Giles and Phineas Fletcher
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com May This Book is the Gift of Harold R. Walley Professor of English H i from 1925 to 1966 CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH CLASSICS The Poetical Works of Giles Fletcher and Phineas Fletcher In Two Volumes GILES FLETCHER (The Younger) Born, circa I 58 5 Died, 162 3 PHINEAS FLETCHER Born, 1582 Died, 1650 A!)'7; 1 fa'a'né <7 ’ :‘h’A'I’I/élkflr .7 r, ZZZ-21%" > f[rm/2'! k ‘ u’flr j, n/ :yfl‘wpl/Fr 7'14”?! ~ ‘ , V _ ' v “'1' f'Iiae-L 1U; 5 inf/11', [p 1.7/ I / ~ ‘10:: _ . if 1,; 6. A w ff ‘. ~ 4, H WV w; , _ . 7 1:1” 12 wffi’rj" “2"” I???" Q“! ~ 3 .7 CELIA '-' ; m yj ‘ t .'? _', {23,5,“ ‘ Tia/by”, [6t ‘14”,1/1117' #7., ,‘Hl‘bfi fl - ‘ f 7 6, DA ( 1‘ i1,347.,4551 - 0" _!;'fl~7(ff - i \ ~, - "L , “;- if, k I ‘7 t r igl'E/I‘liui'ft’ ' ' . Jhnzaflélfr g § 51/ y!/A'!:‘FLZ;(;r/.'ff v ‘ ,- ‘r I i .7 ~ {at {a an“? 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BOAS, M.A., Formerly Professor of English Literature in Queen’s College, Belfast, and Clark Lecturer in Trinity College, Cambridge Volume I CAMBRIDGE: at the University Press 1908 ZVRaml Am \%0% \/,| CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY_PRESS WAREHOUSE, C. F. CLAY, MANAGER. 101111011: FETTER LANE, E.C. Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. mm“; F. A. BROCKHAUS. mm mm c. P. PUTNAM'S sonst Bumbag m @alrutta: MACMILLAN AND co., LTD. [A ll Rag/its reamed] PREFACE. HE present volume contains all the extant poetical works of Giles Fletcher, and those of his brother Phineas‘, including the piscatorial play Sicelides, which were published before I633. A second volume will contain the poems of Phineas Fletcher published in or after that year. The only editions of the collected poems of the two brothers hitherto issued are those by the Rev. A. B. Grosart. He printed for private circulation in T he Fuller Wartbies’ Library the Poems of Giles Fletcher in one volume in I 868, and the Poems of Phineas Fletcher in 'four volumes in 1869.. He published a revised edition of Giles Fletcher’s Poems (Chatto and Windus) in r876; a similar publication of those of Phineas was contemplated but not carried out. Every later editor must pay tribute to. Grosart’s industry and enthusiasm. His volumes marked a great advance upon the modern ised and incomplete reprints which had preceded them, and they have done much to revive the study of the two writers. But Grosart’s limitations as editor and critic are well known, and a reproduction of the poems, in convenient form, from the original texts and MSS. is a need of English scholarship which the present edition endeavours to supply. In this volume appear (in addition to some frag ments of translation) five poems by Giles Fletcher, two 1 The accepted spelling of the name has been retained in this edition, pq4‘2“ though Fletcher himself always uses the form Plu'neer. V PREFACE of which, an English and a Latin elegy on Henry, Prince of Wales, have not hitherto been reprinted. The first poem, A Canto on the death of Eliza, originally formed part of the academic miscellany, Sorrowes 70y. Or, A Lamentation for our late deceased So'veraigne Eliza heth, with a triumph for the prosperous succession of our ' gratious King, 7am“, published at Cambridge by John Legat in 1603. It was reprinted by Nichols in his Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 111. 2 57—9 (1805), and his Progresses of 7ames 1., vol. I. 17—19 (1828). Grosart adopted the text used in the Progresses of 7ames 1., but with some inaccuracies. The poem is here reproduced from the original version in Sorrowes 70y. Christ: Victorie and Triumph is reprinted from the Quarto published at Cambridge by Cantrell Legge in 1610. This was the only edition which appeared in the author’s lifetime, and it has therefore been taken as the basis of the present text. But the edition issued at Cambridge in 1632 by Francis Green must have had the authority, and probably the supervision, of Phineas Fletcher, who