A miscellany upon a more extensive scale than the preceding, and of great value for the taste exhibited in its selection, succeeded in 1602, under the appellation of "A Poetical Rapsodîe; containing diverse Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, Epigrams, Pastorals, Eglogues, with other Poems, both in Rime and Measured Verse. For varietie and pleasure, the like never yet published.
London. 12mo."
The editor and principal contributor, was Francis Davison, a poet of no mean talents, and son of that Secretary of State, who experienced in so remarkable a degree the duplicity of Elizabeth, in relation to Mary Queen of Scots. In an Address to the Reader, he thus accounts for the form which the volume assumes:—"Being induced by some private reasons, and by the instant entreaty of speciall friends, to suffer some of my worthlesse poems to be published, I desired to make some written by my deere friends Anonymoi, and my deerer Brother, to beare them company: both, without their consent; the latter being in the low-country warres, and the rest utterly ignorant thereof. My friends names I concealed; mine owne and my brother's, I willed the printer to suppresse, as well as I had concealed the other, which he having put in without my privity, we must now undergo a sharper censure perhaps than our namelesse workes should have done; and I especially. For if their poems be liked, the praise is due to their invention; if disliked, the blame both by them and all men will be derived upon me, for publishing that which they meant to suppresse."
He then enters upon a defence of poetry, experience proving, he remarks, "by examples of many, both dead and living, that divers delighted and excelling herein, being princes or statesmen, have gouerned and counselled as wisely; being souldiers, have commanded armies as fortunately; being lawyers, have pleaded as judicially and eloquently; being divines, have written and taught as profoundly; and being of any other profession, have discharged it as sufficiently, as any other men whatsoever;" and concludes by alleging, as an excuse "for these poems in particular, that those under the name of Anonymos were written (as appeareth by divers things to Sir Philip Sidney living, and of him dead) almost twenty years since, when poetry was farre from that perfection to which it hath now attained: that my brother is by profession a souldier, and was not eighteen years old when he writ these toys: that mine owne were made most of them sixe or seven yeares since, at idle times as I journeyed up and downe during my travails."
The division of the "Rapsodie" more peculiarly occupied by these kindred bards, is that including "Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, and Epigrams, by Francis and Walter Davison, brethren;" and they were assisted in that, and the residue of the work, by Spenser, Sidney, Sir John Davis, Mary Countess of Pembroke, Thomas Campion, Thomas Watson, Charles Best, Thomas Spelman, and by others, whose initials are supposed to indicate Henry Constable, Walter Raleigh, Henry Wotton, Robert Greene, Andrew Willet, and Joshua Sylvester.[730:A]
The "Poetical Rapsodie" is dedicated by Davison in a sonnet, "To the most noble, honorable, and worthy Lord William Earl of Pembroke, Lord Herbert of Cardiffe, Marmion, and St. Quintine," and was successively republished with augmentations in 1608, 1611, and 1621. It may be said to present us, not only with a felicitous choice of topics, but it claims the merit of having preserved several valuable poems not elsewhere to be discovered, and which, owing to the rarity of the book, although four times subjected to the press, have not, until lately, attracted the notice that is due to them.
Independent of the ten miscellanies which we have now enumerated, an immense multitude of Airs, Madrigals, and Songs, set to music, and printed in Parts, were published during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, and during the reign of James the First. These Collections contain a variety of lyric poems not elsewhere to be met with, and which were either written expressly for the Composers, or selected by the latter from manuscripts, or rare and insulated printed copies. Foremost among these Professors of Music, who thus indirectly contributed to enrich the stores of English Poetry, stands William Byrd. This celebrated composer's first printed work in English was licensed in 1587, and has the following title:—"Tenor. Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of sadnes and pietie, made into musicke of five parts: whereof, some of them going a broad among divers, in untrue coppies, are heere truely corrected, and the other being Songs very rare and newly composed, are heere published, for the recreation of all such as delight in Musicke. By William Byrd, one of the Gent. of the Queene's Maiesties Royall Chappell." 4to.
