Chapter II: Introduction (1)

As there is no need to adopt a strictly chronological order for the poems included in the present volume, I have begun with the _Orchestra_ and _Nosce Teipsum_ of Sir John Davies (1569-1626), who was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant figures of the Elizabethan Age. Well-born and gently bred, educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, Davies was exceptionally fortunate in escaping the pecuniary cares that harassed so many Elizabethan men of letters. From the Middle Temple he was called to the bar in 1595 (at the age of twenty-six). In the previous year _Orchestra_ had been entered in the Stationers' Register, but the poem was first published in 1596. From the dedicatory sonnet to Richard Martin we learn that it was written in fifteen days. There are, however, no signs of haste in the writing, and it may fairly be claimed that this poem in praise of dancing is a graceful monument of ingenious fancy. Lucian composed a valuable and entertaining treatise on dancing, and I suspect that Περὶ ᾽Ορχήσεως gave Davies the idea of writing _Orchestra_.

In the opening stanzas[1] we are presented with a picturesque description of

'The sovereign castle of the rockly isle
Wherein Penelope the Princess lay,'

lit with a thousand lamps on a festal night when the suitors had assembled, at the queen's invitation, to hear the minstrel Phoemius sing the praises of the heroes who had fought at Troy. With such beauty shone Penelope that the suitors were abashed at their temerity in having dared to woo her. But one 'fresh and jolly knight,' Antinous, so far from being dismayed,

'boldly gan advance
And with fair manners wooed the Queen to dance.'

She blushingly declined, and mildly chided him for trying to persuade her to new-fangled follies. Forthwith he launched into a rapturous disquisition on the antiquity of dancing, which began when Love persuaded the jarring elements--fire, air, earth, and water--to cease from conflict and observe true measure. The sun and moon, the fixed and wandering stars, the girdling sea and running streams, all 'yield perfect forms of dancing.' With exuberant fancy, fetching his illustrations from near and far, he pursues his theme through many richly-coloured stanzas. It may be worth while to remark (as his editors have been silent on the subject) that Davies does not scruple to borrow freely from Lucian. Take, for instance, stanza 80:--

'Wherefore was Proteus said himself to change
Into a stream, a lion, and a tree,
And many other forms fantastic strange
As in his fickle thought he wished to be?
But that he danced with such facility,
As, like a lion, he could prance with pride,
Ply like a plant and like a river glide."

Now hear Lucian:--

δοκεῖ γάρ μοι ὁ παλαιὸς μῆθος καὶ Πρωτέα
τὸν Αἰγύπτιον οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ὀρχηστήν τινα
γενέσθαι λέγειν, μιμητικὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ πρὸς
πάντα σχηματίζεσθαι καὶ μεταβάλλεσθαι δυνάμενον,
ὡς καὶ ὕδατος ὑγρότητα μιμεῖσθαι καὶ πυρὸς
ὀξύτητα ἐν τᾖ τῆς κινήσεως σφοδρότητι καὶ
λέοντος ἀγριότητα καὶ παρδάλεως θυμὸν καὶ
δένδρου δόνημα, καὶ ὅλως ὅ τι καὶ θελήσειεν.[2]

Here is another example (Stanza 17):--

'Dancing, bright Lady, then began to be
When the first seeds whereof the world did spring,
The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water did agree
By Love's persuasion (Nature's mighty King)
To leave their first disordered combating,
And in a dance such measures to observe
As all the world their motion should preserve.'

With this compare Lucian (as Englished by Jasper Mayne): 'First, then, you plainly seem to me not to know that dancing is no new invention or of yesterday's or the other day's growth, or born among our forefathers or their ancestors. But they who most truly derive dancing, say it sprung with the first beginning of the universe, and had a birth equally as ancient as love.' It would be easy to multiply instances. Of course Davies' borrowings from Lucian do not for a moment detract from his poem's merit: indeed they give an added zest.

In the 1596 edition _Orchestra_ ends with a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, and stanzas in praise of Spenser, Daniel, and others. Davies had evidently intended to write a sequel; for, when _Orchestra_ was republished in the collective edition of his poems (1622), it was described on the title-page as 'not finished,' some new stanzas were added, and it ended abruptly in the middle of a simile. The poem is quite long enough as we have it in the 1596 edition, and we need not lament that Davies failed to carry out his intention of continuing it: μηδὲν ἄγαν.

To his youthful days belong the _Epigrams_, which were bound up with Marlowe's translation of Ovid's _Amores_ (with a Middleburgh imprint): occasionally indecorous, they are seldom wanting in wit and pleasantry.

In February 1597-8, Davies was disbarred for a breach of discipline. He quarrelled with Richard Martin (afterwards Recorder of London)--to whom he had dedicated _Orchestra_--and assaulted him at dinner in the Middle Temple Hall, breaking a cudgel over his head. Retiring to Oxford, he engaged in the more peaceful occupation of composing _Nosce Teipsum_, a poem on the immortality of the soul, which was published in 1599. It was an ambitious task that this young disbarred bencher took in hand, but he acquitted himself ably. Some of his modern admirers have exceeded all reasonable bounds in their praise of the poem. Rejecting these extravagant eulogies, we may claim that Davies, while he was leading the life of an inns-of-court man of fashion, had remained a steadfast lover of learning and letters; that he had stored his mind richly; and that his well-turned quatrains have had an inspiring influence on later poets. Young, in _Night Thoughts_, was under special obligation to Davies. Matthew Arnold had no enthusiasm for Elizabethan writers; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, he had glanced at _Nosce Teipsum_. In 'A Southern Night' Arnold wrote--

... 'And see all things from pole to pole,[3]
And glance, and nod, and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die,'

--a stanza that bears a very suspicious resemblance to Davies' quatrain--

'We that acquaint ourselves with every zone,
And pass both tropics, and behold both poles;
When we come home, are to ourselves unknown
And unacquainted still with our own souls.'

