:: Bacon's Dictionary Appendix 27 ::

The third anthology, A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, edited by a certain Thomas Procter, was issued in 1578. One of the chief contributors was Owen Roydon, who may have been a brother of Matthew Roydon (the friend of Chapman and author of a famous elegy, on Sir Philip Sidney). Many of the poems are of a sententious character and are written in long cumbersome metres; but there are also some sprightly love-ditties. Fourth on the list comes Clement Robinson’s Handful of Pleasant Delights, 1584, a very choice collection. Here first appeared the delightful ballad of Lady Greensleeves. “L.G.,” “I.P.,” “I. Tomson,” and “Peter Picks,” were among the contributors; all four are unknown, and “Peter Picks” is doubtless a pseudonym. Antony Munday’s A Banquet of Dainty Conceits, 1588, of which only a single copy is known, must not be classed with the anthologies; for the twenty-two pieces which it contains were all written by Munday. Intrinsically the poems have little interest; but the collection is on that account important, as affording excellent proof that Antony Munday was not the “Shepherd Tony” of England’s Helicon. Munday was an inferior writer, whose pen was chiefly employed in composing city-pageants and translating romances from the French. Among these Dainty Conceits there is not even a passable lyric to be found.

In 1593 appeared the fifth anthology, The Phoenix Nest, edited by “R.S. of the Inner Temple, Gentleman.” To whom the initials “R.S.” belong is a mystery; but all lovers of poetry are indebted to the taste and zeal of this unknown editor. Among the known contributors were Thomas Lodge and Nicholas Breton; and there are many exquisite poems by anonymous writers. England’s Helicon, first published in 1600 and republished with additions in 1614, stands sixth on the list. England’s Parnassus, 1600, and Belvedere, 1600, are dictionaries of poetical quotations rather than anthologies. The last anthology (the seventh) published in Elizabeth’s reign was Francis Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, a collection of the highest interest, first printed in 1602; reprinted with additions in 1608; again, with many additions, in 1611; and for the fourth time (with a new arrangement of the poems) in 1621. The reader will find in England’s Helicon some of the sweetest lyrical and pastoral poetry of the Elizabethan age, dainty little masterpieces by Lodge, Breton, Greene, Barnfield, and many other true-born poets. He will also find two dozen poems by Bartholomew Young (or Yong), translator of Montemayor’s Diana. Possibly Bartholomew Young (an unpoetical name) may even find here and there an admirer. Who was the editor of England’s Helicon? Clearly “A.B.” (whoever he may have been), author of the prefatory Sonnet To his loving kind friend Master John Bodenham. Yet bibliographers, one after another, with remarkable perversity, assure us that Bodenham was the editor, yet Bodenham did not edit any of the Elizabethan miscellanies attributed to him by bibliographers; he projected their publication and he befriended the editors. The miscellanies issued under Bodenham’s patronage were:

In regard to number two in the above list of Wit’s Theatre, it is perfectly clear that Robert Allot 1 was the editor; for a copy (preserved in the British Museum) of the 1599 edition contains an epistle in which Allot dedicates to Bodenham this “collection of the flowers of antiquities and histories.” Prefixed to number 3 in our list, Belvedere, is a Sonnet by A[ntony?] Munday?] in which Bodenham is addressed as “Art’s Lover, Learning’s friend, first causer and collector of these flowers,” words which imply that Bodenham had suggested the compilation and had prepared some materials for the volume. Bodenham gave his support and patronage; Ling, Allot, and “A.B.” collected and arranged the materials for the miscellanies with which Bodenham’s name is associated. England’s Helicon second edition in 1614, which contains nine additional poems, has a dedicatory Sonnet by the publisher, Richard More, addressed “To the truly virtuous and honourable Lady, the Lady Elizabeth Carey.” This lady was the wife of Sir Henry Carey (created Lord Falkland in 1610), and mother of the famous Lucius Lord Falkland who fell at Newbury. She was certainly the “Lady Elizabeth Carey” who wrote The Tragedy of Mariam the Fair Queen of Jewry, 1613. John Davies of Hereford in 1612 linked her name with the names of Lucy Countess of Bedford and Mary Countess-Dowager of Pembroke in the dedicatory verse epistle prefixed to his Muse’s Sacrifice; and to her in 1633 William Sheares the publisher dedicated the collective edition of Marston’s plays. She died in 1639.

The Faerie Queene began in 1582, and published in 1590. The three first Books of the Faerie Queene, which (as the title page, and he himself, in his letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, informs us) was to have been disposed into Twelve Books, fashioning XII. Moral Virtues. That Volume has been usually called a Quarto; but, from the Printer’s Signature, it is plainly an Octavo. On the Back of that title page in some copies (for it is not in all) is the following Dedication in capitals thus pointed: “To the most mighty and magnificent Empress Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, France and Ireland Defender of the Faith &c. Her most humble Servant: Ed. Spenser.” To the end of the third book was annexed a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, and seven copies of verses addressed to the author of the Faerie Queene, the two first by Sir Walter and the third, which is signed Hobynoll, by his Friend Mr. Gabriel Harvey who is everywhere distinguished, in the poet’s works, by that name. Then follow the several copies addressed, by Spenser himself, to Sir Christopher Hatton, The Earl of Essex, The Earl of Oxenford, The Earl of Northumberland, The Earl of Ormond and Ossbry, The Lord Charles Howard, The Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Lady Carew, and to all the gracious and beautiful Ladies in the Court. The two last copies fill the page 605, and there is added Finis: and on the back of that page (which is numbered page 606) are faults escaped in the print, which Errata take up only three fourths of the page, and the remainder is blank: and this, it should seem, was the whole of what the poet, at first, intended for that volume.

