the Fair Geraldine
Art Neuendorffer
<<The rhetorical question mark was invented by Henry Denham in the
1580s and was used at the end of a rhetorical question; however, it
died out of use in the 1600s. It was the reverse of an ordinary
question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into
the sentence, it opened away from it.
.
Henry Denham was one of the outstanding English printers of the 16th
century. He was apprenticed to Richard Tottel and took up the freedom
of the Stationers' Company on August 30, 1560. In 1564 he set up his
own printing house in White Cross Street, Cripplegate, but in the
following year he moved to Paternoster Row, *at the sign of the
Star* , where he remained for many years. His printing office was well
supplied with good type in all sizes, from nonpareil to great primer,
and he had a fine range of initial letters, ornaments and borders. He
was particularly fond of arranging his titles with a lace border
formed of printers' flowers and showed much ingenuity in their
arrangement.
.
When Henry Bynneman died in 1583, he appointed Denham & Ralph Newbery
to be his executors. Shortly after this it is thought that Denham
started the Eliot's Court Printing House. Denham was an industrious
printer and in 1583 was returned as having four presses; in 1586-7 and
1588-9 he served as Junior Warden of the Stationers' Company, but he
never became Master. About 1585 he removed to Aldersgate Street. The
last entry under his name occurs in the Registers on December 3, 1589,
after which nothing more is heard of him.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
the Fair Geraldine
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_tv/comedy/flipwilson_002.jpeg
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY." LoveToKnow 1911 Online Encyclopedia
http://46.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SU/SURREY_HENRY_HOWARD_EARL_OF.htm
Surreys name has been long connected with the Fair Geraldine, to whom
his love poems were supposed to be addressed. The story is founded on
the romantic fiction of Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller, or
Life of Jack Wilton (1594), according to which Surrey saw in a magic
glass in the Netherlands the face of Geraldine, and then travelled
throughout Europe challenging all corners to deny in full field the
charms of the lady. At Florence he held a tournament in her honor, and
was to do the same in other Italian cities when he was recalled by
order of Henry VIII. The legend, deprived of its inure glaring
discrepancies with Surreys life, was revived in Michael Dratuns
Englan4s lleroicall Epistles (1598). Geraldine was the daughter of the
earl of Kildare, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, who was brought up at the
English court in company with the princess Elizabeth (see James
Graves, a Brief Memoir of Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, 1874). She was
ten years old when in 1537 Surrey addressed to her the sonnet From
Tuskane came my ladies worthy tace, and nothing more than a passing
admiration of the child and an imaginative anticipation of her beauty
can be attributed to Surrey. A Song... to a ladie that reftised to
daunce with him, is addressed to Lady l-iertford, wife of his bitter
enemy, and the two poems, 0 happy dames and Good ladies, ye that have
your pleasures in exile, are addressed to his wife, to whom, at any
rate in his later years, he seems to have been sincerely attached.
His poems, which were the occupation of the leisure moments of his
short and crowded life, were first printed in Songs and Sonettes
written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Howard late Earle of
Surrey, and other (apud Richardum Tottel, f 557). A second edition
followed in July 1557,and others in 1559, 1565, 1567, 5574, 1585 and
1587. Although Surreys name, probably because of his rank, stands
first on the title-page, Wyat was the earlier in point of time of
Henrys courtly makers. Surrey, indeed, expressly acknowledges Wyat as
his master in poetry. As their pOems appeared in one volume, long
after the death of both, their names will always be closely
associated. Wyat possessed strong individuality, which found
expression in rugged, forceful verse. Surreys contributions are
distinguished by their impetuous eloquence and sweetness. He revived
the principles of Chaucers versification, which his predecessors had
failed to grasp, perhaps because the value of the final e was lost. He
introduced new smoothness and fluency into English verse. He never
allowed the accent tcs fall on a weak syllable, nor did he permit weak
syllables as rhymes. His chief innovation as a metrician lies outside
the Miscellany. His translation of the second and fourth books of the
Aeneid into blank versethe first attempt at blank verse in Englishwas
published separately by Tottel in the same year with the title of
Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aeneis turned into English meter. It has
been suggested that in this matter Stirrey was influenced by the
translation of Virgil published at Venice by Ippolito dc Medici in
1541, but there is no direct evidence that such was the case. His
sonnets are in various schemes of verse, and are less correct in form
and more loosely constructed than those of Wyat. They commonly consist
of three quatrains with independent rhymes, terminating with a rhyming
couplet. But his sonnets~ his elegy on the death of Wyat, his lovers
complaint cast in pastoral form, and his lyrics in various measures,
served as models to more than one generation of court poets. Both in
form and substance Surrey and his fellow poets were largely indebted,
to Italian predecessors; most of his poems are in fact adaptations
from Italian originals. The tone Of the love sentiment was new in
English poetry, very different in its earnestness, passion and
fantastic extravagance from the lightness and gaiety of the Chaucerian
school.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
<<Tottel's Miscellany : *Songes and Sonettes* , written by the ryght
honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey [Edward de Vere's
uncle], and other, usually called Tottel's Miscellany, was the first
printed anthology of English poetry. It was published by Richard
Tottel in 1557, and ran to many editions in the 16th century. It was
particularly influential in establishing the sonnet as a short verse
form in English. The collection contained many sonnets by
Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. It became a byword; there
is a reference to it in The Merry Wives of Windsor.>> - Wikipedia
..........................................