All the arguments for and against the immortality of the soul were threshed out ages ago, and there is little or nothing new to say on the subject. A poet's skill lies in graciously attiring the old commonplaces; in searching out the right persuasive words and uttering them so melodiously that dull 'approved verities'--sparkling with sudden lustre--are transmuted into something rich and strange. It is idle to talk about Davies' 'deep and original thinking.' Many stanzas can be brushed aside as tiresome and uncouth; but something will be left. In his handling of the ten-syllabled quatrain (with alternate rhymes) Davies showed considerable deftness. The metre has weight and dignity, but is apt to become stiff and monotonous. Davies certainly succeeded in securing more freedom and variety than might have been anticipated. Inspired by his example, Davenant chose this metre for _Gondibert;_ and Davenant was followed by Dryden, who in the preface to _Annus Mirabilis_ says all that can be said in favour of the quatrain (which was seen to best advantage in Gray's _Elegy_).

Though few may be at the pains to read through _Nosce Teipsum_ at a blow, it is a poem that lends itself admirably to quotation. Towards the end there is a cluster of fine stanzas('O ignorant poor man,' etc.) that have found their way into many volumes of selected poetry; and even the arid tracts are dotted with green oases. Tennyson, with somewhat wearisome iteration, pleaded through stanza after stanza of _In Memoriam_ that the longing which most men unquestionably have for immortality must needs be based on a sure foundation:--

'We think we were not made to die,
And Thou hast made us, Thou art just.'

Davies sums up pithily in a single line:--

'If Death do quench us quite, we have great wrong.'

A poet greater than Davies, greater than Tennyson, the august Lucretius, in the noble verses that he pondered through the still nights (seeking to do justice to the doctrine of his Master Epicurus), scathingly checks our vaulting aspirations. If we have enjoyed the banquet of life, why should we not rise content and pass to our dreamless sleep? If our life has been wastefully squandered and is become a weariness to us, why should we hesitate to make an end of it? 'Aufer abhinc lacrimas, balatro, et compesce querellas!'

_Astræa_, a series of acrostic verses on Queen Elizabeth, is merely a _tour de force_ of courtly ingenuity. Much more interesting is Davies' group of graceful little poems, _Twelve Wonders of the World_, published in the second edition (1608) of Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_.

In 1603 Davies was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, and in 1606 Attorney-General. His letters to Cecil give a valuable and vivid account of the state of Ireland; and his _Discovery of the True Cause why Ireland was never entirely subdued_, 1612, is a treatise of the first importance. Davies' political writings wait the attention of a competent editor, who would undoubtedly find absorbing interest in his task.

It was the poet's misfortune to marry a crazy rhapsodical woman (Eleanor Touchet, sister of the notorious Baron Audley), who annoyed him by putting herself into mourning and bidding him 'within three years to expect the mortal blow.' Three days before his death she 'gave him pass to take his long sleep.' He resented these admonitions, and testily exclaimed, 'I pray you weep not while I am alive, and I will give you leave to laugh when I am dead.' On 7th December 1626 he dined with Lord Keeper Coventry, and on the following morning was found dead of apoplexy. It was perhaps fortunate that his life had not been prolonged, for his views of kingly prerogative were high. He had supported the king's demand for a forced loan, and (when 'the mortal blow' really came) was about to succeed Lord Chief Justice Crew, who had been removed from office for refusing to affirm the legality of such loans.

Not much need be said about _Six Idillia_, 1588, the anonymous translations (pp. 123-146) from Theocritus. It is a performance worthy of George Turberville or 'that painful furtherer of learning' Barnabe Googe. On the verso of the title page is the Horatian inscription:--

'E.D.

Libenter hic et omnis exantlabitur
Labor, in tuæ spem gratiæ.'

Collier, misreading this dedication, claimed the _Idillia_ for Sir Edward Dyer, and his mistake has been followed by some later bibliographers. But in the first place there is nothing to show that 'E.D.' was Sir Edward Dyer; and in the second it is perfectly plain that the translations were dedicated to 'E.D.,' not written by him. The rhymed fourteen-syllable lines are somewhat uncouth and do scant justice to the liquid melody of Theocritus' hexameters; but though these _Idillia_ have no great literary value, the hardy pioneer is entitled to some credit for breaking new ground. Only one copy (preserved in the Bodleian Library) of the original edition is known. Some years ago a small edition, for private circulation, was issued from the press of Rev. H.C. Daniel.

Richard Barnfield(1574-1627) had genuine poetical gifts, but seldom displayed them to advantage. Born in 1574 at Norbury, near Newport, Shropshire, he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and is conjectured to have been a member of Gray's Inn. He seems to have spent most of his time in the country, leading the life of a country gentleman. In 1594 he published _The Affectionate Shepheard_ (with a dedication to Lady Penelope Rich), and in 1595 _Cynthia_. His last work, _The Encomion of Lady Pecunia_, followed in 1598, a second edition (with changes and additions) appearing in 1605. He died in March 1626-7, leaving a son and a grand-daughter. In his will he is described as of 'Dorlestone, in the Countie of Stafford, Esquire.'[4]

_The Affectionate Shepheard_ was inspired by Virgil's Second Eclogue. Though the choice of subject was not happy, it must be allowed that in describing country contentment and the pastimes of silly shepherds Barnfield shows un-laboured fluency and grace, with playful touches of quaint extravagance. The passage beginning 'And when th'art wearie of thy keeping Sheepe'(pp. 159, 160) and ending 'Like Lillyes in a bed of roses shed' is a pleasant piece of poetical embroidery. Barnfield doubtless adopted the six-line stanza in imitation of _Venus and Adonis_, 1593(which had in turn been modelled on Lodge's _Glaucus and Scylla_, 1589). It has been recently pointed out--by Mr. Charles Crawford in _Notes and Queries_--that some passages in _The Affectionate Shepheard_ were closely imitated from Marlowe and Nashe's _Dido_ (published in 1594), and that one line has been taken straight out of Marlowe's _Edward II._ Appended to _The Affectionate Shepheard_ are _The Complainte of Chastitie_, in imitation of Michael Drayton, and _Hellens Rape_--a copy of 'English Hexameters' so atrociously bad that one wonders whether it was written to bring contempt on the metre which Gabriel Harvey and others were vainly striving to popularise.