Hobbinol, a poet contributor, was Spenser’s chief friend at the University, and was Gabriel Harvey of Trinity Hall, made Dr. of Law in 1585. This acquaintance is all we have to mention of Spenser at Cambridge: for the story of his (landing for a Fellowship, and being set aside, is so probably a mistake, that we must drop it. But Harvey was so amiable a man and so ingenious, that we cannot wonder at their intimacy, and at the very great deference Spenser pays to his judgment. Though there are many poetical things of this gentleman extant, yet we might be sure of his genius, if it were only from that beautiful poem of his under the name of Hobbinol before the Fairie Queene. He seems to have lived to 1630, and was probably then above seventy. 2 The Dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh is dated January 23, 1589. Raleigh in return praised the poem in two Sonnets. These, together with five other versified encomiums by “Hobynoll” [Gabriel Harvey], “R.S.,” “H.B.,” “W.L.,” and “Ignoto,” are prefixed to Spenser’s work. In 1599 The Passionate Pilgrim, a collection of twenty-one Sonnets, songs, etc., was published with the name of W. Shakespeare on the title page. The authorship of several of the pieces is disputed. In regard to No. 18 My flocks feed not, Halliwell-Phillipps, says: “There is a somewhat brief version of this song in the collection of Madrigals, by Thomas Weelkes 1597, this person being the composer of the music, but not necessarily the author of the words. A copy of it as it is seen in the Passionate Pilgrim also occurs in England’s Helicon, 1600, entitled The Unknowne Sheepheards Complaint, and is there subscribed Ignoto.” In regard to No. 20, Live with me and be my love, the same author says: “The first, of these very pretty songs is incomplete, and the second, called Love’s answer, still more so. In England’s Helicon, 1600, the former is given to Marlowe, the latter to Ignoto; and there is a good reason to believe that Christopher Marlowe wrote the song, and Sir Walter Raleigh the nymph’s reply: for so we are positively assured by Isaac Walton, who has inserted them both in his Complete Angler under the character of “that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago; and an answer to it which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days: old fashioned poetry but choicely good.” Both these songs were exceedingly popular and are afterwards found in the street ballads. The first is quoted in the Merry Wives of Windsor.” In regard to No. 21, As it fell upon a day, Halliwell-Phillipps, says: “This charming idyl occurs, with the absence of two lines, amongst the Poems in Divers Humours appended to Barnfield’s Encomion of Lady Pecunia, in 1598 and the first twenty-six lines with the addition of two new ones are found in England’s Helicon, 1600. This latter version follows in that work No. 18 of this list, [My flocks feed not,] is also subscribed Ignoto, and is headed: Another of the same Sheepheards. The probability is that the copies of these little poems, as given in the Helicon, were taken from a Common Place book in which the names of the authors were not recorded; the two supplementary lines just noticed having the appearance of being an unauthorized couplet improvised for the sake of giving a neater finish to the abridgment.”

The editor of the third edition of the Helicon 1812 says in regard to Ignoto: “This signature appears to have been generally, though not exclusively, subscribed to the pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh. It is also subscribed to one piece since appropriated to Shakespeare, [No. 18,] and to one which, according to Ellis, belongs to Richard Barnfield [No. 21.] The celebrated answer to Marlowe’s, Come live with me, here subscribed Ignoto, is given expressly to Raleigh by Isaac Walton in his Complete Angler, first published in 1653.” Ignoto was undoubtedly a concealed poet. Marlowe, Raleigh and Barnfield were not. As early as January 1590, if not a little sooner, Ignoto contributed to Spenser’s first publication of the Faerie Queene. There are sixteen pieces in the Helicon subscribed Ignoto. One of these, The Nymph’s Reply is ascribed to Raleigh on the testimony of Walton in 1653; and two others are believed by the editor of the third edition, 1812, to belong to Raleigh, because in an early copy of the same Ignoto was found pasted over “W.R.” Upon such flimsy evidence the modern editor infers that the signature Ignoto was “generally, though not exclusively, [his own italics,] subscribed to the pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh.” Poor neglected Shakespeare has but a single specimen in the Helicon: On a day, alack a day taken from Love’s Labour’s Lost.

1 Allot was also the editor of England’s Parnassus

2 Spenser. Faerie Queene with notes, by Ralph Church, Vol. I. 1758

Contents of England’s Helicon:

