Life

He was third son of Henry Lok, a London mercer (d. 1571), by his wife Anne Vaughan

Anne Locke

Anne Locke was an English poet, translator and Calvinist religious figure.-Life:She married first Henry Locke. In 1553 John Knox lived for a period in the Locke household, and in 1557 Anne took two of her children and followed Knox to Geneva, where she translated works of John Calvin...

, the poet. Michael Lok

Michael Lok

Michael Lok was an English merchant and traveller, the main backer of Martin Frobisher.-Life:He was a younger son of the mercer Sir William Lok. He was kept at school until 1545, when he was thirteen. His father then sent him to Flanders and France...

 the traveller was the poet's uncle, and Sir William Lok was his grandfather; Michael Cosworth was his cousin.

According to Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

, Lok spent some time in Oxford between his sixteenth and twenty-first year, but he does not seem to have matriculated in the university, and took no degree. On leaving Oxford he went to court and found a patron. In 1591 he contributed a sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 to the Essayes of a Prentice, by James VI of Scotland. A persistent petitioner, early in 1597 Lok was, according to his own account, encouraged by the Countess of Warwick to apply to Sir Robert Cecil for a pension to tide him over. Lok's miscellaneous appeals resulted in his obtaining confidential employment in 1599 in Bayonne

Bayonne

Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...

 and the Basque country, collecting political gossip. He was skilled in ciphers, but indiscrett, and at one time his life seems to have been in danger. A year later he was living in the Strand

Strand, London

Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...

, and Cecil did not employ him again.

In March 1606 he was imprisoned as an insolvent debtor in the Westminster Gatehouse, and in May 1608 he was similarly situated and friendless in the Clink

The Clink

The Clink was a notorious prison in Southwark, England which functioned from the 12th century until 1780 either deriving its name from, or bestowing it on, the local manor, the Clink Liberty . The manor and prison were owned by the Bishop of Winchester and situated next to his residence at...

 in Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

. Lok married Ann Moyle of Cornwall, and had two sons, Henry, born in 1592, and Charles.

Works

Lok's works, like those of Thomas Hudson

Thomas Hudson

Thomas Hudson may refer to:* Thomas Hudson , British actor* Thomas Hudson , English portrait painter of the eighteenth century...

, are described in The Returne from Parnassus (1601) as fit 'to lie in some old nooks amongst old boots and shoes', and later Thomas Warton

Thomas Warton

Thomas Warton was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. From 1785 to 1790 he was the Poet Laureate of England...

 was scathing.

In 1593 Richard Field

Richard Field (printer)

Richard Field was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.-Life and career:...

 obtained a license to print a work entitled The first Parte of Christian Passions, conteyninge a hundred Sonnets of Meditation, Humiliation, and Prayer. No copy of this book is now extant. In 1597 Richard Field printed Lok's verse rendering of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes

The Book of Ecclesiastes, called , is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qoheleth , introduces himself as "son of David, king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal...

. The whole work is dedicated by Lok to Queen Elizabeth. An address to the reader, in which he refers to earlier paraphrases of Ecclesiastes by Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...

, Tremellius

Tremellius

Tremellius or Tremelius may refer to:* Tremellius Scrofa, one of several ancient Romans* Immanuel Tremellius, scholar of the sixteenth century...

, and others, is followed by commendatory verses, including some in Latin, by John Lyly

John Lyly

John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...

, and others in English by 'M.C.,' i.e. Michael Cosworth, Lok's cousin. With it are printed Sundry Psalms of David, translated into Verse as briefly and significantly as the scope of the Text will suffer.

Lok's sonnets are introduced by a separate title-page in the Ecclesiastes volume. Two hundred and four treat of the Christian passions, and these are succeeded by 102, entitled Sundry Affectionate Sonets of a feeling Conscience, and the same theme is pursued in a further sequence of twenty-two, entitled Peculiar Prayers. Some copies contain an appendix of sixty secular sonnets, addressed to personalities of Elizabeth's court. Alexander Balloch Grosart

Alexander Balloch Grosart

Alexander Balloch Grosart was a Scottish clergyman and literary editor. He is chiefly remembered for reprinting much rare Elizabethan literature, a work which he undertook because of his interest in Puritan theology.-Life:...

. reprinted all these sonnets, together with the one prefixed to James VI's volume.

Lok also contributed commendatory verses to Michael Cosworth's rendering of the Psalms

Psalms

The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...

.