To _Cynthia_ is prefixed a copy of high-flying commendatory verses, from which very little sense can be extracted, by 'T.T.,' possibly Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets. In the address to 'The Curteous Gentlemen Readers' Barnfield claims indulgence for _Cynthia_ on the ground that it was the first 'imitation of the verse of that excellent Poet, Maister _Spencer_, in his _Fayrie Queene_.' The poem is a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, who is adjudged by Jove to have merited the golden apple wrongly given by Paris to Venus. When Barnfield mentioned that he borrowed the metre of _Cynthia_ from Spenser, he forgot to add that the matter was drawn from Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_. To _Cynthia_ succeed twenty sonnets extolling, after the fashion of the age, the beauty and virtues of an imaginary youth, Ganymede. In the last sonnet Barnfield introduces compliments to Spenser (Colin) and Drayton (Rowland):--

'Ah had great _Colin_, chiefe of sheepheards all,
Or gentle _Rowland_, my professed friend,
Had they thy beautie, or my pennance pend,
Greater had beene thy fame, and lesse my fall:
But since that euerie one cannot be wittie,
Pardon I craue of them, and of thee pitty.'

The 'Ode' that follows the sonnets runs trippingly away in easy trochaics; but _Cassandra_ is laboured and languid.

_The Encomion of Lady Pecunia_ has an 'Address to the Gentlemen Readers,' in which Barnfield states that he had been at much pains to find an unhackneyed subject for his pen. After long consideration he had determined to write the praises of money, a theme both new (for none had ventured upon it before) and pleasing (for money is always in esteem). It was in pursuit of money that Hawkins and Drake had lost their lives. Barnfield wrote a fine epitaph on Hawkins:--

'The[5] Waters were his Winding sheete, the Sea was made his Toome;
Yet for his fame the Ocean Sea was not sufficient roome.'

His lines on Drake are not quite so happy:--

'England[6] his hart; his Corps the Waters have;
And that which raysed his fame, became his grave.'

The _Encomion_ is smoothly written, and is not without humour. A country gentleman in easy circumstances, Barnfield could dally playfully with a subject that had for him no terrors. His example probably led 'T. A.' (Thomas Acheley?) to write _The Massacre of Money_, 1602. _The Complaint of Poetrie for the Death of Liberalitie_ seems to be an imitation of Spenser's _Teares of the Muses_. More interesting are the _Poems: in divers humors_ at the end of the booklet, for among them are the sonnet 'If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree,' and the 'Ode' beginning 'As it fell upon a day,' which were long ascribed erroneously to Shakespeare. In the poem entitled 'A Remembrance of some English Poets' Barnfield praises Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, and Shakespeare. For Sir Philip Sidney he had a deep admiration, but his 'Epitaph' was a poor tribute. The verse with which the tract ends,'A Comparison of the Life of Man,' is distinctly impressive:--

'Mans life is well compared to a feast,
Furnisht with choice of all Varietie:
To it comes Tyme; and as a bidden guest
Hee sets him downe, in Pompe and Majestie;
The three-folde Age of Man the Waiters bee:
Then with an earthen voyder (made of clay)
Comes Death, and takes the table clean away.'

We now reach a group of elegies (pp. 271-318) by various hands on Sir Philip Sidney, printed as an Appendix to Spenser's _Colin Clouts Come Home Againe_, 1595, with a dedication to Sidney's widow, who by her second marriage had become Countess of Essex. There was no man more generally beloved than Sidney, and none whose loss was more sincerely deplored. Numberless were the tributes paid in verse and prose to his memory. The present collection embraces 'Astrophel,' by Spenser; the 'Dolefull Lay of Clorinda,' by Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke; 'The Mourning Muse of Thestylis' and 'A Pastorall Æglogue,' both by Lodowick Bryskett; 'An Elegie, or Friends Passion, for his Astrophel,' by Matthew Roydon; 'An Epitaph,' probably by Sir Walter Ralegh; and 'Another of the same' (_i.e._ on the same subject), which Malone was inclined to attribute to Sir Edward Dyer, while Charles Lamb ascribed it on internal evidence to Fulke Greville. Although _Colin Clouts Come Home Againe_ was first published in 1595, the dedicatory epistle to Sir Walter Ralegh is dated from Kilcolman, 27th December 1591. All the elegies were doubtless written soon after Sidney's death. Lodowick Bryskett's two poems had been entered in the Stationers' Register on 22nd August 1587, but are not known to have been separately published. Matthew Roydon's elegy had appeared in the _Phœnix Nest_, 1593, where also are found the 'Epitaph' and 'Another of the Same. Excellently written by a most woorthy gentleman.'

In _The Ruines of Time_ (1591) there are some fine stanzas to Sidney's memory; but if the literary public expected an elaborate elegy from Spenser, 'Astrophel' must have disappointed their hopes. When we recall Moschus' lament over Bion, or Ovid's tribute to Tibullus, or _Lycidas_, or _Adonais_, Spenser's elegy on Sidney seems thin and colourless. Scores of poets who had not a tithe of Spenser's genius have left elegies that far transcend 'Astrophel.' Lady Pembroke's sisterly tribute of affection will be read with respect; but however much we may commend the pious intentions of the naturalised Italian Ludowick Bryskett, it is impossible to find a word of praise for such 'rude rhymes' as

'Come forth, ye Nymphes, come forth, forsake your watry boures!
Forsake your mossy caves and help me to lament;
Help me to tune my dolefull notes to gurgling sound
Of Liffies tumbling streames; come, let salt teares of ours
Mix with his waters fresh,' etc.

Matthew Roydon's elegy is too diffuse, but has some most happy and memorable stanzas. As we gaze at Isaac Oliver's beautiful miniature of Sidney, in the Windsor Palace collection, those oft-quoted lines of Roydon inevitably leap to the lips:--

'A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospell bookes:
I trowe that countenance cannot lie
Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.'

