The Making and Marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557: Songs and Sonnets in the Summer of the Martyrs’ Fires [Reprint ed.] 1409457451, 9781409457459, 9781315555881

Table of contents :
Series Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: From Printer to Reader
1. “The workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other”
2. “To do as praiseworthely as the rest”
3. “Thinke it not euill doon”
Postscript: “Moe hereafter”
Bibliography of Modern Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

The Making and Marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557

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The Making and Marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557 Songs and Sonnets in the Summer of the Martyrs’ Fires

J. Christopher Warner Le Moyne College, USA

First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2013 J. Christopher Warner J. Christopher Warner has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Warner, J. Christopher (James Christopher), 1961The making and marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557 : songs and sonnets in the summer of the martyrs’ fires / by J. Christopher Warner. pages cm. – (Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-5745-9 (hardcover) 1. Tottel, Richard, d. 1594. Tottel’s miscellany. 2. English poetry – Early modern, 1500-1700 – History and criticism. 3. Literature publishing – England – History – 16th century. 4. Books – Great Britain – Marketing. 5. Reader-response criticism. I. Title. PR1205.T639 2013 821'.209 – dc23 2013005649 ISBN 9781409457459 (hbk) IN

Contents Series Editor’s Preface   Acknowledgements   List of Abbreviations   Introduction: From Printer to Reader  

vii ix xi 1

1

“The workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other”  

27

2

“To do as praiseworthely as the rest”  

95

3

“Thinke it not euill doon”  

159

Postscript: “Moe hereafter”  

215

Bibliography of Modern Works Cited   Index  

233 243

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Series Editor’s Preface The still-usual emphasis on medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history has meant neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. As a result, continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe have been overlooked in favor of emphasis on radical discontinuities. Further, especially in the later period, the identification of ‘reformation’ with various kinds of Protestantism means that the vitality and creativity of the established church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, has been left out of account. In the last few years, an upsurge of interest in the history of traditional (or catholic) religion makes these inadequacies in received scholarship even more glaring and in need of systematic correction. The series will attempt this by covering all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even especially) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history. It will to the maximum degree possible be interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the ‘Catholic’ variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly. The period covered, 1300–1700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesus’s return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayle’s notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part, had virtually disappeared from secular

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governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment. Thomas F. Mayer, Augustana College

Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to the following for their support of my research for this book: the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provided a stipend enabling me to participate in the 2009 NEH Summer Seminar “The Reformation of the Book, 1450–1650,” co-directed by John N. King and James K. Bracken and conducted in Antwerp, London and Oxford; Le Moyne College, for a Summer Research and Development Grant in 2010 to support travel to European libraries and for the granting of a sabbatical leave in 2010–11; and the Folger Shakespeare Library, for a three-month fellowship during winter 2010–11. In addition to the librarians at the Folger to whom I owe many thanks (most of all Elizabeth Walsh, Georgianna Ziegler, Jim Kuhn, Heather Wolfe and Stephen Ennis), I am thankful for the help of many others at the British Library; the Bodleian Libraries and Exeter College Library, Oxford University; the University Library and King’s College Library, Cambridge University; the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris; the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels; the Museum PlantinMoretus, Antwerp; and the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitätsbibliothek, Munich; and – deserving special mention for the warmth of his welcome – the Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg, Luc Deitz. I have been aided immeasurably by my conversations with other scholars over the years, although as I name them below it must be kept in mind that none is responsible for errors of fact or judgement in the coming pages. Those, accidentally or stubbornly, I committed on my own. I thank, to begin with, the other participants in the NEH seminar – most of all Emily Francomano, Tim Crowley, Lara Crowley, Kathleen Kennedy, and Laura Ambrose – for their questions, criticisms, and helpful leads that helped sharpen my book’s focus. I owe further thanks to Emily Francomano for answering my questions about Spanish verse, helping me with some translation puzzles, and inviting me to test-run arguments from my first chapter in a lecture at Georgetown University. Carol Brobeck at the Folger gave me opportunity to try out still other of my arguments before an audience of the library’s readers and staff. Their comments proved very useful, as did subsequent conversations there with Anne Coldiron, Kimberly Coles, Ian Gadd, R. Carter Hailey and Gerard Kilroy. To John King I am tremendously grateful for the generosity and wisdom of his advice, his continuous encouragement and support while this project

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was in progress, and the example of his scholarship in Reformation literarature and the history of the book. Likewise I thank Steven May for the inspiring precedents of his bibliographical and critical studies in Tudor verse, as well as for his help at a few key junctures, starting with that question he asked me five years ago, “How does The Court of Venus fit into the picture?” It has additionally been my recent good fortune to have made the acquaintance of a group of exceptionally gifted scholars doing groundbreaking work on mid-Tudor texts and topics: I mean Cathy Shrank, Matthew Woodcock, Jessica Winston, Scott Lucas, Jason Powell, and Mark Rankin, from whose publications, conference presentations, and conversations I have very much profited. I am especially indebted to the last three – as much for their occasionally troublesome challenges and unobliging expressions of doubt as for their abundant knowledge most liberally shared. From Scott Lucas and Jason Powell I have had my eyes opened to the tangled, overlapping networks of individuals who seem most implicated in the mystery of the possession and circulation of Surrey’s and Wyatt’s poetry during the reigns of Edward and Mary, and I am thankful to Jason in particular for kindly allowing me to read and to refer to his forthcoming essay identifying the circle that very likely supplied Tottel with Wyatt’s poems and some number of others printed in the Miscellany. Mark Rankin was project assistant for the 2009 NEH seminar, and afterward our concurrent terms at the Folger afforded me a second welcome opportunity to gain from his deep knowledge of Tudor books and book culture. Indeed I owe Mark much gratitude not only for our fruitful conversations on matters related to Tottel’s Miscellany, but for others in which were planted the seeds of future projects to which I now look forward. More recently still, this book was made better by revisions guided by the incisive critique of an anonymous reader and by the astute suggestions of Thomas F. Mayer, the editor of the Ashgate series Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700. It has been an honor and a pleasure working with Thomas Mayer and with Thomas Gray and Philip Stirups of Ashgate Publishing during the final stages of preparing this manuscript for publication. My final thanks go to Ding Xiang, with whom it has been a joy to share the scholar’s life, soon going on three decades. Our similar fascination with the history of the book within the respective cultural traditions in which we specialize, whether as “an agent of social change” or in terms of the material conditions of its manuscript transmission or printing, has in particular given us happy justification to stretch out many a meal, to refill our wine glasses.

List of Abbreviations APC 6 Acts of the Privy Council of England. New Series Vol. 6, A.D. 1556–1558. Ed. John Roche Dasent. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1892. Chronicle of Jane and Mary

The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary. Ed. John Gough Nichols. London: Camden Society, 1850.

CPR Edward

Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward VI. 6 vols. London: HMSO, 1924–1926.

CPR Elizabeth Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Elizabeth I, 1558–1575. 6 vols. London: HMSO, 1939–1976. CPR Philip and Mary Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Philip and Mary. 4 vols. London: HMSO, 1937– 1939. CSP Edward and Mary Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series: Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, 1547–1580. Ed. Robert Lemon. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1856. CSP Mary

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series: Mary I, 1553–1558. Ed. C.S. Knighton. London: PRO, 1998.

CSP Spain

Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain Preserved in the Archives of Simancas and Elsewhere,

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Vol. 13: Philip and Mary, July 1554– November 1558. Ed. Royall Tyler. London: HMSO, 1954. CSP Venice

Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, Vol. 6, pts. 1–3: 1555–1558. Ed. Rawdon Brown. London: Longman et al., 1877–1884.

ESTC English Short-Title Catalogue (http://estc. bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl estc>). Gray’s Admissions Register of Admissions to Gray’s Inn, 1521–1889, together with the Register of Marriages in Gray’s Inn Chapel, 1695–1754. Ed. Joseph Foster. London: Privately Printed by Hansard Publishing Union, 1889. Grey Friars’ Chronicle Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London. Ed. John Gough Nichols. Chronicle London: Camden Society, 1852. Holinshed’s Chronicles Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, 6 vols. Chronicles London, 1807; rpt. New York: AMS, 1976. Inner Temple Records

A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, Vol. 1: 21 Hen. VII. (1505)–45 Eliz. (1603). Ed. F. A. Inderwick. London: By Order of the Masters of the Bench, 1896.

Lincoln’s Admissions

The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, Vol. 1: Admissions from A.D. 1420–1799. London: Lincoln’s Inn, 1896.

Abbreviations

xiii

Lincoln’s Black Books Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn: The Black Books, Vol. 1: From A.D. 1422 to A.D. 1586. London: Lincoln’s Inn, 1897. Machyn’s Diary

The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-taylor of London, from A. D. 1550 to A. D. 1563. Ed. John Gough Nichols. London: Camden Society, 1848.

Middle Temple Records Middle Temple Admissions, Vol. 1: 1501–1603. Ed. Charles Henry. Records Hopwood. London: By Order of the Masters of the Bench, 1904. Middle Temple Admissions Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Admissions, Vol. 1: Fifteenth Century to 1781. Ed. H.A.C. Sturgess. London: Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, 1949. ODNB Oxford Dictionary Biography.

of

National

Poems of Wyatt Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Ed. Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969. SP

State Papers in the National Archives.

SC Burn, John Southerden, ed. The Star Chamber: Notices of the Court and Its Proceedings. London: J. Russell Smith, 1870. Stationers’ Register

Arber, Edward, ed. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640 A.D. 5 vols. London and Birmingham: Privately Printed, 1875–1894.

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STC Pollard, A.W. and G.R. Redgrave, eds. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475– 1640. 2nd edn revised and enlarged by W.A. Jackson, F.S. Ferguson, and Katherine Pantzer. 3 vols. London: Bibliographical Society, 1986–1991.

Introduction: From Printer to Reader The pronouncement by Hyder Rollins that Tottel’s Miscellany is “one of the most important single volumes in the history of English literature” has long been accepted wisdom.1 By putting into print for the first time a large number of poems by the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Miscellany introduced general readers to Italianate verse forms and spurred the rise of English Petrarchism in Elizabeth’s reign, such that, quoting Rollins again, “the beginning of modern English verse may be said to date from its publication in 1557” (2:5). The subject of this book is the significance of that year 1557 to the timing of Richard Tottel’s publication of the Miscellany, which issued from his press in a first edition dated 5 June and a revised version dated 31 July, both titled Songes and Sonettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other. My aim, specifically, is to pick up what Hyder Rollins left hanging in his account of the Miscellany’s timing, which he put to readers in the very opening sentences of his introduction to the work: In the spring and summer of 1557 martyrs’ fires were sending a lurid glare throughout England. The melancholy and monotonous chronicle of John Foxe tells of three men and two women who were burned for their religion at Smithfield, London, on April 12. In rapid succession three men were burned in St. George’s Fields, Southwark, in May; two men and five women at Maidstone, Kent, on June 18; six men and four women at Lewes, Sussex, on June 22; and three men and four women at Canterbury on June 30. To the accompaniment of fire and martyrs’ shrieks the epoch-making book correctly known as Songs and Sonnets, but popularly (since the publication of Arber’s edition in 1870) as Tottel’s Miscellany, made its appearance on June 5. It was concerned chiefly with love; and the rhymes, doleful or airy, in which fictitious lovers wail their supposed woes and recount their supposed joys were eagerly read by the very people who watched the burning of the martyrs – were read so eagerly that in some seven weeks’ time two other editions were composed and published. (2:3)

1   Rollins 1928 (his magisterial critical edition of Tottel’s Miscellany), 2:4; hereafter, citations are to the edition of 1965, posthumously revised by Douglas Bush.

