 Sept. 2022 [both Hoccleve and Mason]; findmypast.com 15 Sept. 2022)

 

Books written (1):

London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1796