Read Ebook: The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume I. by Cibber Theophilus

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Manners of the Court.

Invective against William Lyle the Grammarian.

Epitaphs on Kings, Princes, and Nobles,

Collin Clout.

Poetical Fancies and Satires.

Verses on the Death of Arthur Prince of Wales.

ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

To you these accorde; these unto you are due, Of you late proceeding as of their head fountayne; Your life as example in writing I ensue, For, more then my writing within it can contayne: Your manners performeth and doth there attayne: So touching these vertues, ye have in your living More than this my meter conteyneth in writing. My dities indited may counsell many one, But not you, your maners surmounteth my doctrine Wherefore, I regard you, and your maners all one, After whose living my processes, I combine: So other men instrusting, I must to you encline Conforming my process, as much as I am able, To your sad behaviour and maners commendable.

He was author of the following pieces.

Lives of several of the Saints.

Salust's History of the Jugurthiam war translatcd into English.

The Castle of Labour, translated from the French into English.

Bale gives this author but an indifferent character as to his morals; he is said to have intrigued with women, notwithstanding his clerical profession: It is certain he was a gay courtly man, and perhaps, tho' he espoused the Church in his profession, he held their celebacy and pretended chastity in contempt, and being a man of wit, indulged himself in those pleasures, which seem to be hereditary to the poets.

Sir THOMAS MORE.

Tho' poetry is none of the excellencies in which this great man was distinguished, yet as he wrote some verses with tolerable spirit, and was in almost every other respect one of the foremost geniusses our nation ever produced, I imagine a short account of his life here will not be disagreable to the readers, especially as all Biographers of the Poets before me have taken notice of him, and ranked him amongst the number of Bards. Sir Thomas More was born in Milk-street, London, A.D. 1480. He was son to Sir John More, Knight, and one of the Justices of the King's-Bench, a man held in the highest esteem at that time for his knowledge in the law and his integrity in the administration of justice. It was objected by the enemies of Sir Thomas, that his birth was obscure, and his family mean; but far otherwise was the real case. Judge More bore arms from his birth, having his coat of arms quartered, which proves his having come to his inheritance by descent. His mother was likewise a woman of family, and of an extraordinary virtue.

Doctor Clement relates from the authority of our author himself, a vision which his mother had, the next night after her marriage. She thought she saw in her sleep, as it were engraven in her wedding ring, the number and countenances of all the children she was to have, of whom the face of one was so dark and obscure, that she could not well discern it, and indeed she afterwards suffered an untimely delivery of one of them: the face of the other she beheld shining most gloriously, by which the future fame of Sir Thomas was pre-signified. She also bore two daughters. But tho' this story is told with warmth by his great grandson, who writes his life, yet, as he was a Roman Catholic, and and disposed to a superstitious belief in miracles and visions, there is no great stress to be laid upon it. Lady More might perhaps communicate this vision to her son, and he have embraced the belief of it; but it seems to have too little authority, to deserve credit from posterity.

Another miracle is related by Stapleton, which is said to have happened in the infancy of More. His nurse one day crossing a river, and her horse stepping into a deep place, exposed both her and the child to great danger. She being more anxious for the safety of the child than her own, threw him over a hedge into a field adjoining, and escaping likewise from the imminent danger, when she came to take him up, she found him quite unhurt and smiling sweetly upon her.