The volume is dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton; and he tells his reader, in an epistle subscribed the most assured friend to all that love or learne musicke, William Byrd,—"heere is offered unto thy courteous acceptation, musicke of sundrie sorts, and to content divers humors. If thou bee disposed to pray, heere are psalmes. If to bee merrie, heere are sonets. If to lament for thy sins, heere are songs of sadnesse and pietie. If thou delight in musicke of great cõpasse, heere are divers songs, which beeing originally made for instruments to expresse the harmony, and one voyce to pronounce the dittie, are now framed in all parts for voyces to sing the same. If thou desire songs of smal compasse and fit for the reach of most voyces, heere are most in number of that sort."
Next to Byrd, whose publications of this kind are numerous, we may mention Thomas Morley, no less remarkable for his skill in music, and for his fertility in the production of madrigals, ballets, and canzonets. How fashionable and universal had become the practice of singing these compositions at every party of amusement, may be drawn from one of the elementary works of this writer:—"Being at a banquet," he relates, "supper being ended, and music books brought to table, the mistress of the house, according to custom, presented me with a part, earnestly intreating me to sing; when, after many excuses, I protested unfeignedly that I could not, every one began to wonder, yea, some whispered to others demanding how I was brought up."[732:A]
Of the various collections of lyric poetry adapted to music and published by Morley, who died about the period of the accession of James the First, we shall notice two; one as indicatory of the manners of the age, and the other of the estimation in which the science was held by our composer, who seems, on this occasion, to have partaken the enthusiasm of Shakspeare; for in a dedication, "To the Worshipfull Sir Gervis Clifton, Knight," prefixed to "Madrigals to five voyces. Selected out of the best approved Italian Authors. By Thomas Morley, Gentleman of hir Maiesties Royall Chappell, 1598," he tells his worthy patron, "I ever held this sentence of the poet, as a canon of my creede; That whom God loveth not, they love not Musique. For as the Art of Musique is one of the most Heavenly gifts, so the very love of Musique (without art) is one of the best engrafted testimonies of Heavens love towards us."
In 1601, Morley published in quarto, "Cantus Madrigales. The triumphes of Oriana, to 5 and 6 voices: composed by divers severall aucthors,"—a collection remarkable for its object, as it consisted of twenty-five songs, composed by twenty-four several musicians, for the express purpose of commemorating the beauty and virginity of Elizabeth, under the appellation of Oriana, and who was now in the sixty-eighth year of her age, one, among innumerable proofs, of the extreme vanity of this singular woman.
That a great proportion of these musical miscellanies consisted of translations from the Italian, is evident from the publications of Byrd and Morley, and from the Musica Transalpina of Nicolas Yonge, printed in two parts, in the years 1588 and 1597, where, however, equal industry appears to have been exerted in collecting English songs; the dedication, indeed, points out very distinctly the sources whence these popular works were derived. "I endeavoured," says Yonge, "to get into my hands all such English songes as were praise worthie, and amongst others I had the hap to find in the hands of some of my good friends certaine Italian Madrigales translated most of them five years ago by a gentleman for his private delight." The two parts of Musica Transalpina contain eighty-one songs.
It seems probable, indeed, from Orlando Gibbons's dedication of his "First set of Mardrigals and Mottets" to Sir Christopher Hatton, dated 1612, that the courtiers of that period sometimes employed themselves in writing lyrics for their domestic Lutenists; for Orlando tells his lord,—"They were most of them composed in your own house, and do therefore properly belong unto you as lord of the soil; the language they speak you provided them; I only furnished them with tongues to utter the same." It may be, however, that Sir Christopher was only a selector of poetry for the lyre of Gibbons.
To enumerate the multitude of music-stricken individuals, who, during this period, were occupied in procuring and collecting lyric poetry for professional purposes, would fill a volume. Among the most indefatigable, may be mentioned John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, John Dowland and Robert Jones; "The Musicall Dream," 1609, and "The Muse's Gardin of Delights," 1610, by the last of these gentlemen, were held in great esteem.