. Tottel's *Book of Songs and Sonnets* (1557)
*FORTY* (365 day) years cycle of Mercury Venus => 1597
November 17, 1597 began Elizabeth's 40th year of reign.
---------------------------------------------------------
. The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 1, Scene 1
.
SLENDER. I had rather than *FORTY* shillings
. I had my *Book of Songs and Sonnets* HERE.
.
. [Enter SIMPLE]
.
. How now, Simple! where have you been?
. I must wait on myself, must I?
You have not the Book of Riddles about you, have you?
.
SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it
. to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last,
. a fortnight afore Michaelmas?
----------------------------------------------------
<<This "Book of Songs and Sonnets" is commonly called _Tottel's
Miscellany_. It was the first English anthology of poetry, and was
compiled and published by Richard Totel in 1557. Poor Slender, unless
he can crib from the poems in thisbook, would be tongu-tied in the
presence of Anne Page.>> - Asimov's _Guide to Shakespeare_
------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Richard Tottel (d.1594) was an English publisher. His shop was
located at Temple Bar on Fleet Street in London, and his original
printing specialty was law. He is remembered chiefly (if not solely)
for his publication of a collection called Songes and Sonnettes in
1557.
Tottel's Miscellany, as the collection was later called, introduced to
a broad English readership the relatively new poetic forms, the sonnet
and canzone, that had developed in Italy during the 14th century. It
included both translations from Italian poets, particularly Petrarch,
and English poems written in imitation of the Petrarchan style. The
collection was the first publication of the works of Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt, now considered the two greatest
English poets of the Henrician period. A widely distributed second
edition was published in 1565.
Tottel introduces the collection with his own preface, under the
title, "The Printer to the Reader":
"That to have wel written in verse, yea & in small parcelles,
DEsERVEth great praise, the workes of DIVERs Latines, Italians, and
other, doe proue sufficiently. That our tong is able in that kynde to
do as praiseworthely as the rest, the honorable stile of the noble
earle of Surrey, and the weightinesse of the depewitted sir Thomas
Wyat the elders verse, with severall graces in sondry good Englishe
writers, doe show abundantly. It resteth nowe (gentle reder) that thou
thinke it not evill doon it, to publish, to the honor of the Englishe
tong, and for profit of the studious of Englishe eloquence, those
workes which the ungentle horders up of such treasure have heretofore
envied thee. And for this point (good reder) thine own profit and
pleasure, in these presently, and in moe hereafter, shal answere for
my defence. If parhappes some mislike the statelinesse of stile
removed from the rude skill of common cares: I aske help of the
learned to defend their learned frende, the authore of this work: And
I exhort the unlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull, and
to purge that SWINElike grossenesse, that maketh
the SWETE materome not to smell to their delight."
Tottel also published Thomas More's Utopia and a collection of More's
writings, John Lydgate's translations from Giovanni Boccaccio, and
books by William Staunford and Thomas Tusser. The majority of his
publications were legal treatises, including a legal history of the
reign of Richard III, and legal yearbooks covering parts of the reigns
of Henry VIII and Edward VI.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/freebook/bacon/bacon6.html
_The Mystery of Francis Bacon_ by William T. Smedley
<<In 1577 Christopher Plantin published an edition
of [A]ndrea [A]lciat's "Emblemata."
On page 104 is Emblem No. 45, "In dies meliora."
http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e045.html
<<At the new year a client brought to me the snouts of a
*bristling boar* . Take these, he said, a gift for your
belly. The boar always goes forward, nor does it EVER
look back, as it voraciously rips apart the GRASS
with its open mouth. This same is the duty of men:
that the HOPE that's slipped does not fall behind,
and that what's further ahead, be better.>>
This has been re-designed for the 1577 edition. It contains at the
back the pillars of Hercules, with a scroll around being the motto:
"Plus oltre." These pillars stand on some arches,
immediately in front of which is *A MOUND OR PYRAMID* ,
two sides of which are seen.
