[1] This fort was named after Colonel John Hare (d. 1846) of the 27th
Regiment, from 1838 lieutenant-governor of the eastern provinces and
commander of the first division of the field force in the War of the
Axe.
LOVELACE, RICHARD (1618-1658), English poet, was born at Woolwich in
1618. He was a scion of a Kentish family, and inherited a tradition of
military distinction, maintained by successive generations from the time
of Edward III. His father, Sir William Lovelace, had served in the Low
Countries, received the honour of knighthood from James I., and was
killed at Grolle in 1628. His brother, Francis Lovelace, the "Colonel
Francis" of _Lucasta_, served on the side of Charles I., and defended
Caermarthen in 1644. His mother's family was legal; her grandfather had
been chief baron of the exchequer. Richard was educated at the
Charterhouse and at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where he matriculated in
1634. Through the request of one of the queen's ladies on the royal
visit to Oxford he was made M.A., though only in his second year at the
university. Lovelace's fame has been kept alive by a few songs and the
romance of his career, and his poems are commonly spoken of as careless
improvisations, and merely the amusements of an active soldier. But the
unhappy course of his life gave him more leisure for verse-making than
opportunity of soldiering. Before the outbreak of the civil war in 1642
his only active service was in the bloodless expedition which ended in
the Pacification of Berwick in 1640. On the conclusion of peace he
entered into possession of the family estates at Bethersden, Canterbury,
Chart and Halden in Kent. By that time he was one of the most
distinguished of the company of courtly poets gathered round Queen
Henrietta, who were influenced as a school by contemporary French
writers of _vers de société_. He wrote a comedy, _The Scholar_, when he
was sixteen, and a tragedy, _The Soldier_, when he was twenty-one. From
what he says of Fletcher, it would seem that this dramatist was his
model, but only the prologue and epilogue to his comedy have been
preserved. When the rupture between king and parliament took place,
Lovelace was committed to the Gatehouse at Westminster for presenting to
the Commons in 1642 a petition from Kentish royalists in the king's
favour. It was then that he wrote his most famous song, "To Althea from
Prison." He was liberated, says Wood, on bail of £40,000 (more probably
£4000), and throughout the civil war was a prisoner on parole, with this
security in the hands of his enemies. He contrived, however, to render
considerable service to the king's cause. He provided his two brothers
with money to raise men for the Royalist army, and befriended many of
the king's adherents. He was especially generous to scholars and
musicians, and among his associates in London were Henry Lawes and John
Gamble, the Cottons, Sir Peter Lely, Andrew Marvell and probably Sir
John Suckling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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