1. in_ernet_dli_2015_164016_2015_164016_Six-Centuries-Of-English-Literature-vol-Ii

SIX

CENTURIES

OF

ENGLISH

LITERATURE

CHECKED

1936

VOLUME

II

10832

F

i

144

HENRY FIELDING

From

an

Engraving

by

William

Holl

after

a

Portrait

by

Sir

Joshua

Reynolds

1082

SIX CENTURIES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

Passages Selected from the Chief Writers and Short Biographies

BY

RICHARD FERRAR PATTERSON

M.A.(Cantab.), D.Litt.(Glas.)

Formerly Foundation Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge and Charles Oldham (University) Shakespeare Scholar

VOLUME II

LYLY TO SHIRLEY

With Introductory Essay by

PETER ALEXANDER, M.A.

Queen Margaret Lecturer in English Glasgow University

THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

66 CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON

First

issued

in

1913

Acc.

No.

10

288

Accn.

No.

1144

NOT TO BE SOLD

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

By PETER ALEXANDER, M.A.

Page

xiii

JOHN LYLY - - - - - - - - - 1

From " Euphues " - - - - - - - - 3

From " Endimion " - - - - - - - - 5

Bird Songs - - - - - - - - - 8

Cupid and Campaspe - - - - - - - - 8

GEORGE PEELE - - - - - - - - - 9

A Sonnet - - - - - - - - - 10

From " The Araygnment of Paris " - - - - - 10

ROBERT GREENE - - - - - - - - - 15

Sephestia's Song to her Child - - - - - - 16

Doron's Description of Samela - - - - - - 17

The Shepherd's Wife's Song - - - - - - 18

From " Dorastus and Fawnia " - - - - - - 19

Greene's Death - - - - - - - - - 21

THOMAS LODGE - - - - - - - - - 23

From " Rosalynd: Euphues' Golden Legacie " - - - - 24

Rosalynde's Madrigal - - - - - - - - 26

Montanus's Sonnet - - - - - - - - 27

Rosalynde's Description - - - - - - - 28

THOMAS NASH - - - - - - - - - 29

Spring - - - - - - - - - 30

A Lament in Time of Plague - - - - - - 31

From " The Unfortunate Traveller " - - - - - 32

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE - - - - - - - - 34

The Death of Zenocrate - - - - - - - 37

Helen - - - - - - - - - 38

The Death of Faustus - - - - - - - 39

From " The Jew of Malta " - - - - - - - 41

From " Hero and Leander " - - - - - - - 42

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love - - - - - 47

v

vi

CONTENTS

THOMAS KYD

• • • The Spanish Tragedie - - -

RICHARD HAKLUYT

From " Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoverie "

WILLIAM WARNER

Albion's England - - - -

THOMAS WATSON

Passionate Centurie of Love

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

Off the Cherrie and the Slac - -

RICHARD HOOKER

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie

HENRY CONSTABLE

Of his mistresse: upon occasion of her walking in a Garden

To the Ladie Rich

Damelus Song to his Diaphenia

SIR EDWARD DYER

My Mynde to me a Kingdome is

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

The Burning Babe

New Prince, New Pome

SAMUEL DANIEL

Delia - - -

Song from " Hymen's Triumph "

To the Ladie Margaret, Countesse of Cumberland

From " A Defence of Ryme "

SIR JOHN DAVIES

From " Nosce Teipsum "

From " Orchestra "

Hymns to Astraea -

Epigrammes - -

KING JAMES VI AND I

Ane Schort Treatise, conteining some Reulis and Cautionis to be observit

and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie -

From " A Counterblaste to Tobacco "

JOSEPH HALL

Satires - - -

THOMAS DELONEY

From " The Pleasant History of Thomas of Reading "

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

From " Venus and Adonis "

From " Lucrece "

Sonnets - - -

CONTENTS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (continued)

Titania's Lullaby - - - - - - - - - 134

Balthazar's Song - - - - - - - - - 134

Feste's Song - - - - - - - - - 135

Ariel's Songs - - - - - - - - - 135

Love's Labour's Lost - - - - - - - - 136

A Midsummer-Night's Dream - - - - - - 137

Romeo and Juliet - - - - - - - - - 139

The Merchant of Venice - - - - - - - 140

Second Part of King Henry IV - - - - - 141

Julius Cæsar - - - - - - - - - - 142

Hamlet - - - - - - - - - - - 144

Othello - - - - - - - - - - - 146

King Lear - - - - - - - - - - - 147

Pericles - - - - - - - - - - - 147

The Winter's Tale - - - - - - - - - 149

The Tempest - - - - - - - - - - 151

THE SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA - - - - - 152

Arden of Feversham his True and Lamentable Tragedy - - - - 153

Sir Thomas More - - - - - - - - - 157

JOHN FLORIO - - - - - - - - - - 159

Montaigne's Essays - - - - - - - - - 160

JOHN DAVIES OF HEREFORD - - - - - - 164

Respicc Finem - - - - - - - - - - 164

THOMAS CAMPION - - - - - - - - - 166

Rose-cheeked Laura, come - - - - - - - 167

The peaceful western wind - - - - - - 167

Now winter nights enlarge - - - - - - 168

Jack and Joan they think no ill - - - - 169

What then is love but mourning? - - - - 170

Thrice toss these Oaken ashes in the air - - - 170

Her fair inflaming eyes - - - - - - 171

Kind are her answers - - - - - - - 172

When thou must home to shades of underground - 172

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow - - 172

My sweetest Lesbian let us live and love - 173

The man of life upright - - - - - - 173

Whether men do laugh or weep - - - - - 174

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING - 175

Aurora - - - - - - - - - - - 176

MICHAEL DRAYTON - - - - - - - - - 177

Idea - - - - - - - - - - - - 179

To the Cambro-Britans and their Harpe, his Ballad of Agincourt - - 180

From "Nimphidia" - - - - - - - - - 183

Polyolbion - - - - - - - - - - - 184

Vol. II.

A 3

viii

CONTENTS

GILES AND PHINEAS FLETCHER

From " Christ's Triumph after Death "

From " Venus and Anchises "

From " The Purple Island "

FRANCIS BACON, VISCOUNT ST. ALBANS

Essays

From " The New Atlantis "

JOHN DAY

From " The Parliament of Bees "

GEORGE CHAPMAN

Homer's Iliads

Homer's Odysseys

From " Bussy d'Ambois "

JOHN MARSTON

Antonio's Revenge

From " The Insatiate Countess "

From " What You Will "

THOMAS DEKKER

Old Fortunatus

The Gull's Hornbook

Content

Lullaby

THOMAS HEYWOOD

From " A Woman killed with Kindness "

Pack, Clouds, Away

FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER

Song from " The Maid's Tragedy "

From " The Two Noble Kinsmen "

Invocation to Sleep

From " The Queen of Corinth "

From " The Nice Valour "

Philaster; or, Love Lies a-Bleeding

BENJAMIN JONSON

From " Every Man in his Humour "

From " Volpone " (The Fox)

Song. To Celia

Charis' Triumph

An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, a Boy-actor

Discoveries. De Shakespeare Nostrat

JOHN WEBSTER

From " The Duchess of Malfy "

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

Verses Found in His Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster

From the " History of the World "

CONTENTS

ix

WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN - - - - - 276

From " A Cypress Grove " - - - - - - 278

Madrigal: Sweet Rose, whence is this Hue - - - - 279

Flowers of Sion, 5 - - - - - - 280

Madrigal: My Thoughts hold mortal Strife - - - - 280

Sonnet - - - - - - - - 280

GEORGE WITHER - - - - - - - - 281

The Lover's Resolution - - - - - - - 282

WILLIAM BROWNE OF TAVISTOCK - - - - - - 284

Britannia's Pastorals - - - - - - - 285

SIR HENRY WOTTON - - - - - - - - 287

On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia - - - - 288

The Character of a Happy Life - - - - - 288

Upon the Death of Sir Albertus Morton's Wife - - - 289

RICHARD CORBET - - - - - - - - 289

Fairies Farewell - - - - - - - - 290

JOHN DONNE - - - - - - - - - 292

The Sun Rising - - - - - - - - 294

Song: Go, and catch a falling star - - - - - 295

The Undertaking - - - - - - - - 295

The Canonization - - - - - - - - 296

Song: Sweetest love, I do not go - - - - - 297

From the "Sermons " - - - - - - - - 298

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY - - - - - - - - 301

From " Characters " - - - - - - - - 302

OWEN FELLTHAM - - - - - - - - - 304

From " Resolves " - - - - - - - - 305

THOMAS MIDDLETON - - - - - - - - 306

From " The Changeling " - - - - - - - 307

PHILIP MASSINGER - - - - - - - - 315

From " A New Way to pay Old Debts " - - - - 316

From " The Picture " - - - - - - - - 319

From " The Virgin Martyr " - - - - - - - 321

CYRIL TOURNEUR - - - - - - - - - 323

From " The Revenger's Tragedy " - - - - - - 324

ROBERT BURTON - - - - - - - - - 325

From " The Anatomy of Melancholy " - - - - - 326

LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY - - - - - - - 332

From the " Autobiography " - - - - - - - 333

JOHN EARLE - - - - - - - - - 337

From " Microcosmographie " - - - - - - - 337

X

CON'TEN'TS

JOHN SELDEN - - - - From "Table-Talk" - - -

WILLIAM PRYNNE - - - - From "Histrio-Mastix" - - -

THOMAS RANDOLPH - - - - From "The Muses' Looking-Glasse" -

JOHN FORD - - - - - From "The Broken Heart" - -

JAMES SHIRLEY - - - - From "The Lady of Pleasure"

A Dirge - - - - -

APPENDIX - - - - - -

LIST OF AUTHORS - - - - - -

LIST OF PLATES

Shakespeare (from the Bust on his Tomb) - - - - Frontispiece

Shakespeare's Birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon - - - - 116

The First Page of the First Folio (1623) of "Hamlet" - - 126

The First Page of the Fourth Quarto (1611) of "Hamlet" - 144

Reduced Facsimile showing Hand D in "Sir Thomas More" - 158

Ben Jonson - - - - - - - - - - 252

Sir Walter Raleigh - - - - - - - - - 272

John Donne - - - - - - - - - - 292

INTRODUCTION

By PETER ALEXANDER, M.A.

Queen Margaret Lecturer in English, Glasgow University

In the last scene of his last play Shakespeare had an opportunity, which was perhaps one of the attractions the subject had for him, of reviewing the age in which he himself lived and worked: for Henry VIII brings the story of the struggle between the descendants of Edward III begun in Richard II and continued through all its vicissitudes in Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, and Richard III to its triumphant conclusion in the glories of the poet's own day.

These are not indeed directly presented on the stage, but celebrated, though with no breach of dramatic propriety, in a manner that allows of the intermixture of a strong colouring of the poet's own private feelings as an actor in the events he describes.

When Cranmer christens the royal infant Elizabeth, we have foretold enthusiastically, it is true, but truthfully, for he is represented as divinely inspired, her glorious future:

She shall be lov'd and fear'd; her own shall bless her;

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,

And hang their heads with sorrow; good grows with her.

In her days every man shall eat in safety

Under his own vine what he plants; and sing

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.

God shall be truly known; and those about her

From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,

And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.

These fine lines have sometimes been dismissed as mere sycophancy unworthy of Shakespeare, but they were written at least ten years after Elizabeth's death in the reign of a successor who did not love to hear her praises, and there is no doubt they represent substantially

xiii

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INTRODUCTION

the views on this period of one of the most representative Englishmen

of his own as well as of all time.

In nothing was Shakespeare more representative of Elizabethan

England than in the Nationalism which finds expression in this praise

of the dead Qucen. The enthusiastic protestations by his contemporaries

of their loyalty have often, like his own words, been censured

as flattery. Elizabeth was, of course, like all rulers before or since,

the object of such abuse. It must be remembered, however, that

the part the sovereign then played in government was still a very

personal one: the ruler was intimately involved in every national

and constitutional dispute. He now stands above and beyond all

such controversy. Different times and conditions dictate a different

language, and references to the sovereign that might now be rightly

considered too personal and familiar could well in Elizabeth's time

be the honest expression of an ardent and sincere patriotism. And

the Queen herself had by her wisdom and firm conduct made such

personal praise a natural vehicle for the aspirations of lovers of their

country. To a petition of the Commons at the beginning of her

reign concerning her marriage, she had replied: "I have already

joined myself in marriage to an Husband, the Kingdom of England."

And when her long reign was over the promise of this early

hour that they "had no need to doubt of a Successor" was made

good in the quiet and orderly settlement of the succession. Shake-

speare could not omit without the gravest impropriety to follow his

praise of Elizabeth by celebrating the glory of the reigning monarch:

So shall she leave her blessedness to one,

When heauen shall call her from this cloud of darknes,

Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour,

Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,

And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, loue, truth, terror,

That were the servants to this chosen infant,

Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,

His honour and the greatness of his name

Shall be, and make new nations.

But it was Elizabeth's labour and devotion that had made this

continuation possible, and those who were, like Shakespeare, aware

of the blessings of good government did not forget to honour her

for it.

INTRODUCTION

xv

The reigns of Elizabeth and James, while providing sufficient adventure and excitement to occupy restless and emulous spirits,

also afforded a peaceful period between the confusion attending the establishment of National Independence under a strong central government and the disturbances of the subsequent struggle for

the fuller enjoyment of the religious and civil liberty which National Independence alone made possible. Though Shakespeare has

nothing to say of the struggle to come, his historical reading made him recognize with gratitude the respite his country then enjoyed

from civil distraction. All through his Histories his preoccupation with his country's welfare comes to the surface, as in the magnificent

Ballade which concludes:

Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthynesse,

And wed thy folk ageyn to steadfastnesse,

Shakespeare's Histories are a perpetual call to steadfastness, and whenever he deals with politics, whether in his Histories or Tragedies,

he never wearies of urging, through the mouths of his most sagacious characters, that observance of order and degree in the management

of the affairs of state so necessary for the general weal. He would have agreed with Cromwell: "A nobleman, a gentleman, a

yeoman--that is a good interest of the Nation." The speech from Sir Thomas More included in the selections which follow can be

assigned to him, one may say with certainty, for many reasons, but particularly for this, that it summarizes in the most pregnant

manner the views expressed elsewhere by Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, and the Histories, voicing the conviction that

the people have no interest and no advantage in domestic confusion and misrule. It is significant that the occasion of this plea for law

and order by More was the injury done the Flemings by the London mob, and that it is a plea for forbearance and good will among

different peoples. The Nationalism of Shakespeare and his contemporaries was no gospel of hate or envy--it was the patriot Sidney

who spoke of "that sweet enemy--France"--but the expression of that passion for freedom which no good man loses, as the Scot-

tish estates told the Pope in the fourteenth century, save with his life.

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INTRODUCTION

Shakespeare's Histories are apt to be regarded as a by-product

of his art, but they are only a small portion of the pieces on such

themes that filled the theatres especially in his earlier days. Not

many except his have come down to us, but they reveal the spirit

of the time, and should be read in conjunction with the Chronicles

that inspired them. The Elizabethans were keenly interested in their

country's story, and this enthusiasm nourished and was itself the

outcome of their vigorous Nationalism.

The effects of this national disposition are seen in all the activities

of the time, whether practical or poetical. "The outermost and

all-embracing circle of benevolence," says W orde worth, speaking

of the relation between the public and private duties of the individual,

"has inward concentric circles which, like those of the

spider's web, are bound together by links, and rest upon each other;

making one frame and capable of one tremor; circles narrower and

narrower, closer and closer, as they lie more near to the centre of

self from which they proceeded, and which maintains the whole.

The order of life does not require that the sublime and disinterested

feelings should have to trust long to their own unaided power."

The national enthusiasm was felt throughout the whole frame of

Elizabethan life. It finds expression in the words of Sidney, who,

treating of the war in the Netherlands against Philip the Second,

wrote: "If her Majesty were the fountain, I would fear, considering

what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means

whom God useth. And I know not whether I am deceived; but I

am fully persuaded, that, if she shold withdraw herself, other springs

would rise to help this action. For, methinks, I see the great work

indeed in hand against the abusers of the world; wherein it is no

greater fault to have confidence in man's power, than it is too hastily

to despair of God's work." This is the consecration of the national

spirit in the service of what Milton called the "free and heaven born

spirit of man. At his untimely death the nation rightly felt it had lost

a devoted son. But the spirit of the time also walked as it did in the

Arcadia in less sublime paths. It refreshes itself among the woods

and by the rivers of its own beloved land. Drayton's Polyolbion,

a poetical and, to use Camden's term, "chorographical" description

of England in thirty songs or books, with its blending of historical

and antiquarian lore with poetic fervour, is a peculiarly Elizabethan

and the interests of antiquaries and descriptive poets are a hundred

activities quickened by a love of country. In their sea ventures,

where motives were so mixed, where gold was the excuse men fre-

quently offered to themselves and to others to give some show of

rationality to their almost incredible thirst for adventure, scorn of

the Spaniard and his restrictions found expression in a national

pride that sanctioned and encouraged their traffickings. Hakluyt

lectured at Oxford on cosmography, but his Navigations are not

merely the collections of a geographer, but of an Englishman who

celebrates the daring and endurance of his fellow-countrymen.

Such a national temper inevitably gives even to the humbler

sort a sense of individuality and worth. Of the political and civil

rights which we now boast of they had few or none; for what would

the present generation say to compulsory church going? but there

can seldom have lived a generation of men so conscious of the native

freedom of the spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that drama is

so important a part of the literature of the age. "This is the form

of art which as no other can shows you the living, breathing man."

It presents the individual concretely, in action, where sympathy is

not the outcome of a lengthy process of recondite analysis but the

intuitive resultant of

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.

To interpret these sympathies or expound the art by which the poet

moves them may tax the most subtle understanding, but the drama-

tist's appeal first and last must depend on the health and vigour of

the moral sentiments of his audience. It is clear the Elizabethan

theatre-goer had many defects--as what audience has not?--but one

will have to go back to the Persian wars and the days of Aeschylus

and Sophocles to find a comparable body of spectators.

Every artist, says Wordsworth, has to create the taste by which

he is enjoyed, and the education of the Elizabethan audience in its

rapidity and completeness is not merely a tribute to the genius of

the dramatists, but to the intelligence of their pupils. For in a few

years the leading London companies were transformed from organi-

zations depending chiefly on the popularity of the clowns and the

xviii

INTRODUCTION

dexterity of their tumblers to a body of actors almost wholly given

over to interpreting the conception of the dramatist. In Hamlet we

hear the comedian being finally put in his place, his irrelevancies

suppressed, and the attention concentrated on the drama. If the

dismissal sounds somewhat summary, considering what Shakespeare

had been able to make of his clowns, we must remember that the

dramatist had no more time to spare stretching his genius to utilize

this dangerous ally with the more necessary questions of Othello,

Macbeth, Lear pressing for solution. Besides ample extracts from

the final achievements of this remarkable process of development,

there will be found in the following selections sufficient illustration

of the influences that contributed to the ultimate perfection.

Without attempting to retrace the growth of the dramatic com-

panies into an earlier and much more obscure period, it may be

said that drama entered on its final development when the com-

panies became able to provide some sort of living for men of educa-

tion. Though nominally the servants of the sovereign or some

nobleman, the actors made their living from the public, but aristo-

cratic influences played an important part in moulding the drama,

and in the plays of Lyly we see how this influence could operate

almost in isolation. For these plays were not written for the general

public, but to be performed by boy-actors to aristocratic patrons.

In them he assumes a classical disguise for the treatment of these

questions of deportment, and especially of the relations between

the sexes in polite and cultured society, matters that had given rise

to a literature in Italy of which he was a diligent student, and that

now interested courtly circles in England. The Greek story or

myth satisfied a craving for beauty and poetry deeply implanted in

an age whose schoolbooks were the Latin classics. Lyly was in

addition a stylist attempting to give to the prose in which he com-

posed both his Euphues and his comedies a form, elegance, and

ornament that would continually attract and hold his reader or

hearer. The influence of Lyly may be seen in such a play as Shake-

speare's Love's Labour's Lost, which, being written probably in the

first instance for some aristocratic entertainment, stands half-way

between pure court comedy and works like Twelfth Night or Much

Ado, where high comedy finds a place, and in the adventures of

Beatrice and Benedict an honoured place, on the public stage.

More influential than court comedy was school and university drama. This is modelled on the practice of the ancients, especially that of the Roman dramatists or their humanist successors. At first this sort of drama was composed in Latin, as when in 1532 the boys of St. Paul's played before Cardinal Wolsey in a Latin play composed by their headmaster. A little later these classical imitations were written in English, and became popular at schools, the Universities, and Inns of Court. Such productions were not merely the amusement of a small and uninflential clique of theatrical enthusiasts: they were taken seriously by the authorities, headmasters turning dramatists like Nicholas Udall, head of Eton and then of Westminster and now remembered as the author of Ralph Roister Doister. Seneca provided the model for tragedy, Plautus and Terence for comedy, and if most of these school works can be dismissed in the somewhat severe words of one of their critics as “ dull trash of a kind tolerated nowhere in England outside the Inns of Court and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge”, they are very important historically, and had a decisive influence on the younger generation who were now to emerge from the grammar schools and universities and capture the popular stage with compositions that reveal their schooling.

The first dramatist to graft successfully to the English stock classical tragic tradition as exemplified in Seneca was Thomas Kyd. Though not a University man he had been educated at the Merchant Taylors' school under the famous Dr. Mulcaster, who urged on his pupils, the most famous of whom was Edmund Spenser, the importance of a study of the classics as a means of disciplining and perfecting their English. Like Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Kyd's Spanish Tragedy shows traces of its origin: some quantity of Latin quotation and reference still sticks to the text like wax to the young bee. With this work he made an immediate and deep impression, old Hieronymo remaining a character in the minds of playgoers for the next fifty years. At every turn, however, he is indebted to Seneca, for though the revenge theme is common in all literatures, it is here conducted in the classical manner with the accompaniment of avenging ghost and torturing doubts, soliloquies and recriminations. But Kyd showed remarkable skill in managing the five act intrigue plot which had now become,

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INTRODUCTION

partly through the influence of Latin comedy, the standard form for

all English drama of the time. Though Kyd is not a poet, his verse

is in keeping with his theme, imitating not unsuccessfully at times

the gnomic turn of Seneca,

They reck no laws that meditate revenge.

Evil news fly faster still than good.

And here and there occurs a phrase that must have lingered in

Shakespeare's memory to emerge transformed perhaps, but revealing

the original brightness that may lurk obscurely in Kyd's dialogue.

Marlowe had none of Kyd's skill in construction, and some

simpler and more archaic form than the five act intrigue plot would

perhaps have better suited his genius, but he carried the day with

his poetry and rhetoric. "What gave the theatre its sudden and

direct hold on the people," says Mr. Granville Barker, "was the

newly arisen art of emotional acting demanded by the rising drama-

tists." This was obviously required by Kyd, and Marlowe's verse

gave the actor another form of this opportunity. If Tarleton and

Kempe carry on the older tradition of clowning, Alleyn and Burbage

are the products of this new school: the tragedians were to fall heir

to the popularity of the clowns. No doubt there is too much of the

drum and fife in Tamburlaine to satisfy the seeker for perfection,

but there is a genuine note of aspiration and power. And beside

the domination of the verse is the domination of the figure he selects

as his protagonist. There is no one in his earlier plays but Tambur-

laine and Faustus. They may be far from consistent and natural in

the details of their doings, but there is a fundamental consistency

about them that gave them their strong appeal. They represent in

their impossible longings and desires something permanent in human

nature, and they only fail to do justice to theme because of the

material aims in which their energies are dissipated. Faustus has

nothing to do in the middle of the play but a few childish conjuring

tricks. "The discovery," to quote again from Mr. Granville Barker,

"which turned Shakespeare from a good dramatist into a great one

was that the outward clashing of character is poor material beside

the ferment in the spirit of man, confined by law, or custom, or

inherited belief, or metted round by alien circumstances or wills

but quickening in their despite." The ferment in the spirit, however,

is the leaven in all Marlowe's best work. Tamburlaine seems at war

with mortality itself; and Faustus would venture on the dark unex-

plored seas beyond the safe shores of human knowledge. What

makes Shakespeare's later heroes so much more tragic than Mar-

lowe's youthful supermen is their greater humanity: they cannot

stand

As if a man were author of himself

And owed no other kin.

There is a consequent rending of heartstrings of which the other's

creations know nothing.

Marlowe is typical of his age in the force of his personality. He

was sufficiently like his works to be dressed in the legend they

suggested of one inspired like his own Faustus by familiars from

another world. In his dramas the individuality of the age finds ex-

pression forcing its way on to the stage, and animating its puppets

till they become in the hands of his greater contemporary

Forms more real than living man,

Nurslings of immortality.

Shakespeare began, like Kyd and Marlowe, with classical models

steadily in view. Venus and Adonis, which no student can explain

away as the work of another, owes much to Ovid, the Comedy of

Errors is adapted from two plays by Plautus, and Titus Andronicus

is a Senecan revenge tragedy culminating in a situation of horror,

the serving of children to their parent, borrowed from the Thyestes.

This tragedy has often been attributed to other hands in spite of

clear contemporary evidence that it is by Shakespeare himself.

Some think that he had not sufficient Latin to write it, others that

he had too much taste. The first view arises from the opinion,

propagated in the eighteenth century, that he was born in an

illiterate age in an obscure provincial town where the inhabitants

were sunk in ignorance. Such an opinion has no historical justifi-

cation, Elizabethan England being well provided with schools of

excellent quality. Nor were the majority of these schools recent

creations, and some even dated from Anglo-Saxon times. The

grammar school at Stratford was, like many others, refounded in the

reign of Edward VI, but with the money confiscated under the

Chantrics Act that had previously been devoted to education.

There was a school in Stratford as early as the end of the thirteenth

xxii

INTRODUCTION

century. Modern historians of education are unanimous in finding

a keen desire for education and ample provision for it in Shake-

speare's day. One illustration must suffice. Professor John W.

Adamson instances as typical of the time that there were forty-seven

schools or centres of instruction preparing for the university spread

over Essex before 1600: to-day Essex has thirty-four secondary

schools, nearly all on the border of or in the London area. A boy

educated at Stratford grammar school might well have the classical

reading disclosed by Titus Andronicus. Kyd had no more than a

grammar-school training. And that Shakespeare would not present

such Senecan situations as are found in Titus Andronicus is a view that

overlooks the fact that Seneca was among the educated the accepted

model for tragedy. If mere taste were to decide what is Shake-

speare's and what is not, there would be many voices against the

inclusion of Venus and Adonis in Shakespeare's works.

From the first Shakespeare is a more skilful dramatist than

Marlowe, handling the intrigue plot as in The Comedy of Errors or

The Taming of the Shrew with obvious skill. His versification is

more fluid, his characterization more natural. He had a genius for

comedy as Marlowe had not, and this culminates in his first great

creation, Falstaff. With Hamlet following so close on Falstaff we

have the best evidence of the reach and profundity of his genius.

This only matured after a long and arduous period of self-training

in the materials at his disposal. His principal resource, fortunately

for us, was his poetry. This at the beginning is often little more than

an embroidery on the theme and deliberately poetical: it always

remains poetical, but between the poetry of Richard II and the poetry

of Macbeth there is a world of difference. It is now strictly relevant

to the matter in hand, and without any loss of unity as a whole

marks off character from character with perfect clearness. The

The setting sun and music at the close

can almost dispense with its context, but Lear's

Never, never, never, never, never

is not to be taken from the play in which it stands. The poetry of

the mature work has to convey to our intelligence as clearly as

possible a complicated story, but it must also take the imagination

behind all this by the thousand suggestions that lurk in its rhythms

and imagery into the inner world of mind and conscience which is

now the subject-matter of his art. It is impossible to exhaust the

variety and interest of his poetry.

In Shakespeare, of course, the work of the period finds its cul-

mination, but beside him is a wonderful array of writers: Jonson

and Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ford, Heywood,

are but a few of his contemporaries and successors. Though none

has the master's rare combination of talents, each has something

valuable, and a few are men of real genius. It is impossible to read

the novels of to-day and yesterday, including the Russians, with

any vitality in the characters, without being reminded of situations

and lines in the Elizabethans. And if the novel may have this advan-

tage for the ordinary reader that it is fuller and more obvious in its

exposition of character, the Elizabethans have all the advantage in

the concision and poetic force of their treatment.

It has sometimes been urged in criticism of the Elizabethan

drama that it is too secular, and misses by its neglect of religion those

last sublimities to which the mind can be carried only by faith.

With such a view in mind, one must turn to another side of the

literature of the period. Sermons were as popular as plays and

came in greater quantities from the press. The Diary of John

Manningham, it has been pointed out, records in the space of some

sixteen months the substance of more than forty sermons. Manning-

ham was a playgoer and disliked Puritans, nor is he singular in his

interests. Those, therefore, who wish to take a comprehensive glance

over the period should not neglect to read some sermons, including

those of Henry Smith, Hooker, and Donne. But neither on the

abundance nor on the quality of its sermons need the age rely for

a vindication of its spiritual interests.

The Renaissance has often been represented as the enemy of

the Reformation, but without the learning and scholarly interest

of the Renaissance the Reformation could not have made its most

valuable gift to the people, the Bible in a language they could read.

In the Exhortation which he prefixed to his edition of the Greek

New Testament (1516) Erasmus expressed himself on the reading

of Scripture as follows:

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

" I would desire that all women should read the Gospel and Paul's

epistles: and I would to God that they were translated into the tongues of

all men. So that they might not only be read, and known of the Scots and

Irishmen, but also of the Turks and Saracens."

At the time when Erasmus expressed this wish " candidates for the

priesthood were forbidden by order of Convocation to translate any

part of the Scriptures, or to read them without the authority of the

bishop, an authority which was seldom granted ". Tyndale was the

first to make the wish of Erasmus a reality. In defying an ignorant

churchman he had declared, " if God spare my life, ere many years

I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the

Scriptures than thou doest ". And his New Testament ( 1526 ) and

Pentateuch ( 1530 ) are the basis of the English Bible we know to

day; and even after the revision of 1881 " eighty per cent of the

words in the Revised New Testament stand as they stood in Tyndale's revised version of 1534 ".

The seed found a fertile soil in England. Sir Thomas More

reckoned that more than half the population were able enough to

read if not to profit by the English version. He foresaw, however,

the misuse of the work, the wrangling over doctrine and ceremony,

and all the terrible wrong-headedness that would no longer be con-

fined to the clergy and educated laity. He could not persuade himself

that the wheat would not be choked by the tares. A Royal Proclamation ( 1538 ) forbidding the reading of Scripture glances at such

abuses, noting that many of the King's " loving but simple subjects

were induced arrogantly and superstitiously to dispute in open

places and taverns upon baptism and upon the holy sacrament of

the altar, not only to their own slander, but to the reproach of the

whole realm and his grace's high discontentation and displeasure ".

But Foxe's Book of Martyrs, an indispensable document for the

understanding of the age, shows how earnestly it was studied; this

entry, however, in a volume of the reign of Henry VIII must suffice

here to illustrate the enthusiasm of the ordinary man for the English

Bible:

" When I kept Mr. Latimer's sheep, I bought this book, when the

Testament was abrogated, that shepherds might not read it. I pray God

amend that blindness. Writ by Robert Williams, keeping sheep upon

Sainbury Hill."

INTRODUCTION

The Bible has become an English book as it has not become the

book of any other people into whose language it has been translated.

This would not have been possible but for some strong sympathy

in the English for its matter. Yet here is contained the genius and

spirit of Religion, and the Authorized Version of 1611, which closed

for more than two centuries the attempt to make the Bible as English

as possible, was the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries. One

cannot readily believe that the literature of such a generation was

merely secular in spirit.

And indeed such a judgment is only possible when we confuse

religious feeling with ecclesiastical ceremony. The Anglican settle-

ment has often been sneered at as the off-spring of Henry VIII's

desire for Anne Boleyn, but it was made possible and in the end

inevitable by deeper forces than the caprice of the King. No doubt

it was a compromise, but it allowed sensible men for a space at least

to be free from worry about the external and political aspects of

their belief, and to give their most earnest thoughts to those inward

matters which are the material for literature as well as the evidence

and test of faith. Of Shakespeare's religious politics we have satis-

factory evidence in King John as in his Nationalism and whole

attitude of mind, but Newman was able to count him among the

most truly Catholic of the poets. There is no attempt to translate

into the perishable language of ritual or creed the truths of the

heart, no distortion of vision to accommodate some belief, but the

voice of free humanity uncontrolled either by priest or presbyter,

and not needing even to protest at their interference. Yet there is

no indifference or idle scepticism, and in this Shakespeare is only

once again the representative of his age. As a commentary on his

own words, "God shall be truly known", may stand some sentences

which the Spanish humanist Sr. Miguel de Unamuno has addressed

to Don Quixote's squire, and which may be transferred to the

Elizabethan audience, the Sancho Panza without whom the drama-

tist cannot carry through his high adventure:

"Thine, Sancho, is genuine faith, not the so-called 'faith of the char-

coal-burner', who affirms that to be true which is printed in a book he has

never read because he cannot read, and who furthermore does not know

what the book says."

If there is in the best Elizabethan work what we in our com-

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

placency call “ a modern note ”, a view detached from the restric-

tion of creed and the limitation of knowledge, it is not because of

lack of seriousness, but because it has for the moment by the in-

tensity of its imaginative energy found a way to what lies beneath

and animates both science and religion.

With the passing of the national impulse and the break-up of the

unity of the country comes a change in its literature, but the legacy

of this happy moment can be enjoyed in part at least and in some

measure estimated in the following pages.

LYLY

TO

SHIRLEY

c.

1590

—

c.

1640

SIX CENTURIES OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE

JOHN LYLY

(? 1554 · 1606)

John Lyly was a " man of Kent ",

and was born in 1553 or 1554. He

was educated at Magdalen College,

Oxford, where he graduated B.A.

in 1573 and M.A. in 1575. When

a young man of twenty-five, he

leapt into sudden fame by publishing his prose romance, Euphues or

the Anatomie of Wit. This book

was immensely popular, and for

more than a decade exercised a

potent influence not only over

literature but over polite conver-

sation. The exact nature of

euphuism, as the jargon of Lyly's

book came to be called, has been

sometimes misinterpreted. Sir

Walter Scott is in part responsible

for this, as Sir Piercie Shafton, who

is represented in The Monastery as

a euphuist, is a vain and fantastical

fop, but not a euphuist in the proper

sense of that word. The chief

characteristics of euphuism are:

(1) " a sweet profusion of soft

allusion " to the classics, especially

to classical mythology; (2) refer-

ences to unnatural natural history,

mostly derived from Pliny (Lyly

Vol. II.

1

not only mentions " Beasts which

Buffon never knew ", but attributes

extraordinary qualities and habits

to well-known beasts); (3) allitera-

tion, or affecting the letter; (4)

antithetical arrangement of words;

(5) puns; and (6) epigrams. Lyly's

style took the polite world by

storm; he followed up his success

by writing a sequel to his novel,

entitled Euphues and his England

and published in 1580. Both novels

are thin as regards plot; the author

devoted all his energies to clabo-

rating his fantastic but by no means

despicable style. Like many works

which have been extravagantly

praised on their first appearance,

Lyly's two novels have been unduly

depreciated by many later genera-

tions. He was something of a

philosopher and moralist as well as

a courtier, and his books may be

enjoyed for their sound moralizings

as well as for the elaborate style

which has gained for them a limited

immortality in examination-papers.

Lyly's other non-dramatic work

consists of a contribution (which is

25

2

JOHN LYLY

denied to him by some critics) to

the Martin Marprelate controversy,

a controversy which produced a

legion of pamphlets but no litera-

ture.

Lyly cherished the ambition--of be-

ing Master of the Revels. He

was "entertained as servant" by

the queen about 1580, and wrote

in all eight comedies between 1579

and 1590. His plays were all

written for performance at court by

the Chapel Children and the Paul's

Boys; hence they stand rather

apart from other Elizabethan plays.