The Making and Marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557

2

In the coming chapters, there will be occasion to qualify certain of the claims above, though one will have to be allowed to stand as an untestable conjecture: whether the very people who watched the burnings of martyrs that summer “eagerly read” Tottel’s Miscellany, we have no way of telling. The more fundamental problem is that Rollins offered no help in understanding the import of his account of the Miscellany’s historical context. Clearly he believed that martyrs’ fires were in some manner relevant to the Miscellany’s reception in its day, if not also to Richard Tottel’s decision to print it, but after the passage just quoted, Rollins dropped the matter entirely, leaving us to wonder what he meant to imply by so sensational a preamble.2 Did the Miscellany, in his estimation, provide Mary’s subjects with much-needed light-entertainment escape from the horrors of that summer? Or did he suspect some terrifying psychic link between the urge to attend executions by fire and a taste for poetry in which – to quote the Miscellany’s first poem – lovers suffer “Strange kindes of death … in flame to burne”? Twentieth-century scholarship on Tottel’s Miscellany took little interest in its first appearance during Mary’s reign, but instead adopted the wide-angle perspective of evolutionary literary history, usually to the Miscellany’s detriment. C.S. Lewis, most famously, judged even Surrey’s and Wyatt’s poems to be but crude precursors to the Elizabethan “Golden Age verse” to come, and famously labeled the Miscellany, its milestone status notwithstanding, “a Drab Age anthology;” while in H.A. Mason’s analysis, excepting “the better poems of Wyatt,” there could be found “no good reason for reviewing the rest of Tottel.”3 Even Rollins could be a brutal critic of the poems he so painstakingly edited, as in his lament that “Wyatt seldom failed to admire the worst features of his Italian masters”; “by translating their stiff figures and images he set a bad example that helped to deform English poetry” (2:101). In time the field shifted away from these sorts of evaluative judgements. By the 1990s, scholars writing on Tottel’s Miscellany and the Elizabethan verse miscellanies that it inspired preferred to ask what readers “got for their money,” or at least what they thought they were getting, in terms more cultural-material than literaryaesthetic, namely in groundbreaking studies by Mary Thomas Crane, Wendy Wall, Arthur F. Marotti, and Seth Lerer, who have been among the vanguard of contemporary literary historians investigating the motives, means, and meaning of textual production and exchange in sixteenthcentury England.4 Crane, for example, observes that the “middle-class readers” of Tottel’s Miscellany obtained “on the one hand stylistic matter 2

  This criticism of Rollins’s introduction has been made previously in Hamrick 2002,

329. 3

  Lewis 1954, 2367; Mason 1959, 253.   See Crane 1993 (here quoting 169); Wall 1993; Marotti 1993, 1995; Lerer, 1997.

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Introduction: From Printer to Reader

3

in the form of fashionable schemes, tropes, and other devices that would enable them to imitate their social betters,” and “on the other hand,” gratifying “aphoristic matter that tended to confirm the superiority of their own unambitious way of life and frugal values” (1993, 171).5 To this Lerer adds that, by offering such readers “in printed form” a privileged “glimpse into the workings of aristocratic manuscript assembly,” the Miscellany supplied them with a “model for their own construction of the personal anthology and their own writing of courtly verse,” even as it served conversely as a vehicle for mourning the aristocratic world whose “privacies” the poems disclose (1997, 312). For, as Lerer further observes, the Miscellany represents “a kind of tomb: a resting place for letters, loves, and lives that populated Henry’s court” (206). This interest in the personal and social utility of Tottel’s Miscellany – in its value, even, as a “source of cultural capital” (Crane 1993, 168) – remains a central preoccupation in current scholarship, and certainly this study’s undertaking to account for the Miscellany as a peculiar phenomenon of the reign of Mary I shares in that interest. But attempts by scholars specifically to characterize the Miscellany’s relation to the Marian persecutions have to date been few and cursory and, to my mind at least, unpersuasive.6 Thus it is not surprising that Seth Lerer, in a recent essay, once more poses the question that Rollins left unanswered. “What does it mean,” he asks, “to be love’s martyr in the summer of the martyrs’ fires?” (2010, 89).7 In this study I venture an answer that is informed firstly by my investigation of the Miscellany’s immediate “book-history context” – in particular its near-contemporary European counterparts and its competition in the London book market of Mary’s reign. Secondly it is informed by my understanding that the Miscellany is not only a “tomb” 5

  Similarly, see Wendy Wall’s comment that, “rather than merely teaching poetic manner and decorum through their content,” anthologies like Tottel’s “demonstrated formally the various ways in which poetry could be made to serve social functions,” for “miscellany compilers invited participants to join in the noble sport of poetic camaraderie that upheld the coterie” (1993, 97). The view that Tottel’s Miscellany promoted its readers’ social advancement is elaborated furthest in Blosser 2005. 6   My critique of these attempts is in Chapter 3. A volume of essays edited by Stephen Hamrick that, at the time of this writing, is forthcoming in the Ashgate series Material Readings in Early Modern Culture, promises to revisit this and other relations between the Miscellany and the religious and political cultures of Marian and Elizabethan England. It may prove that the positions against which I argue in this study will be better supported there. 7   Lerer’s own answer, premised on the understanding that “Tottel’s Miscellany remains a collection of old books – early texts, epitaphs, elegies, sonnets, love laments, and inscriptions that, whatever their religious or doctrinal content, function as monuments to literary life,” is put in the form of another unanswered rhetorical question: “Is the Miscellany a book of worship, a kind of vernacular psalter to the courtly dead, whose authors stand as intercessors to the reader seeking (in the words of Tottel’s preface) profit and delight?” (ibid.).

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of Henrician and Edwardian-era poets but an artifact of a collaborative project between Tottel and some number of contemporary contributors to the Miscellany for whom its publication in 1557 represented both a pragmatic and an idealistic response to the religious, political, and social upheavals of the English Reformation and Counter-Reformation – including the “lurid glare” of that summer’s martyrs’ fires. As is well known, Tottel’s prefatory notice to the Miscellany touts the volume for its proof that the English language is as fit a medium as other languages for writing praiseworthy poetry, but this appeal, I argue, does more than simply tap prospective customers’ patriotism by offering to defend the English tongue against its detractors. It represents the Miscellany’s proposal of grounds other than confessional affiliation for England’s claim to peer-status with the other elite dominions of Catholic Christendom. By doing so, we might observe, Tottel’s Miscellany shares in the Marian era’s general nostalgia for an idealized pre-Reformation past, when uniformity of religion was just another of life’s givens, when England hardly had need of its statute De haeretico comburendo, and folk were at liberty to think about other things.8 For Tottel, however, I doubt that it was naïve nostalgia merely, but the evidence of printed foreign-language verse miscellanies that encouraged an impression of networks of poetry enthusiasts across Europe nurturing their eloquence, refining their tastes and talents, and cultivating friendships and other social connections through exchanges of their own and other poets’ verses, all the while seemingly untroubled by religious controversy, unmolested by church and civic authorities. Into this sort of worldly yet safely sheltered community, Tottel coaxed his prospective customers to want to win membership. And yet, for Tottel also, this sort of community was more tangible than an idealization inferred from books. It had an analogue in the circle of law students and young lawyers who were among his steadiest customers and, I shall contend, were among those most likely to have supplied him with some of their own verses for the Miscellany. Because Tottel held a royal patent for the exclusive printing of common law books in England, his printing business flourished mainly on the strength of his sales of 8   To this observation may be compared Colin Burrow’s, that “Marian writing is particularly prone to go back to the 1530s and rethink them, rather than to dwell on its own age;” hence “[t]he two most major literary events of the 1550s are both retrospective volumes. The first was the publication of Tottel’s Miscellany, … which represents itself principally containing works from the 1530s and early 1540s,” and “[t]he second was the printing of the collected edition of the English Works of Sir Thomas More in the same year by a consortium of printers which included Richard Tottel. … [T]hese high profile Tottel publications showed a clear ambition to edit out the reign of Edward VI, and to align present-day literary activity with Henrician and in particular pre-Reformation court culture” (2010, 466). Also cf. Lerer 2010.

Introduction: From Printer to Reader

5

yearbooks (case reports from the court of common pleas), editions of the Natura Brevium and Littleton’s Tenures (the standard reference works for English property law), editions of the Magna Carta and statutes, and assorted law primers. The young men of the nearby Inns of Court, of whom we may suppose no small number stopped in at Tottel’s shop now and then to acquire these texts, were already members of an insular but worldly community that had both vocational and recreational incentives for the collaborative “nurturing of eloquence” – in arguments given at mock trials and bolting exercises, in plays and songs performed for the Christmas revels, and surely also in the plaintive meters of martyrs to love, written into copybooks or on scraps of paper, then passed about or recited in their chambers. So long as their themes were not evangelical, the understanding that their speaking and writing activities all more or less counted as career-related eloquence-practice insulated them from outside charges of doing evil. The Miscellany claims the same utilitarian status in order to claim the same immunity: explicitly in Tottel’s notice, by other means in its selection of verses. In short, the relatively permissive world of the Inns supplied Tottel with a rough microcosm model for the society of discriminating book buyers, readers, and eloquence-practitioners for whom the Miscellany is pitched, and, I suggest, the young denizens of the Inns helped Tottel to assemble the volume, supplying him with some poems for the first edition, then answering the invitation in Tottel’s prefatory notice to write more poems for the revised second edition. Here, then, is the place to quote Tottel’s notice in full. Titled “The Printer to the Reader” in the first edition, “To the Reader” in all subsequent ones, it is indeed a masterpiece of marketing that in just six sentences makes an array of appeals to prospective customers’ fantasies and fears of inadequacy, their personal and patriotic pride, their class consciousness and social ambitions: The Printer to the Reader That to haue wel written in verse, yea and in small parcelles, deserueth great praise, the workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other, doe proue sufficiently. That our tong is able in that kynde to do as praiseworthely as the rest, the honorable stile of the noble earle of Surrey, and the weightinesse of the depewitted sir Thomas Wyat the elders verse, with seuerall graces in sondry good Englishe writers, doe show abundantly. It resteth nowe (gentle reder) that thou thinke it not euill doon, to publish, to the honor of the Englishe tong, and for profit of the studious of Englishe eloquence, those workes which the vngentle horders vp of such treasure haue heretofore enuied thee. And for this point (good reder) thine own profit and pleasure, in these presently, and moe hereafter, shal answere for my defence. If parhappes some mislike the

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statelinesse of stile remoued from the rude skill of common eares: I aske help of the learned to defend their learned frendes, the authors of this work: And I exhort the vnlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull, and to purge that swinelike grossenesse, that maketh the swete maierome not to smell to their delight. (A1v; Rollins 1965, 1:2)