He was put to the free-school in London called St. Anthony's, under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father's interest under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor, whose gravity and learning, generosity and tenderness, allured all men to love and honour him. To him More dedicated his Utopia, which of all his works is unexceptionably the most masterly and finished. The Cardinal finding himself too much incumbered with business, and hurried with state affairs to superintend his education, placed him in Canterbury College in Oxford, whereby his assiduous application to books, his extraordinary temperance and vivacity of wit, he acquired the first character among the students, and then gave proofs of a genius that would one day make a great blaze in the world. When he was but eighteen years old such was the force of his understanding, he wrote many epigrams which were highly esteemed by men of eminence, as well abroad as at home. Beatus Rhenanus in his epistle to Bilibalus Pitchemerus, passes great encomiums upon them, as also Leodgarius ? Quercu, public reader of humanity at Paris. One Brixius a German, who envied the reputation of this young epigramatist, wrote a book against these epigrams, under the title of Antimorus, which had no other effect than drawing Erasmus into the field, who celebrated and honoured More; whose high patronage was the greatest compliment the most ambitious writer could expect, so that the friendship of Erasmus was cheaply purchased by the malevolence of a thousand such critics as Brixius. About the same time of life he translated for his exercise one of Lucian's orations out of Greek into Latin, which he calls his First Fruits of the Greek Tongue; and adds another oration of his own to answer that of Lucian; for as he had defended him who had slain a tyrant, he opposed against it another with such forcible arguments, that it seems not to be inferior to Lucian's, either in invention or eloquence: When he was about twenty years old, finding his appetites and passions very predominant. He struggled with all the heroism of a christian against their influence, and inflicted severe whippings and austere mortifications upon himself every friday and on high fasting days, left his sensuality would grow too insolent, and at last subdue his reason. But notwithstanding all his efforts, finding his lusts ready to endanger his soul, he wisely determined to marry, a remedy much more natural than personal inflictions; and as a pattern of life, he proposed the example of a singular lay-man, John Picas Earl of Mirandula, who was a man famous for chastity, virtue, and learning. He translated this nobleman's life, as also many of his letters, and his twelve receipts of good life, which are extant in the beginning of his English works. For this end he also wrote a treatise of the four last things, which he did not quite finish, being called to other studies.

About the year 1516, he composed his famous book called the Utopia, and gained by it great reputation. Soon after it was published, it was translated both into French and Italian, Dutch and English. Dr. Stapleton enumerates the opinions of a great many learned men in its favour. This work tho' not writ in verse, yet in regard of the fancy and invention employed in composing it, may well enough pass for an allegorical poem. It contains the idea of a compleat Commonwealth in an imaginary island, and that so well counterfeited, that many upon reading it, mistook it for a real truth, in so much that some learned men, as Budeus, Johannes Plaudanus, out of a principle of fervent zeal, wished that some excellent divines might be sent hither to preach Christ's Gospel.

A ship of the Pope's, by the violence of a storm was driven into Southampton, which the King claimed as a forfeiture; when the day of hearing came on before the Lord High Chancellor, and other Judges, More argued so forcibly in favour of the Pope, that tho' the Judges had resolved to give it for the King, yet they altered their opinion, and confirmed the Pope's right. In a short time after this, he was created a Knight, and after the death of Mr. Weston, he was made Treasurer of the Exchequer, and one of the Privy Council. He was now Speaker of the House of Commons, and thus exalted in dignity, the eyes of the nation were fixed upon him. Wolsey, who then governed the realm, found himself much grieved by the Burgesses, because all their transactions were so soon made public, and wanting a fresh subsidy, came to the house in person to complain of this usage. When the burgesses heard of his coming, it was long debated whether they should admit him or no, and Sir Thomas strongly urged that he should be admitted, for this reason, that if he shall find fault with the spreading of our secrets, we may lay the blame upon those his Grace brought with him. The proud Churchman having entered the House, made a long speech for granting the subsidy, and asked several of the Members opinion concerning it; they were all so confounded as not to be able to answer, and the House at last resolved that their Speaker should reply for them. Upon this Sir Thomas shewed that the cardinal's coming into the House was unprecedented, illegal, and a daring insult on the liberty of the burgesses, and that the subsidy demanded was unnecessary; upon which Wolsey suddenly departed in a rage, and ever after entertained suspicions of More, and became jealous of his great abilities. Our author's fame was not confined to England only; all the scholars and statesmen in every country in Europe had heard of, and corresponded with him, but of all strangers he had a peculiar esteem for Erasmus, who took a journey into England in order to converse with him, and enter more minutely into the merit of one whose learning he had so high an opinion of. They agreed to meet first at my Lord Mayor's table, and as they were personally unknown, to make the experiment whether they could discover one another by conversation. They met accordingly, and remained some hours undiscovered; at last an argument was started in which both engaged with great keenness, Erasmus designedly defended the unpopular side, but finding himself so strongly pressed, that he could hold it no longer, he broke out in an extasy, aut tu es Morus, aut Nullus. Upon which More replied, aut tu es Erasmus, aut Diabolus, as at that time Erasmus was striving to defend very impious propositions, in order to put his antagonist's strength to the proof.