The 'Epitaph' beginning, 'To praise thy life, or waile thy worthie death' appears to have been written by Sir Walter Ralegh. Sir John Harington, in the notes appended to the sixteenth book of his translation of _Orlando Furioso_ (1591), refers to 'our English Petrarke, Sir Philip Sidney, or (as Sir Walter Rawleigh in his Epitaph worthily calleth him) the Scipio and the Petrarke of our time' (see the last stanza of the poem). Harington had evidently seen the 'Epitaph' in MS.; and there is not the slightest reason for questioning the accuracy of his ascription, for he was well acquainted with the poets of the time, and curious information may be gathered from his Notes. I find Ralegh's elegy somewhat obscure; pregnant, but harshly worded. Nor can I profess any great admiration for 'Another of the same,' where the vehemence of the writer's grief choked his utterance.

Of the first edition of _Alcilia: Philoparthen's Loving Folly_, 1595 (pp. 319-362), only one copy is known, preserved in the public library at Hamburgh. On the last page are subscribed the author's initials 'J.C.', which have been altered in ink to 'J.G.' in the Hamburgh copy. The poem was reprinted in London in 1613, 1619, and 1628, being accompanied by Marston's _Pygmalion's Image_ and Samuel Page's _Amos and Laura_. Who 'J.C.' may have been is unknown; for the wild conjecture that he was John Chalkhill, author of _Thealma and Clearchus_ and friend of Izaak Walton, is chronologically untenable. For the space of two years the unknown poet had pressed his attentions upon the lady whom he called Alcilia. She finally rejected his addresses, and young 'J.C.' was not sorry to escape from bondage. Hardly a trace of genuine passion can be found in _Alcilia_, which is merely (as the author freely admits) a collection of odds and ends written 'at divers times and upon divers occasions.' It is somewhat surprising that there was a demand for new editions. 'J.C.' wrote with elegance and facility, but the note of originality is wanting. Had the poem appeared a few years earlier, it would have been entitled to more consideration; but the achievements of Greene, Lodge, and others had made it possible in the closing years of the sixteenth century for any young writer of respectable talents to compose such verse as we find in _Alcilia_.

_Daiphantus_, or _The Passions of Love_, 1604 (pp. 363-404), is described on the title-page as 'By An. Sc. Gentleman,' assumed to stand for Antony Scoloker. In the days of Henry VIII there was an Antony Scoloker, a printer and translator, with whom 'An. Sc.' was doubtless connected In the humorous prose address there is an interesting reference to Shakespeare:--'It should be like the never-too-well-read _Arcadia_ where the Prose and Verse, Matter and Words, are like his Mistress eyes, one still excelling another and without corrival; or to come home to the Vulgar's element, like friendly Shake-speare's _Tragedies_, where the Comedian rides when the Tragedian stands on tiptoe. Faith it should please all like Prince HAMLET. But, in sadness, then it were to be feared he would run mad. In sooth I will not be moonsick to please, nor out of my wits though I displease all. What? Poet, are you in passion or out of Love? This is as strange as true.' In the poem itself there is another reference to 'mad Hamlet,' though Scoloker there seems to be glancing at the older play on the subject of Hamlet. For the reader's guidance an 'Argument' is obligingly prefixed, but it is to be feared that even with the help of this Argument he will not find the poem very intelligible or of engrossing interest. _Daiphantus_, of which only one copy (in the Douce Collection) is known, was perhaps intended merely for circulation among the author's friends, who may have been able to read between the lines. Appended is the fine poem, 'The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage,' beginning:--

'Give me my Scalop Shell of quiet,
My Staff of faith to walk upon,
My Scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My Bottle of salvation,
My Gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I'll take my Pilgrimage,' etc.

Possibly the publisher tacked on these verses without Scoloker's knowledge. It is quite certain that they were not written by the author of _Daiphantus_, and there are good reasons for assigning them to Sir Walter Ralegh (_see_ Hannah's edition of Ralegh's _Poems_, 1885).

The 'Odes' of Michael Drayton (pp. 405-441), drawn from _Poems Lyrick and Pastorall_ (1606?), and the later collection of 1619, contain some of his best writing. There is no need to praise the glorious 'Ballad of Agincourt,' but it may be noted that Drayton spent considerable pains over the revision of this poem. It was fine in its original form, but every change found in the later version was a clear improvement. No signs of the file are visible, and we should certainly judge--unless we had evidence to the contrary--that this imperishable 'ballad' had been thrown off at a white heat. Only inferior to 'Agincourt' is the stirring ode 'To the Virginian Voyage.' Professor Arber, a high authority, is of opinion that it was composed some time before 12th August 1606, on which day the Plymouth Company despatched Captain Henry Challons' ship to North Virginia. In this valedictory address Drayton writes:--

'Your course securely steer,
West-and-by-South forth keep!
Rocks,[7] Lee-shores, nor Shoals,
When Æolus scowls,
You need not fear:
So absolute the deep.'

Captain Challons sailed to Madeira, St. Lucia, Porto Rico, and thence towards North Virginia. His little ship of fifty-five tons, with a crew of twenty-nine Englishmen (and two native Virginians), had the ill-luck on 10th November to fall in with the Spanish fleet of eight ships returning from Havanna. It was captured by the Spaniards and the crew were taken prisoners to Spain.

In a lighter vein, the ode beginning 'Maidens, why spare ye,' was worthy to have been set to music by Robert Jones. The seventh ode was written from the Peak in winter--

'Amongst the mountains bleak,
Exposed to sleet and rain'--

where Charles Cotton afterwards resided. Drayton's statement in the ninth ode--

'My resolution such
How well and not how much
To write'--

will draw a smile from any reader who has ever seriously attempted to grapple with his multitudinous works. But in these odes, and in the other 'lyric poesies' added in the 1619 edition, he was careful to curb his tendency to diffuseness. He employed a variety of metres, and his experiments were not always happy. Ode 5, 'An Amouret Anacreontic,' cannot be unreservedly commended, and Ode 9, 'A Skeltoniad,' could be spared. One of the most attractive poems is the address 'To his Rival,' a capital piece of good-natured raillery. In his early work Drayton frequently taxes the reader's patience by his disregard for grammatical proprieties, and some of these maturer Odes are so ineptly harsh that one has to grope for the writer's meaning (while one bans the punctuation of old printers and modern editors alike). Hence it is particularly pleasant to meet such a poem as 'To his Rival,' which never swerves awry, but runs on blithely without an encountering obstacle. The 'Hymn to his Lady's Birthplace' is a polished compliment, and very charming is the canzonet 'To his Coy Love.' I end with expressing a hope that the extracts here given from Michael Drayton may induce the reader to make further acquaintance[8] with the writings of one of the most lovable of our elder poets.