They are written in a delicate and

trifling vein, their charm lies in

their dialogue rather than their

plot, and they are designed to

appeal to a highly cultured audi-

ence. They are caviare to the

general; the groundlings of the

Globe would have found them

unintelligible and insipid. It is not

easy to ascertain their dates with

accuracy, but their names and

approximate dates are Endimion

(1579), Sapho and Phao (1582),

Alexander and Campaspe (1583),

Gallathea (1584), Mydas (1588),

Mother Bombie (1589), Love's Meta-

morphosis (1590), and The Woman

in the Moone (1590). They are all,

except The Woman in the Moone,

written in prose, not in blank verse

nor in doggerel. With one excep-

tion, Mother Bombie, which follows

the Plautine tradition, they are all

mythological and fanciful come-

dies. The best of them are perhaps

Endimion and Alexander and Cam-

paspe. Many of them have been

interpreted as containing veiled

references to contemporary history;

this method of interpretation, which

is absurd or almost invariably so

when applied to public plays, is not

unreasonable when applied to these

court shows. Lyly's comedies are

high comedies; they arouse what

George Meredith said a comedy should

arouse thoughtful laughter. His

prose is the work of a literary

artist; he freely introduced into his

plays lyrics of the most charming

kind, delightful in themselves and

in keeping with the situation.

These lyrics did not appear in type

until the collective edition of 1632,

but there is no need to deny that

they are at any rate the bulk of

them Lyly's work. His plots are

negligible; he saw men not clearly

but as trees walking; but his great

gifts to drama are refinement,

literary style, and the fashion of

introducing lyrics. It is not merely

the fact that he adopted prose as a

vehicle for his comedies that makes

him important. He is important

because his style, though often

conceited and fantastic, is a style,

not a mere fortuitous concourse of

words, as the compositions of some

of his predecessors tended to be.

[R. Warwick Bond, The Com-

plete Works of John Lyly; J. D.

Wilson, John Lyly; C. G. Child,

John Lyly and Euphuism; A. Feuillerat,

John Lyly.]

JOHN LYLY

3

From “Euphues”

Euphues to a young gentleman in Naples named Alcius, who leauing his study followed all lightness and liued both shame-

fully and sinfully to the griefe of his friends and discredite of the Vniuersitie.

If I should talke in words of those things which I hauc to conferre with thee in writinges certes thou wouldst blush for shame, and I weepe for sorrowe: neither could my tongue vtter that with patience which my hand can scarce write with modesty, neither could thy ears heare that without glowing which thine eyes can hardly wewe without griefe.

Ah Alcius, I cannot tel whether I should most lament in thee thy want of learning, or thy wanton lyuinge, in the one thou art inferiour to al men, in the other superior to al beasts. Insomuch as who seeth thy dul wit, and marketh thy froward will, may wel say that he neuer saw smacke of learning in thy dooings, nor sparke of relygion in thy life.

Thou onely vauntest of thy gentry, truely thou wast made a gentleman before thou knewest what honesty meant, and no more hast thou to boast of thy stocke then he who being left rich by his father dyeth a begger by his folly.

Nobilitie began in thine auncestors and endeth in thee, and the Generositie that they gayned by vertue thou hast blotted with vice.

If thou claime gentry by pedegree, practise gentlenesse by thine honesty, that as thou challengest to be noble in bloud, thou maist also proue noble by knowledge, otherwise shalt thou hang lyke a blast among the faire blossomes and lyke a staine in a peece of white Lawne.

The Rose that is catcn with the Canker is not gathered bicause it groweth on that stalke that the sweet doth, neither was Helen made a Starre, bicause shee came of that Egge with Castor, nor thou a gentleman in that thy auncestours were of nobilitie.

It is not the descent of birth but the consent of conditions that maketh Gentlemen, neither great manors but good manners that expresse the true Image of dignitie.

'There is copper coine of the stampe that gold is, yet is it not currant, there commeth poyson of the fish as wel as good oyle, yet is it not wholsome, and of man may procede an euill childe and yet no Gentleman.

For as the Wine that runneth on the lees, is not therefore to be accompted neate bicause it was drawne of the same peece. Or as the water that springeth from the fountaines head and floweth into the filthy channel is not to be called cleere bicause it came of the same streame: so neither is he that descendeth of noble parentage, if he desist from noble deedes to be esteemed a Gentleman in that he issued from the loyns of a noble sire, for that he obscurcth the parents he came off, and discrediteth his owne estate.

4

JOIN LYLY

There is no Gentleman in Athens but sorroweth to see thy behaviour

so far to disagree from thy birthe, for this say they al (which is the

chiefest note of a gentleman) that thou shouldest as well desire honestie

in thy life, as honor by thy linage: that thy nature should not averne

from thy name, that as thou by dutie wouldest be regarded for thy progenie,

so thou wouldst endeavour by deserts to be reverenced for thy pietie.

The pure Coral is chosen as wel by his vertue as his colour, a king

is known better by his courage, then his crowne, a right Gentleman is

sooner seene by the tryall of his vertue then blasing of his armes.

But I let passe thy birth, wishing thee rather with Vlysses to shew it

in workes, then with Ajax to boast of it with wordes: thy stocke shall

not be the lesse, but thy modestie the greater. Thou livest in Athens,

as the Wasp doth among Bees, rather to sting then to gather Honey,

and thou dealest with most of thy acquaintance as the Dogge doth in

the maunger, who neither suffereth the horse to eat hay, nor wil himselffe.

For thou being idle, wilt not permit any (as farre as in thee lyeth) to be

well employed. Thou art an heyre to fayre lyuing, that is nothing, if thou

be disherited of learning, for better were it to thee to inherite richesse

then riches, and far more seemly were it for thee to haue thy studie

full of bookes, then thy purse full of mony: to get good is the benelit

of Fortune, to keepe them the gift of Wisedome. As therfore thou art

to possesse them by thy fathers wil, so art thou to enterteine them by

thine owne wit.

But alas, why desirest thou to haue the renowne of thy parent,

and nothing regardest to haue his vertues? seekest thou by succeßion

to enioy thy patrimony, and by vice to obscure his pietie? wilt thou

haue the title of his honour, and no touch of his honestie? Ah Alas

remember that thou art borne not to liue after thine owne lust, but to

learne to dye, wherby thou maist liue after thy death. I haue often

heard thy father say, and that with a deepe sigh, the teares trickling downe

his gray haires, that thy mother neuer longed more to haue thee borne

when she was in trauaile, then he to haue thee dead to rid him of trouble.

And not seldome hath thy mother wished, that either hir wombe had

bene thy graue, or the ground hirs. Yea, all thy friendes with open

mouth, desire either that God will send thee grace to amend thy life,

or griefe to hasten thy death.

Thou wilt demandaund of me in what thou dost offend: and I aske

thee in what thou doest not sinne. Thou swearest thou art not contentious,

but I saye thou artc prodigall, and as much sinneth he that lavisheth

without meane, as he that hoordeth without measure. But canst thou

excuse thy selfe of vice in that thou arte not contentious? certainly more

then the murtherer would therfore be guyltlesse, bicause he is

no coyner. But why go I about to debate reason with thee when thou

hast no regard of honestie? thou I leaue heere to perswade thee, yet

will I not cease to pray for thee. In the meane season I desire thee, yea,

and in Gods name commaund thee, that if neither the care of thy parents,

whom thou shouldest comfort, nor the counsaile of thy friends which

thou shouldst credite, nor the rigour of the law which thou oughtest

to feare, nor the authoritie of the Magistrate, which thou shouldst

reuerence, can allure thee to grace: yet the law of thy Sauiour who hath

redcemed thee, and the punishment of the Almightic, who continually

threatneth thee, should draw thee to amendement, otherwisc as thou

liuest now in sinne, so shalt thou dye with shame, and remaine with

Sathan. From whom he that made thee, keepe thee.

JOHN LYLY

5

From “Endimion”

ACT IV, SCENE II

Samias. Dares. Epiton. (Three pages.)

Samias.—Will thy master never awake?

Dares.—No, I think he sleeps for a wager: but how shall we spend

the time? Sir Tophas is so far in love that he pineth in his bed, and

cometh not abroad.

Samias.—But here cometh Epi, in a pelting chafc.

Epitou.—A pox of all false proverbs, and were a proverb a page, I

would have him by the cars.

Samias.—Why art thou angry?

Epitou.—Why? you know it is said, the tide tarrieth no man.

Samias.—True.

Epitou.—A monstrous lie; for I was tied two hours, and tarried for

one to unloose me.

Dares.—Alas, poor Epi.

Epitou.—Poor? No, no, you base-conceited slaves, I am a most

complete gentleman, although I be in disgrace with Sir Tophas.

Dares.—Art thou out with him?

Epitou.—Ay, because I cannot get him a lodging with Endimion; he

would fain take a nap for forty or fifty years.

Dares.—A short sleep, considering our long life.

Samias.—Is he still in love?

Epitou.—In love? why he doth nothing but make sonnets.

Samias.—Canst thou remember any one of his poems?

Epitou.—Ay, this is one.

The beggar Love that knows not where to lodge:

At last within my heart when I slept,

He crept.

I waked, and so my fancies began to fodge.

6

JOHN LILY

Samias.—That's a very long verse.

Epitom.—Why, the other was short, the first is called from the thumb to the little finger, the second from the little finger to the elbow, and some he made to reach to the crown of his head, and down again to the sole of his foot: it is set to the tune of the black Saint, ratione, because Dipsas is a black saint.

Dares.—Very wisely, but pray thee, Epi, how art thou complete, and being from thy master what occupation wilt thou take?

Epitom.—No, my hearts, I am an absolute Microcosmus, a petty world of myself, my library is my head, for I have no other book; but my brains: my wardrobe on my back, for I have no more apparel than is on my body; my armoury at my finger ends, for I use no other artillery than my nails; my treasure in my purse. Sic omnia mea mecum porto.

Dares.—Good!

Epitom.—Now, sirs, my palace is paved with grass, and tiled with stars: for coelo tegilur qui non habet urnam, he that hath no house must lie in the yard.

Samias.—A brave resolution. But how wilt thou spend thy time?

Epitom.—Not in melancholy sort, for mine exercise I will walk horseback, Dares.

Dares.—Too bad.

Epitom.—Why, is it not said: It is good walking when one hath his horse in his hand?

Samias.—Worse, and worse, but how wilt thou live?

Epitom.—By angling; O 'tis a stately occupation to stand four hours in a cold morning, and to have his nose bitten with frost before his bait be mumbled with a fish.

Dares.—A rare attempt, but wilt thou never travel?

Epitom.—Yes, in a western barge, when with a proud wind and lusty pugs * one may go ten miles in two days.

Samias.—Thou art excellent at thy choice, but what pastime wilt thou use, none?

Epitom.—Yes, the quickest of all.

Samias.—What! dice?

Epitom.—No, when I am in haste, one and twenty games at chess to pass a few minutes.

Dares.—A life for a little lord, and full of quickness.

Epitom.—Tush, let me alone! but I must needs see if I can find where Endimion lieth; and then go to a certain fountain hard by, where they say faithful lovers shall have all things they will ask. If I can find out any of these, ego et magister meus crimus in tuto, I and my master shall be friends. He is resolved to weep some three to four pailfuls to avoid the rheum of love that wambleth in his stomach.

• Bargemen.

JOHN LYLY

(Enter the Watch)

Samias.—Shall we never see thy master, Dares?

Dares.—Yes, let us go now, for to-morrow Cynthia will be there.

Epitou.—I will go with you. But how shall we see for the Watch?

Samias.—Tush, let me alone! I'll begin to them. Masters, God speed you.

1 Watch.—Sir boy, we are all sped already.

Epitou.—So methinks, for they smell all of drink like a beggar's beard.

Dares.—But I pray, sirs, may we see Endimion?

2 Watch.—No, we are commanded in Cynthia's name that no man shall see him.

Samias.—No man? Why, we are but boys.

1 Watch.—Mass, neighbours, he says true, for if I swear I will never drink my liquor by the quart, and yet call for two pints, I think with a safe conscience I may carouse both.

Dares.—Pithily, and to the purpose.

2 Watch.—Tush, tush, neighbours, take me with you.

Samias.—This will grow hot.

Dares.—Let them alone.

2 Watch.—If I say to my wife, Wife, I will have no raisins in my pudding, she puts in currants, small raisins are raisins, and boys are men. Even as my wife should have put no raisins in my pudding, so shall there no boys see Endimion.

Dares.—Learnedly.

Epitou.—Let Master Constable speak: I think he is the wisest among you.

Master Constable.—You know, neighbours, 'tis an old said saw, Children and fools speak true.

All Say.—True.

Master Constable.—Well, there you see the men be the fools, because it is provided from the children.

Dares.—Good.

Master Constable.—Then say I, neighbours, that children must not see Endimion, because children and fools speak true.

Epitou.—O wicked application!

Samias.—Scurvily brought about!

1 Watch.—Nay, he says true, and therefore till Cynthia have been here he shall not be uncovered. Therefore away!

Dares.—A watch quoth you? a man may watch seven years for a wise word, and yet go without it. Their wits are all as rusty as their bills.

JOHN LILY

Bird Songs

What bird so sings, yet so doth wail?

O! 'tis the ravished nightingale.

"Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu!" she cries;

And still her woes at midnight rise.

Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear?

None but the lark so shrill and clear;

Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings,

The morn not waking till she sings.

Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat

Poor robin red-breast tunes his note!

Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing,

"Cuckoo," to welcome in the spring!

"Cuckoo," to welcome in the spring!

Cupid and Campaspe

Cupid and my Campaspe played

At cards for kisses, Cupid paid:

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,

His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;

Loses them too; then down he throws

The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how):

With these, the crystal of his brow,

And then the dimple of his chin:

All these did my Campaspe win.

At last he set her both his eyes;

She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

O Love! has she done this for thee?

What shall, alas! become of me?

GEORGE PEELE

GEORGE PEELE

( ? 1558 - ? 1597 )

George Peele was the son of the clerk of Christ's Hospital, an able man with an expert knowledge of book-keeping, which he did not transmit to his son, who was always amiably impecunious. Peele was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford; he migrated, however, to Christ Church, whence he graduated B.A. in 1577 and M.A. in 1579. After leaving Oxford he led a Bohemian life in London, and was a friend of Greene, Nash, and Marlowe. He married, in 1583, a lady of property, but did not become any more sober in his mode of living. Little more is known of his life, but he died before September, 1598, when the Reverend Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, wrote brutally and euphuistically, " As Anacreon died by the pot, so George Peele by the pox ". There is some reason to believe that alliteration may have taken precedence of truth in this statement. Some nine years after his death there appeared a collection of facetiae entitled Merrie conceited Jests of George Peele. Some of these jests are much older than Peele, but some passages are biographical. Upon one of these stories is based The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street, a play sometimes misattributed to Shakespeare. Its hero, George Pyeboard, is Peele himself ("peel" is a baker's board used for putting pies in the oven).

Peele's pastoral comedy The

Arraignment of Paris appeared about 1581. It is a graceful play, full of skillful flattery of Queen Elizabeth. King Edward I (to reduce its lengthy title to a reasonable compass) is a chronicle-history which misrepresents Queen Elinor because she was a Spaniard. It probably appeared soon after the defeat of the Armada. The Battell of Alcazar is a vigorous play which is probably by Peele. The Old Wives' Tale is one of the most amusing of Peele's plays. It is usually considered to be a skit upon romantic drama, and so a forerunner of The Knight of the Burning Pestle; but some critics consider that it exemplifies rather than satirizes a certain kind of folly. Milton derived more than a hint or two from this play when writing Comus. The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (1588), a somewhat cloying play, owes its plot entirely to the Old Testament, and was probably written to conciliate puritan opposition to the drama, though it may well be doubted whether it succeeded in its well-meant endeavour. Fleay credits (or perhaps it would be more correct to say discredits) Peele with the authorship of The Wisdom of Doctor Doddipoll, Wily Beguiled, and The Life and Death of Jack Straw. Peele had not the natural gifts that a dramatist should have; his very considerable gifts were purely poetical. He wrote plays simply to make a livelihood; he had no literary conscience, and something

IO

GEORGE PEELE

of the university man's contempt

for his audience. The Old Wives'

Tale probably gives his views upon

contemporary drama; in his last

years he wrote pageants because

they paid better. He could not

handle a plot, or a dramatic situa-

tion. His work, however, is full of

variety and interest, and he has a

real gift for musical effect. His

poems contain some beautiful pas-

sages; and it was not merely the

partiality of a friend which made

Nash call him primus veronum

artifex the first artist in word.

[Sir A. W. Ward, English Dramatic Literature, I. ix. Symonds,

Shakspere's Predecessors; A. H.

Bullen, The Works of George Peele;

F. Cheiland, Etude sur George Peele.]

A Sonnet

His golden locks time hath to silver turn'd;

O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!

His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd,

But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by encroaching:

Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading;

Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,

And lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalmes;

A man at arms must now serve on his knees,

And feed on prayers, which are age his almes;

But though from court to cottage he depart,

His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell,

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song;

Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,

Curs'd be the souls that think her any wrong,

Goddess, allow this aged man his right,

To be your beadsman now that was your knight.

From "The Araygnement of Paris"

(Flora dresses Ida Hill, to honour the coming of the Three Goddessses.

FLORA

Not Iris in her pride and bravery

Adorns her Arch with such variety;

Nor doth the Milk-white Way in frosty night

Appear so fair and beautiful in sight,

GEORGE PEELE

As done these fields, and groves, and sweetest bowers,

Bestrew'd and deck'd with parti-colour'd flowers.

Along the bubbling brooks, and silver glide,

That at the bottom doth in silence slide,

The watery flowers and lilies on the banks

Like blazing comets burgeon all in ranks;

Under the hawthorn and the poplar tree,

Where sacred Phoebe may delight to be:

The primrose, and the purple hyacinth,

The dainty violet, and the wholesome mint;

The double daisy, and the cowslip queen

Of summer flowers), do overpeer the green;

And round about the valley as ye pass,

Ye may ne see (for peeping flowers) the grass.----

They are at hand by this.

Juno hath left her chariot long ago,

And hath return'd her peacocks by her rainbow:

And bravely, as becomes the wife of Jove,

Doth honour by her presence to our grove:

Fair Venus she hath let her sparrows fly,

To tend on her, and make her melody;

Her turtles and her swans unyoked be,

And flicker near her side for company:

Pallas hath set her tigers loose to feed,

Commanding them to wait when she hath need:

And hitherward, with proud and stately pace,

To do us honour in the sylvan chase,

They march, like to the pomp of heaven above,

Juno, the wife and sister of King Jove,

The warlike Pallas, and the Queen of Love.

(The Muses and Country Girls assemble to welcome the Goddesses.)

POMONA

-- with country store like friends we venture forth.

Think'st, Faunus, that these goddesses will take our gifts in worth?

FAUNUS

Nay, doubtless; for, 'shall tell thee, dame, 'twere better give a thing,

A sign of love, unto a mighty person, or a king,

Than to a rude and barbarous swain both bad and basely born:

For gently takes the gentleman that oft the clown will scorn.

GEORGE PEELE

The welcoming Song

Country Gods

O Ida, O Ida, O Ida, happy hill!

This honour done to Ida may it continue still!

Muses

Ye country gods, that in this Ida wome,

Bring down your gifts of welcome,

For honour done to Ida.

Gods

Behold in sign of joy we sing,

And signs of joyfull welcome bring,

For honour done to Ida.

Pan

The god of shepherds, and his mates,

With country cheer salutes your States:

Fair, wise, and worthy, as you be!

And thank the gracious Ladies Three,

For honour done to Ida.

Paris. Oenone.

Paris

Oenone, while we bin disposed to walk,

Tell me, what shall be subject of our talk:

Thou hast a sort of pretty tales in store;

'Dare say no nymph in Ida's woods hath more.

Again, beside thy sweet alluring face,

In telling them thou hast a special grace.

Then prithee, sweet, afford some pretty thing,

Some toy that from thy pleasant wit doth spring.

Oenone

Paris, my heart's contentment, and my choice,

Use thou thy pipe, and I will use my voice;

So shall thy just request not be denied,

And time well-spent, and both be satisfied.

GEORGE PEELE

Paris

Well, gentle nymph, although thou do me wrong,

That can ne tune my pipe unto a song,

Me list this once, Oenone, for thy sake,

This idle task on me to undertake. [They sit under a tree together.

OENONE

And whereon then shall be my roundelay?

For thou hast heard my store long since, 'dare say—

How Saturn did divide his kingdom tho'

To Jove, to Neptune, and to Dis below:

How mighty men made foul successless war

Against the gods, and state of Jupiter:

How Phorcyas' ympe, that was so trick and fair

That tangled Neptune in her golden hair,

Became a Gorgon for her lewd misdeed;—

A pretty fable, Paris, for to read;

A piece of cunning, trust me for the nonce,

That wealth and beauty alter men to stones:

How Salmacis, resembling Idleness,

Turns men to women all through wantonnes':

How Pluto raught Queen Ceres' daughter thence,

And what did follow of that love offence:

Of Daphne turn'd into the laurel tree,

That shows a mirror of virginity:

How fair Narcissus, footing* on his shade,

Reproves disdain, and tells how form doth vade:

How cunning Philomela's needle tells,

What force in love, what wit in sorrow, dwells:

What pains unhappy souls abide in hell,

They say, because on earth they lived not well,—

Ixion's wheel, proud Tantal's pining wo,

Prometheus' torment, and a many moe;

How Danau's daughters ply their endless task;

What toil the toil of Sysiphus doth ask.

All these are old, and known, I know; yet, if thou wilt have any,

Choose some of these; for. trust me else, Oenone hath not many.

Paris

Nay, what thou wilt; but since my cunning not compares with thine,

Begin some toy that I can play upon this pipe of mine.

• Looking.

GEORGE PEELE

OENONE

ere is a pretty sonnet then, we call it Cupid's Curse:

hey that do change old love for new, pray gods they change for worse.

They sing.

OENONE

Fair, and fair, and twice so fair,

As fair as any may be,

The fairest shepherd on our green,

A love for any lady.

PARIS

Fair, and fair, and twice so fair,

As fair as any may be,

Thy love is fair for thee alone,

And for no other lady.

OENONE

My love is fair, my love is gay,

And fresh as bin the flowers in May,

And of my love my roundelay,

My merry, merry, merry roundelay,

Concludes with Cupid's Curse;

They that do change old love for new,

Pray gods they change for worse.

BOTH

Fair, and fair, etc.

Repeated.

Fair, and fair, etc.

OENONE

My love can pipe, my love can sing,

My love can many a pretty thing,

And of his lovely praises ring

My merry, merry, merry roundelay's.

Amen to Cupid's Curse;

They that do change old love for new,

Pray gods they change for worse.

BOTH

Fair, and fair, etc.

Repeated.

Fair, and fair, etc.

ROBERT GREENE

ROBERT GREENE

( c. 1560 -- 1592 )

Robert Greene was born at Norwich of parents who were several degrees more respectable than himself. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1578, and where he made friends with men as graceless as himself. After travelling in Spain and Italy, where he practised " such villainic as is abhominable to declare ", he returned to Cambridge and migrated to Clare Hall, graduating M.A. in 1583 and incorporating at Oxford in 1588. In or about 1583 he went to London, and commenced his precarious career as playwright and pamphleteer, a career which was sadly interrupted by his sordid profligacy. About 1585 he married, but deserted his wife after he had spent her money and she had borne him a son. His miserable life was rendered more miserably by frequent fits of repentance. He died at the age of thirty-two, and his death-scene is one of the most memorable in literary history----indeed it reads more like a passage from one of Zola's novels than a truc story. His death was caused by a surfeit of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings. As he lay dying he wrote for help to his wife, whom he had left six years before. Some writers have stated that Greene was a clergyman, but though there were great discrepencies in his life, there was no discrepancy as great as that. Greene had many faults, but hypocrisy was not one of them; he could not have concealed the fact that he was in holy orders, if

he had been. In a well-known epigram Martial boasted that " His page was wanton, but his life was chaste ". This saying might be reversed and applied to Greene. His life was profligate, but his writings singularly pure for that age. His chief plays are Alphonsus King of Arragon, an echo of Tamerlane; Orlando Furioso; The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, probably written to rival Dr. Faustus; and The Scottish History of James IV, slain at Flodden. This last play belies its name, as it is not a chronicle-play, but a dramatization of a story found in Cinthio's Hecatommithi, the collection from which Shakespeare drew the plot of Othello. Greene, in fact, introduced real characters into a fictitious story, just as in mid-Victorian days 'T. W. Robertson did when writing David Garrick. Greene was not an all-accomplished dramatist, but he drew characters with some cleverness, and developed his plots with no little success.

Greene's romances, pamphlets, and miscellaneous writings may be divided into three classes--euphuistic, cony-catching, and penitential. Of the first class the most famous is Pandosto (1588), also known as Dorastus and Fawnia, because it is the direct source of The Winter's Tale and of Shakespeare's geographical knowledge of Bohemia. Perimedes the Blacksmith (1588), Menaphon (1589), and Philomela (1592) are other members of this class. It is doubtful whether the

exposing the ways of transgressions,

or merely to put money in the

author's pocket. They are amusing

productions, the Disputation be-

tween a He-Cony-Catcher and a

She-Cony-Catcher being perhaps

the best. The penitential pam-

phlets are the work of his last days.

In one of them, Greene's Groats-

worth of Wit, he attacked Shake-

speare as "an upstart crow". Many

critics have been unable to forgive

Greene for this attack; but seeing

that Shakespeare developed late

and had written little of outstanding

merit before Greene died, it is not

to be wondered at that Greene

failed to foresee Shakespeare's

"Groate's worth".

Greene's prose witniss,

followed the fashion; he imitated

Lyly and

Madox, and set his delighted humour

to early drama. He was great in

his life, and danced in 'Toby

Belch's taste to public hearing; and

a fool with all of coarse, ravenous

appetite and protruded throat. But,

like a great than our 'Toby, at

times he "laboured like green Nelke"

and showed lameult, and the

squalor of his contemporaries, a true

poet of the romantic style.

[Editions by A. B. Grosart, J

Churton Collins, and T. H. Dickinson

and J. C. Collins, Robert Greene.]

Sephestia's Song to her Child

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,

When thou art old there's

pity enough for thee.

Mother's

wage, pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy,

When thy father first did see

Such a boy by him and thee,

He was glad, I was woe,

Fortune changed made him so,

When he left his pretty boy

Last his sorrow, first his joy,

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,

When thou art old there's

grief enough for thee,

Streaming tears that never

stint,

Like pearl drops from a flint,

Fell by course from his eyes,

For one another's place supplied;

Thus he grieved in every part,

Tears of blood fell from his heart,

When he left his pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy.

ROBERT GREENE

17

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,

When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.

The wanton smil'd, father wept,

Mother cried, baby leapt;

More he crow'd, more we cried,

Nature could not sorrow hide:

He must go, he must kiss

Child and mother, baby blest,

For he left his pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,

When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.

(From Menaphon.)

Doron’s Description of Samela

Like to Diana in her summer weed,

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,

Goes fair Samela;

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,

When wash'd by Arethusa fount they lie,

Is fair Samela;

As fair Aurora in her morning grey,

Deck'd with the ruddy glister of her love,

Is fair Samela;

Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day,

Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move,

Shines fair Samela;

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,

Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory

Of fair Samela;

Her cheeks, like rose and lily, yield forth gleams,

Her brows' bright arches fram'd of ebony;

Thus fair Samela

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,

And Juno in the show of majesty,

For she's Samela;

Pallas in wit, all three, if you well view,

For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity

Yield to Samela.

(From Menaphon.)

26

Vol. II.

ROBERT GREENE

The Shepherd's Wife's Song

Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing,

As sweet unto a shepherd as a king;

For kings have cares that wait upon a crown,

And cares can make the sweetest love to mourn;

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

His flocks are folded, he comes home at night,

As merry as a king in his delight;

For kings bethink them what the state doth require,

Where shepherds careless and live by their fire;

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

He kisseth first, then sits as blythe to eat

His cream and curds, as doth the king his meat,

For kings have often fears when they do sleep,

Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup;

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

To bed he goes, as wanton then, I ween,

As is a king in dalliance with a queen;

For kings have many griefs' affects to mourn,

Where shepherds have no greater grief than love;

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound,

As doth the king upon his beds of down;

More sounder too,

ROBERT GREENE

19

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,

Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill:

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe

As doth the king at every tide or sith;

And blither too,

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,

When shepherds laugh and love upon the land:

Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,

What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

(From The Mourning Garment.)

From “Dorastus and Fawnia”

In the country of Bohemia, there reigned a king called Pandosto,

whose fortunate success in wars against his foes, and bountiful courtesy

towards his friends in peace, made him to be greatly feared and loved

of all men. This Pandosto had to wife a lady called Bellaria, by birth royal,

learned by education, fair by nature, by virtues famous, so that it was

hard to judge whether her beauty, fortune, or virtue won the greatest

commendations. These two, linked together in perfect love, led their

lives with such fortunate content that their subjects greatly rejoiced to

see their quiet disposition. They had not been married long, but Fortune,

willing to increase their happiness, lent them a son, so adorned with the

gifts of nature, as the perfection of the child greatly augmented the love

of the parents and the joy of their commons; in so much that the

Bohemians, to show their inward joys by outward actions, made bonfires

and triumphs throughout all the kingdom, appointing jousts and tourneys

for the honour of their young prince: whither resorted not only his

nobles, but also divers kings and princes which were his neighbours,

willing to show their friendship they ought to Pandosto, and to win

fame and glory by their prowess and valour. Pandosto, whose mind was

fraught with princely liberality, entertained the kings, princes, and

noblemen with such submiss courtesy and maguifical bounty, that they

all saw how willing he was to gratify their good wills, making a general

feast for his subjects, which continued by the space of twenty days; all

which time the jousts and tourneys were kept to the great content both

of the lords and ladies there present. This solemn triumph being once

ended, the assembly, taking their leave of Pandosto and Bellaria, the

20

ROBERT GREENE

young son, who was called Garinter, was mur:ed up in the home to the

great joy and content of the parents.

Fortune envious of such happy succe:ss, willin: to show some sign

of her inconstancy, turned her wheel, and d.stroyed their bright sun

of prosperity with the misty clouds of mis:ap and misery. For it so

happened that Egistus, king of Sicilia, who in his youth had been brought

up with Pandosto, desirous to show that neither time nor distance

of place could diminish their former friendship, provided a navy of

ships and sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and companion,

who, hearing of his arrival, went himself in person and his wife Bellaria,

accompanied with a great train of lords: and ladies, to meet Egistus; and

espying him, alighted from his horse, embr:ced him very lovingly,

protesting that nothing in the world could have happened more acceptable

to him than his coming, wishing his wife to welcome his old friend and

acquaintance: who, to show how she liked him whom her husband loved,

entertained him with such familiar courtesy as Egistus perceived himself

to be very well welcome. After they had thus saluted and embr:ced each

other, they mounted again on horseback and rode toward the city, devoting

and recounting how being children they had passed their youth in friendly

pastimes: where, by the means of the citizens, Egistus was received

with triumphs and shows, in such sort that he marvelled how one so small

a warning they could make such preparation.

Passing the streets, thus, with such rare sight, they rode on to the

palace, where Pandosto entertained Egistus and his Sicilia with much

banqueting and sumptuous cheer, so royally as they all had cause to

commend his princely liberality; yea, the very beast alive that was

known to come from Sicilia was used with such courtesy, that Egistus

might easily perceive how both he and his were honoured for his friend's

sake. Bellaria, who in her time was the flower of courtesy, willing to

show how unfeignedly she loved her husband by her friend's entertainment,

used him likewise so familiarly that her countenance bewrayed how her

mind was affected towards him, oftentimes coming herself unto his bed

chamber to see that nothing should be amiss to mislike him. This honour

familiarity increased daily more and more betwixt them; for Bellaria,

noting in Egistus a princely and bountiful mind, adorned withundry

and excellent qualities, and Egistus, finding in her a virtuous and

courteous disposition, there grew such a secret uniting of their affections,

that the one could not well be without the company of the other: in

so much, that when Pandosto was busied with such urgent affairs that

he could not be present with his friend Egistus, Bellaria would walk with

him into the garden, where they two in private and pleasant devices

would pass away the time to both their contents. This custom still continuing betwixt them, a certain melancholy passion entering the mind

of Pandosto drave him into sundry and doubtful thoughts. First, he

called to mind the beauty of his wife Bellaria, the comeliness and bravery

of his friend Egistus, thinking that love was above all laws and, therefore,

to be stayed with no law; that it was hard to put fire and flax together

without burning; that their open pleasures might breed his secret dis-

pleasures. He considered with himself that Egistus was a man and must

needs love, that his wife was a woman and, therefore, subject unto love,

and that where fancy forced friendship was of no force.

These and such like doubtful thoughts, a long time smothering in

his stomach, began at last to kindle in his mind a secret mistrust, which,

increased by suspicion, grew at last to a flaming jealousy that so tormented

him as he could take no rest. He then began to measure all their actions,

and to misconstrue of their too private familiarity, judging that it was

not for honest affection, but for disordinate fancy, so that he began to

watch them more narrowly to see if he could get any true or certain proof

to confirm his doubtful suspicion. While thus he noted their looks and

gestures and suspected their thoughts and meanings, they two silly souls,

who doubted nothing of this his treacherous intent, frequented daily

each other's company, which drave him into such a frantic passion, that

he began to bear a secret hate to Egistus and a luring countenance to

Bellaria; who, marvelling at such unaccustomed frowns, began to cast

beyond the moon, and to enter into a thousand sundry thoughts, which

way she should offend her husband: but finding in herself a clear

conscience ceased to muse, until such time as she might find fit opportunity

to demand the cause of his dumps. In the meantime Pandosto's mind

was so far charged with jealousy, that he did no longer doubt, but was

assured, as he thought, that his friend Egistus had entered a wrong point

in his tables, and so had played him false play: whereupon, desirous

to revenge so great an injury, he thought best to dissemble the grudge

with a fair and friendly countenance, and so under the shape of a friend

to show him the trick of a foe. Devising with himself a long time how

he might best put away Egistus without suspicion of treacherous murder,

he concluded at last to poison him; which opinion pleasing his humour

he became resolute in his determination, and the better to bring the

matter to pass he called unto him his cupbearer, with whom in secret

he brake the matter, promising to him for the performance thereof to

give him a thousand crowns of yearly revenues.

The manner of the death and last end of

Robert Greene Maister of Artes

After that he had pend the former discourse (then lying sore sicke

of a surfeit which he had taken with drinking) hee continued most

patient and penitent; yea, he did with teares forsake the world, renounced

sweating, and desired it

so that during all the time of his sickness (which he was almost a month's

space) hee was neuer heard to swere, name, or blaspheme the name

of God as he was accustomed to do before that time, which greatly

comforted his welwillers, to see how mightily the grace of God did worke

in him.

He confessed himselfe that he was neuer heaut i.l.e., but .and that .al

his paine was in his belly. And although he continually mournd, yet

still his belly sweld, and neuer left swelling upward, swoll at wchd him

at the hart and in his face.

During the whole time of his sickness, he continually called vpon God,

and recited these sentences following:

(1) Lord forgive me my manifold offences.

(1) Lord have mercie vpon me.

(1) Lord forgive me my secret sinnes, and for thy mercie

(Lord) pardon them all.

Thy mercie (O Lord) is aboue thy workes.

And with such like godly sentences hee passed the time, euen till

he gaue vp the Ghost.

And this is to bee noted, that his sicknesse did not greatly weaken

him, but that he walked to his chaire & backe againe the night before

he departed, and then (being feeble) laying him downe vpon his bed, almost

nine of the clocke at night, a friend of his tolde him, that his Wife had

sent him commendations, and that shee was in good health wherat he

greatly reioiced, confessed that he had mightily wronged her, and wished

that hee might see her before he departed. Whereupon (feeling his

time was but short) hee tooke pen and inke, & wrote her a letter to this

effect.

Sweet Wife, as euer there was any good will or friendship

betweenc thee and mee, see this bearer (my Host) satisfied

of his debt, I owe him tenne pound, and but for him I had

perished in the streetes. Forget and forgive my wrongs

done vnto thee, and Almighty God have mercie on

my soule. Farewell till we meet in heauen,

for on earth thou shalt neuer

see me more. This 2. of September, 1592.

Written by thy dying Husband

Romer Greene.

THOMAS LODGE

THOMAS LODGE

( ? 1558 - 1625 )

Thomas Lodge was the son of a Lord Mayor of London, and grandson of Sir William Laxton, the founder of Oundle School. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1577 and M.A. in 1581. He was entered at Lincoln's Inn, but abandoned a legal for a literary career, with intervals of adventure and voyaging. He was never an actor, as was at one time believed. After a short experience of soldiering, he sailed to the Canaries in 1588; in 1591 he accompanied Cavendish to South America. About 1596 Lodge abandoned literature as a profession and began to study medicine, graduating M.D. at Avignon in 1600 and at Oxford in 1602. Some time about 1600 he became a Roman Catholic, and the last twenty years or so of his life appear to have been chiefly devoted to the practice of medicine, principally among his fellow-religionists. He died of plague in 1625.

