An Essay on Valour: Some impute this to Sir Thomas Overbury.
Almanzor and Almanzaida, a novel printed in 1678, which is likewise disputed; and Wood says that he believes Sir Philip's name was only prefixed to it by the bookseller, to secure a demand for it.
————England's Helicon, a collection of songs.
————The Psalms of David turned into English.
The true PICTURE of LOVE.
Poore painters oft with silly poets joyne,
To fill the world with vain and strange conceits,
One brings the stuff, the other stamps the coyne
Which breeds nought else but glosses of deceits.
Thus painters Cupid paint, thus poets doe
A naked god, blind, young, with arrows two.
Is he a god, that ever flyes the light?
Or naked he, disguis'd in all untruth?
If he be blind, how hitteth he so right?
How is he young, that tamed old Phoebus
youth?
But arrowes two, and tipt with gold or lead,
Some hurt, accuse a third with horney head.
No nothing so; an old, false knave he is,
By Argus got on Io, then a cow:
What time for her, Juno her Jove did miss,
And charge of her to Argus did allow.
Mercury killed his false sire for this act,
His damme a beast was pardoned, beastly
fact.
With father's death, and mother's guilty shame,
With Jove's disdain at such a rival's feed:
The wretch compel'd, a runegate became,
And learn'd what ill, a miser-state did breed,
To lye, to steal, to prie, and to accuse,
Nought in himself, each other to abuse.
[Footnote 1: Athen, Oxon, folio, p. 226.]
[Footnote 2: Wood, p. 227.]
[Footnote 3: Earl of Leicester.]
[Footnote 4: Lord Brook's life.]
[Footnote 5: For a great many months after his death, it was reckoned indecent in any gentleman to appear splendidly dress'd; the public mourned him, not with exterior formality, but with the genuine sorrow of the heart. Of all our poets he seems to be the most courtly, the bravest, the most active, and in the moral sense, the best.]
[Footnote 6: Camden Brit. in Kent.]
* * * * *
CHISTOPHER MARLOE
Was bred a student in Cambridge, but there is no account extant of his family. He soon quitted the University, and became a player on the same stage with the incomparable Shakespear. He was accounted, says Langbaine, a very fine poet in his time, even by Ben Johnson himself, and Heywood his fellow-actor stiles him the best of poets. In a copy of verses called the Censure of the Poets, he was thus characterized.
Next Marloe bathed in Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary things,
That your 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.
His genius inclined him wholly to tragedy, and he obliged the world with six plays, besides one he joined for with Nash, called Dido Queen of Carthage; but before I give an account of them, I shall present his character to the reader upon the authority of Anthony Wood, which is too singular to be passed over. This Marloe, we are told, presuming upon his own little wit, thought proper to practise the most epicurean indulgence, and openly profess'd atheism; he denied God, Our Saviour; he blasphemed the adorable Trinity, and, as it was reported, wrote several discourses against it, affirming Our Saviour to be a deceiver, the sacred scriptures to contain nothing but idle stories, and all religion to be a device of policy and priestcraft; but Marloe came to a very untimely end, as some remarked, in consequence of his execrable blasphemies. It happened that he fell deeply in love with a low girl, and had for his rival a fellow in livery, who looked more like a pimp than a lover. Marloe, fired with jealousy, and having some reason to believe that his mistress granted the fellow favours, he rushed upon him to stab him with his dagger; but the footman being quick, avoided the stroke, and catching hold of Marloe's wrist stabbed him with his own weapon, and notwithstanding all the assistance of surgery, he soon after died of the wound, in the year 1593. Some time before his death, he had begun and made a considerable progress in an excellent poem called Hero and Leander, which was afterwards finished by George Chapman, who fell short, as it is said, of the spirit and invention of Marloe in the execution of it.
What credit may be due to Mr. Wood's severe representation of this poet's character, the reader must judge for himself. For my part, I am willing to suspend my judgment till I meet with some other testimony of his having thus heinously offended against his God, and against the best and most amiable system of Religion that ever was, or ever can be: Marloe might possibly be inclined to free-thinking, without running the unhappy lengths that Mr. Wood tells us, it was reported he had done. We have many instances of characters being too lightly taken up on report, and mistakenly represented thro' a too easy credulity; especially against a man who may happen to differ from us in some speculative points, wherein each party however, may think himself Orthodox: The good Dr. Clarke himself, has been as ill spoken of as Wood speaks of Marloe.
His other works are
1. Dr. Faustus, his tragical history printed in 4to. London, 1661.
2. Edward the Second, a Tragedy, printed in 4to. London—when this play was acted is not known.
3. Jew of Malta, a Tragedy played before the King and Queen at Whitehall, 1633. This play was in much esteem in those days; the Jew's part being performed by Mr. Edward Alleyn, the greatest player of his time, and a man of real piety and goodness; he founded and endowed Dulwich hospital in Surry; he was so great an actor, that Betterton, the Roscius of the British nation, used to acknowledge that he owed to him those great attainments of which he was master.
4. Lust's Dominion; or the Lascivious Queen, published by Mr. Kirkman, 8vo. London, 1661. This play was altered by Mrs. Behn, and acted under, the title of the Moor's Revenge.
5. Massacre of Paris, with the death of the Duke of Guise, a Tragedy, played by the Right Honourable the Lord Admiral's servants. This play is divided into acts; it begins with the fatal marriage between the King of Navarre, and Margurete de Valois, sister to King Charles IX; the occasion of the massacre, and ends with the death of Henry III of France.
6. Tamerlain the Great; or the Scythian Shepherd, a Tragedy in two parts, printed in an old black letter, 8vo. 1593. This is said to be the worst of his productions.
* * * * *
ROBERT GREEN
Received his education at the university of Cambridge, and was, as Winstanley says, a great friend to the printers by the many books he writ. He was a merry droll in those times, and a man so addicted to pleasure, that as Winstanley observes, he drank much deeper draughts of sack, than of the Heliconian stream; he was amongst the first of our poets who writ for bread, and in order the better to support himself, tho' he lived in an age far from being dissolute, viz. in that of the renowned Queen Elizabeth; yet he had recourse to the mean expedient of writing obscenity, and favouring the cause of vice, by which he no doubt recommended himself to the rakes about town, who, as they are generally no true judges of wit, to estimate the merit of a piece, as it happens to suit their appetite, or encourage them in every irregular indulgence. No man of honour who sees a poet endowed with a large share of natural understanding, prostituting his pen to the vilest purpose of debauchery and lewdness, can think of him but with contempt; and his wit, however brilliant, ought not to screen him from the just indignation of the sober part of mankind. When wit is prostituted to vice, 'tis wit no more; that is, it ceases to be true wit; and I have often thought there should be some public mark of infamy fixed on those who hurt society by loose writings. But Mr. Green must be freed from the imputation of hypocrisy, for we find him practicing the very doctrines he taught. Winstanley relates that he was married to a very fine and deserving lady, whom he basely forsook, with a child she had by him, for the company of some harlots, to whom he applied the wages of iniquity, while his wife starved. After some years indulgence of this sort, when his wit began to grow stale, we find him fallen into abject poverty, and lamenting the life he had led which brought him to it; for it always happens, that a mistress is a more expensive piece of furniniture than a wife; and if the modern adulterers would speak the truth, I am certain they would acknowledge, that half the money which, in the true sense of the word, is misspent upon those daughters of destruction, would keep a family with decency, and maintain a wife with honour. When our author was in this forlorn miserable state, he writ a letter to his wife, which Mr. Winstanly has preferred, and which, as it has somewhat tender in it I shall insert. It has often been observed, that half the unhappy marriages in the world, are more owing to the men than the women; That women are in general much better beings, in the moral sense, than the men; who, as they bustle less in life, are generally unacquainted with those artifices and tricks, which are acquired by a knowledge of the world; and that then their yoke-fellows need only be tender and indulgent, to win them. But I believe it may be generally allowed, that women are the best or worst part of the human creation: none excel them in virtue; but when they depart from it, none exceed them in vice. In the case of Green, we shall see by the letter he sent his wife how much she was injured.