Page 17. The Shepherd to his Chosen Nymph. This poem is from Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, which passed through three editions in 1591; and it evidently refers to some real incident, of which we have no knowledge.
Page 19. Theorello. The initials “E.B.” doubtless belong to Edmund Bolton, whose signature is subscribed at full length to the poem on pp. 34–35. Bolton, one of the most learned men of his time, was the author of the Elements of Armories, 1610, and an interesting treatise Hypercritica, circa 1618, first published by Antony Hall at the end of Triveti Annales, 1722. He was a retainer of George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, and accompanied him on his memorable journey to Spain in 1623. 3 He was one of those who laboured to establish a Royal Academy or College of Honour “for the breeding and bringing up of the nobility and gentry of this Kingdom,” a scheme which was frequently discussed but never got beyond the stage of discussion. Bolton died about the year 1633. There are three other poems signed “E. B.” supposedly assigned also to Bolton.
Page 23. Astrophe vs Love is Dead. This poem was probably written on the occasion of Stella’s (Lady Penelope Devereux’s) marriage to Lord Rich.
Page 28. Hobbinof’s Ditty. From the Fourth Eglogue of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender.
Page 32. The Shepherd’s Daffodil. From Michael Drayton’s Ninth Eclogue, first published in Poems Lyric and Heroic, 8vo. (1605?), and republished in the collective edition of Drayton’s works, 1619.
Page 35. Melicertus Madrigal. From Robert Greene’s Menaphon. Camillas Alarum to Slumbering Euphites, &c., 1589, 410.
Page 36. Old Damon’s Pastoral. This poem of Lodge seems to have been published for the first time in England’s Helicon.
Page 38. Perigot and Cuddies Roundelay. From the Eighth Eglogue of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender.
Page 40. Phyllida and Corydon. First printed in The Honourable Entertainment given to the Queen’s Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honourable the Earl of Hertford, 1591, under the title of The Ploughman’s Song. It is set to music in Michael Este’s Madrigals, 1604, and in Henry Youll’s Canzonets, 1608.
Page 41. To Colin Clout. This charming lyric was written by the Shepherd Tony, who contributed six other poems. It would be pleasant to be able to identify the Shepherd Tony, he will remain a mere nominis umbra. The suggestion that the delightful lyrist was Antony Copley, author of A Fig for Fortune, 1596, and Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614, is ridiculous, and equally ridiculous is the suggestion that he was Antony Munday.
Page 42. Rowland’s Song in Praise of the Fairest Beta. This poem was first published in Michael Drayton’s Idea, the Shepherd’s Garland, 1593, and was republished, with some textual variations, for Drayton was constantly altering his poems, in Poems Lyric and Heroic (1605?).
Page 46. The Barginet of Antimachus. It does not belong among Lodge’s works (collected by the Hunterian Club), but first appeared in England’s Helicon.
Page 48. Menaphon’s Roundelay. From Greene’s Menaphon, 1589. The quiet beauty of the opening lines will appeal to every reader.
Page 49. A Pastoral of Phyllis and Corydon. From Nicholas Breton’s The Arbor of Amorous Devices, 1597, of which only one copy (and that imperfect) is preserved in the Capell Collection at Trinity College, Cambridge. Breton’s works (with the exception of some unique volumes in private hands) were collected by Dr. Grosart in 1879, 2 Vols. 4to.
Page 50. Corydon and Melampus Song. From George Peek’s pastoral The Hunting of Cupid of which fragments are extant among the Drummond MSS.
Pages 51–53. Tityrus to his fair Phyllis; [Love’s Thrall]; Another by the same author. The first of these three poems is signed “I.D.”; the second and third are signed “I.M.” It has been supposed that “I.D.” is Sir John Davies, among whose works Dr. Grosart prints the first poem. In an old MS., list (presumed to be in the writing of Francis Davison, editor of the Poetical Rhapsody) of the contributors to England’s Helicon, preserved in Harl. MS. 280, we find instead of “I.D.” the signature “I. Davis.” The poems, all three, were written by John Dickenson, and are found in The Shepherd’s Complaint, n.d. (c.1594), of which a copy was discovered by Mr. Charles Edmonds in a lumber room at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, the seat of Sir Charles Isham, Bart. Some stiffly declared that “I.M.” was John Marston, others voted for Jervase Markham; and the great Dean of St. Paul’s, John Donne, was brought into the lists to dispute Sir John Davies’ claim to the initials “I.D.”
Page 53. Menaphon to Persana. From Robert Greene’s Menaphon, 1589.
Page 54. A Sweet Pastoral. This poem is not among those works of Breton which Dr. Grosart has printed. It is perhaps in The Bower of Delights (jealously guarded at Britwell).
Page 56. Harpahis Complaint. This poem (here ascribed to the Earl of Surrey) was first printed among Poems by Uncertain Authors in Totte’s Miscellany, 1557.
Page 63. The Nymphs meeting their May Queen. This poem of Watson (who has been greatly over praised by some modern critics) seems to have been addressed to Queen Elizabeth; and that it formed part of some (lost?) entertainment. It is set to music in Francis Pilkington’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1605.
Page 64. Colin Clout’s Mournful Ditty. Introductory stanzas to Spenser’s Astrophel, a pastoral Elegy upon the Death of Sir Philip Sidney.
Page 65. Damæta’s Jig. The author, John Wootton, is supposed by Brydges to be Sir John Wotton (half-brother of Sir Henry Wotton), third son of Thomas Wotton of Bocton Malherb, in Kent, by Elizabeth his first wife, daughter of Sir John Rudstone, Knight. Izaak Walton describes Sir John as “a gentleman excellently accomplished both by learning and travel, who was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and looked upon with more than ordinary favour and with intentions of preferment; but death in his younger years put a period to his growing hopes.”

Francis Bacon must be counted among Sir Henry Wotton’s friends and correspondents, though only one letter from Bacon to Wotton, and one from Wotton to Bacon have been preserved. They seem, however, to have corresponded more or less regularly, and to have regarded each other as friends and kinsmen. The family connexion was through the Cookes and Belknaps, Bacon’s mother, Anne Cooke, being the great-grand-daughter of Sir Philip Cooke, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Belknap, and sister of Anne Belknap, wife of Sir Henry Wotton’s great-grandfather, Sir Robert Wotton. Sir Henry Wotton was also descended from Sir Henry Belknap, through his mother and his niece, Philippa Wotton, who married Francis Bacon’s nephew, Sir Edmund Bacon. There is little further evidence of their friendship. The mention of “Francesco” and Lady Bacon’s other uncle in Wotton’s letters, may refer perhaps to Francis Bacon. In 1635 Wotton sent Sir Gervase Clifton a collection of Bacon’s letters. Izaak Walton, in his advertisement to the Reliquiae, says that Bacon “thought it not beneath him to collect some of the sayings and apophthegms of this author.” One of these sayings is printed in Bacon’s Apophthegms, No. 64. “Sir Henry Wotton used to say ‘that critics are like brushers of noblemen’s clothes.’”