Lodge was a man of tireless energy and immense versatility. He wrote pamphlets, novels, plays, poems, sonnets, satires, translations, and medical works. In some of his pamphlets he crossed swords with Stephen Gosson, and defended plays and players against that redoubtable antagonist. His own plays are neither numerous nor important; he collaborated with Greene to write A Looking Glasse for London and England (1591), a curious but inartistic piece; his only other play is The Wounds of Civill War (1587), a heavy play dealing with Marius and Sulla.

The best known of Lodge's romances is Rosalynde: Euphues' Golden Legacie, which he wrote to relieve the tedium of his voyage to the Canaries. Shakespeare afterwards dramatized this romance under the name of As You Like It. His other romances include Euphues' Shadow and A Margarite of America. Lodge's plays are poor, and his romances more interesting historically than intrinsically; but his poems, especially his short songs, are exquisite, among the best of his day. Glaucus and Scilla, a more ambitious effort, perhaps inspired Shakespeare to write Venus and Adonis. Lodge abandoned imaginative writing about 1596, though in his medical days he translated Josephus and Seneca and wrote a Treatise of the Plague. As a literary man his desire outran his performance; but he will always be remembered as the inspirer of one of the most charming of Shake-speare's comedies and as the author of some of the daintiest songs in the language.

[Sir Edmund Gosse, Seventeenth Century Studies; M. E. N. Fraser, Thomas Lodge as a Dramatist.]

THOMAS LODGE

From "Rosalyndc: Euphues' Golden Legacie"

The Wrestling Match

At last, when the tournament ceased, the wrestling began, and the Norman presented himself as a challenger against all comers, but he looked like Hercules when he advanced himself against Vhelorus, and that the fury of his countenance amazed all that durst attempt to encounter with him in any deed of activity: till at last there trundled in at the countis came with two tall men that were his sons, or grand-children, and comely personage. The eldest of these doing his devoir to the king entered the list, and presented himself to the Norman, who could not cope with him, and as a man that would triumph in the glory of his strength, roused himself with such fury, that not only he made the fall, but killed him with the weight of his complicated personage: which the younger brother seeing, leaped presently into the place, and thirsting after the revenge, assailed the Norman with such valour, that at the first encounter he brought him to his knee: which repulsed to the Norman, that, recovering himself, fear of disgrace doth nothing, he stepped so sternly to the young franklin, that taking him up in his arms he threw him against the ground so violently, that he broke his neck, and so ended his days with his brother. At this unlooked for massacre the people murmured, and were all in a deep passion of pity; but the franklin, father unto these, never changed his countenance, but as a man of a courageous resolution took up the bodies of his sons without show of outward discontent.

All this while stood Rosader and saw this tragedy; who, noting the undoubted virtue of the franklin's mind, alighted off from his horse, and presently sat down on the grass, and commanded his man to pull off his boots, making him ready to try the strength of this champion. Being furnished as he would, he clapped the franklin on the shoulder and said thus:

"Bold yeoman, whose sons have ended the term of their years with honour, for that I see thou scornest fortune with patience, and thou arted the injury of fate with content in brooking the death of thy sons, and either see me make a third in their tragedy, or else revenge their fall with an honourable triumph."

The franklin, seeing so goodly a gentleman to give him such contentment comfort, gave him hearty thanks, with promise to pray for his happy success. With that Rosader vailed bonnet to the king, and lightly leaped within the lists, where noting more the company than the combatant, he cast his eye upon the troop of ladies that glistered there like the stars

THOMAS LODGE

25

of heaven; but at last, Love, willing to make him as amorous as he was

valiant, presented him with the sight of Rosalyndc, whose admirable

beauty so inveigled the eye of Rosader, that forgetting himself, he stood

and fed his looks on the favour of Rosalynde's face; which she perceiving

blushed, which was such a doubling of her beautcous excellence, that

the bashful red of Aurora at the sight of unacquainted Phaeton, was

not half so glorious.

The Norman seeing this young gentleman fettered in the looks of

the ladies, drave him out of his memento with a shake by the shoulder.

Rosader looking back with an angry frown, as if he had been wakened

from some pleasant dream, discovered to all by the fury of his countenance

that he was a man of some high thoughts: but when they all noted his

youth and the sweetness of his visage, with a general applause of favours,

they grieved that so goodly a young man should venture in so base an

action; but seeing it were to his dishonour to hinder him from his

enterprise, they wished him to be graced with the palm of victory. After

Rosader was thus called out of his memento by the Norman, he roughly

clapped to him with so fierce an encounter, that they both fell to the

ground, and with the violence of the fall were forced to breathe; in which

space the Norman called to mind by all tokens, that this was he whom

Saladyne had appointed him to kill; which conjecture made him stretch

every limb, and try every sinew, that working his death he might recover

the gold which so bountifully was promised him. On the contrary part,

Rosader while he breathed was not idle, but still cast his eye upon

Rosalynde, who to encourage him with a favour, lent him such an

amorous look, as might have made the most coward desperate: which

glance of Rosalynde so fired the passionate desires of Rosader, that

turning to the Norman he ran upon him and braved him with a strong

encounter. 'The Norman received him as valiantly, that there was a

sore combat, hard to judge on whose side fortune would be prodigal.

At last Rosader, calling to mind the beauty of his new mistress, the

fame of his father's honours, and the disgrace that should fall to his

house by his misfortune, roused himself and threw the Norman against

the ground, falling upon his chest with so willing a weight, that the

Norman yielded nature her due, and Rosader the victory.

'The death of this champion, as it highly contented the franklin,

as a man satisfied with revenge, so it drew the king and all the peers into

a great admiration, that so young years and so beautiful a personage

should contain such martial excellence; but when they knew him to

be the youngest son of Sir John of Bordeaux, the king rose from his

seat and cmbraced him, and the peers entreated him with all favourable

courtesy, commending both his valour and his virtues, wishing him to

go forward in such laughty deeds, that he might attain to the glory of

his father's honourable fortunes.

Rosalynde's Madrigal

Love in my loam like a bee

Doth suck his sweet:

Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,

His head amidst my tender breast:

My kisses are his daily feast,

And yet he rules me not my rest.

Ah, wanton, will ye!

And if I sleep, then percheth he

With pretty flight,

And makes his pillows of my breast

The livelong night.

Strike I my lute, the tune doth stir,

He music plays if I do sing.

He lends me every lovely thing,

Yet cruel he my heart doth slay,

Whist, wanton, still ye!

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,

And bind you, when you long to play,

For your offence;

I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in,

I'll make you fast it for your sin.

I'll count your power not worth a pin.

Alas, what herby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy

With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,

Because a God.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,

And let thy bower my bosom be;

Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee.

O Cupid, so thou pity me,

Spare not but play thee.

THOMAS LODGE

Montanus's Sonnet

Phœbe sate,

Sweet she sate,

Sweet sate Phœbe when I saw her;

White her brow,

Coy her cye:

Brow and cye how much you please me!

Words I spent,

Sighs I sent:

Sighs and words could never draw her.

O my love,

Thou art lost,

Since no sight could ever ease thee.

Phœbe sat

By a fount;

Sitting by a fount I spied her:

Sweet her touch,

Rare her voice:

'Touch and voice what may distain you?

As she sung

I did sigh,

And by sighs whilst that I tried her,

O mine cyes!

You did lose

Her first sight whose want did pain you.

Phœbe's flocks,

White as wool:

Yet were Phœbe's locks more whiter.

Phœbe's cyes

Dovelike mild:

Dovelike cyes, both mild and cruel.

Montan swears,

In your lamps

He will die for to delight her.

Phœbe yield,

Or I die:

Shall truc hearts be fancy's fuel?

THOMAS LODGE

Rosalyndes Description

Like to the cleare in highest sphere, where all

Of selfsame colour is her haire,

Whether vnfolded or in traine,

Height for, fair Rosalynde.

Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,

Repining heauens to view her might,

The gods do feare when they behold,

And I do tremble when I stand,

Height for, would she were mine

Her cheekes are like the blushing clou'd

That beauties vaine is to proue

Or like the siluer crimson cou'd

That Phoebus' beautie lou'd to proue

Height for, fair Rosalynde.

Her lips are like two budded roses,

Whom ranke of time will shortly disclose,

Within which bounds is shut her sweet:

Apt to entice a deity:

Height for, would she were mine

Her necke, like to a stately towre

Where Loue himselfe impassion'd doth

To watch for glances euery houre

From her diuine and sacred eie:

Height for, fair Rosalynde.

Her paps are centres of delight,

Her breasts are orbs of heauenly frame,

Where nature moulds the clay in which

To feed perfection with the same:

Height for, would she were mine

With orient pearl, with ruby red,

With marble white, with sapphire blue,

Her body euery way is fed,

Yet soft in touch, and sweet in view:

Height for, fair Rosalynde.

Nature her selfe her shape admires,

The gods are wounded in her sight,

THOMAS LODGE

And Love forsakes his heavenly fires

And at her eyes his brand doth light:

Heigh ho, would she were mine.

'Then muse not, nymphs, though I bemoan

'The absence of fair Rosalynde,

Since for her fair there is fairer none,

Nor for her virtues so divine:

Heigh ho, fair Rosalynde.

Heigh ho, my heart, would God that she were mine!

THOMAS NASH

(1567 - 1601)

Thomas Nash was born at Lowestoft in 1567, and was the son of a minister. As the Reverend William Nash chose scriptural names (Nathaniel, Israel, Rebecca, Martha) for his other children, it is likely that he was a Puritan; hence, in all probability, arose his Bohemian son's antipathy to Puritanism. Nash was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he dutifully described as "an university within itself". After graduating B.A. in 1586, he probably visited Italy and Germany, acquiring a strong liking for the former and an equally strong disrelish for the latter. By 1588 he had settled in London, and adopted literature as a means of livelihood. His first work was The Anatomie of Absurdity (1589), a kind of comic companion work to Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses. He then flung himself with characteristic impetuosity into the Martin Marprelate controversy, lashing the Puritans with merciless satire. There is some doubt as to how many of the innumerable anonymous pamphlets were Nash's work, but his nom de guerre seems to have been Pasquil, and he almost certainly wrote Martin's Month's Minde (1589), The First Parte of Pasquil's Apologie (1590), and An Almond for a Parrat (1590). On the conclusion of this controversy Nash declared war upon Gabriel Harvey and his brothers, and a series of most amusing pamphlets followed, culminating in Have with You to Saffron Walden (1596). Three years later the controversy, which had gone to scandalous lengths, was stopped by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Amongst Nash's other pamphlets are The Terrors of the Night (1594), Christ's Tears over Jerusalem (written in 1593, during a temporary fit of repentance), and Lenten Stuffe (1599), an encomium of Yarmouth and its red herrings. The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton (1594) is the earliest English picaresque novel. It attempted a new kind of writing, which no one again essayed until Defoe

siege of Tournai, and was venial.

Florence, and Rome. He spenta

some time in London, and gave a

lively description of its society.

Real persons, such as Sir Thomas

More, the Earl of Surrey, Francis I

of France, Erasmus, and Cornelius

Agrippa are introduced. His ac-

count of the loves of Surrey and

Geraldine caused many generations

of readers to mistake fiction for

fact. Jack Wilton is somewhat

incoherent, but is wittily written

and shows close observation of

human nature. As a prose writer

Nash stands very high; in fact, his

prose is more like Shakespeare's

than is that of any of his contem-

poraries. He has the same irre-

pressibility, the same delight in

inverted logic, and the same in-

exhaustible wealth of vocabulary.

His two favourite authors and

models appear to have been Rabe-

lowe: Mad. Queen of Carthage is

poem. If it was not whether Nash

completed this play an order to

print it, or whether it was hurried

for production on the state. Sum-

mon's Last Will and Testament, a

satirical masque, is another credit;

it contains a charming poem on

spring, which has partly been in place

in The Children of Thieves. Nash was

much be want to repudiate that 'People

of Greene; he was more apt to

than himmerlite. Though he had a

bitter tongue, he endeavoured him-

to his contemporaries, one of whom

called him 'wonderful, ingenious,

fluent, facetious, humorous, Nashe.'

[R. B. McKerrow, The Works of

Thomas Nashe; H. F. B. Brett-

Smith, The unfortunate Traveller;

J. J. Jusserand, The English Novel

in the time of Shakespeare; Sir

Walter Raleigh, The English Novel.]

Spring

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king,

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,

Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,

And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,

Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,

In every street these tunes our ears do greet,

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Spring, the sweet Spring!

THOMAS NASHE

A Lament in Time of Plague

Adieu! farewell carth's bliss,

'This world uncertain is:

Fond are life's lustful joys,

Death proves them all but toys.

None from his darts can fly:

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth

Gold cannot buy you health:

Physic himself must fade;

All things to end are made;

'The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower,

Which wrinkles will devour:

Brightness falls from the air;

Queens have died young and fair;

Dust hath closed Helen's eye:

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,

Worms feed on Hector brave;

Swords may not fight with fate:

Earth still holds ope her gate.

'Come, come, the bells do cry:

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness

'Tasteth death's bitterness:

Hell's executioner

Hath no ears for to hear

What vain art can reply;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Haste therefore each degree

To welcome destiny;

32

THOMAS NASH

Heaven is our heritage,

Earth but a player's stage,

Mount we unto the hill!

Look such, look such, I must and will!

I and leave merry men to play!

From "The Unfortunate Traveller"

What is there in France to be learned more than in England, but

falschood in fellowship, perfect idleness, to live most lost for my

pleasure, to swear by the mass I mean, when a man hath no

For the idle Traveller, (I mean not for the sinner,) I have known

some that have continued there by the quarter of a whole year,

and when they come home, they have laid a little wealth together

vuder a broad French hat, kept a terrible coil in the street in

their long cloaks and gray pappets, and I reckon studiously

Nought els have they profited by their travel, save learnt to

distinguish of the true Burdeaux stape, and knowe a cup of

from wine of Orleans: yea, and presumptuously to discourse of

the pox as a pimple, to weare a velvet patch on their face, and

melancholy with their Armes folded.

From Spaine what bringeth our Traveller? A still that cost him

the fashion of an olde deep-purled partlet, a diminutive

with short strings like the droppings of a man's nose, a huge

comming downe with a peake behinde as faire as the compasse,

off before by the breast-bone like a partlet or an iron hea, a

of gascoynes which wergatherd would make a compleat woman, a

kirtles, huge hangers that have halfe a cow hide in them, a

lineally descended from halfe a dozen Dukes, at the least let his

be as long or as short as you will: if long, it is tumbled with

rauled; if short, it hath a cape like a Cullenar cloak, and to

in his whole length, nor hath so much cloth in it, I will

the standing cape of a Dutchmans cloak. I have not yet tolde all,

he hath in either shoe as much taltarie for his winter as would

an ancient; which serveth him (if you will have the matter out)

owne accord for a shooprag. A soldier & a braggart he is (that

he ictteth strouting, dancing on his toes with his hands vader

If you talk with him, he makes a disheloth of his owne Country in

parison of Spaine, but if you vrge him more particularly wherein

it exceeds,

he can give no instance but in Spaine they have better bread than

we haue; when (pore hungrie slaue) they may crumble it into water

well inough, & make mizers with it, for they haue not a good

meate except it be salt pitchers to eat with it all the yere long;

which is more, they are poore beggers, and lye in towle straw cueric night.

Italy, the Paradice of the earth and the Epicures heauen, how doth

it forme our yong master? It makes him to kis his hand like an ape,

cringe his necke like a starueling, and play at hey passe repasse come

aloft, when he salutes a man. From thence he brings the art of atheisme,

the art of epicurising, the art of whoring, the art of poysoning, the art

of Sodomitrie. The onely probable good thing they haue to keepe vs

from vtterly condemning it is that it maketh a man an excellent Courtier,

a curious carpet knight: which is, by interpretation, a fine close leacher,

a glorioſs hipocrite. It is nowe a priuie note amongst the better sort of

men, when they would set a singular marke or brand on a notorious

villain, to say, he hath beene in Italy.

With the Dane and the Dutchman I will not encounter, for they

are simple honest men, that, with Danaus Daughters, doe nothing but

fill bottomles tubs, & will be drunke & snort in the midst of dinner:

he hurts himselfe only that goes thither, he cannot lightly be damnd,

for the vintners, the brewers, the malt-men, and alewiues pray for him.

Pitch and pay, they will pray all day: scorne & borrow, they will wish

him much sorrow. But lightly a man is nere the better for their prayers,

for they commit all deadly sin for the most part of them in mingling

their drinke, the vintners in the highest degree.

Why iest I in such a necessarie persuasive discourſe? I am a baniſht

exile from my country, though nere linkt in consanguinitic to the best:

an Earle borne by birth, but a begger now as thou seest. Theſe manie

yeres in Italy haue I lined an outlaw. A while I had a liberall pension

of the Pope, but that lasted not, for he continued not: one succeeded

him in his chaire that cared neither for Englishmen nor his owne countri-

men. Then was I driuen to pick vp my crums among the Cardinals,

to implore the beneuolence & charitie of al the Dukes of Italy, whereby

I haue since made a poore shift to liue, but so liue as I wish my selfe

a thousand times dead.

Cum patriam amisi, tunc me periisse putato:

When I was baniſht, thinke I caught my bane.

'The sea is the native soile to fishes; take fishes from the sea, they

take no ioy, nor thriue, but perish straight. So likewise the birds remooued

from the aire (the abode whereto they were borne), the beaſts from the

earth, and I from England. Can a lamb take delight to be ſuckled at the

breasts of a she-wolfe? I am a lamb nourisht with the milke of wolues,

one that, with the Ethiopians inhabiting ouer against Meroe, feed on nothing

but scorpions. Vse is another nature, yet ten times more contentiue

were nature, restored to her kingdome from whence she is excluded.

Beleeue me, no aire, no bread, no fire, no water doth a man anie good

out of his owne countrey. Cold frutes neuer prosper in a hot soyle, nor

Vol. II.

27

34

THOMAS NASH

hot in a cold. Let no man for any transitorie pleasure sell away the

inheritance he hath of breathing in the place where he was borne. Get

thee home, my yong lad, laye thy bones peacefully in the womb of

thy fathers, waxe olde in overlooking thy grounds. At hand to close

the cyes of thy kinred. The dinell and I am desperate, the not being restored

to heaven, I of being recalled home.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

(1564 1593)

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury on 6th Feb., 1564.

His father was a shoemaker by trade. He was educated at the

King's School, Canterbury, which he entered in 1578, and at Benet

College, Cambridge (now Corpus Christi). He matriculated in 1581,

took his B.A. degree in 1584, and his M.A. in 1587. Francis Kett,

the mystic, who was burnt for heresy in 1589, was a Fellow and

tutor of Benet College, and may perhaps have helped to develop

Marlowe's attitude towards religion, an attitude often described

as atheistical, but probably merely unconventional. At the time of his

mysterious death a warrant had been issued summoning Marlowe

to appear before the Privy Council to answer an accusation of blas-

phemy. It was not until three centuries later that the authorities adopted 'Tiberius's principle --

deorum iniurias dis curae. After going down from Cambridge, Mar-

lowe became a secret service agent of some kind, and travelled abroad

in this capacity. The government specially recommended him for the

M.A. degree, which the college authorities were apparently indis-

posed to grant. It is likely that Marlowe settled in London in 1586,

and that he soon joined the Lord Admiral's Company of Players.

His career as a dramatic poet and an actor. Nothing definite is known

about his life in London; it was rumoured that he was 'wild and

licentious... Certainly he worked hard, for in a very short time he wrote six

plays, four of which were great successes; out of the stage. He was

criticized by Nash, and attacked by Greene and Gabriel Harvey; he

numbered Sir Walter Raleigh and Thomas Walsingham among his

friends. On 9th May, 1593, he met three shady characters, Ingram

Frizer, Nicholas Skeres, and Robert Poley, at the house of Eleanor Bull,

widow, in Deptford. All his three companions were more or less con-

nected with the secret service.

They remained at Eleanor Bull's from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., when a

quarrel about the payment of the bill broke out between Frizer and

Marlowe, in the course of which Marlowe was stabbed in the eye

and died on the spot. Frizer was pardoned as having acted in self-

defence, and lived until 1627, having been a churchwarden for

twenty-two years. This is the official account of Marlowe's death,

as unearthed by an American

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

35

scholar, Dr. J. Leslie Hotson, in

1925. As the two eyewitnesses and

the murderer were men who would

not stick at perjury, we may be

allowed to doubt whether even yet

we have got the true story. 'The

story told in court, however, dis-

poses of various fables about mis-

tresses, bawdy serving-men, and

blasphemy, which were used by

Puritanical writers to point a moral.

Marlowe's earliest extant play is

Tamburlaine the Great, which was

probably produced in 1587. It is

in two parts, but is virtually one

play in ten acts. At the outset of

the play Marlowe, with superb

self-confidence, proclaims himself

an innovator:

From jigging veins of rhyming

mother-wits,

And such conceits as clownage

keeps in pay,

We'll lead you to the stately tent

of war,

Where you shall hear the Scythian

Tamburlaine

Threatening the world with high

astounding terms.

With all its faults of violence and

bombast, Tamburlaine was incom-

parably the best tragedy that had

as yet been produced on the Eng-

lish stage. It is important not only

for its intrinsic merits, which are

considerable, but also as a piece of

pioneer work. It is the first play

to be written in blank verse, as

distinguished from mere unrhymed

decasyllabic lines. Marlowe's verse,

while dignified and majestic, is

much more supple and infinitely

less monotonous than that of any

of his predecessors. Tamburlaine

is obviously a young man's work,

but its exaggeration contributed to

its success, and its influence on

English tragedy was very great.

The Tragical History of Doctor

Faustus was produced in 1588. It

is not a well-constructed play,

being a series of disconnected

scenes rather than a connected

whole. Its text is not in a satis-

factory condition, and the comic

scenes, which contain extremely

poor fooling, are, it is believed

or hoped, by another hand. Yet

Doctor Faustus is a memorable

play; the address to Helen and the

concluding scenes of the play and

soliloquies of Faustus are among the

best things not only in Marlowe,

but in all English drama. Goethe

said of this play, "How greatly it is

all planned!" and thought of trans-

lating it. In the great work of his

life he extended and embroidered

the Faust legend almost beyond

recognition; but it may be doubted

if he wrote anything that arouses

so much pity and terror as the con-

clusion of Marlowe's play.

The Famous Tragedy of the Rich

Jew of Malta was produced about

1590. Its plot, unlike those of the

other plays, appears to have been

invented by Marlowe, hence, per-

haps, its wild extravagances. It is

a play of very unequal merits; the

first two acts are written in Mar-

lowe's best style, and the last three

are feeble and melodramatic. Bar-

rabas is scarcely a more life-like

figure than Mr. Punch, whom he

resembles in his taste for atrocities.

He finally perishes by means of

"something lingering with boiling

oil in it" which he had prepared

for someone else. In spite of some

absurdities, this play has many

passages of noble poetry in it,

notably the opening soliloquy of

the Jew.

Edward II (c. 1591) is the most

flawless of Marlowe's plays, though

36

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

not the most magnificent. It is his

greatest work as a dramatist, but

not as a poet. Marlowe's genius

was in some respects epic rather

than dramatic; Calliope rather

than Melpomene was the Muse

whom he served. An historical

play gave the poetical side of his

genius less scope; to admire Edward

II more than the other plays is to

admire what is less typical of the

poet's genius. It is obvious that

Shakespeare had this play in mind

when he was writing Richard II,

but he did not surpass his model.

The death-scene in Marlowe's play

is one of the most moving scenes in

all drama, ancient or modern.

Marlowe's other two plays are

of comparatively small importance.

Both have been preserved in a

mutilated and mangled state. The

Massacre at Paris is notable for

little except its strong anti-Catholic

tendencies. In Dido, Queen of

Carthage Marlowe failed mainly

because he adhered too closely to

Virgil, regardless of the different

medium in which he was working.

This again shows the epic nature of

Marlowe's genius. Nash either

collaborated in this play or, more

probably, finished it after Mar-

lowe's death.

As a poet Marlowe stands almost

higher than as a dramatist. His

college-exercise version of Ovid's

Amores and his line-for-line render-

ing of the first book of Lucan's

Pharsalia are commonplace, but in

his Hero and Leander, which is a

recasting rather than a paraphrase

of the poem of Musaeus, he has

written what may claim to be the

greatest as well as the most in-

fluential of Elizabethan poems.

Venus and Adonis, clearly an imita-

tion of it, is pale and colourless in

comparison. Among Marlowe's

shorter poems Come live with me

and be my love is, as Walton called

it, 'charmingly good'.

Marlowe, although he died so

young, was not merely in

promise but in performance. He

created blank verse, founded Eng-

lish tragedy, and wrote some of the

finest passages of dramatic poetry

in the language. He is incomparably

the greatest of 'Shakespeare's pre-

decessors, being as much above

Greene, Lyly, and Peele as Shake-

speare is above Jonson and Fletcher. Less than

three months older than Shake-

speare in actual age, he was very

much older in development. He was

Shakespeare's master, and Shake-

speare does not pay any other con-

temporary a compliment like that

paid to Marlowe in As You Like It,

i, s. 8. 'To no pioneer do Eng-

lish poetry and drama owe so much;

and yet it is not merely as a pioneer

that he deserves to be remembered.

He deserves to be loved and

reverenced as one of our greatest

poets. Nor must it be thought that

he taught Shakespeare merely to use

blank verse; he taught Shakespeare

to write about high matters in the

grand style. Sublimity is his greatest

gift to English literature.

J. A. H. Bullen, Marlowe's Works;

A. W. Verity, Influence of Christopher

Marlowe on Shakespeare's Earlier

Style; J. A. Symonds, Shak-

speare's Predecessors; F. S. Boas,

Shakespeare and his Predecessors;

J. Leslie Hotson, The Death of Christopher

Marlowe; J. M. Robertson, Mar-

lowe: a Conspectus. A new edition

of Marlowe is appearing, under the

general editorship of R. H. Case.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The Death of Zenocrate

TAMBURLAINE

Proud fury and intolerable fit,

That dares torment the body of my Love,

And scourge the Scourge of the immortal God:

Now are those Spheres where Cupid used to sit,

Wounding the world with wonder and with love,

Sadly supplicd with pale and ghastly death:

Whose darts do pierce the Centre of my soul.

Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven,

And had she liv'd before the siege of Troy,

Helen, whose beauty summoned Greece to arms,

And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos,

Had not been nam'd in Homer's Iliads:

Her name had been in every line he wrote:

Or had those wanton Poets, for whose birth

Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her,

Nor Lesbia, nor Corinna had been nam'd,

Zenocrate had been the argument

Of every Epigram or Elegy.

[The music sounds, and she dies.

What, is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword,

And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,

And we descend into th' infernal vaults,

To hale the fatal Sisters by the hair,

And throw them in the triple moat of Hell,

For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.

Casane and Theridamas to arms,

Raise Cavalieros higher than the clouds,

And with the cannon break the frame of heaven,

Batter the shining palace of the Sun,

And shiver all the starry firmament:

For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence,

Meaning to make her stately Queen of heaven.

What God so ever holds thee in his arms,

Giving thee Nectar and Ambrosia,

Behold me here divine Zenocrate,

Raving, impatient, desperate and mad,

Breaking my steeled lance, with which I burst

The rusty beams of Janus' Temple doors,

Letting out death and tyrannizing war:

To march with me under this bloody flag,

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

And if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the great,

Come down from heaven and live with me again.

THERIDAMAS.

Ah good my Lord be patient, she is dead,

And all this raging cannot make her live.

If words might serve, our voice had rent the air,

If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth,

If grief, our murthered hearts have strained forth blood.

Nothing prevails, for she is dead my Lord.

TAMBURLAINE.

For she is dead? thy words do pierce my soul.

Ah sweet Theridamas, say no more.

Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives.

And feed my mind that dies for want of her:

Where ere her soul be, thou shalt stay with me,

Embalm'd with Cassia, Ambergris and Myrrh,

Not lapt in lead but in a sheet of gold,

And till I die thou shalt not be interr'd.

Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus,

We both will rest and have one Epitaph

Writ in as many several languages;

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword.

This cursed town will I consume with fire,

Because this place bereft me of my Love:

The houses burnt, will look as if they mourn'd

And here will I set up her statue,

And march about it with my mourning camp,

Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.

[The scene is drawn.

(Tamburlaine, Pt. II, lines 309-310.)

Helen

FAUSTUS

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?

And burnt the topless Towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:

Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies:

Come Helen, come give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

And all is dross that is not Helena:

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

Instead of Troy shall Wertenberg be sack'd,

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumèd Crest:

Yea I will wound Achilles in the heel,

And then return to Helen for a kiss.

O thou art fairer than the evening air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars,

Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter,

When he appeared to hapless Semele,

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms,

And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

(Doctor Faustus, lines 1328-1347.)

The Death of Faustus

(The clock strikes eleven.)

FAUSTUS

Ah Faustus,

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,

And then thou must be damn'd perpetually:

Stand still you ever moving spheres of heaven,

That time may cease, and midnight never come'

Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make

Perpetual day, or let this hour be but

A year, a month, a week, a natural day,

That Faustus may repent, and save his soul,

O lente, lente currite noctis equi:

'The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,

'The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

O I'll leap up to my God: who pulls me down?

See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament.

One drop would save my soul, half a drop, ah my Christ.

Ah rend not my heart for naming of my Christ,

Yet will I call on him: oh spare me Lucifer!

Where is it now? 'tis gone: And see where God

Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows:

Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,

And hide me from the heavy wrath of God.

No, no.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Then will I headlong run into the earth:

Earth gape. O, no, it will not harbour me:

You stars that reigned at my nativity,

Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,

Now draw up Faustus like a huge worm that:

Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,

That when you vomit forth into the air,

My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,

So that my soul may but ascend to heaven:

Ah, half the hour is past: 'Tis ... it strikes,

I will all be past anon:

Oh God,

If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,

Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,

Impose some end to my incessant pain;

Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,

A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd.

O no end is limited to damned souls!

Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?

Or, why is this immortal that thou hast?

Ah Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,

This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd

Unto some brutish beast: all beasts are happy,

For when they die,

Their souls are soon dissolv'd in element;

But mine must live still to be plagued in hell

Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me:

No Faustus, curse thy self, curse Lucifer

That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven:

The clock striketh the twelve

O it strikes, it strikes: now body turn to air,

Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell:

Thunder and lightning.

O soul, be chang'd into little water drops:

And fall into the Ocean, ne'er be found:

My God, my God, look not so fierce on me:

(Enter devils.)

Adders, and Serpents, let me breathe a while:

Ugly hell gape not, come not Lucifer,

I'll burn my books. Ah Mephistopheles! (Exeunt with him.

(Enter Chorus.)

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

4

CHORUS

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burned is Apollo's Laurel bough,

'That sometime grew within this learned man:

Faustus is gone, regard his hellish fall,

Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,

Only to wonder at unlawful things,

Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits,

To practise more than heavenly power permits.

(Doctor Faustus, lines 1419-1485.)

From "The Jew of Malta"

"The Opening Soliloquy

(Enter Barrabas in his Counting-house, with heaps

of gold before him.)

JEW

So that of thus much that return was made:

And of the third part of the Persian ships,

'There was the venture summ'd and satisfied.

As for those Samnites, and the men of Uzz,

'That bought my Spanish Oils, and Wines of Greece,

Here have I purceld their paltry silverlings.

Fie; what a trouble 'tis to count this trash.

Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay

'The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,

Whereof a man may easily in a day

'T'ell that which may maintain him all his life.

'The needy groom that never fingered groat,

Would make a miracle of thus much coin:

But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are crammed full,

And all his life-time hath been tired,

Wearying his finger ends with telling it,

Would in his age be loath to labour so,

And for a pound to sweat himself to death;

Give me the Merchants of the Indian Mines,

'That trade in metal of the purest mould;

'The wealthy Moor, that in the Eastern rocks

Without control can pick his riches up,

And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones;

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Receive them free, and sell them by the weight,

Bags of fiery Opals, Sapphires, Amethysts,

Jacinths, hard Topaz, Grissat I know not what,

Beauteous Rubies, sparkling Diamonds,

And seildsene costly stones, and one of them indifferently rated.

And of a Carat of this quantity,

May serve in perill of calamitys

To ransom great Kings from captivity:

This is the ware wherein consists my wealth:

And thus me thinkes should men of judgement frame

Their meane of trade from the vulgar trade.

And as their wealth increaseth, so encrease

Infinite riches in a little roome.

But now how stands the wind

Into what corner peeres my Halcyons bill

Ha, to the East will I. See how the Vane.

East and by South: why then I hope my ship

I sent for Egypt and the boundelesse sea

Are gotten up by Nilus winding flood:

Nine Argoys from Alexandria.

Loden with Spice and Silke, now under saile,

Are smoothly gliding down by Candie shoale

To Malta, through our Mediterranean sea.

(l. 83-110.)

From "Hero and Leander"

On Hellespont guilty of true loves blood,

In view and opposite two cities stood,

Seaborderers, disjoyn'd by Neptunes might:

The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.

At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the faire,

Whom young Apollo courted for her haire,

And offered as a dower his burning throne,

Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.

The outside of her garments were of lawn,

The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn,

Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove,

Where Venus in her naked glory strove,

To please the careless and disdainful eyes

Of proud Adonis that before her lies.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,

Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.

Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath,

From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath.

Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,

Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives.

Many would praise the sweet smell as she pass'd,

When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast,

And there for honey bees have sought in vain,

And beat from thence, have lighted there again.

About her neck hung chains of pebble stone,

Which lightened by her neck, like Diamonds shone.

She wore no gloves, for neither sun nor wind

Would burn or parch her hands, but to her mind,

Or warm or cool them, for they took delight

To play upon those hands, they were so white.

Buskins of shells all silvered used she,

And branched with blushing coral to the knee;

Where sparrows perched, of hollow pearl and gold,

Such as the world would wonder to behold:

Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,

Which as she went would chirrup through the bills.

Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd,

And looking in her face, was stricken blind.

But this is true, so like was one the other,

As he imagin'd Hero was his mother.

And oftentimes into her bosom flew,

About her naked neck his bare arms threw,

And laid his childish head upon her breast,

And with still panting rock'd, there took his rest.

So lovely fair was Hero, Venus Nun,

As nature wept, thinking she was undone;

Because she took more from her than she left,

And of such wondrous beauty her bereft:

Therefore in sign her treasure suffered wrack,

Since Hero's time, hath half the world been black.

Amorous Leander, beautiful and young,

(Whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung)

Dwelt at Abydos: since him dwelt there none,

For whom succeeding times make greater moan.

His dangling tresses that were never shorn,

Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,

Would have allur'd the vent'rous youth of Greece

To hazard more than for the golden Fleece.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Fair Cynthia wished her nymph might be her sprite,

Grief makes her pale, bewailed the nymph's sad plight,

His body was as straight as Circe's wand,

Jove might have clipped out Venus from his brain.

Even as delicious meat is to the taste,

So was his neck in touching, and suppliant.

The white of Pelops' shoulders I could tell ye,

How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly,

And whose immortal fingers did imprint

That heavenly path, with many a curious dint,

That runs along his back, but my rude pen

Can hardly blaze forth the love of men,

Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice

That my slack muse sings of Leander's eyes,

Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his,

That leapt into the water for a kiss,

Of his own shadow, and desp'rating thus,

Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.

Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen,

Enamoured of his beauty he had been;

His presence made the rudest peasant melt,

That in the vast uplandish country dwelt,

The barbarous Thracian soldier moved with nought,

Was moved with him, and for his favour sought.

Some swore he was a maid in man's attire,

For in his looks were all that men desire,

A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,

A brow for love to banquet royally,

And such as knew he was a man would say,

Leander, thou art made for amorous play:

Why art thou not in love, and loved of all?

Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.

The men of wealthy Sestos, every year,

(For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,

Rose-cheeked Adonis) kept a solemn feast.

Thither resorted many a wandering guest,

To meet their loves, such as had none at all.

Came lovers home from this great festival.

For every street like to a firmament

Glistered with breathing stars, who where they went,

Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd

Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd,

As if another Phaeton had got

The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

But far above the loveliest Hero shin'd,

And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind,

For like Sea-nymphs enveigling harmony,

So was her beauty to the standers by.