When he lived in the city of London as a justice of peace, he used to attend the sessions at Newgate. There was then upon the bench a venerable old judge, who was very severe against those who had their purses cut; and told them that it was by their negligence that so many purse-cutters came before him. Sir Thomas, who was a great lover of a joke, contrived to have this judge's purse cut from him in the sessions house by a felon. When the felon was arraigned, he told the court, that if he were permitted to speak to one of the judges in private, he could clear his innocence to them; they indulged him in his request, and he made choice of this old judge, and while he whispered something in his ear, he slily cut away his purse; the judge returned to the bench, and the felon made a sign to Sir Thomas of his having accomplished the scheme. Sir Thomas moved the court, that each of them should bestow some alms on a needy person who then stood falsly accused, and was a real object of compassion. The motion was agreed to, and when the old man came to put his hand in his purse, he was astonished to find it gone, and told the court, that he was sure he had it when he came there. What, says More in a pleasant manner, do you charge any of us with felony? the judge beginning to be angry, our facetious author desired the felon, to return his purse, and advised the old man never to be so bitter against innocent men's negligence, when he himself could not keep his purse safe in that open assembly.

Although he lived a courtier, and was much concerned in business, yet he never neglected his family at home, but instructed his daughters in all useful learning, and conversed familiarly with them; he was remarkably fond of his eldest daughter Margaret, as she had a greater capacity, and sprightlier genius than the rest. His children often used to translate out of Latin, into English, and out of English into Latin, and Dr. Stapleton observes, that he hath seen an apology of Sir Thomas More's to the university of Oxford, in defence of learning, turned into Latin by one of his daughters, and translated again into English by another. Margaret, whose wit was superior to the rest, writ a treatise on the four last things, which Sir Thomas declared was finer than his; she composed several Orations, especially one in answer to Quintilian, defending a rich man, which he accused for having poisoned a poor man's bees with certain venomous flowers in his garden, so eloquent and forcible that it may justly rival Quintilian himself. She also translated Eusebius out of Greek.

Tho' Sir Thomas was thus involved in public affairs and domestic concerns, yet he found leisure to write many books, either against Heretics, or of a devotional cast; for at that time, what he reckoned Heresy began to diffuse itself over all Germany and Flanders. He built a chapel in his parish church at Chelsea, which he constantly attended in the morning; so steady was he in his devotion. He hired a house also for many aged people in the parish, which he turned into an hospital, and supported at his own expence. He at last rose to the dignity of Lord High Chancellor upon the fall of Wolsey, and while he sat as the Chief Judge of the nation in one court, his father, aged upwards of 90, sat as Chief Justice in the King's Bench; a circumstance which never before, nor ever since happened, of a father being a Judge, and his son a Chancellor at the same time. Every day, as the Chancellor went to the Bench, he kneeled before his father, and asked his blessing. The people soon found the difference between the intolerable pride of Wolsey, and the gentleness and humility of More; he permitted every one to approach him without reserve; he dispatched business with great assiduity, and so cleared the court of tedious suits, that he more than once came to the Bench, and calling for a cause, there was none to try. As no dignity could inspire him with pride, so no application to the most important affairs could divert him from sallies of humour, and a pleasantry of behaviour. It once happened, that a beggar's little dog which she had lost, was presented to lady More, of which me was very fond; but at last the beggar getting notice where the dog was, she came to complain to Sir Thomas as he was sitting in his hall, that his lady withheld her dog from her; presently my lady was sent for, and the dog brought with her, which he taking in his hand, caused his wife to stand at the upper end of the hall, and the beggar at the other; he then bad each of them call the dog, which when they did, the dog went presently to the beggar, forsaking my lady. When he saw this, he bad my lady be contented for it was none of hers. My Lord Chancellor then gave the woman a piece of gold, which would have bought ten such dogs, and bid her be careful of it for the future.

A friend of his had spent much time in composing a book, and went to Sir Thomas to have his opinion of it; he desired him to turn it into rhime; which at the expence of many years labour he at last accomplished, and came again to have his opinion: Yea marry, says he, now it is somewhat; now it is rhime, but before it was neither rhime nor reason.

Some time after his condemnation Mr. secretary Cromwel waited on Sir Thomas, and entreated him to accept his Majesty's pardon, upon the condition of taking the oath, and expressed great tenderness towards him. This visit and seeming friendship of Cromwel not a little affected him, he revolved in his mind the proposal which he made, and as his fate was approaching, perhaps his resolution staggered a little, but calling to mind his former vows, his conscience, his honour, he recovered himself again, and stood firmly prepared for his fall. Upon this occasion it was that he wrote the following verses, mentioned both by Mr. Roper and Mr. Hoddeson, which I shall here insert as a specimen of his poetry.

