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nnnrff^^^fff'^'^rrfnr^ THE HUTH LIBRARY. THE WORKS OK GABRIEL HARVEY, D.C.L VOL. I. MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION. LETTERS TO AND FROM EDMUND SPENSER. LETTERS FROM LETTER-BOOK. FOVRE LETTERS AND CERTAINE SONNETS, ETC., ETC. A LETTER OF NOTABLE CONTENTS, ETC. 1579— 1593. ^><^v^<^v^«^y^<.?'<? <o <^ ^ ^ ^. v^ v^ <^v^v§N^>^>^>^^ Contempt deposeth kings as well as death. Mustapha, iv. 3. o'.'A;..r^- /^>A»ix ^--t:>v. ,'o!^. ELIZABETHAN- JACOBEAN JB (D) ©i ^ Verse and Prose LAR G E LY Fro7?v ike Zidro.yy of BY THE FOR PRIVATE CIRCULAT-ON ONLY Cfje IE)utf) Lidtari), THE WORKS GABRIEL HARVEY, D.C.L. IN THREE VOLUMES. FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND EDITED, WITH MEMORtAL-INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC. BY THE REV. ALEXANDER B. GROSART, LL.D. (Edin.), F.S.A. (Scot.), St. George's, Blackburn, LMttcashire. VOL. I. MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION. LETTERS TO AND FROM EDMUND SPENSER. LETTERS EROM LETTER-BOOK. FOVRE LETTERS AND CERTAINE SONNETS, ETC., ETC. A LETTER OF NOTABLE CONTENTS, ETC. 1579—1593- PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY. 1884. 50 Copies, 7^^Q>o Ptinted by llazell, Waiion, atid I'mey, I.iiuiUd, Loudon and Ayle^l iiry. Co PROFESSOR DAVID MASSON, EDINBURGH, I Dedicate these "CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE"— THE WORKS Ot GABRIEL HARVEY. WITH HIGHEST REGARD AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS ABUNDANT SERVICES TO LITERATURE, ORIGINAL AND EDITORIAL. Alexander B. Grosart. CONTENTS. PACiB Dedication to Professor David Masson . v Memorial-Introduction ix Letters between Edmund Spenser and Harvey i From Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey . 109 FovRE Letters and Certaine Sonnets . .151 A New Letter of Notable Contents . 255 In night when colours all to blacke are cast, Distinction lost, or gone downe with the light, The eye a watch to inward sences plac'd. Not seeing, yet still hauing power of sight, Giues vaine alarums to the inward sense, Where feare stirr'd up with witty tyranny, Confounds all powers, and thorough selfe-oflFence, raise Doth forge and impossibility ; Such as in thicke depriuing darkenesse, Proper reflections of the errour be. And images of selfe-confusednesse, hurt see Which imaginations onely ; And from this nothing scene, tels newes of devils, Which but expressions be of inward evils. Ccslia, ci. UN IV ^" MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION. By the Editor. " In his Preface to the Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, A.D. 1573-80" (Camden Society, 1884), Mr. E. J. Long Scott, M.A., commences his little notice thus : " Gabriel Harvey, the writer of the following Letter-Book, is better known to us than almost any other man among the literary characters who crowd the Elizabethan stage. His celebrated controversy with Nashe (who raked up against him every circumstance in his life and writings in order to pour unlimited abuse and contempt upon his head) has furnished us with a vivid not of manners and picture, only Harvey's " conversation, but even of his dress and physiognomy (p. v). This, while true in a way— that is, to the few who " have mastered the wordy war" between Nashe and Harvey—is exceptionally untrue regarded biographi- cally. For of no contemporary of equal notoriety in men's mouths over so many years, do we know so little as of him. The Damascus blade of Thomas Nashe wounded him mortally. He was speedily he lived to an unusual forgotten—though on age ; and no one seems to have cared to rescue his memory from its swift and inexorable oblivion. Even his academic course is obscure and dateless. We H. I. b X MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION. have had to wait for these long centuries to learn the ' chief facts of it contained in his (so-called) Letter- Book.' Mr. Scott has not himself added one grain of new information, as he has not troubled himself so much as to bring together what of scanty record has hitherto been made. His one distinguishing service is to have reproduced so admirably a trouble- some manuscript. None of the Registers or Parish-Books of Saffron Walden now extant go so far back as the birth of Gabriel Harvey, nor is there any mention of the Harveys in any of the later local MSS. But it is known from other sources that he was born at Saffron Walden, in Essex, 'about 1545/ or some seven years before Spenser.