On one is to be found the light A
and on the other the dark A.
http://www.sirbacon.org/links/whitneyemblem.html
http://www.mun.ca/alciato/whit/w053a.html
*Whitney's Choice of Emblemes 53a*
In dies meliora (Better things from day to day)
<<The greedie SOWE so longe as shee dothe finde,
Some scatteringes lefte, of harvest under foote
*She forward goes and nEVER lookes behinde*
While anie sweete remayneth for to *ROOTE* ,
Even soe wee shoulde, to goodnes EVERie daie
Still further passe, and not to turne nor staie.>>
*Whitney's Choice of Emblemes 53b*
Luxuriosorum opes (The wealth of riotous livers)
<<On craggie rockes, and haughtie mountaines toppe,
Untimelie fruicte, one SOWER figtree growes:
Whereof, no good mankinde at all doth croppe,
But serves alone, the ravens, and *THE CROWES* :
So fooles, theire goodes unto no goodnes use,
But flatterers feede, or waste them on the stewes.>>
http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e073.html
<<On airy cliffs, and on the edge of a high rock, the
unripe fig-tree produces bitter fruit, which ravens eat,
which *THE WICKED CROW* devours, which have nothing
of benefit to man. Thus parasites and whores delight
in the wealth of stupid men, and offer just men no good.>>
This design was appropriated by Whitney, and appears
in the 1586 edition of his Emblems on page 53.>>
------------------------------------------------------------
Romans Chapter 11, Verse 16
1526 Tyndale For yf one pece be holy the whole heepe is holy.
And yf the *ROTE* be holy the braunches are holy also.
*ROOT* , v. t. To turn up or to dig out with the snout;
as, *the SWINE ROOTS the earth*
-------------------------------------------------------
___________ *PIG ROTE*
___________ *PERIGOT*
___________ *EGO TRIP*
------------------------------------------------------
SIDNEY's 'Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
http://gracewood0.tripod.com/sidneylamb.html
http://www.sirbacon.org/links/spenser2.html
http://www.sirbacon.org/links/spenser.html
<<The title page [of Countess of Pembroke's _Arcadia_ and
Edmund Spenser's _Faerie Queen_]. The bear & staff identify
the Earl of Leicester. Opposite is Queen Elizabeth with the
lion rampant & the scepter at her side. These figures represent
'supporters' in heraldic parlance and sustain between them
a shield bearing [Philip SIDNEY's Family crest, a PORCUPINE].
In the bottom oval we again see
*the BOAR regarding a ROSEBUSH*
*NON TIBI SPIRO*
"Not of thy breathe," is the meaning of the scroll,>>
----------------------------------------------------------
This is the Introduction to the 1921 edition of
the Poems of Edward de Vere, edited by J. Thomas Looney.
http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/looney.htm
<<In the last year of the preceding reign (1557) there was published a
forerunner of the Elizabethan series of miscellaneous poems, namely:
"Songs and Sonettes written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Howard,
late Earle of Surrey and other, Apud Richardum Tottel, 1557." Surrey
had been executed ten years before, so the songs and son- nets had
evidently been preserved in manuscript by his friends. For nearly
twenty years (1557-1576) this work was the only one of its kind
in the hands of readers and students of poetry.
It was the work which would be frequently in evidence at the
particular time when Oxford, as a royal ward and courtier, was
spending much time at Windsor. The influence of Surrey's poetry in the
early work of Oxford is unmistakable. Again, he had himself a very
close personal interest in the Earl of Surrey, who had married Frances
de Vere, his father's sister, and was therefore his uncle by marriage.
Evidence of this interest is to be seen in his relationship to
Surrey's son, Thomas Howard, fourth of the Howard Dukes of Norfolk.
When in 1572 the latter was imprisoned in the Tower, awaiting
execution, Oxford used the whole of his influence to secure his
release. When this proved unavailing he made an unsuccessful attempt
to rescue him by force. Family connections, poetic interests, and the
power of romantic appeal in the character and career of the poet
Surrey, mark him as a dominant influence in the spirit of Oxford.
Now the life record of the Earl of Surrey belongs to the history of
Windsor Castle, and is told with much charm in William Hepworth
Dixon's work on Royal Windsor (Vol. III.) The story of the protecting
friendship by Surrey towards the Duke of Richmond, illegitimate son of
Henry VIII, and Elizabeth Blount, and the romantic courtship and
marriage of the two noblemen to Frances de Vere and Surrey's sister
Mary, throw a beautiful ray of chaste light through the sombre and
sensual annals of the court of Henry VIII. It was at Windsor where the
four young people associated and where much of Surrey's poetry was
written. Speaking of the poet's birth Hepworth Dixon sums up: "He was
. . . that Henry of Surrey, who was to spend so many of his days at
Windsor, to become a great poet, to have his arms set up in St.
