A History of English Poetry: an Unpublished Continuation

I have discovered, says Mr Steevens, in a Letter to me, that Watson's Sonnets, which were printed without date, were entered on the books of the Stationer's Company, in 1581: under the Title of, "Watsons Passions, manifesting the true frenzy of Love". The Entry is to Gabriel Cawood, who afterwards published them. [See A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, ed. Edward Arber (London, 1875-1894), II, 409.] Ad Lectorem Hexasticon is prefixed "Green's Tullie's Love", & subscribed "Tho. Watson. Oxon."—[Robert Greene, Ciceronis Amor. Tullies Love (London, 1601), Sig. A3 verso.]

I find in [Joseph] Ames' Typographical Antiquities. [London, 1749] page 423. Amintae Gaudiā. Authore Tho. Watsono. Londinensi. Juris studiosi [sic]. 4.

1592 [This unique pencilled annotation seems to be in Joseph Warton's hand.]

24

[A note to accompany this Sonnet No. VII has been almost completely destroyed by the excision, unique in the notebook, of what was originally folio 17. The mutilated line ends of the note read thus: "… nd/ … on/… omas/… s Tr." This note presumably referred to Thomas Watson and cited Section XI of "A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets," in Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury (London, 1598, fol. 280), where among those praised for their Latin verse are Christopher Ocland, Thomas Watson, Thomas Campion, Walter Haddon, and "Thomas Newton with his Leyland."]

25

Novemb. 19. [1594, not 1595.] Registr. Station. B. fol. 315. a.

26

There is [a] Sonnet by Spenser, never printed with his works, prefixed to Gabriel Harveys "Foure Letters, &c. Lond. 1592." I have much pleasure in drawing this little piece from obscurity, not only as it bears the name of Spenser, but as it is at the same time a natural unaffected effusion of friendship … [four words illegible]. (See Observations on Spenser's Fair. Qu. [II]. [245-247?].)

"Harvey, the happy aboue happiest men,
I read: that sitting like a looker-on
of this worldes stage, doest note with critique pen
The sharpe dislikes of each condition;
And, as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the favour of the great,
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat;
But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat,
Like a great lord of peerlesse liberty:
Lifting the good vp to high honours seat,
And th' euil damning euermore to dy.
For life and death is in thy doomefull writing,
So thy renowme liues euer by endighting.

Dublin this 18 of July, 1586. Your devoted Friend during life, Edmund Spencer."

I avail myself of an opportunity of throwing together a few particulars of the life and writings of this very intimate friend of Spenser, more especially as they will throw general light on the present period. He was born at Saffron-Walden in Essex, [John] Strype's [Life of the Learned Sir Thomas] Smith. [London, 1698] p. 18. He was a fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Spenser's college: and was one of the proctors of the university of Cambridge, in 1583. [Thomas] Fuller's [History of the University of] Cambridge, p. 146. [in his] Ch[urch] Hist[ory of Britain]. [London, 1655.] Wood says, he was first of Christ's college, and afterwards fellow of Trinity-Hall, Ath. Oxon. F[asti, I, col. 755]. But Wood must be mistaken, for in the Epilogus to his Smithus, addressed to John Wood Smith's amanuensis, Harvey dates from Pembroke-Hall. Smithus, Signat. G. iij. [G4 verso.] [Warton probably did not intend to deny that Harvey was a fellow of Trinity, but evidently felt that Wood was ignorant of the intermediate fellowship at Pembroke.] He was doctorated in jurisprudence at both universities. With his brother Henry, he was much addicted to Astrology. (See supr. [Vol. IV], p. 23.)

He seems to have been a reader in rhetoric at Cambridge from his Ciceronianus, vel Oratio post reditum habita Cantabrigiae ad suos auditores. Lond. 1577. 4to. It is dedicated to William Lewin, I suppose of Christ's college. (See Wood, ubi supr.) He published also Rhetor, vel duorum dierum oratio de natura arte et exercitatione rhetorica, Lond. 1577. 4

. It is dedicated to Bartholomew Clark, the elegant translator of Castilios Courtier, who has also prefixed an address to our author's Rhetor, dated at Mitcham in Surrey, Cal. Sept. 1577. He published in four books, a set of Latin poems called Gabrielis Harveii Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri quatuor, &c. Lond. 1578. 4to. This book he wrote in honour of queen Elisabeth, while she was on a progress at Audley-end in Essex, "afterwards presenting the same in print to her Highnesse at the worshipfull Maister Capels in Hertfordshire." Notes to Spenser's September. He mentions a most perfect and elegant delineation or engraving of all England, perartificiose expressa, procured by his friend M. Saccoford, to which the queen's effigy, accuratissime depicta, was prefixed. Lib. i. p. 13. In his character of an accomplished Maid of Honour of the queen's court, some curious qualifications are recited. One of the first, to make her truly amiable, is what he calls Affectatio.