Nor that night-wand'ring pale and wat'ry star

(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car

From Latmus mount up to the gloomy sky,

Where crown'd with blazing light and majesty,

She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood,

Than she the hearts of those that near her stood.

Even as, when gaudy Nymphs pursue the chase,

Wretched Ixion's shaggy footed race,

Incensed with savage heat, gallop amain

From steep Pind-bearing mountains to the plain:

So ran the people forth to gaze upon her,

And all that view'd her, were enamour'd on her.

And as in fury of a dreadful light,

Their fellows being slain or put to flight,

Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead strooken,

So at her presence all surprised and tooken,

Await the sentence of her scornful eyes:

He whom she favours lives, the other dies.

There might you see one sigh, another rage,

And some (their violent passions to assuage)

Compile sharp satires, but alas too late,

For faithful love will never turn to hate.

And many seeing great princes were denied,

Pined as they went, and thinking on her died.

On this feast day, O cursed day and hour,

Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower

To Venus temple, where unhappily,

As after chanced, they did each other spy.

So fair a church as this, had Venus none,

The walls were of discoloured Jasper stone,

Wherein was Proteus carved, and overhead,

A lively vine of green sea agate spread;

Where by one hand, light headed Bacchus hung,

And with the other, wine from grapes out wrung.

Of Crystal shining fair the pavement was,

The town of Sestos called it Venus glass.

There might you see the gods in sundry shapes,

Committing heady riots, incest, rapes:

For know, that underneath this radiant floor

Was Danaë's statue in a brazen tower,

45

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Jove slyly stealing from his sister's bed.

To dally with Laliart connived,

And for his love Leander lothsome stood,

And tumbling with the Rhodlusa in a flood

Blood-quatling. Vast harmony the nuns met,

Which limning Nulean and his lady set

Love kindling fire, to burn with in torment. In Troy,

Sylvanus weeping for the lovely boy

That now is turned into a cypress tree,

Under whose shade the Wood-nymph love to be.

And in the midst a silver altar stood;

There Hero sacrificing tender blood

Veiled to the ground, veiling but one had the grace,

And modestly they opened to the priest

Thence flew Love's arrows with the golden head,

And thus Leander was enamoured.

Stone still he stood, and examined the priest

Till with the fire that from his countenance beheld,

Relenting Hero's gentle heart was inflamed,

Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.

It lies not in our power to love, or hate,

For will in us is overruled by fate.

When two are stripped long ere the morning begins,

We wish that one should love, the other win;

And one especially do we affect

Of two gold Ingots like in each respect.

The reason no man knows, let it suffice,

What we behold is censured by our eyes.

Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

He kneel'd, but unto her devoutly pray'd;

Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said:

Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him,

And as she spake those words, came somewhat near to him.

He started up, she blushed as one ashamed;

Wherewith Leander much more was inflamed.

He touched her hand, in touching it she trembled.

Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled.

These lovers parled by the touch of hands,

True love is mute, and oft amazed stands.

Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled,

The air with sparks of living fire was spangled,

And night deep drenching in misty Acheron

Heaved up her head, and half the world upon

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

47

Breathed darkness forth (dark night is Cupid's day).

And now begins Leander to display

Love's holy fire, with words, with sighs and tears,

Which like sweet music entered Hero's ears,

And yet at every word she turned aside,

And always cut him off as he replied.

At last, like to a bold sharp Sophister,

With cheerful hope thus he accosted her.

Fair creature, let me speak without offence,

I would my rude words had the influence,

To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine,

Then shouldst thou be his prisoner who is thine.

Be not unkind and fair, misshapen stuff

Are of behaviour hoisterous and rough.

O shun me not, but hear me ere you go,

God knows I cannot force love, as you do.

My words shall be as spotless as my youth,

Full of simplicity and naked truth.

This sacrifice (whose sweet perfume descending,

From Venus' altar to your footsteps bending)

Doth testify that you exceed her far,

To whom you offer, and whose Nun you are.

Why should you worship her? her you surpass,

As much as sparkling Diamonds flaring glass.

A Diamond set in lead his worth retains,

A heavenly Nymph, belov'd of human swains,

Receives no blemish, but oft-times more grace,

Which makes me hope, although I am but base,

Base in respect of thee, divine and pure,

Dutiful service may thy love procure,

And I in duty will excel all other,

As thou in beauty dost exceed love's mother.

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valeys, groves, hills and fields,

Woods, or steepey mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow Rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

48

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs;

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds' Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning.

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

THOMAS KYD

(1558 1594)

Thomas Kyd was the son of a London scrivener, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. That is almost all that we know of his life apart from his writings; we do know, however, that he was a friend of Marlowe, and in 1593 was accused of sharing Marlowe's heterodox (probably Unitarian) views on religion. He was apparently not at either University, and at an early age adopted literature as a profession. He published a translation from Tasso, which he named The Householders Philosophie, and a pamphlet on a recent murder, The Trueth of the most wicked and secret Murthering of John Brewen, Goldsmith, of London, committed by his own wife. He also translated a French tragedy by Robert Garnier, Pompey the Great,

his faire Cornelia's Tragedie, a still and tedious production. The Tragedie of Solyman and Perseda has also been attributed to him on somewhat flimsy evidence. His principal work, or at any rate his principal extant work, is The Spanish Tragedie, containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio and Belimperia, with the pitiful death of old Hieronymo. This play, a notable landmark in English dramatic history, was probably written about 1586; on negative evidence it was certainly written before the defeat of the Armada in 1588. It is full of horrors, which are thus admirably summarized by the Chorus at the end of the play:

Horatio murder'd by his father's bower;

Vild Serberine by Pedringano slain;

THOMAS KYD

49

False Pedringano hang'd by quaint device;

Fair Isabella by herself misdone;

Prince Balthazar by Belimperiastabb'd;

The Duke of Castile and his wicked son

Both done to death by old Hiero-nimo;

My Belimperia fall'n, as Dido fell,

And good Hieronimo slain by him-self.

In spite of, or perhaps because of,

its orgy of bloodshed, The Spanish Tragedie was immensesly popular

and had a long life, giving pleasure not only to the audiences of the

'eighties, but to younger and more sophisticated generations of play-goers.

Several of its phrases became proverbial.

Those who, like Ben Jonson, were self-constituted directors of public taste, tried in

vain to wean the public from their liking for this crude old play.

Jonson himself, in his younger days, wrote some additions to it;

whether they are the un-Jonsonian additions which we possess or

whether these are the work of Webster is an unsolved and prob-ably an insoluble problem.

The success of The Spanish Tragedie caused the production of a com-panion-play usually called The First

Part of Jeronimo.

A sequel to The Spanish Tragedie was obviously impossible, as so many of its dramatis personae were dead;

so Jeronimo, though written later, is a forerunner to the other play.

Jero-nimo is a crude, ill-written play, so absurd that some critics interpret it as intentionally so.

It is almost impossible to believe that Kyd wrote this burlesque upon his own work;

and there are reasons for supposing that this play was not

written until after 1600, when Kyd had been dead some five years.

There is a considerable body of evidence, too long to summarize here, that in 1588 or thereabouts

Kyd wrote a Hamlet, some passages of which possibly survive in the 1603 quarto edition of Shake-speare's play.

There is no Eliza-bethan document whose loss is more to be regretted than the loss of this old play;

for no other document would throw more light on Shakespeare's mind and art.

There is no doubt that Shakespeare had an older play in front of him when he wrote Hamlet, and small doubt

that that play was Kyd's.

Kyd is one of the most impor-tant and one of the least interesting

of Shakespeare's predecssors.

His work has the historic but not the intrinsic value of Marlowe's.

His sombre and Senecan masterpiece set the fashion in the carly 'nine-teens for tragedies of the type of

Titus Andronicus, and at a later date for playslike those of Webster and Tourneur.

Though its plot is fairly well constructed and its dialogue more human than that of Marlowe, it is not great literature.

"Sporting Kyd", as Jonson humor-ously called him—the epithet being highly inappropriate—did, however,

contribute certain valuable elements to early drama, such as a better plot and good stage situations.

Marlowe and Kyd influenced Shakespeare the poet, and Kyd influenced Shakespeare the dramatist.

[F. S. Boas, The Works of Thomas Kyd; J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on English Tragedy; W. H. Widgery, The First Quarto Edition of Hamlet, 1603; J. A. Symonds, Shakspere's Predecessors.]

28

THOMAS KYD

The Spanish Tragedie

(Enter the Ghost of ANDREA, and with him REVENGE.)

Gnost

When this eternall substance of my soule,

Did line imprison'd in my wanton flesh,

Each in their function serving others neede,

I was a Courtier in the Spanish Court:

My name was Don Andrea, my descent

Though not ignoble, yet inferiour farre

To gratious fortunes of my tender youth:

For there in prime and pride of all my yeeres,

By duetious seruice, and deseruing loue,

In secret I possest a worthy Dame,

Which hight sweete Bel-imperia by name:

But in the harvest of my sommer joyes,

Deaths winter nipt the blossomes of my blisse,

Forcing diuorce betwixt my loue and me:

For in the late conflict with Portingale,

My valour drew me into dangers mouth,

Till life to death made passage through my woundes:

When I was slaine, my soule descended straitght

To passe the flowing streame of Acheron;

But churlish Charon onely Boat-man there,

Sayd, that my rites of buriiall not perfourmade,

I might not sit amongst his passengers.

Ere Sol had slept three nightes in Thetis lap,

And slakt his smoaking Chariot in her flood,

By Don Horatio our Knight-Marshals sonne,

My Funerals and obsequies were done:

Then was the Ferriman of Hell content,

To passe me ouer to the slinie strand,

That leades to fell Avernus ugly waues:

There pleasing Cerberus with honed speach,

I past the perils of the formost porch,

Not farre from hence amidst ten thousand soules,

Sate Minos, Eacus, and Rhadamant:

To whom no sooner gan I make approch,

To craue a passport for my wandring Ghost,

But Minos in grauen leaues of Lotterie,

Drew foorth the manner of my lyfe and death.

This Knight (quoth he) both liu'd and dyed in loue,

THOMAS KYD

And for his loue tryed fortune of the Warres,

And by Warres fortune, lost both loue and life.

Why then sayd Eacus, conucy him hence,

To walke with Louers in our ficldes of loue,

And spend the course of cuerlasting time,

Vnder greene Mirtle trees and Cypers shades.

No, no, sayd Rhadamant, it were not well,

With louing soules, to place a Martialist;

He died in warre, and must to Martiall ficldes:

Where wounded Hector liu'd in lasting paine,

And Achillis mermedons do scourc the plaine.

Then Minos, mildest censor of the three,

Made this deuice to end the difference.

Send him (quoth he) to our infernall King:

To this effect my passport straight was drawne,

In keeping on my way to Plutos Court,

Through dreadfull shades of cuer glooming night:

I saw more sights then thousand tongues can tell,

Or penncs can write, or mortall hartes can thinke.

Three wayes there were, that on the right hand side,

Was ready way vnto the foresaid fieldes,

Where Louers liue, and bloodie Martialistes:

But either sort contain'd within his boundes,

The left hand path declining fearefullie,

Was readie downefall to the deepest hell,

Where bloodie furies shake their whippes of steele,

And poore Ixion turnes an endles wheele:

Where Vzurers are choakt with melting gold,

And Wantons are imbraste with ouglie Snakes,

And Murderers greeue with cuerkilling woundes,

And Periurde wightes scalded in boyling lead,

And all foule sinnes with tormentes ouerwhelmd,

'Twixt these two wayes, I trode the middle path,

Which brought me to the faire Elisian greene:

In middst whereof, there standes a stately Towre,

'The Walles of Brasse, the Gates of Adamant:

Here finding Pluto with his Proserpine,

I shewed my Pasport humbled on my knee:

Whereat faire Proserpine began to smile,

And begd that only she might giue my doome.

Pluto was pleasd, and seald it with a kisse.

Forthwith Reuenge she rounded thee in th' care,

And badc thee lead me through the gates of Horror.

REFERENCE

Then know Andrea, that thou art ariv'd,

Where thou shalt see the author of thy death:

Don Balthasar the Prince of Portingale,

Depriv'd of life by Bel-imperia:

Here sit we down to see the misticrie,

And serue for Chorus in this Tragedie.

(Lines 1 95.)

[Horatio, Hieronymo's son, is murdered while with his mistress

Belimperla, by his rival Balthazar and Belimperia's brother,

Lorenzo. Hieronymo goes mad when he discovers his

son's body.]

HIERONIMO

My sonne, and what's a sonne?

A thing begot within a paire of minutes, there about:

A lumpe bred vp in darknesse, and doth serue

To ballace these light creatures we call Women:

And at nine months end, creepes foorth to light.

What is there yet in a sonne?

To make a father dote, raue, or runne mad.

Being borne, it poutes, cryes, and breeds teath,

What is there yet in a sonne? He must be fed,

Be taught to goe, and speake I, or yet.

Why might not a man loue a Calfe as well?

Or melt in passion ore a frisking Kid,

As for a sonne, me thinkes a young Baron,

Or a fine little smooth Horse-colt

Should moue a man, as much as doth a sonne.

For one of these in very little time,

Will grow to some good vse, where as a sonne,

The more he growes in stature and in yeeres,

The more vnsquard, vnbeuelled he appeares,

Reckons his parents among the rancke of fooles,

Strikes care vpon their heads wich his mad youts.

Makes them looke olde, before they meet with age:

This is a sonne: And what a losse were this, considered truly.

O but my Horatio, grew out of reach of these

Insatiate hours: He loued his louing parents,

He was my comfort, and his mothers ioy,

'The very arme that did holde vp our house,

Our hopes were stored vp in him.

None but a damned murderer could hate him:

He had not seene the backe of nineteene yere,

When his strong arme vnhorst the proud Prince Balthazar,

And his great minde too full of Honour,

'Tooke him vs to mercy, that valiant, but ignoble Portingale.

Well, heauen is heauen still.

And there is Nemesis and Furies,

And things called whippes,

And they sometimes doe meete with murderers,

'They doe not alwayes scape, that's some comfort.

I, I, I, and then time steales on: and steales, and steales

'Till violence leapes forth like thunder

Wrapt in a ball of fire,

And so doth bring confusion to them all.

(Lines 1869 1910.)

RICHARD HAKLUYT

(c. 1553 - 1616)

Richard Hakluyt was born about

1553, and was a member of an old

Herefordshire family which was

probably of Welsh origin. He was

educated at Westminster School,

and in 1570 proceeded to Christ

Church, Oxford, where he gradu-

ated B.A. in 1574 and M.A. in

1577. He took holy orders as soon

as he reached the statutory age.

While he was still a schoolboy, his

cousin of the Middle Temple, who

bore the same names as himself

and who is frequently confused

with him, directed his attention to

the study of geography, navigation,

and exploration; and from that

time a love of these subjects became

his ruling passion. He studied

them at Oxford and lectured on

them, possibly at Oxford too; he

wished to found a lectureship on

them, certainly not at Oxford, more

probably at Ratcliffe or somewhere

else where seafaring men congregated.

Hakluyt's interest in navi-

gation and kindred subjects was

always practical, not academic. In

1582 he published his first work,

Divers Voyages touching the dis-

coverie of America and the Ilands

adiacent unto the same. In the follow-

ing year he went to Paris as chap-

lain to the English embassy, and

remained there for five years. This

appears to have been all the travel-

54

RICHARD HAKLUYT

ling which our greatest editor of

travels experienced personally. A

particular Discourse concerning Wes-

tern Discoveries was written in 1584,

but not printed until almost three

centuries later. In 1586 he became

a prebendary of Bristol, and re-

turned to England two years later.

In 1589 appeared the first edition

of his great work, The Principal

Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and

Discoveries of the English Nation,

made by sea or over-land to the

remote and farthest distant quarters

of the earth, at any time within the

compasse of these 1500 yeres (one

volume). The second edition, very

much amplified, was in three

volumes, which appeared respec-

tively in 1598, 1599, and 1600, and

carried the record down to the year

of publication. Vol. II deals with

voyages to the North and North-

east, and contains 109 narratives;

Vol. II treats of voyages to the

South and South-east, and con-

tains 165 separate pieces; Vol. III

has 243 different narratives, com-

mencing with the fabulous dis-

covery of the West Indies in

1170 by Madoc, and including

the voyages of Columbus, Cabot,

Frobisher, Drake, Hawkins, and

Raleigh. There are in all, therefore,

517 separate narratives. It is almost

unnecessary to say that Hakluyt's

life was uneventful; had it not

been he would not have found time

to edit a compilation of this magni-

tude. He was appointed rector of

Wetheringsett in 1590, prebendary

of Westminster in 1602, archdeacon

in 1603, and chaplain of the Savoy

in 1604. His last publication was a

translation from the Portugese,

which he named Virginia richly

valued. He died on 23rd Nov.,

There is little doubt that the his-

torian Froude, with the best inten-

tions, did a disservice to Hakluyt

when he called his great work

"the prose epic of the modern

English nation". His phrase has

sent many a reader to the book in a

mood of pleasurable anticipation,

which rapidly disappeared when it

was discovered that the modern

English epic included many Latin

documents, and many patents,

letters, instructions, and so on, as

well as truly epic narratives. But

when the nature of Hakluyt's

cyclopean compilation is under-

stood, disappointment will vanish

in delight. There are few books

which better repay the exercise of

that art which ought to be culti-

vated by all readers, but in which

few confess their proficiency the

art of skipping. The narratives of

many of the early explorers, written

in many cases by an unknown hand,

are unequalled as tales of heroism

plainly told. Hakluyt was an ideal

editor, a man of tireless energy and

assiduity; and though an excellent

writer he kept himself in the back-

ground, with admirable self-denial.

He effaced himself and let his

documents speak for themselves.

He has not written our national

epic, but has left enough material

for a whole epic cycle. All that is

wanted is a Homer and a school of

Homeridae.

RICHARD HAKLUYT

55

From "Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques,

and Discoveries"

THE ARMADA

Upon the 29 of July in the morning, the Spanish Fleet after the

foresaid tumult, having arranged themselves again into order, were,

within sight of Greveling, most bravely and furiously encountered by

the English; where they once again got the wind of the Spaniards; who

suffered themselves to be deprived of the commodity of the place in Calais

road, and of the advantage of the wind near unto Dunkirk, rather than

they would change their array or separate their forces now conjoined

and united together, standing only upon their defence.

And albeit, there were many excellent and warlike ships in the

English fleet, yet scarce were there 22 or 23 among them all which

matched 90 of the Spanish ships in bigness, or could conveniently assault

them. Wherefore the English ships using their prerogative of nimble

stirrage, whereby they could turn and wield themselves with the wind

which way they listed, came often times very near upon the Spaniards,

and charged them so sore, that now and then they were but a pike's

length asunder: and so continually giving them one broad-side after

another, they discharged all their shot both great and small upon them,

spending one whole day from morning till night in that violent kind of

conflict, until such time as powder and bullets failed them. In regard

of which want they thought it convenient not to pursue the Spaniards

any longer, because they had many great vantages of the English, namely

for the extraordinary bigness of their ships, and also for that they were

so nearly conjoined, and kept in so good array, that they could by no

means be fought without one to one. The English thought therefore,

that they had right well acquitted themselves, in chasing the Spaniards

first from Calais, and then from Dunkirk, and by that means to have

hindered them for joining with the Duke of Parma his forces, and getting

the wind of them, to have driven them from their own coasts.

The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage, having

many of their ships shot through and through, and they discharged

likewise great store of ordnance against the English; who indeed sus-

tained some hindrance, but not comparable to the Spaniards' loss:

for they lost not any one ship or person of account. For very diligent

inquisition being made, the English men all that time wherein the Spanish

Navy sailed upon their seas, are not found to have wanted above one

hundreth of their people; albeit Sir Francis Drake's ship was pierced

with shot above forty times, and his very cabin was twice shot through,

and about the conclusion of the fight, the bed of a certain gentleman

lying weary thereupon, was taken quite from under him with the force

of a bullet. Likewise, as the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Charles

Blunt were at dinner upon a time, the bullet of a demi culvering broke

through the midst of their cabin. touched their feet, and struck down

two of the standers by, with many such accidents befalling the English

ships, which it were tedious to rehearse. Whereupon it is most apparent,

that God miraculously preserved the English nation. For the L. Admiral

wrote unto her Majesty that in all human reason, and according to the

judgment of all men (every circumstance being duly considered) the

English men were not of any such force, whereby they might, without

a miracle, dare once to approach within sight of the Spanish Fleet: in-

somuch that they freely ascribed all the honour of their victory unto

God, who had confounded the enemy, and had brought his counsels

to none effect.

The same day the Spanish ships were so battered with English shot,

that that very night and the day following, two or three of them sank

right down: and among the rest a certain great ship of Biscay, which

Captain Cross assaulted, which perished even in the time of the conflict,

so that very few therein escaped drowning; who reported that the

governors of the same ship slew one another upon the occasion following:

one of them which would have yielded the ship was suddenly slain; the

brother of the slain party in revenge of his death slew the murderer, and

in the meanwhile the ship sank.

The same night two Portugal galleons of the burden of seven or eight

hundred tons apiece, to wit the Saint Philip and the Saint Matthew, were

forsaken of the Spanish Fleet, for they were so torn with shot that the

water entered into them on all sides. In the galleon of Saint Philip was

Francis de Toledo, brother unto the Count de Orgaz, being Colonel

over two and thirty bands: besides other gentlemen; who seeing their

mast broken with shot, they shaped their course, as well as they could,

for the coast of Flanders: whither when they could not attain, the

principal men in the ship committing themselves to their skill, arrived

at the next town, which was Ostend; and the ship itself being left behind

with the residue of their company, was taken by the Vlissinger.

In the other galleon, called the S. Matthew, was embarked Don

Diego Pimentelli, another camp-master and colonel of 32 bands, being

brother unto the Marquis of Tamarres, with many other gentlemen and

captains. Their ship was not very great, but exceeding strong, for of a

great number of bullets which had battered her, there were scarce 20

wherewith she was pierced or hurt: her upper work was of force

sufficient to bear off a musket shot: this ship was shot through and pierced

in the fight before Greveling; insomuch that the leakage of the water

could not be stopped: whereupon the Duke of Medina sent his great

skiff unto the governor thereof, that he might save himself and the principal

persons that were in his ship: which he, upon a halt courage, refused to do: wherefore the Duke charged him to sail next unto himself: which the night following he could not perform, by reason of the great abundance of water which entered his ship on all sides; for the avoiding whereof, and to save his ship from sinking, he caused 50 men continually to labour at the pump, though it were to small purpose. And seeing himself thus forsaken and separated from his admiral, he endeavoured what he could to attain unto the coast of Flanders: where, being espied by 4 or 5 men of war, which had their station assigned them upon the same coast, he was admonished to yield himself unto them. Which he refusing to do, was strongly assaulted by them altogether, and his ship being pierced with many bullets, was brought into far worse case than before, and 40 of his soldiers were slain. By which extremity he was enforced at length to yield himself unto Peter Banderduess and other captains, which brought him and his ship into Zeland; and that other ship also last before mentioned: which both of them, immediately after the greater and better part of their goods were unladen, sank right down.

For the memory of this exploit, the foresaid Captain Banderduess caused the banner of one of these ships to be set up in the great Church of Leyden in Holland, which is of so great a length, that being fastened to the very roof, it reached down to the ground.

About the same time another small ship being by necessity driven upon the coast of Flanders, about Blankenberg, was cast away upon the sands, the people therein being saved. Thus almighty God would have the Spaniards' huge ships to be presented, not only to the view of the English, but also of the Zelanders; that at the sight of them they might acknowledge of what small ability they had been to resist such impregnable forces, had not God endued them with courage, providence, and fortitude, yea, and fought for them in many places with his own arm.

The 29 of July the Spanish fleet being encountered by the English (as is aforesaid) and lying close together under their fighting sails, with a south-west wind sailed past Dunkirk, the English ships still following the chase. Of whom the day following when the Spaniards had got sea room, they cut their main sails; whereby they sufficiently declared that they meant no longer to fight but to fly. For which cause the L. Admiral of England despatched the L. Henry Seymer with his squadron of small ships unto the coast of Flanders, where, with the help of the Dutch ships, he might stop the Prince of Parma his passage, if perhaps he should attempt to issue forth with his army. And he himself in the mean space pursued the Spanish fleet until the second of August, because he thought they had set sail for Scotland. And albeit he followed them very near, yet did he not assault them any more, for want of powder and bullets. But upon the fourth of August, the wind arising, when as the Spaniards had spread all their sails, betaking themselves wholly to flight, and

58

RICHARD HAKLUYT

leaving Scotland on the left hand, trended toward Norway (whereby they sufficiently declared that their whole intent was to save themselves by flight, attempting for that purpose, with their battered and crazed ships, the most dangerous navigation of the Northern seas.) the English seeing that they were now proceeded unto the latitude of 57 degrees, and being unwilling to participate that danger whereinto the Spaniards plunged themselves, and because they wanted things necessary, and especially powder and shot, returned back for England; leaving behind them certain pinnaces only, which they enjoined to follow the Spaniards aloof, and to observe their course. And so it came to pass that the fourth of August with great danger and industry, the English arrived at Harwich: for they had been tossed up and down with a mighty tempest for the space of two or three days together, which it is likely did great hurt unto the Spanish fleet, being (as I said before) so mained and battered. The English now going on shore, provided themselves forthwith of victuals, gunpowder, and other things expedient, that they might be ready at all assays to entertain the Spanish fleet, if it chanced any more to return.

But being afterward more certainly informed of the Spaniards' course, they thought it best to leave them unto their heathenism and unmonth Northern seas, and not there to hunt after them.

The Spaniards seeing now that they wanted four or five thousand of their people and having divers mained and sick persons, and likewise having lost 10 or 12 of their principal ships, they consulted among themselves, what they were best to do, being now encamped out of the hands of the English, because their victuals failed them in like sort, that they began also to want cables, cordage, anchors, masts, sails, and other naval furniture, and utterly despaired of the Duke of Parma his assistance (who verily hoping and undoubtedly expecting the return of the Spanish Fleet, was continually occupied about his great preparation, commanding abundance of anchors to be made, and other necessary furniture for a Navy to be provided) they thought it good at length, so soon as the wind should serve them, to fetch a compass about Scotland and Ireland, and so to return for Spain.

For they well understood, that commandment was given throughout all Scotland, that they should not have any succour or assistance there. Neither yet could they in Norway supply their wants. Wherefore, having taken certain Scottish and other fisherboats, they brought the men on board their ships, to the end they might be their guides and pilots.

Fearing also lest their fresh water should fail them, they cast all their horses and mules overboard: and so touching now here upon the coast of Scotland, but being carried with a fresh gale between the Orkneys and Faar-Isles, they proceeded far North, even unto 61 degrees of latitude, being distant from any land at the least 40 leagues. Here the Duke of Medina general of the Fleet commanded all his followers to shape their

course for Biscay: and he himself with twenty or five and twenty of

his ships which were best provided of fresh water and other necessaries,

holding on his course over the main Ocean, returned safely home. The

residue of his ships being about forty in number, and committed unto

his Vice-admiral, fell nearer with the coast of Ireland, intending their

course for Cape Clear, because they hoped there to get fresh water, and

to refresh themselves on land. But after they were driven with many

contrary winds, at length, upon the second of September, they were

cast by a tempest arising from the southwest upon divers parts of Ireland,

where many of their ships perished. And amongst others, the ship of

Michael de Oquendo, which was one of the great Galliasses: and two

great ships of Venice also, namely, la Ratta and Belanzara, with other

36 or 38 ships more, which perished in sundry tempests, together with

most of the persons contained in them.

Likewise some of the Spanish ships were the second time carried

with a strong west wind into the Channel of England, whereof some

were taken by the English upon their coast, and others by the men of

Rochelle upon the coast of France.

Moreover, there arrived at Newhaven, in Normandy, being by tempest

enforced so to do, one of the four great Galliasses, where they found

the ships with the Spanish women which followed the Fleet at their

setting forth. Two ships also were cast away upon the coast of Norway,

one of them being of a great burden; howbeit all the persons in the said

great ship were saved: insomuch that of 134 ships, which set sail out of

Portugal, there returned home 53 only small and great: namely of the

four galliasses but one, and but one of the four galceys. Of the 91 great

galleons and hulks there were missing 58 and 33 returned: of the pataches

and zabraes 17 were missing, and 18 returned home. In brief, there

were missing 81 ships, in which number were galliasses, galleys, galleons,

and other vessels, both great and small. And amongst the 53 ships

remaining, those also are reckoned which returned home before they

came into the English Channel. Two galleons of those which were returned,

were by misfortune burnt as they rode in the haven; and such like

mishaps did many others undergo. Of 30,000 persons which went in

this expedition, there perished (according to the number and proportion

of the ships) the greater and better part; and many of them which came

home, by reason of the toils and inconveniences which they sustained

in this voyage, died not long after their arrival. The Duke of Medina

immediately upon his return was deposed from his authority, commanded

to his private house, and forbidden to repair unto the Court; where he

could hardly satisfy or yield a reason unto his malicious enemies and

backbiters. Many honourable personages and men of great renown

deceased soon after their return; as namely John Martines de Ricalde,

with divers others. A great part also of the Spanish Nobility and Gentry

60

RICHARD HAKLUYT

employed in this expedition perished either by light, diseases, or drowning

before their arrival; and among the rest Thomas Perenot of Granduell

a Dutchman, being Earlof Cantelbroi, and son unto Cardinall Granduell's

brother.

Upon the coast of Zeland Don Diego de Pimentell, brother unto the

Marquis de Tamnares, andkinsman unto the Earlof Beneventum and

Calua, and Colonel over 32 bands with many other in the same ship

was taken and detained as prisoner in Zeland.

Into England (as we said before) Don Pedro de Valder, a man of

singular experience, and greatly honoured in his country, was led captive,

being accompanied with Don Vasquez de Silva, Don Alonzo de Sayas,

and others.

Likewise upon the Scottish Western Isles of Lewis, and Islay, and

about Cape Kintyre upon the maine land, there were cast away certaine

Spanish ships, out of which were saved divers Captaines and Gentlemen,

and almost four hundred soldiers, who for the most part, after their ship-

wreck, were brought unto Edinburgh in Scotland, and being miserably

needy and naked, were there clothed at the liberality of the King and

the Merchants, and afterward were secretly shipped for Spain; but

the Scottish fleet wherein they passed touching at Yarmouth on the

coast of Norfolke, were there stayed for a time untill the Council's pleasure

was known; who in regard of their manifold miseries, though they were

enemies, winked at their passage.

Upon the Irish coast many of their Noblemen and Gentlemen were

drowned; and divers slain by the barbarous and wild Irish. Howbeit

there was brought prisoner out of Ireland, Don Alonzo de Luçon,

Colonel of two and thirty bands, commonly called a terço of Naples;

together with Rodrigo de Lasso, and two others of the family of Cordova,

who were committed unto the custody of Sir Horatio Palavicini, that

Monsieur de T'eligny the son of Monsieur de Noue (who being taken

in fight near Antwerp, was detained prisoner in the Castle of Turney)

might be ransomed for them by way of exchange. To conclude, there

was no famous nor worthy family in all Spain, which in this expedition

lost not a son, a brother, or a kinsman.

For the perpetual memory of this matter, the Zelanders caused new

coin of silver and brass to be stamped: which on the one side contained

the arms of Zeland, with this inscription: Gloria T'ec Confix: and

on the other side, the pictures of certaine great ships, with these words:

The Spanish Fleet: and in the circumference about the ships: It

Came, Went, and Was, Anno 1588. That is to say, the Spanish fleet

came, went, and was vanquished this year; for which, glory be given

to God only.

Likewise they coined another kind of money; upon the one side

whereof was represented a ship fleeing and a ship sinking: on the other

side four men making prayers and giving thanks unto God upon their

knees; with this sentence: Man purposedh, God disposeth. 1588. Also,

divers such like coins, according to the custom of the ancient Romans.

While this wonderful and puissant Navy was sailing along the English

coasts, and all men did now plainly see and hear that which before they

would not be persuaded of, all people throughout England prostrated

themselves with humble prayers and supplications unto God: but

especially the outlandish Churches (who had greatest cause to fear, and

against whom by name, the Spaniards had threatened most grievous

torments) enjoined to their people continual fastings and supplications,

that they might turn away God's wrath and fury now imminent upon them

for their sins: knowing right well, that prayer was the only refuge against

all enemies, calamities, and necessities, and that it was the only solace

and relief for mankind, being visited with affliction and misery. Likewise

such solemn days of supplication were observed throughout the united

Provinces.

Also a while after the Spanish Fleet was departed, there was in England,

by the commandment of her Majesty, and in the united Provinces, by

the direction of the States, a solemn festival day publicly appointed,

wherein all persons were enjoined to resort unto the Church, and there

to render thanks and praises unto God: and the Preachers were commanded

to exhort the people thereunto. The foresaid solemnity was observed

upon the 29 of November; which day was wholly spent in fasting, prayer,

and giving of thanks.

Likewise, the Queen's Majesty herself, imitating the ancient Romans,

rode into London in triumph, in regard of her own and her subjects'

glorious deliverance. For being attended upon very solemnly by all

the principal estates and officers of her Realm, she was carried through

her said City of London in a triumphant chariot, and in robes of triumph,

from her Palace unto the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, out of the

which the ensigns and colours of the vanquished Spaniards hung dis-

played. And all the Citizens of London in their Liveries stood on either

side the street, by their several Companies, with their ensigns and

banners: and the streets were hanged on both sides with blue cloth,

which, together with the foresaid banners, yielded a very stately and

gallant prospect. Her Majesty being entered into the Church, together

with her Clergy and Nobles gave thanks unto God, and caused a public

Sermon to be preached before her at Paul's cross; wherein none other

argument was handled, but that praise, honour, and glory might be

rendered unto God, and that God's name might be extolled by thanks-

giving. And with her own princely voice she most Christianly exhorted

the people to do the same: whereupon the people with a loud acclamation

wished her a most long and happy life, to the confusion of her foes.

62

RICHARD HAKLUYT

Thus the magnificent, huge, and mighty fleet of the Spaniards (which themselves termed in all places invincible) such as sailed not upon the Ocean sea many hundred years before, in the year 1588 vanished into smoke; to the great confusion and discouragement of the authors thereof. In regard of which her Majesty's happy success all her neighbours and friends congratulated with her, and many verses were penned to the honour of her Majesty by learned men, whereof some which came to our hands we will here annex.

(Translated from the Latin of Emmanuel van Meteran.)

WILLIAM WARNER

(? 1558 1600 )

William Warner was born in London about 1558, and was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but did not graduate. He acquired a sound reputation as a lawyer, and a much wider fame as a man of letters. He appears to have been a protégé of the first and second Lords Hunsdon, who both held the office of Lord Chamberlain. We know little more about him than the entry of his death in the parish register tells us: "Master William Warner, a man of good yeares and of honest reputation; by profession an attorney of the common pleas, author of 'Albion's England' ". Warner's literary works consist of Pan his Syrinx (1585), a collection of seven prose tales; a translation of the Menaechmi of Plautus (1595), which Shakespeare may have seen in manuscript before he wrote The Comedy of Errors; and Albion's England (1st ed. 1586). The prose tales are not of much account. The translation of Plautus is not quite certainly Warner's, as it is ascribed to him only on the strength of his initials; it is merely of interest on account of its alleged connexion with Shakespeare. Albion's England, however, is an important poem, not only in bulk, but in certain vivid and powerful qualities. It is an historical or epicyclic poem in fourteen syllable couplets. The first edition contained four books, beginning with Noah and ending with William the Conqueror. Other editions carried on the story to later and even contemporary events, so that the final (posthumous) edition of 1612 was in sixteen books, and included "the most chief Alterations and Accidents . . . in the Raigne of . . . King James." Warner was not, as the egregious Francis Meres called him, "our English Homer"; but his poem is vigorous and unpretentious, and its tediousness is relieved by stirring passages. Judging by the number of editions (seven in twenty-six years), it was extremely popular; and while this popularity was doubtless due in part to the patriotic qualities of the poem, it was also due to merit of a more

WILLIAM WARNER

63

solid kind. It ousted The Mirror

of Magistrates from popular favour,

and in its turn was to some

extent ousted by Drayton’s Poly-

olbion. To the literary historian

Warner is of interest as an almost

unique example of an English-

man of his generation who was

quite untouched by Italian influ-

ences.