"The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee, and thy unreproved virtues, add greater sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter, or thou conceive; neither is it lessened by consideration of thy absence, (tho' shame would let me hardly behold thy face) but exceedingly aggravated, for that I cannot as I ought to thy ownself reconcile myself, that thou might'st witness my inward woe at this instant, that hath made thee a woful wife for so long a time. But equal heaven has denied that comfort, giving at my last need, like succour as I have sought all my life, being in this extremity as void of help, as thou hast been of hope. Reason would that after so long waste, I should not send thee a child to bring thee charge; but consider he is the fruit of thy womb, in whose face regard not the father, so much as thy own perfections: He is yet green, and may grow strait, if he be carefully tended, otherwise apt enough to follow his father's folly. That I have offended thee highly, I know; that thou canst forget my injuries, I hardly believe; yet I perswade myself, that if thou sawest my wretched estate, thou couldst not but lament it, nay certainly I know, thou wouldst. All thy wrongs muster themselves about me, and every evil at once plagues me; for my contempt of God, I am contemned of men; for my swearing and forswearing, no man will believe me; for my gluttony, I suffer hunger; for my drunkenness, thirst; for my adultery, ulcerous sores. Thus God hath cast me down that I might be humbled, and punished for example of others; and though he suffers me in this world to perish without succour, yet I trust in the world to come, to find mercy by the merits of my Saviour, to whom I commend thee, and commit my soul."
Thy repentant husband,
for his disloyalty,
ROBERT GREEN.
This author's works are chiefly these,
The Honourable History of Fryar Bacon, and Fryar Bungy; play'd by the Prince of Palatine's servants. I know not whence our author borrowed his plot, but this famous fryar Minor lived in the reign of Henry III. and died in the reign of Edward I. in the year 1284. He joined with Dr. Lodge in one play, called a Looking Glass for London; he writ also the Comedies of Fryar Bacon and Fair Enome. His other pieces are, Quip for an upstart Courtier, and Dorastus and Fawnia. Winstanley imputes likewise to him the following pieces. Tully's Loves; Philomela, the Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale; Green's News too Late, first and second part; Green's Arcadia; Green's Farewel to Folly; Green's Groatsworth of Wit.
It is said by Wood in his Fasti, p. 137, vol. i. that our author died in the year 1592, of a surfeit taken by eating pickled herrings, and drinking with them rhenish wine. At this fatal banquet, Thomas Nash, his cotemporary at Cambridge was with him, who rallies him in his Apology of Pierce Pennyless. Thus died Robert Green, whose end may be looked upon as a kind of punishment for a life spent in riot and infamy.
* * * * *
EDMUND SPENSER
was born in London, and educated at Pembroke Hall in Cambridge. The accounts of the birth and family of this great man are but obscure and imperfect, and at his first setting out into life, his fortune and interest seem to have been very inconsiderable.
After he had for some time continued at the college, and laid that foundation of learning, which, joined to his natural genius, qualified him to rise to so great an excellency, he stood for a fellowship, in competition with Mr. Andrews, a gentleman in holy orders, and afterwards lord bishop of Winchester, in which he was unsuccessful. This disappointment, joined with the narrowness of his circumstances, forced him to quit the university [1]; and we find him next residing at the house of a friend in the North, where he fell in love with his Rosalind, whom he finely celebrates in his pastoral poems, and of whose cruelty he has written such pathetical complaints.
It is probable that about this time Spenser's genius began first to distinguish itself; for the Shepherd's Calendar, which is so full of his unprosperous passion for Rosalind, was amongst the first of his works of note, and the supposition is strengthened, by the consideration of Poetry's being frequently the offspring of love and retirement. This work he addressed by a short dedication to the Mæcenas of his age, the immortal Sir Philip Sidney. This gentleman was now in the highest reputation, both for wit and gallantry, and the most popular of all the courtiers of his age, and as he was himself a writer, and especially excelled in the fabulous or inventive part of poetry; it is no wonder he was struck with our author's genius, and became sensible of his merit. A story is told of him by Mr. Hughes, which I shall present the reader, as it serves to illustrate the great worth and penetration of Sidney, as well as the excellent genius of Spenser. It is said that our poet was a stranger to this gentleman, when he began to write his Fairy Queen, and that he took occasion to go to Leicester-house, and introduce himself by sending in to Mr. Sidney a copy of the ninth Canto of the first book of that poem. Sidney was much surprized with the description of despair in that Canto, and is said to have shewn an unusual kind of transport on the discovery of so new and uncommon a genius. After he had read some stanza's, he turned to his steward, and bid him give the person that brought those verses fifty pounds; but upon reading the next stanza, he ordered the sum to be doubled. The steward was no less surprized than his master, and thought it his duty to make some delay in executing so sudden and lavish a bounty; but upon reading one stanza stanza more, Mr. Sidney raised the gratuity to two hundred pounds, and commanded the steward to give it immediately, lest as he read further he might be tempted to give away his whole estate. From this time he admitted the author to his acquaintance and conversation, and prepared the way for his being known and received at court.
Tho' this seemed a promising omen, to be thus introduced to court, yet he did not instantly reap any advantage from it. He was indeed created poet laureat to Queen Elizabeth, but he for some time wore a barren laurel, and possessed only the place without the pension [2]. Lord treasurer Burleigh, under whose displeasure Spenser laboured, took care to intercept the Queen's favours to this unhappy great man. As misfortunes have the most influence on elegant and polished minds, so it was no wonder that Spenser was much depressed by the cold reception he met with from the great; a circumstance which not a little detracts from the merit of the ministers then in power: for I know not if all the political transactions of Burleigh, are sufficient to counterballance the infamy affixed on his name, by prosecuting resentment against distressed merit, and keeping him who was the ornament of the times, as much distant as possible from the approach of competence. These discouragements greatly sunk our author's spirit, and accordingly we find him pouring out his heart, in complaints of so injurious and undeserved a treatment; which probably, would have been less unfortunate to him, if his noble patron Sir Philip Sidney had not been so much absent from court, as by his employments abroad, and the share he had in the Low-Country wars, he was obliged to be. In a poem called, The Ruins of Time, which was written some time after Sidney's death, the author seems to allude to the discouragement I have mentioned in the following stanza.
O grief of griefs, O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despised be,
Of such as first were raised for virtue's parts,
And now broad-spreading like an aged tree,
Let none shoot up that nigh them planted be;
O let not these, of whom the muse is scorned,
Alive or dead be by the muse adorned.