We cannot close this subject, indeed, without acknowledging our obligations to this numerous class for the preservation of many most beautiful specimens of lyric poetry, which, it is highly probable, without their care and accompaniments, would either not have existed, or would have perished prematurely.[733:A]
As a further elucidation of the Poetical Literature of this period, and with the view of condensing its retrospect, by an arrangement under general heads, it may prove satisfactory, if we briefly throw into classes, the names of those poets who may be considered as having given ornament or extension to their art. The following divisions, it is expected, will include all that, in this place, it can now be necessary to notice.
We have thus, in as short a compass as the nature of the subject would admit, given, we trust, a more accurate view of the poetry of the Shakspearean era, as it existed independent of the Drama, than has hitherto been attempted.
That Shakspeare was an assiduous reader of English Poetry; that he studied with peculiar interest and attention his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, there is abundant reason to conclude from a careful perusal of his volume of miscellaneous poetry, which is modelled on a strict adherence to the taste which prevailed at the opening of his career. The collection, indeed, may, with no impropriety, be classed under the two divisions of Historic and Lyric poetry; the former concluding "Venus and Adonis," and the "Rape of Lucrece," and the latter the "Sonnets," the "Passionate Pilgrim," and the "Lover's Complaint."
The great models of Historic poetry, during the prior portion of Shakspeare's life, were the "Mirror for Magistrates" and "Warner's Albion's England;" but for the mythological story of Venus and Adonis, though deviating in several important circumstances from its prototype, we are probably indebted to Golding's Ovid; and for the Rape of Lucrece and the structure of the stanza in which it is composed, to the reputation and the metre of the Rosamond of Daniel, printed in 1592. For the Sonnets, he had numerous examples in the productions of Spenser, Sidney, Watson, and Constable; and, through the wide field of amatory lyric composition, excellence of almost every kind, in the form of ode, madrigal, and song, might be traced in the varied effusions of Gascoigne, Greene and Raleigh, Breton and Lodge.
How far our great bard exceeded, or fell beneath, the models which he possessed; in what degree he was independent of their influence, and to what portion of estimation his miscellaneous poetry is justly entitled, will be the subjects of the next chapter, in which we shall venture to assign to these efforts of his early days a higher rank in the scale of excellence than it has hitherto been their fate to obtain.
FOOTNOTES:
[596:A] Preface to Gondibert. Vide Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 351.
[597:A] Headley's Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i. Introduction, p. 19. edit. 1810.
[602:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 4.
[602:B] Act ii.
[603:A] Vol. ix. p. 163.
[603:B] Arte of English Poesie, reprint of 1811. p. 49.
[603:C] Vide Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 47.
[603:D] Percy's Reliques, vol. iii. p. 62.
[603:E] Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. ii. p. 240.
[603:F] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. pp. 159. 161.
[603:G] Shaw's Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 442. Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 143.
[603:H] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 268. col. 2.
[604:A] Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books, vol. vi. p. 58. et seq.
[604:B] It is sufficient praise, however, to remark, that Milton, both in his L'Allegro and his Lycidas, is under many obligations to our author.
[605:A] We are told by Prince, in his "Worthies of Devonshire," that as Browne "had honoured his country with his sweet and elegant Pastorals, so it was expected, and he also entreated a little farther to grace it by his drawing out the line of his poetic ancestors, beginning in Joseph Iscanus, and ending in himself." Had this design been executed, how much more full and curious had our information been with regard to Shakspeare and his contemporaries, and how much is it to be lamented that so noble a scheme was relinquished.
Since these critical notices were written, Sir Egerton Brydges has favoured the world with some hitherto unpublished poems of Browne; productions which not only support the opinions given in the text, but which tend very considerably to heighten our estimation of the genius and imagination of this fine old bard.
[606:A] Muses Library, 1741. p. 315.
