A History of English Poetry: an Unpublished Continuation

1

Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (London, 1756-1782), I, 270-271.

2

Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (London, 1756-1782), I, 270-271.

3

John Milton, Poems upon Several Occasions (London, 1785), ed. Thomas Warton, p. 331, n.

4

Nineteenth-century editions of the History give the false impression that the eight sheets were prepared from manuscript material left at Thomas Warton's death, but these sheets were certainly printed before Thomas died, and probably in the early 1780's. See John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1812-1816), III, 702-703. They contain no reference postdating that to Isaac Reed's revised edition of Robert Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, published in 1780.

5

Thomas Warton to Richard Price, 13 October 1781, in Thomas Warton, Poetical Works, ed. Richard Mant (Oxford, 1802), I, lxxviii; Daniel Prince to Richard Gough, 4 August 1783, in Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, III, 702.

6

Thomas Caldecott to Bishop Percy, 21 March 1803, in Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1817-1858), VIII, 372.

7

Joseph Warton to William Hayley, 12 March 1792, in John Wooll, Biographical Memoirs of the late Revd. Joseph Warton (London, 1806), p. 404.

8

[Thomas Warton's original version began "The temporary vogue which …" The final version, here parenthesized in the text, represents, it seems fairly certain, Joseph Warton's expansion. Although this deprecatory comment seems rather abrupt coming after five sections devoted to the Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Warton is not disparaging where his brother praised. Thomas Warton had already (IV, 69) belittled the "innumerable crop of satirists, and of a set of writers differing but little more than in name, and now properly belonging to the same species, Epigrammatists."]

9

[Warton here combined several remarks in Dryden's essay "The Original and Progress of Satire." See John Dryden, Essays, ed. W. P. Ker (Oxford, 1900), II, 111-112. There were six, not four editions of Holiday's Persius.]

10

[Warton refers presumably to Isaac Reed's Collection of Old Plays (London, 1780).]

11

[Jehan de] Nostredam [e]. [Les] Vies des […] Poet[es] Provens[aux]. [Lyon, 1575] n. 59. pag. 199.

12

[William Hayley. An] Ess[ay] on Epic Poetry. [London, 1782] Notes, Ess. iii. v. 81. p. 171.

13

They are entered to him, feb. 4, under that year [1591/92]. Registr. Station. B. fol. 284. a. In sixteens. I have a copy. Wh[ite] Lett[er i. e., roman]. With vignettes.

14

[Daniel was tutor to her son William Herbert and preceptor to Ann Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, but Sidney's sister seems to have been the patroness rather than the pupil of Daniel.]

15

His sister married John Florio, author of a famous Italian dictionary, and tutor to queen Anne, consort of James the first, in Italian, under whom Daniel was groom of the Privy-Chamber. [Anthoney a] Wood, Ath[enae] Oxon[ienses]. [London, 1691-92.] i. 379. col. 1. [Warton's mention of "Daniel's Life" refers presumably to the brief biography by Wood, here cited.]

16

A. i. Sc. i[i]. Warton was evidently quoting from the edition prepared by Thomas Hawkins and sold by his own printer, Prince—The Origin of the English Drama (Oxford, 1773), III, 213.

17

Sonn. 50. [To show how "One of Spenser's cotemporary poets has ridiculed the obsolete language of The Fairy Queen" Warton had already quoted the first two lines of this sonnet in the second edition of his Observations on the Faerie Queene (London, 1762), I, 122, n.]

18

From a manuscript note by bishop Tanner inserted in Wood's Athen. Oxon. i. 379. Bibl. Bodl. ["Aug. 9. Jac. 1. The Dean and Chapter of Cht. Ch. by grant under their Common Seal out of regard for the learning wit and good conversation of Sam. Daniel gent. gave him leave to eat and drink at the Canons Table whenever he thought fit to come."—Tanner's marginal note (I, col. 447) in his copy (Bodleian MS. Top. Oxon. b. 8) of the second, 1721, edition of Wood. Although Philip Bliss in his edition of Athenae Oxonienses (London, 1813) incorporated many of the marginalia inserted by Tanner in his copy of Wood, Bliss evidently overlooked this particular note. The editor is grateful to the Bodleian Library for a photostat and for permission to quote. According to Mr. W. G. Hiscock, Deputy Librarian at Christ Church, no mention of the "act" concerning Daniel is now to be found in the records under his care.]

19

See supr. iii. [433]. Warton used Greek capitals in his title.

20

At London in quarto [1582]. There is a fine manuscript copy, at present, in the British Museum. Watson has many pieces in Englands Helicon, 1600.

21

In quarto.

22

[Above the word "conformation" Warton added "constraint." It is not clear whether he intended both to stand.]

23

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

I find in [Joseph] Ames' Typographical Antiquities. [London, 1749] page 423. Amintae Gaudiā. Authore Tho. Watsono. Londinensi. Juris studiosi [sic]. 4.to. 1592 [This unique pencilled annotation seems to be in Joseph Warton's hand.]

24

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

25

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

26

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

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

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

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

He seems to have been a reader in rhetoric at Cambridge from his Ciceronianus, vel Oratio post reditum habita Cantabrigiae ad suos auditores. Lond. 1577. 4to. It is dedicated to William Lewin, I suppose of Christ's college. (See Wood, ubi supr.) He published also Rhetor, vel duorum dierum oratio de natura arte et exercitatione rhetorica, Lond. 1577. 4o. It is dedicated to Bartholomew Clark, the elegant translator of Castilios Courtier, who has also prefixed an address to our author's Rhetor, dated at Mitcham in Surrey, Cal. Sept. 1577. He published in four books, a set of Latin poems called Gabrielis Harveii Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri quatuor, &c. Lond. 1578. 4to. This book he wrote in honour of queen Elisabeth, while she was on a progress at Audley-end in Essex, "afterwards presenting the same in print to her Highnesse at the worshipfull Maister Capels in Hertfordshire." Notes to Spenser's September. He mentions a most perfect and elegant delineation or engraving of all England, perartificiose expressa, procured by his friend M. Saccoford, to which the queen's effigy, accuratissime depicta, was prefixed. Lib. i. p. 13. In his character of an accomplished Maid of Honour of the queen's court, some curious qualifications are recited. One of the first, to make her truly amiable, is what he calls Affectatio.

