who was condemned on account of the Scottish queen. Lord Oxford earnestly solicited his father-in-law, the treasurer Burleigh, to save the duke's life; and not succeeding, he was so incensed against the minister, that, in most absurd and unjust revenge, he swore he would do all he could to ruin his daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but wasted and sold a full third of the vast inheritance that descended to him from his ancestors. Lord Burleigh's own diary assigns a baser cause for Lord Oxford's separation from his wife: "1576, March 29, the Erle of Oxford arryved being retorned out of Italy, he was entyced by certen lewd persons to be a stranger to his wiff." Whatever the occasion of separation, a reconciliation afterwards took place, as Lady Oxford bore her husband a daughter in 1584, another in 1587, and a son. His lordship died, at an advanced age, in 1604, and was buried at Hackney. He was an admired poet, and reckoned the best writer of comedy in his time. The very names of his plays, however, are lost; but a few of his poems are extant in the Paradise of Dainty Devises. A votary of the Muses, and a lord-chamberlain of England, was sure to be looked up to as the Phoebus of poetry and the Mæcenas of every verse-maker. Numerous productions were consequently inscribed to the Earl of Oxford, and high eulogiums passed on his qualifications as a writer. Watson, Lely, Golding, Munday, and Greene, appear among the number of his dedicatory panegyrists; and Spenser and Locke, the best and the worst poets of that period, have each transmitted a complimentary sonnet to his praise. John Farmer, a composer of madrigals, applauds his lordship's judgment in music also; and protests, "without flatterie," that using this science as a recreation, he has overgone most of those who make it a profession." 66 66 Webbe, in an early discourse on English metre, declares that the Earl of Oxford may challenge to himself the title of the most excellent among the rare devisers of poetry in Queen Elizabeth's court. The same noble gentleman" is placed first "in the crew of courtly makers" by Puttenham, and is ranked by Meres among the best for comedy. Mr. Ellis observes, with his usual propriety and judgment, that "Lord Oxford's poetical talents were much admired, or at least extolled, by his contemporaries; and such of his sonnets as are preserved in the Paradise of Dainty Devises are certainly not among the worst, although they are by no means the best in the collection. One only, the Judgment of Desire, can be said to rise a little above mediocrity." ALEXANDER ARBUTHNOT. (1538-1583.) Alexander Arbuthnot, the younger son of the laird of Arbuthnot, in Kincardineshire, was born in 1538; and after pursuing the study of the law at Paris, under Cujat, returned to Scotland, and directing his attention to theology, was presented to the living of Arbuthnot and Logie-Buchan, and in July 1568 sat as one of the General Assembly at Edinburgh. In 1569 he was appointed principal of King's College, Aberdeen; "and," says Spottiswood, "by his diligent teaching and dexterous government, he not only revived the study of good letters, but gained many from the superstitions whereunto they were given." He is considered by Mackenzie, Sibbald, and other writers, to be identical with the Alexander Arbuthnot who, being king's printer, incurred the royal displeasure by printing Buchanan's History of Scotland. Certain it is, that in 1583 he received a presentation to one of the churches of St. Andrew's, which the king would not permit him to enter upon. He was soon, however, placed beyond the reach of mortal restraint, dying at Aberdeen, 10th October, 1583, before he had completed the age of forty-five. His remains were interred, on the 20th of the same month, in the college church. His contemporary, James Melvil, represents him "as a man of singular gifts of learning, wisdom, godliness, and sweetness of nature;" and his character has been thus delineated by the impartial hand of Spottiswood: "He was greatly beloved of all men, hated of none; and in such account for his moderation with the chief men of these parts, that without his advice they could almost do nothing; which put him in a great fashrie, whereof he did oft complain. Pleasant and jocund in conversation, and in all sciences expert; a good poet, mathematician, philosopher, theologue, lawyer, and in medicine skilful; so as in every subject he could promptly discourse, and to good purpose." From the specimens of his metrical powers that have been preserved, The Miseries of a puir Scholar, The Praises of Wemen, and another effusion, Arbuthnot may be pronounced an ingenious and pleasing poet. The Maitland Mss. at Edinburgh and Cambridge contain several unpublished poems by this writer. THOMAS CAMPION. Thomas Campion, who by Camden, in his Remains, is classed with Spenser, Daniel, Jonson, Drayton, and Shakspeare, was a physician in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., who recreated himself with poetry. Educated at Cambridge, he thence removed to Gray's Inn, of which society he was admitted a member in 1586, presumably with a view to the law, which, however, as has been intimated, he relinquished for medicine. "Sweet Master Campion," as he is styled by his