George's choir, to suffer harsh imprisonment in the Norman tower,
and found at Windsor Castle a national School of Song."
When in 1562 Edward de Vere, as a royal ward, was brought to court,
it was to a Windsor, "Each tower, each gate, each garden (of which)
spoke . . . of Surrey," whilst the volume in the hands of
all readers of poetry was Surrey's Book of Songs and Sonnets.
Now turn to the Merry Wives of Windsor.
At the very beginning is mention of Surrey's book: "I had rather than
forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here." (I., i.)
The play which furnishes the most precise Shakespearean topography
gives not the environment of William Shakespere's early poetic life,
but of Edward de Vere's, and the poetry to which direct reference is
made is not of William Shakspere's period, but of the period of the
Earl of Oxford.
These early Windsor poets had begun the work of versifying the Psalms.
Wyat and Surrey initiated the practice later continued by Sidney and
his sister Mary whilst at Wilton. To this we find a mocking allusion:
(II., i.) . . . "the Hundredth Psalm to the tune 'Green Sleeves.'"
Even the direct reference to this song emphasises the period of the
play, for the song "Lady Green Sleeves" was published in another
collection in 1584 (Handful of Pleasant Delights.), quite close to
Oxford's court period, if not within it; and is many years in advance
of the Shakspere period.
The particular "Shakespeare" play which furnishes such important
lyrical links with Oxford's life and poetic interests, contains also
very vital connections with what we are entitled to regard as Oxford's
lyrical contributions to Munday's and Lyly's plays. The Lyly
connection is with the song of the Fairies:
"Pinch him, fairies mutually;
Pinch him for his villainy.
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out."
(Merry Wives, v.5.)
In Lyly's Endymion an almost identical Fairies' song had appeared.
"Pinch him, pinch him black and blue
Saucy mortals must not view
What the Queen of Stars is doing,
Nor pry into our fairy wooing.
Pinch him blue
And pinch him black,
Let him not lack
Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red
Till sleep has rock'd his addle head."
The context too is practically the same, so
that an intimate connection is indisputable.
Many agree that both are from the same pen.
Although written near the same early period (1585), this song was not
published until 1632, sixteen years after William Shakspere's death,
twenty-six after Lyly's and twenty-eight after Oxford's, clear
evidence of the existence of some extraordinary secret.
Between the 1557 book of Songs and Sonnets by Oxford's uncle, Surrey,
and the 1576 collection, the Paradise of Dainty Devices, linked to
Oxford himself, there is a connecting link in the person of Lord Vaux,
whose poems appear in both volumes. Lord Vaux had died in 1562, the
year of the death of Oxford's father. His contribution to the 1576
collection was, like Surrey's contribution to the 1557 collection, the
posthumous publication of verses previously circulating in manuscript.
Lord Vaux' influence on Oxford's work is also traceable; he has not
the sweetness of Surrey, but at the same time he possesses distinctive
notes which contributed to the formation of Oxford's style. A song by
Lord Vaux is incorporated with adaptation into Shakespeare's
gravedigger's song in Hamlet. Its insertion in such a place, forty
years after the death of the poet, is not only an act of honour to his
memory, but links on the great Shakespearean drama to a period of
Oxford's life very far removed from the time usually associated with
the writing of the play. Hamlet, too, is a drama of court life written
by an Englishman who has shown himself intimate with Windsor. Elsinore
is but Windsor thinly disguised. The introduction of this particular
song connects this play also with the Windsor of Oxford's early days.
The age of Hamlet himself, it has been pointed out, varies at
different parts of the drama; which marks it both as
the product of very many years, and also as a special
work of self-revelation on the part of the dramatist.
"Windsor was the cradle of the school of (English) song" (Royal
Windsor, III, 116); the Earl of Surrey, in Henry VIII.'s reign,
there gave to our national lyric its first strong impulse; his
nephew, the Earl of Oxford, was its dominating force in the early
part of Elizabeth's reign; & that when it culminated in the work of
"Shakespeare," it was with a very clear recognition of its intimate
connection with the home of our English monarchs. From this point of
view, Windsor may be regarded as the center and source of England's
greatest achievement in the domain of man's mind, the foundation on
which rests the nation's most enduring title to an exalted position
amongst the peoples of the world; and the symbol of it all is the one
play from the pen of the great dramatist which bears in its title an
English place name. The circumstances, which bring Fenton, the nominal
hero of the drama. into accordance with Edward de Vere can- not
therefore be deemed unimportant.