These lines are certainly meant to reflect on Burleigh for neglecting him, and the Lord Treasurer afterwards conceived a hatred towards him for the satire he apprehended was levelled at him in Mother Hubbard's Tale. In this poem, the author has in the most lively manner, painted out the misfortune of depending on court favours. The lines which follow are among others very remarkable.
Full little knowest thou, that hast not try'd,
What Hell it is in suing long to bide,
To dole good days, that nights be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow
To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers,
To have thy asking, yet wait many years.
To fret thy soul with crosses, and with care.
To eat thy heart, thro' comfortless despair;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
As this was very much the author's case, it probably was the particular passage in that poem which gave offence; for as Hughes very elegantly observes, even the sighs of a miserable man, are sometimes resented as an affront, by him who is the occasion of them. There is a little story, which seems founded on the grievance just now mentioned, and is related by some as a matter of fact [3] commonly reported at that time. It is said, that upon his presenting some poems to the Queen, she ordered him a gratuity of one hundred pounds, but the Lord Treasurer Burleigh objecting to it, said with some scorn of the poet, of whose merit he was totally ignorant, "What, all this for a song?" The queen replied, "Then give him what is reason." Spenser for some time waited, but had the mortification to find himself disappointed of her Majesty's bounty. Upon this he took a proper opportunity to present a paper to Queen Elizabeth in the manner of a petition, in which he reminded her of the order she had given, in the following lines.
I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhime,
From that time, unto this season
I received nor rhime, nor reason.
This paper produced the intended effect, and the Queen, after sharply reproving the treasurer, immediately directed the payment of the hundred pounds the had first ordered. In the year 1579 he was sent abroad by the Earl of Leicester, as appears by a copy of Latin verses dated from Leicester-house, and addressed to his friend Mr. Harvey; but Mr. Hughes has not been able to determine in what service we was employed. When the Lord Grey of Wilton was chosen Deputy of Ireland, Spenser was recommended to him as secretary. This drew him over to another kingdom, and settled him in a scene of life very different from what he had formerly known; but, that he understood, and discharged his employment with skill and capacity, appears sufficiently by his discourse on the state of Ireland, in which there are many solid and judicious remarks, that shew him no less qualified for the business of the state, than for the entertainment of the muses. His life was now freed from the difficulties under which it had hitherto struggled, and his services to the Crown received a reward of a grant from Queen Elizabeth of 3000 Acres of land in the county of Cork. His house was in Kilcolman, and the river Mulla, which he has more than once so finely introduced in his poems, ran through his grounds. Much about this time, he contracted an intimate friendship with the great and learned Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then a captain under the lord Grey. The poem of Spenser's, called Colin Clouts come home again, in which Sir Walter Raleigh is described under the name of the Shepherd of the Ocean, is a beautiful memorial of this friendship, which took its rise from a similarity of taste in the polite arts, and which he agreeably describes with a softness and delicacy peculiar to him. Sir Walter afterwards promoted him in Queen Elizabeth's esteem, thro' whose recommendation she read his writings. He now fell in love a second time with a merchant's daughter, in which, says Mrs. Cooper, author of the muses library, he was more successful than in his first amour. He wrote upon this occasion a beautiful epithalamium, with which he presented the lady on the bridal-day, and has consigned that day, and her, to immortality. In this pleasant easy situation our excellent poet finished the celebrated poem of The Fairy Queen, which was begun and continued at different intervals of time, and of which he at first published only the three first books; to these were added three more in a following edition, but the six last books (excepting the two canto's of mutability) were unfortunately lost by his servant whom he had in haste sent before him into England; for tho' he passed his life for some time very serenely here, yet a train of misfortunes still pursued him, and in the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond he was plundered and deprived of his estate. This distress forced him to return to England, where for want of his noble patron Sir Philip Sidney, he was plunged into new calamities, as that gallant Hero died of the wounds he received at Zutphen. It is said by Mr. Hughes, that Spenser survived his patron about twelve years, and died the same year with his powerful enemy the Lord Burleigh, 1598. He was buried, says he, in Westminster-Abbey, near the famous Geoffery Chaucer, as he had desired; his obsequies were attended by the poets of that time, and others, who paid the last honours to his memory. Several copies of verses were thrown after him into his grave, and his monument was erected at the charge of the famous Robert Devereux, the unfortunate Earl of Essex. This is the account given by his editor, of the death of Spenser, but there is some reason to believe that he spoke only upon imagination, as he has produced no authority to support his opinion, especially as I find in a book of great reputation, another opinion, delivered upon probable grounds. The ingenious Mr. Drummond of Hawthronden, a noble wit of Scotland, had an intimate correspondence with all the genius's of his time who resided at London, particularly the famous Ben Johnson, who had so high an opinion of Mr. Drummond's abilities, that he took a journey into Scotland in order to converse with him, and stayed some time at his house at Hawthronden. After Ben Johnson departed, Mr. Drummond, careful to retain what past betwixt them, wrote down the heads of their conversation; which is published amongst his poems and history of the five James's Kings of Scotland. Amongst other particulars there is this. "Ben Johnson told me that Spenser's goods were robbed by the Irish in Desmond's rebellion, his house and a little child of his burnt, and he and his wife nearly escaped; that he afterwards died in King-street [4] by absolute want of bread; and that he refused twenty pieces sent him by the Earl of Essex [5], and gave this answer to the person who brought them, that he was sure he had no time to spend them."
Mr. Drummond's works, from whence I have extracted the above, are printed in a thin quarto, and may be seen at Mr. Wilson's at Plato's Head in the Strand. I have been thus particular in the quotation, that no one may suspect such extraordinary circumstances to be advanced upon imagination. In the inscription on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, it is said he was born in the year 1510, and died 1596; Cambden says 1598, but in regard to his birth they must both be mistaken, for it is by no means probable he was born so early as 1510, if we judge by the remarkable circumstance of his standing for a fellowship in competition with Mr. Andrews, who was not born according to Hughes till 1555. Besides, if this account of his birth be true, he must have been sixty years old when he first published his Shepherd's Calendar, an age not very proper for love; and in this case it is no wonder, that the beautiful Rosalind slighted his addresses; and he must have been seventy years old when he entered into business under lord Grey, who was created deputy in Ireland 1580: for which reasons we may fairly conclude, that the inscription is false, either by the error of the carver, or perhaps it was put on when the monument was repaired.
There are very few particulars of this great poet, and it must be a mortification to all lovers of the Muses, that no more can be found concerning the life of one who was the greatest ornament of his profession. No writer ever found a nearer way to the heart than he, and his verses have a peculiar happiness of recommending the author to our friendship as well as raising our admiration; one cannot read him without fancying oneself transported into Fairy Land, and there conversing with the Graces, in that enchanted region: In elegance of thinking and fertility of imagination, few of our English authors have approached him, and no writers have such power as he to awake the spirit of poetry in others. Cowley owns that he derived inspiration from him; and I have heard the celebrated Mr. James Thomson, the author of the Seasons, and justly esteemed one of our best descriptive poets, say, that he formed himself upon Spenser; and how closely he pursued the model, and how nobly he has imitated him, whoever reads his Castle of Indolence with taste, will readily confess.
Mr. Addison, in his characters of the English Poets, addressed to Mr.
