John Cleveland

John Cleveland 1613-58, English poet and political satirist. He served the royalist cause both as soldier and poet. His best-known work was The Rebel Scot (1644). Though his contemporary fame was great, and his works originally went through 20 editions, he is known today chiefly for the lyrics "Fuscara" and "Mark Antony."

Bibliography: See editions of his poems by J. M. Berdan (1911) and by B. Morris and E. Withington (1967).

Cleveland, John (1613–58), Cavalier poet, joined the king's camp in Oxford during the civil war as an active Royalist; he wrote there one of his best-known satires, ‘The Rebel Scot’. Although criticized during his life as an academic and coterie poet, his works were highly popular. Dryden's opinion of him as one ‘who gives us common thoughts in abstruse words’ eventually prevailed, but the 20th-cent. revival of interest in the metaphysicals and in political satire led to more serious consideration.