In the present study, I have organized my topics of discussion according to Tottel’s successive appeals in the above notice, and key phrases from it supply the titles of my chapters and postscript. So, to begin with, Tottel’s publication of an English verse miscellany is put into its international context in Chapter 1: “The workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other.” Partly this is a matter of discovering the ways in which European print miscellanies offered Tottel both inspiration and practical lessons on the making and marketing of such works. The foreign-language anthologies exemplified features of poetic eloquence that Tottel knew English readers would encounter for the first time in the Miscellany’s pages, and I suggest that the fruits of their lessons for him may be discerned in the nature of his arrangement and re-arrangement of the Miscellany’s contents, in the rhetoric of his prefatory notice, and in the now invariably decried editorial interventions that were intended rather to enhance the poems’ eloquence. Furthermore, the Italian miscellanies that I argue were Tottel’s especial objects of emulation imply behind their poems an idealized literati culture whose members, to all appearances, lived happily insulated from the perturbations of religious crisis or political turmoil, allowing them the luxury of penning verses of love, friendship and tribute in the knowledge that their eloquence would only be judged according to standards of decorum and artistry, not the measure of good or evil. In printing the Miscellany, Tottel in effect offered to lay down the foundation stones for a community of English literati on this model. The next stage of building would depend on “good” and “gentle” readers buying up copies and studying their contents. Yet, as Chapter 1 also documents, Tottel had opportunities to learn that many foreigners, including foreign poets at Mary’s court, were of the opinion that the English were barely even a civilized people, let alone qualified to join the ranks of the elite. His awareness of this attitude (besides his keen sense of salesmanship) might account for the defensive tone of his notice and for the urgency of his call for unlearned English readers “to learne to be more skilfull” by reading books like the Miscellany. Following the marriage of Philip II and Mary I in 1554, Spanish caballeros were in regular attendance at the English court, and, being worldly courtiers unlike their “barbarous” hosts, they of course wrote amorous songs and sonnets lightyears distant from the pious verses being written by the queen’s chaplain, William Forrest, or the jesting epigrams of the entertainer, John Heywood,

Introduction: From Printer to Reader

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or the polemical religious allegories of the queen’s hosier, Miles Hogarde.9 A good number of the caballeros’ poems, though, were also slyly satirical, conveying their authors’ disapproval of the royal marriage and their scorn for Mary and her subjects, and soon these compositions found their way into an edition of Spain’s most important verse miscellany, the Cancionero general, printed at Antwerp in 1557. What is more, when Philip II arrived early in 1557 for the second of his two periods of residence in England, he had in his entourage the Imperial Poet Laureate, Nikolaus Mameranus. By May, one of Tottel’s principal competitors, Thomas Marsh, had printed three collections of Mameranus’s verse in which the visiting laureate put on display his expert Latinity while also admonishing readers to hold firm to their faith and remember the obedience they owe to their governors. It would seem, therefore, that by the summer of 1557 Tottel had good reason to perceive that the London market was ripe for a book “publish[ed] to the honor of the Englishe tong,” a book that would do honor to those whose eloquence earned them a place at the table of international high culture. Tottel’s targeted audience, to be sure, was not Nikolaus Mameranus, or Spanish courtier-poets, or any other foreigner who might jealously be guarding membership in an elite literati circle, but rather the native English book buyer for whom the allure of such a notional circle might justify investment in Tottel’s Miscellany. That there were sufficient numbers of this type of prospective book buyer was a good bet, despite it still being commonplace among the English themselves to lament that their “uneloquent language” was irrecoverably “rude,” “rustical,” “barbarus” and “vile” compared to the classical and romance languages.10 An oft-cited expression of this sentiment is Roger Ascham’s complaint that “euery thyng is so excellently done” in Latin and Greek “that none can do better,” whereas “In the Englysh tonge contrary, euery thinge” is done “in a maner so meanly, bothe for the matter and handelynge, that no man can do worse.”11 Not everyone thought the case was hopeless, however. Andrew Borde, after conceding that “The speche of Englande is a base speche to other noble speches, as Italion Castylion and Frenche,” yet thought to add, “howbeit the speche of Englande of late dayes is amended.”12 English rhetoric handbooks by Richard Sherry and Thomas 9

  As Steven W. May comments, “If [Mary’s] courtiers produced a body of vernacular poetry modeled on the precedent set by Wyatt, Surrey, and their followers, all trace of it has disappeared” (2009, 419). 10   A convenient summary of these complaints is in Jones 1953, esp. the chapters titled “The Uneloquent Language” and “The Inadequate Language” (here citing from the former, 7). 11   Ascham, Toxophilus (1545), A4v. 12   I quote Borde from the earliest extant edition of The fyrst boke of the Introduction of knowledge (ca. 1555), B2r. From references to earlier editions in other of Borde’s works, it is known that the Introduction was first printed at least twice in the early-to-mid 1540s (the dedication is dated 1542). Ascham and Borde are cited similarly in Jones 1953, 14 and

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Wilson, published in the early 1550s, further testified to a conviction in some quarters that English could be eloquent. My second chapter, titled “To do as praiseworthely as the rest,” takes up the question that must therefore follow: what exactly is the eloquence that is “praiseworthely” modeled in the Miscellany’s verses? Tottel’s notice offers only unuseful generalizations: Surrey’s “honorable stile,” Wyatt’s “weightinesse,” the “seuerall graces” of other “good Englishe writers.” Scholars on the other hand have long recognized one feature that Tottel evidently prized in many of the poems he gathered, for it is also that which was made more pronounced when the poems were edited for press: their metrical regularity, meaning that their lines have a regular number of syllables and mostly regular stress patterns, called accentual-syllabic verse or syllable-stress meter, as opposed to accentual verse or strong-stress meter,13 which typically has a consistent number of stresses per line but variable numbers of syllables per line and erratic stress patterns. Iambic pentameter and other syllabic meters, we may infer, produced the “statelinesse of stile,” the steady stately gait, that Tottel extols. The crude accentual stuff sold by rival London presses, in contrast, appealed only to “the rude skill of common eares.” But, in fact, the Miscellany includes both styles of verse, just as it contains traditional English verse forms alongside the Italianate ones. Consequently, while it will be one part of our task to register the sheer spectacle of the Miscellany’s formal variety that made it as copiously miscellaneous as its Continental counterparts described in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 also examines various ways in which both new and familiar meters and verse forms were put to novel effect in Tottel’s Miscellany – working in tandem with a poem’s sequence of related conceits for example, contributing cleverly to its humor, or in some other manner exhibiting “graces” that readers might come to embrace as markers of an eloquent style. Chapter 3’s title, “Thinke it not euill doon,” is a phrase from Tottel’s expression of concern that his “good” and “gentle reder” not disapprove of the Miscellany for making available poetic “treasure … heretofore enuied” him by “vngentle horders.” What “shal answere for [his] defence,” says Tottel, is the “profit and pleasure” that the Miscellany promises to those who are “studious of Englishe eloquence.” The logic of this sales pitch depends on that favorite of medieval maxims: the measure of nobility is virtue, not genealogy; a true gentleman is known by his actions, not his social standing. Hence the hoarders are “vngentle” because they have been selfish, 13 respectively. On Borde’s own efforts to amend the English vernacular, see Shrank 2004, 38–47. 13

  For these terms, see Wimsatt and Beardsley 1959, 587, and the studies cited in Chapter 2 n. 1. In this study I follow the practice in Ringler 1988, calling the two types syllabic verse and accentual verse.

Introduction: From Printer to Reader

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even unpatriotic, given the implication that the hoarded poems have value as national treasures, whereas Tottel’s “good reder” will prove “gentle” by putting the Miscellany’s riches to good use. Even so, Tottel seems to admit to a transgression that he thinks needs redeeming. Doing honor to the English tongue comes at the price of putting into ordinary people’s hands what is not rightfully theirs, encouraging them to gaze “voyeuristically” – as Wendy Wall and Seth Lerer have characterized it – upon the private lives, inner thoughts, and personal emotions of the poems’ courtly authors.14 Possibly Tottel did know or fear that he risked offending certain parties by printing some of the Miscellany’s poems. Alternatively, his expression of this concern may be just another of the prefatory notice’s compelling inducements, and one that he modeled on a foreign precedent. We will have seen in chapter 1 that the rescue of poetic gems from hidden places was one of the feats claimed by printers of the Italian verse miscellanies. Surely another aim of this request not to think the Miscellany “euill doon” was strategic deflection, the fixing of readers’ attention on a potential wrongdoing that after all would amount to but a mild evil, as opposed to other types for which authors and printers from time to time suffered fines or imprisonment. Confessing to a nobly motivated theft of verses from “vngentle horders” was one means to signal, without the awkwardness of having to protest it outright, that the Miscellany does no worse evil – such as against the Catholic Church, Mary’s government, or England’s moral fabric. Yet neither does the Miscellany risk antagonizing Protestants. As shall be seen, its poems that do have political and religious content, even the one that likely celebrates the putting down of the Stafford rebellion in April 1557, do nothing more than avow a one-size-fits-all piety, morality, and dutiful loyalty to the crown, without nearly enough specificity to construe them as Roman Catholic or pro-Mary specifically, which is why after 1558 there was no need for Tottel to re-edit the volume for a new sovereign and new state religion. Tottel knew perfectly well, on the other hand, that he was certain to be accused of doing a different type of “euill” in bringing out a book of songs and sonnets. The Miscellany was bound to provoke – as in time it did provoke – the same moralistic protests against bawdy ballads as had The Court of Venus, England’s first printed verse miscellany, following its most recent publication in the late 1540s. Not just “rude skill” could cause readers to “mislike” the Miscellany, but also their opinion that the pious platitudes in some of the poems are counteracted by the incitements to lust in the greater number of others. The Miscellany shows signs of anticipating this reception and of speaking to it, even beyond Tottel’s bid in the notice to preempt moral censure by touting the “noble” Surrey’s “honorable stile” and 14

  Wall 1993, 96–7; Lerer 1997, 202.

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the “weightinesse” of “depewitted” Wyatt. It is when treating this subject in Chapter 3 that I turn to examine the world of the Inns of Court, noting certain of the anonymous verses that seem to me more suggestive of origins there than of courtly ones. Here also I elaborate my argument that for law students no less than for Tottel, it was to their interest that the poetry they wrote and trafficked in evade charges of impiety and corrosive influence, that the Petrarchan language of Venus-worship and martyring oneself to love not be interpreted as an invitation to sin or a flouting of religion, let alone a taking of sides in doctrinal controversy, but that it be permitted its utility as a benign vehicle for profitable practice and pleasant recreation. In all the Miscellany’s verses, there is just one living person subjected to ridicule, and he is one who would deny Tottel and his collaborators that benign vehicle: John Hall, the most notorious of The Court of Venus’s critics. In their taunting of Hall, I propose, Tottel and his collaborators were defending their right to an unmolested space for exercising their eloquence, a space that would afford them not only shelter from outsiders’ judgements of good and evil or the horrific spectacle of martyrs’ fires burning in nearby Smithfield, but a training-ground for literati-lawyer rituals of work and play in which martyrs’ fires had no place except in metaphor. Tottel encouraged his readers to hope that the poems printed in the first edition of the Miscellany would be supplemented by “moe hereafter,” which phrase is the title of my postscript. That hope was fulfilled in the second edition.15 Tottel also deleted many poems that had been printed in the first edition, however, and he made significant organizational changes. The edition of 5 June contained 271 poems under six headings: 36 poems by the Earl of Surrey; 91 poems by Thomas Wyatt; 40 poems by Nicholas Grimald; 94 poems by “Vncertain auctours”; and at the end, four additional poems by Surrey and six by Wyatt. In the edition of 31 July, the contents are grouped under four headings instead of six because the poems by Surrey and Wyatt at the end of the first edition are now grouped with these authors’ other poems at the beginning. Also, one poem attributed to Wyatt in the first edition (no. 82 in Rollins’s edition) is moved to the uncertain authors section, while an anonymous poem that replies to one of Surrey’s (no. 243) is moved to Surrey’s section to make a pair. More substantive changes were made to the two other sections. The second edition omits 30 of Nicholas Grimald’s poems that are in the first edition; the ten of his that remain are moved to the very end of the volume; and Grimald’s name is replaced by his initials, “N.G.” This abridgement is offset, however, by the addition of 39 new poems in the uncertain authors 15

  The first two editions of the Miscellany are STC nos. 13860 and 13861. Their different contents are described also in Rollins 1965, 2:7–11, and Marquis 2007, xvi–xxiii and xxxix–lviii.