Sacheverel, thus speaks of Spenser:
Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age;
An age, that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where-e'er the poet's fancy led, pursued
Thro' pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long spun allegories, fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lyes too plain below.
We view well pleased at distance, all the sights,
Of arms, and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights.
But when we look too near, the shades decay,
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.
It is agreed on all hands, that the distresses of our author helped to shorten his days, and indeed, when his extraordinary merit is considered, he had the hardest measure of any of our poets. It appears from different accounts, that he was of an amiable sweet disposition, humane and generous in his nature. Besides the Fairy Queen, we find he had written several other pieces, of which we can only trace out the titles. Among these, the most considerable were nine comedies, in imitation of the comedies of his admired Ariosto, inscribed with the names of the Nine Muses. The rest which are mentioned in his letters, and those of his friends, are his Dying Pelicane, his Pageants, Stemmata Dudleyana, the Canticles paraphrazed, Ecclesiastes, Seven Psalms, Hours of our Lord, Sacrifice of a Sinner, Purgatory, a S'ennight Slumber, the Court of Cupid, and Hell of Lovers. It is likewise said, he had written a treatise in prose called the English Poet: as for the Epithalamion Thamesis, and his Dreams, both mentioned by himself in one of his letters, Mr. Hughes thinks they are still preserved, tho' under different names. It appears from what is said of the Dreams by his friend Mr. Harvey, that they were in imitation of Petrarch's Visions.
To produce authorities in favour of Spenser, as a poet. I should reckon an affront to his memory; that is a tribute which I shall only pay to inferior wits, whose highest honour it is to be mentioned with respect, by genius's of a superior class. The works of Spenser will never perish, tho' he has introduced unnecessarily many obsolete terms into them; there is a flow of poetry, an elegance of sentiment, a fund of imagination, and an enchanting enthusiasm which will ever secure him the applauses of posterity while any lovers of poetry remain.
We find little account of the family which Spenser left behind him, only that in a few particulars of his life prefixed to the last folio edition of his works, it is said that his great grandson Hugolin Spenser, after the restoration of king Charles II. was restored by the court of claims to so much of the lands as could be found to have been his ancestors; there is another remarkable passage of which (says Hughes) I can give the reader much better assurance: that a person came over from Ireland, in King William's time, to sollicit the same affair, and brought with him letters of recommendation, as a defendant of Spenser. His name procured him a favourable reception, and he applied himself particularly to Mr. Congreve, by whom he was generously recommended to the favour of the earl of Hallifax, who was then at the head of the treasury; and by that means he obtained his suit. This man was somewhat advanced in years, and might be the same mentioned before, who had possibly recovered only some part of his estate at first, or had been disturbed in the possession of it. He could give no account of the works of his ancestor, which are wanting, and which are therefore in all probability irrecoverably lost.
The following stanzas are said to be those with which Sir Philip
Sidney was first struck.
From him returning, sad and comfortless,
As on the way together we did fare,
We met that villain (God from him me bless)
That cursed wight, from whom I 'scaped whylear,
A man of hell that calls himself despair;
Who first us greets, and after fair areeds
Of tidings strange, and of adventures rare:
So creeping close, as snake in hidden weeds,
Inquireth of our states, and of our Knight'y deeds.
Which when he knew, and felt our feeble hearts
Emboss'd with bale, and bitter-biting grief,
Which love had launced with his deadly darts,
With wounding words, and terms of foul reprief,
He plucked from us all hope of due relief;
That erst us held in love of ling'ring life;
Then hopeless, heartless, 'gan the cunning thief
Persuade us die, to stint all further strife:
To me he lent this rope, to him a rusty knife.
The following is the picture.
The darksome cave they enter, where they find,
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind;
His greasy locks, long growing and unbound,
Disordered hung about his shoulders round,
And hid his face; through which his hollow eyne,
Look'd deadly dull, and stared as astound;
His raw bone cheeks thro' penury and pine,
Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine,
His garments nought, but many ragged clouts,
With thorns together pinn'd and patched was,
The which his naked sides he wrapt abouts;
And him beside, there lay upon the grass
A dreary corse, whose life away did pass,
All wallowed in his own, yet luke-warm blood,
That from his wound yet welled fresh alas;
In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood,
And made an open passage for the gushing flood.
It would perhaps be an injury to Spenser to dismiss his Life without a few remarks on that great work of his which has placed him among the foremost of our poets, and discovered so elevated and sublime a genius. The work I mean is his allegorical poem of the Fairy Queen.
Sir William Temple in his essay on poetry, says, "that the religion of the Gentiles had been woven into the contexture of all the ancient poetry with an agreeable mixture, which made the moderns affect to give that of christianity a place also in their poems; but the true religion was not found to become fictitious so well as the false one had done, and all their attempts of this kind seemed, rather to debase religion than heighten poetry. Spenser endeavoured to supply this with morality, and to make instruction, instead of story the subject of an epic poem. His execution was excellent, and his flights of fancy very noble and high. But his design was poor; and his moral lay so bare, that it lost the effect. It is true, the pill was gilded, but so thin that the colour and the taste were easily discovered.—Mr. Rymer asserts, that Spenser may be reckoned the first of our heroic poets. He had a large spirit, a sharp judgment, and a genius for heroic poetry, perhaps above any that ever wrote since Virgil, but our misfortune is, he wanted a true idea, and lost himself by following an unfaithful guide. Tho' besides Homer and Virgil he had read Tasso, yet he rather suffered himself to be misled by Ariosto, with whom blindly rambling on marvels and adventures, he makes no conscience of probability; all is fanciful and chimerical, without any uniformity, or without any foundation in truth; in a word his poem is perfect Fairy-Land. Thus far Sir William Temple, and Mr. Rymer; let us now attend to the opinion of a greater name. Mr. Dryden in his dedication of Juvenal, thus proceeds: The English have only to boast of Spenser and Milton in heroic poetry, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning to have been perfect poets, and yet both of them are liable to many censures; for there is no uniformity in the design of Spenser; he aims at the accomplishment of no one action; he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures, and endows each of them with some particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without subordination or preference: Every one is valiant in his own legend; only we must do him the justice to observe, that magnanimity, which is the character of prince Arthur, shines throughout the whole poem, and succours the rest when they are in distress. The original of every knight was then living in the court of Queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them that virtue which he thought was most conspicuous in them; an ingenious piece of flattery, tho' it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his poem in the remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect because the model was not true. But prince Arthur, or his chief patron Sir Philip Sidney, dying before him, deprived the poet both of means and spirit to accomplish his design. For the rest, his obsolete language, and ill choice of his stanza, are faults both of the second magnitude; for notwithstanding the first, he is still intelligible, at least after a little practice, and for the last he is more to be admired, that labouring under such disadvantages, his verses are so numerous, so various, and so harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he has professedly imitated, has surpassed him among the Romans, and only Waller among the English."
