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A Shakespeare Allusion of 1605 and Its Author

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A Shakespeare Allusion of 1605 and Its Author A SHAKESPEARE ALLUSION OF 1605 AND ITS AUTHOR HILTON KELLIHER SURPRISINGLY few critical notices of Shakespeare have so far been recovered from sources dating from his own lifetime; fewer than a dozen are known to survive, and all of these originate from more or less professional literary circles. The most famous is the schoolmaster Francis Meres's comment in Palladts Tamia (1598): 'As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.' Apparently the only other estimates recorded until now of his skill as a writer of tragedy are a marginal jotting by Gabriel Harvey and a sentence in Anthony Skoloker's Daiphantus (1604), both specifically praising Hamlet. A further testimony has now come to light which, though decidedly more ambiguous than these, implies that for one gentleman playgoer, as for Meres, Shakespeare was the greatest tragedian of the age. The new allusion occurs in a letter that has been available to the scholarly public since its acquisition in 1841 among the manuscripts and charters that were purchased by Sir Frederick Madden for the British Museum from Stephen Newman, a lawyer of Pentonville.^ The letter in question, now bound up (Add. MS. 11757, fols. iO5-io6b) in a collection of miscellaneous papers, was sent from Paris on 10 October 1605 by the twenty-year-old John Poulett, later ist Baron of that name, to his uncle Sir Francis Vincent, who became ist Baronet, of Stoke D'Aber- non in Surrey, while the writer was finishing his education with a tour of the Continent. In the text that follows Poulett's spelling and punctuation are preserved, but common contractions have been expanded. Sir I receaued your letter the 8^^ of October, which by the date you gaue him, seemed to be long a comming, yet was it neuer the lesse wellcomme, comming from your selfe, and bringing so good news. I would I knewe how to expresse sufficientlye to my Aunt, the joye I hadde to heare her desyre accomplished, for I remembre, to haue heard her often wish for an other daughter. I haue beene so wearyed with traueling this sommer, that synce my comming to this towne I haue beene sicke, but (I thanke god) am now well agayne, and my Lo: Norreys hath taken the reuersion of my sicknesse, which (I feare me) will not Leaue him so soone; wee came out of Spayne together with an intention to haue gone into the Lowe Countryes but these accidents of sicknesse, haue hyndred us so long that the tyme of the yeare is now past, and the armyes gone into Garison: There are verye lyke to be warres in this countrye forthwith, for the King is in the field with a verye galant Armye, and hath marched aboue a 100 - and 60 miles, so that we daylye looke for somme exploite; I thanke you, for putting me in mynd to write to my Lo: Cheefe Justice, I haue written to him twice allreadye, once from this place, agayne out of Spayne, but I perceaue he hath not receaued any, I haue written to him now agayne, which I hope he will receaue. I am gladde to heare you arc so well hawked, I shall manye tymes this winter, in a delicious morning wish my selfe with you one the top of Burtrig, and to eate a coke and bacon. I praye yf you hawk at Sydberye this winter to remembre me to Sir Thomas Prediox, and Mistress More; Thus leauing you in the myddest of your Sportes, (which in respect of those which this countrye allowes, seeme rather fitt for Ladyes then, for Caualliers: wee for to passe the winters bitter cold, doe with a Jauelin chasse the brisseled bore, and sometymes, mounted one a fowming Curtol, doe rend the woods to hounde the furious bulle, and sometymes for to haue more gentle sport doe hunt the fearfull Roe, these did I offten see the Last winter, and now the season commeth in agayne; the danger in these sports makes them seeme good, men seeme in them as actors in a Tragedye, and my thinkes I could play Shackesbeare in relating; Sir I hadde leaft you in your sports a greate whyle agone, but this desyre to relate you our tragicke sports made me forgett when to take my Leaue; yf I knew how to gossope, I should use a greate manye gossoping Phrases, (you may thanke god I cannot) that you be not troubled with deliuering them.) I will onlye commend my best loue to your selfe and my Aunt, and without any more ceremonie<s>, take my leaue allwayes resting Your Most assured louing Nephew. Jo: Poulett: Paris the io^^ of October. 