Albion’s England

BOOK IX. CHAP. XLIX

The Spaniards’ long time care and coste, invincible surnamed,

Was now a flote, whilst Parma too from Flanders hither aimcd.

Like flecte of eightscore ships and od the ocean never bore,

So huge, so strong, and so compleate in every strength and store.

Carikes, galions, argosics, and galiasses such

That seemed so many castles and their tops the cloudes to tuch.

These on the Lizards show themselves, and threaten England’s fall:

But there with fiftie shippes of ours that flecte was fought withall.

Howbeit of a greater sorte our navie did consist,

But parte kept died in the porte that might of health have miste,

Had Spain’s armada of our wants in Plimnorth’s haven wiste.

The reste had eye on Parma, that from Flanders’ armoor threates:

Meane while lord Charles our admirall and Drake did worthy feats.

Whose fearclesse fiftie moole-hils bod their trypeld mountaines bace,

And even at first (so pleas’d it God) pursewed as if in chace:

By this (for over idle seemed to English hearts the shore)

Our gallants did embarke cach-wheare, and made our forces more.

But in such warlike order then their shippes at anker laye

That we, unles we them disperse, on bootles labour staye:

Nor lacked policie that to that purpose made us waye.

Ours fyred divers shippes, that downe the current sent so skaerd,

That cables cut and ankers lost the Spaniards badly facred.

Dispersed thus, we spare not shot, and part of them we sinke,

And part we boord, the rest did flye, not fast enough they thinke.

Well guided little axes so force tallest oaks to fall,

So numbrous herds of stately harts fly beagles few and small.

Nine dayes together chased we them, not actious save in flight.

About eight thowsands perished by famine, sea and fight.

For treasure, shippes and carrages, lost honor, prisoners tayne

The Spaniards, hardly scaping hence scapt not rebukes in Spaine.

Well might thus much (as much it did) cheere England, but much more

Concarrancie from one to all to stop that common sore.

Even Catholiques (that erred name doth please the papists) were

As forward in this quarrel as the formost arms to bear:

64

WILLIAM WARNER

Recusants and suspects of note of others was the cater

And had not our God-guided fight on seas prevailed, yet

The Spaniards, land wherso they could had with our armies met.

Our common courage wished no lesse so lightly 'fard we fared,

Such hope in God, such hate of them, such hearts to hurlier blowes.

Heere flam'd the 'Cyclops' forges, Mars his armourie was heere,

Himself he sheads in us and with our cause doth live: we cheere.

But (which has scarredelie our wounds, if wounded, with the balme

Of her sweete presence, so applauded as in sermonnes a calme)

Her royall self, Elizabeth our soveraigne lawfull queene,

In magnanimious majestie amidst her troupes was seene.

Which made us weep for joy: nor was her kindnesse lesse to us.

Thinke nothing letting them that might the common cause disease,

Wheare prince and people have in love a sympathie as thus

Howbeit, force nor policie, but God's sole providence,

Did cleare, fore-boasted conquest and belighted thraldome hence.

He in Sancherib his nose did put his hooke and brought

Him back again the way he came, without performing ought:

He fought for us, alonely we did shoute and trumpets sound,

When as the walles of Jerico fell flat unto the ground.

Yea least (for carst did never heere like strong supplies befall,

Like loyall hearts in everyone, like war-like mindes in all,

Less spaer of purses, more foresight, and valiant guides to act

As shewde our hardie little fleet that battell never shakt.)

Lcastc, I say, might have been sayd the cause that we stumbled,

Even God, to glorifie himselfe, our gayned cause puruew'de,

Without our losse of man, or mast, or foe once touching shore,

Save such as wrackt, weare prishors, or but landing, liv'd not more;

And as in publique praiers we did his defence implore,

So being victors, publicquely, we yielded thankes therfore.

Her hignes selfe (good cause she had) in view of evert eye,

On humbled knees did give him thanks that gave her victorie.

Remaineth, what she wonne, what Spaine and Rome did lose in fame:

Remaineth, popes use potentates but to retrive their game.

THOMAS WATSON

( ? 1557 1592 )

Thomas WATSON was born in London about 1557, and was perhaps educated at Oxford. He studied law, but not very seriously,

and appears to have been a man of independent means and an enthusiast for poetry and music. He was one of the best Latinists of his

THOMAS WATSON

65

day, and translated into Latin Petrarch's sonnets, 'Tasso's Aminta, and the Antigone of Sophocles. He was also well read in Italian and French literature. He was a man of a scholarly, not to say pedantic cast of mind; and when he endeavoured to write English verse, he reclined quite openly on the bosom of Petrarch, Ronsard, and other less celebrated writers. His first volume of verse, EKATOMIIAOIA, or Passionate Centurie of Love, appeared in 1582. It contained a hundred poems which the author insisted on calling sonnets, though each contains eighteen lines (three repetitions of the form found in the last six lines of a Shakespearean sonnet). Watson had the soul of a scholiast, and wrote a curious prose commentary on each of his frigid poems, explaining their origin and quoting parallel passages. He seems to have been the first or among the first to double

the rôle of author and commentator, as Jonson did a generation later, to the detriment of his work. His second volume, The Tears of Fancie, or Love Disdained, appeared posthumously in 1593. It is more correct than the earlier volume, as its sonnets contain fourteen lines, but it is equally frigid. "The truest poetry is the most feigning"; and there is no feigning at all in Watson's work. His love and despair are all quite obviously make-believe. He is of importance as a competent though not accomplished metrician, as an early sonneteer, and as a popularizer of artificial love poetry. His influence on greater sonneteers, who infused real passion into their poetry, was great. Sidney and Shakespeare studied his work. The egregious Francis Meres groups Watson with Shakespeare, Marlowe, and others as "best for tragedie", but his dramatic writings, if they ever existed, are lost.

Passionate Centurie of Love

II

In this passion the Author describeth in how pitious a case the hart of a louer is, being (as he fayneth heere) seperated from his owne body, and remoued into a darksome and solitarie wildernesse of woes. The conueyance of his inuentions is plaine and pleasant enough of it selfe, and therefore needeth the lesse annotation before it.

My harte is sett him downe twixt hope and feares

Vpon the stonie banke of high desirc,

To vicw his owne made flud of blubbering teares

Whose waucs are bitter salt, and hote as fire:

There blowes no blast of wind but ghostly grones

Nor waues make other noyſe then pitious moanes.

As life were spent he waiteth Charons boate,

And thinkes he dwells on side of Stigian lake:

But blacke despaire some times with open throate,

Or spightfull Iclousie doth cause him quake,

With howlinge shrikes on him they call and cric

That he as yet shall nether liue nor die:

VOL. II.

29

And wanteth voyce to make his iust complaint.

No flowr but Hiaȝynth in all the place,

No sunne comes there, nor any heau'nly saincte,

But onely shee, which in him selfe remaines,

And ioyes her case though he abound in paines.

VII

This passion of loue is liuelly expresed by the Author, in that he laudalie praiseth the person and beautifull ornamentes of his loue, one after an other as they lie in order. He partly imitateth herein Ieneas Siluius, who setteth downe the like in describing Lucretia the loue of Tim'valus; and partly he followeth Ouidiust cant, where he describeth Helen: and partly borroweth from some others where they describe the famous Helen of Greece: you may therefore, if you please aptlie call this sonnet as a Scholler of good iudgement hath alredy christened it with, &c.

I larke you that list to heare what saite I serue:

I ler yellow lockes exceede the beaten gold;

I ler sparkling cies in heau'n a place deserue;

I ler forehead high and faire of comely molde;

I ler wordes are musicke all of siluer sound;

I ler wit so sharpe as like can scarcelie be found;

I each eiebrowe hanges like Iris in the skie;

I ler Eagles nose is straight of stately frame;

On either cheeke a Rose and Lillie lies;

I ler breath is sweete perfume, or hollie thame;

I ler lips more red than any Corall stone;

I ler necke more white, then aged Swans that moue;

I ler brest transparent is, like Christall rocke;

I ler fingers long, fit for Apollo lute;

I ler slipper such as Momus dare not mocke;

I ler vertues all so great as make me mute:

What other partes she hath I neede not say,

Whose face alone is cause of my decay.

XI

In this sonnet is courtly set forth, how pleasant a passion the Author one day enioyed, when by chance he ouerhard his minion, whilst she was singing priuately by her selfe: And sone after into how sorrowfull a dumpe, or sounden extasie he fell, when vpon the first sight of him she abruptlie finished her song and melodie.

O Goulden bird and Phenix of our age,

Whose sweete records and more then earthlie voice

By wondrous force did then my griefe asswage

When nothing els could make my heart reioyce,

THOMAS WATSON

67

Thy teunes (no doubt) had made a later end,

If thou hadst knowen how much they stood my frend.

When silence droound the latter warbling noate,

A sudden griefe eclypst my former ioye,

My life it selfe in calling Carons boate

Did sigh, and say, that pleasure brought anoy;

And blam'd mine care for listing to the sound

Of such a songe, as had increast my wound.

My heauie heart remembring what was past

Did sorrowe more than any tounge can tell;

As did the damned soules that stoode agast,

When Orpheus with his wile return'd from hell:

Yet who would think, that Musicke which is swete,

In curing paincs could cause delites to flecte?

XLVII

This Passion conteineth a relation through out from line to line; as,

from cuery line of the first staffe as it standeth in order, vnto cuery line

of the second staffe: and from the second staffe vnto the third. The oftener

it is read of him that is no great clarke, the more pleasure he shall haue

in it. And this posie a scholler set down ouer this Sonnet, when he had

well considered of it: Tam casu, quam arte et industria. The two first lines

are an imitation of Seraphine, Sonnetto 103.

Col tempo el Villanello al giogo mena

El Tor si fiero, e si crudo animale,

Col tempo el Falcon s'vsa à menar l'ale

E ritornare à te chiamando à pena.

In time the Bull is brought to weare the yoake;

In time all haggred Haukes will stoope the Lures;

In time small wedge will cleaue the sturdiest Oake;

In time the Marble weares with weakest shewres:

More fierce is my sweete loue more hard withall,

Then Beast, or Birde, then Tree, or Stony wall.

No yoake preuailes, shee will not yeeld to might;

No Lure will cause her stoope, she beares full gorge;

No wedge of woes make printe, she reakes no right;

No shewre of tears can moue, she thinkes I forge:

Helpe therefore Heau'nly Boy, come perce her brest

With that same shaft, which robbes me of my rest.

So let her feele thy force, that she relent;

So keepe her lowe, that she vouchsafe a pray;

So frame her will to right, that pride be spent;

So forge, that I may spcede without delay;

Which if thou do, I'll sweare, and singe with ioy,

That Loue no longer is a blinded Boy.

Here the Authour after some dolorous discourſe of his vn-happines,

and rehersall of ſome particular hurtſſ which he ſuſteineſth in the purſuſe

of his loue: firſt queſtioneth with his Lady of his deſerte; and then, as

hauinge made a ſufficiete proofe of his innocency, perſwadeth her to

pitie him, whom ſhe herſelfe hath hurte. Moreouer it is to be noted, that

the firſt letters of all the verſes in this Paſſion being ioyned together as

they ſtand, do conteine this poſſie agreeable to his meaning, Amor me pungit

et vrit.

A A World of woes doth raigne within my breſt,

m My penſiue thoughtes are cou'red all with care,

o Of all that ſing, the Syrens doth pleaſe me beſt.

r Reſtraint of ioyes exiles my wounted lure,

M Mad mooded Loue vſurping Reaſons place

e Extremitie doth ouer rule the caſe.

P Paine drieth vp my vaineſ: and vitall blond,

u Vnlesſe the Saint I ſerue ſeue helpe in time:

n None els, but ſhe alone, can do me good.

g Graunt then ye Gods, that firſt ſhe may not clime

i Immortall heau'ns, to liue with Saintes aboue

t Then ſhe vouchaſafe to yeeld me loue for loue

E Examine well the time of my diſtreſſe

t Thou dainty Dame, of whome I pine away,

V Vnguyltie though, as needles thou muſt conſſſſeſſe

r Remembing but the caſe of my decay:

i In viewing thy ſweete face aroſe my ſorow,

t Therfore in tyme vouchaſſſſſafe me ſome relicſſſe.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

(?1556 ?1610)

Alexander Montgomerie was a why or when, and receiued a pen-

ſon of Hugh Montgomerie of

Heſſilhead Caſtle, Ayrſhire, and

was born about 1556. We do not

know where he was educated,

though his poems atteſt that he

was a man of conſiderable culture.

He entered the king's ſervice, was

ſtyled “captain”, by courtesſſſſy or

otherwiſe, and became ſemi-offi-

cially Poet Laureate to the court.

He fell into diſgrace, it is not known

ſion which was irreggularly paid.

He became a man with a greevance,

which he aired in many of his

poems, thereby impairing their

intereſt. To add to his diſſcontent-

ment he became involved in a

lengthy lawſſſſſſſſuit conſſſſſſſſcerning his pen-

ſion, and although he was in the

end ſucſſſſſſſſſful in his ſuit, his con-

victſſſſſſſſion that he was an injured man

became ſtronger and ſtronger. So

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

69

little do we know of his later years

that his death has been dated as

early as 1591 and as late as 1614.

By far the most famous of Mont-

gomerie's poems is The Cherrie and

the Slae (printed 1597), an allegori-

cal poem whose key is lost, or per-

haps it would be more correct to

say that the reader is offered by the

critics an embarrassing multiplicity

of keys for it. It is a poem of about

1600 lines written in peculiar

fourteen-line stanzas—a metrical

form of some intricacy which

Montgomeric invented or popu-

larized. Many of its stanzas are

fresh and vigorous, and show a

genuine love of nature. It is free

from the aurate style. The Flyting

betwixt Montgomerie and Polwart

(published 1621) is an imitation of

Dunbar's notorious poem, which

it equals in scurrility but not in the

exuberance of its verbosity. The

Mind's Melodie, a version of some

of the Psalms and other spiritual

songs, is more creditable to Mont-

gomerie's piety than to his poetical

gifts. His sonnets and miscellaneous

poems are for the most part good

when they are amatory or occa-

sional, poor when they are devo-

tional, and contemptible when they

sing the praises of King James.

Montgomerie is, for several reasons,

an interesting figure in literary

history. Although he was only some

eight years Shakespeare's senior,

he belongs in everything but date

to the fifteenth century. He is what

physiologists term a “throw-back ”

to the age of Dunbar, with his

allegories, flytings, and curiously

complicated metres. He also pos-

sesses the melancholy interest which

attaches to the last survivor of any

school of literature. He is the last

of the “makaris”. Aytoun, the

Earl of Stirling, and other poets of

Scottish birth followed English

models and adopted an entirely

English vocabulary.

[Dr. James Cranstoun edited

Montgomerie's Poems for the

S.T.S. in three volumes in 1887;

twenty years later a useful supple-

mentary volume, edited by Mr.

George Stevenson, gave a better

text of The Cherrie and the Slae

from Laing MS. No. 447.]

Off the Cherrie and the Slae

About ane bank, quhair birdis on beuis

Ten thousand tymes thair nottis renewis

Ilk hour into the day,

Quhair merle and mavis micht be sene,

With progne and with pheломenc,

Quhilk causit me to stay.

I lay and lenit me to ane buss,

To heir the birdis heir;

Thair mirth was so melodius,

Throw nature of the yeir:

Sum singing, sum springing,

So heich into the skye;

So nimlic and trimlic

Thir birdis flew me by.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

I saw the lurchun and the hair,

Quhilk fed amange the flouris fair,

war happin to and fro:

I saw the ewnyng and the kat,

Quhais downis with the dew was wat,

With mony heistin na,

The hairt, the hynd, the da, the rae,

the fumart, and the fox,

was skippin all frome bray to bray,

Amang the watter brokis;

Sum feiddling, sum dreidling,

In cais of suddane snairis;

With skipping, and trippin,

thay haillit ay in pairis.

The air was so attemprit,

But ony mist Immaculatt,

Baith purefeil and cleir:

The feildis ower all was flureis-chit,

As natour haid thane muris-chit,

Bayth delicatt and deir:

And euerie blume on branche and bewelh

So prettilie thay spred,

hingang thair heidis out ower the heuch,

In mayis cullour cled;

Sum knapping, Sum clapping

Of balmie liquor sweit,

Destelling and smelling

Throw phebus helsum heit.

The Coukou and the cussate cryid,

the turtill, on the vther syde,

Na plesure haid to play:

Sua schill in sorow was hir sang,

That with hir voce the rochis rang,

for echo ansuerit ay,

Lamenting still Narceissus' cais,

That steruit at the well;

Quha throw the schadlow of his face

for luif did slay him sell:

Sair weiping and creiping,

about that well he baid;

Quhylis lying, quhylis crying,

Bot it na ansuer maid.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

The dew as dyamontis did hing

Vpoun the tender twiskis ying,

Owertwinkling all the treis:

And ay quhair flouris did flurcis fair,

Thair suddanlic I saw repair

Ane suarme of sounding beis.

Sum sucitlic hes the hony socht,

Quhill thay war claggit soir;

Sum willinglic the wakx hes wrocht

To keip it vp in store;

So heiping, for keiping,

Into thair hyvis thay hyd it:

preceislic and visclic,

for winter thay provydit.

To pen the pleasour of that park,

how cucric blaysum, brench, and bark,

Aganis the sone did schync,

I leave to poyetis to compyle,

In staitlic vers and ornate style:

It passit my ingyne.

Bot as I movit me allone,

I saw ane rever Rin

Out ouer ane craig and Roch of stone,

Syne lichtit in ane lin:

With tumbling and Rumbling,

Among the rockis round,

Devalling and falling

Into the pitt profound.

To heir the stertlic streameis cleir,

Me thocht it mwsick to the eir,

Quhair daskenc did abound,

With trubill sueit, & tennour Iust;

And ay the echo reparcust

hir diapassoun sound,

Set with the ci soll fa uthe clewe,

Thairby to know the note,

Sounding ane michtic senabrewe

Out of the elphis thrott:

Discrcittlic, mair sueitlic,

Nor craftic amphioum;

Or mwssis that vsis

'That fountoun eloquon.

Quha wald hawe tyrit to heir that tune,

'The birdis coroborat ay abone,

'Throw schuitting of the larkis?

sum flew so heiche into the skyis,

Quhill cupid walknit with the cryis

Of naturall chappell clerkis;

Quha leauing all the heauinis abone,

alleichtit on the yeird.

Lo, heir that litill god of luif

Befuir me thair appeird;

So myldlyke and childlyke,

With bow threïs quarteris skant;

So moylie so coylie,

he luikit lyk ane sant.

Ane cleirlie crisp hang ower his eis,

his quaver be his makkit theis

hang in ane siluer caiss:

Of gold betuix his schoulderis grew

'Tua prettie wingis quhairwith he flew,

On his left arme ane brace.

'That god of all his geir he schowk,

And layit it on the ground:

I ran als bissie for to luik

Quhair fairleis micht be fund:

I maisit, I gaisit,

'To se that geir so gay:

Persauing my having,

he comptit me his pray.

"Quhat wald thon gif me frend," quod he,

"To haue thir prettie wingis to flie,

To sport the for ane quhyle?

Or quhat, gif I suld lend the heir

my bow and all my schuting geir,

Sum bodic to begyle?"

"That geir," quod I, "can nocht be bocht,

Yit wald I haue it fane."

"Quhat gif," quod he, "it cost the nocht,

Bot rander it agane?"

His wingis than he bringis than,

And band thame on my bak:

"Go, flic now," quod he now,

And so my leif I tak.

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERIE

73

I sprang vpoun cwpidois wingis,

the bow and quaver bayth resingis,

'To lene me for ane day.

As Icarus with borrowit flycht,

I muntit heichar nor I mycht,

Our perrellus ane play.

'Than furth I drew that deidlic dairt,

that sumtyme hurt his mother;

quhairwith I hurt my wantoun hairt,

In hoip to hurt ane vther.

I hurt me and bruit me,

the ofter I it hanteill;

Sum se now, In me now,

the butterfle and candill.

As scho delyttyth in the low,

So was I browdin of my bow,

As ignorant as scho:

And as scho fleis quhill scho be fyrit,

So, with the dairt that I desyrit,

My handis hes hurt me to.

As fulyche factoun, by suit,

His fatheris cairt obtenit,

I langit in cupiddis bow to schuit,

bot wist nocht quhat it mennit.

Mair wilfull nor skylfull,

to flie I was so fund,

desyring, Inspyring,

And sa was senc appond.

To lait I leirnit, quha hewis he,

the spaill sall fall into his ey:

To lait I went to scuillis:

To lait I hard the suallow preich,

To lait experience dois teich--

The scuilmaister of fuillis:

To lait I find the nest I scik,

quhan as the birdis ar flowne:

To lait the stable duir I scik,

quhan as the steid is stowin.

To lait ay thair stait ay

All fulych folk espy:

behind so, thai find so,

remeid, and so do I.

(Lines 1-182.)

74

RICHARD HOOKER

RICHARD HOOKER

( ?1553 1600 )

RICHARD HOOKER was born at Heavitree, near Exeter, in or about 1553. He was educated at Exeter Grammar School, and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1574, and M.A. in 1577, obtaining a fellowship in the latter year. He was a keen student, and his acquaintance with Greek and Hebrew was very wide, and for a time he deputized for the professor of Hebrew. About 1581 he took holy orders, and preached at St. Paul's Cross in London. His London landlady, Mrs. Churchman, suggested to him that he needed someone to look after him, and, being empowered to choose him a wife, not unnaturally selected her own daughter Joan, whom he at once married. 'O hell! to

choose love by another's eyes,' said Hermia; and Hooker soon found the truth of the saying. His wife appears to have been something of a shrew, though it is possible that her bad qualities have been exaggerated by Walton and others because her sympathies were with the Puritans. She certainly appears to have mishandled Hooker's papers after his death; but when she summoned her husband from gossiping with his friends to rock the cradle, she was surely not guilty of any unusual action or heinous offence. Hooker, who of course vacated his fellowship on his marriage, at first held the living of Drayton Beauchamp, in Buckinghamshire, but his friends, in order to free him from a life of sheep-tending and cradle-rocking, pro-

cured his appointment as Master of the Temple in 1585. Hooker preached at the Temple on Sunday mornings; the afternoon lecturer was one Walter Travers, an eminent Puritan, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for the mastership. A sharp though courteous controversy arose between Hooker and Travers, and inspired the former to write his great work on ecclesiastical polity. Any controversy, however, no matter how politely conducted, was repugnant to Hooker's gentle and sensitive nature, and in 1591 he requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to give him a country benefice 'where I may study, and pray for God's blessing on my endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessing spring out of my mother's earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions'. He was accordingly presented to the rectory of Bexcombe, Wiltshire, and was instituted to a minor prebend of Salisbury. In

1595 he received the better living of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, where he laboured continually at his great book until his death on 2nd November, 1600.

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Politie has a curious and rather uncertain literary history. The first four books were published in 1594 or a little before 1594. The fifth appeared in 1597. The sixth and eighth books appeared first in 1648, while the seventh did not appear until 1662. There is some doubt about the authenticity of the post-

humously published books; but

the consensus of opinion is that

the seventh and eighth books

are substantially Hooker's, being

worked up from his rough notes;

but that the so-called sixth book,

though also substantially Hooker's,

is part of another work, and has

no right to a place in the Ecclesias-

ticall Politie. The matter is not

quite clear, and the nature of the

book encouraged pious frauds

among religious and political en-

thusiasts. Hooker's book is a master-

piece both in thought and style.

In the first two books he expounds

philosophical principles and in the

later books he applies them to the

question in hand, so that in ways

the first two books are the most

generally interesting. But Hooker

had great gifts; what might seem

to be merely of temporary interest

becomes of permanent interest in

his hands; what is mortal has put

on immortality. In his broad,

tolerant, and sympathetic spirit,

in his calmness, his dignity, and his

freedom from rancour, Hooker

stands almost alone among theo-

logical controversialists. No one,

no matter what his religious or

political views may be, can rise

from a perusal of Hooker without

a greatly increased respect for the

Church of England, not only of

1600, but of to-day. His book is

typical of England and English

ways of thought, equally far

removed from Rome and from

Geneva. His style is as judicious

as his subject-matter, and keeps

carefully to the via media between

stiffness and familiarity, between

pedantry and colloquialism, be-

tween preciosity and vulgarity.

Hooker himself was a holy and

humble man of heart; a profound

scholar and a wise man too. His

book, like many books, has had a

somewhat curious fate. It was

written to support a mildly Big-

Endian policy, but is now used by

Little-Endians when attacking the

Big-Endian extremists.

[Izaak Walton, Life of Hooker;

J. Keble, Of the Lawes of Ecclesias-

tical Polity (revised by R. W.

Church and F. Paget); W. F.

Hook, Ecclesiastical Biography.]

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

CHAP. I

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so

well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable

hearers; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind

of regiment is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public

proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily

the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove supposed

disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the common benefit

of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind; under this fair

and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current.

That which wanteth in the weight of their speech, is supplied by the

aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on the other

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RICHARD HOOKER

side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to

strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of

men, who think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favour of

the present state, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment;

but also to bear such exceptions as minds so avcrted beforehand usually

take against that which they are loath should be poured into them.

Albeit therefore much that we are to speak in this present cause may

seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate;

(for many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence

it springeth; and therefore when they are led thereunto they are soon weary,

as men drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured);

yet this may not so far prevail as to cut off that which the matter itself

requireth, howsoever the nice humour of some be therewith pleased

or no. 'They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured

by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they

are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they must

consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass than in

sundry the works both of art and also of nature, where that which hath

greatest force in the very things we see is notwithstanding itself often-

times not seen. 'The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when

we behold them delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth

up the one, that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment and

life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed; and if there be at any time

occasion to search into it, such labour is then more necessary than pleasant,

both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like manner,

the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with

delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from

whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men

they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that

the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better

examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root,

the highest well-spring and fountain of them to be discovered. Which

because we are not oftentimes accustomed to do, when we do it the pains

we take are more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the matters

which we handle seem by reason of newness (till the mind grow better

acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For as much

help whereof as may be in this case, I have endeavoured throughout

the body of this whole discourse, that every former part might give

strength unto all that follow, and every later bring some light unto all

before. So that if the judgments of men do but hold themselves in

suspense as touching these first more general meditations, till in order

they have perused the rest that ensue; what may seem dark at the first

will afterwards be found more plain, even as the later particular decisions

will appear I doubt not more strong, when the other have been read before.

RICHARD HOOKER

77

The Laws of the Church, whereby for so many ages together we

have been guided in the exercise of Christian religion and the service

of the true God, our rites, customs, and orders of ecclesiastical govern-

ment, are called in question: we are accused as men that will not have

Christ Jesus to rule over them, but have wilfully cast his statutes behind

their backs, hating to be reformed and made subject unto the sceptre

of his discipline. Behold therefore we offer the laws whereby we live

unto the general trial and judgment of the whole world; heartily be-

seeching Almighty God, whom we desire to serve according to his own

will, that both we and others (all kind of partial affection being clean laid

aside) may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in his

sight are most acceptable.

And because the point about which we strive is the quality of our

laws, our first entrance hereinto cannot better be made, than with con-

sideration of the nature of law in general, and of that law which giveth

life unto all the rest, which are commendable, just, and good; namely

the law whereby the Eternal himself doth work. Proceeding from hence

to the law, first of Nature, then of Scripture, we shall have the easier

access unto those things which come after to be debated, concerning

the particular cause and question which we have in hand.

CHAP. II

All things that are, have some operation not violent or casual. Neither

doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-

conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for

is not obtained, unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto

every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto

each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power,

that which doth appoint the form and measure, of working, the same

we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless

the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made

suitable, fit and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule or

law. Which thing doth first take place in the works even of God himself.

All things therefore do work after a sort according to law: all other

things according to a law, whereof some superior, unto whom they are

subject, is author; only the works and operations of God have Him

both for their worker, and for the law whereby they are wrought. The

being of God is a kind of law to his working: for that perfection which

God is, giveth perfection to that he doth. Those natural, necessary,

and internal operations of God, the Generation of the Son, the Proceeding

of the Spirit, are without the compass of my present intent: which is

to touch only such operations as have their beginning and being by a

voluntary purpose, wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and

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RICHARD HOOKER

how they should be. Which eternal decree is that we term an eternal law.

Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know he live, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.

Our God is one, or rather very Oneness, and mere unity, having nothing but itself in itself, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many things. In which essential Unity of God a Trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's conceit. 'The works which outwardly are of God, they are of such sort of Him being one, that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper. For being Three, and they all subsisting in the essence of one Deity; from the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit, all things are. 'That which the Son doth hear of the Father, and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son, the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last, and therefore the nearest unto us in order, although in power the same with the second and the first.

'The wise and learned among the very heathens themselves have all acknowledged some first Cause, whereupon originally the being of all things dependeth. Neither have they otherwise spoken of that cause than as an Agent, which knowing what and why it worketh, observeth in working a most exact order or law. Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth, Δìos δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή. Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus Τὸν δὴ δημιουργὸν οὐ Χεριὰν ἁλλὰ λόγῳ. Thus much confessed by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the world an intellectual Worker. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first cause of all things to be fire, held nevertheless, that the same fire having art, did οἶς βουλήσει κóσμον. 'They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause, that Counsel is used, Reason followed, a Way observed; that is to say, constant order and Law is kept; whereof itself must needs be the author unto itself. Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it, and so could not itself be the first. Being the first, it can have no other than itself to be the author of that law which it willingly worketh by.

God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To himself he is a law in all those things, whereof our Saviour speaketh, saying, 'My Father worketh as yet, so I'. God worketh nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end

for which they are done; and the end for which they are done is a

reason of his will to do them. His will had not inclined to create woman,

but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created. Non est

bonum, “ It is not good man should be alone; therefore let us make a

helper for him.” That and nothing else is done by God, which to leave

undone were not so good.

If therefore it be demanded, why God having power and ability

infinite, the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as

we see they are: the reason hereof is the end which he hath proposed,

and the law whereby his wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power

in such sort, that it doth not work infinitely but correspondingly unto that

end for which it worketh, even “ all things χρŋστῶς, in most decent and

comely sort ”, all things in Measure, Number, and Weight.

The general end of God’s external working is the exercise of his

most glorious and most abundant virtue. Which abundance doth show

itself in variety, and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture

exprest by the name of riches. “ The Lord hath made all things for his

own sake.” Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him, but

all things for him to show beneficence and grace in them.

The particular drift of every act proceeding externally from God

we are not able to discern, and therefore cannot always give the proper

and certain reason of his works. Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and

certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch as there

is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it should be infinite,

even as the worker himself is.

They err therefore who think that of the will of God to do this or

that there is no reason besides his will. Many times no reason known

to us; but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable

to imagine, inasmuch as he worketh all things κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ

θελήματος αὐτοῦ, not only according to his own will, but “ the Counsel

hath of necessity some reason why it should be done, albeit that reason

be to us in some things so secret, that it forceth the wit of man to stand,

as the blessed Apostle himself doth, amazed thereat: “ O the depth

of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how un-

searchable are his judgments,” etc. That law eternal which God himself

hath made to himself, and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the

cause and author; that law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with

most perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which hath testified

concerning herself, “ The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his

way, even before his works of old I was set up ”; that law, which hath

been the pattern to make, and is the card to guide the world by; that

law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly; that law, the

author and observer whereof is one only God to be blessed for ever:

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RICHARD HOOKER

how should cither men or angels be able perfectly to behold? The book

of this law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That

little thercof which we darkly apprehend we admire, the rest with

religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore.

Seeing therfore that according to this law He worketh, " of whom,

through whom, and for whom, are all things "; although there seem

unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world:

" Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta

ne dubites": " Let no man doubt but that every thing is well done,

because the world is ruled by so good a guide ", as transgresseth not

His own law: than which nothing can be more absolute, perfect, and just.

The law whereby He worketh is eternal, and therefore can have

no show or colour of mutability: for which cause, a part of that law

being opened in the promises which God hath made (because his

promises are nothing else but declarations what God will do for the

good of men) touching those promises the Apostle hath witnessed, that

God may as possibly " deny himself " and not be God, as fail to perform

them. And concerning the counsel of God, he termeth it likewise a

thing " unchangeable"; the counsel of God, and that law of God

whereof now we speak, being one.

Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let, or hindered,

by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is

his own free and voluntary act.

This law therfore we may name eternal, being " that order which

God before all ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all

things by ".

HENRY CONSTABLE

( 1562 1613 )

Henry Constable was the son of

Sir Robert Constable of Newark,

and was born in 1562. He was

educated at St. John's College,

Cambridge, where he graduated

B.A. in 1580. He became an ardent

Roman Catholic whilc still a young

man, and appears to have been

engaged in secret service, a dan-

gerous occupation in Elizabethan

times, and doubly so for one of his

religion. He resided in Paris for

some time, and in 1598 visited

Edinburgh with a commission from

the Pope empowering him to pro-

mise James the support of the

Catholic nations in his claim to

succeed Elizabeth, if James would

promise to ameliorate the lot of

Catholics in England after his

accession. Constable did not see

James, and his mission was a

failure. When James did come to

the throne, Constable returned to

England, but was imprisoned in

the Tower for a few months. He

HENRY CONSTABLE

81

was released before December,

1604. Nothing more is known of

his life except that he died at

Liege on 9th October, 1613.

Constable's sonnet-sequence

Diana first appeared in 1592. This

edition contained only 23 sonnets;

the second edition (1594) was

entitled Diana, or the excellent

coitful Sonnets of H. C. augmented

with divers Quatorzains of honorable

and lerned personages, and contained

76 sonnets, many of which, how-

ever, are by other pens. Eight are

Sir Philip Sidney's; and none of

the additional poems can be as-

cribed with absolute certainty to

Constable. His spiritual sonnets

were not printed until 1815. He

contributed four charming poems

to England's Helicon (1600). His

work is almost too scanty to give a

satisfactory display of his genius;

though some of his poems are

fantastic and full of conceits, he is

always correct and elegant, often

tuneful and captivating. He is,

like many contemporary sonneteers,

greatly indebted to French and

Italian models, especially Desportes

and Petrarch.

[Sir Sidney Lee, Elizabethan

Sonnets; editions of Constable by

W. C. Hazlitt (1859) and John

Gray (1897).]

Of his mistrisse: upon occasion of her

walking in a Garden

My ladie's presence makes the roses red,

Because to see her lips they blush for shame:

'The lilies leaves, for envy, pale became,

And her white hands in them this envy bred.

'The marigold abroad the leaves doth spread,

Because the sun's and her power is the same;

'The violet of purple colour came,

Dy'd with the blood she made my heart to shed.

In briefe all flowers from her their virtue take:

From her sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed,

'The living heate which her eye-beames do make

Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seedle.

'The raine wherewith she watereth these flowers

Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.

To the Ladie Rich

Heralds at armes doe three perfections quote;

'To wit---most faire, most rich, most glittering:

So when these three concurre within one thing,

Needs must that thing of honour be, of note.

Lately did I behold a rich faire coate

Vol. II

30

HENRY CONSTABLE

Which wished fortune to mine eyes did bring:

A lordly coate but worthy of a king:

Wherein all these perfections one might note -

A field of lilies, roses proper bare,

To stars in chiefe, the crest was waves of gold:

How glittering was the coate the stars declare,

The lilies made it faire for to behold;

And rich it was, as by the gold appears,

So happy he which in his armes it beares.

Damelus Song to his Diaphenia

Diaphenia like the Daffadown-dillie,

White as the sunne, faire as the lillie,

Heigh hoe, how I doo love thee!

I doo love thee as my lambs

Are beloved of their Dams,

How blest were I if thou would'st prove me!

Diaphenia like the spreading Roses,

That in thy sweetes all sweets incloses,

Faire sweete, how I doo love thee!

I doo love thee as each flower

Loves the sunne's life-giving power;

For dead, thy breath to life might moove me.

Diaphenia like to all things blessed,

When all thy praises are expressed,

Deare Joy, how I doo love thee!

As the Birds doo love the spring,

Or the Bees their carefull King;

Then in requite, sweet Virgin, love me.

SIR EDWARD DYER

(d. 1607)

Edward Dyer was born at Sharpham Park, Somersetshire, the date of his birth is unknown, and not much is known of his life. He was destined, one hundred years after his death, to be the birthplace of Henry Fielding. 'The was educated at Oxford, but his college is not known with any certainty, and he did not graduate.