A.H. BULLEN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Ben Jonson (_Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden_) took exception to the opening lines:--

'He scorned such verses as could be transponed--
Where is the man that never yett did hear
Of faire Penelope, Ulisses Queene?
Of faire Penelope Ulisses Queene,
Wher is the man that never yett did hear?'
]

[Footnote 2: The passage is thus rendered by Jasper Mayne (_Part of Lucian, made English ... in the year 1638_):--'Nor were it amiss, having passed through India and Aethiopia, to draw our discourse down to their neighbouring Aegypt. Where the ancient fiction which goes of Proteus, methinks, signifies him only to be a certain dancer and mimic; who could transform and change himself into all shapes, sometimes acting the fluidness of water, sometimes the sharpness of fire, occasioned by the quickness of its aspiring motion, sometimes the fierceness of a lion, and fury of a libbard, and waving of an oak, and whatever he liked.']

[Footnote 3: Cf. also Arnold's "Obermann once more":--

'"Poor World," she cried, "so deep accurst,
That runn'st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to quench thy thirst,
Go seek it in thy soul."'
]

[Footnote 4: The poems of Barnfield were not in the original _Garner_ and are now incorporated for the first time.]

[Footnote 5: Prince in his _Worthies of Devon_(1701) quotes this couplet as an epitaph, by an anonymous writer, on Drake.]

[Footnote 6: There is a better epitaph on Drake in _Wit's Recreations_(1640):--

'Sir Drake, whom well the world's end knew,
Which thou didst compasse round.
And whom both Poles of Heaven once saw,
Which North and South do bound:
The Stars above would make thee known
If men here silent were:
The Sun himselfe cannot forget
His fellow-passenger.'
]

[Footnote 7: On March 31, 1605, Captain George Weymouth started from the Downs with a crew of twenty-nine to discover a North-West Passage to the East Indies. On May 14 he 'descries land in 41° 30' N. in the midst of dangerous rocks and shoals. Upon which he puts to sea, the wind blowing south-south-west and west-south-west many days' (Prince's _New England Chronology ap._ Garner, ii. 356). Drayton advises the Virginian voyagers to keep the west-by-south course and so avoid misadventures. He had not reckoned on the Spanish fleet.]

[Footnote 8: Several of Drayton's works have been reprinted by the Spenser Society, and an excellent Introduction to them has been written by Professor Oliver Elton (1895).]

_ORCHESTRA_,

or,

A Poem of Dancing.

Judicially proving the true
observation of Time and
Measure, in the authentical
and laudable
use of Dancing.

OVID, _Art. Aman._ lib. I.
_Si vox est, canta: si mollia brachia, salta:
Et quacunque potes dote placere, place._

_At London_,
Printed by J. ROBARTS for N. LING.
1596.

[The following entries at Stationers' Hall prove that this Poem, composed in fifteen days, was written not later than June, 1594; though it did not come to the press till November, 1596.

25 Junif [1594].

Master HARRISON. Entred for his copie in Court holden this day/ a
_Senior._ booke entituled, _Orchestra, or a poeme of Daunsing_.
vjd.
_Transcript &c._ ii. 655. _Ed. 1875._

xxj° Die Novembris [1596].

NICHOLAS LYNG/ Entered for his copie under th[e h]andes of Master
JACKSON and master Warden DAWSON, a booke
called _Orchestra, or a poeme of Dauncinge_. vjd.

_Transcript &c._ iii. 74. _Ed. 1876._
]

To his very friend,

Master RICHARD MARTIN.

_To whom, shall I, this Dancing Poem send;
This sudden, rash, half-capreol of my wit?
To you, first mover and sole cause of it,
Mine own-self's better half, my dearest friend!
Oh would you, yet, my Muse some honey lend
From your mellifluous tongue (whereon doth sit_
Suada _in majesty) that I may fit
These harsh beginnings with a sweeter end!
You know the modest sun, full fifteen times,
Blushing did rise, and blushing did descend,
While I, in making of these ill made rhymes,
My golden hours unthriftily did spend:
Yet if, in friendship, you these Numbers praise,
I will mispend another fifteen days._

[The following Dedication was substituted in the edition of 1622.

To the Prince.

[_i.e._, CHARLES, _Prince of_ WALES.]

Sir, whatsoever You are pleased to do,
It is your special praise, that you are bent,
And sadly set your Princely mind thereto:
Which makes You in each thing so excellent.

Hence is it, that You came so soon to be
A Man-at-arms in every point aright,
The fairest flower of noble Chivalry,
And of Saint GEORGE his Band the bravest Knight.

And hence it is, that all your youthful train
In activeness and grace You do excel,
When You do Courtly dancings entertain:
Then Dancing's praise may be presented well

To You, whose action adds more praise thereto
Than all the Muses, with their pens can do.]

ORCHESTRA,

or,

A Poem of Dancing.

1.

Where lives the man, that never yet did hear
Of chaste PENELOPE, ULYSSES's Queen?
Who kept her faith unspotted twenty year;
Till he returned, that far away had been,
And many men and many towns had seen:
Ten year at Siege of Troy, he ling'ring lay;
And ten year in the midland sea did stray.

2.

HOMER, to whom the Muses did carouse
A great deep cup, with heavenly nectar filled;
The greatest deepest cup in JOVE's great house
(For JOVE himself had so expressly willed):
He drank of all, ne let one drop be spilled;
Since when, his brain, that had before been dry,
Became the Wellspring of all Poetry.

3.

Homer doth tell, in his abundant verse,
The long laborious travails of the Man;
And of his Lady too, he doth rehearse,
How she illudes, with all the art she can,
Th'ungrateful love which other Lords began;
For of her Lord, false Fame, long since, had sworn
That NEPTUNE's monsters had his carcass torn.

4.