* He was the eldest son, of a family of six children—four boys and two girls. As everybody knows who knows anything at all of the Harveys, their father was a Ropemaker. If only his eldest son had been as satisfied with the paternal 'trade' as was that father himself, the unlucky victim of Nashe's scorpion-tongue and pen had been spared much misery and infamy. Even at this late day there remains a curious proof that so far from having been ashamed of his rope-making the elder Harvey proclaimed it—viz., in the town's museum there is preserved the most of a once fine * Professor in his on as " " Henry Morley, paper Harvey Hobbinol (of which more in the sequel) seeks to make out that was of the same with but he is not Harvey age Spenser ; successful. Throughout, the attitude of Harvey is of an elder addressing, not to say patronizing, a younger man. Besides, when Spenser matriculated at the University, Harvey was already notable there. It has even been alleged that he was tutor to Spenser and Kirke. MEMORIAL-INTRODUCTION. xi fireplace from Harvey's house. Its entablature is in three (marble) compartments, after this fashion : — ALUS NON NOBIS NEC ALUS NEC NOBIS ALUS ET NOBIS Ox, with pack, eating of thistles. Three men making a rope. Hive and bees at work. NOSTRI PLACENTE [Broken out] LABOR The middle compartment also contains all the— ad- juncts to a farmyard —somewhat mutilated e.g.y the end of a house, a bullock or cow, yard with the head of a cow peeping out, a pig, poultry, bullock and com, and (seemingly) flax or hemp (grown for the of his also a probably supply trade) ; plant of saffron, whilst on a tree hangs a satchel. From these designs it is to be inferred that Harvey senior carried on a Farm as well as his rope-making busi- ness. This is incidentally confirmed by Gabriel's assertion in the notorious matter of his sister Mercy's " experiences that she fetched home and milked the cows." But the main thing is—and all honour to him for it—the rope-making was held for honest labour and trade, not stigma, by the old man.* If — as is pretty certain—Gabriel supplied these Latin mottoes, he too must have originally acquiesced. Of course it was one thing thus to have a home- memorial of the family-occupation, and another to have it shouted from the housetop with flout and jeer and waggish drollery. Anthony a-Wood puts the thing as follows : "This person, who made a great noise in his time, was • I owe special thanks to Joseph Clarke, Esq., The Roos, Saffron Walden, for these details and after-information. Mr. Scott from Qi\?i?>coz\C s Records St. MichaeVs Parish quotes of " this — Paid Cfntrch, Bishofs Stortford (1882), entry 1579. " for for the bell to Harvie of Walden a rope [church] ij' iij** (P- 59). 3di MEMORIAL-INTR OD UCTION. at in born Saffron Walden, Essex ; and tho' his father was a ropemaker, as Thomas Nashe, a great scoffer and his anta- gonist, tells us, yet he had rich kindred, and was nearly allied to Sir Thomas Smith, the great statesman in Queen Elizabeth's reign" {Fasii, by Bliss, i. 230). The Smith aUiance is very doubtful, and certainly was " not near." But, as unquestionably, the Ropemaker was well-to-do and mindful of the educational interests of his sons (at least). It is to be remem- bered to his credit that he sent three sons to the University (of Cambridge), and spent on them a good thousand pounds, as Gabriel was ever forward to attest. From the warmth—not to say exaggerate eulogy —of our Harvey's celebration of Sir Thomas Smith, of Audley End, Saffron Walden, it would appear that this once famous Knight had interested himself from the outset in his poetic celebrator. Gabriel must have been a clever boy, probably the proverbial ' ' clever boy of the village school. We know nothing of his earlier training. He is found at Cambridge University before Edmund Spenser (who " proceeded thither in 1565), His first academical " breeding," says Wood, was in Christ College, where in a short time he made Cambridge ; great proficiency, to the wonder and amazement of his tutor" (as before). In 1573 he was tutor at Pembroke College. Later he was of Trinity Hall, being addressed by " his brother Richard in his Astrological Discourse," " in I 5 83, as his verie good and most loving Brother , . at his chambers in Trinitie Hall." He passed both degrees of B.A. and M.A. The following note MEMORIAL-INTROD UCTION. xiii summarizes most of the to Wood's Fasti (i. 230-1) " preceding data— Gabr. Harvey aulae Pembr. socius prius, electus Nov. 3. 1570; dein socius aulae Trin. electus, Dec. 18. 1578. Spe et opinione magister futurus sit magna de spe excidit" (Baker, MSS. coll., vol. vi., 104, Cole). The latter involved him in a protracted quarrel by the denial of a grace for it. His Letter-Book (as before) contains his correspond- ence on the weary and irksome matter with Dr. ^ John Young, Master of Pembroke, etc. (pp. i — 54). He was the winner ultimately, and henceforward his " victorie" dated his letters to intimate friends.

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