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section, besides the one formerly attributed to Wyatt, so that the total count of poems is 280. At various points in this study I speculate on the motives and impact of these and other changes that Tottel made to the Miscellany for its second edition. Then in the postscript I review the Miscellany’s subsequent printing history, starting with Tottel’s incentives for repeating the date of the second edition in the colophon of the third (both are dated 31 July 1557) and for reprinting the Miscellany unchanged at least seven more times after the second edition, despite each time repeating the promise to add “moe” poems “hereafter.” In 1559 there were apparently three such reprints from Tottel’s press, followed by others in 1565, 1567, and 1574. The last two editions of the Miscellany were then done by other printers in 1585 and 1587.16 I next remark the events that seem abruptly to have dried up demand for Tottel’s Miscellany, but by then, so I suggest, the Miscellany’s Marian legacy in Elizabethan England was established, a thread entwined with others in the reign’s debates over poetry’s value, and one that I will propose inflects Shakespeare’s joking allusion to the Miscellany in The Merry Wives of Windsor. A few other matters remain to be addressed in this introduction: what can be said about the Miscellany’s source texts and the process of its compilation and editing, and what circumstantial evidence there is that makes it plausible, if not probable, that law students played a role in that process (the internal evidence I treat in Chapter 3). Hyder Rollins’s view was that Tottel compiled and edited the poems himself, and in a recent essay Steven May strengthens the case by noting the indications of Tottel’s personal interest in the printing of literary works during the 1550s and showing, further, that Tottel had issued a verse work prior to the Miscellany that, like it, had “its metrics significantly regularized”: an edition of John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes printed in 1554 (STC 3177). This, says May, is “a meticulously revised” version of the text printed by Richard Pynson in 1527, and “it is striking how many of the alterations” in Tottel’s edition “transform [the poem’s] rhythms from the often irregular

16

  STC records two of the 1559 editions (13863 and 13863.5; D and D* in Rollins 1965, 2:20–26), plus a variant state of the latter in STC 13863.7; another is recorded in ESTC (citation no. S492366; see Warner 2011). For the remaining editions see STC 13864– 8 (E–I in Rollins 1965, 2:26–36). Marquis’s report (2007) of the Miscellany’s publication history is unfortunately in one place muddled: he reports on p. xvi that the book was printed “twice in 1565” and that in all there were “eleven printings”; on pp. xxxiv–xxxv he correctly cites only one 1565 edition and reports ten total editions (the newly discovered 1559 edition makes eleven). It should also be noted that whereas Marquis numbers the editions Q1–Q10, only the first four were printed in quarto; the rest are octavos.

12

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beat of Pynson’s version into regular iambic pentameter” (2009, 425–6).17 Possibly, May grants, Tottel could have “paid someone to make the verse he printed conform to cutting-edge metrical standards,” but “the simplest explanation is that Tottel edited this poetry himself,” as this “smoothing” of Lydgate’s poem in 1554 looks like “a dress rehearsal for Tottel’s systematic regularizing of metres in his Miscellany three years later” (426). It may be, however, that Tottel did not need to edit the poems himself or to pay to have them edited, if he acquired them already in the regularized state in which we see them. Such event could be inferred from Jason Powell’s recent researches. Powell has discovered epistolary evidence of Kent-connected parties endeavoring, in the year or two just prior to the Miscellany’s publication, to acquire manuscripts of Wyatt’s works from the widow of Wyatt the younger for an unspecified but professedly important purpose.18 Among the friends and relations of these correspondents were men of some learning and worldly experience, including time spent in Italy and France during the late 1540s and early 1550s, and who therefore had opportunity to pick up any number of the Continental verse miscellanies that could well serve as guides to assembling an English one. Crucially also, Powell has determined that a textual relation much closer than has been realized exists between the versions of Wyatt’s poems in Tottel’s Miscellany and those in the Egerton manuscript, the single most important source of Wyatt’s poetry, including many verses written and revised in Wyatt’s own hand. Since it is most probable, in Powell’s judgement, that Egerton had been in the possession of Lady Wyatt just prior to the publication of Tottel’s Miscellany, it does indeed appear that the endeavor to secure Wyatt’s works was in this regard successful and that this network of individuals whom Powell identifies ultimately made it possible for Tottel to print as many of Wyatt’s poems as he did.19 This confirmation of the Miscellany’s dependence on Egerton (more probably, on a copy of Egerton) overturns Ruth Hughey’s widely accepted account of the relation between the Egerton manuscript, the Arundel 17   Cf. Rollins’s comment that “exactly the same kind of editing or smoothing as (apparently) characterizes Surrey’s poems in the miscellany occurs also in the 1557 edition [printed by Tottel] of his translation of the Aeneid, books II and IV” (1965, 2:88). 18   This evidence was presented by Powell at the 2011 meeting of the Sixteenth Century Studies Society. His fuller analysis of the social network to which the correspondents belonged, and of the potential implications of this evidence to our understanding of the Miscellany’s conception and formation, is forthcoming at the time of this writing and therefore discussed in general terms here. I thank him for his permission to do so. 19   Preliminary arguments for the close textual relation between Wyatt’s poems in Egerton and Tottel’s Miscellany are in Powell 2009, 28–9. A complete analysis of this relation is to follow in Powell’s two-volume critical edition of Wyatt’s works to be published by Oxford University Press.

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Harington manuscript, and Tottel’s Miscellany.20 Hughey concluded from her textual analysis of the three that an “evolutionary” or “somewhat progressive development in revision” had occurred from “E” to “AH” to “TM,” and that “the AH versions … represent a median stage between E and TM” (1960, 2:58). In fact, as Helen Baron first discovered and as Jason Powell has verified, “AH” postdates “TM,” for it can be shown that two to four of Wyatt’s poems in the Arundel Harington manuscript were copied from the second edition of Tottel’s Miscellany.21 Ruth Hughey did not realize this because for the most part she consulted only the first edition of the Miscellany for her study. Thus we can only wonder whether Egerton’s poems came to Tottel in a transcription that, on the whole,22 faithfully conveyed Wyatt’s pre-regularized meters (assuming that Tottel was not loaned the original manuscript), or if they came to him already with their meters smoothed by some one or another of the party that wanted to see them in print. Likewise, it cannot be known how many of the other poems included in Tottel’s Miscellany might have been supplied along with Egerton’s. Powell has noted a few of the anonymous poems that are strongest candidates: elegies paying tribute to persons related by blood or marriage to members of the network he identifies. My own supposition in this study is that the Miscellany comprises a core of poems obtained from this network, most of them Wyatt’s from Egerton, and a larger number of poems that Tottel obtained by other channels. Tottel had just in the previous year printed Nicholas Grimald’s translation of Cicero’s De officiis (1556; STC 5281), for example, so there is at least a fair chance that he received all 40 of the first edition’s poems by Grimald directly from their author. Some or all of the 40 poems attributed to Surrey may have come from those who supplied Tottel with Wyatt’s poetry, but this number is small enough that Tottel could instead have acquired them from a variety of sources, singly or in small batches, since there are good grounds for 20   See Hughey 1935 and 1960, 2:36–73. The Egerton manuscript is British Library Egerton MS. 2711; the Arundel Harington manuscript is at Arundel Castle. Marquis helpfully itemizes the locations of the Miscellany’s poems that are attested in these and other manuscripts (2007, xxvi–xxxiv and 239–42), although his headings for these sections, “Manuscript Sources” and “Possible Manuscript Sources,” are misleading. Except in the case of Egerton, the relation between extant manuscript copies of poems that occur also in the Miscellany is not demonstrably a close one. In the text of his introduction Marquis states more accurately that there are “versions” of the Miscellany’s poems in many manuscripts, “none of which” has yet been definitely shown to be “a direct source for any one of the poems in Tottel” (xxvi, xxviii). 21   Powell’s collations for his forthcoming critical edition of Wyatt’s poetry confirm this finding first remarked by Baron (1977, 122–8). 22   Taking into account, that is, the various interventions of later hands than Wyatt’s own in Egerton, on which see Powell 2009.

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believing that some number of Surrey’s verses – like some of Wyatt’s for that matter – circulated widely.23 The contents of the “Vncertain auctours” section of the Miscellany are quite varied in the first edition and all the more so in the augmented second edition, suggesting that Paul Marquis is correct in his speculation that Tottel drew on “an expansive network of manuscripts” for these poems (2007, xxx). Yet, as my analyses in Chapters 2 and 3 will show, there are indications that Tottel relied mainly on a specific, second network of individuals – his second circle of “collaborators,” as I call them – to help fill out this section of the first edition and expand it in the second with verses they themselves composed. And not only did they contribute more of the Petrarchan poetry, “concerned chiefly with love,” for which the Miscellany is famed. There are poems in this section that are exuberantly experimental, mischievously funny, brash, self-mocking – traits that suggest to me a circle of rambunctious young men a decade or more younger than the members of the network that likely passed Wyatt’s poetry on to Tottel. It should not be difficult to surmise which class of young men belonged to this circle, if we consider Tottel’s main line of business and his own relative youth. In 1557, Richard Tottel was 29 or not much older.24 Because he held the patent to common-law books, it is perhaps inevitable that an impression of the dryly technical nature of such works, or of the serious-mindedness of law professionals, would instill an impression of Tottel as likewise always practical- and serious-minded, as a savvy and mature businessman right from the start of his career, and thus one whom it would be hard to imagine taking a personal interest in frivolous things like poems. A related prejudice, one refuted decisively by Steven May, is that a “publisher of prosaic law books” would have “lacked the cultural sophistication” to edit the Miscellany’s verses (2009, 425). We should rather keep in mind that Tottel was part of a large, vibrant, and certainly sophisticated social/occupational network in London, comprising law students, lawyers, and others in the trades and in government who maintained ties to the legal profession. And in Mary’s reign, Tottel was hardly a senior member of this network; he was about the same age as the junior lawyers and but a few years older than the students and those for whom the Inns of Court served chiefly as a finishing school (the ones who kept up minimally with the exacting regimen only to maintain their status and lodgings there).25

23

  Evidence for this is discussed by Steven May (2009, 420–23), who contends that many of Surrey’s and Wyatt’s poems probably were “readily available” to those who sought them (422). 24   ODNB estimates that Tottel was born “in or before 1528.” 25   A convenient account of these constituencies is in Baker 2011.

