Alexander Radcliffe (
c. 1653 – in or before 1696) was an English poet.[1]
Life
He was probably born in the
Southern Netherlands about 1653, the only son and heir of the exiled
royalist Alexander Radcliffe (1633–1682), later of
Hampstead, Middlesex.[1] He was admitted at
Gray's Inn on 12 November 1669.[2] He was not called to the bar, but seems to have deserted the legal profession for the
army, in which he had attained the rank of captain by 1696.[3]
Ovid Travestie, a mock Poem on five Epistles of
Ovid, 16mo, 1673.[4] This, the first edition, was ignored when the book was reprinted, 4to, 1680, 1681, 1696 (with additions), and 1705.[3]
Bacchanalia Cœlestia: a Poem, in praise of Punch, compos'd by the Gods and Goddesses in Cabal, London, 1680, fol. broadside. Reprinted in the Ramble, &c.[3]
The Ramble: an anti-heroick Poem. Together with some Terrestrial Hymns and Carnal Ejaculations, London, 1682, 8vo. Part of The Ramble had previously appeared in the edition of Rochester's Poems which bears the imprint Antwerp, 1680. Nos. 1 (3rd edit.) and 3 were reissued with a general title, The Works of Capt. Alexander Radcliffe, in 1696, 2 pts. (London, 8vo).[3]