The epitaph on Bacon’s tomb at St. Michael’s, St. Albans, ending with the well-known phrase, composita solvantur, was composed by Wotton. 4 Among the contemporaries of Shakespeare an interesting but little-known figure is that of the poet and Ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton. It is still remembered that he was the author of two or three beautiful lyrics which are to be found in every anthology; that he went as Ambassador to Venice, and fell into temporary disfavour owing to a witty but indiscreet definition of his office; and that afterwards he became Provost of Eton, where he was visited by the young Milton, and where he fished with Izaak Walton, who quoted his sayings in the Complete Sir Henry Wotton and the most widely cultivated Englishman of his time.

A ripe classical scholar, an elegant Latinist, trained in Greek by his studies with Casaubon, he was an admirable linguist in modern languages as well. He corresponded with Francis Bacon about natural philosophy, and was the friend of most of the learned men of that epoch, both at home and on the Continent; the first English collector of Italian pictures, he brought from Italy, where he lived many years, the refined taste in art and architecture, the varied culture of antiquity and the Renaissance, which was then only to be derived from Italian sources. His experiences of life were exceptionally varied, even in that spacious and enterprising age. Leaving England in 1589, he spent some time abroad in study and adventurous travel; he was much about the Court of Queen Elizabeth; he accompanied Essex to Ireland and on his famous voyages; he went in the service of an Italian Duke to the Court of James VI., and when that King succeeded to the English throne, was sent as his Ambassador to many places. Famous in his own day as a “wit and fine gentleman”, he deserves to be remembered as a noble example of that much maligned class, the “Italianate” Englishmen one who, with all his foreign culture, never lost the sincerity and old-fashioned piety of a “plain Kentish man.” Although his services as an Ambassador were not always of the first importance, and his longer literary works are of a somewhat disappointing character, he yet may be counted as one of the great Elizabethans, with whom high actions were so remarkably combined with high literary expression. For Sir Henry Wotton was endowed with one gift, that of a letter-writer, which none of his more famous contemporaries possessed. Indeed, the very qualities or faults that stood in the way of his complete success, either as a statesman or author; the witty frankness that caused him to be a somewhat indiscreet diplomatist; a certain desultoriness of mind, combined with a great love of leisure and conversation, which hindered the completion of most of his literary tasks, all these made him an admirable correspondent. And letter-writing was not only one of the great pleasures of his life, but, as Ambassador, almost his main duty. Among the somewhat formal and colourless epistles of that age his letters are remarkable for their wit, their beauty of phrase, and the impress of his kindly and meditative nature. His shortest note could not have been written by anyone else; his long diplomatic dispatches are enlivened by reflections, epigrams, and bits of personal comment and observation. Sometimes eloquent, sometimes intimate, now informed by cynical but not unkindly knowledge of the world, and now by honest religious zeal, he put all his stores of thought and experience into his letters, in a way that was unique at the time and is unusual in any age. Anyone who has read those written in the leisure of Venice or Eton will agree that it is no exaggeration to call Sir Henry Wotton the best letter-writer of his time the first Englishman whose correspondence deserves to be read for its literary quality, apart from its historical interest. His style, although it may seem at first, to those not familiar with the style of the time, somewhat courtly and elaborate, yet possesses great qualities of beauty and distinction, and much of that quaint richness of thought and phrase which we associate with authors of a later date George Herbert, Sir Thomas Browne, or Izaak Walton.

Of subsequent writers, Walton owed more than anyone else to Sir Henry Wotton, and may be regarded as his disciple and follower. In the Life of Donne and the Compleat Angler he accomplished tasks which Wotton had left unfinished; and he seems to have caught his simple yet courtly grace of style from the example and discourse of the old Provost. The two men, indeed, had much in common; both were lovers of fishing and quiet days; both possessed the same musing piety and serenity of soul; and both were devoted members of the English Church, whose spirit Walton has so beautifully expressed in his Lives, and in whose orders Sir Henry appropriately ended his life, after striving so long as an Ambassador for its defence and advancement. In the first edition of the Reliquiae Wottonianae, published in 1651, Izaak Walton added to Wotton’s Essays and poems fifty-eight of his letters. Eight more were added to the second edition of 1654, and in 1661 fourty-two new letters, almost all addressed to Sir Edmund Bacon, were printed in a little volume, which is now excessively rare. These, with the addition of thirty-one fresh letters and dispatches, were incorporated in the third edition of the Reliquiae in 1672, and finally in 1685 the Reliquiae was republished with thirty-four more letters, all but one addressed to Lord Zouche, and all written in the early period of Wotton’s life. Izaak Walton seems to have put together Sir Henry Wotton’s letters and papers in the Reliquiae Wottonianae pretty much as they came to hand, with small regard to date or order. Little or no improvement was made in the subsequent editions, and the result is extremely confusing. Letters written in the same year are scattered over different portions of the book, many are without date or address, and there are no notes of any kind. No one has yet attempted to re-edit this correspondence, although the Reliquiae Wottonianae has always been prized by lovers of seventeenth century literature, and the need of a new edition has often been remarked. “His despatches,” Carlyle wrote of Wotton in his Frederick the Great, “are they in the Paper Office still? His good old book deserves new editing, and his good old genially pious life a proper elucidation by some faithful man.”