Ey flattering fortune, loke thou never so fayre, Or never so pleasantly begin to smile, As tho' thou would'st my ruine all repayre, During my life thou shalt not me begile, Trust shall I God to entre in a while His haven of heaven sure and uniforme, Ever after thy calme loke I for a storme.

On the 6th of July, 1534, in the 54th year of his age, the sentence of condemnation was executed upon him on Tower Hill, by severing his head from his body. As he was carried to the scaffold, some low people hired by his enemies cruelly insulted him, to whom he gave cool and effectual answers. Being now under the scaffold, he looked at it with great calmness, and observing it too slenderly built, he said merrily to Mr. Lieutenant, "I pray you, Sir, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." When he mounted on the scaffold, he threw his eyes round the multitude, desired them to pray for him, and to bear him witness that he died for the holy catholic church, a faithful servant both to God and the King. His gaiety and propension to jesting did not forsake him in his last moments; when he laid his head upon the block, he bad the executioner stay till he had removed aside his beard, saying, "that that had never committed treason." When the executioner asked his forgiveness, he kissed him and said, "thou wilt do me this day a greater benefit than any mortal man can be able to give me; pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thy office, my neck is very short, take heed therefore that thou strike not awry for saving thy honesty."

Thus by an honest but mistaken zeal fell Sir Thomas More; a man of wit and parts superior to all his contemporaries of integrity unshaken; of a generous and noble disposition; of a courage intrepid; a great scholar and a devout christian. Wood says that he was but an indifferent divine, and that he was very ignorant of antiquity and the learning of the fathers, but he allows him to be a man of a pleasant and fruitful imagination, and a statesman beyond any that succeeded him.

His works besides those we have already mentioned are chiefly these,

A Merry Jest, How a Serjeant will learn to play a Friar, written in verse.

Verses on the hanging of a Painted Cloth in his Father's House.

Verses on the Book of Fortune.

Dialogue concerning Heresies.

Supplication of Souls, writ in answer to a book called the Supplication of Beggars.

A Confutation of Tindal's Answer to More's Dialogues, printed 1533.

The Debellation of Salem and Bizance, 1533.

In answer to another book of Tindal's.

Treatise on the Passion of Chrift.

Letters while in the Tower, all printed 1557.

Progymnasmata.

Responsio ad Convitia Martini Lutheri, 1523.

Quod pro Fide Mors fugienda non est, written in the Tower 1534.

Precationes ex Psalmis.

HENRY HOWARD, Earl of SURRY

All soul, no earthly flesh, why dost thou fade? All gold; no earthly dross, why look'st thou pale? Sickness how darest thou one so fair invade? Too base infirmity to work her bale. Heaven be distempered since she grieved pines, Never be dry, these my sad plaintive lines.

Pearch thou my spirit on her silver breasts, And with their pains redoubled musick beatings, Let them toss thee to world where all toil rests, Where bliss is subject to no fears defeatings, Her praise I tune, whose tongue doth tune the spheres, And gets new muses in her hearers ears.

Stars fall to fetch fresh light from the rich eyes, Her bright brow drives the fun to clouds beneath. Her hair reflex with red strakes paints the skyes, Sweet morn and evening dew flows from her breath: Phoebe rules tides, she my tears tides forth draws. In her sick bed love fits, and maketh laws.

Her dainty lips tinsel her silk-soft sheets, Her rose-crown'd cheeks eclipse my dazled sight. O glass with too much joy, my thoughts thou greets, And yet thou shewest me day but by twilight. I'll kiss thee for the kindness I have felt. Her lips one kiss would into nectar melt.

From the emperor's court he went to the city of Florence, the pride and glory of Italy, in which city his beauteous Geraldine was born, and he had no rest till he found out the house of her nativity, and being shewn the room where his charmer first drew air, he was transported with extasy of joy, his tongue overflowed with her praises, and Winstanly says he eclipsed the sun and moon with comparisons of his Geraldine, and wrote another sonnet in praise of the chamber that was honoured with her radiant conception; this sonnet is equally amorous and spirited with that already inserted. In the duke of Florence's court he published a proud challenge against all comers, whether Christians, Turks, Canibals, Jews, or Saracens, in defence of his mistress's beauty; this challenge was the better received there, as she whom he defended was born in that city: The duke of Florence however sent for him, and enquired of his fortune, and the intent of his coming to his court; of which when the earl informed him, he granted to all countries whatever, as well enemies and outlaws, as friends and allies, free access into his dominions unmolested till the trial were ended.

