Sir William Soame, 1st Baronet

Sir William Soame, 1st Baronet (also Soames) (c.1645–1686) was an English translator and diplomat.[1]

Life

The Soame family was based in East Anglia, and in the commercial world of London, where Stephen Soame had been Lord Mayor.[2] Soame was his great-grandson, second son of Stephen Soame of Little Thurlow;[3] his mother was Mary Dynham, daughter of Sir John Dynham of Borstall, who had previously been married to Lawrence Banastre.[4] He was admitted a fellow commoner of St John's College, Cambridge in 1660.[5]

Soame was High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1672–3.[6] The office brought him into conflict with Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet over the handling of the by-election for Suffolk caused by the suicide of Sir Henry North, 1st Baronet. Sir Samuel was a relation, being a grandson of Stephen Soame. He was also an opponent of the court, and Soame sent in a double electoral return when Sir Samuel stood as candidate, against Lionel Tollemache (courtesy title Lord Huntingtower), one return discounting many of his supporters. The matter was pursued vigorously through the courts, as a vendetta, by Sir Samuel Barnardiston, even after Soame's death against his widow.[7][8][9] Soame was knighted in 1674.[5]

Soame was an envoy to the Savoyard State, around 1680.[10] He was created a baronet by Charles II in 1685.[11][12] A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was allowed to retain his membership in that year, despite being in arrears with his subscription.[13]

Made Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Soame died on Malta in June 1686, having called at Algiers and Tunis to renew treaty agreements.[14] His appointment had been political, going back to the Oxford Parliament of 1681. James Brydges had been the choice of the Levant Company, but Charles II took against his political sympathies, and imposed Soame by prerogative in 1684.[15][14]

Works

Soame made a translation, The Art of Poetry, of Nicolas Boileau's L'Art poétique. According to Jacob Tonson, it dated from 1680. It was later revised by John Dryden, and published in 1683.[16] The Dryden revisions included substitutions, for example Thomas Duffett for Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy in speaking about burlesque, and Samuel Butler for Clément Marot; Ben Jonson replaces Molière.[17][18][19] A derived work was published by John Ozell in 1712.[20] Another version from Charles Gildon's The Complete Art of Poetry (1718) changed Thomas Randolph to Thomas D'Urfey to remain topical.[21]

Family

Soame married Lady Beata Pope, daughter of Thomas Pope, 3rd Earl of Downe (connecting Soame with Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford who married another daughter); and then Mary Howe, daughter of Sir Gabriel Howe. He died without issue.[1][3] His kinsman Peter Soame became 2nd Baronet, by special remainder.[22] Little Thurlow went to his uncle Bartholomew Hunt, a patron of John Howe.[3][23]

Notes
  1. Roger North; Peter Millard (2000). Notes of Me: The Autobiography of Roger North. University of Toronto Press. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-8020-4471-6.
  2. "Soame, Edmund (1669–1706), of Dereham Grange, West Dereham, Norf., History of Parliament". Retrieved 26 October 2015.
  3. John Burke; Bernard Burke (1841). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England. Scott, Webster & Geary. pp. 496–7.
  4. The English Baronetage Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of All the English Baronets ... Illustrated with Their Coats of Arms. ... 1741. p. 718.
  5. "Soame, William (SM660W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  6. Alfred Inigo Suckling (1846). The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk: With Genealogical and Architectural Notices of Its Several Towns and Villages. J. Weale. p. xliv.
  7. "Suffolk 1660–1690, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 27 October 2015.
  8. "Barnardiston, Sir Samuel, 1st Bt. (1620–1707), of Brightwell, Suff. and Bloomsbury Square, Mdx., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 27 October 2015.
  9. Greenberg, Janelle. "Atkyns, Sir Robert". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/866. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. Entry Book: January 1685, 21–31, in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 7, 1681–1685, ed. William A. Shaw (London, 1916), pp. 1509–1523 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-treasury-books/vol7/pp1509-1523 [accessed 27 October 2015].
  11. Thomas Christopher Banks (1812). The Antient Usage in Bearing of ... Arms with a Catalogue of the Present [i.e. 1682] Nobility of England ... Scotland and Ireland. Samuel Bagster. p. 104.
  12. Robert Beatson (1806). A Political Index to the Histories of Great Britain & Ireland; Or, a Complete Register of the Hereditary Honours, Public Offices, and Persons in Office: From the Earliest Periods to the Present Time : in Three Volumes. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. p. 286.
  13. Hunter, Michael (1976). "The Social Basis and Changing Fortunes of an Early Scientific Institution: An Analysis of the Membership of the Royal Society, 1660-1685". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 31 (1): 9–114. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1976.0002. JSTOR 531552. PMID 11609930. S2CID 25475117.
  14. Wood, A. C. (1925). "The English Embassy at Constantinople, 1660-1762". The English Historical Review. 40 (160): 533–561. doi:10.1093/ehr/XL.CLX.533. JSTOR 552523.
  15. Geiter, Mary K. (1997). "The Restoration Crisis and the Launching of Pennsylvania, 1679-81". The English Historical Review. 112 (446): 300–318. doi:10.1093/ehr/CXII.446.300. JSTOR 578179.
  16. Edward Tayler (7 July 2000). Literary Criticism of 17th Century England. iUniverse. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-4620-9153-9.
  17. West, Michael (1978). "Dryden's Mac Flecknoe and the Example of Duffett's Burlesque Dramas". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 18 (3): 457–464. doi:10.2307/450123. JSTOR 450123.
  18. Aden, John M. (1953). "Dryden and Boileau: The Question of Critical Influence". Studies in Philology. 50 (3): 491–509. JSTOR 4173066.
  19. Levin, Harry (1967). "From Terence to Tabarin: A Note on Les Fourberies de Scapin". Yale French Studies (38): 128–137. doi:10.2307/2929701. JSTOR 2929701.
  20. Howard D. Weinbrot (14 July 2014). Alexander Pope and the Traditions of Formal Verse Satire. Princeton University Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-4008-5737-1.
  21. Ellis, William D. (1959). "Thomas D'urfey, the Pope-Philips Quarrel, and the Shepherd's Week". PMLA. 74 (3): 203–212. doi:10.2307/460582. JSTOR 460582.
  22. Bernard Burke (1864). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales: Comprising & Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time. Harrison & Sons. p. 947.
  23. John Rouse Bloxam (1857). A register of the presidents, fellows, demies, instructors in grammar and in music, chaplains, clerks, choristers, and other members of Saint Mary Magdalen College in the university of Oxford, from the foundation of the college to the present time. p. 141.
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