Generally, poets and poetry were scornfully regarded in the
Elizabethan period, and young nobles would not risk losing caste by
publishing under their own name. The usual practice with the upper
classes was to pass copies of their separate poems, in manuscript, to
their friends. These were freely transcribed and sometimes preserved.
In this way those who were interested in poetry would be able to
gather together appreciable collections of miscellaneous verse.
From collections of this kind much poetry was published after the
death of the poets: in Surrey's case ten years, and, in Vaux' case
fourteen years after. Some of these sheets were signed by their
authors; others would doubtless be allowed to go forth without
signatures, whilst the omission by transcribers of the names of the
authors would very frequently occur. The erroneous ascription of
verses to authors when the work was subsequently published
is a marked feature of this period of literature.
From time to time either on the initiative of some of the poets
themselves, who seem to have had a strong reluctance to be seen in the
work of publication, or as the result of enterprise on the part of
some publisher, collections of these verses were published at the
instigation of some of the authors of the poems, and publishers'
ventures and surreptitious issues followed later. The Paradise of
Dainty Devices, was published hot-foot upon the incidents in Oxford's
life to which his contributions make distinct reference, and which
contained a number of poems from another poet whom he had evidently
studied, but who had been dead for fourteen years. These
considerations point to Oxford as publisher. In that year of 1576
he published Bedingfield's translation of Cardanus's Comfort,
and contributed to it a prefatory letter and introductory poem.
The title given to the 1576 collection (A Paradise of Dainty Devices)
is indicative of Oxford's faculty for striking new notes. The earlier
collection had appeared under the plain title of the Book of Songs and
Sonnets. The Paradise of Dainty Devices was published, and then there
followed a series of collections: The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant
Inventions (1578), the Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584), the
Garland of Good Will, the Bower of Delights (1597), Anthony Munday's
Banquet of Dainty Conceits, the Phoenix Nest, England's Parnassus,
England's Helicon, and Davison's Poetical Rhapsody.
Such were the conditions under which much of the Elizabethan poetry
was produced and published. One curious result of the loose-leaf
transcriptions has been the ascription to Oxford's antagonist, Sidney,
of poems written by Oxford himself. In 1591, between four and five
years after Sidney's death, an edition was published of the Astrophel
and Stella sonnets, and in this collection were included certain
verses Oxford had written: work which had been attributed to Sidney
for no other reason than that it had been found amongst his papers
after his death. This work Oxford reclaimed for himself by having it
included above his own signature in England's Parnassus (1600).
In the same year there appeared England's Helicon, which ultimately
will be found to contain matter of the utmost importance in relation
to the "Shakespeare" problem. There is in it but one poem attributed
to the Earl of Oxford, that beginning "What cunning can express?" and
but one set of lines attributed to "Shakespeare," and quoted from
Love's Labour's Lost. This poem of Oxford's had appeared in The
Phoenix Nest, in 1593, and, on being reprinted in England's Helicon,
the opening line was modified in order to bring it into keeping with
the character of the anthology, namely to "What Shepherd can express?"
This change, verbal improvements, indicate Oxford was in touch with
the publisher, Nicholas Ling, who afterwards published Hamlet.
The work contains one very striking feature, quite unlike anything
else with which we have met in Elizabethan poetry. In the book as it
originally came from the press there are poems attributed to men who,
like Sidney. had been Oxford's rivals and antagonists, notably Sir
Walter Raleigh; work which, in some cases, is not only superior to
their other poems, but is conceived in a totally different vein.
Then, before the volumes had been put upon the market, a printed slip,
containing the one word, "Ignoto," had been pasted over the original
name or initials: presumably the result of intervention on the part
of someone who was interested in seeing that these writers were not
allowed to be decked in another's plumes. In 1614, ten years after
the death of the Earl of Oxford, a second edition of England's Helicon
appeared, with several additional poems subscribed "Ignoto."
There is a distinctiveness of these "Ignoto" poems which marks the
work as a whole as the production mainly of one writer, the name
"Ignoto" indicating not merely anonymity, but rather one definite
concealed personality. These poems link the early De Vere poetry and
the later Shakespearean work. R. Warwick Bond, M.A., the editor
biographer of Lyly, who is amply supported by Sir Sidney Lee,
establishes very clearly the connection between "Shakespeare" and what
he conceives to be Lyly's special contribution to Elizabethan drama
and poetry; and he concludes by suggesting that certain "Ignoto" poems
were probably from Lyly's pen. We may repeat that Lyly was a servant
of the Earl of Oxford, and is credited with achievements, both in
drama and poetry, which we believe to have been those of his master,
and it is this which links itself up with the Shakespeare work.