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Not every type of law book was covered by Tottel’s patent or printed by him in these years, but, as the principal supplier of these texts, Tottel was likely the printer whose shop these young gentlemen most frequented and the printer they got to know best. In turn, Tottel presumably got to know them, not only as students preparing for their mooting and bolting exercises or as lawyers expanding their professional libraries, but as cohorts with whom he shared a young man’s enthusiasm for doleful descriptions of the restless state of lovers and for wooers’ plaintive suits to ladies to rue on their dying hearts. In the next reign more famously, but in Mary’s also, residents of the Inns of Court took a keen interest in poetry, copying and composing it, putting it to service in dramatic performances, eventually seeing some of it published. Thus it would seem reasonable to posit that law students were not only contributors of poems to Tottel’s Miscellany (some gathered by them, others composed by them), but also, over the three decades that the Miscellany was in print, its main buyers. I will here make a preliminary case for their authorship of poems in the Miscellany by considering evidence that is circumstantial but I believe compelling, starting with review of Hyder Rollins’s short list of anonymous poems whose authors are known or suggested in manuscript or other sources.26 One is a poem from the 1520s by John Heywood (“Geue place you Ladies,” no. 199 in Rollins’s edition); a second is Chaucer’s ballad, “Truth,” in abridged form (no. 238). Most of the others are likewise moral in nature or tribute poems: “Against wicked tonges” (no. 177) and “Of the mutabilitie of the world” (no. 180) were written by one “J. Canand,” about whom “no biographical information is available”; “Totus mundus in maligno positus” (no. 284) is dubiously attributed to John Cheke (1514– 57) on very slight evidence;27 “Of the death of master Deuerox the lord Ferres sonne” (no. 169) is John Harington’s (ca. 1517–82); “Of the death of sir Thomas wiate the elder” (no. 273) was written by Anthony St. Leger (1496?–1559); and “Comparison of lyfe and death” (no. 171), “if [says Rollins] the evidence of The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576) may be accepted,” was written by one D. Sand (dates unknown). Two other moral poems, to be discussed in Chapter 3, are attributed by Rollins to John Hall. One other known courtier besides Harington is represented among the anonymous authors, notes Rollins: Thomas Vaux, Second Baron Vaux (1509–56), who penned two or three of the love poems (nos. 211, 212, “and perhaps” 217). William Gray, a “ballad-writer of note” and “favorite servant of the Protector Somerset” (d. 1557), is credited by Rollins with his own epitaph, in which “w.G.” accuses his wife for having scolded him to death (no. 26

  The following summarizes and quotes from Rollins 1965, 2:79–85 and 334 n. 80.   See Rollins’s skeptical report of this attribution (1965, 2:323–4).

27

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255), “and possibly (though not at all probably),” says Rollins, no. 256, which is the wife’s witty rebuttal. The ascription of either poem to Gray should be doubted, however, despite a copy of the former being in MS. Lansdowne 98 entitled “An Epitaphe made by William Grey, lyeng on his deathe bed, and by him appointed to be set on his tombe.”28 Both the epitaph and the wife’s “answer,” as shall be seen in Chapter 2, are pretty clearly jokes at Gray’s expense. This leaves two poems attributed in manuscripts to Thomas Norton (1530x32–84, sic, following the style of the ODNB), a law student at the time. The first is the poem “Against women either good or badde” (no. 257), which we will later see is anonymously refuted by “An answere” (no. 258). The other poem was added to the second edition, no. 289, which is a companion to “An epitaph of maister Henry williams” (no. 253).29 In sum, in these two pairings we find traces of poetic interaction involving one known law student and one or two other poets, and of apparent collaboration between poets and printer: a poem by Norton is answered in the first edition, and Norton contributed a poem to the second edition that he was prompted to write by a poem in the first. These two pairs are discussed in Chapter 2. Also “usually associated” with Tottel’s Miscellany, Rollins notes, are George Boleyn (ca. 1504–36) and Sir Francis Bryan (d. 1550), “although their specific contributions have not been identified,” and neither is it clear 28

 Noted in Rollins 1965, 2:306. Rollins also records a much longer version of the epitaph, without title or signature, in Sloane MS. 1207 following a poem that is signed “Wm. Gray,” first printed in Furnivall 1868–73, 1:435–7. This version continues, incongruously, with stanzas offering a devout and polemical Protestant prayer (it is dismissive of the mass and holy oils, for example) that are more believably intended for a tomb inscription (see Rollins 1965, 2:306–8). Instead of assuming that Tottel deleted these stanzas from the copy of the poem that he had acquired, therefore, we should probably suspect that the Sloane version is the product of conflation. 29  Unfortunately, the ODNB article on Thomas Norton gets his contributions to the Miscellany seriously confused, describing his “Epitaphe of Maister Henrie Williams” as a poem “In rhyming iambic pentameter” in which “Norton maintains that Williams (d. 1551) will triumph over death by his recent conversion to protestantism,” and then asserting that “[t]he same conviction drives some unambitious octosyllabic quatrains: ‘Stay gentel frend that passest by’ (BL, Cotton MS. Titus A.xxiv, fol. 79v).” In fact, the epitaph in rhyming couplets is no. 253 in Rollins 1965, and there is no evidence of it being Norton’s; his is the companion poem that was added to the edition of 31 July, titled “Another of the same,” that begins, “Stay gentel frend that passest by” (no. 289). The claim that either of these poems in the Miscellany voices a conviction that the deceased “will triumph over death” because of his “recent conversion to protestantism” presumably is based on an awareness of Norton’s writings and activities during the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, for neither says anything of the sort. In addition to the copy of Norton’s epitaph in Cotton MS. Titus A.xxiv, there is another in the Arundel Harington MS. (no. 300 in Hughey 1960). Hughey mistakenly notes that the poem “is a second answer to 287” in Rollins’s edition of the Miscellany (2:446), whereas it is rather the only “answer” to no. 253 there.

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which poems Thomas Churchyard (1523?–1604) referred to when he claimed, in a list of his works prefixed to Churchyard’s Challenge (1593), that “many things in the booke of songs and Sonets … were of [his] making.”30 “It is a reasonable guess,” says Rollins also, that among other possible contributors were Edmund Sheffield (1521–49), Christopher Yelverton (1536/7–1612), and Thomas Sackville (ca. 1536–1608). “But there is no advantage in further speculation of this sort,” he concludes. If our aim were strictly to determine the authorship of individual poems, Rollins is right: speculation would get us nowhere. But Rollins missed the bigger picture by not pursuing leads that were in front of him. He mentions the names Yelverton, Norton, and Sackville, and he even quotes two stanzas of a poem by Jasper Heywood (1535–98) in which these men are praised, excerpted from Heywood’s verse preface to his translation of Seneca’s Thyestes, printed by Thomas Powell in 1560. Rollins neglected to mention that this encomium occurs in the context of a roster of real and alleged Inns of Court authors, whose gifts, no less, include a “stately style” such as Tottel advertises is the distinction of the Miscellany’s verses: In Lyncolnes Inne and Temples twayne, Grayes Inne and other mo, Thou shalt them fynde whose paynfull pen thy verse shall florishe so, That Melpomen31 thou wouldst well weene had taught them for to wright, And all their woorks with stately style, and goodly grace t’endight. There shalt thou se the selfe same Northe, whose woorke his witte displayes, And Dyall dothe of Princes paynte, and preache abroade his prayse. There Sackuyldes Sonetts sweetely sauste, and featly fyned bee, There Nortons ditties do delight, there Yeluertons doo flee Well pewrde with pen: suche yong men three, as weene thou mightst agayne, To be begotte as Pallas was, 30   Rollins, citing other scholars’ conjectures also, lists close to a dozen poems in the Miscellany that “may plausibly be assigned to Churchyard” on the admittedly shaky grounds of their “mannered” style, quirks of spelling, etc. (2:84). Matthew Woodcock’s forthcoming biography of Churchyard will address these and other attribution problems. 31   I.e., Melpomene, Muse of tragic poetry.

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of myghtie Ioue his brayne. There heare thou shalt a great reporte, of Baldwyns worthie name, Whose Myrrour dothe of Magistrates, proclayme eternall fame. And there the gentle Blunduille is by name and eke by kynde, Of whome we learne by Plutarches lore, what frute by foes to fynde. There Bauande bydes, that turnde his toyle a Common welthe to frame, And greater grace in Englyshe geues, to woorthy authors name. There Gouge a gratefull gaynes hath gotte, reporte that runneth ryfe, Who crooked Compasse dothe describe, and Zodiake of lyfe. And yet great nombre more, whose names yf I shoulde now resight, A ten tymes greater woorke then thine, I should be forste to wright. A pryncely place in Parnasse hill, for these there is preparde, Where crowne of glittryng glorie hangs, for them a ryght rewarde. Whereas the lappes of Ladies nyne, shall dewly them defende, That haue preparde the Lawrell leafe, about theyr hedds to bende.32

In other words, the “Lawrell leafe” is on the heads of lawyers. We would do well to take a closer look at their ranks, both those whom Heywood names and others, to get a clearer sense of their own interrelations and of their relations with Richard Tottel, insofar as these can be determined or inferred. I start with Tottel’s connections.33 His father, William Tottel, had done well enough as a fishmonger in Exeter to raise his station and serve terms as bailiff, sheriff, and, in 1552, mayor of Exeter. In the 1540s Richard Tottel was made an apprentice to William Middleton, who had taken over 32

  The Seconde Tragedie of Seneca entituled Thyestes, printed “in the house late Thomas Berthelettes” (STC 22226), frontmatter 7v–8r. 33   The essentials of the following may be gleaned from Byrom 1927 and Tottel’s ODNB entry.

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Robert Redman’s shop and his role as one of London’s law printers. His indentureship was complete by the end of the decade, after Middleton had died and his widow had married William Powell, who held the patent for printing common law books in Edward VI’s reign. Tottel took over the shop of another law printer, Henry Smithe, in 1550, and in 1552 he was admitted as a freeman of London and member of the Stationers’ Company. The next year, Powell’s patent was transferred to him.34 In 1556, Mary I renewed the patent on even better terms, for it was not only a “Licence to Richard Tottle” allowing “sole printing within the next seven years of all books touching the common laws of the realm of which no other person has any special licence under the great seal”; it also granted “that no person shall print any book first taken in hand by Tottle during the time of this licence,” thereby effectively extending to Tottel blanket copyright to every other type of book that he first printed, such as the Miscellany, without the trouble of individual petitions.35 Possibly William Tottel enjoyed connections with the London legal world that helped so young a printer as his son, just venturing out on his own in the business, to win so valuable a privilege, but it is clearer that Richard Tottel inherited Middleton’s and Powell’s network of ties to London’s legal elite, in particular that “circle of eminent lawyers of Lincoln’s Inn” comprising Ranulf and William Cholmely, Ralph Rokeby, John and William Peyghan, and others who are discussed below.36 Such connections, we may safely infer, helped Tottel not only to flourish in his trade but to place his own son in one of the Inns. At some point in the 1550s Tottel married the daughter of Richard Grafton, another long time printer of law books and formerly king’s printer under Henry VIII and Edward VI. It was on the same day in 1576 that Tottel’s eldest son William (b. 1560) and a cousin of William’s in the Grafton family were admitted to the Middle Temple.37 Among Tottel’s Lincoln’s Inn associates were William Rastell (1508– 65) and the surviving progeny of the “Thomas More circle.” Rastell was More’s nephew, the son of John Rastell and Elizabeth More. The elder Rastell has a place in literary history for being the author and printer of some of England’s earliest dramatic texts, but he was a lawyer himself and 34

  CPR Edward VI, 5:47.   CPR Philip and Mary, 3:18, 5 May 1556. 36   See Byrom 1927, 202. Thomas Norton, who by the 1580s was serving as Stationers’ Company counsel and London remembrancer, testifies that Tottel’s patent was awarded to him “at sute of the Judges” (Stationers’ Register, 2:775), apparently referring to this Lincoln’s Inn circle. 37   Record for 16 March 1576, in Middle Temple Register, 1:40: “Richard Grafton, late of Lyons Inne., gent., second son of Richard G., of London, gent.”; “William Tothell, gent., son and heir of Richard T., of St. Dunstan’s Parish, near the Barr of the New Temple, London, gent.” 35