He appears to have gone to court

under the wing of Leicester, and

was a favourite, though not a prime

favourite, of the queen. He was

an intimate friend of Sir Philip

Sidney's, was a pall-bearer at his

funeral, and was bequeathed half

his books. He was out of favour at

court for some time, but was sent

on diplomatic missions to the Low

Countries and Denmark, and in

1596 was appointed Chancellor

of the Order of the Garter and

knighted. He is said, not on the

best of evidence, to have been a

great waster of money and an al-

chemist. The latter accusation, if

true, explains the former. He died

in 1607.

Dyer had a great reputation as a

poet in his day, and was mentioned

by Meres as “famous for elegy”.

His poems were never collected,

and many now are lost, so that we

are constrained to say of him what

Drummond of Hawthornden said,

that his works “are so few that

have come to my hands, I cannot

well say anything of them”. He

resembles “single-speech Hamil-

ton”, for his reputation is sus-

tained almost entirely by one

poem, My Mynde to me a Kingdome

is. This is a famous and an excellent

poem, though perhaps the later

stanzas do not quite come up to

the standard of the opening lines.

A. B. Grosart edited Dyer's writings

in Miscellanies of the Fuller Wor-

thies Library.

My Mynde to me a Kingdome is

My mynde to me a kyngdome is;

Such preasente joyes therein I fynd,

That it excells all other blisse

That earth affords or growes by kynd:

Though muche I wante which moste would have

Yet still my mynde forbiddles to crave.

No princely pompe, no wealthy store,

No force to winne the victorye,

No wilye wit to salve a sore,

No shape to feede a lovinge eye;

To none of these I yielde as thrall:

For why? My mynde doth serve for all.

I see how plenty suffers ofte,

And hasty clymers sone do fall;

I see that those which are alofte,

Mishapp doth threaten moste of all;

They get with toyle, they keepe with feare:

Suche cares my mynde could never beare.

SIR EDWARD DYER

Content I live, this is my staye,

I secke no more than maye sullyse;

I presse to beare no haughty swayc;

Look what I lack, my mynde supplies:

Lo, thus I triumphe like a kynge,

Content with that my mynde cloth bringe.

Some have too muche, yet still do crave;

I little have, and seck no more.

They are but poore though muche they have,

And I am ryche with lyttle store;

They poore, I ryche; they begge, I gyve;

They lacke, I leare; they pyne, I lyve.

I laughe not at anothers losse,

I grudge not at anothers gayne;

No wordly waies my mynde can toss:

My state at one clothe still remayne:

I feare no foe, I fawn no friendle;

I loathe not lyfe nor dread my ende.

Some weigh their pleasure by theyre lustc,

Theyre wisdom by theyre rage of wyll;

Theyre treasure is theyre onlye truste,

A cloked craftc theyre store of skylle.

But all the pleasure that I fynde

Is to mayntayne a quiet mynde.

My wealthc is healthe and perfect ease;

My conscience cleere my choicc defcnce;

I neither secke by brybes to please

Nor by deceyte to breede offence;

Thus do I lyve, thus will I dye;

Would all did so well as I.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

( ? 1561 1595 )

Robert Southwell was born at Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk, about 1561. He was educated at Douai and Paris, and at an early age was fired with the ambition to become a Jesuit. He attained his desire in 1578, and spent the two years of his novitiate at Tournai. He became prefect of studies in the English College at Rome, and was ordained priest in 1584. In 1586 he went to England, although two years before a law had been enacted by which any native-born subject of the queen who had been ordained a Roman Catholic priest since the first year of her accession was guilty of treason if he resided in England more than forty days, and was subject to the death-penalty, with the barbarous ceremonies reserved for traitors. Brutal as this law may at first sight appear to be, it was merely Elizabeth's not unnatural rejoinder to the Pope, who had excommunicated her, and whose emissaries were stirrers-up of conspiracy and rebellion, and virtually self-created outlaws. Southwell, not being content with being a Jesuit, desired to be a martyr, and after a secret ministry of six years, during which he assumed the name of Cotton, and feigned an interest in field-sports to disguise his sacerdotal character, his ambition was attained at Tyburn on 21st February, 1595. At various times during his previous two and a half years' imprisonment he was tortured, but with resolute firmness refused to give any information on any subject whatever.

Southwell's spectacular death has given to his poems an interest which they would not otherwise possess, especially, as is natural, among his co-religionists. Much, indeed, of Southwell's religious verse can only be appreciated by Roman Catholics. His longest poem is St. Peter's Complaint, nearly 800 lines long; his most famous The Burning Babe, which Jonson praised. He endeavoured—and a laudable endeavour it was—to write sacred poetry which could vie with contemporary profane poetry. His poems are full of conceits, antitheses, and paradoxes, but have often rhetorical and sometimes poetical merit. His devotional prose is not widely known.

[A. B. Grosart, The Complete Poems of Robert Southwell, S.J.; Christobel M. Hood, The Book of Robert Southwell.]

The Burning Babe

As I in hoary Winter's night stood shivering in the snowe, Surpris'd I was with sodayne heat, which made my hart to glowe; And liftinge upp a fearfull eye to vewe what fire was nere, A prety Babe all burninge bright, did in the ayre appeare.

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Who scorched with excessive heate, such floodes of teares did shedd,

As though His floodes should quench His flames which with His teares

were fedd;

Alas! quoth He, but newly borne, in fiery heates I frye,

Yet none approch to warme their hartes or feele my fire but I!

My faultles brest the fornace is, the fuell woundinge thornes,

Love is the fire, and sighes the smoke, the ashes shame and scornes;

The fuell Justice layeth on, and Mercy blowes the coalles,

The metall in this fornace wrought are men's defiled soules,

For which, as nowe on fire I am, to worke them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath to washe them in My bloode:

With this He vanisht out of sight, and swiftly shroncke awaye,

And straight I called unto mynde that it was Christmas-daye.

New Prince, New Pompe

Behold a sely tender Babe,

In freesing winter nighte,

In homely manger trembling lies;

Alas, a pitious sight!

'The inns are full, no man will yelde

'This little pilgrime bedd;

But fore'd He is with sely beastes

In cribb to shroude His headd.

Despise not Him for lying there,

First what He is enquire;

An orient perle is often founde

In depth of dirty mire.

Waye not His cribb, His wodden dishe,

Nor beastes that by Him feede;

Way not His mother's poore attire,

Nor Josephe's simple weede.

'This stable is a Prince's courte,

'The cribb His chaire of State;

'The beastes are parcell of His pompe,

'The wodden dishe His plate.

The persons in that poore attire

His royall liveries weare;

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

The Prince Himself is come from heaven,

This pompe is prised there.

With joy approch, O Christian wighte!

Do homage to thy Kinge;

And highly prise His humble pompe

Which He from heaven doth bringe.

SAMUEL DANIEL

(1562-1619)

SAMUEL DANIEL was the son of a

music-master, and was born near

Taunton in 1562. He was educated

at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford

College), Oxford, but did not take

a degree. He visited Italy, prob-

ably before 1590, when he became

tutor to William Herbert, after-

wards Earl of Pembroke and

Shakespeare's patron. He became,

as was natural, a firm friend

of "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's

mother". In 1591 twenty-seven of

his sonnets were printed without

permission in Nash's edition of

Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.

Daniel was annoyed at this liberty,

especially as his sonnets were dis-

figured by typographical mistakes,

and he was a man who always de-

sired that his work should appear

without spot or blemish. Accord-

ingly in 1592 he published his

collection of sonnets, Delia, which

originally contained fifty poems,

but which was augmented in later

editions, in which The Complaynt

of Rosamond was also inserted.

Daniel's sonnets were well liked,

and are for the most part good;

but, like many Elizabethan sonnets,

they owe a heavy debt to conti-

nental sonneteers. His Senecan

tragedy Cleopatra appeared also in

later editions of Delia. It was a

companion piece to Lady Pem-

broke's Antonie. In 1595 he pub-

lished the first instalment of his

largest work, First Fowre Bookes

of the Civile Wars between the two

Houses of Lancaster and Yorke.

A fifth book appeared in the same

year, the sixth in 1601, and the

seventh and eighth books in 1609.

Jonson complained about this poem,

"Daniel writt Civil Warres, and

yett hath not one batle in all his

Book". It is a somewhat prosaic

poem, with occasional good pas-

sages, and a very competent style

of workmanship throughout. About

1598 Daniel became tutor to the

young daughter of the Countess of

Cumberland; he liked his pupil,

but not his work. In 1599 he pub-

lished Musophilus or a General

Defence of Learning. His poems

were all popular, and most of them

ran into several editions. In 1602

he wrote his excellent pamphlet

A Defence of Ryme, in which

he successfully opposed Campion's

attack on rhyme. When James

came to the throne Daniel sent him

a Panegyricke Congratulatorie, and

consequently soon acquired a com-

fortable position at court. He was

appointed inspector of the children

of the queen’s revels, and had both

to organize and write entertain-

ments. His tragedy of Philotas,

based on Plutarch’s Life of Alex-

ander, almost got him into serious

trouble, and was not a success. His

prose History of England is well

written but is not a scholarly piece

of work. His court entertainments

include The Vision of the Twelve

Goddesses, The Queenes Arcadia,

Tethys Festival (written to celebrate

Prince Henry’s creation as Knight

of the Bath), and Hymens Triumph.

All these pieces contain good writ-

ing, but Daniel was by nature too

serious to succeed in such trifles.

In 1607 he was appointed one of

the grooms of the queen’s privy

chamber, and was henceforward

in a position of alluence, though

he did not feel quite at home

in his work. In his old age he

turned agriculturalist, and rented

a farm in Wiltshire, where he

died.

Few of the greater Elizabethans

are less appreciated than Daniel,

in spite of the cordial praise which

Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt be-

stowed upon his work. Coleridge

says that his “style and language

are just such as any very pure and

manly writer of the present day

—Wordsworth, for example—would

use; it seems quite modern in com-

parison with the style of Shake-

speare”. The later seventeenth

and the eighteenth century, unable

to stomach the Elizabethans as a

whole, found Daniel more “cor-

rect ” and therefore more tolerable

than most of his contemporaries.

And yet to-day many critics agree

with Jonson that Daniel was “ a

good honest man . . . but no

poet ”. He was not happy in his

choice of subjects; his historical

poem is neither good history nor

good poetry; his sonnets are imita-

tive, his masques perfunctory. In

some of his epistles and shorter

poems his gifts are seen to better

advantage. He was an excellent

critic and, what does not always

follow, an admirable self-critic.

He revised his work not once but

many times, as carefully as did

Tennyson. He took a lofty view of

the dignity of the profession of

letters without taking an unduly

exalted view of his own perfor-

mances therein. His ideas on the

importance and the future of the

English language should endear

him to all who share those views.

Well does he deserve the epithet

“well-languaged ”. He has been

acclaimed as a “poet’s poet ”, but

he is so, perhaps, less on account

of the charm of his work than on

account of his absolute devotion to

the craft of letters.

[A. B. Grosart, The Works of

Samuel Daniel; Sir A. T. Quiller-

Couch, Adventures in Criticism.]

Delia

SONNET I

Vnto the boundlesse Ocean of thy beautie,

Runneth this poore Riuer, charg’d with streames of zeale:

Returning thee the tribute of my dutie,

Which here my loue, my youth, my plaints renewale.

SAMUEL DANIEL

Here I vnclaspe the Booke of my charg'd soule,

Where I haue cast th' accounts of all my care:

Here haue I summid my sighs, here I inrole

How they were spent for thee; looke what they are:

Looke on the deere expences of my youth,

And see how lust I reckon with time cies.

Examine well thy beautie with my truth,

And crosse my cares ere greater sumes arise.

Reade it (sweet maide) though it be done but sleightly;

Who can shew all his loue, doth loue but lighty.

SONNET VI

Faire is my Loue, and cruell as she's faire;

Her brow shades frownes, although her eyes are sunny,

Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despaire;

And her disdaines are Gall, her fauours Hunny

A modest Maide, deckt with a blush of honor,

Whose feete doe tread greene paths of youth and loue,

'The wonder of all eyes that looke vpon her:

Sacred on earth, design'd a Saint aboue.

Chastitie and Beautie, which were deadly foes,

Liue reconciled friends within her brow:

And had she pittie to conioyne with those,

Then who had heard the plaints I vtter now?

For had she not beene faire and thus vnkinde,

My Muse had slept, and none had knowne my minde.

Song from “Hymen's Triumph”

Love is a sickness full of woes,

All remedies refusing;

A plant that with most cutting grows,

Most barren with best using.

Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoyed, it sighing cries,

Heigh-ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,

A tempest everlasting;

And Jove hath made it of a kind

Not well, nor full nor fasting.

Why so?

SAMUEL DANIEL

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoyed, it sighing cries,

Heigh-ho!

To the Ladie Margaret, Countesse

of Cumberland

He that of such a height hath built his mind,

And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,

As neither feare nor hope can shake the frame

Of his resolued pow'rs, nor all the winde

Of vanitie or malice pierce to wrong

His setled peace, or to disturbe the same;

What a faire seate hath he, from whence he may

'The boundlesse wastes and wildes of man suruay.

And with how free an eye doth he looke downe

Vpon these lower regions of turmoyle!

Where all the stormes of passions mainly beat

On flesh and blood; where honour, pow'r, renowne

Are onely gay attlictions, golden toyle;

Where greatnes standeth vpon as feeble feet

As frailty doth, and onely great doth seeme

'To little minds, who doe it so esteeme.

He lookes vpon the mightiest Monarchs warres

But onely as on stately robberies;

Where euermore the fortune that preuaileth

Must be the right; the ill-succeeding marrest

The faire'st and the best-fac't enterprize:

Great Pirat Pomp'ey lesser Pirats quaileth;

Iustice, he sees, as if seduc'd, still

Conspires with pow'r, whose cause must not be ill.

He sees the face of Right t' appeare as manifold

As are the passions of vncertaine man;

Who puts it in all colours, all attires,

'To serue his ends and make his courses holde:

He sees, that let Deceit worke what it can,

Plot and contrive base wayes to high desires;

That the all-guiding Prouidence doth yet

All disapoint, and mocks this smoake of wit.

SAMUEL, DANIEL

Nor is he mou'd with all the thunder-cracks

Of 'Tyrants threats, or with the surly brow

Of power, that proudly sits on others crimes,

Charg'd with more crying sinnes then those he checks;

The stormes of sad confusion, that may grow

Vp in the present, for the comming times,

Appall not him, that hath no side at all

But of himselfe, and knowes the worst can fall.

Although his heart so neere allied to earth,

Cannot but pitty the perplexed State

Of troublous and distrest mortalitie,

That thus make way vnto the ougly birth

Of their owne sorrowes, and doth still beget

Affliction vpon imbecillitie:

Yet, seeing thus the course of things must runne,

He lookes thereon, not strange, but as foredone.

And whilſt distraught Ambition compasses

And is incompast; whilſt as craft deceiues

And is deceiued; whilſt man doth ransacke man,

And builds on bloud, and rises by distresse;

And th' inheritance of desolation leaues

To great expecting hopes; he lookes thereon

As from the shore of peace with vnwet eie,

And beares no venture in impietie.

Thus, Madam, fares that man that hath prepar'd

A rest for his desires, and sees all things

Beneath him, and hath learn'd this booke of man,

Full of the notes of frailty, and compar'd

The best of glory with her sufferings:

By whom I see you labour all you can

To plant your heart, and set your thoughts as neare

His glorious mansion as your pow'rs can beare.

Which, Madam, are so soundly fashioned

By that cleere iudgement that hath carryed you

Beyond the feeble limits of your kinde,

As they can stand against the strongest head

Passion can make; inur'd to any huc

'The world can cast; that cannot cast that minde

Out of her forme of goodnesse, that doth see

Both what the best and worst of carth can be.

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2

SAMUEL DANIEL

Which makes, that whatsoeuer here befalles

You in the region of your selfe remaine;

Where no vaine breath of th' impudent molests,

'That hath secur'd within the brasen walles

Of a cleere conscience, that without all staine

Rises in peace, in innocencie rests;

Whilst all what malice from without procures,

Shewes her owne ougly heart, but hurts not yours.

And whereas none reioyce more in reuenge

'Then women vse to doe; yet you well know,

'That wrong is better checkt, by being contemmn'd

'Then being pursu'd: leaung to him t' auenge

'To whom it appertaines; wherein you show

How worthily your cleerenesse hath condem'd

Base malediction, liuing in the darke,

'That at the raies of goodnesse still doth larke.

Knowing the heart of man is set to be

'The centre of this world, about the which

'These reuolutions of disturbances

Still roule; where all th' aspects of miserie

Predominate; whose strong effects are such

As he must beare, being pow'rlesse to redresse;

And that vnlesse aboue himselffe he can

Erect himselffe, how poore a thing is man!

And how turmoyld they are, that leuell lie

With earth, and cannot lift themselues from thence;

'That neuer are at peace with their desires,

But worke beyond their yeeres, and euen denie

Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispence

With death; that when ability expires,

Desire liues still: so much delight they haue

To carry toyle and trauell to the graue.

Whose ends you see, and what can be the best

'They reach vnto, when they haue cast the summe.

And reckonings of their glory; and you know

'This floting life hath but this Port of rest,

A heart prepar'd, that feares no ill to come:

And that mans greatnesse rests but in his show;

'The best of all whose dayes consumed are

Either in warre, or peace conceiuing warre.

SAMUEL DANIEL

93

This concord, Madam, of a well-tun'd minde

Hath beene so set, by that all-working hand

Of heauen, that though the world hath done his worst

To put it out, by discords most vnkinde

Yet doth it still in perfect vnion stand

With God and man, nor euer will be forc't

From that most sweet accord, but still agree

Equall in Fortunes inequalitie.

And this note (Madame) of your worthinesse

Remaines recorded in so many hearts,

As time nor malice cannot wrong your right

In th' inheritance of Fame you must possesse;

You that haue built you by your great deserts,

Out of small meanes, a farre more exquisit

And glorious dwelling for your honoured name

Then all the gold that leaden minds can frame.

From "A Defence of Ryme"

But yet now notwithstanding all this which I haue heere deliuered

in the defence of Ryme, I am not so farre in loue with mine owne mysterie,

or will seeme so forward, as to bee against the reformation, and the

better setling these measures of ours. Wherein there be many things,

I could wish were more certaine and better ordered, though my selfe

dare not take vpon me to be a teacher therein, hauing so much neede

to learne of others. And I must confesse, that to mine owne eare, those

continuall cadences of couplets vsed in long and continued Poemes,

are very tiresome, and vnpleasing, by reason that still, me thinks, they

runne on with a sound of one nature, and a kinde of certaintie which

stuffs the delight rather then intertaines it. But yet notwithstanding,

I must not out of mine owne daintinesse, condemne this kinde of writing,

which peraduenture to another may seeme most delightfull, and many

worthy compositions we see to haue passed with commendation in that

kinde. Besides, me thinkes sometimes, to beguile the eare, with a running

out, and passing ouer the Ryme, as no bound to stay vs in the line where

the violence of the matter will breake thorow, is rather gracefull then

otherwise. Wherein I fine my Homer-Lucan, as if he gloried to seeme

to haue no bounds, albeit hee were confined within his measures, to

be in my conceipt most happy. For so thereby, they who care not for

Verse or Ryme, may passe it ouer without taking notice thereof, and

please themselues with a well-measured Prose. And I must confesse

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SAMUEL DANIEL

my Aduersary hath wrought this much vpon me, that I thinke a Tragedie would indeede best comport with a blank Verse, and dispence with Ryme, sauing in the Chorus or where a sentence shall require a couplet. And to auoyde this ouerglutting the care with that alwayes certaine, and ful incounter of Ryme, I haue assaid in some of my Epistles to alter the vsuall place of meeting, and to sette it further off by one Verse, to trie how I could disburde my owne care and to ease it of this continuall burthen, which indeede seemes to surcharge it a little too much, but as yet I cannot come to please my selfe therein: this alternate or crosse Ryme holding still the best place in my affection.

Besides, to me this change of number in a Poem of one nature fits not so wel, as to mixe vncertainly, feminine Rhymes with masculine, which, euer since I was warned of that deformitie by my kinde friend and countriman Maister Hugh Samford, I haue alwayes so auoyded it, as there are not about two couplettes in that kind in all my Poem of the Ciuill warres: and I would willingly if I could, haue altered it in all the rest, holding feminine Rhymes to be fittest for Ditties, and either to be set certaine, or else by themselues. But in these things, I say, I dare not take vpon mee to teach that they ought to be so, in respect my selfe holdes them to be so, or that I thinke it right; for indeede there is no right in these things that are continually in a wandring motion, carried with the violence of our vncertaine likings, being but onely the time that giues them their power. For if this right, or truth, should be no other thing then that wee make it, we shall shape it into a thousand figures, seeing this excellent painter Man, can so well lay the colours which himselfe grindees in his owne affections, as that hee will make them serue for any shadow, and any counterfeit. But the greatest hinderer to our proceedings, and the reformation of our errours, is this Selfe-loue, whereunto we Versifiers are cuer noted to be especially subiect; a disease of all other, the most dangerous, and incurable, being once seated in the spirits, for which there is no cure, but onely by a spirituall remedy. Multos puto, ad sapientiam poluisse peruenire, nisi putassent se peruenisse: and this opinion of our sufficien cie makes so great a cracke in our iudgement, as it wil hardly euer holde any thing of worth, Caccus amor sui, and though it would seeme to see all without it, yet certainly it discernes but little within. For there is not the simplest writer that will euer tell himselfe, he doth ill, but as if he were the parasite onely to sooth his owne doings, perswades him that his lines can not but please others, which so much delight himselfe:

Suffenus est quisque sibi, neque idem quidquam

Aeque est beatus, ac poema cum scribit,

Tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur.

And the more to shew that he is so, we shall see him euermore

in all places, and to all persons repeacting his owne compositions: and,

Quem vero arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo.

Next to this deformitie stands our affectation, wherein we alwayes betray our selues to be both vnkinde, and vnnaturall to our owne natiue language, in disguising or forging strange or vnusuall wordes, as if it were to make our verse seeme an other kind of speach out of the course of our vsuall practis, displacing our wordes, or inuenting new, onely vpon a singularitie: when our owne accustomed phrase, set in the due place, would expresse vs more familiarly and to better delight, then all this idle affectation of antiquitie, or noueltie can euer doe. And I can not but wonder at the strange presumption of some men that dare so audaciously aduenture to introduce any whatsoever forraine wordes, be they neuer so strange; and of themselues as it were, without a Parliament, without any consent, or allowance, establish them as Free-denizens in our language. But this is but a Character of that perpetuall reuolution which wee see to be in all things that neuer remain the same, and we must herein be content to submit our selues to the law of time, which in few yeeres wil make al that for which we now contend, Nothing.

SIR JOHN DAVIES

(1569 - 1626)

Sir John Davies was the son of London, to whom Jonson afterwards dedicated his Poetaster. In born in 1569. He was educated at Winchester and Queen's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1590. In 1588 he was admitted a member of the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1595. His celebrated poem, Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dancing, appeared in 1596. It is written in 131 stanzas of seven lines, and was composed in fifteene dayes. It is a remarkable tour de force, and in spite of its subject, may be read with very considerable pleasure. It was dedicated to his friend Richard Martin, subsequently recorder of

1598 the two friends quarrelled, and Davies broke a cudgel on Martin's head in the hall of the Middle Temple. Martin on one occasion pointed out that "Judas" was an anagram of "Davis" (as it is, since i and j are the same letter, and v and u also rank as equivalents); but whether this was the cause or the effect of the quarrel is not clear. Davies was disbarred, and spent his enforced leisure at Oxford in composing Nosce Teipsum (1599), a poem on the immortality of the soul, written in the metre of Gray's Elegy. It is one

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SIR JOHN DAVIES

of the best didactic poems in the language, and its popularity did something to rehabilitate its author's reputation. His Hymns to Astraea, twenty-six poems each one of which is an acrostic (ELISABETHA REGINA), also helped his career, and he was employed in writing entertainments for the court. In 1601 he was re-instated at the Bar, and his life was thenceforward devoted to law and politics rather than literature. He soon gained the favour of King James, who appointed him Solicitor-General for Ireland and knighted him in 1603. In 1606 he was promoted to be Attorney-General for Ireland, and he remained in that country until 1619, becoming Speaker of the Irish Parliament in 1613. He played a prominent part in the plantation of Ulster, and made a determined though unsuccessful effort to banish all Roman Catholic priests from Ireland. In 1612 he published his prose treatise A Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, nor brought under Obedience of the

Crozene of England, untill the Beginning of his Majesties happie Raigne. He also wrote a legal treatise in law-French. In 1619 he returned to England, where he practised as king's serjeant. He was appointed Chief Justice in 1626, but died of apoplexy before he took office. He had been too stout for many years; Manningham in his Diary (1603) alluded to his corpulence and waddling gait in terms so indelicate that the editor Society felt compelled to suppress the passage.

Davies was an easy writer, and rose superior to the not very promising subjects which he selected and to the difficult verse-forms which he sometimes chose. His didactic poem is entertaining, and his acrostics are poems, not mere verse-exercises. In his Gulling Sonnets he pleasantly ridiculed that fashionable verse-form ; in his Epigrams he rivalled the coarseness but not the charm of Martial. His works have been edited by A. B. Grosart.

From “Nosce Teipsum”

An Acclamation

Oh! what is man (great Maker of mankind!) 'That Thou to him so great respect dost beare! 'That 'Thou adornst him with so bright a mind, Mak'st him a king, and euen an angel's peere!

O! what a liucly life, what heauenly power, What spreading vertue, what a sparkling fire, How great, how plentifull, how rich a dower Dost 'Thou within this dying flesh inspire!

SIR JOHN DAVIES

Thou leau'st 'Thy print in other works of 'Thine,

But 'Thy whole image 'Thou in Man hast writ:

'There cannot be a creature more diuine,

Except (like 'Thee) it should be infinit.

But it exceeds man's thought, to thinke how he

God hath raisd man, since God a man became:

'The angels doe admire this Misterie,

And are astonisht when they view the same.

That the Soule is Immortal, and cannot Die

Nor hath He giuen these blessings for a day,

Nor made them on the bodie's life depend:

'The Soule though made in time, suruiues for aye,

And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

Her onely end, is neuer-ending blisse;

Which is, th' eternall face of God to see;

Who Last of Ends, and First of Causes, is:

And to doe this, she must eternall bee.

How senselesse then, and dead a soule hath he,

Which thinks his soule doth with his body die!

Or thinkes not so, but so would haue it bee,

'That he might sinne with more securitie.

For though these light and vicious persons say,

Our soule is but a smoake or ayrie blast;

Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play,

And when we die, doth turne to wind at last;

Although they say, "Come let us eat and drinke ";

Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies:

'Though thus they say, they know not what to think,

But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.

'Therefore no heretikes desire to spread

'Their light opinions, like these Epicures:

For so the staggering thoughts are comforted,

And other men's assent their doubt assures.

L. II.

31

SIR JOHN DAVIES

Yet though these men against their conscience strine,

There are some sparkles in their flintie breasts

Which cannot be extinet, but still reuiue;

That though they would, they cannot quite be beasts;

But who so makes a mirror of his mind

And doth with patience view himselle therein,

His Soule's eternitie shall clearely find,

Though th' other beauties be defac't with sin.

From "Orchestra"

For that braue Sunne the Father of the Day,

Doth loue this Earth, the Mother of the Night;

And like a revellour in rich aray,

Doth daunce his galliard in his Iemman's sight,

Both back, and forth, and sidewaies, passing light;

His princely grace doth so the gods amaze,

That all stand still and at his beauty gaze.

But see the Earth, when she approacheth neere,

How she for ioy doth spring, and sweetly smile;

But see againe her sad and heauy cheere

When changing places he retires a while:

But those blake cloudes he shortly will exile,

And make them all before his presence flye,

As mists consum'd before his cheerefull eye.

Who doth not see the measures of the Moone,

Which thirteene times she daunceih euery yeare?

And ends her paine, thirteene times as soone

As doth her brother, of whose golden haire

She borroweth part, and proudly doth it weare;

Then doth she coyly turne her face aside,

Then halfe her checke is scarse sometimes discride.

Next her, the pure, subtile, and clensing fire

Is swiftly carri'd in a circle euen:

Though Vulcan be pronounst by many, a lyer,

The only halting god that dwels in heauen:

But that foule name may be more fitly giuen

To your false Fire, that farre from heauen is fall:

And doth consume, waste, spoile, disorder all.

SIR JOHN DAVIES

99

And now behold your tender nurse the Ayre

And common neigbour that ay runns around:

How many pictures and impressions faire

Within her empty regions are there found,

Which to your senses Dauncing doth propound!

For what are Breath, Speech, Echos, Musicke, Winds,

But Dauncings of the Ayre in sundry kinds?

For when you breath, the ayre in order moues,

Now in, now out, in time and measure trew;

And when you speake, so well she dauncing loues,

That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,

With thousand formes she doth her selfe endew:

For all the words that from our lips repaire

Are nought but tricks and turnings of the ayre.

Hence is her pratling daughter Eccho borne,

That daunces to all voyces she can heare:

There is no sound so harsh that shee doth scorne,

Nor any time wherein shee will forbeare

The ayrie pauement with her feet to weare:

And yet her hearing sence is nothing quick,

For after time she endeth euery trick.

And thou sweet Musicke, Dauncing's onely life,

The care's sole hapinesse, the ayre's best speach,

Loadstone of fellowship, charming-rod of strife,

The soft mind's Paradice, the sicke mind's leach,

With thine own tong, thou trecs and stons canst teach,

That when the Ayre doth dance her finest measure,

Then art thou borne, the gods and mens sweet pleasurc.

Lastly, where keepe the Winds their reuelry,

Their violent turnings, and wild whirling hayes,

But in the Ayre's tralucent gallery?

Where shee herselfe is turnd a hundreth wayes,

Whilc with those Maskers wantonly she playes;

Yet in this misrule, they such rule embracce,

As two at once encumber not the place.

If then fire, ayre, wandring and fixed lights

In euery prouince of the imperiall skie,

Yeeld perfect formes of dauncing to your sights,

SIR JOHN DAVIES

In vaine I teach the care, that which the eye

With certaine view already doth deserje.

But for your eyes perceive not all they see,

In this I will your Senses Master bee.

For loe the Sea that fleets about the Land,

And like a girdle clips her solide waist,

Musicke and measure both doth vnderstand:

For his great chrystall eye is alwayes cast

Vp to the Moone, and on her fixed fast:

And as she dauncth in her pallid spheere,

So dauncth he about his center heere.

Sometimes his proud greene waues in order set,

One after other flow vnto the shore,

Which, when they haue with many kisses wet,

They ebbe away in order as before;

And to make knowne his courtly loue the more,

He oft doth lay aside his three-forkt mace,

And with his armes the timorous Earth embrace.

Onely the Earth doth stand for euer still:

Her rocks remoue not, nor her mountaines meet,

(Although some wits enricht with Learnings skill

Say heau'n stands firme, and that the Earth doth fleet,

And swiftly turneth vnderneath their feet)

Yet though the Earth is euer stedfast scene,

On her broad breast hath Dauncing euer beene.

(Stanzas XXIX . ll.)

Hymns to Astraea

HYMNE V

To the Larke

E Earley, chearfull, mounting Larke,

L Light's gentle vsher, Morning's clark,

I In merry notes deligiting:

S Stint awhile thy song, and harke,

A And learne my new inditing.

SIR JOHN DAVIES

101

B Beare vp this hymne, to heau'n it beare,

E Euen vp to heau'n, and sing it there,

'T 'To heau'n each morning beare it;

H Haue it set to some sweet sphere,

A And let the Angels heare it.

R Renownd Astraea, that great name,

E Exceeding great in worth and fame,

G Great worth hath so renownd it;

I It is Astraea's name I praise,

N Now then, sweet Darke, do thou it raise,

A And in high Heauen resound it.

Epigrammes

Of a Gull

Oft in my laughing Rimes, I name a Gull;

But this new terme will many questions breed;

'Therefore at first I will expresse at full,

Who is a true and perfect Gull indeed:

A Gull is he who feares a velvet gowne,

And, when a wench is braue, dares not speak to her;

A Gull is he which trauerseth the towne,

And is for marriage known a common woer;

A Gull is he which while he proudly weares,

A silver-hilted rapier by his side,

Indures the lyes and knocks about the cares,

Whilst in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide;

A Gull is he which weares good handsome cloathæ,

And stands, in Presence, stroaking up his haire,

And fills up his unperfect speech with oaths,

But to define a Gull in termes precise,—

A Gull is he which seemes, and is not wise.

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KING JAMES VI AND I

KING JAMES VI AND I

(1566--1625)

King James VI of Scotland and I of England was the only son of Mary Queen of Scots and her cousin Henry, Lord Darnley, and was born in Edinburgh Castle in 1566. In 1567, after the forced abdication of his mother, he was crowned at Stirling, and his childhood was passed under the direction of the Earl of Mar and the tuition of George Buchanan (q.v.). His reign in Scotland was notable for his struggles with the Presbyterian clergy and the Roman Catholic nobility; in the end he succeeded fairly well in getting his own way. When he ascended the throne of England in 1603, he found that his methods were not nearly so successful. His Scottish favourites and his Scottish manners and accent did not endear him to the people of England, and his struggles with Parliament and arbitrary methods of taxation laid the foundations of the Great Rebellion. The poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury and the judicial murder of Raleigh (q.v.) did much to destroy the remnants of his popularity; and his favourite scheme of a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles, and its total failure, embittered the concluding years of his reign. He died in 1625.

James desired to shine in many branches of literature. He would fain have been a poet, a theologian, a critic, and a publicist. In no department does his work rise above a decent mediocrity, though it has an interest of its own. The Essays of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesie (1584) is what might be expected from a precocious lad of eighteen; the critical precepts which the volume contains are more interesting than the poems which are by way of illustrating them. Basilicon Doron (1599) is addressed to Prince Henry, and contains instructions for his "dearest sonne and natural successor". Demonologie (1597) is a dialogue not without interest, in which he attempts to combat the views of Reginald Scot (q.v.). In A Counterblaste to Tobacco he attempted, with the futility of Dame Partington, to put a stop to the practice of smoking. His theological and other political writings scarcely deserve separate enumeration. His collected works were published in a sumptuous folio edition in 1616, edited by James Montagu, Bishop of Winchester, who also prepared a Latin version (published 1619) lest the continent of Europe should be deprived of the benefit of perusing the royal author's treatises.

[A. F. Westcott, New Poems of James I from a hitherto unpublished MS. in the British Museum; C. II. Mcll wain, Political Works of King James I; R. S. Rait, Lusus Regius.]

KING JAMES VI AND I

103

Ane Schort Treatise, conteining some Reulis and Cautelis to be Obseruit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie

The Preface to the Reader

The cause why (docile Reader) I have not dedicat this short treatise to any particular personis, (as communly workis usis to be) is, that I esteme all thais quha hes alredy some beginning of knawledge, with ane earnest desyre to atteyne to farther, alyke meit for the reading of this worke, or any uther, quhilk may help thame to the atteining to their foirsaid desyre. Bot as to this work, quhilk is intitulit, The Reulis and cautelis to be obseruit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie, ze may marvell peraventure, quhairfore I sould haue writtin in that mater, sen sa mony learnit men, baith of auld and of late hes alredy written thairof in dyuers and sindry languages: I answer, That nochtwithstanding, I haue lykeways writtin of it, for twa caussis: The ane is, As for them that wrait of auld, lyke as the tyme is changeit sensyne, sa is the ordour of Poesie changeit. For then they obseruit not Flowing, nor eschewit not Ryming in termes, besydes sindrie uther thingis, quhilk now we obserue, and eschew, and dois weil in sa doing; because that now, quhen the warld is waxit auld, we haue all their opinionis in writ, quhilk were learned before our tyme, besydes our awin ingynis, quhair as they then did it onlie be thair awin ingynis, but help of any uther. Thairfore, quhat I speik of Poesie now, I speik of it, as being come to mannis age and perfectioun, quhair as then, it was bot in the infancie and chyldheid. The uther cause is, That as for thame that hes written in it of late, there hes never ane of thame written in our language. For albeir sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk is lykest to our language, zit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of Poesie, as ze will find be experience. I haue lykeways omittit dyuers figures, quhilkis are necessarie to be usit in verse, for two caussis. The ane is, because they are usit in all languages, and thairfore are spokin of be Du Bellay, and sindrie utheris, quha hes written in this airt. Quhairfore gif I wrait of them also, it sould seme that I did bot repete that, quhilk they haue written, and zit not sa weil, as they haue done alreddy. The uther cause is, that they are figures of Rhetorique and Dialectique, quhilkis airtis I professe nocht, and thairfore will apply to my selfe the counsale, quhilk Apelles gaue to the shoomaker, quhen he said to him, seing him find falt with the shankis of the Image of Venus, efter that he had found falt with the pantoun, Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

I will also wish zow (docile Reidar) that or ze cummer zow with reiding thir reulis, ze may find in zour self sic a beginning of Nature,

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KING JAMIS VI AND I

as ze may put in practisc in zour verse many of thir foirsaidlis preceptis,

or euer ze sic them as they are heir set doun. For gif Nature be nocht

the cheif worker in this airt, Reulis wilbe bot a band to Nature, and

will mak zow within short space weary of the haill airt: quhair as, gif

Nature be cheif, and bent to it, reulis will be ane help and stall to Nature.