In 1850 the Roxburghe Club had published a volume containing the sixty-five letters and dispatches of Wotton’s preserved at Eton; and in 1867 thirteen more, preserved at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, had been printed in Vol. CI., of Archaeologia, much the greater part of his correspondence, and many of his most interesting letters, had never yet been printed, and were to be found widely scattered in various manuscript collections, college libraries, the muniment rooms of country houses, and Italian archives. In the Record office alone there are about five hundred letters and dispatches; others are preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the archives of Venice, Florence, and Lucca. Others, of which the originals have disappeared, have been published in different volumes of memoirs and correspondence. Altogether, nearly one thousand of Wotton’s letters and dispatches, published and unpublished exist, and it is possible that there are others which have escaped a researcher. That his diplomatic papers should have been preserved is not surprising; but that nearly fifty letters should remain, written between 1589 and 1593, from Wotton’s twenty-second to his twenty-sixth year, when he was an obscure youth wandering about Europe, is somewhat remarkable, if we remember that James Spedding, with all his research, was only able to find seven letters written in the same early period of Francis Bacon’s life. When travel stained couriers galloped through the gates of old walled cities with, in the phrase repeated by Wotton, “lies in their mouths and truth in their packets” which Francis Bacon attributes the phrase to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. 5 Webster made use of it in Vittoria Corombona, Vol. III., I: “Your mercenary post-boys: your letters carry truth, but ‘tis your guise to fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies”; and when to know the news of the world, to gain the confidence of the well-informed, to study the masked faces of statesmen, and to rob the posts, was a profession in itself. About Wotton’s life while in the service of Essex, we have not much information. Only eleven letters, written between the years 1595 and 1600, seem to have been preserved; and although his name appears occasionally in Anthony Bacon’s papers, the references are for the most part of no great importance. Edward Reynolds, another of the Earl of Essex’s secretaries, wrote to Anthony Bacon that he observed “some spleen in his carriage”; and when in 1596 Essex sent Dr. Henry Hawkins on a political mission to Italy, Anthony Bacon accused Wotton of keeping back some letters of introduction, which were found “in a merchant’s window in London by my Cousin Harry Wotton’s dutiful care and discreet address.” Anthony Bacon wrote to Essex begging that the matter might be sifted to the bottom, and to Hawkins telling of the discovery of the letters, and adding: “but let us leave my cousin for such as he is; but doubt you not but I have and will improve this my cousin’s prank and your disaster for his shame and your advantage the best I can.” Wotton declared, however, that the letters discovered in London were duplicates, and that the originals had been sent; and as we shortly afterwards find Wotton in the position of secretary for Italian and German business, it is plain that Anthony Bacon’s accusations did not injure him in his patron’s [Essex] eyes.

Wotton, in his Parallel, 4th edition on page 169, accuses Anthony Bacon of procuring a gift of Essex House from Essex by a threat to betray to Queen Elizabeth the correspondence between Essex and James I. The improbability of this story has been demonstrated by Birch and Spedding, and other writers. 6 At Lintz, Wotton saw Kepler, and in an interesting and often-quoted letter to Francis Bacon, he describes his first sight of the camera obscura, with which the great astronomer entertained the Ambassador. Wotton urged Kepler to come to England, promising him a favourable reception from James I., but Kepler, although flattered (as his letters show) by Wotton’s visit and invitation, was unwilling to desert Austria, where, in a time of war and trouble, he had found a home. And, moreover, as he quaintly says, being accustomed to the mainland, he dreaded the narrowness and dangers of an island life. In describing to Bacon the camera obscura which Kepler had showed him in 1620, he had remarked that to paint landscapes by this process “were illiberal; though surely no painter can do them so precisely.” And in the second part of his book, where he treats of painting and sculpture, he states as a problem worthy of philosophical examination, “how an artificer, whose end is the imitation of nature, can be too natural.”

3 Collectanea, Oxford Historical Society, I. 278

4 (a) Life of Bacon, prefixed to Rawley’s Resuscitatio, 1657 (b) Aubrey. Brief Lives, 1898, Vol. I. p. 76