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the compiler and translator of important law texts in the 1520s. William entered the printing business for a time, but in 1532, after his uncle resigned the lord chancellorship over Henry’s supremacy legislation, he abandoned the trade to pursue legal studies at Lincoln’s. Rastell then left England during Edward’s reign but returned with the accession of Mary to resume his legal career, including service as a Member of Parliament and as serjeant-at-law and counsel to the city of Canterbury. He also engaged himself as a bencher in the business of his alma mater, serving as Treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn, for example, in 1554.38 In this period, too, he worked with Richard Tottel on four major publication projects: new editions of the Registrum iudiciale (1553; STC 20837) and Natura brevium (1553; STC 10959), A colleccion of all the statutes (from the begynning of Magna Carta vnto the yere of our Lorde, 1557) (1557; STC 9306), and the 1557 edition of Thomas More’s English works.39 The same year that Rastell was elected Lincoln’s treasurer, his longtime associate William Roper (1495x8–1578) was elected to serve as one of the six governors and Dean of the Chapel.40 Roper was a long-time member of Thomas More’s household, both while a student at Lincoln’s Inn and as More’s son-in-law after his marriage to Margaret in 1521. He also authored the Life of Sir Thomas More that eventually was published in 1626. On 24 October 1556, William Roper’s son John (1534–1618) was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn.41 The Heywoods were part of this circle too. The poet John Heywood was himself Oxford educated, but he was the son of a lawyer, William Heywood of Coventry, who enjoyed close ties with John Rastell. Heywood became a member of the Stationers’ Company in 1523, shortly after marrying Joan Rastell, sister of William Rastell and niece to Thomas More. Their sons were Jasper, the translator of Seneca’s tragedies whose verses in praise of lawyer-poets were just now quoted, and Ellis (1530–78), author of the Italian prose dialogue Il Moro, printed at Florence by Lorenzo Torrentino in 1556. John Heywood’s brother Richard (1509–70) was a prominent figure at Lincoln’s Inn, and on 30 January 1557 his son, Stephen Heywood, was admitted there.42 In 1559, Tottel printed Jasper Heywood’s translation of Troas (The Trojan Women) in two editions (STC 22227, 22227a). 38

  Lincoln’s Black Books, 1:311 (fol. 276).   The workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, sometyme Lorde Chaucellour of England, wrytten by him in the Englysh tonge (STC 18076). The title page advertises that this was “Printed at London at the costes and charges of Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottel”; STC notes that the first quire alone was printed by Cawood, the remainder by Tottel. 40   Lincoln’s Black Books, 1:311 (fol. 276). 41   Lincoln’s Admissions, 1:63 (fol. 300). 42   Ibid. (fol. 311). 39

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We should remark again Tottel’s youth in the 1550s, for it suggests a greater likelihood of his maintaining social relations with the younger generations of the Thomas More circle than with the eldest. William Rastell was 49 in 1557. Closer to Tottel’s age were Ellis Heywood, 27; his brother Jasper and their cousin Stephen, both 22; and the young John Roper, 23. Because Stephen and John were both law students in the 1550s, they in particular had reason to frequent Tottel’s establishment. We need now to learn the names of his other likely visitors while the Miscellany was in preparation. Most of the writers praised by Jasper Heywood are well known. The first on the list, Thomas North (1535–1603?), was a 22-year-old law student in 1557, admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 10 February 1556,43 and already the translator of The Diall of Princes.44 Heywood next praises Thomas Sackville (c.1536–1608) for his “Sonetts sweetely sauste” and Thomas Norton (1530/32–84) for his “ditties.” Both were students of the Inner Temple in 1557, having been admitted on 3 April 1555 and 28 January 1556 respectively.45 Sackville was in his early twenties then; Norton was 25 to 27. They are best known for having collaborated in the next decade on Gorboduc, the first English play written in blank verse, which was performed during Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, 1560–61. Norton, however, had already made his first appearance in print by 1551, when his commendatory poem of seven sextilla stanzas headed “Thomas Norton to the reder” was printed in William Turner’s treatise against “the furious secte of the Annabaptistes,” A preseruative, or triacle, agaynst the poyson of Pelagius (STC 24368, A7r/v). It is significant that Jasper Heywood, who soon after the publication of Thyestes departed into religious exile and joined the Jesuit order, praises Thomas Norton in his verse tribute to authors-of-the-Inns, given our present understanding of Norton’s “unshakeable protestant loyalties.”46 It indicates that Norton had not been making these loyalties generally known during Mary’s reign. The same goes for Heywood’s praise of the next familiar name on his list, William Baldwin (d. in or before 1563). There is no record of Baldwin having been trained in the law other than Jasper Heywood’s poem, so perhaps Heywood associated Baldwin with the Inns of Court because of 43

  Lincoln’s Admissions, 1:62 (recorded 9 Feb. 1556).   If any of North’s poems are in the Miscellany, we might expect them to be among the moralistic ones given his criticism of The Court of Venus in The Diall, to be quoted in Chapter 3. This impression of him, however, may be qualified by testimony from a different source, cited below. 45  Dates obtained from The Inner Temple Admissions Database (www.innertemple.org. uk/archive/itad/index.asp). In the Inner Temple Records, 1:180, the notes of a parliament meeting record Sackville’s admission on 1 July 1555. The ODNB article on Norton dates his admission 28 June 1555. 44

46

  Quoted from his biography in the ODNB.

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his working relationship with George Ferrers (ca. 1510–79), a Lincoln’s Inntrained lawyer and editor of law texts since the 1530s, under whom Baldwin served at Court in the Department of Revels through 1557.47 Thomas Blundeville (1522?–1606?) is another familiar name in Heywood’s roster. His translation of Plutarch was printed in 1561 by the title Three moral treatises (STC 20063.5), two of the three being in verse. Blundeville is also the eldest of those named, having apparently been a member of Gray’s Inn since the 1540s.48 We can ourselves add the names of two other budding young poets of the Inns of Court whom Heywood does not mention. George Gascoigne (1534/5?–77), whose father was a sheriff, MP, and then justice of the peace in the 1540s and 1550s, entered Gray’s Inn in 1555.49 In Tudor literary history Gascoigne is remembered for his works of verse and drama printed in the 1570s, most notably A hundreth sundrie flowres (1573), his book of Posies (1575), and The steele glas (1576). But in 1557 he was another 22- or 23-year-old law student. Also a familiar name is George Puttenham (1529–90/91), reputed author of The Arte of English Poesie printed anonymously in 1589. He left Cambridge without a degree in 1546, but ten years later, on 11 August 1556, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, age 27.50 Additionally, Jasper Heywood’s praise of “ditties” that were “Well pewrde” from the pen of Christopher Yelverton (1536/7–1612) is a useful reminder that we cannot assume only the poets whose names we now recognize were the likeliest ones to take an interest in Tottel’s Miscellany and to supply Tottel with their verses. Other than Heywood’s poem, we 47

  See also the discussion of Baldwin’s evident close relations with the Inns of Court, including his possible production of a play there and associations with John Heywood, in Feasey 1925, 416–17. Additionally, George Ferrers and Thomas Sackville were both contributors to Baldwin’s Mirror for Magistrates, the first attempted edition of which had been suppressed in 1553 by Mary’s Privy Council (for this story see Lucas 2009, 18–66). Presumably Jasper Heywood would not have sung Baldwin’s praises for this compilation if he had been aware of that episode. 48   In 1541, a Thomas Blomville was admitted to Gray’s Inn (Gray’s Admissions, 15). The last two authors praised by Heywood became law students after the first editions of Tottel’s Miscellany: William Bavand (fl. 1559) and Barnabe Googe (1540–94). Bavand is the author of a translation of De republica bene instituenda by Joannes Ferrarius Montanus (1559) titled A Work Touching the Good Ordering of a Common Weale, containing both prose and verse. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 4 August 1557 (Middle Temple Admissions, 1:23). Barnabe Googe (1540–94) authored several works in the 1560s and after, but he is best known for his verse collection Eglogs epytaphes, and sonettes (1563). By his own account he was a student at Staple’s Inn in 1560 (ODNB). 49   Gray’s Admissions, 25 (last named, fol. 502). He is not to be confused with another George Gascoigne, younger son of John G. of Lasingcrofte, Yorkshire, who entered the Middle Temple 6 Feb. 1560. 50   Middle Temple Admissions, 1:22.

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have no evidence that Yelverton was a poet at all. He came from a long line of lawyers and judges, and in 1552 he was admitted to Gray’s Inn where his father was a bencher.51 He later served as a judge himself and as speaker of the House of Commons. But it should not surprise us that a young man in his early twenties, in such company as those we have so far named, would divert himself with the writing of ditties. This was an environment that encouraged fun as well as long hours of rigorous work, after all. The Minstrel of the Temple was a salaried position, for example,52 and the post of Master of the Revels was apparently a popular one among students, judging from how many of them shared the appointment and were willing to be re-elected several years in succession. At Lincoln’s Inn between 1553 and 1557, there are two Revels Masters we recognize: “Heywood junior” and “Mr. Northe III.”53 The others were “Mr. Owen, Mr. Huddylstone, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Hansarde, Mr. Pryce, Mr. Rosecarrock junior, Mr. Dowdall, Mr. Wyndham, Mr. Bowes junior, Mr. Revenynge, Mr. Gage, Mr. Forrest,” and “Mr. Bellyngham.”54 Sharing the post at the Middle Temple were “Richard More, Thomas Whyte, William Goldyng, John Dawney, William Ludlowe, Francis Bastard, Edmund Skarnyng, John Gyfford, Thomas Laventhorp, William Hussey, Roger Waldron, Hamond Claxton, Thomas Gateacre, Francis Wurtley, Francis Rowleston,” and “Matthew Smythe.”55 Records of Gray’s Inn are lost up to 1569, and those for the Inner Temple do not consistently record its Masters of the Revels in Mary’s reign, but we do learn of “Master[s] Cusacke, Skiddye, Evans, Kebell, Peny,” and “Arthure.”56 There was, in brief, a veritable small army of young men at the Inns of Court arranging entertainments for their peers and no doubt, to varying extents, writing and performing songs, poems, and plays themselves. It is hard to imagine them not showing up at Richard Tottel’s shop with fistfuls of verses, especially after the first edition of the Miscellany was printed in June and word spread that a new edition containing still “moe” verses was pending, with contributions for consideration welcome.57 51

  Gray’s Admissions, 23 (fol. 491).  See Middle Temple Records, 1:84, for reference to a year’s wages of twenty shillings paid to the wife of “Nicholas Killingworth, minstrel of the Temple” on 13 February 1552. 53  North’s term in this office indicates that he was not wholly a censorious moralist in his youth but could indulge also in songs and plays (see n. 44 above and the discussion of his preface to The Diall of Princes in Chapter 3). 54   Lincoln’s Black Books, 1:306 (fol. 270), 311 (fol. 277), 318 (fol. 308), 322 (fol. 325). 55   Middle Temple Records, 1:98, 103, 114. 56   Inner Temple Records, 1:171, 175. 57   Rollins observes that Tottel himself could well have contributed a poem or two (1965, 2:94). The point in any event is that Tottel’s Miscellany is only one part “anthology of [Henrician] court-poetry,” as Rollins himself calls it, and so too is it only partly indebted to 52

