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EDWARD DE VERE — MIDDLE PERIOD: DRAMATIC FOREGROUND
VI
After the year 1587 we lose distinct traces of Oxford's dramatic activity, and, in reference to this, we must now draw attention to an important set of considerations in which the poet Edmund Spenser is implicated.
In the year 1590, by which time the middle period of De Vere's life may be said to have closed, when though only forty years of age he seemed to have quite dropped from public view, and when William Shakspere, then aged twenty-six, was either establishing himself, or being established by unknown patrons, in the dramatic world, Edmund Spenser published his "Tears of the Muses." These "are full of lamentations over returning barbarism and ignorance, and the slight account made by those in power of the gifts and the arts of the writer, the poet and the dramatist" (Church: Life of Spenser). In this poem occur some stanzas which Dryden in his day, and Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke in more recent times, have appropriated to William Shakspere, but which, notwithstanding this, have been more or less a puzzle to literary men ever since they were written. Most writers on either Spenser or Shakespeare seem to feel it a duty to say something about them. The matter is therefore of extreme importance as a question of Elizabethan literature quite apart from the Shakespeare problem, and will necessitate a somewhat exhaustive statement. The following are the most important stanzas in the set:
[285] "All these, and all that else the Comic Stage,
With seasoned wit and goodly pleasance graced,
By which man's life in his likest image
Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced;
And those sweet wits which wont the like to frame
Are now despised and made a laughing game."And he the man whom Nature's self had made
To mock herself and truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimic shade,
Our pleasant Willie, ah! is dead of late.
With whom all joy and jolly merriment
Is also deaded and in doleur drent."But that same gentle spirit from whose pen
Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow,
Scorning the boldness of such base-born men,
Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw,
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell,
Than so himself to mockery to sell."First of all the expression "dead of late," it has been remarked by others, means, "not that he is literally dead but that he is in retirement." This reading is not only necessary to make it fit in with what follows — "to sit in idle-cell" — but is also supported by other passages in the same writer. The reference is evidently to some one who, having been prominent in the writing of poetry, and in connection with dramatic comedy, had lately not been much in evidence.
Whilst therefore the laudatory expressions are such as could only be applied appropriately to "Shakespeare," the date of publication makes it impossible that they should have any reference to the man William Shakspere. At the same time, the name "Willie" only serves to deepen the mystery. In the year 1590 the Stratford man was only twenty-six years of age and was just making his appearance in the dramatic world. He had therefore no great career behind him from which to retire, whereas the "Willie" referred to in Spenser's poem had evidently already held a prominent position in the world of poetry and drama. Dean Church in his Life of Spenser proposes a solution the [286] weakness of which he himself fully recognizes. He mentions that Sir Philip Sidney had somewhere been spoken of as "Willie" and thinks that the verses may allude to him. To this theory he recognizes two very vital objections. In the first place, Sir Philip Sidney had never attempted anything in the dramatic line except some "masking performances," and to these the laudatory expressions would be, he says, "an extravagant compliment." They would, however, be much more than this: a grotesque distortion of the English language would be a more accurate description.
The second great difficulty of the theory is this: Instead of Sir Philip Sidney being in retirement in 1590 he had already been actually dead for nearly four years. This further difficulty, he thinks, might be got over by supposing that the work had been written some year's earlier and had been kept back until 1590. To ante-date the work to such an extent as to make the stanzas applicable to the events of Sidney's life would throw out of gear the whole sequence of the production of Spenser's works and the personal allusions they contain, as well as the relation of his works to the events of his own life. Some other solution of the problem must therefore be sought.
The key to this mystery, we believe, is to be found in a work of Spenser's published in the early years of the particular period of De Vere's life with which we are at present occupied. In December, 1579, Spenser issued his first considerable work, "The Shepherd's Calender." Now, to those who are not specially students of Elizabethan literature, that is to say to the great mass of English readers, to say nothing of the rest of the world, "The Shepherd's Calender" needs some little explanation. This set of poems is simply a series of burlesques upon prominent men of the day, who appear in the guise of "shepherds," and who express themselves under disguises more or less penetrable. In some cases the names given to them suggest their real names, in other cases there is no suggestiveness about them; [287] in some cases it is quite understood whom they represent, in others they remain as yet undistinguished. Spenser himself appears as "Colin Clout," Gabriel Harvey as "Hobbinol," Archbishop Grindal as "Algrind." The formation of the last two names from those of their prototypes will be readily perceived.
Looking over the names of the various "shepherds," we find that there is indeed one called "Willie." So that when in 1590 Spenser speaks of the Willie "from whose pen large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow," it is natural to suppose that, in accordance with his practice in other cases, he was carrying forward the same person as the one who had figured in the 1579 poem under that name, but who, in the meantime, had given such a manifestation of his powers that by the year 1590 he was able to speak of him in terms which, as Dean Church remarks, "we now-a-days consider, and as Dryden in his day considered, were only applicable to Shakespeare."
