The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Theophilus Cibber
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In our author's history of the reign of Queen Mary, tho' he shews
himself a great admirer of the personal virtues of that Princess, and
a very discerning and able historian, yet it is every where evident
that he was attached to the protestant interest; but more especially
in the learned account he gives of Archbishop Cranmer's death, and
Sir Thomas Wyat's insurrection[8]. The works of this author which are
printed in the Mirror of Magistrates, are as follow;
The Fall of Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice of
England, for misconstruing the laws, and expounding
them to serve the prince's affections.
The Tragedy, or unlawful murther of Thomas
of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester.
The Tragedy of Richard II.
The Story of Dame Eleanor Cobham, Duchess
of Gloucester.
The Story of Humphry Plantagenet, Duke of
Gloucester, Protector of England.
The Tragedy of Edmund Duke of Somerset.
Among these the Complaints of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester,
who was banished for consulting Conjurers and Fortune-tellers about
the Life of King Henry VI. and whose exile quickly made way for the
murder of her husband, has of all his compositions been most admired;
and from this I shall quote a few lines which that Lady speaks.
The Isle of Man was the appointed place,
To penance me for ever in exile;
Thither in haste, they posted me apace,
And doubting 'scape, they pined me in a pyle,
Close by myself; in care alas the while.
There felt I first poor prisoner's hungry fare,
Much want, things skant, and stone walls, hard and bare.
The chaunge was straunge from silke and cloth of gold
To rugged fryze, my carcass for to cloath;
From prince's fare, and dainties hot and cold,
To rotten fish, and meats that one would loath:
The diet and dressing were much alike boath:
Bedding and lodging were all alike fine,
Such down it was as served well for swyne.
[Footnote 1: From manuscript note on the art of poetry.]
[Footnote 2: Biog. Brit. p. 1922.]
[Footnote 3: Willis notitia Parliam. vol 2. p. 295.]
[Footnote 4: Patten's Journal of the Scotch expedition, p. 13.]
[Footnote 5: Stow's Annal. p. 608.]
[Footnote 6: Lond. 40.]
[Footnote 7: Athen. Oxon. vol. I. col. 146.]
[Footnote 8: Grafton's Chron. p. 1350, 1351.]
* * * * *
Sir PHILIP SIDNEY.
This great ornament to human nature, to literature, and to Britain,
was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, knight of the Garter, and three times
Lord Deputy of Ireland, and of lady Mary Dudley, daughter to the duke
of Northumberland, and nephew to that great favourite, Robert, earl of
Leicester.
Oxford had the honour of his education, under the tuition of Dr.
Thomas Thornton, canon of Christ Church. At the university he remained
till he was 17 years of age, and in June 1572 set out on his travels.
On the 24th of August following, when the massacre fell out at Paris,
he was then there, [1] and with other Englishmen took shelter in Sir
Francis Walsingham's house, her Majesty's ambassador at that court.
When this storm subsided, he departed from Paris, went through
Lorrain, and by Strasburgh and Heydelburgh, to Francfort, in September
or October following; where he settled for some time, and was
entertained, agent for the duke of Saxony. At his return, her Majesty
was one of the first who distinguished his great abilities, and, as
proud of so rich a treasure, she sent him ambassador to Rodolph the
emperor, to condole him on the death of Maximilian, and also to other
princes of Germany. The next year, 1577, he went to the court of that
gallant prince Don John de Austria, Viceroy in the low countries for
the king of Spain. Don John was the proudest man in his time;
haughty and imperious in his behaviour, and always used the foreign
ambassadors, who came to his court, with unsufferable insolence and
superiority: At first he paid but little respect to Sidney on account
of his youth, and seeming inexperience; but having had occasion to
hear him talk, and give some account of the manners of every court
where he had been, he was so struck with his vivacity, the propriety
of his observations, and the lustre of his parts, that he ever
afterwards used him with familiarity, and paid him more respect in his
private character, than he did to any ambassador from whatever court.
Some years after this, Wood observes, that in a book called Cabala, he
set forth his reasons why the marriage of the queen with the duke of
Anjou was disadvantageous to the nation. This address was written at
the desire of the earl of Leicester, his uncle; upon which, a quarrel
happened between him and the earl of Oxford, which perhaps occasioned
his retirement from court for two years, when he wrote that renowned
romance called Arcadia. We find him again in high favour, when the
treaty of marriage was renewed; he was engaged with Sir Fulk Greville
in tilting, for the diversion of the court; and at the departure of
the duke of Anjou from England, he attended him to Antwerp [2].