All this he tells, but one thing he forgot,
One thing most worthy his eternal Song,
But he was old, and blind, and saw it not:
Or else he thought he should ULYSSES wrong,
To mingle it his tragic acts among:
Yet was there not, in all the world of things,
A sweeter burden for his Muse's wings:

5.

The Courtly love ANTINOUS did make,
ANTINOUS, that fresh and jolly Knight,
Which of the Gallants that did undertake
To win the Widow, had most Wealth and Might,
Wit to persuade, and Beauty to delight:
The Courtly love he made unto the Queen,
HOMER forgot, as if it had not been.

6.

Sing then, TERPSICHORE, my light MUSE, sing
His gentle art and cunning courtesy!
You, Lady, can remember everything,
For you are daughter of Queen MEMORY:
But sing a plain and easy melody,
For the soft mean that warbleth but the ground,
To my rude ear doth yield the sweetest sound.

7.

Only one night's Discourse I can report:
When the great Torchbearer of heaven was gone
Down, in a masque, unto the Ocean's Court,
To revel it with TETHYS, all alone;
ANTINOUS disguised, and unknown,
Like to the Spring in gaudy ornament,
Unto the Castle of the Princess went.

8.

The sovereign Castle of the rocky isle,
Wherein PENELOPE the Princess lay,
Shone with a thousand lamps, which did exile
The dim dark shades, and turned the night to day.
Not JOVE's blue tent, what time the sunny ray
Behind the bulwark of the earth retires,
Is seen to sparkle with more twinkling fires.

9.

That night, the Queen came forth from far within,
And in the presence of her Court was seen.
For the sweet singer PHŒMIUS did begin
To praise the Worthies that at Troy had been:
Somewhat of her ULYSSES she did ween,
In his grave Hymn, the heavenly man would sing,
Or of his wars, or of his wandering.

10.

PALLAS, that hour, with her sweet breath divine,
Inspired immortal beauty in her eyes,
That with celestial glory she did shine
Brighter than VENUS, when she doth arise
Out of the waters to adorn the skies.
The Wooers, all amazèd, do admire
And check their own presumptuous desire.

11.

Only ANTINOUS, when at first he viewed
Her star-bright eyes, that with new honour shined,
Was not dismayed; but therewithal renewed
The _noblesse_ and the splendour of his mind:
And, as he did fit circumstances find,
Unto the throne, he boldly 'gan advance,
And, with fair manners, wooed the Queen to dance.

12.

_Goddess of women! sith your heavenliness
Hath now vouchsafed itself to represent
To our dim eyes; which though they see the less,
Yet are they blest in their astonishment:
Imitate heaven, whose beauties excellent
Are in continual motion day and night,
And move thereby more wonder and delight._

13.

_Let me the mover be, to turn about
Those glorious ornaments that Youth and Love
Have fixed in you, every part throughout:
Which if you will in timely measure move;
Not all those precious gems in heaven above
Shall yield a sight more pleasing to behold
With all their turns and tracings manifold._

14.

With this, the modest Princess blushed and smiled
Like to a clear and rosy eventide,
And softly did return this answer mild:
_Fair Sir! You needs must fairly be denied,
Where your demand cannot be satisfied.
My feet, which only Nature taught to go,
Did never yet the Art of Footing know._

15.

_But why persuade you me to this new rage?
For all Disorder and Misrule is new:
For such misgovernment in former Age
Our old divine forefathers never knew;
Who if they lived, and did the follies view,
Which their fond nephews make their chief affairs,
Would hate themselves, that had begot such heirs._

16.

_Sole Heir of Virtue, and of Beauty both!
Whence cometh it_, ANTINOUS replies,
_That your imperious Virtue is so loath
To grant your Beauty her chief exercise?
Or from what spring doth your opinion rise
That Dancing is a Frenzy and a Rage,
First known and used in this new-fangled Age?_

17.

_Dancing, bright Lady! then, began to be,
When the first seeds whereof the world did spring;
The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water did agree
By LOVE's persuasion (Nature's mighty King)
To leave their first disordered combating;
And, in a dance, such Measure to observe,
As all the world their motion should preserve._

18.

_Since when, they still are carried in a round;
And changing come one in another's place:
Yet do they neither mingle nor confound,
But every one doth keep the bounded space,
Wherein the Dance doth bid it turn or trace:
This wondrous miracle did LOVE devise,
For Dancing is LOVE's proper exercise._

19.

_Like this, he framed the gods' eternal bower,
And of a shapeless and confusèd mass,
By his through-piercing and digesting power,
The turning Vault of Heaven formèd was;
Whose starry wheels he hath so made to pass
As that their movings do a Music frame,
And they themselves still dance unto the same._

20.

_Or if_ "_this All, which round about we see_"
_As idle MORPHEUS some sick brains hath taught,_
"_Of undivided motes compactèd be,_"
_How was this goodly architecture wrought?
Or by what means were they together brought?
They err, that say,_ "_they did concur by Chance!_"
_LOVE made them meet in a well ordered Dance!_

21.

_As when AMPHION with his charming Lyre
Begot so sweet a Siren of the air,
That, with her rhetoric, made the stones conspire,
The ruins of a city to repair
(A work of Wit and Reason's wise affair):
So LOVE's smooth tongue the motes such measure taught,
That they joined hands; and so the world was wrought!_

22.

_How justly then is Dancing termèd new,
Which, with the world, in point of time began?
Yea Time itself (whose birth JOVE never knew,
And which is far more ancient than the sun)
Had not one moment of his age outrun,
When out leaped Dancing from the heap of things
And lightly rode upon his nimble wings._

23.

_Reason hath both their pictures in her Treasure;
Where Time the Measure of all moving is,
And Dancing is a moving all in measure.
Now, if you do resemble that to this,
And think both One, I think you think amiss:
But if you Judge them Twins, together got,
And Time first born, your judgement erreth not._

24.

_Thus doth it equal age with Age enjoy,
And yet in lusty youth for ever flowers;
Like LOVE, his Sire, whom painters make a boy,
Yet is he Eldest of the Heavenly Powers;
Or like his brother Time, whose wingèd hours,
Going and coming, will not let him die,
But still preserve him in his infancy._

25.