5 Works, Ellis and Spedding, Vol. VII. p. 127

6 How the story may have arisen is explained by Spedding, in Notes & Queries, 2nd ser., Vol. III. p. 252

Page 66. Montannus’ Praise of his fair Phoebe. From Lodge’s romance Rosalind, Euphues Golden Legacy, first printed in 1590.
Page 67. Complaint of Thestilis. This poem, here ascribed to the Earl of Surrey, was first printed among poems of uncertain authors in Totte’s Miscellany, 1557.
Page 69. To Phyllis the fair Shepherdess. This poem is signed “S.E.D.” (i.e. Sir Edward Dyer, to whom it is attributed in Davison’s Harleian MS., list), but there can be little doubt that it belongs to Lodge, for it is found in his Phillis, 1593.
Page 70. The Shepherd Doron’s Jig. From Robert Greene’s Menaphon, 1589.
Page 71. Astrophe’s Song of Phyllida and Corydon. This poem of Breton was originally signed “S. Phil. Sidney” in ed. 1600, but a slip was inserted with the signature “N. Breton.” It appears to have been printed for the first time in England’s Helicon; and the same remark applies to other poems of Breton in this collection.
Page 74. The Passionate Shepherd’s Song. Printed in Love’s Labour Lost, 1598. It is the second of the Sonnets to sundry notes of music, appended to The Passionate Pilgrim by Shakespeare, 1599, printed by W. Jaggard.
Page 75. The Unknown Shepherd’s Complaint. From the Sonnets appended to The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. It had previously appeared, set to music, in Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals, 1597, without an author’s name. An early MS., copy (also without author’s name) is preserved in Harl. MS. 6910, fol. 156. There is good ground for attributing the poem (which is signed Ignoto in England’s Helicon to Richard Barnfield; for the poem that follows, which undoubtedly belongs to Barnfield, is headed Another of the same Shepherd’s?
Page 76. Another of the same Shepherd’s. These verses are from a poem of Richard Barnfield printed among Poems in divers Humours appended to the Encomion of Lady Pecunia, 1598. The editor of England’s Helicon truncated Barnfield’s poem, adding two lines of his own to the portion he adopted “Even so, poor bird, like thee none alive will pity me.” In the Sonnets appended to The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, the poem is printed in extenso.
Page 77. The Shepherd’s Allusion. From Watson’s Hecatompathia, 1582.
Page 78. Montanus’ Sonnet. From Lodge’s Rosalind, 1590.
Page 79. Phoebe’s Sonnet. Also from Lodge’s Rosalind.
Page 84. Doron’s Description of his fair Shepherdess Samela. From Greene’s Menaphon, 1589.
Page 85. Wodenfrid’s Song. It has been suggested (by Ritson) that the initials “W.H.” belong to William Hunnis, a contributor to The Paradise of Dainty Devices and author of some devotional poems; but both this poem and the next have more merit than any of Hunnis’s authentic productions.
Page 90. Phyllida’s Love-Call. This exquisite poem, signed Ignoto, has been ascribed, without the slightest authority, to Sir Walter Raleigh.
Page 93. The Shepherd’s Solace. From Watson’s Hecatompathia.
Page 93. Syrenus’ Song to his Eugerius. The poems of Bartholomew Young (of which there are far too many in this collection) are taken from his translation, published in 1598, but finished in MS., May 1, 1583 of Montemayor’s Diana, a famous Spanish romance.
Page 100. The Shepherd’s Ode. First published in Richard Barnfield’s Cynthia, 1595.
Page 103. The Shepherd’s Commendation of his Nymph. This poem of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, had already appeared in The Phoenix Nest, 1593. The Earl of Oxford was also a contributor to The Paradise of Dainty Devices. His poems have been collected by Dr. Grosart.
Page 105. Corydon to his Phyllis. This poem, here ascribed to Sir Edward Dyer, had appeared (without the author’s name) in The Phoenix Nest, I593.
Page 106. The Shepherd’s Description of Love. In an edition of 1600 of England’s Helicon this poem was originally subscribed “S.W.R.” (i.e. Sir Walter Raleigh), but, in the extant copies, over this signature is pasted a slip on which is printed “Ignoto.” In Davison’s MS., list it is signed “Sir W. Rawley.” The poem had been printed, with no distinction of dialogue, and the first line running “Now what is Love, I pray thee tell?” in The Phoenix Nest, 1593. There is an early MS., copy in Harl. MS., 6910. It was set to music in Robert Jones’s Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601. [Also see Part II: Jones Robert.]
Page 107. To his Flocks. The initials “H.C.” doubtless belong to Henry Constable.
Page 108. A Roundelay between two Shepherds. This poem of Michael Drayton seems to have been first published in England’s Helicon. It has not been found among his multitudinous works.
Page 109. The Solitary Shepherd’s Song. From Lodge’s romance A Margarite of America, 1596.
Page 110. The Shepherd’s Resolution in Love. From Watson’s Hecatompathia.
Page 111. Corydoris Hymn. It has been suggested that the initials “T.B.” may belong to Thomas Bastard the epigrammatist, author of Chrestoteros, 1598.
Page 115. Corin’s Dream of his fair Chloris. This poem, signed “W.S.,” is from William Smith’s Chloris, or the Complaint of the passionate despised Shepherd, 1596, which has been reprinted in Dr. Grosart’s Occasional Issues.
Page 116. The Shepherd Damon’s Passion. From Lodge’s Phillis, 1593.
Page 117. The Shepherd Musidorus his Complaint. From Sidney’s Arcadia, 1590, p. 77. Epistle to Lucilius 7 “So far as the stationer’s mere zeal to gain, rather than any propensity to the advancement of learning, did for a while keep Bacon, Raleigh and divers incomparable spirits more from perishing at the bottom of oblivion, good books (anciently written in the bark of trees,) and now turning in their progress, so exactly the fate of Acorns, that if their chance be to withstand the swinish contamination of their own age, and trampling into the dirt of contempt, they do not seldom afterwards become the gods of the nations and have temples dedicated to their worship. As their authors, in this participate with other good men, who attain not to a state of glory till after this life.” The Acorn parable is the one of “cast not your pearls before swine,” which we find so fully expressed in Sir Philip Sidney’s frontispiece to the Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, viz., the picture of a pig smelling some flowers; on a scroll of which is written: Non tibi Spiro, meaning, I do not breathe for thee. 8
Page 117. The Shepherd’s Brawl. From Sidney’s Arcadia, 1590, p. 85.
Page 118. Dorus his Comparisons. From Sidney’s Arcadia, 1590.
Page 122. Damelus’ Song to his Diaphenia. By H[enry] C[onstable]. It is set to music in Francis Pilkington’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1605.
Page 122. The Shepherd Eurymachus to his fair Shepherdess Mirimida. From Robert Greene’s Francesco’s Fortunes, or the Second Part of Greene’s Never Too Late, 1590.
Page 127. The Shepherd’s Praise of his sacred Diana. In ed. 1600 this poem was originally subscribed with the initials “S.W.R.” (Sir Walter Raleigh), but over the signature in the extant copies is pasted a slip on which is printed “Ignoto”; and in ed. 1614 the poem is subscribed “Ignoto.” It had been printed (without a signature) in The Phoenix Nest, 1593. In Davison’s Harleian list it is marked “W.R.”
Page 128. The Shepherd’s Dump. This poem, here assigned to S[ir] E[dward] D[yer], is reprinted (with some variations) on p. 239, where it is subscribed “Ignoto.” It had already been printed in The Phoenix Nest, 1593, where it is attributed to “T.L., Gent.” (i.e. Thomas Lodge). But the confusion about Ignoto is still more confounded. On page 112 of the Helicon is the song entitled The Shepherd’s Dump, subscribed S.E.D. supposed to mean Sir Edward Dyer, and on page 224 the same identical song reappears entitled Thirsis the Shepherd, to his pipe, and signed Ignoto. The editor of 1812 supposes it was reprinted to make a few corrections in the last stanza; but as the verbal variations in that stanza make it positively worse, it is more likely that the compiler did not notice the repetition, but inadvertently put both in as he found them. But even this is not all. In Ellis’s Specimens of the early English Poets, 5th edition, 1845, among the pieces credited to Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke) is a Song, with these words in brackets: “I’d be found in England’s Helicon, where it is signed Ignoto.” On turning to the edition of 1611 we find that song entitled Another of his Cynthia. It is preceded by two evidently by the same pen, entitled To his Flocks and To his Love; and is followed by still Another to his Cynthia. But all these are anonymous in the edition of 1614, and the editor appends to the last one the following remark: “These three [or four?] ditties were taken out of Maister John Dowland’s Book of Tableture for the Lute. The authors’ names not there set down, and therefore left to their owners.” But it happens that the four ditties are all credited to Ignoto in the Table of Contents, prepared by the other editor, so that in the edition of 1614 Ignoto has twenty pieces, besides the one assigned to Marlowe.