Mr. Hughes in his essay on allegorical poetry prefixed to Spenser's works, tells us, that this poem is conceived, wrought up, and coloured with stronger fancy, and discovers more the particular genius of Spenser, than any of his other writings; and having observed that Spenser in a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh calls it, a continued allegory, or dark conceit, he gives us some remarks on allegorical poetry in general, defining allegory to be a fable or story, in which, under imaginary persons or things, is shadowed some real action or instructive moral, or as I think, says he, it is somewhere very shortly defined by. Plutarch; it is that, in which one thing is, related, and another thing understood; it is a kind of poetical picture, or hieroglyphick, which by its apt resemblance, conveys instruction to the mind, by an analogy to the senses, and so amuses the fancy while it informs the understanding. Every allegory has therefore two senses, the literal and mystical, the literal sense is like a dream or vision, of which the mystical sense is the true meaning, or interpretation. This will be more clearly apprehended by considering, that as a simile is a more extended metaphor, so an allegory is a kind of continued simile, or an assemblage of similitudes drawn out at full length.
The chief merit of this poem, no doubt, consists in that surprising vein of fabulous invention, which runs through it, and enriches it every where with imagery and descriptions, more than we meet with in any other modern poem. The author seems to be possessed of a kind of poetical magic, and the figures he calls up to our view rise so thick upon us, that we are at once pleased and distracted with the exhaustless variety of them; so that his faults may in a manner be imputed to his excellencies. His abundance betrays him into excess, and his judgment is over-born by the torrent of his imagination. That which seems the most liable to exception in this work is the model of it, and the choice the author has made of so romantic a story. The several books rather appear like so many several poems, than one entire fable. Each of them has its peculiar knight, and is independent of the rest; and tho' some of the persons make their appearance in different books, yet this has very little effect in concealing them. Prince Arthur is indeed the principal person, and has therefore a share given him in every legend; but his part is not considerable enough in any one of them. He appears and vanishes again like a spirit, and we lose sight of him too soon to consider him as the hero of the poem. These are the most obvious defects in the fable of the Fairy Queen. The want of unity in the story makes it difficult for the reader to carry it in his mind, and distracts too much his attention to the several parts of it; and indeed the whole frame of it would appear monstrous, were it to be examined by the rules of epic poetry, as they have been drawn from the practice of Homer and Virgil; but as it is plain, the author never designed it by these rules, I think it ought rather to be called a poem of a particular kind, describing in a series of allegorical adventures, or episodes, the most noted virtues and vices. To compare it therefore with the models of antiquity, would be like drawing a parallel between the Roman and Gothic architecture. In the first, there is doubtless a more natural grandeur and simplicity; in the latter, we find great mixtures of beauty and barbarism, yet assisted by the invention of a variety of inferior ornaments; and tho' the former is more majestic in the whole, the latter may be very surprizing and agreeable in its parts.
[Footnote 1: Hughes's Life of Spencer, prefixed to the edition of our author's works.]
[Footnote 2: Hughes ubi supra,]
[Footnote 3: Winst. p. 88.]
[Footnote 4: Dublin]
[Footnote 5: The General of the English army in Ireland.]
* * * * *
JASPER HEYWOOD,
the son of the celebrated epigramatist, was born in London, and in the 12th year of his age, 1517, was sent to the University, where he was educated in grammar and logic. In 1553 he took a degree in Arts, and was immediately elected Probationer fellow of Merton College, where he gained a superiority over all his fellow students in disputations at the public school. Wood informs us, that upon a third admonition, from the warden and society of that house, he resigned his fellowship, to prevent expulsion, on the 4th of April, 1558; he had been guilty of several misdemeanors, such as are peculiar to youth, wildness and rakishness, which in those days it seems were very severely punished. Soon after this he quitted England, and entered himself into the society of Jesus at St. Omer's [1]; but before he left his native country, he writ and translated (says Wood), these things following.
Various Poems and Devices; some of which are printed in a book called the Paradise of Dainty Devices, 1574, 4to.
Hercules Furens, a Tragedy, which some have imputed to Seneca, and others have denied to be his, but it is thought by most learned men to be an imitation of that play of Euripides, which bears the same name, and tho, in contrivance and economy, they differ in some things, yet in others they agree, and Scaliger scruples not to prefer the Latin to the Greek Tragedy [2].
Troas, a Tragedy of Seneca's, which the learned Farnaby, and Daniel Heinsius very much commend; the former stiling it a divine tragedy, the other preferring it to one of the same name by Euripides, both in language and contrivance, but especially he says it far exceeds it in the chorus. In this tragedy the author has taken the liberty of adding several things, and altering others, as thinking the play imperfect: First as to the additions, he has at the end of the chorus after the first act, added threescore verses of his own invention: In the beginning of the second act he has added a whole scene, where he introduces the ghost of Achilles rising from hell, to require the sacrifice of Polyxena! to the chorus of this act he added three stanza's. As to his alterations, instead of translating the chorus of the third act, which is wholly taken up with the names of foreign countries, the translation of which without notes he thought would be tiresome to the English reader, he has substituted in its stead another chorus of his own invention. This tragedy runs in verses of fourteen syllables, and for the most part his chorus is writ in verse of ten syllables, which is called heroic.
Thyestes, another tragedy of Seneca's, which in the judgment of Hiensius, is not inferior to any other of his dramatic pieces. Our author translated this play when he was at Oxford; it is wrote in the same manner of verse as the other, only the chorus is written in alternate rhime. The translator has added a scene at the end of the fifth act, spoken by Thyestes alone; in which he bewails his misery, and implores Heaven's vengeance on Atreus. These plays are printed in a black letter in 4to. 1581.
Langbain observes, that tho' he cannot much commend the version of Heywood, as poetically elegant, as he has chosen a measure of fourteen syllables, which ever sounds harsh to the ears of those that are used to heroic poetry, yet, says he, I must do the author this justice, to acquaint the world, that he endeavours to give Seneca's sense, and likewise to imitate his verse, changing his measure, as often as his author, the chorus of each act being different from the act itself, as the reader may observe, by comparing the English copy with the Latin original.
After our author had spent two years in the study of divinity amongst the priests, he was sent to Diling in Switzerland, where he continued about seventeen years, in explaining and discussing controverted questions, among those he called Heretics, in which time, for his zeal for the holy mother, he was promoted to the degree of Dr. of Divinity, and of the Four Vows. At length pope Gregory XIII. calling him away in 1581, he sent him, with others, the same year into the mission of England, and the rather because the brethren there told his holiness, that the harvest was great, and the labourers few [3]. Being settled then in the metropolis of his own country, and esteemed the chief provincial of the Jesuits in England, it was taken notice of, that he affected more the exterior shew of a lord, than the humility of a priest, keeping as grand an equipage, as money could then furnish him with. Dr. Fuller says, that our author was executed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but Sir Richard Baker tells us, that he was one of the chief of those 70 priests that were taken in the year 1585; and when some of them were condemned, and the rest in danger of the law, her Majesty caused them all to be shipp'd away, and sent out of England. Upon Heywood's being taken and committed to prison, and the earl of Warwick thereupon ready to relieve his necessity, he made a copy of verses, mentioned by Sir John Harrington, concluding with these two;
——Thanks to that lord, that wills me good;
For I want all things, saving hay and wood.
He afterwards went to Rome, and at last settled in the city of Naples, where he became familiarly known to that zealous Roman Catholick, John Pitceus, who speaks of him with great respect.
It is unknown what he wrote or published after he became a Jesuit. It is said that he was a great critic in the Hebrew language, and that he digested an easy and short method, (reduced into tables) for novices to learn that language, which Wood supposes was a compendium of a Hebrew grammar. Our author paid the common debt of nature at Naples, 1598, and was buried in the college of Jesuits there.
