DYER, SIR EDWARD

born October 1543, Sharpham Park, Somerset, Eng. died May 1607, London English courtier and poet whose reputation rests on a small number of ascribed lyrics in which critics have found great dexterity and sweetness. Educated at the University of Oxford, Dyer went to court under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester. Dyer was a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, on whose death he wrote an elegy showing personal grief and a morbid melancholy. He was employed on missions to the Netherlands (1584) and Denmark (1589) and was knighted in 1596. His contemporary reputation as a poet was high, but little of his work, published anonymously or under initials in collections, is certainly identifiable. His best-known poem is My Mynd to Me a Kingdom Is.