On the 8th of January, 1582, he received the honour of knighthood
from the queen; and in the beginning of the year 1585, he designed an
expedition with Sir Francis Drake into America; but being hindered by
the Queen, who thought the court would be deficient without him, he
was made Governor of Flushing, (about that time delivered to the Queen
for one of the cautionary-towns) and General of the Horse. In both
these places of important trust, his behaviour in point of prudence
and valour was irreproachable, and gained additional honour to his
country, especially when in July 1586 he surprized Axil, and preserved
the lives and reputation of the English army, at the enterprise of
Gravelin. About that time he was in election for the crown of Poland,
but the queen refused to promote this his glorious advancement, not
from jealousy, but from the fear of losing the jewel of her times. He
united the statesman, the scholar and the soldier; and as by the one,
he purchased fame and honour in his life, so by the other, he has
acquired immortality after death.
In the year 1586, when that unfortunate stand was made against the
Spaniards before Zutphen, the 22d of September, when he was getting
upon the third horse, having had two slain under him before, he was
wounded with a musket-shot out of the trenches, which broke the bone
of his thigh. The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric,
than bravely proud, so forced him to forsake the field, but not his
back, as the noblest and fittest bier (says lord Brook) to carry a
martial commander to his grave. In this progress, passing along by the
rest of the army where his uncle the [3] General was, and being faint
with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently
brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a
poor soldier carried along, who had been wounded at the same time,
wishfully cast up his eyes at the bottle; whereupon Sir Philip took it
from his own mouth before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man,
with these words, "thy necessity is yet greater than mine;" and when
he had assisted this poor soldier and fellow sufferer, as he called
him, he was presently carried to Arnheim, where the principal surgeons
of the camp attended him.
This generous behaviour of our gallant knight, ought not to pass
without a panegyric. All his deeds of bravery, his politeness, his
learning, and courtly accomplishments, do not reflect so much
honour upon him, as this one disinterested, truly heroic action: It
discovered so tender and benevolent a nature; a mind so fortified
against pain; a heart so overflowing with generous sentiments, to
relieve, in opposition to the violent call of his own necessities, a
poor man languishing in the same distress, before himself, that as
none can read it without the highest admiration of the wounded hero,
so none I hope will think me extravagant in thus endeavouring to extol
it. Bravery is often constitutional; fame may be the motive to feats
of arms, a statesman and a courtier may act from interest; but a
sacrifice so generous as this, can be made by none but those who
are good as well as great, who are noble-minded, and gloriously
compassionate, like Sidney.
When the surgeons began to dress his wound, he told them, that while
his strength was yet entire, his body free from a fever, and his mind
able to endure, they might freely use their art; cut and search to the
bottom; but if they should neglect their art, and renew torments in
the declination of nature, their ignorance, or over-tenderness would
prove a kind of tyranny to their friend, and reflect no honour upon
themselves.
For some time they had great hopes of his recovery; and so zealous
were they to promote it, and overjoyed at its seeming approach, that
they spread the report of it, which soon reached London, and diffused
the most general joy at Court that ever was known.
At the same time count Hollock was under the care of a most excellent
surgeon, for a wound in his throat by a musket shot; yet he neglected
his own extremity to save his friend, and for that purpose sent him to
Sir Philip. This surgeon notwithstanding, out of love to his master,
returning one day to dress his wound, the count cheerfully asked him
how Sir Philip did? he answered with a dejected look, that he was not
well: At these words the count, as having more sense of his friend's
wound than his own, cried out, "Away villain, never see my face again
till you bring better news of that gentleman's recovery, for whose
redemption, many such as I were happily lost."
Finding all the efforts of the surgeons in vain, he began to put no
more confidence in their skill, and resigned himself with heroic
patience to his fate. He called the ministers to him, who were all
excellent men of different nations, and before them made such a
confession of Christian faith, as no book, but the heart, can truly
and feelingly deliver. Then calling for his will, and settling his
temporal affairs, the last scene of this tragedy, was the parting
between the two brothers. Sir Philip exerted all his soul in
endeavouring to suppress his sorrow, in which affection and nature
were too powerful for him, while the other demonstrated his tenderness
by immoderate transports of grief, a weakness which every tender
breast will easily forgive, who have ever felt the pangs of parting
from a brother; and a brother of Sir Philip Sidney's worth, demanded
still additional sorrow. He took his leave with these admonishing
words, "My dear, much loved, honoured brother, love my memory; cherish
my friends; their faith to me may assure you they are honest. But
above all, govern your will and affections, by the will and word of
your Creator. In me, beholding the end of this world with all her
vanities." And with this farewel he desired the company to lead him
away.
