Part iv

. Of BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, we write in the note on final page of _Choyce Drollery_, p. 100. Of “Ingenious SHAKESPEARE” we need say no more than give the lines of Richard Barnfield in his honour, from the _Poems in diuers humors_, 1598:—

A REMEMBRANCE OF SOME ENGLISH POETS.

_Liue ~Spenser~ euer, in thy ~Fairy Queene~:_ _Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer seene._ _Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne,_ _(As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne._

_And ~Daniell~, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse:_ _Whose Fame is grav’d in ~Rosamonds~ blacke Herse._ _Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored,_ _For that rare Worke, ~The White Rose and the Red~._

_And ~Drayton~, whose wel-written Tragedies_ _And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies._ _Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest;_ _Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest._

_And ~Shakespeare~ thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,_ _(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine._ _Whose ~Venus~, and whose ~Lucrece~ (sweete and chaste)_ _Thy Name in fames immortall Booke hath plac’t._ _Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:_ _Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer._

The praise of MASSINGER will not seem overstrained; although he never affects us with the sense of supreme genius, as does Marlowe. The recognition of GEORGE CHAPMAN’S grandeur, and the power with which this recognition is expressed, show how tame is the influence of Massinger in comparison. There need be little question that it was to Dekker’s mind and pen we owe the nobler portion of the Virgin Martyr. Massinger, when alongside of Marlow, Webster, and Dekker, is like Euripides contrasted with Æschylus and Sophocles. We think of him as a Playwright, and successful; but these others were Poets of Apollo’s own body-guard. Drayton sings:

_Next MARLOW, bathed in the ~Thespian~ springs,_ _Had in him those brave translunary things_ _That the first poets had, his raptures were_ _All air and fire, which made his verses clear;_ _For that fine madness still he did retain,_ _Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain._

ROBERT DABORNE is chiefly interesting to us from his connection in misfortunes and dramatic labours with Massinger and Nat Field; and as joining them in the supplication for advance of money from Philip Henslow, while they lay in prison. The reference to Daborne’s clerical, as well as to his dramatic vocation, and to his having died (in Ireland, we believe, leaving behind him sermons,) “Amphibion by the Ministry,” confirms the general belief.

JO: SYLVESTER’S translation of Du Bartas, 1621; THOMAS MAY’S of Lucan’s Pharsalia, GEORGE SANDYS’ of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, need little comment here; some being referred to, near the end of our volume.

DUDLEY DIGGES (1612-43), born at Chilham Castle, near Canterbury (now the seat of Charles S. Hardy, Esq.); son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls, wrote a reverent Elegy for _Jonsonus Virbius_, 1638. L[eonard] Digges had, fifteen years earlier, written the memorial lines beginning “Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give || The World thy Workes:” which appear at beginning of the first folio _Shakespeare_, 1623.

To SAMUEL DANIEL’S high merits we have only lately awakened: his “Complaint of Rosamond” has a sustained dignity and pathos that deserve all Barnfield’s praise; the “Sonnets to Delia” are graceful and impressive in their purity; his “Civil Wars” may seem heavy, but the fault lies in ourselves, if unsteady readers, not the poet: thus we suspect, when we remember the true poetic fervour of his Pastoral,

_O happy Golden Age!_

and his Description of Beauty, from Marino.

Of “Heroick DRAYTON” we write more hereafter: He grows dearer to us with every year. His “Dowsabell” is on p. 73. Was his being coupled as a “Poet-Beadle,” in allusion to his numerous verse-epistles, showing an acquaintance with all the worthies of his day, even as his _Polyolbion_ gives a roll-call of the men, and a gazetteer of the England they made illustrious? For, as shown in the _Apophthegmmes of Erasmus_, 1564, Booke 2nd, (p. 296 of the Boston Reprint,) it is “the proper office and dutie of soche biddelles (who were called in latin _Nomenclators_) to have perfecte knowlege and remembrance of the names, of the surnames, and of the titles of dignitees of all persones, to the ende that thei maie helpe the remembraunce of their maisters in the same when neede is.” To our day the office of an Esquire Beddell is esteemed in Cambridge University. But, we imagine, George Wither is styled a “Poets Beadle” with a very different significance. It was the Bridewell-Beadles’ whip which he wielded vigorously, in flagellation of offenders, that may have earned him the title. See his “_Abuses Stript and Whipt_,” 1613, and turn to the rough wood-cut of cart’s-tail punishment shown in the frontispiece to _A Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabones_, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquier for the utilitie and profit of his naturall country, &c., 1566, and later (Reprinted by E. E. Text Soc., and in _O. B. Coll. Misc._, i. No. 4, 1871).