It has therefore been a matter of considerable surprise that notwithstanding the great amount of attention that has been paid by writers on Elizabethan literature to the question of who it was that Spenser meant by "Willie" in the above verses, it never seems to have occurred to anyone to connect him with the "Willie" who appears in Spenser's earlier poems. Yet the very manner in which he casually introduces the name is suggestive of an allusion to his first great work. The question, then, which concerns us immediately is this: what are the probabilities that the "Willie" in "The Shepherd's Calender" was the Earl of Oxford? And if a strong case can be made out for such an identification we shall be entitled also to claim for him the allusion in the "Tears of the Muses," especially if the later representation of "Willie" fits in with the special circumstances of Oxford at the later date. We shall also have made an important contribution to the evidence that Oxford was "Shakespeare." William Shakspere of Stratford, we point out in passing, was a mere boy of fourteen at the [288] time when Spenser's "Willie" makes his appearance in Elizabethan poetry.
On turning to the poems in "The Shepherd's Calender" we find that "Willie" figures prominently in two of them. Under the month of March his role is somewhat subordinate; but under the month of August he appears in what is probably the most widely known and the best executed of the series; having found its way into modern anthologies: its superior quality suggesting its being one of the latest composed of the set. This piece is neither more nor less than a verse-making contest between two rival poets named "Willie" and "Perigot." In view, therefore, of the general character of the work, its deliberate representation of eminent contemporaries, taken along with the literary situation at that time, the poetic rivalry between Philip Sidney and the Earl of Oxford, there is, to begin with, something more than a mere presumption that the two rival poets, "Willie" and "Perigot," were Oxford and Sidney. We therefore ask the reader to recall Oxford's verse, beginning "Were I a king" and Sidney's rejoinder "Wert thou a king," already quoted in this chapter: verses which, from subsequent developments, must have been written shortly before Spenser's poem was published. Then let him turn to this poem of Spenser's and read it with the other verse-making episode in mind. It plunges immediately by its opening lines into the cause of their antagonism. "Tell me, Perigot . . . wherefore with mine thou dare thy music match?" And this he follows up with a further challenge whether "in ryhmes with me thou dare strive." Then, as if to put the matter of identification beyond doubt, a third party called "Cuddy" is introduced as arbitrator, and he assumes office with the irrelevant remark: "What a judge were Cuddy for a king."
If any doubt remained as to whether or not the two shepherds represented Oxford and Philip Sidney it ought [289] to be quite removed by the closing part of the poem. After the competition, Cuddle must needs finish up with some "verses" which he claims to have got from Colin Clout (Spenser). These are not even doggerel. In the place of rhymes, he simply repeats the same words over and over again, and these, together with other words and phrases that make up the "verses," form but a verbal jumble composed of characteristic words from the poems of the two rival writers. To appreciate all the fun of Cuddie's lines one's mind must have been in some measure steeped in the two sets of poems. If, however, before reading Cuddy's "verses" the reader will turn to the last stanza quoted in the preceding chapter, and also note the few phrases we subjoin here from Oxford's and Sidney's early poems, he may be able to enter into the humour of Cuddy's "doleful verse."
Oxford:
"The more my plaints I do resound
The less she pities me."
"The trickling tears that fall adown my cheeks."
"Help ye that are aye wont to wail,
Ye howling hounds of hell.
Help man, help beast, help birds and worms
That on the earth do toil."Sidney:
"Thus parting thus my chiefest part I part."
"Alas, sweet brooks do in my tear's augment."
"A simple soul should breed so mixed woe."
"Love ... bred my smart.""Void," "House," "Bred," "Nature," are all words which seem to stand forth in Sidney's somewhat limited vocabulary. Even in the competition itself there is a frequent suggestion of the distinctive expressions of the two men. One example of each will suffice.
From a poem by Sidney:
"Such are these two, you scarce can tell
Which is the dainter bonny belle."[290] Spenser's poem:
"I saw the bouncing bellibone
Hey, ho, the bonnibell."From a poem by Oxford:
"Patience perforce is such a pinching pain."
Spenser's poem:
"But whether in painful love I pine
Hey, ho, the pinching pain."A careful weighing of this poem can leave but little doubt as to the identity of "Willie" and "Perigot" with Oxford and Philip Sidney: the only question is whether "Willie" is Oxford or Sidney. If we associate the contest in Spenser's poem with Sidney's "matching" of Oxford's verse, as we may very reasonably do, then "Willie" is Oxford; for it is Willie who finds fault with Perigot for matching his, music and challenges him on that account to another matching of rhymes.
This, then, is, the position: The circumstances of Oxford fit in with and afford a very strong presumption of his being the historic prototype of Spenser's "Willie" in the early poem, "The Shepherd's Calender." Between the writing of this poem and the writing of the "Tears, of the Muses" Oxford had been engaged in just those dramatic activities and had made his name in the precise department, Comedy, in which Spenser's "Willie" had evidently won renown. And at the time when "The Tears of the Muses" was written, Oxford had withdrawn apparently from dramatic activity and was seemingly "sitting in idle cell" precisely as Spenser describes "Willie" to be doing. Are we to believe that all this, is a series of meaningless coincidences?