After his death, which happened on the 16th of October, the States of
Zealand became suitors to his Majesty, and his noble friends, that
they might have the honour of burying his body at the public expence
of their government,[4] but in this they were denied; for soon after,
his body was brought to Flushing, and being embarked with great
solemnity on the 1st of November, landed at Tower Wharf on the 6th of
the same month; and the 16th of February following, after having lain
in state, it was magnificently deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral.
As the funeral of many princes has not exceeded it in solemnity, so
few have equalled it in the undissembled sorrow for his loss[5] King
James writ an epitaph upon him, and the Muses of Oxford lamenting him,
composed elegies to his memory. It may be justly said of this great
man, what a celebrated poet now living has applied to Archbishop Laud,
Around his tomb did art and genius weep,
Beauty, wit, piety, and bravery, were undissembled
mourners.
He left behind him one child named Elizabeth, (married to the earl of
Rutland) whom he had by Sir Francis Walsingham's daughter, and who
unfortunately died without issue to perpetuate the living virtues
of her illustrious family. She is said to have been excessively
beautiful; that she married the earl of Rutland by authority, but
that her affections were dedicated to the earl of Essex, and as Queen
Elizabeth was in love with that nobleman, she became very jealous of
this charming countess. It has been commonly reported[6] that Sir
Philip, some hours before his death, enjoyned a near friend to
consign his works to the flames. What promise his friend returned is
uncertain, but if he broke his word to befriend the public, posterity
has thank'd him, and every future age will with gratitude acknowledge
the favour.
Of all his works his Arcadia is the most celebrated; it is dedicated
to his sister the countess of Pembroke, who was a Lady of as fine a
character, and as equally finished in every female accomplishment, as
her brother in the manly. She lived to a good old age, and died
in 1621. Ben Johnson has wrote an epitaph upon her, so inimitably
excellent, that I cannot resist the temptation of inserting it here.
She was buried in the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, among the graves
of the family of the Pembrokes.
EPITAPH.
Underneath this marble hearse,
Lyes the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother,
Death e're thou hast killed another,
Learned and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee.
The Arcadia was printed first in 1613 in 4to; it has been translated
into almost every language. As the ancient AEgyptians presented secrets
under their mystical hyeroglyphics, so that an easy figure was
exhibited to the eye, and a higher notion couched under it to the
judgment, so all the Arcadia is a continual grove of morality,
shadowing moral and political truths under the plain and striking
emblems of lovers, so that the reader may be deceived, but not hurt,
and happily surprized to more knowledge than he expected.
Besides the celebrated Arcadia, Sir Philip wrote,
A dissuasive letter addressed to Queen Elizabeth; against her marriage
with the duke of Anjou, printed in a book called Serinia Ceciliana,
4to. 1663.
Astrophel & Stella, written at the desire of Lady Rich, whom he
perfectly loved, and is thought to be celebrated in the Arcadia by the
name of Philoclea.
--------------- Ourania, a poem, 1606.
An Essay on Valour: Some impute this to Sir Thomas Overbury.
Almanzor and Almanzaida, a novel printed in 1678, which is likewise
disputed; and Wood says that he believes Sir Philip's name was only
prefixed to it by the bookseller, to secure a demand for it.
--------England's Helicon, a collection of songs.
--------The Psalms of David turned into English.
The true PICTURE of LOVE.
Poore painters oft with silly poets joyne,
To fill the world with vain and strange conceits,
One brings the stuff, the other stamps the coyne
Which breeds nought else but glosses of deceits.
Thus painters Cupid paint, thus poets doe
A naked god, blind, young, with arrows two.
Is he a god, that ever flyes the light?
Or naked he, disguis'd in all untruth?
If he be blind, how hitteth he so right?
How is he young, that tamed old Phoebus
youth?
But arrowes two, and tipt with gold or lead,
Some hurt, accuse a third with horney head.
No nothing so; an old, false knave he is,
By Argus got on Io, then a cow:
What time for her, Juno her Jove did miss,
And charge of her to Argus did allow.
Mercury killed his false sire for this act,
His damme a beast was pardoned, beastly
fact.