[Footnote 1: Langb. Lives of the Poets, p. 249.]
[Footnote 2: Langb. ubi supra.]
[Footnote 3: Athen. Oxon.]
* * * * *
JOHN LILLY,
A writer who flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; he was a Kentish man, and in his younger years educated at St. Mary Magdalen College in Oxon, where in the year 1575 he took his degree of Master of Arts. He was, says Langbaine, a very close student, and much addicted to poetry; a proof of which he has given to the world, in those plays which he has bequeathed to posterity, and which in that age were well esteemed, both by the court, and by the university. He was one of the first writers, continues Langbain, who in those days attempted to reform the language, and purge it from obsolete expressions. Mr. Blount, a gentleman who has made himself known to the world, by several pieces of his own writing (as Horæ Subsecivæ, his Microcosmography, &c.) and who published six of these plays, in his title page stiles him, the only rare poet of that time, the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparallell'd John Lilly. Mr. Blount further says, 'That he sat 'at Apollo's table; that Apollo gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the Lyre he played on, had no borrowed strings:' He mentions a romance of our author's writing, called Euphues; our nation, says he, are in his debt, for a new English which he taught them; Euphues, and his England began first that language, and all our ladies were then his scholars, and that beauty in court who could not read Euphism, was as little regarded, as she who now speaks not French. This extraordinary Romance I acknowledge I have not read, so cannot from myself give it a character, but I have some reason to believe, that it was a miserable performance, from the authority of the author of the British Theatre, who in his preface thus speaks of it; "This Romance, says he, so fashionable for its wit; so famous in the court of Queen Elizabeth, and is said to have introduced so remarkable a change in our language, I have seen and read. It is an unnatural affected jargon, in which the perpetual use of metaphors, allusions, allegories, and analogies, is to pass for wit, and stiff bombast for language; and with this nonsense the court of Queen Elizabeth (whose times afforded better models for stile and composition, than almost any since) became miserably infected, and greatly help'd to let in all the vile pedantry of language in the two following reigns; so much mischief the most ridiculous instrument may do, when he proposes to improve on the simplicity of nature."
Mr. Lilly has writ the following dramatic pieces;
Alexander and Campaspe, a tragical comedy; play'd before the Queen's Majesty on twelfth-night, by her Majesty's children, and the children of St. Paul's, and afterwards at the Black Fryars; printed in 12mo. London, 1632. The story of Alexander's bestowing Campaspe, in the enamoured Apelles, is related by Pliny in his Natural History. Lib. xxxv. L. x.
Endymion, a Comedy, presented before Queen Elizabeth, by the children of her Majesty's chaple, printed in 12mo. 1632. The story of Endymion's being beloved by the moon, with comments upon it, may be met with in most of the Mythologists. See Lucian's Dialogues, between Venus and the Moon. Mr. Gambauld has writ a romance called Endymion, translated into English, 8vo. 1639.
Galathea, a Comedy, played before the Queen at Greenwich on New year's day, at night, by the children of St. Paul's, printed in 12mo. London, 1632. In the characters of Galathea and Philidia, the poet has copied the story of Iphis and Ianthe, which the reader may find at large in the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphosis.
Maid's Metamorphosis, a Comedy, acted by the children of St. Paul's, printed in 12mo. 1632.
Mydas, a Comedy, played before the Queen on Twelfth-night, printed in 12mo. London, 1632. For the story, see the xith book of Ovid's Metamorphosis.
Sappho and Phaon, a Comedy, played before the queen on Shrove-Tuesday, by the children of Paul's, and afterwards at Black-Fryars, printed in Twelves, London 1632. This story the reader may learn from Ovid's Epistles, of Sappho to Phaon, Ep. 21.
Woman in the Moon, presented before the Queen, London 1667. Six of these plays, viz. Alexander and Campaspe, Endymion, Galathea and Mydas, Sappho and Phaon, with Mother Bombie, a Comedy, by the same author, are printed together under the title of the Six Court-Comedies, 12mo, London 1632, and dedicated by Mr. Blount, to the lord viscount Lumly of Waterford; the other two are printed singly in Quarto.——He also wrote Loves Metamorphosis, a courtly pastoral, printed 1601.
* * * * *
Sir THOMAS OVERBURY
Was son of Nicholas Overbury, Esq; of Burton in Gloucestershire, one of the Judges of the Marches[1]. He was born with very bright parts, and gave early discoveries of a rising genius. In 1595, the 14th year of his age, he became a gentleman commoner in Queen's-College in Oxford, and in 1598, as a 'squire's son, he took the degree of batchelor of arts; he removed from thence to the Middle-Temple, in order to study the municipal law, but did not long remain there[2]. His genius, which was of a sprightly kind, could not bear the confinement of a student, or the drudgery of reading law; he abandoned it therefore, and travelled into France, where he so improved himself in polite accomplishments, that when he returned he was looked upon as one of the most finished gentlemen about court.
Soon after his arrival in England, he contracted an intimacy, which afterwards grew into friendship with Sir Robert Carre, a Scotch gentleman, a favourite with king James, and afterwards earl of Somerset. Such was the warmth of friendship in which these two gentlemen lived, that they were inseparable. Carre could enter into no scheme, nor pursue any measures, without the advice and concurrence of Overbury, nor could Overbury enjoy any felicity but in the company of him he loved; their friendship was the subject of court-conversation, and their genius seemed so much alike, that it was reasonable to suppose no breach could ever be produced between them; but such it seems is the power of woman, such the influence of beauty, that even the sacred ties of friendship are broke asunder by the magic energy of these superior charms. Carre fell in love with lady Frances Howard, daughter to the Earl of Suffolk, and lately divorced from the Earl of Essex[3]. He communicated his passion to his friend, who was too penetrating not to know that no man could live with much comfort, with a woman of the Countess's stamp, of whose morals he had a bad opinion; he insinuated to Carre some suspicions, and those well founded, against her honour; he dissuaded him with all the warmth of the sincerest friendship, to desist from a match that would involve him in misery, and not to suffer his passion for her beauty to have so much sway over him, as to make him sacrifice his peace to its indulgence.
Carre, who was desperately in love, forgetting the ties of honour as well as friendship, communicated to the lady, what Overbury had said of her, and they who have read the heart of woman, will be at no loss to conceive what reception she gave that unwelcome report. She knew, that Carre was immoderately attached to Overbury, that he was directed by his Council in all things, and devoted to his interest.
Earth has no curse like love to hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd.