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

27

Sonn. xliii.

28

Sonn. xv.

29

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

30

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

31

"When absent from thee".

32

Sonn. 97.

33

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

34

Sonn. 98.

35

Sonn. 99.

36

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

37

In 16mo. With vignettes. Never entered in the Register of the Stationers. [Possibly Warton saw a volume registered by Eleazer Edgar on 3 January 1599/1600 as "A booke called Amours by J. D. with certen oyr sonnetes by W. S. vjd" (Arber's Stationers Register, III, 153). This entry may indicate that Edgar held manuscripts of some of Shakespeare's sonnets, and some copies of the book so registered may have been published. However, if Warton had seen this hypothetical volume he should have correctly identified it: he had already (III, 402, n.) printed the Edgar entry from the Stationers Register.

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

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

In explanation of Warton's probable error two extenuating facts should be remembered. First, since Thomson died about 1766, Warton's recollection was at least fifteen years old; and second, only in 1780 did Edmond Malone edit the Sonnets and The Passionate Pilgrim as discriminate texts comprising Shakespeare's lyrics. Even then Malone omitted without comment the separate title page Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musicke. Previously, except in George Steevens's edition of the Sonnets, Shakespeare's poems were lumped together, with lyrics of several other Elizabethan poets, and printed as Shakespeare's Poems on Several Occasions. Moreover, Warton was not the first to write of a 1599 edition of the Sonnets. His friend Bishop Percy may have helped to create this false impression in Warton's memory. In his interleaved copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets, immediately after Oldys's statement that Shakespeare's Sonnets were not printed until 1609, Percy commented, "But this is a mistake. Lintot republished Shakespeare's Sonnets from an edition in 1599." Malone, in his transcript of Steevens's transcript of Percy, corrected Percy's mistake: "This is a mistake of Dr. Percy's. Lintot republished from old eds but not from any ed. of 1599, except a very few sonnets called the Passionate Pilgrim printed in that year." (Photostat of Bergen Evans's transcript of Bodleian Malone 129-132.) Warton, however, may well have been misled by Percy's comment, for in the winter of 1769 he had borrowed and used Percy's annotated copy of Langbaine. (The Percy Letters, The Correspondence of Thomas Percy and Thomas Warton, ed. M. G. Robinson and Leah Dennis [Baton Rouge, 1951], pp. 135, 137.) It is unfortunate that the matter was not cleared up in discussion with Malone, whom at some time during the 1780's Warton furnished with a copy of the 1596 Venus and Adonis and with whom he corresponded around 1785 concerning sonnets in general and Shakespeare in particular. (William Shakespeare, Plays and Poems, ed. Edmond Malone [London, 1790] X, 13, n. 1; and James Prior, The Life of Edmond Malone [London, 1860], pp. 122-123.)]

38

Wits Tr. fol. 281. b. [The brackets in the text are Warton's.]

39

[Warton was of course much mistaken. Following the 1640 edition of Benson, Gildon had reprinted them under Shakespeare's name in 1709 (dated 1710) and again in 1714. The two Sewell editions appeared in 1725 and 1728. Invariably the poems seem to have been printed under Shakespeare's name, though perhaps not always in a collected edition of his complete poems. See Hyder Rollins's New Variorum edition of the Sonnets (Philadelphia, 1944).]

40

[See Malone's Supplement to the Edition of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1780), I, 581.]

41

See supr. vol. iii. [p. 405].

42

Wits Tr. fol. 284. a. He is again mentioned by Meres for his distich on king James's Furies & Lepanto. fol. 284. b. [The distich, printed by Meres, is the final couplet of Barnfield's Sonnet II.]

43

Sonn. xii.

44

It begins thus.

Nights were short, and daies were long,Blossoms on the hauthorns hong;Philomel, night-musickes kinge,Tolde the comming of the springe, &c.

He does not scruple to insert these lines,

Loue I did the fairest boy,That these fields did ere enioy.Loue I did faire Ganymed,Venus darling, beauties bed, &c.

This piece was afterwards inserted in Englands Helicon.

45

See supr. vol. iii. p. [292, n.] I [am] now most inclined to think, that these initials mean Henry Constable, and not Henry Chettle. The Sonnets do not justify the applauses paid to Constable, by his contemporaries, Edmond Bolton, Meres, the author of the Return from Parnassus, and many others. Some of his sonnets are prefixed to Sydney's Apology for Poetry. The initials H. C. often occur in Englands Helicon. I take this opportunity of saying that some pieces of Chettle were among Mr. Beauclerc's books. (See supr. iii. [291-292, n.?]) [Indeed the annotations in the Harvard Library copy of the Bibliotheca Beauclerkiana (p. 102) suggest that either Thomas Warton or, more probably, his brother may have purchased the copy of Chettle's Englands Mourning Garment owned by Thomas Warton's former student. It was sold to "Dr. W."]

46

See supr. iii. [480.] [R. L. was Richard Lynch.]

47

In 16mo. With vignettes. They are sixty two in number. The best is that which begins,

Venus, and yong Adonis sitting by her,Vnder a myrtle shade began to woe himShe told the yongling, &c. Sonn. iii.

He calls Sleep, "Balme of the brused heart." Sonn. xv.