In the year 1544, upon the expedition to Boulogne in France, he was made field marshal of the English army, and after taking that town, being then knight of the garter, he was in the beginning of September 1545 constituted the King's lieutenant, and captain-general of all his army within the town and county of Boulogne. During his command there in 1546, hearing that a convoy of provisions of the enemy was coming to the fort at Oultreaw, he resolved to intercept it; but the Rhinegrave, with four thousand Lanskinets, together with a considerable number of French under the de Bieg, making an obstinate defence, the English were routed, Sir Edward Poynings with divers other gentlemen killed, and the Earl himself obliged to fly, tho' it appears, by a letter to the King dated January 8, 1548, that this advantage cost the enemy a great number of men. But the King was so highly displeased with this ill success, that from that time he contracted a prejudice against the Earl, and soon after removed him from his command, and appointed the Earl of Hertford to succeed him. Upon which Sir William Page wrote to the Earl of Surry to advise him to procure some eminent post under the Earl of Hertford, that he might not be unprovided in the town and field. The Earl being desirous in the mean time to regain his former favour with the King, skirmished with the French and routed them, but soon after writing over to the King's council that as the enemy had cast much larger cannon than had been yet seen, with which they imagined they should soon demolish Boulogne, it deserved consideration whether the lower town should stand, as not being defensible; the council ordered him to return to England in order to represent his sentiments more fully upon those points, and the Earl of Hertford was immediately sent over in his room. This exasperating the Earl of Surry, occasioned him to let fall some expressions which favoured of revenge and dislike to the King, and a hatred of his Councellors, and was probably one cause of his ruin, which soon after ensued. The Duke of Norfolk, who discovered the growing power of the Seymours, and the influence they were likely to bear in the next reign, was for making an alliance with them; he therefore pressed his son to marry the Earl of Hertford's daughter, and the Dutchess of Richmond, his own daughter, to marry Sir Thomas Seymour; but neither of these matches were effected, and the Seymours and Howards then became open enemies. The Seymours failed not to inspire the King with an aversion to the Norfolk-family, whose power they dreaded, and represented the ambitious views of the Earl of Surry; but to return to him as a poet.

That celebrated antiquary, John Leland, speaking of Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder, calls the Earl, 'The conscript enrolled heir of the said Sir Thomas, in his learning and other excellent qualities.' The author of a treatise, entitled, 'The Art of English Poetry, alledges, that Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder, and Henry Earl of Surry were the two chieftains, who having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poetry, greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poetry, from what it had been before, and therefore may be justly called, The Reformers of our English Poetry and Stile.' Our noble author added to learning, wisdom, fortitude, munificence, and affability. Yet all these excellencies of character, could not prevent his falling a sacrifice to the jealousy of the Peers, or as some say to the resentment of the King for his attempting to wed the Princess Mary; and by these means to raise himself to the Crown. History is silent as to the reasons why the gallantries he performed for Geraldine did not issue in a marriage. Perhaps the reputation he acquired by arms, might have enflamed his soul with a love of glory; and this conjecture seems the more probable, as we find his ambition prompting him to make love to the Princess from no other views but those of dominion. He married Frances, daughter to John Earl of Oxford, after whose death he addressed Princess Mary, and his first marriage, perhaps, might be owing to a desire of strengthening his interest, and advancing his power in the realm. The adding some part of the royal arms to his own, was also made a pretence against him, but in this he was justified by the heralds, as he proved that a power of doing so was granted by some preceeding Monarchs to his forefathers. Upon the strength of these suspicions and surmises, he and his father were committed to the Tower of London, the one by water, the other by land, so that they knew not of each other's apprehension. The fifteenth day of January next following he was arraigned at Guildhall, where he was found guilty by twelve common jurymen, and received judgment. About nine days before the death of the King he lost his head on Tower-Hill; and had not that Monarch's decease so soon ensued, the fate of his father was likewise determined to have been the same with his sons.

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