[606:B] Bagster's edit. 1808. p. 156. 276.
[607:A] Muses Library, pp. 317. 319. 327.
[607:B] See Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 83. Ritson has erroneously dated this publication 1598.
[608:A] Vide Pope's Preface to the Iliad; and Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 442, 443.
[609:A] In his "Challenge," he tells us, that his first publication was "a book named Davie Dicars Dream, in King Edward's daies."
[609:B] This publication, which was likewise called "A Musicall Consort of heavenly Harmonie," is not mentioned by Ritson.
[609:C] Vide Bibliographia Poetica, p. 169.
[610:A] Vide Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i.; and Winwood's Memor. vol. ii. p. 36.
[610:B] Underwood's edit. of 1640, folio, p. 196.
[610:C] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49. col. 1.
[610:D] Brydge's Theatrum Poetarum, p. 268.
[610:E] Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 14.
[610:F] Origin of the English Drama, vol. iii. p. 212.
[610:G] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 292. note.
[610:H] Todd's Milton, 2d. edit. vol. vi. p. 439.
[612:A] Percy's Reliques, vol. i. p. 328.
[612:B] Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. iii. p. 167. note.
[612:C] Thus Drayton speaks of him as
and Bolton describes his works as containing "somewhat a flat, but yet withal a very pure and copious English, and words as warrantable as any man's, and fitter perhaps for prose than measure."
[613:A] Brydges's Theatrum Poetarum, p. 273.
[614:A] Vide Bagster's edit. p. 128.
[618:A] Lord Woodhouslee, speaking of our author's poem entitled, Forth Feasting, observes that it "attracted the envy as well as the praise of Ben Jonson, is superior, in harmony of numbers, to any of the compositions of the contemporary poets of England; and is, in its subject, one of the most elegant panegyrics that ever were addressed by a poet to a prince."—Life of Lord Kaimes.
[618:B] Theatrum Poetarum, p. 195. original edition.
[619:A] Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the translation of Mr. Hoole would entirely supersede the labours of Fairefax. With no discriminating judge of poetry, however, will this ever be the case; there is a lameness and mediocrity in the version of Mr. Hoole, which must always place it far beneath the spirited copy of the elder bard. Had Mr. Brookes completed the Jerusalem with the same harmony and vigour which he has exhibited in the first three books, a desideratum in English literature had been supplied, and the immortal poem of Tasso had appeared clothed in diction and numbers worthy of the most polished era of our poetry.
[620:A] Muses Library, 1741. p. 363.
[620:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 295. col. 2.
[621:A] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 53.
[621:B] Vide British Bibliographer, No. VII. p. 118.
[622:A] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 79. col. 2.
[622:B] Ibid. vol. vi. p. 81.
[624:A] Whetstone published a pamphlet, entitled, "A Remembrance of the wel imployed life and godly end of George Gaskoigne Esquire, who deceased at Stalmford in Lincolne Shire, the 7th of October 1577. The reporte of George Whetstone Gent. an eye witness of his Godly and charitable end in this world. Formæ nulla Fides. Imprinted At London for Edward Aggas, dwelling in Pauls Churchyard and are there to be solde." "Since the antiquities of poetry," observes Mr. Chalmers, "have become a favourite study, many painful inquiries have been made after this tract, but it could not be found in Tanner's Library, which forms part of the Bodleian, or in any other collection, private or public, and doubts were entertained whether such a pamphlet had ever existed. About three years ago, however, it was discovered in the collection of a deceased gentleman, a Mr. Voight, of the Custom-house, London, and was purchased at his sale by Mr. Malone. It consists of about thirteen pages small quarto, black letter, and contains, certainly not much life, but some particulars unknown to his biographers."—English Poets, vol. ii. p. 447, 448.
[624:B] For further particulars of his life see Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 447. et seq., Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 110., and British Bibliographer, vol. i. 73.
[625:A] Gratulationes Valdinenses, edit. Binneman, 1578, 4to. lib. iv. p. 22.