1605. The passage about the manly sports that France afforded comes as something of an afterthought to the main concerns of the writer, and prompted the recollection of another pursuit in which he had evidently taken pleasure while in England. The abrupt syntax of the first bantering sentence (Thus leauing you in the myddest . .') shows that Poulett's imagination swept him headlong into the high-flown celebration of his hunting exploits, and he clearly relished the opportunity that thus presented itself for bombasting out a blank verse. As a young man of vigorous constitution and lively intelligence with a passion for hunting and a taste for plays what more natural than that he should frame his eulogy of the sport in the metre and diction of the popular drama? wee for to passe the winters bitter cold, doe with a Jauelin chasse the brisseled bore, and sometymes, mounted one a fowming Curtol, doe rend the woods to hounde the furious bulle, and sometymes for to haue more gentle sport doe hunt the fearfull Roe . As an extempore pastiche of the high style this is not bad, though we may search in vain for indications of a debt to any particular writer: despite Poulett's allusion to Shakespeare specifically as tragedian I have been unsuccessful in tracing any passage in the plays that might directly have inspired these lines. For the subject, on the other hand, Venus and 8 John Poulett to Sir Francis Vincent, io Oct. 1605. Add. MS. 11757, fol. 105b Adonis (1593), a poem that Poulett may, like many young cognoscenti of the time, have read and admired, provides perhaps not too distant an analogue. Adonis too preferred the danger and excitement of pursuing the bristled boar with a javelin (11.616-20) to the less arduous exercise of hunting the 'fearful' roe 'which no encounter dare' (II. 673-8) that was urged by Venus. Yet the main problem posed by the terms of the allusion is not a matter of verbal echoes but lies in Poulett's assertion that 'the danger in these sports makes them seeme good, men seeme in them as actors in a Tragedye . .'. It may be that in this context 'tragicke sports' simply means heroic ones, as contrasted with such pursuits as are 'rather fitt for Ladyes then, for Caualliers', but the significance of the passage would be heightened if we could infer that the plays themselves had any part in shaping the train of thought that prompted it. As a devotee of the hunt Poulett must have responded readily enough to action and imagery in the drama that drew directly upon it. Amongst the plays of Shakespeare's middle period Julius Caesar, apparently composed in 1599 and first acted at the Globe on 21 September of that year, includes images that turn the plot virtually into an allegory of the chase. Its crisis, the murder of Caesar, is likened repeatedly to a 'kill', from the time when, at the outset of their conspiracy, Brutus urges his fellows not to 'hew him as a carcass fit for hounds' (il.i. 174) until, hot from the slaughter, he cries 'Stoop, Romans, stoop. And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood | Up to the elbows . .' (in. i. 105-7): in both cases he is invoking the traditional actions of huntsmen at the death of a beast. The allegory is consolidated a few lines later in Antony's lament 'Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart . and here thy hunters stand, | Sign'd in thy spoil . .' (in. i. 204-6). By Shake- speare's treatment of this famous historical event some sense of the tragic possibilities of the hunt may have been impressed upon the mind of one who was already, from personal experience of course rather than from reading Venus and Adonis, well aware of its dangers and excitement. If this, rather than some vague concept of noble pursuit and bloody slaughter, was the source of his 'tragicke sports' we need not insist that it was ever very explicit in his thoughts. At the same time such an association of ideas would make the allusion a little more intelligible. One further detail of the passage deserves particular notice, and that is Poulett's spelling of'Shackesbeare'. This and the 'Shaxberd' of the much-disputed Revels Accounts^ for 1604-5 ^^^ ^he only instances so far known from contemporary records of the dramatist of a form in which the second element begins with a 'b'. Mere carelessness on Poulett's part is unlikely since his spelling is otherwise remarkably sophisticated, and among the proper names 'Sir Thomas Prediox', where we might expect 'Prideaux', is supported by legal documents of the time. We may thus assume that he was accurate in recording his own, and therefore perhaps a current, pronunciation of the name.
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