With all this confusion what are we to believe in regard to Ignoto? Was he sometimes Raleigh, sometimes Barnfield, sometimes Dyer, sometimes Greville, and sometimes Shakespeare, or someone else? Or was he a single person who “loved better to be a poet than to be counted so;” and who affected to hoodwink the above-named Greville writing to him in 1596: “For poets I can commend none, being resolved to be ever a stranger to them.” And here let us note a bit of internal evidence that Bacon wrote the little poem in praise of the Faerie Queene signed Ignoto. One couplet of it is as follows: “For when men know the goodness of the wine, ‘tis needless for the host to have a sign.” No. 517 of Bacon’s Promus of Formularies and Elegancies is this: “Good wine needs no bush.” The word “bush” as applied to wine is thus defined by Webster: “A branch of ivy (as sacred to Bacchus) hung out at vintners’ doors, or as a tavern sign; hence a tavern sign, or the tavern itself.” And in Shakespeare’s As You Like It: “If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ‘tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.” We leave the reader to put this and that together; argument or comment is superfluous.

Page 131. Rowland’s Madrigal. This poem of Michael Drayton seems to have been printed for the first time in England’s Helicon.
Page 135. Montana the Shepherd, his Love to Aminta. There is an early copy (with no author’s name) of this poem of the Shepherd Tony in Harl. MS. 6910.
Page 136. The Shepherd’s Sorrow for his Phoebe’s Disdain. In ed. 1600 this poem was originally given to “M.F.G.” (i.e. Mr. Fulke Greville), but over this signature is pasted a slip lettered “Ignoto”; in ed. 1614 the poem is subscribed “I.F.” In Davison’s MS., list the poem is given to “F. Grevill.”
Page 138. Espilus and Therion their Contention. From Sidney’s masque The Lady of the May, first published with the poems appended to the 1598 edition of Arcadia.
Page 139. Old Melibceus’ Song. In ed. 1600 this poem was originally subscribed “M.F.G.” (i.e. Mr. Fulke Greville); but in the extant copies of edition 1, a slip (lettered “Ignoto”) is pasted over the signature, and in ed. 1614 there is no signature. The poem is given to “F. Grevill” in Davison’s MS., list.
Page 141. Corydon’s Song. From Lodge’s Rosalind, 1590.
Page 142. The Shepherd’s Sonnet. From Richard Barnfield’s Cynthia, 1595.
Page 145. Montanus his Madrigal. From Robert Greene’s Francesco’s Fortunes, or the Second Part of Greene’s Never Too Late, 1590.
Page 147. Astrophel to Stella. From Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, 1591.
Page 153. Apollo’s Love-Song for Fair Daphne. This poem is set to music in John Dowland’s A Pilgrim’s Solace, 1612. In the last line but one Dowland gives “Then this be sure, since it is true perfection.”
Page 156. Amyntas for his Phyllis. This poem of Watson had appeared in The Phoenix Nest, 1593, where it is subscribed “T.W.”
Page 160. Sireno, a Shepherd, &c. First printed among the Sonnets appended to the 1598 edition of Sidney’s Arcadia.
Page 169. Philistus’ Farewell to False Clorinda. From Thomas Morle’s Madrigals to Four Voices. The First Book, 1594.
Page 169. Rosalindas Madrigal. From Lodge’s Rosalind, 1590.
Page 172. Montanus’ Sonnet. This poem, though it is ascribed to S[ir] Efdward] D[yer] in England’s Helicon, really belongs to Lodge. It is printed in Lodge’s Rosalind, 1590.
Page 174. The Herdman’s Happy Life. From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Page 178. The Shepherd to the Flowers. This poem (subscribed “Ignoto”) was first printed in The Phoenix Nest, 1593, with no signature attached. It is printed in the Oxford edition of Raleigh’s poems, and in Hannah’s poems by Raleigh, Wotton, &c.; but Raleigh’s claim to the authorship is without foundation.
Page 186. To Amaryllis. From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Page 190. Of Phyllida. From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Page 194. Philon the Shepherd his Song. From William Byrd’s Songs of sundry Natures, 1589.
Page 195. Lycoris the Nymph, her Sad Song. From Thomas Morley’s Madrigals to Four Voices, 1594.
Page 196. To his Flocks. From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Page 196. To his Love. From the same songbook of Dowland’s.
Page 198. Another of his Cynthia. From the same song-book of Dowland’s. This poem was doubtless written by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke; for it is not only ascribed to him in Davison’s MS., list, but is printed in “Certain learned and elegant works of the Right Honourable Fulke, Lord Brooke, 1633, fol.”
Page 199. Another to his Cynthia. From the same song-book. In Davison’s MS., list this poem is ascribed to the Earl of Cumberland.
Page 200. Montanus’ Sonnet in the Woods. Though this poem is attributed in England’s Helicon to S[ir] E[dward] D[yer], it really belongs to Lodge, and is found in Rosalind, 1590.
Page 201. The Shepherd’s Sorrow, being disdained in Love. From Lodge’s Phillis, 1593; it is also found in The Phoenix Nest, 1593.
Page 204. A Pastoral Song between Phyllis and Amaryllis. By H[enry] C[onstable].