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In this light, it is worth looking again at the timing of Tottel’s publication of the first and second editions of the Miscellany. The calendar of the Inns of Court was divided into different sessions of varying degrees of rigor. Term times were the four brief periods during the year of most intensive training for the students, when the courts were in session; there were two Learning Vacations, Lent and Summer, of less intensity; and the other periods were known as Mean or Dead Vacations, still involving mooting exercises but comparatively much less demanding. Easter Sunday fell on 18 April in 1557, so Easter term, which typically opened 17 days afterward and closed shortly before the Eve of Ascension, was in session from about 5 May to 25 May. Trinity term, which opens on the Friday after Corpus Christi Day and ends about 19 days afterward, was in session from 18 June to 8 July. Prior to the start of Michaelmas term in November, the Summer Learning Vacation began on August 2, the first Monday after Lammas Day. Thus, in 1557, students of the Inns of Court enjoyed their periods of most free time (their Mean Vacations) during the periods 6 May–17 June and 9 July–1 August. The first and second editions of Tottel’s Miscellany, dated 5 June and 31 July, appeared respectively in the midst of the first and toward the end of the second of these down periods. This may be mere coincidence, or it may be the consequence of Tottel’s Miscellany being in part a students’ vacation project. There is, finally, one logistical matter to explain: my citation method in the chapters ahead, where the two modern critical editions of the Miscellany are usually cited jointly. Hyder Rollins followed the first edition for his base text, numbering the poems 1–271, and in an appendix he printed the poems that were added to the second edition, numbering them 272–310. It is difficult, therefore, to reconstruct from Rollins’s edition the sequence of the second edition’s contents. Paul Marquis solved this problem by editing the text of the second edition in Richard Tottel’s Songes and Sonettes: The Elizabethan Version, numbering the poems 1–280.58 Hereafter in this study, I adopt Marquis’s abbreviations for distinguishing between the first three editions of the Miscellany: Q1–Q3 for quartos 1–3 (as opposed to Rollins’s A, B, and C). I quote the text of Rollins’s edition, but I silently expand abbreviations and I provide both Rollins’s and Marquis’s poem numbers in the following manner. The two editions are abbreviated R (for Rollins) and M (for Marquis). If the environment of Cambridge University, which Rollins notes was attended by Surrey, Wyatt, Grimald, Vaux, Cheke, St. Leger, briefly Norton “and possibly Sackville.” Says Rollins, “that university, long noted as the mother of poets, is the foster-mother of the miscellany which ushered modern English verse into being.” My argument is that the Inns of Court were the Miscellany’s subsequent foster mothers under Mary’s reign. 58   The second edition is also the base text for the recently published Penguin edition of Tottel’s Miscellany (Holton and MacFaul 2011), so its numbering matches Marquis’s, although in an appendix it also includes Grimald’s poems that were only printed in the first edition.

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the number is the same in both, it is cited RM#. If the numbers differ, they are cited R#/M#. If a poem is one of Nicholas Grimald’s that was omitted from Q2, it is cited R#, without an M-number because it does not occur in Marquis’s edition. Thus, for example, RM1 is the first poem in Q1 and Q2 both. The first poem of Thomas Wyatt’s section in Q1 and Q2 is R37/M42. An anonymous poem that was printed for the first time in Q2 is R272/M222. A poem by Grimald that was omitted from Q2 is R128. With this we proceed to Chapter 1, to see what foreign-language sources of inspiration, and of provocation, could have spurred the making and marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany.

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Chapter 1

“The workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other” The opening sentences of Tottel’s notice “to the Reader,” we saw, assert that poetry can be written as “praiseworthely” in English as it can in other tongues, and the benchmarks are “the workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other.” It was not strictly necessary that Tottel’s prospective customers knew the names of these “diuers,” let alone “the workes” themselves; they just needed to have a vague awareness that ancient Rome, Italy of late, and some other foreign lands could boast of poets who had won more worldly renown than England’s. If Tottel himself had in mind particular foreign poets who had written praiseworthily “in small parcelles,” these would firstly have been the obvious ones, the Roman Horace and Tuscan Petrarch, and perhaps secondarily those besides Horace and Petrarch who also were translated or imitated in many of the Miscellany’s verses. These include, in Latin, Theodore Beza (Théodore de Bèze, 1519–1605), who published a collection of mostly amorous poems in 1548, just before his spiritual awakening that inspired him to move to Geneva where he became John Calvin’s disciple; and in Italian, the later Petrarchans Serafino Aquilano (Serafino de’ Ciminelli, 1466–1500) and Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530). We could stop there. But as the four sections of this chapter attest, doing so would deny us discovery of a neglected but crucial literaryhistorical context for the publication of Tottel’s Miscellany in the summer of 1557: the foreign-language collections of “verse in small parcelles” printed by various presses in Europe and, in three instances, by a rival press in London. More so than The Court of Venus, to be discussed in Chapter 3, these works would have supplied the most compelling and proximate source of inspiration to print an English verse miscellany in the year Tottel did and in the way he did, for in many cases their example offered useful practical lessons for the organization, presentation, and marketing of a verse miscellany. In some other cases, as we shall see, their existence might better be described as provocations, for included in their pages were verses that mocked the English as “crazy,” reviled them as a barbarous alien tribe, or reminded them of their recent “mad” flight from Catholic Christendom. These were books that might reasonably lead a savvy London printer like Tottel to conclude that the domestic market was primed for a patriotic retort in “honor of the Englishe tong.” Toward this

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end, too, the foreign-language miscellanies could be exemplary, for they illustrated the standards by which world-class poetry was being measured, the bar to which Tottel’s Miscellany dared to be held. Recurring features of the Italian, French and Spanish volumes were the astonishing variety of meters and verse forms on display, their happy mix of old alongside new stanzaic forms, and – in the French and Spanish ones – their witness of a transition from “crude” traditional meters of variable syllable-counts to regularization after the Italian example. These are widely acknowledged features of Tottel’s Miscellany as well, though they remain inadequately documented, and in Chapter 2 will be seen that neither were they merely owing to Tottel’s good fortune in acquiring Henrician- and Edwardian-era verses of such rich variety. He also had help from unnamed contemporaries – in my conjecture, students from the Inns – who supplied him with a diverse selection of their own poems, including, for the second edition, a batch that Tottel judged fit to replace most of Nicholas Grimald’s. Thus it is an essential feature as well that Tottel promotes the Miscellany for the good it can do as a model of eloquence rather than as a vehicle for moral or religious instruction. By opposing “statelinesse of stile” to “rude skill” as the sole criterion for praiseworthiness, Tottel keeps conspicuously silent on those concerns that preoccupied most other books of the time that offered their readers “profit.” In his notice, no awareness is betrayed of wayward readers for whom pious poetry might serve to expel error and restore true faith. In their stead are backward readers whom he exhorts to “learne to be more skilfull” – for skill, in reading and in writing, is all that is in question, all that the Miscellany invites one to admire and presumes to teach. In taking this stance, we shall see, Tottel’s notice is similar to the dedications written for two major Italian verse miscellanies published in 1553 and 1556. Because in other respects too the Italian precedents were those that poets and printers of other realms took as their model, my survey starts with them. I. “Italians”: The divers rhymes of many excellent authors If we surmise that some part of Richard Tottel’s inspiration to print a verse miscellany in 1557 was his awareness of the commercial success of Continental precedents, then we must say he was well justified to mention “Italians” next after the “Latins” as the benchmark against which to measure English excellence. Printed anthologies of poems by “diversi eccellenti autori” may not have outnumbered their counterparts in other languages, but the poets whose works were collected in these volumes enjoyed far the greatest international prestige, being as they were Petrarch’s nearest heirs. The early decades of the sixteenth century saw

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about a dozen miscellanies printed in multiple editions at Rome, Siena, Pesaro, Florence, and especially Venice, where the two major producers were Niccolò Zoppino and Giorgio Rusconi. The two most popular volumes, based on the number of attested editions, were the Fioretto de cose noue nobilissime et degne de diuersi auctori nouiter stampate cioe: Sonetti Capitoli Epistole Egloghe Disperate Strambotti Barzelette and the Colletanio de cose noue spirituale zoe sonetti laude capituli et stantie con la sententia di Pilato composte da diuersi et preclarissimi poeti historiato. The Fioretto was printed by Zoppino in 1508 and 1521, by Rusconi in 1510, 1516, and 1518; other editions came from presses in Pesaro (1515) and Florence (1517). The Colletanio was also first printed by Zoppino, in 1509, and immediately it was picked up by Rusconi, who reprinted it in 1510, 1513, 1514, and 1515. Another 1514 edition was printed at Venice by Simon de Luere, but that same year Zoppino also printed a revised edition, with the title Colletanio de cose nove spirituale zoe Sonetti Laude Capituli et Stantie composte da diuersi et preclarissimi poeti, which his press reprinted in 1524 and again in 1537. Nearer to mid-century, demand seems to have become keenest for anthologies of contemporary poets, such as the one the Venetian press of Curzio Navò made available in 1539: Terze rime del Molza, del Varchi, del Dolce, et d’altri,1 which an unidentified printer (perhaps more than one) reprinted in Venice in 1540, 1542, and 1545. It was then that the floodgates really opened, with Gabriel Giolito’s publication of the first installment of a multi-volume miscellany series (the exact number is debated): the Rime diverse di molti eccellentiss. avttori nvovamente raccolte. Libro Primo (Venice, 1545), edited by Lodovico Domenichi.2 In addition to seven sonnets of Domenichi’s own, this first volume contained another 479 sonnets, 18 canzoni, two capitoli, four series of ottava rima totaling 61 stanze, 19 madrigali and ten other miscellaneous frottole by 90 other “most excellent authors.” Only ten of 1

 The named poets are Francesco Maria Molza (1489–1544), Benedetto Varchi (1503– 65), and Lodovico Dolce (1508–68), all three of whom figure large in the Rime diverse series discussed next. 2  The proceeding account of the printing history of the Rime diverse series is indebted to Bogni 1890–97; Richter 1953; and Clubb and Clubb 1991. The descriptions of the volumes’ contents are based on my own examination of each edition of the volumes in the series, but I benefited much from the ability to check my tallies in some categories against data published in Vaganay 1902–3; Robin 2007, 205–42; and the ALI RASTA (Antologie della Lirica Italiana – Raccolte a stampa) website maintained by the University of Pavia (http://rasta.unipv.it). Not all the data that I report below will be found to agree with theirs. Other important analyses and historical background of the Rime diverse anthologies are in Bartolomeo 2001 and the introduction to the modern edition of Libro Primo edited in Tomasi and Zaja 2001, esp. xxxiv– xli. For a concise survey of the series and comments on the nature of the reading experiences they invite see DellaNeva 2009, 92–9.

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the 91 poets included had passed away by the time of publication, and the single denizen of the Quattrocento was Lorenzo de’ Medici (represented by just one sonnet). Of the others, those who had died ten or more years before – Baldassare Castiglione (d. 1529), Andrea Navagero (d. 1529), Lodovico Ariosto (d. 1533), and Ippolito de’ Medici (d. 1535) – are represented by merely 15 poems between them. In contrast, the volume contains 153 poems written by those who had very recently died: Thomaso Castellani and Giovanni Guidiccione in 1541; Baldessare Stampa, Giulio Camillo and Francesco Maria Molza in 1544. Another poet, Bartolomeo Ferrino, died the same year as publication. All the rest, just over 70%, were composed by living authors.3 That emphasis on contemporaneity and the much higher proportion of sonnets relative to other forms (roughly 80–90% of each volume) continued to characterize later installments in the series.4 Giolito printed a second edition of Libro Primo in 1546, advertising on the title page that it was “con nuova additione ristampato” to draw attention to the verses of eleven added authors and more poems by others including the editor, Domenichi, whose contributions were increased to 16 sonnets (367–74), the latter eight addressed to one of the newly featured authors, Laura Terracina (1519–ca. 1577). But there were also 17 authors from the first edition who were dropped from the second, and a few others had their total reduced: e.g., Baldessare Stampa’s selection went from three sonnets to two, and a capitolo and one sonnet attributed to Pietro Aretino in the first edition were not included in the second. In spite of these deletions, the total number of poems was increased from 539 in the first edition to 557 in the second. This revised edition was reprinted by Giolito in 1549, but in the meantime, in 1547 and 1548, he brought out the first and second editions of the next volume, also edited by Domenichi: Rime di diversi nobili hvomini et eccellenti poeti nella lingva Thoscana. Libro Secondo. Again, the second edition is a revised version of the first: an equal number of named authors (eight out of 71) were added and dropped, though the total number of poems was reduced from 574 to 552. A new feature was Libro Secondo’s inclusion of many poems gathered under the heading, D’incerti autori – “by uncertain authors”: 49 in the first edition, 43 in the second. 3   Scholars have noted some attribution errors in the Rime diverse series beyond what the errata pages note, but because I am interested in what contemporary readers were told they were reading, I have made no effort to reflect these errors in my author counts. 4  Dante and Petrarch, for example, are represented by just one poem each in the entire series (Libro Quarto, 165 and 166), although the tailed sonnet attributed to Petrarch (“Qui riposan quei casti, et felici ossa,” ostensibly discovered in Laura’s tomb) had already been exposed by Bembo as apocryphal. Dante’s poem is a fragment of a longer composition, the opening 15 lines of “Amor, da che convien pur ch’io mi doglia” (Le Opere Poetiche Minor, Rime LIII, in Fallani et al. 1997, 762–4).