We may claim indirect authority of Mr. Bond for the theory we
present respecting the "Ignoto" poems. The appearance of Oxford's
hand in England's Helicon, together with his relationship to
the personalities for whose names "Ignoto" furnishes
quite appreciable support to the theory.
One other significant detail remains in England's Helicon relevant to
our problem. The verses in Spenser's Tears of the Muses referring to
"our pleasant Willie," which have received much attention as one of
the mysteries of Elizabethan literature we were led to connect with
Oxford, by means of an earlier poem of Spenser's in the "Shepherd's
Calendar." This is a versifying competition between two shepherds
called "Willie and Perigot," the opening sentences of which, and an
interposition by a third party: "What a judge Cuddy were for a King,"
furnishing important clues identifying Oxford with "Willie." This
"roundelay" is reproduced in England's Helicon (after Spenser's death)
stripped of all these marks of identification. Even the name "Willie,"
which Spenser placed first, is struck out, and what was given by the
poet himself as Willie's and Perigot's roundelay, is given as
Perigot's and Cuddy's roundelay. There could be no accident about
this. Thus Oxford after his first literary output deliberately adopted
a course of self-effacement. What had already gone forth as his could
not be recalled, but so far as later productions were concerned, he
was resolved not to obtrude himself on the public notice. Although he
was quite willing to employ a mask of his own choice, he was not
willing that rivals and antagonists should walk away with his laurels.
Around the person of the Earl of Oxford hangs an extraordinary
literary mystery, as great as that which has surrounded the
production of the great Shakespeare dramas, and from every point of
view, chronological, poetic and dramatic, these two mysteries fit
into and explain one another, if Oxford was the great poet dramatist,
and William Shakspere but a mask. It is the extraordinary character
of each of these mysteries, along with the infinitesimal
probability that two such mysteries, so mutually explanatory,
could exist at the same time by purely accidental coincidence,
that establishes our theory with almost mathematical certainty.
Although the authorship of the "Ignoto" poems remains an open
question, we have included a selection of them in the present issue:
Poems which might reasonably be supposed to have come from one pen.
These verses are already accessible in a modern setting in the late A.
H. Bullen's edition of England's Helicon, and in Bond's edition of
Lyly's works.
Every lyric included in both groups of the first section has been
accepted as Oxford's work, and appears in the collection brought
together in 1872 by Dr. Grosart for the Miscellanies of the Fuller
Worthies' Library (Vol. IV.) with only 106 copies printed for private
circulation. Dr. Grosart's work retains the archaic and irregular
spelling of the originals, whilst several of the poems are printed
with the separate lines and stanzas running into one another. It has
therefore been necessary to modernism the spelling, to make some
attempt at correct versification, and, in some cases, to supply
titles.
There are variant readings of most of the lyrics, all of which are
indicated in the notes which Dr. Grosart appended to the separate
poems. In almost every case we have kept to the rendering which he
selected for the main text. The principal exception is the opening
line of the poem, "What cunning can express?" The substitution of the
word "shepherd" for "cunning" in England's Helicon is so obviously a
modification made to meet the new setting of the work, and introduces
an element so out of harmony with the purely personal character of the
entire lyric, that we used the earlier text of the Phoenix Nest.
With the exception of placing together, in the opening pages, most of
the poems that had appeared in the Paradise of Dainty Devices, Dr.
Grosart made no pretence of grouping or arranging these lyrics.
The dates of the publication of the poems furnish hardly any clue to
the actual order of their composition. It has already been pointed
out, for example, that certain verses of Oxford's, which were not
published with any indication of authorization until the year 1600,
had already appeared in a collection of Sidney's poems so early as
1591. As this error is explained by supposing that copies had been
found amongst Sidney's papers after his death in 1586, whilst it is
impossible to surmise how long they had lain there previously, it is
evident that the date of publication is widely separated from the
actual time of writing.
This fact must be borne clearly in mind in studying the problem of
Shakespearean authorship; to produce, and to secrete his productions,
is one of the most pronounced features of Edward de Vere's methods.
Small as is the number of his lyrics which have been preserved, we owe
some of them to their having been rescued almost by accident in modern
times from ancient manuscripts. Writings preserved in this way may be
expected to retain blemishes which would have been removed had their
author actually published them. They contained many errors which could
not have been the work of the poet himself; but are due to defective
transcription by others. Several obvious mistakes of this kind were
corrected by Dr. Grosart, but it has not always been possible to
surmise what the original version has been, and crudities have been
allowed to stand, for which the poet cannot be held responsible. This
illustrates the folly of cavilling at isolated expressions; his work
must be judged by what are self-evidently finished productions and by
general quality, especially when com- paring them with the later
"Shakespeare" work. For the order of their composition we are thrown
back very largely upon internal evidence. From following the career of
Oxford we have attempted a rough grouping of these lyrics. This can
only be considered as a first step, and considerable modification may
be called for later.