[625:B] In his Dedication prefixed to his Translation of Ten Books of Homer.
[625:C] In his Address to Gentlemen Students, prefixed to Green's Arcadia.
[625:D] Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586.
[625:E] Arte of Poesie, 1589, reprint, p. 51.
[626:A] Todd's Spenser, vol. i. p. 191. Glosse to November.
[626:B] Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 455.
[626:C] Observations on the Fairy Queen, vol. ii. p. 168.
[626:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 144. note 4.
[627:A] Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 191. et seq.; and vol. vi. p. 1. 21.
[627:B] The reprint which has just appeared of our author's Philomela, is a proof, however, that his prose was occasionally the medium of sound instruction; for the moral of this piece is unexceptionable. We may also remark, that the confessions wrung from him in the hour of repentance are highly monitory, and calculated to make the most powerful and salutary impression.
[628:A] Mason's Gray, p. 224.
[629:A] Vide Chalmers's English Poets, vol. v. p. 226.
[629:B] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 485.
[630:A] Nugæ Antiquæ, apud Park, vol. i. p. xxii.
[630:B] This writer terms Sir John "one of the most ingenious poets of our English nation," and says "he was a Poet in all things, save in his wealth, leaving a fair estate to a learned and religious son."—Worthies, part iii. p. 28.
[630:C] They were also annexed to the third edition of the Translation of "Orlando Furioso," fol. 1634.
[630:D] The popularity of these epigrams, notwithstanding their poetical mediocrity, may be estimated from the opinion of the publisher of the edition of 1625. "If in poetry," he remarks, "heraldry were admitted, he would be found in happiness of wit near allied to the great Sidney: yet but near; for the Apix of the Cœlum Empyrium is not more inaccessible, than is the height of Sidney's poesy, which by imagination we may approach, by imitation never attain to."—Dedication to George Villiers Duke of Buckingham.
A subsequent writer has also gifted them with extraordinary longevity:—
Beedome's Poems, 1641.
Vide Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. xxiii.
[632:A] Edition of 1800, by Sir Egerton Brydges, p. 197, 198.
[632:B] Vide Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. ii. p. 114.
[632:C] Ibid. p. 115.
[633:A] Vide Beloe on Scarce Books, vol. ii. pp. 115-117.
[633:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 3.
[635:A] British Bibliographer, No. 11. Preface to England's Helicon, pp. 6, 7.
[635:B] Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 287. edit. 1782.
[635:C] Vol. ii. p. 159. et seq.
[635:D] Phillips's Theatrum apud Brydges, p. 199.
[636:A] Theatrum Poetarum, edit. of 1800, p. 113.
[636:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 318. Act iii. sc. 2.
[637:A] Miscellaneous Pieces of Antient English Poesie, preface.
[637:B] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49.
[637:C] Affaniæ, lib. ii. Ad Johannem Marstonium.
[638:A] British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 363.
[639:A] Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. col. 402.
[639:B] "The Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh: now first collected. With a Biographical and Critical Introduction:" Dedicated to William Bolland, Esq.
[639:C] Phillips's Theatrum apud Brydges, p. 308, 309.
[639:D] Arte of English Poesie, reprint of 1811. p. 168.
[639:E] Phillips's Theatrum apud Brydges, p. 314, 315.
[640:A] Arte of English Poesie, reprint, p. 165. 167.
[640:B] Ibid. p. 51.
[640:C] Vide Phillips's Theatrum apud Brydges, p. 269.
[642:A] Biographical and Critical Introduction, pp. 43-46.
[642:B] The date of this nobleman's birth has been variously given: thus Ritson affirms in his Bibliographia, p. 324., he was born in 1536; and Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of the "Theatrum Poetarum," also expressly tells us, that "Sackville was not born till 1536," p. 66; but in "The British Bibliographer" he has corrected this assertion, and places his nativity in 1527, which is the true era, as he died aged 81, in 1608.
[642:C] Park's edition of Lord Orford's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. ii. p. 130.