Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hicks, William (fl.1671)
HICKS, WILLIAM, called Captain Hicks (fl. 1671), editor of drolleries, was born in St. Thomas's parish, Oxford, of poor and dissolute parents. He began life as a tapster at the Star Inn, Oxford; at the outbreak of the civil war he became a retainer to the family of Lucas in Colchester; and afterwards was a clerk to a woodmonger in Deptford, where, ‘training the young men and putting them in a posture of defence, upon the restoration of King Charles II, he obtained the name of Captain Hicks, and was there living in 1669 when his book of jests was published’ (Wood). In 1671 he published ‘Oxford Drollery; Being new Poems and Songs. The first Part, composed by W. H. The Second and third Parts being, upon several occasions, made by the most Eminent and Ingenious Wits of the said University,’ Oxford, 8vo. Prefixed is a rhyming address to the reader, dated from Shipton-upon-Cherwell, 25 July 1670. Among the poets whom Hicks laid under contribution were Cartwright, Lovelace, Suckling, &c. The pieces included are often somewhat licentious; and the captain's own verses are particularly indelicate. The success of the ‘Oxford Drollery’ led Hicks to issue ‘Grammatical Drollery, consisting of Poems and Songs. Wherein the Rules of the Nouns and Verbs in the Accedence are pleasantly made easie,’ London, 1682, 8vo. Pages 1–30 are taken up with the ‘Grammatical Drollery,’ and the rest of the book (pp. 31–117) consists of loose and humorous poems by various writers. Hicks's ‘Oxford Jests,’ first printed in 1669 (as we gather from Wood), were ‘refined and enlarged’ in 1684, 1720, &c. Another popular jest-book compiled by Hicks was ‘Coffee House Jests,’ of which a third edition appeared in 1684. Wood, who seems to have had personal knowledge of him, says: ‘This Hicks … was a sharking and indigent fellow while he lived in Oxon and a great pretender to the art of dancing (which he, forsooth, would sometimes teach).’ In addition to the works already mentioned, he issued ‘other little trivial matters merely to get bread and make the pot walk.’ The Drolleries are of some rarity.
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 490.]