GEORGE WITHER was his own worst foe, when he descended to satiric invective and pious verbiage. True poet was he; as his description of the Muse in her visit to him while imprisoned in the Marshalsea, with almost the whole of his “Shepherd’s Hunting” and “Mistress of Phil’arete,” prove incontestibly. He is to be loved and pitied: although perversely he will argue as a schismatick, always wrong-headed and in trouble, whichever party reigns. To him, in his sectarian zeal or sermonizing platitudes—all for our good, alas!—we can but answer with the melancholy Jacques: “I do not desire you to please me. I do desire you to _sing_!”

“Pan’s Pastoral _Brown_” is, of course, WM. BROWNE, author of “Britannia’s Pastorals.” Like JAMES SHIRLEY, last in the group of early Dramatists, his precocious genius is remembered in the text. Regretting that no painted or sculptured portrait of JOHN FORDE survives, we are thankful for this striking picture of him in his sombre meditation. We could part, willingly, with half of our dramatic possessions since the nineteenth century began, to recover one of the lost plays by Ford. No writer holds us more entirely captive to the tenderness of sorrow; no one’s hand more lightly, yet more powerfully, stirs the affections, while admitting the sadness, than he who gave us “The Broken Heart,” and “’Tis pity she’s a whore.”

Not unhappily chosen is the epithet “The Squibbing MIDDLETON,” for he almost always fails to impress us fully by his great powers. He warms not, he enlightens not, with steady glow, but gives us fireworks instead of stars or altar-burnings. We except from this rebuke his “Faire Quarrel,” 1622, which shows a much firmer grasp and purpose, fascinating us the while we read. Perhaps, with added knowledge of him will come higher esteem.

Of THOMAS HEYWOOD the portrait is complete, every word developing a feature: his fertility, his choice of subjects, and rubicund appearance.

Nor is the humourous sadness, of the figure shewn by the aged THOMAS CHURCHYARD, less touching because it is dashed in with burlesque. “Poverty and Poetry his Tomb doth enclose” (_Camden’s Remains_). His writings extend from the time of Edward VI. to early in the reign of James I. (he died in 1604); some of the poems in _Tottel’s Miscellany_, 1557, were claimed by him, but are not identified, and J. P. Collier thought him not unlikely to have partly edited the work, His “Tragedie of Shore’s Wife,” (best edit. 1698), in the _Mirror for Magistrates_, surpasses most of his other poems; yet are there biographical details in _Churchyard’s Chips_, 1575, that reward our perusal. Gascoigne and several other poets added _Tam Marti quàm Mercurio_ after their names; but Churchyard could boast thus with more truth as a Soldier. He says:—

_Full thirty yeers, both Court and Warres I tryed,_ _And still I sought acquaintaunce with the best,_ _And served the Staet, and did such hap abyed_ _As might befall, and Fortune sent the rest:_ _When drom did sound, a souldier was I prest,_ _To sea or lande, as Princes quarrell stoed,_ _And for the saem, full oft I lost my blood._

But, throughout, misfortune dogged him:—

_... To serve my torn [~i.e., turn~] in service of the Queen:_ _But God he knoes, my gayn was small, I ween,_ _For though I did my credit still encreace,_ _I got no welth, by warres, ne yet by peace._

(C.’s Chips: _A Tragicall Discourse of the unhappy man’s Life_; verses 9, 26.)

Of THOMAS DEKKER, or Decker (about 1575-1638), “_A priest in Apollo’s Temple, many yeares_,” with his “Old Fortunatus,” both parts of his “Honest Whore,” his “Satiromastix,” and “Gull’s Hornbook,” &c.,—which take us back to all the mirth and squabbling of the day—we need add no word but praise. We believe that a valuable clue is afforded by the allusion in our text to the pamphlet “Dekker his Dreame,” 1620, (reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, 1860.) We may be certain that “The Time-Poets” was not written earlier than 1620, or any later than 1636 (or probably than 1632), and before Jonson’s death.