With father's death, and mother's guilty shame,
With Jove's disdain at such a rival's feed:
The wretch compel'd, a runegate became,
And learn'd what ill, a miser-state did breed,
To lye, to steal, to prie, and to accuse,
Nought in himself, each other to abuse.
[Footnote 1: Athen, Oxon, folio, p. 226.]
[Footnote 2: Wood, p. 227.]
[Footnote 3: Earl of Leicester.]
[Footnote 4: Lord Brook's life.]
[Footnote 5: For a great many months after his death, it was reckoned
indecent in any gentleman to appear splendidly dress'd; the public
mourned him, not with exterior formality, but with the genuine sorrow
of the heart. Of all our poets he seems to be the most courtly, the
bravest, the most active, and in the moral sense, the best.]
[Footnote 6: Camden Brit. in Kent.]
* * * * *
CHISTOPHER MARLOE
Was bred a student in Cambridge, but there is no account extant of his
family. He soon quitted the University, and became a player on the
same stage with the incomparable Shakespear. He was accounted, says
Langbaine, a very fine poet in his time, even by Ben Johnson himself,
and Heywood his fellow-actor stiles him the best of poets. In a copy
of verses called the Censure of the Poets, he was thus characterized.
Next Marloe bathed in Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary things,
That your first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
His genius inclined him wholly to tragedy, and he obliged the world
with six plays, besides one he joined for with Nash, called Dido Queen
of Carthage; but before I give an account of them, I shall present his
character to the reader upon the authority of Anthony Wood, which is
too singular to be passed over. This Marloe, we are told, presuming
upon his own little wit, thought proper to practise the most epicurean
indulgence, and openly profess'd atheism; he denied God, Our Saviour;
he blasphemed the adorable Trinity, and, as it was reported, wrote
several discourses against it, affirming Our Saviour to be a deceiver,
the sacred scriptures to contain nothing but idle stories, and all
religion to be a device of policy and priestcraft; but Marloe came to
a very untimely end, as some remarked, in consequence of his execrable
blasphemies. It happened that he fell deeply in love with a low girl,
and had for his rival a fellow in livery, who looked more like a pimp
than a lover. Marloe, fired with jealousy, and having some reason to
believe that his mistress granted the fellow favours, he rushed upon
him to stab him with his dagger; but the footman being quick, avoided
the stroke, and catching hold of Marloe's wrist stabbed him with his
own weapon, and notwithstanding all the assistance of surgery, he soon
after died of the wound, in the year 1593. Some time before his death,
he had begun and made a considerable progress in an excellent poem
called Hero and Leander, which was afterwards finished by George
Chapman, who fell short, as it is said, of the spirit and invention of
Marloe in the execution of it.
What credit may be due to Mr. Wood's severe representation of this
poet's character, the reader must judge for himself. For my part, I am
willing to suspend my judgment till I meet with some other testimony
of his having thus heinously offended against his God, and against the
best and most amiable system of Religion that ever was, or ever can
be: Marloe might possibly be inclined to free-thinking, without
running the unhappy lengths that Mr. Wood tells us, it was reported he
had done. We have many instances of characters being too lightly taken
up on report, and mistakenly represented thro' a too easy credulity;
especially against a man who may happen to differ from us in some
speculative points, wherein each party however, may think himself
Orthodox: The good Dr. Clarke himself, has been as ill spoken of as
Wood speaks of Marloe.
His other works are
1. Dr. Faustus, his tragical history printed in 4to. London, 1661.
2. Edward the Second, a Tragedy, printed in 4to. London--when this
play was acted is not known.
3. Jew of Malta, a Tragedy played before the King and Queen at
Whitehall, 1633. This play was in much esteem in those days; the Jew's
part being performed by Mr. Edward Alleyn, the greatest player of his
time, and a man of real piety and goodness; he founded and endowed
Dulwich hospital in Surry; he was so great an actor, that Betterton,
the Roscius of the British nation, used to acknowledge that he owed to
him those great attainments of which he was master.
4. Lust's Dominion; or the Lascivious Queen, published by Mr. Kirkman,
8vo. London, 1661. This play was altered by Mrs. Behn, and acted
under, the title of the Moor's Revenge.
5. Massacre of Paris, with the death of the Duke of Guise, a Tragedy,
played by the Right Honourable the Lord Admiral's servants. This play
is divided into acts; it begins with the fatal marriage between the
King of Navarre, and Margurete de Valois, sister to King Charles IX;
the occasion of the massacre, and ends with the death of Henry III of
France.
