§6. William Bosworth or Boxworth; "The Chaste and Lost Lovers" or "Arcadius and Sepha". IV. Lesser Caroline Poets. Vol. 7. Cavalier and Puritan. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.

IV. Lesser Caroline Poets.

§ 6. William Bosworth or Boxworth; The Chaste and Lost Lovers or Arcadius and Sepha.

The Chaste and Lost Lovers or Arcadius and Sepha of William Bosworth or Boxworth is a couplet poem in less than 3000 lines varied by some other metres, much less enjambed than others of the period in form, and decidedly less “metaphysical” in diction; but having a double portion of intricacy and unintelligibility of story. It was published, with some minor poems, a year after its author’s death, in 1651; but he seems to have written it considerably earlier—in fact, when he was not twenty, in the first or second year of Charles. As might be expected, these poems lack precision no less than compression, and they are rather promise than performance; but their promise is considerable and the circumstances of their production noteworthy. Bosworth, of whom, again, next to nothing is known, but who, apparently, was a country gentleman in Cambridgeshire, is, perhaps, best seen in his shorter piece Hinc Lachrimae or To Aurora, which is not so much a single poem as a sequence of dixains; but there are many good things in Arcadius and Sepha itself.