This said, the Queen, with her sweet lips divine,
Gently began to move the subtle air,
Which gladly yielding, did itself incline
To take a shape between those rubies fair;
And being formed, softly did repair,
With twenty doublings in the empty way,
Unto ANTINOUS' ears, and thus did say.

26.

_What eye doth see the heaven, but doth admire
When it the movings of the heavens doth see?
Myself, if I, to heaven may once aspire,
If that be Dancing, will a dancer be;
But as for this, your frantic jollity,
How it began, or whence you did it learn,
I never could, with Reason's eye discern?_

27.

ANTINOUS answered, _Jewel of the earth!
Worthy you are, that heavenly Dance to lead;
But for you think our Dancing base of birth,
And newly born but of a brain-sick head,
I will forthwith his antique gentry read,
And (for I love him) will his herald be,
And blaze his arms, and draw his pedigree._

28.

_When LOVE had shaped this world, this great fair wight,_
(_That all wights else in this wide womb contains_),
_And had instructed it to dance aright
A thousand measures, with a thousand strains,
Which it should practise with delightful pains,
Until that fatal instant should revolve,
When all to nothing should again resolve:_

29.

_The comely Order and Proportion fair
On every side did please his wand'ring eye;
Till, glancing through the thin transparent air,
A rude disordered rout he did espy
Of men and women, that most spitefully
Did one another throng and crowd so sore
That his kind eye, in pity, wept therefore._

30.

_And swifter than the lightning down he came,
Another shapeless chaos to digest.
He will begin another world to frame_
(_For LOVE, till all be well, will never rest_).
_Then with such words as cannot be expresst,
He cuts the troops, that all asunder fling,
And ere they wist, he casts them in a ring._

31.

_Then did he rarify the Element,
And in the centre of the ring appear;
The beams that from his forehead shining went
Begot a horror and religious fear
In all the souls that round about him were,
Which in their ears attentiveness procures,
While he, with such like sounds, their minds allures._

32.

"_How doth Confusions's Mother, headlong Chance,
Put Reason's noble squadron to the rout?
Or how should you, that have the governance
Of Nature's children, heaven and earth throughout,
Prescribe them rules, and live yourselves without?
Why should your fellowship a trouble be,
Since Man's chief pleasure is Society?_

33.

"_If Sense hath not yet taught you, learn of me
A comely moderation and discreet;
That your assemblies may well ordered be,
When my uniting power shall make you meet,
With heavenly tunes it shall be tempered sweet;
And be the model of the world's great frame,
And you, Earth's children, Dancing shall it name._

34.

"_Behold the world, how it is whirlèd round!
And for it is so whirlèd, is namèd so:
In whose large volume, many rules are found
Of this new Art, which it doth fairly show.
For your quick eyes in wandering to and fro,
From East to West, on no one thing can glance;
But (if you mark it well) it seems to dance._

35.

"_First, you see fixed, in this huge mirror blue,
Of trembling lights a number numberless;
Fixed, they are named but with a name untrue;
For they are moved and in a dance express
The great long Year that doth contain no less
Than threescore hundreds of those years in all,
Which the Sun makes with his course natural._

36.

"_What if to you these sparks disordered seem,
As if by chance they had been scattered there?
The gods a solemn measure do it deem
And see a just proportion everywhere,
And know the faints whence first their movings were
To which first points, when all return again,
The Axletree of Heaven shall break in twain._

37.

"_Under that spangled sky, five wandering Flames,
Besides the King of Day and Queen of Night,
Are wheeled around, all in their sundry frames,
And all in sundry measures do delight;
Yet altogether keep no measure right;
For by itself each doth itself advance,
And by itself each doth a Galliard dance._

38

"_VENUS_ (_the mother of that bastard LOVE,
Which doth usurp the world's Great Marshal's name_),
_Just with the sun, her dainty feet doth move;
And unto him doth all her gestures frame
Now after, now afore, the flattering Dame,
With divers cunning passages doth err,
Still him respecting, that respects not her._

39.

"_For that brave SUN, the Father of the Day,
Doth love this EARTH, the Mother of the Night,
And like a reveller, in rich array,
Doth dance his Galliard in his leman's sight;
Both back, and forth, and sideways passing light.
His gallant grace doth so the gods amaze,
That all stand still, and at his beauty gaze._

40.

"_But see the EARTH, when she approacheth near,
How she for joy doth spring and sweetly smile;
But see again, her sad and heavy cheer
When, changing places, he retires a while;
But those black clouds he shortly will exile,
And make them all before his presence fly,
As mists consumed before his cheerful eye._

41.

"_Who doth not see the Measures of the MOON?
Which thirteen times she danceth every year,
And ends her Pavin thirteen times as soon
As doth her brother, of whose golden hair
She borroweth part, and proudly doth it wear.
Then doth she coyly turn her face aside
That half her cheek is scarce sometimes descried._

42.

"_Next her, the pure, subtle, and cleansing fire
Is swiftly carried in a circle even:
Though VULCAN be pronounced by many, a liar,
The only halting god that dwells in heaven.
But that foul name may be more fitly given
To your false fire, that far from heaven is fall,
And doth consume, waste, spoil, disorder all._

43.

"_And now, behold your tender nurse, the Air,
And common neighbour that aye runs around;
How many pictures and impressions fair,
Within her empty regions are there found,
Which to your senses, Dancing do propound?
For what are breath, speech, echoes, music, winds
But Dancings of the Air, in sundry kinds?_

44.

"_For when you Breathe, the air in order moves;
Now in, now out, in time and measure true
And when you Speak, so well the Dancing loves
That doubling oft, and oft redoubling new,
With thousand forms she doth herself endue.
For all the words that from your lips repair,
Are nought but tricks and turnings of the Air._

45.

"_Hence is her prattling daughter, ECHO, born,
That dances to all voices she can hear.
There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn;
Nor any time, wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear;
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick._"

46.

"_And thou, sweet Music, Dancing's only life,
The ear's sole happiness, the Air's best speech,
Loadstone of fellowship, Charming rod of strife,
The soft mind's Paradise, the sick mind's Leech,
With thine own tongue, thou trees and stones canst teach,
That when the Air doth dance her finest measure.
Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure._"

47.