This was literally verified in the case of the countess; she let loose all the rage of which she was capable against him, and as she panted for the consummation of the match between Carre and her, she so influenced the Viscount, that he began to conceive a hatred likewise to Overbury; and while he was thus subdued by the charms of a wicked woman, he seemed to change his nature, and from the gentle, easy, accessible, good-natured man he formerly appeared, he degenerated into the sullen, vindictive, and implacable. One thing with respect to the countess ought not to be omitted. She was wife of the famous Earl of Essex, who afterwards headed the army of the parliament against the King, and to whom the imputation of impotence was laid. The Countess, in order to procure a divorce from her husband, gave it out that tho' she had been for some time in a married state, she was yet a virgin, and which it seems sat very uneasy upon her. To prove this, a jury of matrons were to examine her and give their opinion, whether she was, or was not a Virgin: This scrutiny the Countess did not care to undergo, and therefore entreated the favour that she might enter masked to save her blushes; this was granted her, and she took care to have a young Lady provided, of much the same size and exterior appearance, who personated her, and the jury asserted her to be an unviolated Virgin. This precaution in the Countess, no doubt, diminishes her character, and is a circumstance not favourable to her honour; for if her husband had been really impotent as she pretended, she needed not have been afraid of the search; and it proves that she either injured her husband, by falsely aspersing him, or that she had violated her honour with other men. But which ever of these causes prevailed, had the Countess been wise enough, she had no occasion to fear the consequences of a scrutiny; for if I am rightly informed, a jury of old women can no more judge accurately whether a woman has yielded her virginity, than they can by examining a dead body, know of what distemper the deceased died; but be that as it may, the whole affair is unfavourable to her modesty; it shews her a woman of irregular passions, which poor Sir Thomas Overbury dearly experienced; for even after the Countess was happy in the embraces of the Earl of Somerset, she could not forbear the persecution of him; she procured that Sir Thomas should be nominated by the King to go ambassador to Russia, a destination she knew would displease him, it being then no better than a kind of honourable grave; she likewise excited Earl Somerset to seem again his friend, and to advise him strongly to refuse the embassy, and at the fame time insinuate, that if he should, it would only be lying a few weeks in the Tower, which to a man well provided in all the necessaries, as well as comforts of Life, had no great terror in it. This expedient Sir Thomas embraced, and absolutely refused to go abroad; upon which, on the twenty-first of April 1613, he was sent prisoner to the Tower, and put under the care of Sir Gervis Yelvis, then lord lieutenant. The Countess being so far successful, began now to conceive great hopes of compleating her scheme of assassination, and drew over the Earl of Somerset her husband, to her party, and he who a few years before, had obtained the honour of knighthood for Overbury, was now so enraged against him, that he coincided in taking measures to murder his friend. Sir Gervis Yelvis, who obtained the lieutenancy by Somerset's interest, was a creature devoted to his pleasure. He was a needy man, totally destitute of any principles of honour, and was easily prevailed upon to forward a scheme for destroying poor Overbury by poison. Accordingly they consulted with one Mrs. Turner, the first inventer (says Winstanley of that horrid garb of yellow ruffs and cuffs, and in which garb he was afterwards hanged) who having acquaintance with one James Franklin, a man who it seems was admirably fitted to be a Cut-throat, agreed with him to provide that which would not kill presently, but cause one to languish away by degrees. The lieutenant being engaged in the conspiracy, admits one Weston, Mrs. Turner's man, who under pretence of waiting on Sir Thomas, was to do the horrid deed. The plot being thus formed, and success promising so fair, Franklin buys various poisons, White Arsenick, Mercury-Sublimate, Cantharides, Red-Mercury, with three or four other deadly ingredients, which he delivered to Weston, with instructions how to use them; who put them into his broth and meat, increasing and diminishing their strength according as he saw him affected; besides these, the Countess sent him by way of present, poisoned tarts and jellies: but Overbury being of a strong constitution, held long out against their influence: his body broke out in blotches and blains, which occasioned the report industriously propagated by Somerset, of his having died of the French Disease. At last they produced his death by the application of a poisoned clyster, by which he next day in painful agonies expired. Thus (says Winstanley) "by the malice of a woman that worthy Knight was murthered, who yet still lives in that witty poem of his, entitled, A Wife, as is well expressed by the verses under his picture."
A man's best fortune or his worst's a wife,
Yet I, that knew no marriage, peace nor strife
Live by a good one, by a bad one lost my life.
Of all crimes which the heart of man conceives, as none is so enormous as murder, so it more frequently meets punishment in this life than any other. This barbarous assassination was soon revealed; for notwithstanding what the conspirators had given out, suspicions ran high that Sir Thomas was poisoned; upon which Weston was strictly examined by Lord Cook, who before his lordship persisted in denying the same; but the Bishop of London afterwards conversing with him, pressing the thing home to his conscience, and opening all the terrors of another life to his mind, he was moved to confess the whole. He related how Mrs. Turner and the Countess became acquainted, and discovered all those who were any way concerned in it; upon which they were all apprehended, and some sent to Newgate, and others to the Tower. Having thus confessed, and being convicted according to due course of law, he was hanged at Tyburn, after him Mrs. Turner, after her Franklin, then Sir Gervis Yelvis, being found guilty on their several arraignments, were executed; some of them died penitent. The Earl and the Countess were both condemned, but notwithstanding their guilt being greater than any of the other criminals, the King, to the astonishment of all his subjects, forgave them, but they were both forbid to appear at court.
There was something strangely unaccountable in the behaviour of Somerset after condemnation. When he was asked what he thought of his condition, and if he was preparing to die, he answered, that he thought not of it at all, for he was sure the King durst not command him to be executed. This ridiculous boasting and bidding defiance to his majesty's power, was construed by some in a very odd manner; and there were not wanting those who asserted, that Somerset was privy to a secret of the King's, which if it had been revealed, would have produced the strangest consternation in the kingdom that ever was known, and drawn down infamy upon his majesty for ever; but as nothing can be ascertained concerning it, it might seem unfair to impute to this silly Prince more faults than he perhaps committed: It is certain he was the slave of his favourites, and not the most shocking crime in them, it seems, could entirely alienate his affections, and it is doubtful whether the saving of Somerset or the execution of Raleigh reflects most disgrace upon his reign. Some have said, that the body of Sir Thomas Overbury was thrown into an obscure pit; but Wood, says it appears from the Tower registers, that it was interred in the chapel; which seems more probable. There is an epitaph which Winstanley has preserved, written by our author upon himself, which I shall here insert, as it serves to illustrate his versification.
The span of my days measured here I rest,
That is, my body; but my soul, his guest
Is hence ascended, whither, neither time,
Nor faith, nor hope, but only love can climb,
Where being new enlightened, she doth know
The truth, of all men argue of below:
Only this dust, doth here in pawn remain,
That when the world dissolves, she come again.
The works of Overbury besides his Wife, which is reckoned the wittiest and most finished of all, are, first Characters, or witty descriptions of the prophesies of sundry persons. This piece has relation to some characters of his own time, which can afford little satisfaction to a modern reader.
Second, The Remedy of Love in two parts, a poem 1620, Octavo, 2s.
Third, Observations in his Travels, on the State. of the seventeen
Provinces, as they stood anno 1609.
Fourth, Observations on the Provinces united, and the state of France, printed London 1631.
Sir Thomas was about 32 years old when he was murthered, and is said to have possessed an accuteness, and strength of parts that was astonishing; and some have related that he was proud of his abilities, and over-bearing in company; but as there is no good authority for the assertion, it is more agreeable to candour to believe him the amiable knight Winstanley draws him; as it seldom happens that a soul formed for the noble quality of friendship is haughty and insolent. There is a tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury wrote by the late Richard Savage, son of earl Rivers, which was acted in 1723, (by what was then usually called The Summer Company) with success; of which we shall speak more at large in the life of that unfortunate gentleman.
[Footnote 1: Wood Athen. Oxon.]
[Footnote 2: Winst. ubi supra.]