appended to his original com mendatory stanzas (cf. p. 14 and Notes) a couplet addressed Defuncto fratri. Think (if thou canst) how mounted on his spheare, In heaven now he sings: thus sung he here. Its readings, therefore, claim special consideration, and, in some cases, indicated by square brackets, they have been adopted in preference to those of the earlier. edition. All variants are recorded in the Notes. The Quarto of 1640, printed by Roger Daniel for Richard Royston is merely a reissue of that of 1632, with a different title-page, and with the addition of seven engravings, by George Yate, of scenes from the VI PREFACE Gospel narrative. Two of these engravings, represent ing the Nativity and the Temptation in the Wilderness, are reproduced in this volume, and in the Notes I have given a detailed description of all the engravings, including the curious miniatures, which, in each case, accompany the principal scenes. The short poem in couplets, for which I have suggested as title 11 Description of Encolpius, is tran scribed from the Bodleian Tanner MSS., 46 5, f. 42, in Archbishop Sancroft’s handwriting. It was printed by Grosart in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, vol. III. pp. 510—12 (1872), and later in his revised edition of Giles Fletcher’s Poems in 1876, but very inaccurately. Moreover from his remarks Grosart seems to have thought that Encolpus, as the name is misspelt in the MS., was a work of Petronius, instead of a character in his prose satire. The two Elegies on Henry, Prince of Wales, are here for the first time reproduced since they appeared in 1612 ‘, though Thomas Fuller in T he Church-History of Britain (1655), Bk. x. p. 67, stated that the prince “was generally lamented of the whole Land, both Uni rversities publishing their Verses in print,” and quoted the last four lines of the Carmen Sepulchrale (cf. p. 270) “made by Giles Fletcher of Trinity Colledge in Cam bridge on this PRINCES plain grave, because wanting an inscription.” Fuller adds an English version of his own: If wise, amaz’d depart this holy Grave; Nor these New-ashes, ash what Names the] have. The Graver in concealing them was wise. For, who :0 knows, straight melt: in tear: and diet. This passage in the Church-History is alluded to by Joseph Hunter in his Chorus Vatum, vol. I. p. 124 1 They are printed in the Appendix, pp. 266—70, as I came upon their track after the earlier part of this volume had passed through the press. a 5 vu PREFACE (British Museumdddit. MSS., 24,48 7), but Hunter does not appear to have known anything of Fletcher’s poem except the lines quoted by Fuller. I have succeeded in finding the epitaph and the Latin elegy by which it is preceded in Epicedium Cantahrigiense, In ahitum im maturum, semperg deflena'um, Henrici, Illustrissimi Princzpis Walliee, &c., a collection of memorial verses on Prince Henry by members of the University, published by Cantrell Legge in 1612. They occur on pp. 12—14. of the volume and are signed G [iles] F [letcher] T[rinity] C’Lollege]. The collection, in its original form, consisted o I 12 pages, and its contents were in classical or foreign languages. But in another issue, also of 1612, there is a supplementary sheaf of English poems on pages numbered, by some confusion, from 97 to I IO. The first of these additions, signed in the same manner as the Latin verses, is the elegy by Giles Fletcher, Upon the most lamented departure of the right hapefull, and hlessed Prince Henrie Prince of Wales‘. It is gratifying to be able to enlarge the too slender store of Fletcher’s poetry by this set of verses, which are additionally interesting as written not in the eight-line stanza of A Canto upon the death of Eliza and Christ: Victorie and Triumph, but in “the rhyme royal” which the author has hitherto not been known to have used. The verses also claim attention as being the last that we possess from Giles Fletcher’s pen, and as forming another link in the chain of literary associations connected with Prince Henry”.