Note 219 — [REEDS PREFACE.]
Reading edition
This is the name given to the author of "Albumazar" in the MS. of Sir Edward Deering. I am, however, of opinion that it should be written Tomkins, and that he is the same person who is addressed by Phineas Fletcher by the names of Mr Jo. Tomkins, in a copy of verses, wherein he says—
"To thee I here bequeath the courtly joyes, Seeing to court my Thomalin is bent: Take from thy Thirsil these his idle toyes; Here I will end my looser merriment."
—"Poetical Miscellanies," printed at the end of "The Purple Island," 1633, p. 69.
If this conjecture is allowed to be founded in probability, the author of "Albumazar" may have been John Tomkins, bachelor of music, who, Wood says, "was one of the organists of St Paul's Cathedral, and afterwards gentleman of the Chapel Royal, then in high esteem for his admirable knowledge in the theoretical and practical part of his faculty. At length, being translated to the celestial choir of angels, on the 27th Sept. an. 1626, aged 52, was buried in the said cathedral." It may be added that Phineas Fletcher, who wrote a play to be exhibited in the same week with "Albumazar," celebrates his friend Tomkins's skill in music as well as poetry.