6. Tamerlain the Great; or the Scythian Shepherd, a Tragedy in two
parts, printed in an old black letter, 8vo. 1593. This is said to be
the worst of his productions.
* * * * *
ROBERT GREEN
Received his education at the university of Cambridge, and was, as
Winstanley says, a great friend to the printers by the many books he
writ. He was a merry droll in those times, and a man so addicted to
pleasure, that as Winstanley observes, he drank much deeper draughts
of sack, than of the Heliconian stream; he was amongst the first of
our poets who writ for bread, and in order the better to support
himself, tho' he lived in an age far from being dissolute, viz. in
that of the renowned Queen Elizabeth; yet he had recourse to the mean
expedient of writing obscenity, and favouring the cause of vice, by
which he no doubt recommended himself to the rakes about town, who, as
they are generally no true judges of wit, to estimate the merit of
a piece, as it happens to suit their appetite, or encourage them in
every irregular indulgence. No man of honour who sees a poet endowed
with a large share of natural understanding, prostituting his pen to
the vilest purpose of debauchery and lewdness, can think of him but
with contempt; and his wit, however brilliant, ought not to screen him
from the just indignation of the sober part of mankind. When wit is
prostituted to vice, 'tis wit no more; that is, it ceases to be true
wit; and I have often thought there should be some public mark of
infamy fixed on those who hurt society by loose writings. But Mr.
Green must be freed from the imputation of hypocrisy, for we find him
practicing the very doctrines he taught. Winstanley relates that he
was married to a very fine and deserving lady, whom he basely forsook,
with a child she had by him, for the company of some harlots, to whom
he applied the wages of iniquity, while his wife starved. After some
years indulgence of this sort, when his wit began to grow stale, we
find him fallen into abject poverty, and lamenting the life he had led
which brought him to it; for it always happens, that a mistress is a
more expensive piece of furniniture than a wife; and if the modern
adulterers would speak the truth, I am certain they would acknowledge,
that half the money which, in the true sense of the word, is misspent
upon those daughters of destruction, would keep a family with decency,
and maintain a wife with honour. When our author was in this forlorn
miserable state, he writ a letter to his wife, which Mr. Winstanly has
preferred, and which, as it has somewhat tender in it I shall insert.
It has often been observed, that half the unhappy marriages in the
world, are more owing to the men than the women; That women are in
general much better beings, in the moral sense, than the men; who,
as they bustle less in life, are generally unacquainted with those
artifices and tricks, which are acquired by a knowledge of the world;
and that then their yoke-fellows need only be tender and indulgent, to
win them. But I believe it may be generally allowed, that women are
the best or worst part of the human creation: none excel them in
virtue; but when they depart from it, none exceed them in vice. In the
case of Green, we shall see by the letter he sent his wife how much
she was injured.
"The remembrance of many wrongs offered
thee, and thy unreproved virtues, add greater
sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter,
or thou conceive; neither is it lessened by consideration
of thy absence, (tho' shame would
let me hardly behold thy face) but exceedingly
aggravated, for that I cannot as I ought to thy ownself
reconcile myself, that thou might'st witness my
inward woe at this instant, that hath made thee a
woful wife for so long a time. But equal heaven has
denied that comfort, giving at my last need, like
succour as I have sought all my life, being in
this extremity as void of help, as thou hast been
of hope. Reason would that after so long waste,
I should not send thee a child to bring thee
charge; but consider he is the fruit of thy
womb, in whose face regard not the father, so
much as thy own perfections: He is yet green,
and may grow strait, if he be carefully tended,
otherwise apt enough to follow his father's folly.
That I have offended thee highly, I know;
that thou canst forget my injuries, I hardly believe;
yet I perswade myself, that if thou sawest
my wretched estate, thou couldst not but lament
it, nay certainly I know, thou wouldst. All thy
wrongs muster themselves about me, and every
evil at once plagues me; for my contempt of
God, I am contemned of men; for my swearing
and forswearing, no man will believe me;
for my gluttony, I suffer hunger; for my
drunkenness, thirst; for my adultery, ulcerous
sores. Thus God hath cast me down that I
might be humbled, and punished for example
of others; and though he suffers me in this
world to perish without succour, yet I trust in the
world to come, to find mercy by the merits of
my Saviour, to whom I commend thee, and commit
my soul."