"_Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry,
Their violent turnings, and wild whirling Hayes;
But in the Air's tralucent gallery?
Where she herself is turned a hundred ways,
While with those Maskers, wantonly she plays.
Yet in this misrule, they such rule embrace
As two, at once, encumber not the place._

48.

"_If then Fire, Air, Wandering and Fixed Lights,
In every province of th' imperial sky,
Yield perfect forms of Dancing to your sights;
In vain I teach the ear, that which the eye,
With certain view, already doth descry;
But for your eyes perceive not all they see,
In this, I will your senses' master be._

49.

"_For lo, the Sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and Measure both doth understand
For his great Crystal Eye is always cast
Up to the Moon, and on her fixèd fast;
And as she danceth, in her pallid sphere,
So danceth he about the centre here._

50.

"_Sometimes his proud green waves, in order set,
One after other, flow unto the shore;
Which when they have with many kisses wet,
They ebb away in order, as before:
And to make known his Courtly Love the more,
He oft doth lay aside his three-forked mace,
And with his arms the timorous Earth embrace._

51.

"_Only the Earth doth stand for ever still:
Her rocks remove not, nor her mountains meet_
(_Although some wits enriched with learning's skill,
Say 'Heaven stands firm, and that the Earth doth fleet,
And swiftly turneth underneath their feet'_);
_Yet, though the Earth is ever steadfast seen,
On her broad breast hath Dancing ever been._

52.

"_For those blue veins, that through her body spread;
Those sapphire streams which from great hills do spring,_
(_The Earth's great dugs! for every wight is fed
With sweet fresh moisture from them issuing_)
_Observe a Dance in their wild wandering;
And still their Dance begets a murmur sweet,
And still the Murmur with the Dance doth meet._

53.

"_Of all their ways, I love Mæander's path;
Which, to the tunes of dying swans, doth dance
Such winding slights. Such turns and tricks he hath,
Such creeks, such wrenches, and such daliance
That (whether it be hap or heedless chance)
In his indented course and wringing play,
He seems to dance a perfect cunning Hay._

54.

"_But wherefore do these streams for ever run?
To keep themselves for ever sweet and clear;
For let their everlasting course be done,
They straight corrupt and foul with mud appear.
O ye sweet Nymphs, that beauty's loss do fear,
Contemn the drugs that physic doth devise;
And learn of LOVE, this dainty exercise._

55.

"_See how those flowers, that have sweet beauty too,
The only jewels that the EARTH doth wear
When the young SUN in bravery her doth woo_)
_As oft as they the whistling wind do hear,
Do wave their tender bodies here and there:
And though their dance no perfect measure is;
Yet oftentimes their music makes them kiss._

56.

"_What makes the Vine about the Elm to dance
With turnings, windings, and embracements round?
What makes the loadstone to the North advance
His subtle point, as if from thence he found
His chief attractive virtue to redound?
Kind Nature, first, doth cause all things to love;
Love makes them dance, and in just order move._

57.

"_Hark how the birds do sing! and mark then how,
Jump with the modulation of their lays,
They lightly leap, and skip from bough to bough;
Yet do the cranes deserve a greater praise,
Which keep such measure in their airy ways:
As when they all in order rankèd are,
They make a perfect form triangular._

58.

"_In the chief angle, flies the watchful guide;
And all the followers their heads do lay
On their foregoers' backs, on either side:
But, for the Captain hath no rest to stay
His head forwearied with the windy way,
He back retires; and then the next behind,
As his Lieutenant, leads them through the wind._

59.

"_By why relate I every singular?
Since all the world's great fortunes and affairs
Forward and backward rapt and whirlèd are,
According to the music of the spheres;
And Chance herself her nimble feet upbears
On a round slippery wheel, that rolleth aye,
And turns all states with her impetuous sway._

60.

"_Learn then to dance you, that are princes born
And lawful Lords of earthly creatures all;
Imitate them, and thereof take no scorn,
For this new Art to them is natural.
And imitate the stars celestial;
For when pale Death your vital twist shall sever,
Your better parts must dance with them for ever._"

61.

_Thus LOVE persuades, and all the crowd of men
That stands around, doth make a murmuring,
As when the wind, loosed from his hollow den,
Among the trees a gentle bass doth sing;
Or as a brook, through pebbles wandering:
But in their looks, they uttered this plain speech,_
"_That they would learn to dance, if LOVE would teach._"

62.

_Then, first of all, he doth demonstrate plain,
The motions seven that are in Nature found;
Upward and downward, forth and back again,
To this side, and to that, and turning round:
Whereof a thousand Brawls he doth compound,
Which he doth teach unto the multitude;
And ever, with a turn they must conclude._

63.

_As when a Nymph arising from the land,
Leadeth a dance, with her long watery train,
Down to the sea, she wries to every hand,
And every way doth cross the fertile plain;
But when, at last, she falls into the Main,
Then all her traverses concluded are,
And with the sea her course is circular._

64.

_Thus, when, at first, LOVE had them marshallèd,
(As erst he did the shapeless mass of things)
He taught them Rounds and winding Heyes to tread,
And about trees to cast themselves in rings:
As the two Bears, whom the First Mover flings
With a short turn about Heaven's Axle-tree,
In a round dance for ever wheeling be._

65.

_But after these, as men more civil grew,
He did more grave and solemn Measures frame;
With such fair order and proportion true,
And correspondence every way the same,
That no fault-finding eye did ever blame:
For every eye was movèd at the sight
With sober wondering, and with sweet delight._

66.

_Not those old students of the heavenly book,
ATLAS the great, PROMETHEUS the wise;
Which on the stars did all their lifetime look,
Could ever find such measures in the skies,
So full of change and rare varieties:
Yet all the feet whereon these measures go
Are only Spondees, solemn, grave, and slow._

67.

_But for more divers and more pleasing show,
A swift and wandering dance She did invent;
With passages uncertain, to and fro,
Yet with a certain Answer and Consent
To the quick music of the instrument.
Five was the number of the Music's feet;
Which still the Dance did with five paces meet._

68.