Page 7. “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble, he that writ so big._”

In this 50th line the word “high” is evidently redundant (probably an error in printer’s MS., not erased when the true word “big” was added): we retain it, of course, though in smaller type; as in similar cases of excess. But who was “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble_?” Most certainly it was no other than RICHARD STANYHURST (1547-1618), whose varied adventures, erudition, and eccentricities of verse combined to make him memorable. His Hexameter translation of the _Æneis_ Books i-iv, appeared in 1583; not followed by any more during the thirty-five years succeeding. Gabriel Harvey praised him, in his “_Foure Letters_,” &c., although Thomas Nashe, in 1592, declares that “Master Stanyhurst (though otherwise learned) trod a foule, lumbring, boystrous, wallowing measure in his translation of Virgil. He had never been praised by Gabriel [Harvey] for his labour, if therein he had not been so famously absurd.” (_Strange Newes._) This _Æneid_ had a limited reprint in 1839. Warton in _Hist. Eng. Poetry_ gives examples (misnaming him Robert) but Camden says “_Eruditissimus ille nobilis Richardus Stanihurstus_.” In his preface to Greene’s _Arcadia_, Nash quotes Stanyhurst’s description of a Tempest:—

_Then did he make heauens vault to rebound_ _With rounce robble bobble,_ [N.B.] _Of ruffe raffe roaring,_ _With thicke thwacke thurly bouncing_:

and indicates his opinion of the poet, “as of some thrasonical huffe-snuffe,” indulging in “that quarrelling kind of verse.” One more specimen, to justify our text, regarding “he that writ so big:” in the address to the winds, _Æn._, Bk. i., Neptune thus rails:—

_Dare ye, lo, curst baretours, in this my Seignorie regal,_ _Too raise such racks iacks on seas and danger unorder’d?_

The recent death of Stanyhurst, 1618, strengthens our belief that _the Time-Poets_ was not later than 1620-32.

To WILLIAM BASSE we owe the beautiful epitaph on Shakespeare, printed in 1633, “_Renowned ~Spencer~, lye a thought more nigh To learned ~Chaucer~_,” _etc._, and at least two songs (beside “Great Brittaine’s Sunnes-set,” 1613), viz., the Hunter in his Career, beginning “Long ere the Morn,” and one of the best Tom o’ Bedlam’s; probably, “Forth from my sad and darksome cell.”

The name of JOHN SHANKE, here suggestively famous “for a jigg,” occurs in divers lists of players (see J. P. C.’s _Annals of the Stage_, _passim_), he having been one of Prince Henry’s Company in 1603. That he was also a singer, we have this verse in proof, written in the reign of James I. (_Bibliog. Acc._ i. 163):—

_That’s the fat foole of the ~Curtin~,_ _And the lean fool of the ~Bull~:_ _Since ~Shanke~ did leave to sing his rimes_ _He is counted but a gull._ _The Players on the ~Banckeside~,_ _The round ~Globe~ and the ~Swan~,_ _Will teach you idle tricks of love,_ _But the ~Bull~ will play the man._

(W. Turner’s _Common Cries of London Town_, 1662.)

“Broom” is RICHARD BROME (died 1652), whose racy comedies have been, like Dekker’s, lately reprinted. The insinuation that Ben Jonson had “sent him before to sweep the way,” alludes, no doubt, to the fact of Brome having earlier been Jonson’s servant, and learning from his personal discourse much of dramatic art. Neither was it meant nor accepted as an insult, when, (printed 1632,) Jonson wrote (“according to Ben’s own nature and custom, magisterial enough,” as their true friend Alexander Brome admits),

_I had you for a Servant once, ~Dick Brome~;_ _And you perform’d a Servant’s faithful parts:_ _Now, you are got into a nearer room_ _Of ~Fellowship~, professing my old Arts._ _And you do doe them well, with good applause,_ _Which you have justly gained from the Stage_, &c.

It is amusing to mark the survival of the old joke in our text, about sweeping (it came often enough, in _Figaro in London_, &c., at the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, as to Henry Brougham and Vaux); when we see it repeated, almost literally, in reference to Alexander Pope’s fellow-labourer on the Odyssey translation, the Rev. William Broome, of our St. John’s College, Cambridge:—

_~Pope~ came off clean with ~Homer~, but they say,_ _~Broome~ went before, and kindly swept the way._

Leaving a few words on the matchless BEN himself for the “Sessions of the Poets” Additional Note, we end this commentary on our book’s chief poem with a few more stanzas from the Beswick Manuscript, by George Daniel, (written in great part before, part after, 1647,) in honour of Ben Jonson, but preceded by others relating to Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Donne:—

_I am not bound to honour antique names,_ [8th verse] _Nor am I led by other men to chuse_ _Any thing worthy, which my judgment blames;_ _Heare better straines, though by a later Muse;_ _The sweet ~Arcadian~ singer first did raise_ _Our Language current, and deserv’d his Baies._

_That Lord of ~Penhurst~, ~Penhurst~ whose sad walls_ _Yet mourne their master, in the ~Belgicke~ fray_ _Untimely lost; to whose dear funeralls_ _The ~Medwaie~ doth its constant tribute paye;_ _But glorious ~Penhurst~, ~Medwaies~ waters once_ _With ~Mincius~ shall, and ~Mergeline~ advance;_