Page 206. The Shepherd’s Anthem. This poem does not appear in the 1593 collection of Michael Drayton’s eclogues Idea, the Shepherd’s Garland, but it is found in the second eclogue of Poems Lyric and Pastoral (1605?).
Page 209. Another of Astrophel. From the poems appended to the 1598 edition of Sidney’s Arcadia.
Page 210. An Invective against Love. This poem was added in ed. 1614, and in the prefatory table bears the signature “Ignoto.” It had been previously printed in Davison’s Rhapsody, 1602, where it is subscribed “A.W.” There are many charming poems by “A.W.” in Davison’s collection, but it is unknown to whom the initials belong. In Harl. MS., 280 is a long list (presumed to be in the handwriting of Francis Davison) of all the poems written by “A.W.”
Page 212. Fair Phyllis to her Shepherd. Ritson’s suggestion that the signature “J.G.” may belong to John Gough, a dramatist of Charles I’s day (author of The Strange Discovery, 1640), is very wide of the mark, unworthy of so acute a scholar as Ritson. Brydges urges the claim of John Grange, author of the Golden Aphroditis, 1577; but there is little to be said in Grange’s favour. The verses are very much in Constable’s manner.
Page 215. The Shepherd’s Song of Venus and Adonis. By H[enry] C[onstable].
Page 220. Thyrsis the Shepherd, his Death Song. From N. Yonge’s Musica Transalpine, 1588. The two following pieces are from the same song-book.
Page 222. The Shepherd’s Slumber. Signed Ignoto in ed. 1600; there is no signature in ed. 1614. It has been ascribed, without evidence, to Raleigh.
Page 226. If Love be life I long to die. Added in ed. 1614, where it is subscribed “Ignoto.”
Page 227. Another Sonnet. This sonnet of Sidney is among the poems appended to the 1598 edition of Arcadia; but it had been previously printed in Constable’s Diana, &c., 1584.
Page 228. Of Disdainful Daphne. “M. H. Nowell” is the signature attached to this poem in ed. 1600; “M. N. Howell” in ed. 1614. In Davison’s MS., list the poem is given to “H. Nowell.” Of the writer, whether his name be Howell or Nowell, nothing is known.
Page 231. The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd. In ed. 1600 this poem was originally subscribed “S.W.R.” (i.e. Sir Walter Raleigh), but over these initials in the extant copies is pasted a slip, on which is printed “Ignoto.” It is ascribed to Raleigh by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler, 1653.
Page 234. Two Pastorals upon Three Friends Meeting. This poem of Sidney had already appeared in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, 1602. It is the first of Two Pastorals made by Sir Philip Sidney upon his meeting with his two worthy and fellow-poets, Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville. In England’s Helicon only one of the poems is given, though the title Two Pastorals is retained. (The initials in the right hand margin of the fifth stanza belong, of course, to the three poets).
Page 240. An Heroical Poem. This poem had previously appeared in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, subscribed “A.W.,” and headed “Upon an Heroical Poem which he had begun (in imitation of Virgil) of the first inhabiting of this famous isle by Brute and the Trojans.” It is in the Oxford edition of Raleigh’s Poems; but there is not the slightest evidence to show that Raleigh was the author. There is an early MS., copy in Harleian MS. 6910 without a signature.
Page 242. An Excellent Sonnet of a Nymph. This poem of Sidney seems to have been first printed in England’s Helicon.
Page 244. The Lover’s Absence kills me, &c. Printed in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, 1602, with the signature “A.W.”
Page 245. The Shepherd’s Conceit of Prometheus. This sonnet of Dyer, with Sidney’s accompanying sonnet, had appeared among the poems appended to the 1598 edition of Arcadia.
Page 250. Love the only price of Love. Printed in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, 1602, where it is subscribed “A.W.”
Page 251. Colin, the enamoured Shepherd, &c. This poem and the next are from George Peele’s pastoral play, The Arraignment of Paris, 1584.
Page 252. The Shepherds’ Consort. From Thomas Morley’s Madrigals to Four Voices, 1594.
Page 253. Thyrsis’ Praise of his Mistress. This poem of William Browne, author of Britannia’s Pastorals, was first published in England’s Helicon, ed. 1614.
Page 254. A Defiance to Disdainful Love. Printed in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, where it bears the signature “A.W.” It is set to music in Robert Jones’s Ultimum Vale (1608). [Also see Part II: Jones Robert.]
Page 255. An Epithalamium. Printed for the first time in England’s Helicon, 1614. The writer, Christopher Brooke, joined William Browne and George Wither in writing The Shepherd’s Pipe, 1614. He is the author of a rare poem, The Ghost of Richard III. There is a MS., copy of the Epithalamium in the Bodleian Library.

7 Francis Osborn. Historical Memoirs on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, 1658

8 W.F.C. Wigston. The Columbus of Literature, 1892

Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

England’s Helicon

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Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

England’s Helicon

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