Minor points in corroboration of the theory that Oxford and Spenser's "Willie" are one and the same person [291] may be noticed. The shepherd, "Willie," in the other poem in which he appears, remarks:
"Alas! at home I have a sire,
A stepdame eke as hot as fire
That duly-a-days counts mine" (sheep).(Day by day keeps a close watch over me and my affairs.) The reference to Oxford's domestic position, to the surveillance exercised by Burleigh, and to the irascible Lady Burleigh is obvious. Then in Spenser's sonnet to the Earl of Oxford, which occupies a prominent position amongst those with which he prefaces the "Fairie Queen," he puts special emphasis upon Oxford's ancient and noble lineage. We find the same note reflected in the verses in "The Tears of the Muses" referring to Willie, whom he represents as "scorning the boldness of base-born men." From this it is evident that "Willie" was not "base-born," but rather a man distinguished for his high birth.
We have every reason to believe, then, that we have not only solved the long-standing mystery of the "Willie" in "The Tears of the Muses," but have incidentally secured the testimony of no less an authority than the poet Spenser, that the powers of Edward de Vere were recognized to be such as to justify his being described in terms, which are said to be only applicable to Shakespeare. The fact that a solution proposed for one problem furnishes incidentally a reasonable solution to another is additional evidence in its favour. The testimony is also valuable as showing that, notwithstanding the non-appearance of work avowedly from his pen, he had given evidence, not of a falling off, but of such a development of his powers as to create a marked impression in the mind of his, great contemporary. It is evidence, too, that he had produced much more poetry than we have under his own name, for the few short lyrics can hardly be described as "large streams." The solution of this mystery enables us, moreover, to add another link to [292] our chain of interesting evidence; for we find that some important verses which are supposed by several writers to have reference to Shakespeare are found on examination actually to refer to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford; whilst the personal description they give is strikingly suggestive of Berowne in "Love's Labour's Lost." Finally, the two sets of references, the one appearing in 1579 and the other in 1590, link together the opening and the closing phases of this middle period of his life. The former presenting him as a poet, and the latter as a dramatist, together help to make good the claim we have made for him: that he is the personal embodiment of the great literary transition by which the lyric poetry of the earlier days of Queen Elizabeth's reign merged into the drama of her later years. Thus we get a sense both of the literary unity of the times, and of the great and consistent unity of his own career.
Assuming that we have here the correct interpretation of these allusions, there is every reason to believe that we have their counterpart in the writings of "Shakespeare." The two enigmatical sonnets in which he plays upon the word "will" finish with the striking and emphatic sentence:
"For my name is Will."
Had these words been written by a man whose real name was William, like the Stratford man, they would have been as puerile as anything in English literature. Had they contained a direct reference to his nom-de-plume they would have been only slightly better in this respect. We have good reasons, moreover, for supposing that the particular sonnets were written before the "Shakespeare" mask was assumed (1593). Whether this is so or not, the particular words quoted point, no doubt, to some hidden significance. If, then, we are permitted to suppose that Shakespeare was alluding to the "Willie" in the poems of the great contemporary, we shall have in these words nothing less than a [293] direct confession from the great dramatist that he was none other than the Earl of Oxford.
Before leaving this point we must not overlook the statement made by Dean Church that Sidney had elsewhere been referred to as Willie. No reference is given, but we take it to be an allusion to a poem which appeared in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody" (1602), another of the numerous miscellaneous collections of poetry in which much of the Elizabethan work has been preserved. There Sidney's death is mourned as the death of Willie. It is only in the first edition, however, that this appears; in later editions this is altered, as though the writer or editors had had their attention drawn to a mistake — a possible misreading of Spenser's earliest work — whilst the following footnote by the modern editor appears: "I cannot recall any other poem in which the name Willie is given to Sidney." Although first appearing in 1602 it is mentioned that the poem had been written a long while ago. Being an obituary work it is natural to suppose that it was written shortly after the death of Sidney (1586). Seeing, then, that the writer of the poem would at that time have only the Shepherd's Calender to go upon, the mistake was partly excusable. The publication of "The Tears of the Muses" in 1590 would furnish the grounds for the subsequent correction of the mistake which had evidently been overlooked in the first printing.
At the time when "The Tears of the Muses" was published the Earl of Oxford did certainly appear to be sitting "in idle cell." It is not impossible that the poem of Spenser's may have revived his literary activity, or it may have been that he was even at the time deeply immersed in the literary work which was soon to burst upon the country. After such a preparation as he had undergone, we believe that such freedom from practical work, as is implied in the words "to sit in idle cell," is just what was needed for the production of the Shakespearean dramas; and places that production [294] for the first time on a really rational basis. It remains, therefore, to consider the third or final stage of his career, that which synchronizes generally with the period of the appearance of these works.
In bringing this chapter to a close we would urge the extreme importance of the matter it contains. The chapter in which we deal with the lyric poetry of Edward de Vere, and this chapter in which his dramatic relationships are examined, must, by the nature of the case, form the principal foundations of our constructive argument.