With the exception of the points just indicated the poems presented in
the first section are substantially a reproduction of Dr. Grosart's
issue with a few important details selected from his notes. The
sources from which Dr. Grosart gathered the poems were the various
anthologies, the Rawlinson and Tanner M.S.S., and an ancient M.S.
miscellany.
There are some striking facts in connection with these publications
which have a distinctly significant bearing upon the theory of
Shakespearean authorship. There are only twenty-two short poems
attributed to the Earl of Oxford. Three of these are merely single
stanzas, each of six lines, in the precise manner of Shakespeare's
Venus and Adonis"; two of these Oxford would seem to have acknowledged
only because they had been previously claimed for and published as
Sidney's. Of the remainder seven were published in the Paradise of
Dainty Devices and one in Bedingfield's Cardanus. That is, eight of
the longest poems were published authoritatively in the year 1576, the
year of his domestic crisis when he was but twenty-six years of age;
although he lived for nearly thirty years longer (died 1604) and was
a prominent figure in the literary and dramatic life of his times,
only three other of his poems were originally published during his
lifetime, or until recent years, with his name attached. Even these
three were published separately, at intervals of thirteen, four, and
seven years respectively, in what were probably publishers' ventures,
suggesting Oxford himself was not responsible for their appearing. No
less than seven of the remainder were printed, some for the first time
by Dr. Grosart in 1872, from the Rawlinson and Tanner M.S.S., and two
from "an ancient M.S. miscellany." Thus, he published his poems
voluntarily in 1576, but probably never again.
As a poet, he deliberately effaced himself so far as publication was
concerned from the age of twenty-six; notwithstanding that throughout
his life and in the period immediately following his death his poetic
eminence was recognised. This is hardly the place to discuss the
publication of his plays, but it is important to connect with the fact
just stated the further fact that he attained eminence as a writer of
drama, but never published a single play; whilst not the slightest
vestige of manuscript of his unpublished dramas has ever been
unearthed. In view of the survival, after so many years, of fragments
of his unpublished manuscript verse, is it reasonable to suppose that
the total disappearance of the much more voluminous manuscript dramas
is purely accident: that these writings were simply "lost or worn
out"? In view of the evident deliberateness of the non-publication of
superb poems, is it not reasonable to suppose that the non-publication
of dramas under his own name was equally deliberate?
What has governed the arrangement of the following poems has been
the nature of their contents. Contrasted with the disappointment and
chagrin expressed in the 1576 set, along with the explicit reference
to youth in the Echo Poem, and the tone of unsullied youth in the
sonnet "Love thy Choice," the happier, healthier spirit of the latter
poems justifies the position here assigned to them. The other poems
reflecting a similar spirit are accordingly associated with these two.
Moreover, as the manuscripts of these poems are signed by Oxford,
it is reasonable to suppose that they were allowed to go forth
before he had resolved on self-effacement, a resolution which
many things indicate was made shortly after the 1576 crisis.
Adopting this general classification the one fact which stands out
above everything else is this: that practically the whole of the
poetry known as Oxford's belongs to his very early manhood, much of
it being preserved in spite of him; and whilst he lived to the age of
fifty-four, and was closely identified with the literary and dramatic
movements of his time, there has been up to the present nothing to
show for it, notwithstanding the remarkable character of his powers.
With reference to the lyrics which form the second section, these are
selections taken from Lyly's plays. At the time when Lyly produced the
dramas he was working as secretary to the Earl of Oxford, assisting
with the troupe known as "Oxford's Boys." Lyly has shown himself,
in some of his work, to have been noticeably deficient in lyrical
capacity, and as these lyrics are in some ways the best things his
plays contain, doubts have been freely expressed respecting Lyly's
authorship of them. It is not an unreasonable assumption therefore
that they were a contribution made by Oxford to Lyly's dramas. This is
further supported by the fact that when Lyly published his dramas he
did not include the lyrics, their positions alone were indicated in
the text. This continued until 1632. Then these lyrics unaccountably
reappeared simultaneously in an edition of Lyly's works, published in
the same year and from the same firm that published the Second Folio
Shakespeare. They are of especial value, therefore, as a bridge
between Oxford's early lyrics and the Shakespeare work, and help to
make good our contention that the right understanding of Elizabethan
literature is just in its beginnings; that that literature has a key
to it in the person of the poet whose early lyrics we now present for
the first time to the general reader.