[Footnote 3: Winst. ubi supra.]
* * * * *
JOHN MARSTEN.
There are few things on record concerning this poet's life. Wood says, that he was a student in Corpus-Christi College, Oxon; but in what country he was born, or of what family descended, is no where fixed. Mr. Langbain says, he can recover no other information of him, than what he learned from the testimony of his bookseller, which is, "That he was free from all obscene speeches, which is the chief cause of making plays odious to virtuous and modest persons; but he abhorred such writers and their works, and professed himself an enemy to all such as stuffed their scenes with ribaldry, and larded their lines with scurrilous taunts, and jests, so that whatsoever even in the spring of his years he presented upon the private and public theatre, in his autumn and declining age he needed not to to be ashamed of." He lived in friendship with the famous Ben Johnson, as appears by his addressing to his name a tragi-comedy, called Male-Content: but we afterwards find him reflecting pretty severely on Ben, on account of his Cataline and Sejanus, as the reader will find on the perusal of Marsten's Epistle, prefixed to Sophonisba.—"Know, says he, that I have not laboured in this poem, to relate any thing as an historian, but to enlarge every thing as a poet. To transcribe authors, quote authorities, and to translate Latin prose orations into English blank verse, hath in this subject been the least aim of my studies."——Langbain observes, that none who are acquainted with the works of Johnson can doubt that he is meant here, if they will compare the orations in Salust with those in Cataline. On what provocation Marsten thus censured his friend is unknown, but the practice has been too frequently pursued, so true is it, as Mr. Gay observes of the wits, that they are oft game cocks to one another, and sometimes verify the couplet.
That they are still prepared to praise or to abhor
us,
Satire they have, and panegyric for us.——
Marsten has contributed eight plays to the stage, which were all acted at the Black Fryars with applause, and one of them called the Dutch Courtezan, was once revived since the Restoration, under the title of the Revenge, or a Match in [1]Newgate. In the year 1633 six of this author's plays were collated and published in one volume, and dedicated to the lady viscountess Faulkland. His dramatic works are these:
Antonio and Melida, a history, acted by the children of St. Paul's, printed in 1633.
Antonius's Revenge; or the second part of Antonio and Melida. These two plays were printed in Octavo several years before the new edition.
Dutch Courtezan, a comedy frequently played at Black Fryars, by the children of the Queen's Revels, printed in London 1633. It is taken from a French book called Les Contes du Mende. See the same story in English, in a book of Novels, called the Palace of Pleasure in the last Novel.
Insatiate Countess, a Tragedy, acted at White-Fryars, printed in Quarto 1603, under the title of Isabella the insatiable countess of Suevia. It is said that he meant Joan the first queen of Jerusalem, Naples, and Sicily. The life of this queen has employed many pens, both on poetry and novels. Bandello has related her story under the title of the Inordinate Life of the Countess of Celant. The like story is related in God's Revenge against Adultery, under the name of Anne of Werdenberg, duchess of Ulme.
Male Content, a Tragi Comedy, dedicated to old Ben, as I have already taken notice, in which he heaps many fine epithets upon him. The first design of this play was laid by Mr. Webster.
Parasitaster; or the Fawn, a comedy, often presented at the Black Fryars, by the children of the queen's Revels, printed in Octavo 1633. This play was formerly printed in quarto, 1606. The Plot of Dulcimers cozening the Duke by a pretended discovery of Tiberco's love to her, is taken from Boccace's Novels.
What you will, a comedy, printed Octavo, London, 1653. This is said to be one of our author's best plays. The design taken from Plautus's Amphitrion.
Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba, a tragedy, acted at Black Fryars, printed in Octavo, 1633. The English reader will find this story described by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his history of the world. B. 5.
Besides his dramatic poetry he writ three books of Satires, entitled, The Scourge of Villany, printed in Octavo, London 1598. We have no account in what year our author died, but we find that his works were published after his death by the great Shakespear, and it may perhaps be reasonably concluded that it was about the year 1614.
[Footnote 1: The late Mr. C. Bullock, a comedian, and some time manager of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields theatre, made a play from that piece.]
* * * * *
WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR.
There have been some ages in which providence seemed pleased in a most remarkable manner to display it self, in giving to the world the finest genius's to illuminate a people formerly barbarous. After a long night of Gothic ignorance, after many ages of priestcraft and superstition, learning and genius visited our Island in the days of the renowned Queen Elizabeth. It was then that liberty began to dawn, and the people having shook off the restraints of priestly austerity, presumed to think for themselves. At an Æra so remarkable as this, so famous in history, it seems no wonder that the nation would be blessed with those immortal ornaments of wit and learning, who all conspired at once to make it famous.——This astonishing genius, seemed to be commissioned from above, to deliver us not only from the ignorance under which we laboured as to poetry, but to carry poetry almost to its perfection. But to write a panegyric on Shakespear appears as unnecessary, as the attempt would be vain; for whoever has any taste for what is great, terrible, or tender, may meet with the amplest gratification in Shakespear; as may those also have a taste for drollery and true humour. His genius was almost boundless, and he succeeded alike in every part of writing. I cannot forbear giving the character of Shakespear in the words of a great genius, in a prologue spoken by Mr. Garrick when he first opened Drury-lane house as Manager.
When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes,
First rear'd the stage;——immortal Shakespear rose,
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new,
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toiled after him, in vain.
All men have discovered a curiosity to know the little stories and particularities of a great genius; for it often happens, that when we attend a man to his closet, and watch his moments of solitude, we shall find such expressions drop from him, or we may observe such instances of peculiar conduct, as will let us more into his real character, than ever we can discover while we converse with him in public, and when perhaps he appears under a kind of mask. There are but few things known of this great man; few incidents of his life have descended to posterity, and tho' no doubt the fame of his abilities made a great noise in the age in which he flourished; yet his station was not such as to produce many incidents, as it was subject to but few vicissitudes. Mr. Rowe, who well understood, and greatly admired Shakespear, has been at pains to collect what incidents were known, or were to be found concerning him, and it is chiefly upon Mr. Rowe's authority we build the account now given.
Our author was the son of John Shakespear, and was born at Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire, April 1564, at it appears by public records relating to that town. The family from which he is descended was of good figure and fashion there, and are mentioned as gentlemen. His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, being incumbred with a large family of ten children, could afford to give his eldest son but a slender education. He had bred him at a free school, where he acquired what Latin he was master of, but how well he understood that language, or whether after his leaving the school he made greater proficiency in it, has been disputed and is a point very difficult to settle. However it is certain, that Mr. John Shakespear, our author's father, was obliged to withdraw him early from school, in order to have his assistance in his own employment, towards supporting the rest of the family. "It is without controversy, says Rowe, that in his works we scarce find any traces that look like an imitation of the ancients. The delicacy of his taste, and the natural bent of his own great genius, equal, if not superior to some of the best of theirs, would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much pleasure, that some of their fine images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mixed with his own writings; so that his not copying at least something from them, may be an argument of his never having read them. Whether his ignorance of the ancients was disadvantageous to him or no, may admit of dispute; for tho' the knowledge of them might have made him more correct, yet it is not improbable, but that the regularity and deference for them which would have attended that correctness, might have restrained some of that fire, impetuosity, and even beautiful extravagance, which we cannot help admiring in Shakespear."