contemporaries, was a scientific musician as well as a poet, and wrote as such A New Waye of making four parts in Counterpoint, and Songs bewailing the untimely Death of Prince Henry, set forth to be sung to the lute or viol by John Coprario (i. e. John Cooper). These meritorious compositions, seven in number, are inscribed in a copy of Latin verses to Frederic Count Palatine, the brother-in-law of Prince Henry. Campion also wrote The Description of a Maske presented before the king at Whitehall, in honour of the marriage of Lord Hayes with the daughter of Lord Dennye (1607); Thomæ Campiani Epigrammatum libri ii.; Umbra Elegiarum, liber unus (1619), &c. &c. To Davidson's Poetical Rhapsody he contributed four pieces. He died in January 1623. HENRY CHETTLE. (Circa 1540-1604.) Henry Chettle, at the time of Queen Elizabeth's death, 1603, had been, according to his own statement, young almost thirty years ago," so that we may assume him to have been born somewhere about 1540. Where he was born does not appear. A family of the name is mentioned by Hutchins, in his History of Dorsetshire, as seated at Blandford St. Mary from 1547 to about 1690, and he sets forth the burial of one Henry Chettle in the churchyard there in the year 1616; but whether the family was that of the poet cannot now be determined. The Henry Chettle so buried in 1616 cannot have been the poet himself, for he died before 1607. He appears to have been in early life a compositor; and for a short time, about 1591, a master-printer, in partnership with William Hoskins and John Danter. The period of his commencing author has been variously estimated. Ritson assigns to him a poetical tract published in 1578; but, as Mr. Rimbault, the editor of his Kind Hart's Dreame, points out, Chettle's name does not appear either in Webbe's Discourse of Poetry and Poets, published in 1586, or in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, published in 1589. He may be supposed to have written for the stage some time before 1598, for in that year Meres mentions him among his literary worthies as one of the best for comedy." Malone identifies the year 1597 as that in which he began to write plays, stating, from Henslowe's diary, that between 1597 and 1603 Chettle was concerned in the production of forty plays, only four of which have come down to us. His other writings consist of Piers Plainnes Seaven Years' Prenteship, a prose tract, published 1595; England's Mourning Garment, notices of contemporary poets, published in 1603, and reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany; and Kind Hart's Dreame, containing five Apparitions, with their Invectives against Abuses, &c., published in 1592, and reprinted by the Percy Society. The last tract contains incidental notices of Greene, Marlowe, Tarleton, and Shakspeare. Chettle was also the editor of Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit. As to Chettle's person, he is described by Dekker, in his account of the assemblage of poets in Elysium, as "coming in sweating and blowing, by reason of his fatness." 66 The following is a list of the plays in which Chettle was more or less engaged : 1, 2. The Downfal and Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. (With A. Munday.) 1597-8. 3. The Valiant Welchman. (With Drayton.) Feb. 1598. 4, 5. Earl Goodwin and his three Sons. (With Drayton, Dekker, and R. Wilson.) March 1598. Not printed. 6. Piers of Exton. (With the same.) March 1598. Not printed. 7. Black Batman of the North. Part I. April 1598. Not printed. 8. Black Batman of the North. Part II. (With R. Wilson.) April 1598. Not printed. 9. The Play of a Woman. July 1598. Not printed. 10. The Conquest of Brute, with the first finding of the Bath. (With J. Day and John Singer.) July 1598. Not printed. 11. Hot Anger soon cold. (With Henry Porter and Ben Jonson.) August 1598. Not printed. 12. Catiline's Conspiracy. (With R. Wilson.) Aug. 1598. Not printed. 13. 'Tis no Deceit to deceive the Deceiver. Sept. 1598. Not printed. 14. Æneas' Revenge, with the Tragedy of Polyphemus. Feb. 1599. Not printed. 15. Agamemnon. (With Dekker.) June 1599. Not printed. Malone identifies this play with the Troilus and Cressida assigned by Henslowe to the same authors. 16. The Stepmother's Tragedy. Aug. 1599. Not printed. 17. Patient Grissel. (With Dekker and Wm. Houghton.) Dec. 1599. Printed 1603. 18. The Arcadian Virgin. (With W. Haughton.) Dec. 1599. Not printed. 19. Damon and Pythias. Jan. 1600. Not printed. 20. The Seven Wise Masters. (With Dekker, Haughton, and Day.) March 1600. Not printed. 21. The Golden Ass, and Cupid and Psyche. (With Dekker and Day.) April 1600. Not printed. 22. The Wooing of Death. April 1600. Not printed. 23. The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. (With J. Day.) April 1600. Printed 1659., 24. All is not Gold that glitters. (With S. Rowley.) March 1601. Not printed. 25. Sebastian, King of Portugal. (With Dekker.) April 1601. Not printed. 26, 27. Cardinal Wolsey, in two parts. August 1601, May 1602. Not printed. 28. The Orphan's Tragedy. 29. Too Good to be True. Nov. 1601. Not printed. Sept. 1601. Not printed. (With R. Hathwaye and Wentworth Smith.) 30. Love parts Friendship. (With Wentworth Smith.) May 1602. Not printed. 31. Tobyas. May 1602. Not printed. |