She is to understand painting her cheeks, to have a collection of good jokes, to dance, draw, write verses, sing, and play on the lute, and furnish her library with some approved recipt-books. She is to be completely skilled in cosmetics. "Deglabret, lavet, atque ungat, &c." Lib. iiii. p. 21. 22. (See supr. ii[i]. [426, n].) Another book of Harvey's Latin poetry is his Smithus, vel Musarum Lacrymae, on the death of Seceretary [sic] Sir Thomas Smith, Lond. 1578. 4to. The dedication is to Sir Walter Mildmay. When Smith died, he says, Lord Surrey broke his lyre. Cant. v. He wishes on this mournful occasion, that More, Surrey, and Gascoigne, would be silent. Cant. vi. Ascham, Carr, Tonge, Bill, Goldwell, Watson, and Wilson, are panegyrised as imitators of Smith. [Nicholas Carr, 1524-1568, was Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. William Bill, d. 1561, was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Perhaps Tonge is the Barnaby Tonge who matriculated at Christ Church, Cambridge, in 1555. There were two John Goldwell's at Cambridge in Smith's day: one was a fellow at Queen's from 1538 to 1542; the other was named fellow of Trinity in 1546. For Wilson see Warton's discussion earlier in the History (III, 331-344), where this very praise in Harvey's Smithus is quoted.] Cant. vii. Signat. D. iij. See also, Sign. L. i. And C. ij. Wilson, the author of the Art of Rhetoric, is again commended. Ibid. Sign. E. ij. Again, Sign. F. i. F. ij. He thinks it of consequence to remember, that Smith gave a Globe, mira arte politum, to Queens College Library at Cambridge. Ibid, Sign. E. iij. [E4 verso.] He praises Lodovice Dolci's odes, and Ronsard. Cant. ii. Sign. C. i. His iambics are celebrated by his cotemporaries. See Meres, Wits Tr. fol. 280. 282. [283 verso.] (See supr. ii [i]. [401, n].) Nothing can be more unclassical than Harvey's Latin verse. He is Hobbinol in Spenser's Pastorals. Under that name, he has prefixed two recommendatory poems to the first and second parts of the Faerie queene. [There was only one such poem, but in some folio editions it was inadvertently printed twice.] The old annotator on Spenser's Pastorals prefaces his commentary, with an address, dated 1579, "To the most excellent and learned both oratour and poet master Gabriel Harvey, &c." In the notes to September, he is said to have written many pieces, "partly vnder vnknowne titles, and partly vnder counterfeit names: as his Tyrannomastix, his old [ode] Natalitia, his Rameidos, and especially that part of Philomusus his divine Anticosmopolite, &c." He appears to have been an object of the petty wits & pamphlet-critics of his times. His chief antagonists were Nash and Greene. In the Foure Letters abovementioned, may be seen many anecdotes of his literary squabbles. To these controversies belong his Pierces supererogation, Lond. 1593. Sub-Joined, is a New Letter of notable contents with a strange sound sonnet called Gorgon. To this is sometimes added An Advertisement for Pap-Hatchet &c. Nash's Apology of Pierce Penniless, printed 1593, is well known. Nash also attacks Harvey, as a fortune-teller & ballad maker, in Have with you to Saffron-Walden. Nash also wrote a confutation of Harvey's Foure Letters, 1592. [Strange News, of the Intercepting Certaine Letters, to which Warton evidently refers, is actually the early title of the Apology.] I pass over other pieces of the kind. The origin of the dispute seems to have been, that Nash affirmed Harvey's father to have been a rope-maker at Saffron-Walden. Harvey died, aged about 90, at Saffron Walden, in 1630.

27

Sonn. xliii.

28

Sonn. xv.

29

Except in in [sic] such a passage as when he calls this favourite by "The master-mistress of my passion," Sonn. 20. And in a few others, where the expressions literally shew the writer to be a man. [Warton of course wanted to preserve Shakespeare's sonnets from the charge of homosexuality. In the eighteenth century the distaste for conceits and an acute sensitivity to the suspicion of homosexuality made the Sonnets so unpopular that they were omitted from the editions of Shakespeare by, among others, Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, Capell, and Johnson.]

