John Chalkhill (fl. 1600?) was an English poet.

Two songs by him are included in Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler, and in 1683 appeared Thealma and Clearchus. A Pastoral History in smooth and easie Verse. Written long since by John Chalkhill, Esq., an Acquaintant and Friend of Edmund Spencer (1683), with a preface written five years earlier by Walton.[1]

Another poem, Aldilia, Philoparthens Loving Follie (1595, reprinted in vol. X of the Jahrbuch des deutschen Shakespeare-Vereins), was at one time attributed to him. Nothing further is known of the poet, but a person with the same name is recorded as one of the coroners for Middlesex in the later years of Elizabeth I's reign.[1]

George Saintsbury, who included Thealma and Clearchus in vol. II of his Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (Oxford, 1906), points out a marked resemblance between Chalkhill's work and that of William Chamberlayne.[1]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c   One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chalkhill, John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 807.