There is probably no better way of examining the work of Oxford
according to this relative method than by comparing it with that of
Sir Philip Sidney, which may be taken as fairly representative of
contemporary verse. Sidney was four and a half years younger than
Oxford, and had spent much of his time in early manhood in continental
travel. When he returned to court in 1575, a few months before Oxford
set out for Italy, the latter had evidently been already engaged in
writing poetry for some years. Sidney would have the advantage of
starting with some of Oxford's work in front of him. Oxford is spoken
of by a contemporary (Webbe) as one of the "most excellent in the
rare devices of poetry," and as it is quite in keeping with Sidney's
methods to learn what he could from the verses of others, whilst one
poem of Sidney's contains unmistakable traces of some of this early
work of Oxford's, we may be sure that he did not neglect his
opportunities.
Without discounting anything for this advantage, and regarding Sidney
as quite contemporary, his work is altogether of an inferior type.
He admits that poetry was not to him an "elected vocation," and
almost plaintively refers to himself as one "who, I know not by what
mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times, having slipped
into the title of a poet." The feebleness and affectation which
disfigure much of his verse is precisely what might be expected
from one who, as a poet, had had "greatness thrust upon him,"
and who, lacking ideas, is compelled to admit:
"Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow,
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain."
A true poet no doubt derives delight and inspiration from the work of
fellow artists, but the poet, who works definitely along such lines
as these, can only be expected to produce inferior stuff, or to lapse
into mere parody or unseemly plagiarism. As an example of parody
we have (following the example of Dr. Grosart) included in the
collection, what has been spoken of as Sidney's "sensible reply"
to Oxford's stanza, "Were I a King." It is included because it
illustrates the relations between the two men, and also because it
has assisted in the valuable identification of Oxford with Spenser's
"Willie." Although, in concluding the first of the Astrophel and
Stella sonnets from which we have just quoted, Sidney professes
to have learnt the lesson, "Look into thy heart and write,"
Sir Sidney Lee states that many of the best of the poems
are almost verbatim translations from the French.
Nevertheless, the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney may be taken as quite
typical of, if not superior to, most of the work of the group to which
he belonged. Spenser, who did not enter the literary world of London
until just before the antagonism between Oxford and Sidney culminated
in the tennis-court quarrel, stands quite apart, and is of no group.
Comparing the poetry of Oxford with that of the Sidney group, we are
struck with the contrast which the strength and reality of the one
presents to the feebleness and unreality of the other. Each poem of
his is an expression of actual experience either internal or external.
Theirs, on the other hand, often suggest writers afflicted with
literary vanity, and wishful to write poetry, but with nothing very
particular to say demanding metrical or figurative expression. His
is the work of a man looking life full in the face, seeing clearly,
feeling deeply, thinking earnestly, and striving after an expression
of corresponding intensity. Such are the true roots of metrical
diction and the matter of spontaneous metaphor.
Although the imagery he employs reveals an intimacy with classical
literature as well as a knowledge of the poems and lives of his
fellows, his compositions are neither mere imitations or translations
of the classics, nor, with one exception, the poem attributed to Queen
Elizabeth, were they dramatic poses; nor had he searched "others'
leaves" for his theme. It is always himself he is expressing. There
may be exaggeration of expression, the natural result of a combination
of intense feeling, large command of language, and comparative
youthfulness, but the feeling is real and the words are relevant. We
make bold to say that he struck a note of personal realism not heard
before in English poetry; such as was not heard again with the same
clear ring, until the "Shakespeare" sonnets appeared, with their
challenging declaration: "I am that I am." Before & since those days
we have had an affected conventional personalism, and, by way of
reaction, just as unreal a defiant and anti-conventional personalism;
we doubt whether the line of truth and just proportion has ever
since been so well maintained in personal poetry
as in Oxford's and "Shakespeare's."
After comparing this poetry with that of the Sidney group, we have
only to turn to the group that arose in the following decade: Daniel,
Drayton, Marlowe, Thomas Campion and Thomas Greene, in order to
realize the relation of Oxford's work to, and its probable effect
upon, the poetry of days of Queen Elizabeth's reign which foreshadowed
most distinctly, if it did not actually furnish, the generating
impulse for the poetry of her later years. It is amongst these later
writers that we find the Elizabethan poetry which has more than an
historic interest; verses that, by their fidelity to actualities, and
by their appeal to what is perennial in human nature, may be read
today with something of the same interest as that with which we read
"Shakespeare" and Burns. We are not now discussing the question of
whether or not Edward de Vere was "Shakespeare," but we are quite
entitled to claim that, at the time when these early poems were
written, he was the only poet whose work foreshadowed Shakespeare's.>>
--------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer