Behold this pleasant broad-leaved beech, CORNIX Both place and time, my Corydon, Not of the wretched lovers' lives, By whom, while others cark and toil, Who keeps us down from climbing high, In simple shepherd state, A life that sure doth far exceed O happy state that doth content, How far be we from strife! 1 Though Googe lived till 1594, he did not again attempt original composition. His imagination was slender, and was mastered by the genius of the writers he admired. The matter of his fifth and sixth eclogues is borrowed from the Diana Enamorada of Montemayor, which he had doubtless read during his travels in Spain; and, as far as I know, this is the first trace of the influence of Spanish romance on English poetry. The shallowness of his taste is proved by his preferring Phaër's translation of the Eneid to the versions of Gavin Douglas and Surrey.2 Nevertheless, like Grimald, he 1 Googe's Eglogues (Arber), pp. 62, 63. 2 The noble Henry Howard once, That raught eternal fame, With mighty style did bring a piece And Grimald gave the like attempt, Whose famous wit in Scottish ryme Had made an end of all. But all these same did Phayre excel, I dare presume to write, As much as doth Apollo's beams The dimmest star in light. Googe, Eglogues, etc., p. 72. Furbervile explored new regions of poetical thought, and opened a mine of invention much worked by later poets. Wyatt and Surrey had recommended by their practice the study of Italian models; Grimald and Googe led the way to the imitation of the ancient classics, and the latter in his Eclogues anticipates the Pastoralism of Spenser. In both these directions the first impulse of inspiration soon flagged, as may be seen from the poetry of George Turbervile, who was born about 1530, being the son of Nicholas Turbervile of Whitchurch, in Dorsetshire. He was educated first at Winchester and afterwards at New College, Oxford, of which he became a Fellow in 1561. Leaving Oxford, he studied at the Inns of Court, and was afterwards appointed secretary to Randolph, Elizabeth's ambassador in Russia. His Songs, Epitaphs, and Epigrams were published in 1567, after which he seems to have abandoned original composition, though he made in the same year a translation of his favourite Ovid's Heroical Epistles and of the Eclogues of Mantuan. He died in 1594. Turbervile's chief characteristic is his deliberate attempt to polish and harmonise the language: his poems may be aptly described, in Horace's phrase, as "verses devoid of matter, tuneful trifles"; still he always tries to improve on the tune of his predecessors, and the bent of his taste is illustrated by his "Verse in praise of Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey": What should I speak in praise of Surrey's skill, The flowing fountain of his sacred skull; Whose pen approved what wit he had in mew, Where such a skill in making sonnets grew, Each word in place with such a sleight is couched, From this we may see that in the management of the heroic couplet Turbervile made a considerable advance on Grimald; his verse has something of the ease and movement of Dryden. But as far as this matter goes, he was quite content to look for his themes in the phrases of older poets, and to amplify them in accordance with his own sense of musical rhetoric. For example, Wyatt happens to use ar expression borrowed from Chaucer: "Arise, I say, do May some observance." Turbervile makes this the subject of a whole song beginning— You that in May have bathed in bliss, And found a salve to ease your sore, Do May observance; Reason is That May should honoured be therefore.1 Having thus expanded and exhausted Wyatt's phrase, he next proceeds to borrow images from Surrey's beautiful sornet on Spring : Since snakes do cast their shrivelled skins, And glide with new repairëd scale, etc.2 Wyatt writes upon the external signs of love :- If many sighs with little speech to plain, Be sign of love-then do I love again.3 Turbervile, resolved to reduce this archaic harshness into smooth and flowing modern numbers, writes :If banished sleep and watchful care, If mind affright with dreadful dreams, If torments rife and pleasures rare, If face besmeared with often streams; If change of cheer from joy to smart, If faltering tongue with trembling heart, 1 Compare Wyatt's Works (Nott), vol. ii. p. 5; Chalmers's English Poets (1810), vol. ii. p. 634. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 635. Compare Surrey's Sonnet, p. 94. 3 Wyatt's Works (Nott), vol. ii. p. 6. If sudden hope by If fear by hope Be prooves that love upprest again, within the breast Hath bound the heart with fancy's chain : Then I of force no longer may In covert keep my piercing flame, But yield myself to fancy's frame.1 The same diffuseness is found in his paraphrase of Ausonius's epigram on the "Treasure and the Noose" (previously imitated by Wyatt), which he reproduces in twelve lines; while for his rendering of Serafino's conceit, "Se una bombarda é dal gran foco mossa," which Wyatt had given in eight lines, he takes eighteen.2 It is interesting, however, to watch the critical process to which he subjects the work of his predecessor where he thin ks it may be amended. For example, Wyatt writes, with usual violence of metaphor, concerning the effects of glance from his mistress :- So unwarely was never no man caught With steadfast look upon a goodly face, As I of late, for suddenly methought My heart was torn out of his place; Thorough mine eye the stroke from hers did glide; In help whereof the blood thereto did glide, his Turbervile, seeing that the excess of the last two lines weakened the force of the whole image, altered the passage tastefully though somewhat tamely: Unwarely so was none in such a snare before; The more I gazed upon her face, I liked my love the more. 1 Wyatt's Works (Nott), vol. ii. p. 601. 2 Ibid, vol. ii. pp. 65, 70, and Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. pp. 602, 647. 3 Wyatt's Works (Nott), vol. ii. p. 39. 4 Chalmers' English Poets, vol. ii. p. 586. a The following is one of his most graceful poems: TO A GENTLEWOMAN THAT ALWAYS WILLED HIM TO WEAR ROSEMARY FOR HER SAKE, IN TOKEN As winter's force can not deface This branch his hue, So let no change of love disgrace You were my own, and be so still, Then may I think my self to be For wearing of the tree that is Against all weather that doth fall When wayward winter spits his gall. And when we meet to try me true, And I will crave an oath of you, So shall we both assured be, Both I of you, and you of me ? 1 Taking the poems collected in Tottel's Miscellany in 1 Chalmers's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 621. VOL. II M |