_The ~Shepherds Boy~; best knowen by that name_ _~Colin~: upon his homely Oaten Reed._ _With ~Roman Tityrus~ may share in ffame;_ _But when a higher path hee strains to tread,_ _This is my wonder: for who yet has seene_ _Soe cleare a Poeme as his ~Faierie Queene~?_

_The sweetest ~Swan of Avon~; to the faire_ _And cruel ~Delia~, passionatelie sings:_ _Other mens weaknesses and follies are_ _Honour and Wit in him; each Accent brings_ _A sprig to crowne him Poet; and contrive_ _A Monument, in his owne worke to live._

_~Draiton~ is sweet and smooth: though not exact,_ _Perhaps to stricter Eyes; yet he shall live_ _Beyond their Malice: to the Scene and Act,_ _Read Comicke ~Shakespeare~; or if you would give_ _Praise to a just Desert, crowning the Stage,_ _See ~Beaumont~, once the honour of his Age._

_The reverent ~Donne~; whose quill God purely fil’d,_ _Liveth to his Character: so though he claim’d_ _A greater glory, may not be exil’d_ _This Commonwealth_, &c.

_Here pause a little; for I would not cloy_ [verse 15] _The curious Eare, with recitations;_ _And meerily looke at names; attend with joy,_ _Unto an ~English~ Quill, who rivall’d once_ _~Rome~, not to make her blush; and knowne of late_ _Unenvied (’cause unequall’d) Laureate._

_This, this was JONSON; who in his own name_ _Carries his praise; and may he shine alone;_ _I am not tyed to any generall ffame,_ _Nor fixed by the Approbation_ _Of great ones: But I speake without pretence_ _Hee was of ~English~ Dramatiskes, the Prince._

Page 10. _Come, my White-head, let our Muses._

This was written by SIR SIMEON STEWARD, or Stewart. The numbers 1 and 2 of our text are twice incorrect in original, viz. the 10th and 14th verses, each assigned to 1 (Red-head), whereas they certainly belong to 2 (White-head). From third verse the figure “1” has unfortunately dropt in printing. By aid of Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, p. 36, we are enabled to correct a few other errors, some being gross corruptions of sense; although, as a general rule, regarding poems that had appeared in print, the private MS. versions abound with blunders of the transcriber, additional to those of the original printer. It is, in the MS., entitled “A Dialogue between _Pyrrotrichus_ and _Leucothrix_,” the latter taking verses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and the final verse, 14 (marked _Leuc_). His earliest verse reads, in the MS., “_And higher, Rufus_, who would pass; were _some_; 3rd. v. ’Tis _this_ that; 6th. The Roman _King who_; be _lopt_; Ruddy _pates_; 8th v. Red like _unto_; _colour_; 9th. _Nay_ if; doth _beare_ no; side _looks_ as fair; other _doth_ my; bear _my_ [?]; 10th. _Therefore_, methinks; Besides, _of_ all the; 12th. N.B.—Yet _what thy head must buy with_ yeares, Crosses; That _hath_ nature _giv’n_; 13th, be _two_ friendly peeres; let us _joyn_; make _one_ beauteous; 14th, [_Leucothrix_.] We _joyn’d_ our heads; beat them _to heart_ [i.e. to boot]; Was _just_ but; _of_ our head.” In the Reresby Memoirs, we believe, is mention of an ancestress, who, about 1619, married this (?) “Sir Simeon Steward.”

Page 15. _A Stranger coming to the town._

In Wm. Hickes his _Oxford Drollery_, 1671, in Part 3rd, (“Poems made at Oxford, long since”), p. 157, this Epigram appears, with variations. The second verse reads: _But being there a little while,_ || _He met with one so right_ || _That upon the ~French~ Disease_ || _It was his chance to light._ The final couplet is:—_The ~French-man’s~ Arms are the sign without,_ || _But the ~French-man’s~ harms are within._

Throughout the first half of the Seventeenth century the abundance of Epigrams produced is enormous; whole volumes of them, divided into Books, like J. Heywood’s, being issued by poets of whom nothing else is known, except the name, unless Anthony à Wood has fortunately preserved some record. These have not been systematically examined, as they deserve to be. Amid much rubbish good things lie hid. Perhaps the Editor may have more to say on them hereafter. Meanwhile, take this, by Robert Hayman, as alike a specimen and a summary:—

To the Reader:

Sermons and Epigrams have a like end, To improve, to reprove, and to amend: Some passe without this vse, ’cause they are witty; And so doe many Sermons, more’s the pitty.

(_Quodlibets_, 1628,