30

The last of these is that which begins, "O thou, my lovely Boy." Sonn. 126.

31

"When absent from thee".

32

Sonn. 97.

33

They were sweet indeed, but they wanted animation; and, in appearance, they were nothing more than beautiful resemblances or copies of you.

34

Sonn. 98.

35

Sonn. 99.

36

[Warton originally wrote "1609," but immediately scored it out and replaced it with "1599."]

37

In 16mo. With vignettes. Never entered in the Register of the Stationers. [Possibly Warton saw a volume registered by Eleazer Edgar on 3 January 1599/1600 as "A booke called Amours by J. D. with certen oy

sonnetes by W. S. vj

" (Arber's Stationers Register, III, 153). This entry may indicate that Edgar held manuscripts of some of Shakespeare's sonnets, and some copies of the book so registered may have been published. However, if Warton had seen this hypothetical volume he should have correctly identified it: he had already (III, 402, n.) printed the Edgar entry from the Stationers Register.

If this volume which Warton mentions ever actually existed, it cannot now be located. Concerning Warton's statement Mr. G. B. Oldham, Principal Keeper of Printed Books, British Museum, wrote as follows: "I have examined the sale catalogue which contains books from the library of the Reverend William Thomson of Queens College, Oxford, but have failed to find anything at all corresponding with the volume which Warton describes. There are not, in fact, many really scarce books in this catalogue and it rather looks as though the rarer items in Thomson's collection were otherwise disposed of. In any case I think there is a strong presumption that Warton's memory betrayed him."

Thus, in the absence of any evidence concerning a 1599 edition of the Sonnets and in the light of Thorpe's claim in 1609 that they were "Never before Imprinted," it seems probable that what Warton was vaguely recalling was actually a copy of Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim. This book, printed for Jaggard in 1599, my have misled Warton by its separate title page, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musicke. Such a volume as Warton describes was, it seems evident from surviving copies, frequently bound up to contain The Passionate Pilgrim, Venus and Adonis, and other small collections of poetry. The fact that Warton recollected the book as a l6mo. does not argue much against this identification. Though The Passionate Pilgrim is actually an octavo, surviving copies measure about 4-1/2 by 3-1/4 inches, and as late as 1911 William Jaggard, in his Shakespeare Bibliography (p. 429), described it as a 16mo.

In explanation of Warton's probable error two extenuating facts should be remembered. First, since Thomson died about 1766, Warton's recollection was at least fifteen years old; and second, only in 1780 did Edmond Malone edit the Sonnets and The Passionate Pilgrim as discriminate texts comprising Shakespeare's lyrics. Even then Malone omitted without comment the separate title page Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musicke. Previously, except in George Steevens's edition of the Sonnets, Shakespeare's poems were lumped together, with lyrics of several other Elizabethan poets, and printed as Shakespeare's Poems on Several Occasions. Moreover, Warton was not the first to write of a 1599 edition of the Sonnets. His friend Bishop Percy may have helped to create this false impression in Warton's memory. In his interleaved copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets, immediately after Oldys's statement that Shakespeare's Sonnets were not printed until 1609, Percy commented, "But this is a mistake. Lintot republished Shakespeare's Sonnets from an edition in 1599." Malone, in his transcript of Steevens's transcript of Percy, corrected Percy's mistake: "This is a mistake of D

. Percy's. Lintot republished from old ed

but not from any ed. of 1599, except a very few sonnets called the Passionate Pilgrim printed in that year." (Photostat of Bergen Evans's transcript of Bodleian Malone 129-132.) Warton, however, may well have been misled by Percy's comment, for in the winter of 1769 he had borrowed and used Percy's annotated copy of Langbaine. (The Percy Letters, The Correspondence of Thomas Percy and Thomas Warton, ed. M. G. Robinson and Leah Dennis [Baton Rouge, 1951], pp. 135, 137.) It is unfortunate that the matter was not cleared up in discussion with Malone, whom at some time during the 1780's Warton furnished with a copy of the 1596 Venus and Adonis and with whom he corresponded around 1785 concerning sonnets in general and Shakespeare in particular. (William Shakespeare, Plays and Poems, ed. Edmond Malone [London, 1790] X, 13, n. 1; and James Prior, The Life of Edmond Malone [London, 1860], pp. 122-123.)]