John Hoskins (poet)

Serjeant John Hoskins or Hoskyns (1 March 1566 – 27 August 1638) was an English poet, scholar of Greek, lawyer, judge, and politician.

He became a teacher in Ilchester, Somerset, where he worked on a Greek lexicon which went as far as the letter M. Through a fortuitous meeting with Benedicta Moyle, who later became his first wife, he then gained entrance to the Middle Temple to study for the bar.

When he was a Serjeant-at-law, and was indicted for not keeping the pavement in front of his door in good repair, he successfully defended his case arguing that the charge did not specify how he was liable, whether he owned a property at that location, whether he lived there, or even whether he had a tenant who had legally assumed such responsibilities.

His second wife, whom he married on 10 December 1627, was Isabel, daughter of William Riseley of Chetwode, Buckinghamshire, and successively widow of Thomas Heath, of Shellswell, Oxfordshire, and of Devereux Barratt of Tenby, Pembrokeshire.

[1] Early in 1638, when attending assizes, "a massive country fellow trod on his toe"; gangrene set in but, despite an amputation, he died in August that year, aged 72.

The poem Absence, Hear thou my Protestation (Printed anonymously in Francis Davison's A poetical rhapsody containing diverse sonnets, odes, [etc.]