I will end heir, lest my preface be langer nor my purpose and haill mater

following: wishing zow, docile Reidair, als guide success and great prolleit

by reiding this short treatise, as I tuike earnist and willing panis to blok

it, as ze sic, for zour cause. Fare weill.

From "A Counterblaste to Tobacco"

And for the vanities committed in this filthie custome, is it not both

great vanitie and uncleanenesse, that at the table, a place of respect,

of cleanlinesse, of modestie, men should not be ashamed, to sit tossing

of Tobacco pipes, and pufling of the smoke of Tobacco one to another,

making the filthy smoke and stinke thereof, to exhale athwart the dishes,

and infect the aire, when very often, men that abhorre it are at their

repast? Surely Smoke becomes a kitchin far better then a Dining chamber,

and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men,

soiling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kinde of Soote,

as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death

were opened. And not onely meate time, but no other time nor action

is exempted from the publike vse of this vncivill tricke: so as if the

wives of Diepe list to contest with this Nation for good maners their

worst maners would in all reason be found at least not so dishonest (as

ours are) in this point. The publike vse whereof, at all times, and in

all places, hath now so farre preuailed, as diuers men very sound both

in iudgement, and complexion, haue bene at last forced to take it also

without desirc, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular,

(like the two Philosophers that were forced to duck themselues in that

raine water, and so become fooles as well as the rest of the people) and

partly, to be as one that was content to cate Garlicke (which hee did

not love) that he might not be troubled with the smell of it, in the breath

of his fellowes. And is it not a great vanitie, that a man cannot heartily

welcome his friend now, but straight they must bee in hand with Tobacco?

No it is become in place of a cure, a point of good fellowship, and he

that will refuse to take a pipe of Tobacco among his fellowes, (though

by his own election he would rather feele the sauour of a Sinke) is

accounted peeuish and no good company, euen as they doe with tippeling

in the cold Easterne Countries. Yea the Mistresse cannot in a more

manerly kinde, entertaine her servant, then by giuing him out of her

faire hand a pipe of Tobacco. But herein is not onely a great vanitie, but

KING JAMES VI AND I

105

a great contempt of Gods good giftes, that the sweetenesse of mans breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke, wherein I must confesse, it hath too strong a vertue: and so that which is an ornament of nature, and can neither by any artifice be at the first acquired, nor once lost, be recouered againe, shall be filthily corrupted with an incurable stinke, which vile qualitie is as directly contrary to that wrong opinion which is holden of the wholesomnesse thercof, as the venime of putrifaction is contrary to the vertue Preseruatiue.

Moreouer, which is a great iniquitie, and against all humanitie, the husband shall not be ashamed, to reduce thereby his delicate, wholesome, and cleane complexioned wife, to that extremitie, that either shee must also corrupt her sweete breath therewith, or else resolue to liue in a perpetuall stinking torment.

Haue you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noueltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly receiued and so grossely mistaken in the right vse thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selues both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you: by the custome therof making your selues to be wondered at by all forraine ciuil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume therof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse.

JOSEPH HALL

(1574–1656)

Joseph Hall was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1574. His mother was a Puritan, and he accordingly was educated at the newly-founded Puritan college, Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His academic career was a most distinguished one; he graduated B.A. in 1592, M.A. in 1596, B.D. in 1603, and D.D. in 1612. He was elected to a fellowship in 1595. He took holy orders about 1600, and became incumbent of Halsted, Suffolk, in the following year. Henry, Prince of Wales, appointed him his chaplain in 1608, and in the same year he became incumbent of Waltham, Essex. In Church matters he was mildly in sympathy with the moderate Puritans, but in politics he showed himself in his later days a resolute monarchist. His attitude to Church and State made him disliked by the extremists of both sides, but he was well liked by King James and King Charles. He became Dean of Worcester in 1616, Bishop of Exeter in 1627, and Bishop of Norwich in 1641. He suffered severely during the

106

JOSEPH HALL.

Great Rebellion. He was imprisoned, his revenues were sequestrated, his cathedral was desecrated and wrecked, and he was expelled from his palace in a brutal manner. He ended his long life at Higham, bearing all his misfortunes with true Christian humility.

Hall began his career as a brilliant young don, and ended it as a venerable prelate; not unnaturally the works of his youth differ considerably from those of his old age. The difference is, however, even greater than might have been expected. His earlier works are pure Elizabethan, his later works might belong to the end, not the middle, of the seventeenth century. When a young man of twenty-three he lashed the age, as young men are wont to do, in a collection of satires which he named Virgidemiarum. This collection was in two parts, one of “ toothless ” and one of “ biting ” satires. His claims to be the first English satirist were instantly contested by Marston, and have been justly contested by many writers since; but he appears to have been the first to follow Juvenal as a model, instead of Horace. His satires are more vigorous than polished; a good deal of their fame no doubt is due

to the light which they throw on the manners and customs of their time rather than to their purely literary merits. The curious satire on the Roman Catholics, Mundus Alter et Idem, need scarcely be mentioned here, as it is in Latin, and is not known with certainty to be Hall’s work. His Characters of Virtues and Vices (1608) is an important pioneer prose work, being the earliest book of character sketches in English to be modelled on the Characters of Theophrastus. As might be expected, the Vices are more entertaining than the Virtues. These Characters, though they do not bear obvious traces of it, are said to have been written with a view to introducing them into sermons. Hall’s devotional works include A Century of Meditations, Contemplations, and sermons. In these works he avoids the besetting theological sin of crabbedness, but falls somewhat into the opposite fault of verbosity. His controversial works, in which he crossed swords once or twice with Milton, are not important to the literary historian, to whom the poems of his youth count for more than all the tractates of his riper years.

[G. Lewis, Life of Joseph Hall.]

Satires

A gentle squire would gladly entertain

Into his house some trencher-chappelain;

Some willing man that might instruct his sons,

And that would stand to good conditions.

First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,

Whiles his young master lieth o’er his head.

Second, that he do, on no default,

Ever presume to sit above the salt.

JOSEPH HALL

107

Third, that he never change his trencher twice.

Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;

Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.

Last, that he never his young master beat,

But he must ask his mother to define,

How many jerks she would his breech should have.

All these observ'd, he could contented be,

To give five marks and winter livery.

(Bk. II, Sat. VI.)

What boots it, Pontice, though thou couldst discourse

Of a long golden line of ancestors?

Or show their painted faces gaily drest,

From ever since before the last conquest?

Or tedious bead-rolls of descended blood,

From father Japhet since Deucalion's flood?

Or call some old church windows to record

The age of thy fair arms;--

Or find some figures half obliterate

In rain-beat marble near to the church gate

Upon a cross-legg'd tomb: what boots it thee

To show the rusted buckle that did tie

The garter of thy greatest grandsire's knee?

What to reserve their relies many years,

Their silver spurs, or spils of broken spears?

Or cite old Ocland's verse, how they did wield

The wars in Turwin, or in Turkey field?

And if thou canst in picking straws engage

In one half day thy father's heritage;

Or hide whatever treasures he thee got,

In some deep cock-pit, or in desp'rate lot

Upon a six-square piece of ivory,

Throw both thyself and thy posterity?

Or if (O shame!) in hired harlot's bed

Thy wealthy heirdom thou have buried:

Then, Pontice, little boots thee to discourse

Of a long golden line of ancestors.

Ventrous Fortunio his farm hath sold,

And gads to Guiance land to fish for gold

Meeting, perhaps, if Orcnoque deny,

Some straggling pinnace of Polonian rye:

Then comes home floating with a silken sail,

That Severn shaketh with his cannon peal;

Wiser Raymundus, in his closet pent,

JOSEPH HALL

Laughs at such danger and adventurement,

When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,

And now his second hopeful glass is broke.

But yet if haply his third furnace hold,

Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold:

So spend thou, Pontice, if thou canst not spare,

Like some stout seaman or philosopher.

And were thy fathers gentle? that's their praise;

No thank to thee by whom their name decays;

By virtue got they it, and valorous deed;

Do thou so, Pontice, and be honoured.

But else, look how their virtue was their own,

Not capable of propagation.

Right so their titles been, nor can be thine,

Whose ill descerts might blank their golden line.

Tell me, thou gentle Trojan, dost thou prize

Thy brute beasts' worth by their dam's qualities?

Sayst thou this colt shall prove a swift-pac'd steed

Only because a Jennct did him breed?

Or sayst thou this same horse shall win a prize,

Because his dam was swiftest Trunchefilee,

Or Runcevall his sire? himself a Galloway?

Whiles like a tireling jade he lags half-way.

Or whiles thou scest some of thy stallion race,

Their eyes bor'd out, masking the miller's maze,

Like to a Scythian slave sworn to the pail,

Or dragging frothy barrels at his tail?

Albe wise nature in her providence,

Wont in the want of reason and of sense,

Traduce the native virtue with the kind,

Making all brute and senseless things inclin'd

Unto their cause, or place where they were sown;

That one is like to all, and all like one.

Was never fox but wily cubs begets;

The bear his fierceness to his brood besets:

Nor fearful hare falls out of lion's seed,

Nor cagle wont the tender dove to breed.

Crete ever wont the cypress sad to bear,

Acheron banks the palish poplar:

The palm doth rifely rise in Jury field,

And Alpheus waters nought but olives wild.

Asopus breeds big bulrushes alone,

Meander, heath: peaches by Nilus grown.

An English wolf, an Irish toad to see,

JOSEPH

HALL

Were as a chaste man nurs'd in Italy.

And now when nature gives another guide

To humankind that in his bosom bides,

Above instinct his reason and discourse,

His being better, is his life the worse?

Ah me! how seldom see we sons succeed

Their father's praise, in prowess and great deed?

Yet certes if the sire be ill inclin'd,

His faults befall his sons by course of kind.

Scaurus was covetous, his son not so;

But not his pared nail will he forego.

Florian the sire did women love a-life,

And so his son doth too, all but his wife.

Brag of thy father's faults, they are thine own:

Brag of his lands if those be not foregone.

Brag of thine own good deeds, for they are thine,

More than his life, or lands, or golden line.

(Bk. IV, Sat. III.)

THOMAS DELONEY

( ? 1543 - ? 1600

Very little is known about the life

of Thomas Deloney. He appears

to have belonged to a French Pro-

testant family, and to have been a

silk-weaver for many years before

winning fame as a ballad-maker.

The date of his birth is merely

conjectural; his death can be fixed

with more accuracy, and took place

about 1600. His literary career

seems to have begun about 1583,

and the three novels to which he

owes his present-day fame were

written in the last few years of his

life. He probably worked at Nor-

wich when he was a silk-weaver;

but followed the trade of journalism

in London. In 1596 a ballad on the

scarcity of corn caused some trouble

with the authorities. That is al-

most all that is known of Deloney's

life.

His three novels are Jack of Newbery (1597), dealing with weavers;

The Gentle Craft (two parts, 1597 and 1598), dealing with shoemakers;

and Thomas of Reading (?1599),

dealing with clothiers. These

novels are all of the same kind;

romance and realism rub shoulders

together in them. When Deloney

tells humorous and realistic tales

in his own way, he is excellent;

but when he is euphuistic, as

fashion compelled him to be at

times, he is as tedious as any of

his contemporaries. He painted in

an amusing style the humours of

citizen life. He owed much to the

old jest-books; in fact in some of

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THOMAS DELONEY

his chapters he has merely fitted

some standard jokes into a frame-

work. He also owed much to con-

temporary drama, which taught

him the value of a comic under-

plot. In one passage he echoes the

words of Falstaff. As a ballad-

writer his free scope was hampered

by his having to fit his words to

street tunes; but sometimes he is

vigorous and fresh in his ballads

too. The novels contain some

charming songs, written with a

light touch. In the simple and

direct prose of his novels he has

left us an excellent picture of his

times.

His novels were widely

popular, in the strict sense of that

word, in their day. They were for

a while neglected and forgotten,

and it is not so very long since they

were rediscovered. Their literary

value is considerable; but they are

chiefly valuable for the pictures

they give us—unobtainable else-

where—of Elizabethan citizens, and

of craftsmen who lived in days long

before anyone, even in a nightmare,

had foreseen the Industrial Revo-

lution.

[F. O. Mann, The Works of

Thomas Deloney.]

From "The Pleasant History of Thomas

of Reading"

How Thomas of Reading was murdered at his Host's house of

Colebrooke, who also had murdered many before him, and how

their wickedness was at length revealed.—Chap. XI.

Thomas of Reading having many occasions to come to London, as

well about his own affairs, as also the King's business, being in a great

office under his Majesty, it chanced on a time, that his Host and Hostess

of Colebrooke, who through covetousness had murdered many of the

guests, and having every time he came thither great store of his money

to lay up, appointed him to be the next fat pig that should be killed:

For it is to be understood, that when they plotted the murder of any man,

this was always their term, the man to his wife, and the woman to her

husband: wife, there is now a fat pig to be had, if you want one.

Whereupon she would answer thus, I pray you put him in the hogsty

to-morrow.

This was, when any man came thither alone without others in his

company, and they saw he had great store of money.

This man should be then laid in the chamber right over the kitchen,

which was a fair chamber, and better set out than any other in the house:

the best bedstead therein, though it were little and low, yet was it most

cunningly carved, and fair to the eye, the feet whereof were fast nailed

to the chamber floor in such sort, that it could not in any wise fall, the

bed that lay therein was fast sewed to the sides of the bedstead: Moreover,

that part of the chamber whereupon this bed and bedstead stood, was

made in such sort, that by the pulling out of two iron pins below in the

kitchen, it was to be let down and taken up by a drawbridge, or in manner

of a trap door: moreover in the kitchen, directly under the place where

this should fall, was a mighty great caldron, wherein they used to seethe

their liquor when they went to brewing. Now, the men appointed for

the slaughter, were laid into this bed, and in the dead time of the night,

when they were sound asleep, by plucking out the foresaid iron pins,

down would the man fall out of his bed into the boiling caldron, and

all the clothes that were upon him: where being suddenly scalded and

drowned, he was never able to cry or speak one word.

Then had they a little ladder ever standing ready in the kitchen,

by the which they presently mounted into the said chamber, and there

closly took away the man's apparcl, as also his money, in his male or

capcase: and then lifting up the said falling floor which hung by hinges,

they made it fast as before.

The dead body would they take presently out of the caldron and throw

it down the river, which ran near unto their house, whereby they escaped

all danger.

Now if in the morning any of the rest of the guests that had talked

with the murdered man over eve, chanced to ask for him, as having

occasion to ride the same way that he should have done, the goodman

would answer, that he took horse a good while before day, and that he

himself did set him forward: the horse the goodman would also take

out of the stable, and convey him by a hay-barn of his, that stood from

his house a mile or two, whercof himself did always keep the keys full

charily, and when any hay was to be brought from thence, with his own

hands he would deliver it; then before the horse should go from thence,

he would dismark him: as if he wore a long tail, he would make him

curtal; or else crop his ears, or cut his mane, or put out one of his eyes;

and by this means he kept himself unknown.

Now Thomas of Reading, as I said before, being marked, and kept

for a fat pig, he was laid in the same chamber of death, but by reason

Gray of Gloucester chanced also to come that night, he escaped

scalding.

The next time he came, he was laid there again, but before he fell

asleep, or was warm in his bed, one came riding through the town and

cried pitcously that London was all on a fire, and that it had burned

down Thomas Becket's house in West cheape, and a great number more

in the same street, and yet (quoth he) the fire is not quenched.

Which tidings when Thomas of Reading heard, he was very sorrowful,

for of the same Becket that day he had received a great piece of money

and had left in his house many of his writings, and some that appertained

to the King also: therefore there was no nay but he would ride back

again to London presently, to see how the matter stood; thereupon making

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THOMAS DELONEY

himself ready, departed. This cross fortune caused his host to frown,

nevertheless the next time (qd. he) will pay for all.

Notwithstanding God so wrought, that they were prevented then

likewise, by reason of a great fray that happened in the house betwixt

a couple that fell out at dice, insomuch as the murderers themselves

were enforced to call him up, being a man in great authority, that he

might set the house in quietness, out of which by means of this

quarrel, they doubted to lose many things.

Another time when he should have been laid in the same place he

fell so sick, that he requested to have some body to watch with him,

whereby also they could not bring their vile purpose to pass. But hard

it is to escape the ill fortunes whereunto a man is allotted: for albeit

that the next time that he came to London, his horse stumbled and broke

one of his legs as he should ride homeward, yet hired he another to hasten

his own death; for there is no remedy but he should go to Colebrooke

that night: but by the way he was heavy asleep, that he could scant

keep himself in the saddle; and when he came near unto the town,

his nose burst out suddenly ableding.

Well, to his Inn he came, and so heavy was his heart that he could

eat no meat: his host and hostess hearing he was so melancholy, came

up to cheer him, saying, "Jesus, Master Cole, what ails you to-night?

never did we see you thus sad before: will it please you to have a quart

of burnt sack?"

"With a good will" (quoth he) "and would to God 'Tom Dove

were here, he would surely make me merry, and we should lack no music:

but I am sorry for the man with all my heart, that he is come so far

behind hand: but alás, so much can every man say, but what good doth

it him? No, no, it is not words can help a man in this case, the man had

need of other relief than so. Let me see: I have but one child in the

world and that is my daughter, and half that I have is hers, the other half

my wife's. What then? shall I be good to nobody but them? In conscience,

my wealth is too much for a couple to possess, and what is our religion

without charity? And to whom is charity more to be shown, than to

decayed householders?

"Good my host lend me a pen and ink, and some paper, for I will

write a letter unto the poor man straight; and something I will give him:

That alms which a man bestows with his own hands, he shall be sure to

have delivered, and God knows how long I shall live."

With that, his hostess dissemblingly answered, saying: "Doubt not,

Master Cole, you are like enough by the course of nature to live many

years."

"God knows" (quoth he) "I never found my heart so heavy before."

By this time pen, ink, and paper was brought, setting himself in

writing as followeth.

THOMAS DELONEY

113

In the name of God, Amen, I bequeath my soul to God, and my body

to the ground, my goods equally between my wife Elenor, and Isabel,

my daughter. Item I give to Thomas Dove of Exeter one hundred pounds,

nay that is too little, I give to Thomas Dove two hundred pounds in

money, to be paid unto him presently upon his demand thereof by my

said wife and daughter.

"Ha, how say you host" (qd. he) "is not this well? I pray you read

it."

His host, looking thercon, said, "Why Master Cole, what have you

written here? you said you would write a letter, but methinks you have

made a Will, what need have you to do thus? thanks be to God, you

may live many fair years."

"'Tis true" (quoth Cole) "if it please God, and I trust this writing

cannot shorten my days, but let me sce, have I made a Will? Now, I

promise you, I did verily purpose to write a letter: notwithstanding,

I have written that that God put into my mind: but look once again my

host, is it not written there, that Dove shall have two hundred pounds,

to be paid when he comes to demand it?"

"Yes indecd" (said his host).

"Well then, all is well" (said Cole) "and it shall go as it is for me.

I will not bestow the new writing thereof any more."

Then folding it up, he sealed it, desiring that his host would send

it to Exeter: he promised that he would, notwithstanding Cole was

not satisfied: but after some pause, he would needs hire one to carry it.

And so sitting down sadly in his chair again, upon a sudden he burst

forth aweeping; they demanding the cause thereof, he spake as followeth:

"No cause of these fears I know: but it comes now into my mind"

(said Cole) "when I set toward this my last journey to London, how

my daughter took on, what a coil she kept to have me stay: and I could

not be rid of the little baggage a long time, she did so hang about me,

when her mother by violence took her away, she cried out most mainly,

'O my father, my father, I shall never see him again.'"

"Alas, pretty soul" (said his hostess) "this was but mere kindness

in the girl, and it seemeth she is very fond of you. But alas, why shculd

you grieve at this? you must consider that it was but childishness."

"Ay, it is indecd" (said Cole) and with that he began to nod.

Then they asked him if he would go to bed.

"No" (said he) "although I am heavy, I have no mind to go to

bed at all."

With that certain musicians of the town came to the chamber, and

knowing Master Cole was there, drew out their instruments, and very

solemnly began to play.

"This music comes very well" (said Cole) and when he had listened

a while thereunto, he said, "Methinks these instruments sound like

VOL. II.

32

114

THIOMAS DELONEY

the ring of S. Mary Overies bells, but the bass drowns all the rest: and

in my ear it goes like a bell that rings a forenoon's knell, for God's sake

let them leave off, and bear them this simple reward."

The musicians being gone, his host asked if now it would please him

to go to bed; "for" (quoth he) "it is well-near eleven of the clock."

With that Cole bcholding his host and hostess earnestly, began to

start back, saying, "What ails you to look so like pale death? good Lord,

what have you done, that your hands are thus bloody?"

"What, my hands" (said his host)? "Why, you may see they are

neither bloody nor foul: either your eyes do greatly dazzle, or else

fancies of a troubled mind do delude you."

"Alas my host, you may see" (said he) "how weak my wits are, I

never had my head so idle before. Come, let me drink once more, and

then I will to bed, and trouble you no longer."

With that he made himself unready, and his hostess was very diligent

to warm a kerchicf, and put it about his head.

"Good Lord" (said he) "I am not sick, I praise God, but such an

alteration I find in myself as I never did before."

With that the screech-owl cried pitcously, and anon after the night

raven sat croaking hard by his window.

"Jesu have mercy upon me" (quoth he) "what an ill-favoured cry

do yonder carrion birds make," and therewithal he laid him down in

his bed, from whence he never rose again.

His host and hostess, that all this while noted his troubled mind,

began to commune betwixt themselves thereof. And the man said, he

knew not what were best to be done. "By my consent" (quoth he)

"the matter should pass, for I think it is not best to meddle on him."

"What man" (quoth she) "faint you now? have you done so many

and do you shrink at this?" Then showing him a great deal of gold which

Cole had left with her, she said, "Would it not grieve a body's heart

to lose this? hang the old churl, what should he do living any longer?

he hath too much, and we have too little: tut, hushand, let the thing be

done, and then this is our own."

Her wicked counsel was followed, and when they had listened at

his chamber door, they heard the man sound asleep: "All is safe"

(quoth they) and down into the kitchen they go, their servants being

all in bed, and pulling out the iron pins, down fell the bed, and the man

dropped out into the boiling caldron. He being dead, they betwixt them

cast his body into the river, his clothes they made away, and made all

things as it should be.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

115

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1564 - 1616)

William Shakespeare was baptized at Stratford-on-Avon on 26th April, 1564. The traditional date of the 23rd April has been assigned to his birthday because three days was a customary interval between birth and baptism. The 23rd April, moreover, was certainly the date of Shakespeare's death, as well as the day sacred to England's patron saint. Shakespeare was born at a house in Henley Street which is still standing. John Shakespeare, the poet's father, came to Stratford from Snitterfield about 1551. He was a glover, a dealer in corn and timber, and probably also a butcher. In 1557 he had married Mary Arden of Wilmcote, who owned a small estate known as Asbies, as well as having an interest in two messuages at Snitterfield. Shakespeare was the third child of the marriage, but his two elder sisters died in infancy. It is almost certain that Shakespeare was educated at the free grammar-school at Stratford. There has been much difference of opinion about the exact amount of education he received; but there is every reason to believe that Ben Jonson's famous phrase about "small Latine, and lesse Greeke" was a purely relative expression. There is little doubt that without being a finished scholar, or anything of a close student, Shakespeare had read many of the ordinary Latin authors, of whom Ovid was his favourite. During Shakespeare's boyhood the prosperity of his father declined considerably. His fortunes had reached their zenith in 1568, when he was

high-bailiff of Stratford. As far as this wave of adversity can be dated, it would seem to have begun when the poet was about fourteen. It is probable that Shakespeare was taken away from school earlier than he would have been had his father's affairs continued to prosper. It is uncertain how he spent the next few years. One doubtful tradition asserts that he was a schoolmaster in the country (if so his education must have been above, or certainly not below, the average); another, equally doubtful, says that he was bound apprentice to a butcher. The legal knowledge shown in some of the plays may easily be accounted for by the facts that John Shakespeare was litigious, that Shakespeare found himself more than once in the hands of the law, and that members of the Inns of Court associated freely with actors and playwrights. It is not impossible that Shakespeare became an actor when much younger than twenty-one (the age usually given); he may have played women's parts as a boy, and have been driven back to Stratford in 1582 by an outbreak of plague in London.

In November, 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. The eldest child, Susanna, was baptized on 26th May, 1583. On 2nd February, 1585, Shakespeare's twins, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized. Late in 1585 Shakespeare left Stratford for London. The immediate cause of his leaving, according to his first

116

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

biographer, Rowe (1709), was that

he fell into ill-company, and was

caught deer-stealing in the park of

Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlcote,

who prosecuted him. Shakespeare

retaliated with a ballad, and Lucy

in anger hounded him out of War-

wickshire. Fourteen years after-

wards Shakespeare still felt sore at

the treatment he had received, for

he went out of his way to ridicule

Lucy in The Merry Wives.

It is not known how Shake-

speare's connexion with the stage

began. A doubtful tradition says

that he at first held the horses of

playgoers during the performances.

He had seen touring companies of

actors at Stratford on several occa-

sions; moreover, acting had all the

charm of a new profession--in this

respect resembling cinema-acting

in the carly twenticth century --and

held out alluring prospects of speedy

success. We do not know how

good an actor Shakespeare was, but

tradition credits him with having

played Adam in As You Like It, the

Ghost in Hamlet, and Old Knowell

in Jonson's Every Man in his

Humour, so that he would appear

to have specialized in taking old

men's parts. He soon began to

refurbish old plays, and gradually

was led on from minor to major

alterations, and so to original work.

By 1592 he was important enough

to be attacked by the dying pro-

digal Robert Greene (q.v.), in his

Groatsworth of Wit, and to be

apologized to by Greene's executor,

Henry Chettle, in his Kind-Hart's

Dream. Greene's hostility was more

bitter than that which is felt towards

a mere rival; it was the hostility

which every writer feels towards

those who revise, even if they im-

prove, his work. In 1593 Shake-

speare dedicated Venus and Adonis

to the Earl of Southampton, and in

the next year dedicated the com-

panion poem Lucrece to the same

patron.

On 11th August, 1596, Shake-

speare's only son, Hamnet, was

buried. On 20th October of the

same year a draft grant of arms was

given to John Shakespeare; a

second draft was given in 1599.

On 4th May, 1597, Shakespeare

bought New Place at Stratford for

£60. In 1598 Shakespeare was

enthusiastically praised by Francis

Meres in his Palladis Tamia, where

twelve of the plays are enumerated,

a priceless boon to Shakespearean

chronologists. In 1599 the Globe

Theatre was built on Bankside,

and Shakespeare was made a part-

ner in Burbage's company. John

Shakespeare died in September,

1601. In May of the following

year Shakespeare, who was now

exceedingly prosperous, bought 107

acres of land in Old Stratford for

£320. In 1605 he bought for £440

the thirty-two years' term of the

moiety of the lease of Stratford

tithes. On 5th June, 1607, Susanna

Shakespeare was married to John

Hall, a prosperous physician of

Stratford. Their only child, Eliza-

beth, was baptized on 21st February,

1608; Shakespeare's mother died

the following September.

At some unknown date, possibly

about 1611, Shakespeare retired

from London to Stratford. In 1613

he bought for £140 a house and

ground near Blackfriars Theatre,

London. On 29th June, 1613, the

Globe Theatre was burnt down

during a performance of Henry

VIII, and it is probable that many

of Shakespeare's manuscripts were

SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON

BACK VIEW AND GARDEN OF THE HOUSE SHOWN ABOVE

10

destroyed. On 10th February, 1616, Judith Shakespeare was married to Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford. Shakespeare's health began to fail about this time; he executed his will on 25th March, 1616, and died at New Place on 23rd April. His will was proved by his son-in-law, John Hall, on 22nd June. Anne Shakespeare died on 6th August, 1623.

much; she tears a passion to rags; there is more feeling in the brief ejaculations or even in the silences of Shakespeare's mature characters. The year 1593 was a year of plague, so that the theatres were closed and Shakespeare was idle. To this rather than to inspiration the two poems owe their origin. They both, however, display a combination of elaborate art and steady determination to succeed, and provide a good argument against those critics who declare that Shakespeare dashed off his plays in a hasty and perfunctory manner.

The Poems

Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594) may be considered together, as they are companion pieces, both dedicated to the third Earl of Southampton. There is rather a superior air about both poems; Venus and Adonis bears the Ovidian motto vilia miretur vulgus, &c.; perhaps some of the vilia may have been stage-plays. Shakespeare also speaks of this poem as " the first heir of my invention ", so he evidently regarded it as his first legitimate child, the dramas in which others collaborated being of doubtful paternity. Neither of these miniature epics is an entire success. It is clear that in both cases Shakespeare chose the subject; the subject did not choose him, though it has been suggested by someone with an atrophied sense of humour that, when writing Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare drew upon his recollections of his own courtship. Both poems are written in easy flowing verse, and both have vivid touches of nature. The earlier poem is the livelier and more spontaneous of the two, but the later is more mature and is metrically superior. Lucrece, however, protests too

A Lover's Complaint is attributed to Shakespeare solely because it was included in the first edition of the Sonnets (1609). It is almost certainly not his work, being everything good and everything bad that is implied by the word "pretty".

The Passionate Pilgrim was published by William Jaggard in 1599. It was a piratical venture, containing two of Shakespeare's sonnets, three poems out of Love's Labour's Lost, four poems on the subject of Venus and Adonis, and miscellaneous songs by men like Barnfield and Griffin. It is of interest as showing that Shakespeare's name had in 1599 some commercial value on a title page.

The Phœnix and the Turtle was printed in Robert Chester's Love's Martyr: or Rosalin's Complaint in 1601. It is a fine-sounding poem, and probably once had a meaning; but it is unintelligible now. That, perhaps, does not matter, as the poem is "of a transcendental kind".

The Sonnets are the most beautiful and most important of Shakespeare's poems, but they present the thorniest problems in Shake-

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

spearean criticism. They were published piratically in 1609 by one Thomas Thorpe, who dedicated them "to the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets, Mr. W. H." Thorpe bears out the truth of the ancient legal maxim that "pirata est hostis humani generis", so dark a riddle has he bequeathed us. The principal problems of the Sonnets are the identities of Mr. W. H., of the youth to whom many of the sonnets are addressed, of the dark lady mentioned in many of the poems, and of the rival poet mentioned in a few. But the master-problem which lies behind all these is "How far are the Sonnets autobiographical?" The answers to these questions are many and various. Sir Sidney Lee identified Mr. W. H. with one William Hall, a publisher who played the part of pirate-lieutenant to Thorpe's pirate-king, but who was in no way connected with Shakespeare. Other theories identify him with Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton; with William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke; and with a boy-actor, William Hughes. This last theory was suggested by Tyrwhitt, and supported in characteristic fashion by Oscar Wilde. Hughes still remains, however, as nebulous a person as Mrs. Harris. It is quite possible that the youth and Mr. W. H. are not one and the same; in which case it is likely enough that the youth is the third Earl of Southampton, to whom Venus and Adonis and Lucrece were addressed, and who was, as far as we know, Shakespeare's only patron. The dark lady has been identified with innumerable real and allegorical persons; a fairly good case has

been made out for identifying the rival poet with Chapman. Much perverted ingenuity has been expended upon the interpretation of the Sonnets; allegorists have thrown all restraint to the winds; the amateur detectives of literature have followed up false trails innumerable. The problem of the Sonnets, however, exercises upon the public mind the same fascination as the Man in the Iron Mask or The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is extremely likely that, in the absence of further material evidence, the problem will never be solved. It is very probable that the autobiographical element in the Sonnets is either very small or so much transmuted from reality as to be of no value. If it be the case that "the truest poetry is that the most feigning", it is possible that the characters in the Sonnets are fictitious characters; lay-figures which have come alive, quickened to crude chronicle-histories and revenge-plays. There is, at any rate, no doubt that the sonnets differ greatly in poetic value, some being supreme poetry and others quite permissible to think that the Sonnets are a disconnected series of short poems in a more or less amorous vein, and that Shakespeare did not unlock his heart when composing them. If he did, "the less Shakespeare he", not because the heart he displays is unworthy of him, but because the action of unlocking the heart is quite un-Shakespearean. Some critics, however, still believe that in these poems Shakespeare "cleansed the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs

upon the heart

", and that the

purgation which Aristotle tells us

that tragedies should effect in

the audience was effected in the

Sonnets for their author.

The Plays

Shakespeare's plays were written

to amuse; they were intended as

shows, but are usually examined

under the microscope. A bird's-

eye view of the thirty-seven plays

may, therefore, be of some value

as a corrective to over-elaborate

study of some half-dozen of the

most celebrated of them. The

discovery of the approximate order

in which Shakespeare wrote his

plays is perhaps the greatest con-

tribution of the nineteenth century

to Shakespearean scholarship. It

is possible now to trace the growth

of his mind and art. He developed

much as an ordinary man does,

and it is no more derogatory to his

genius to say so than it is blasphe-

mous to maintain that the universe

was not created by a single act.

Titus Andronicus (1588) is almost

certainly not by Shakespeare, though

his name has kept alive interest

in this dull and detestable melo-

drama of blood. It was ascribed

to him by Meres in 1598, and

included in the 1623 Folio by

Heming and Condell. On the

strength of these facts it is hard to

deny that Shakespeare had a hand

in it, but its author was probably

Peele, who stood almost alone in

producing work which he himself

knew to be bad, in the hope that

the audience would not find it out.

The play is obviously the work of

a novice, who had yet to learn that

lopped limbs and human pies do

not constitute a tragedy.

King Henry VI, Part I (1590-

1591. stands rather apart from

Parts II and III of King Henry VI.

It deals with the war in France,

not with the Civil War, and con-

tains much tentative writing. Great

liberties are taken with history. It

may be in the main the work of

Greene and Peele, with scenes by

Shakespeare, but not revised by

him as a whole. Its presence in the

Folio does not decide the question

of Shakespeare's authorship, as the

three parts of the play would

naturally hang together. It may

have been Shakespeare's revision

of Greene's share in this play which

called forth Greene's dying curse.

It is a relief to know that the odious

scenes in which Joan of Arc is

travestied are without doubt not by

Shakespeare.

Love's Labour's Lost (1590) is

a Lylyesque and highly amusing

comedy of dialogue. No other

Shakespearean play is so much

"of an age", so little "for all

time". There are signs that it was

written for a private performance

before a small audience composed

of the smart set; Shakespeare at

this point of his career "to party

kind". The commercial drama-

the "public means" of which he

complained--improved his work.

This is, however, the first play

which contains anything of Shake-

speare's personality. In it he has

been prodigal of his genius. The

pun is the intellectual wild oats of

men who are unusually gifted;

those who play with words when

young are lords of language in

their riper years. Affectation of

one sort or another gives rise to

most of the fun in this play, which

is a plea against shaping our lives

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by narrow rules and artificial systems. The king and his friends,

who tried to be philosophers, but

found cheerfulness always breaking

in, are excellent comic characters.

The Comedy of Errors (1591) is

a skilfully constructed farce based

upon the Menacchmi of Plautus.

One scene (Act III, Scene 1) was

suggested by Plautus's Amphitruo.

It was typical of Shakespeare's

rapidly ripening genius to have

discovered that "our sincerest

laughter with some pain is fraught";

he added a serious background to

the play, and made it look forward

to Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's

Tale, and The Tempest in its story

of lost relations finding each other.

There is also a more or less serious

study of jealousy. It is a good acting play, though, like the "book"

of an opera, somewhat hard to

follow in reading. It is remarkable

among the early plays for the

rapidity of its exposition and its

action.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

(1592) is a kind of overture to the

great series of romantic comedies.

In many ways it is inferior to Love's

Labour's Lost and The Comedy of

Errors, but it is greater in promise,

and in promise of Shakespeare's

own type of comedy. It is badly

constructed, slow in its exposition, and conventional in its ending.

Its characters are symmetrically

grouped, like the nieces and uncles

in Mr. Puff's tragedy of The

Spanish Armada. But real genius

is shown in the drawing of the

characters, especially in those of

Launce and the Host. There are

three ingredients which go to make

up a play---dialogue, plot, and

characterization---and at first Shakespeare concentrated on one to the

detriment of the others. Love's

Labour's Lost excels in dialogue,

The Comedy of Errors in plot, and

The Two Gentlemen in characterization. In his next comedy Shakespeare excelled in all three, though

undoubtedly helped by the dream-

like nature of his subject.

A Midsummer-Night's Dream

(1593-1594) is the consummation

of the early comedies. It was

probably written to be performed

privately. The different threads of

the plot are most cunningly inter-

woven. This play is closely connected with Romeo and Juliet,

which represents love in its tragic

aspect, as A Midsummer-Night's

Dream represents it in its fantastic

aspect. Moreover, the plot of

Pyramus and Thisbe bears no small

resemblance to the plot of Romeo

and Juliet. It is probable that

Shakespeare was putting his soul

into these two plays while engaged

in the more or less dull task of

refurbishing the three parts of

King Henry VI.

King Henry VI, Parts II and III

(1591-1592) are usually considered

to be only in part the work of

Shakespeare. The Second Part is

a recast of an older play, The First

Part of the Contention, and the

Third Part a recast of The True

Tragedy of Richard, Duke of Yorke.

It is usually believed that all these

plays are the work of a committee

of which Marlowe, Greene, Shake-

speare, and Peele were members.

The problem of the authorship of

any given passage is insoluble, and,

like the plays themselves, of secondary importance. It is certain that

there was collaboration or redaction

in King Henry VI, but it is impossible to distinguish between Shake-

speare writing like Marlowe, Greene

writing like Marlowe, and Marlowe writing like himself, and so with all the collaborators.

King Richard III (1593), though the most Marlowesque of all the plays of Shakespeare, is probably Shakespeare’s unaided work—his first historical play written without collaboration.

It is a melodramatic play which stops at nothing to attain its effects.

In Marlowe’s fashion it has a dominating protagonist, and an opening soliloquy.

Richard III was immensely popular; Burbage made his reputation in this play, which from an actor’s point of view is a one-man play.

Romeo and Juliet (1591, perhaps revised 1596) is the tragic masterpiece of Shakespeare’s first period.

Two of its most noticeable features are that it has no underplot, the story moving unimpeded upon its course, and that it is filled with splendid poetry.

Hitherto the poet and the dramatist in Shakespeare had worked turn about rather than collaborated; in this play they are fast allies.

King Richard II (1594) might be called anti-Marlowesque in its style.

Shakespeare has definitely broken away from his discipleship to Marlowe, and is writing in his own style a play on a subject akin to that of Edward II.

There is a lyrical element in this play which links it closely with Romeo and Juliet.

Richard II, a king of shreds and purple patches, is splendidly drawn.

There is a lack of comic scenes, and prose is avoided.

King John (1595) is the greatest example of adaptation in the works of Shakespeare.

It is not altogether an attractive play, but it lets us see into Shakespeare’s workshop more than any other play.

It is based upon an old play, The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England, of which it retains much, while elevating much into poetry.

It does not adhere closely to the facts of history.

The Bastard is a great figure, and points the way to the cycle of histories that are founded upon humour and heroism.

The Merchant of Venice (1596) is an extremely popular play which combines several different stories into one harmonious whole.

So graphically has this been done that some critics forget that the play is a romantic and extravagant play, and that the Venice which it represents lies, not in Italy, but East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

It is a mistake to regard Shylock as a tragic figure.

King Henry IV, Parts I and II (1597–1598) may be regarded as one play in ten acts.

In this play the chronicle turns into the comedy of manners.

This cycle of plays—the Lancastrian trilogy—is the most genial of all the Shakespearean cycles.

From the dramatic point of view these plays are without form and void, but as comedies of manners they are unmatched and unmatchable.

Falstaff “ doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus ”, and is the greatest comic creation in ancient or modern literature.

King Henry V (1599) is the last of the historical plays, properly so called.

Its qualities are those of an epic rather than those of a play.

Its dramatic interest is slender, but it contains some splendid pieces of patriotic writing.

A temporary loss of self-confidence is perhaps to be seen in the apologetic prologues.

The Taming of the Shrew (1597) is an adaptation of an earlier play,

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Taming of A Shrew (published 1594). The later play is the statu-

tory five acts. The authorship of

A Shrew is one of the most inter-

esting though (perhaps be-

cause) insoluble. It has been

assigned to every near and impor-

tant predecessor of Shakespeare

save Lyly and Nash. Shakespeare's

play has been said to delineate the

tragedy which occurs when a manly

spirit is born into a woman's body;

but " 'Twere to consider too curi-

ously to consider so ". The play

is just a lively farce, the off-hand

sketch of a mature artist whose

serious energies were concentrated

on greater tasks.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

(1598) was, according to a fairly-

well established tradition, written

in fourteen days in obedience to a

command of Queen Elizabeth, who

wished to see Falstaff in love.

Even Shakespeare could not write

his best when writing to order, and

Falstaff in love was a contradiction

in terms. The play, however, is a

bright, mirthful comedy, and is

excellently constructed, being much

better than Henry IV in this respect.

It was almost certainly performed

at Windsor, and probably on St.

George's (Garter) day. Falstaff

was transplanted into Elizabethan

times, nor does he bear a much

closer resemblance to his namesake

in Henry IV than Hudibras does to

Don Quixote. The Merry Wives

has about it a pleasant air of spon-

taneity and " unpremeditated art ".

Owing to its impromptu nature, it

lets us see into Shakespeare's mind,

because " out of the abundance of

the heart the mouth speaketh ".

Much Ado about Nothing (1598)

is a great but unequal play. The

underplot, which is delightful

comedy, has swallowed up the

main plot, which is unpleasant

melodrama, so that the play is not

quite satisfactory.

As You Like It (1599) was based

on Lodge's prose tale, Rosalyude,

Euphues Golden Legacie, published

nine years earlier. It is full of the

spirit of romance; and the dainty

wit of Touchstone, the wisest fool

in Shakespeare's, illuminates the

whole play. Even in this play, how-

ever, there are signs that Shake-

speare has turned his wit the seamy

side without. There is much

cynicism in the play, which quite

definitely satirizes pastoralism on

occasion. The ending is purely

conventional; every comedy must

end with a bout of marriages, just

as every tragedy must end with a

series of deaths. According to our

ideas, Horace's rule, " nec deus

intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus ",

applies to Hymen and the knots

which he ties no less than to other

deities and the knots which they

loose.

Twelfth Night (1600) is the acme

of Shakespearean comedy. It has

all that is most mirthful and

exquisite in Much Ado and As You

Like It, with something of added

mirth and grace. To treat Malvolio

as an almost tragic personage is an

absurd mistake made by some

actors.

Julius Cæsar (1601) is the first of

the Roman plays based on Plutarch,

the humanest though not the most

accurate of biographers. It is

probable that Shakespeare spent

an unusual amount of time on this

play. The language and thought

are exquisitely clear, and are more

evenly balanced than in any other

play.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

123

Hamlet (1602) is perhaps the most popular of the plays. It has been classed, with Julius Caesar, as a tragedy of reflection, but to the Elizabethan playgoer of 1602 it probably appeared to be a good brisk melodrama with plenty of sensation in it. It is undoubtedly based upon an old revenge-tragedy, probably the work of Kyd. There are some minor inconsistencies in the play, due in part to the survival of some features of the old play, and in part to the drastic but incomplete revision which Shakespeare gave to his first draft. The heart of Hamlet's mystery can be almost if not quite plucked out; some of the difficulties which tormented commentators of a bygone generation were due to their not realizing that in a revenge-play there was a certain tacit understanding between author and audience, just as there is to-day between the author of a detective story and his readers.

All's Well that ends Well (?1601) is a curious play with an uncertain literary history. Parts of it are immature, both in style and metre, and parts of it are certainly Shakespeare's mature work. It is perhaps a recast of an earlier play, which many critics identify with Love's Labour's Won, mentioned by Meres in 1598. The uncertain touch with which the character of the heroine is drawn is a sign of early work or patchwork. The blending of styles makes this play unique.

Measure for Measure (1603) is that mixture of dramatic and unpleasant qualities which is usually known as a "strong" play. It is very much less tragic than its source. Shakespeare's magic has given reality to a romantically improbable story. The conventional ending would not seem out of place in a conventional play, in a play in which "they do but jest, poison in jest"; but Shakespeare in this play propounds a problem of absorbing interest, and shirks giving a satisfactory solution of it.

Troilus and Cressida (?1603) is the most obscure of Shakespeare's plays, and leaves a confused effect upon its readers. Though weak as a play, it is strong as a satire; it may be doubted if it was ever a money-making play. It is ambiguous even in its position in the Folio, where it occupies a kind of limbo between the histories and the tragedies, and is not mentioned in the "catalogue" or table of contents. It is the only play of the thirty-seven which is filled with bitterness and the crackling of thorns under a pot. Truth, love, heroism, wisdom, chastity—whatsoever things are lovely and of good report—are the subjects of gibes and mockery. And now tragedy follows tragedy.

Othello (1604) is at once the most painful and the most perfect of all the plays, and is the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as a dramatist. In construction it is as perfect as a play of Sophocles. There is no underplot. Coleridge contrasted this play favourably with Hamlet and Lear, where, he said, there was something gigantic and unformed; in Othello "everything assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium".

King Lear (1605) is the most titanic of all the plays, and is the most tremendous effort of Shake-

124

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

speare as a poct. It combines

rapidity with length, and has the

fire and sublimity of the best work

of Æschylus. It is too vast a sub-

ject for the stage, and gives the

impression of being out of time

and space. In this play we see the

first signs of that lack of verbal and

metrical restraint which is so not-

able in the latest plays. The lan-

guage cannot always support the

weight of the thought.

Macbeth (1606) is, unfortunately,

only preserved in an imperfect

state. It was written to please

James, hence the subject was taken

from Scottish history, and hence

the allusions to demonology, upon

which the king had written a book,

and to the healing of scrofula by

means of the royal touch. It is

possible that the pruning-knife was

unskilfully applied to Macbeth to

make it more suitable for perfor-

mance at court. One of the most

remarkable features of this play is

its extreme rapidity. It moves

swiftly and relentlessly to its dénoue-

ment.

Antony and Cleopatra (1607) is

a play of kaleidoscopic variety. It

is slightly defective in construction,

and lacks an absorbing centre of

interest. It was perhaps rather

hastily written, and has the excel-

lences and defects of rapid work.

Cleopatra is the greatest of Shake-

speare's women, and the most

complete psychological study in

all the plays.

Coriolanus (1608) is a somewhat

austere play, with little of the lyric

manner in it, and containing a

good deal of rather difficult writ-

ing, not unlike that of Browning.

Many gifts have gone to its making,

but not the supreme gift of love.

Coriolanus is much less tragic than

its immediate predecessors, as when

the hero dies he loses his life but

saves his soul. This is significant

as marking the end of the tragic

period.

Timon of Athens (?1607 1608) is

a puzzling and chaotic play. Parts

of it are in Shakespeare's most

majestic style, and parts of it seem

to be the work of an unskilful

journeyman; but the difficulty of

separating the wheat from the

tares is greater in this than in any

other play. It has been suggested

that this play was completed not

for acting, but for inclusion in the

1623 Folio. It may preserve much

of Shakespeare's preliminary draft.

Pericles (1608) is the overture to

the series of four romances with

which Shakespeare ended his career

as dramatist. Before writing these

plays his mind was born again.

Like 'the wretch that long has

tost on the thorny bed of pain'

The meanest floweret of the vale

The simplest note that swells the

gale,

The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him are opening Paradise.

In these plays Shakespeare harked

back to the religion of parted kin-

folk, a subject he had dealt with in

the serious underplot of The Comedy

of Errors. The first two acts of

Pericles are worthless, and are the

work of some very inferior play-

wright, possibly George Wilkins.

This is the partnership of Alpha

and Omega, the first and the last;

and there is no stronger evidence

of the small value which Shake-

speare set on his work.

The Winter's Tale (1610) is based

upon Greene's novel Pandosto

(named Dorastus and Fawnia in its

later editions). Autolycus is Shake-

speare's own invention, and one of

the most agreable of all rogues.

In the story of the wooing of

Florizel and Perdita, the shep-

herdess who is really a princess,

Shakespeare dealt with a situation

common in Menander and the

New Comedy, but treated it in

his own pure and delicate way.

The statue-scene at the end of the

play is immensely effective on the

stage.

Cymbeline (1610) is somewhat

complicated and difficult to follow,

but it contains the beautiful figure

of Imogen, the sweetest woman

ever created by God or man. This

character and some magnificent

poetry help to make amends for a

certain lack of probability in this

play, which treads close on the

heels of the greatest of the plays.

The Tempest (1611) is the greatest

of the four romances, and is the

last song of the " sweet swan of

Avon ". In this play Shakespeare

" called the New World into exis-

tence to redress the balance of the

Old ". Music and magic and poetry

meet in it and make it the Master's

masterpiece. Its technique is

perfect. It obeys the laws of unity

of time and of unity of place. It

has solved the problem of how to

represent a reconciliation—twelve

years having elapsed since the

estrangement—upon the stage. It

is impossible to refrain from identi-

fying Prospero with Shakespeare

himself. Prospero the magician is

a man who has complete mastery

over himself. His magic chiefly

consists in this. Heminge and

Condell showed much wisdom in

putting this play first in the Folio,

to attract the hesitating purchaser.

Henry VIII (1612) is actually the

last play to which Shakespeare

contributed a share, though The

Tempest is his last great work and

contains his farewell to the stage.

Roughly a third of the play is by

Shakespeare; the rest is by Fletcher.

Some critics see the hand of Mas-

singer in certain parts. This play

depends for its success more upon

pageantry and declamation than

upon plot and poetry. It may

perhaps contain some old material,

laid aside by Shakespeare years

before and made over to Fletcher

when Shakespeare retired to Strat-

ford.

To attempt in a few words to

appreciate the genius of Shakespeare

is as difficult as it is to " hold in-

finity in the palm of your hand ".

Nevertheless, certain salient features

of the man may be briefly set down.

The greatest of all his manifold

gifts was his large-minded impar-

tiality — his god-like tolerance,

which enabled him to sympathize

with human nature in all its shapes,

degrees, depressions, and eleva-

tions. Another of his great gifts

was that he had, especially in his

mature plays, the happy knack of

pleasing both himself and his

audience with his work. He did

not, like Fletcher, pander to the

groundlings; nor did he, like

Jonson, attempt to bully them into

liking what was above their heads.

Simply by the alchemy of his

genius he could turn the base lead

of crude farces, tedious chronicle-

histories, and ranting tragedies of

revenge into the pure gold of his

sunny comedies, his masterly his-

torical plays, and his majestic

tragedies. He was born at a fortui-

nate time. Marlowe, one of the

greatest of literary pioneers, had

made straight the paths for him.

126

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

He began his carcer as a junior doing alterations only; when he had completed his great series of historical plays, he was a past-master of dramatic writing. The composition of his histories was probably the best education that he could have had; had he not worked at these plays he might have been a kind of superior Fletcher in comedy, and but slightly better than Webster in tragedy. As it was, he went on from strength to strength, writing masterpieces of romantic comedy and tragedies of all kinds, ending finally with his romances, in which he seems to look down as from a height upon all the doings of man-kind.

Bibliographical Note.--Seventeen of Shakespeare's plays (including Pericles) were printed in quarto between 1597 and 1622. Four of the plays published in quarto are obviously pirated (Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Merry Wives, and Hamlet), and it is not likely that Shakespeare authorized, though he may have connived at, the publication of any of them. In 1623 appeared the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, usually known as the First Folio. It was set forth by John Heminge and Henry Condell, Shakespeare's fellow-actors. It contains thirty-six plays (all the canonical plays except Pericles), twenty of which appeared in print for the first time. Over one hundred and eighty copies of the First Folio survive, but only fourteen are in a quite perfect state. The Second Folio (1632) is a reprint of the First, and makes a few alterations, many of which are for the worse.

The Third Folio (1663 and 1664) is mainly a reprint of the Second; the 1664 impression contains Pericles and six pseudo-Shakespearean plays. The Fourth Folio (1685) is a reprint of the 1664 impression of the Third.

Dryden was one of the best as he was one of the earliest Shakespearean critics. The first critical editor was the Poet Laureate Nicholas Rowe, who in his edition of 1709 corrected some of the most palpable errors, and gathered together some facts and legends about Shakespeare's life. Pope (1725), and Theobald (1733) made some happy and some unnecessary emendations. Hanmer (1744) did not contribute much to Shakespearean scholarship, nor did Warburton, who reissued Pope's edition with many notes of his own in 1747. Dr. Johnson's edition (1765) is chiefly famous for its preface, an embodiment of sound common sense. Capell's edition (1768) is the work of a thorough but not superficially attractive scholar. Steevens, who reissued Johnson's edition in 1773, was clever but unstable; Malone, his rival (1790), was a sound antiquarian. Variorum editions embodying the work of Johnson, Steevens, and Malone appeared under the editorship of Reed in 1803 and 1813, and under the editorship of James Boswell (the younger) in 1821. In the early part of the nineteenth century a new era in Shakespearean criticism was opened up by Coleridge, Schlegel, Hazlitt, and Lamb. Coleridge, though not the most reliable, is perhaps the most inspired of Shakespearean critics. His tradition was carried on at a later date by Swinburne, who is an excellent

152

THE TRAGEDIE OF

HAMLET, Prince of Denmarke.

Titulus Primus. Scena Prima.

Bernardo.

Who's there?

Francisco.

Nay, answere me: Stand, and vnfold

your felfe.

Bernardo.

Long liue the King.

Francisco.

Bernardo?

Bernardo.

Hee.

Francisco.

You come moft carefully vpon your houre.

Bernardo.

'Tis now ftookt twelue: get thee to bed, Francifco.

Francisco.

For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis bitter cold,

And I am fick at hearte.

Bernardo.

Hau'e you had quiet Guard?

Francisco.

Not a Moufe ftirring.

Bernardo.

Well, goodnight: if you do meete Horatio and

Marcellus,

The fellowes of my Watch, bid them make haſte.

Francisco.

I thinke I ſhall not: Stand : whoſe there?

Horatio.

Friends to this ground.

And Leige-men to the Dane.

Marcellus.

Giue you good night.

Francisco.

O, farewel honelt ſoldier, who hath relieu'd you?

Bernardo.

Bernardo hath my place: giue you goodnight.

Exit Francisco.

Horatio.

Holla Bernardo.

Bernardo.

Say, what, is Horatio there?

Horatio.

A peacece of him.

Bernardo.

Welcome Horatio: welcome good Marcellus.

Marcellus.

What, is't this thing appeard againe to night?

Bernardo.

I haue ſeene nothing.

Marcellus.

Horatio ſayes 'tis but our Fantafie,

And will not let beleefe take hold of him

Touching this dreaded ſight, twice ſeene of vs,

Therefore I haue intreaced him along

With vs, to watch the minuts of this Night,

That if againe this Apparition come,

He may approue our eyes, and ſpeake to it.

Horatio.

Tush, tuſh, 'twill not appeare.

Bernardo.

Sit downe awhile;

And let vs once againe affaile your eares,

That are ſo fortified againſt our Story

What we two Nights haue ſeene.

Horatio.

Well, ſit we downe,

And let vs heare Bernardo ſpeake of this.

Bernardo.

Laſt night, of all,

When yond ſtarrie Starre chat's Weſtward from the Pole

Had made his courſe t'illume that part of Heauen

Wherenow it burnes, Marcellus and my ſelfe,

The Bell then beaƭing one.

Marcellus.

Peace, breake thee off: Looke where it comes againe.

Bernardo.

In the ſame figure, like the King that's dead.

Marcellus.

Thouſe art a Scholler; ſpeake to ir Horatio.

Bernardo.

Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio.

Horatio.

Moſt like: It harrowes me with feare & wonder

Bernardo.

It would beſpeake too.

Horatio.

What art thou that vſurp'ſt this time of night,

Together with that faire and Warlike forme

In which the Maiſtie of buried Denmarke

Did ſometimes march? By Heauen I charge thee ſpeake.

Marcellus.

It is offended.

Bernardo.

ſeeſt it not ſtalke away.

Horatio.

ſtay: ſpeake: ſpeake: I charge thee ſpeake.

Exit the Ghoſt.

Marcellus.

'Tis gone, and will not anſwer.

Bernardo.

How now Horatio? you tremble and looke pale:

Is not this ſome-thing more then Fantafie?

What thinke you on't?

Horatio.

Before my God, I might not this beleeue

Without the ſenſible and true auouch

Of mine owne eyes.

Marcellus.

Is't not like the King?

Horatio.

As thou art to't.

Marcellus.

Such was'the very Armour he had on,

When he th' Ambitious Norwey combated:

So frownd he once, when in an angry parle

He ſmote the ſledded Pollax on the Ice.

'Tis ſtrange.

Marcellus.

Thus twice before,ſand iſt at this dead houre,

With Martiall ſtolke, hath he gone by our Watch.

Horatio.

In what particular thought he worke, I know not:

But in the groſſe and ſcope of my Opinion,

This bodes ſome ſtrange eruption to our ſtate.

Marcellus.

Good now ſit downe, & tell me he that knowes,

Why this fame ſtirſt and moſt obſeruaut Watch

So nightly toyles the ſubiect of the Land,

And why ſuch dayly Caſt of Brazen Cannon

And Forragne Mart for Implements of warre:

Why ſuch impreſſe of Ship-wrights, whoſe ſore Taske

Doſ not diſſolue the Sunday from the weeke.

What might be toward, that this ſweaty haſt

Doth make the Night-ſoynt-Labourer with the day:

Who iſ't that can informe me?

Horatio.

That can I,

THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO (1623) OF HAMLET

critic, though sometimes most em-

phatic where his case is weakest.

'The editions of Singer, Collier,

Knight, Halliwell, Dyce, and

Staunton all contribute something

to our knowledge of Shakespeare.

'The Cambridge edition of Clark

and Wright presents a sound text,

but its critical apparatus resembles

an unweeded garden. A new

Variorum edition was undertaken

by H. Howard Furness of Phila-

delphia, who edited fifteen plays

between 1871 and his death in

1912; his son is carrying on the

task. Each volume of this edition

is a library in itself. Other editions

are too numerous to mention, but

the following may be singled out

as important: Dowden, Craig, and

Case, The Arden Shakespeare (1899-

1918), and Sir Arthur Quiller-

Couch and J. D. Wilson, The New

Shakespeare (begun in 1921).

'Those who read to contradict

and confute will perhaps endeavour

to make themselves masters of a

section or two of the vast library

which has gathered round Shake-

speare and his works. A small

selection will satisfy those whom

studies serve for delight. The

ordinary reader will find almost all

the help he requires in the follow-

ing books: Sir Sidney Lee, A Life

of William Shakespeare (the stan-

dard biography); F. J. Furnivall

and J. Munro, Shakespeare: Life

and Work; Dr. Johnson, Essays

and Notes on Shakespeare (edited

by Sir W. Raleigh); S. T. Cole-

ridge, Notes and Lectures on Shake-

speare; W. Hazlitt, Characters of

Shakespeare's Plays; E. Dowden,

Shakspere: a Critical Study of his

Mind and Art; A Shakspere Primer;

Introduction to Shakespeare; Sir

Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare (Eng-

lish Men of Letters Series); A. C.

Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy;

Oxford Lectures on Poetry; A. C.

Swinburne, A Study of Shake-

speare; J. Churton Collins, Studies

in Shakespeare; B. Wendell, Wil-

liam Shakespeare: a Study in

Elizabethan Literature; G. Brandes,

William Shakespeare; G. P. Baker,

The Development of Shakespeare as

a Dramatist; D. H. Madden, The

Diary of Master William Silence;

Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, Shake-

speare's Workmanship; various con-

tributors, Shakespeare's England;

Sir E. K. Chambers, William

Shakespeare, a Study of Facts and

Problems; Shakespeare: a Survey;

J. Bartlett, Concordance to Shake-

speare; R. J. Cunliffe, A New

Shakespearean Dictionary; E. A.

Abbott, A Shakespearian Grammar.

From "Venus and Adonis"

This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,

This canker that cats up Love's tender spring,

This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

Knocks at my heart and whispers in mine ear

'That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.

And more than so, presenteth to mine eye

'The picture of an angry-chafing boar,

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie

An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed

Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

That tremble at the imagination?

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,

And fear doth teach it divination;

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,

If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,

Or at the roe which no encounter dare:

Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,

And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy hounds.

And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles

How he outruns the wind and with what care

He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:

The many musets through which he goes

Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,

To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,

And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,

To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer:

Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

For there his smell with others being mingled,

The hot scent-snuffling hounds are driven to doubt,

Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled

With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,

As if another chase were in the skies.

By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,

To hearken if his foes pursue him still:

Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

129

And now his grief may be compared well

To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

Turn, and return, indenting with the way;

Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,

Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:

For misery is trodden on by many,

And being low never relieved by any.

(Lines 655-708.)

From "Lucrece"

O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!

'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason:

Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;

Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;

'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;

And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,

Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

Thou makest the vestal violate her oath;

Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;

Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;

Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!

Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:

Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,

Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,

Thy private feasting to a public fast,

Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,

Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:

Thy violent vanities can never last.

How comes it then, vile Opportunity,

Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,

And bring him where his suit may be obtained?

When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?

Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?

Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;

But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

VOL. II.

33

130

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The patient dies while the physician sleeps;

The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;

Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;

Advice is sporting while infection breeds;

Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages

Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,

A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:

They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,

He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid.

As well to hear as grant what he hath said.

My Collatine would else have come to me

When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

(Lines 876-917.)

Sonnets

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

XXIX

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

XXX

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before,

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

LXV

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

132

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

XCVIII

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him,

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,

As with your shadow I with these did play:

XCIX

The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

133

The roses fcarfully on thorns did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both

And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see

But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXXIX

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Titania's Lullaby

You spotted snakes with double tongue,

Thornly hedgehogs, be not seen;

Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,

Come not near our fairy queen.

Philomel, with melody,

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:

Never harm,

Nor spell nor charm,

Come our lovely lady nigh;

So, good night, with lullaby.

Weaving spiders, come not here;

Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!

Beetles black, approach not near;

Worm nor snail, do no offence.

Philomel, with melody, etc.

Balthazar's Song

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,

Of dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy:

Then sigh not so, etc.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Feste's Song

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,

That can sing both high and low:

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

What's to come is still unsure:

In delay there lies no plenty;

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Ariel's Songs

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:

Courtsied when you have and kiss'd

The wild waves whist,

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Burthen (dispersedly). Hark, hark!

Bow-wow.

The watch-dogs bark:

Bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Burthen. Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them,—Ding-dong, bell.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love's Labour's Lost

Biron

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself

And where we are our learning likewise is:

Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,

Do we not likewise see our learning there?

O, we have made a vow to study, lords,

And in that vow we have forsworn our books.

For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,

In leaden contemplation have found out

Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes

Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?

Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;

And therefore, finding barren practisers,

Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil:

But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,

Lives not alone immured in the brain;

But, with the motion of all elements,

Courses as swift as thought in every power,

And gives to every power a double power,

Above their functions and their offices.

It adds a precious seeing to the eye;

A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;

A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,

When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible

Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;

Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:

For valour, is not Love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?

Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;

O, then his lines would ravish savage ears

And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:

They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;

They are the books, the arts, the academes,

That show, contain and nourish all the world:

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

137

Else none at all in aught proves excellent.

Then fools you were these women to forswear,

Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.

For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,

Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,

Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women,

Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men,

Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.

It is religion to be thus forsworn,

For charity itself fulfils the law,

And who can sever love from charity?

(Act IV, Sc. 3, lines 314–365.)

A Midsummer-Night’s Dream

(Enter Titania and Bottom; Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth,

Mustardseed, and other Fairies attending; Oberon behind unseen.)

Titania

Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.

Bottom

Where’s Peaseblossom?

Peaseblossom

Ready.

Bottom

Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?

Cobweb

Ready.

Bottom

Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your weapons in your

nd, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and

od monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much

the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-

138

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed?

Mustardseed

Ready.

Bottom

Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good mounsieur.

Mustardseed

What's your will?

Bottom

Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

Titania

What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

Bottom

I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs and the bones.

Titania

Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

Bottom

Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay; good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

Titania

I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

Bottom

I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Titania

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.

[Exeunt fairies.

(Act IV, Sc. 1, lines 1–44.)

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo

How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry! which their keepers call

A lightning before death: O, how may I

Call this a lightning? O, my love! my wife!

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?

O, what more favour can I do to thee,

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain

To sunder his that was thine enemy?

Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;

And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again: here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest,

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!

Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

[Dies.

(Act V, Sc. 3, lines 88–120.)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Merchant of Venice

Belmont. Avenue to Portia's house.

(Enter LORENZO and JESSICA.)

LORENZO

The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees

And they did make no noise, in such a night

Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls

And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,

Where Cressid lay that night.

JESSICA

In such a night

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself

And ran dismay'd away.

LORENZO

In such a night

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love

To come again to Carthage.

JESSICA

In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs

That did renew old Aeson.

LORENZO

In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice

As far as Belmont.

JESSICA

In such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,

Stealing her soul with many vows of faith

And ne'er a true one.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

141

LORENZO

In such a night

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,

Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

JESSICA

I would out-night you, did no body come;

But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.

(Act V, Sc. 1, lines 1–24.)

Second Part of King Henry IV

CHIEF-JUSTICE

You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

FALSTAFF

Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he that looks

upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects,

I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these

costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is

made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all

the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them,

are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities

of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the

bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the ward of our youth, I

must confess, are wags too.

CHIEF-JUSTICE

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written

down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a

dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an in-

creasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin

double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity?

and will you call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with

a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost

it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further,

I will not; the truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding;

and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me

the money, and have at him! For the box of the car that the prince gave

you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord.

I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in

ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

Chief-Justice

Well, God send the prince a better companion!

Falstaff

God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands

of him.

(Act I, Sc. 2, lines 185-226.)

Julius Cæsar

Brutus

Be patient till the last.

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be

silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect

to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom,

and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any

in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say, that Brutus'

love to Cæsar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why

Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Cæsar

less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living

and dic all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men? As

Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was valiant, I honour him: but,

as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for

his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who

is here so base that would be a bond-man? If any, speak; for him have

I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any,

speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love

his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a

reply.

All

None, Brutus, none.

Brutus

Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than

you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the

Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

(Enter ANTONY and others, with Cæsar's body.)

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,— that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

All

Live, Brutus! live, live.

First Citizen

Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

Second Citizen

Give him a statue with his ancestors.

Third Citizen

Let him be Cæsar.

Fourth Citizen

Cæsar's better parts Shall be crown'd in Brutus.

First Citizen

We'll bring him to his house With shouts and clamours.

Brutus

My countrymen,—

Second Citizen

Peace, silence! Brutus speaks.

First Citizen

Peace, ho!

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Brutus

Good countrymen, let me depart alone,

And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:

Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech

Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony,

By our permission, is allow'd to make.

I do entreat you, not a man depart,

Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

[Exit.

(Act III, Sc. 2, lines 12-66.)

Hamlet

Horatio

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and carth together demonstrated

Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

(Re-enter Ghost.)

I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

Speak to me:

[Cock crows.

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,

O, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

The Tragedie of

H

A

M

L

E

T

Prince of Denmarke.

Enter Bernardo, and Francifco, two Centinels.

Bar.

VV

Hofe

there?

Fran.

Nay,

anfiwer

me.

Stand

and

vnfold

your

felfe.

Bar.

Long

line

tine

King.

Fran.

Barnardo.

Fran.

'

You'come

meft

carefully

vpon

your

foure,

Ba

'

Tis

now

ftrooke

ten

elue,

zet

thee

to

fed

Francifco.

Fran.

For

this

relicfe

much

thanks,

tis

bitter

cold,

And

I

am

fick

at

hearte.

Bar.

Hauc

you

had

quiet

guard?

Fran.

Not

a

Moufe

flirring.

Bar.

Well,

good

night:

If

you

doc

mecet

Horatio

and

Marcellus,

The

riualls

of

my

watch,

bid

th

em

make

haft.

Enter

Horatio

and

Marcellus.

Fran.

I

thinke

I

heare

them.

ftand

ho,

who

is

there?

Hora.

Friends

to

this

groiund.

Mar.

And

Legemen

to

the

Dane,

Fran.

Giue

you

good

night.

Mar.

O,

farewell

honctt

fouldiers,

who

hath

relieu'd

you?

Fran.

Bernardo

hath

my

place;

giue

you

good

night.

Exit Fran.

2283

THE FIRST PAGE OF THE FOURTH QUARTO (1611) OF HAMLET

This should be compared with the same page from the First Folio (1623)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Marcellus

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Horatio

Do, if it will not stand.

Bernardo

'Tis here!

Horatio

'Tis here!

Marcellus

'Tis gone!

[Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Bernardo

It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

Horatio

And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine: and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.

Marcellus

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long:

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;

The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

34

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Horatio

So have I heard and do in part believe it.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:

Break we our watch up; and by my advice,

Let us impart what we have seen to-night

Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Marceiius

Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

[Exeunt.

(Act I, Sc. i, lines 113-175.)

Othello

Othcllo

Soft you; a word or two before you go,

I have done the state some service, and they know't.

No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you

Of one that loved not wisely but too well;

Of one not casily jealous, but being wrought

Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;

And say besides, that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,

And smote him, thus.

[Stabs himself.

(Act V, Sc. 2, lines 338-356.)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

King Lear

LEAR

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;

If only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,—

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both!

If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,

And let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall—I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep;

No, I'll not weep:

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

(Act II, Sc. 4, lines 267-289.)

Pericles

(Enter PERICLES, on shipboard.)

PERICLES

Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,

Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast

Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,

Having call'd them from the deep! O, still

Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench

Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida,

How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously;

148

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman's whistle

Is as a whisper in the cars of death,

Unheard. Lychorida! -Lucina, O

Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle

To those that cry by night, convey thy deity

Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs

Of my queen's travails!

(Enter LYCHORIDA, with an Infant.)

Now, Lychorida!

LYCHORIDA

Here is a thing too young for such a place,

Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I

Am like to do: take in your arms this piece

Of your dead queen.

PERICLES

How, how, Lychorida!

LYCHORIDA

Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm.

Here's all that is left living of your queen,

A little daughter: for the sake of it,

Be manly, and take comfort.

PERICLES

O you gods!

Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,

And snatch them straight away? We here below

Recall not what we give, and therein may

Use honour with you.

LYCHORIDA

Patience, good sir,

Even for this charge.

PERICLES

Now, mild may be thy life!

For a more blustrous birth had never babe:

Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Thou art the rudeliest welcome to this world

That ever was prince's child. Happy what follows!

Thou hast as chiding a nativity

As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,

To herald thee from the womb; even at the first

Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit,

With all thou canst find here. Now, the good gods

Throw their best eyes upon't!

(Act III, Sc. I, lines 1-37.)

The Winter's Tale

PERDITA

Now, my fair'st friend,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might

Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,

That wear upon your virgin branches yet

Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,

For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall

From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes

Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold

Bright Phœbus in his strength—a malady

Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and

The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,

To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,

To strew him o'er and o'er!

FLORIZEL

What, like a corse?

PERDITA

No, like a bank for love to lie and play on;

Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried,

But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers:

Methinks I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Florizel.

What you do

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever: when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms,

Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too: when you dance, I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that; move still, still so,

And own no other function; each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,

That all your acts are queens.

Perdita

O Doricles,

Your praises are too large: but that your youth,

And the true blood which peepeth fairly through't,

Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,

With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You woo'd me the false way.

Florizel.

I think you have

As little skill to fear as I have purpose

To put you to 't. But come; our dance, I pray:

Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

Perdita

I'll swear for 'em.

Polixenes

This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever

Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems

But smacks of something greater than herself,

Too noble for this place.

Camillo

He tells her something

That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is

The queen of curds and cream.

(Act IV, Sc. 4, lines 112-161.)