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The popularity of Giolito’s series inevitably caught the attention of other Italian printers, and at this point two others got into the act. First, at Venice in 1550, Andrea Arrivabene edited and arranged to have published a collection of verse closely mimicking the layout and font styles used by Giolito for the first two volumes, titling it Libro Terzo Delle rime di diversi nobilissimi et eccellentissimi avtori nvovamente raccolte.5 The volume contains 562 poems attributed to 70 named and incerti poets, many of them making a first appearance in the series, although most of the stars from the first volumes are again represented. The lead author is Francesco Maria Molza, for example. A year later, in 1551, Anselmo Giaccerello of Bologna printed Libro Qvarto Delle Rime di diversi eccellentiss. avtori nella lingva volgare. Novamente raccolte, edited by Hercol Bottrigaro and including 367 poems by 88 named poets and 19 others by incerti ones. It too leads with Molza. In 1552, when Gabriel Giolito printed his own next installment, he possibly had not yet learned of Giaccerello’s uninvited contribution, but he cannot have missed Arrivabene’s Libro Terzo printed in Venice two years previously. It therefore appears that Giolito intended at first to reclaim ownership of the series that he inaugurated when he published his own Libro Terzo, the Rime di diversi illvstri signori Napoletani, e d’altri nobiliss. intelletti: Nvovamente raccolte, et non piv stampate, edited by Lodovico Dolce and containing 505 poems by 47 named authors, 61 by uncertain ones. The title, it has been observed, “indicate[s] a shift in emphasis from the Bembist school in Venice to the Neapolitan group,”6 and Dolce credits the volume’s Neapolitan dedicatee, Ferrante Carafa, for inspiring the project. But the “shift” is not all that evident from the anthology itself: half the poets included also appear in one or more of the earlier volumes. Hence the emphasis on “Napoletani” before the “altri” (here and in the title of a later volume) could also have been a marketing strategem, perhaps formulated by Giolito in light of the publication of a competing miscellany of 124 sonnets by 12 members of the Milanese academy, Sonetti de gli Academici Trasformati di Milano (Milan, 1548).7 5  The title page indicates that the book was printed “al segno del Pozzo,” which was Arrivabene’s shop (Clubb and Clubb 1991, 343 n. 20), but the colophon notes that printing was done by Bartholomeo Cesano. Brian Richardson discusses the frequent difficulty in determining the printers or in differentiating printers from publishers of early Italian books. The words per and apud, for instance, are ambiguous: “they normally precede the name of the person by whom a book was printed, but may occasionally refer to the publisher for whom it was printed” (1999, 29). Gabriel Giolito and Richard Tottel may rightly be called printer-publishers, given our understanding that they financed the printing of many of the books from their presses, probably including their respective verse miscellanies. 6  Richter 1953, 86. 7  One sonnet in Libro Quarto, we may note for comparison, is attributed to Florence’s counterpart, “Gli Accademici Fiorentini” (189).

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In any event, Giolito’s volume inspired its own competitor, for in 1553 and again in 1554, Plinio Pietrasanta of Venice brought out a volume of Rime di diversi eccellenti autori Bresciani edited by Girolamo Ruscelli.8 The book was not given a Libro number, but like the editions of Arrivebene and Giaccerello its layout and type imitate Giolito’s volumes in the Rime diverse series, and its regional focus – the poets of Brescia – associates it with Giolito’s Neapolitan volume particularly.9 Giolito then abandoned his earlier intention, perhaps after having learned of Giaccerello’s Libro Quarto, and perhaps even while his third volume was still in press. For rather than trying to sell competing third and fourth volumes, he instead used sheets of his 1552 Libro Terzo as the basis for a larger collection that he printed the same year, retitled and renumbered as Rime di diversi illvstri signori Napoletani, e d’altri nobiliss. ingegni: Nvovamente raccolte, et con nvova additione ristampate. Libro Quinto. Two authors from the first version were dropped, but the addition of 24 new ones and increased selections of others expanded the contents to 595 poems by 69 named authors, plus 52 more poems attributed to incerti autori. Later, 60 more poems by named authors (eight of them new to Libro Quinto) and 13 more by incerti ones were added to a third edition, issued in 1555. Between those dates, in 1553, Giolito also printed a thick duodecimo miscellany of over 600 pages, containing 866 poems by 67 authors largely culled from earlier volumes in the Rime diverse series.10 This work, edited by Lodovico Dolce and titled Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori. Raccolte dai libri da noi altre volte impressi: tra le quali se ne leggono molte non piv vedvte, was revised and printed again by Giolito in 1556.11 Meanwhile, in 1553, Andrea Arrivabene had already brought out the next volume in the numbered series, its editor the very Girolamo Ruscelli who 8  The full title is Rime di diversi eccellenti autori Bresciani nuovamente raccolte, et mandate in luce da Girolamo Ruscelli, fra le quali sono le Rime della Signora Veronica Gambara, et di M. Pietro Barignano, ridotte alla vera simerita loro. 9   In contrast to Giolito’s collection of Neapolitan poets, only two of the 24 Brescian poets in Pietrasanta’s miscellany had appeared before in earlier volumes of the Rime diverse series: Veronica Gambara and Pietro Barignano. However, all 18 of Gambara’s poems, and all 26 of Barignano’s, were reprinted from those volumes. 10   For example: one of the poems by Pietro Aretino that had appeared in the first edition of Libro Primo but not the second was reprinted in this volume. Of the 103 poems by Molza that it contains, 28 were reprinted from Libro Primo, 20 from Libro Secondo, and 27 from Arrivabene’s Libro Terzo (which reprints one of Molza’s poems from Libro Primo). Of the remaining Molza poems in this volume that were not reprinted from the numbered series, five were reprinted in Arrivabene’s Libro Sesto, discussed below. 11   The title of the 1556 edition is identical to the first except for the addition of the words Di nuouo ricorrette e ristampate (also printed in duodecimo). Three authors from the first edition were dropped, three new ones were added, and after various changes to the selections of six other authors the volume ended up shorter by 13 poems.

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had edited the Brescian poets for Pietrasanta, titled Il Sesto Libro Delle Rime di diversi eccelenti avtori, nvovamente raccolte, et mandate in lvce.12 The 626 poems by 110 authors in this volume proved especially popular, for there were at least two more issues of this edition before year’s end.13 Finally for our purposes, we reach the volume that appeared just a year before Tottel printed his miscellany: the Rime di diversi signori Napolitani, e d’altri. Nvovamente raccolte et impresse. Libro Settimo, edited by Lodovico Dolce and printed by Gabriel Giolito in 1556. It contains 422 poems by 32 authors, plus a sonnet by one incerto autore.14 The Rime diverse series was the most widely disseminated and influential of the Cinquecento verse miscellanies, and it is not far-fetched to suppose that copies made their way to London in the late 1540s and early 1550s, whether alongside other imported books for sale or in the possession of returning travelers or Edwardian exiles. Giolito had shops in Naples, Bologna, and his hometown of Ferrara besides Venice, and it is amply documented that he and his main Venetian rivals were well integrated into trade systems that distributed their books throughout the Italian peninsula, to the major international book fairs such as at Frankfurt and 12  The title page again indicates that the book was printed “al segno del Pozzo” (see n. 5 above). The colophon states that printing was done “per Giovan Maria Bonelli.” 13  Richter 1953, 86. The full title of the volume continues: Con un discorso di Girolamo Rvscelli. Al molto reverendo, et honoratiss. monsignor Girolamo Artvsio. See Clubb and Clubb 1991, 337–8, on Ruscelli’s long “discorso” (274r–331r), most of which is a petulant defense of his annotations to Boccaccio’s Decameron that he had supplied for an edition printed by Giolito and that Lodovico Dolce severely criticized, though toward the end Ruscelli offers brief commentary on some of the poems in Libro Sesto. Arrivabene soon after reissued this volume with a much shorter and more temperate version of Ruscelli’s discourse. 14   The final numbered volume in the Rime diverse series was Libro nono, printed in 1560 at Cremona, “per Vincenzo Conti” and edited by Giovanni Offredi: Rime di diversi avtori eccellentiss. Libro nono. Most library catalogues and scholars identify the missing eighth volume as I fiori delle rime de poeti illvstri, nvovamente raccolti et ordinati da Girolamo Rvscelli. Con alcvne annotationi del Medesimo, sopra luoghi, che le ricercano per l’intendimento delle sentenze, o per le regole et precetti della lingua, et dell’ornamento (Venice, printed in 1558 “per Giovanbattista et Melchior Sessa Fratelli”). However, it was long ago established that I fiori was not “intended as a continuation to follow the Giolito seventh volume”: it is instead “an anthology of anthologies” (Richter 1953, 88), a compilation of poems reprinted mostly from the earlier volumes of the Rime diverse series, and an “imitation of another kind of work … the retrospective anthology,” as exemplified in the just-mentioned miscellany Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori edited by Lodovico Dolce and printed by Giolito in 1553 and 1556 (Clubb and Clubb 1991, 338). Clubb and Clubb’s explanation of the “mystery” of the missing volume eight is the most plausible: the ninth volume was the work of “someone, whether compiler or printer, who had not kept abreast of developments, someone who either believed or was afraid that I fiori had indeed been the expected eighth volume, … and, without checking his facts, stamped nono on the title page. In short, the solution to the mystery is that there is none. Had the Cremona volume been correctly labeled libro ottavo there would have been no gap to fill, and posterity would now know the series as an eight-volume set” (ibid., 339).

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Lyon, and eventually to dealers throughout Europe.15 Because of this broad distribution, press runs in Venice were as high as or higher than in other major printing centers (Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, Cologne, etc.), and they far exceeded those estimated for English books of the period. By the early sixteenth century, runs of 1,000 copies were the norm for Venice, while at mid-century, popular titles were produced in editions of 2,000–3,000 copies or more.16 We know that learned, ecclesiastical, and devotional works in Latin were obtained by booksellers for the London market. It was probably not any more difficult to get copies of vernacular romances and books of verse included in some of their shipments. There was, besides, always a steady if small population of English students in the sixteenth century who traveled abroad to study civil or canon law, mainly in Paris or Padua, and some of them, upon their return, entered the Inns to turn their attention to English common law.17 Presumably their guilty pleasure reading came home with them alongside their Justinian or their Church Codes. In short, I do assume – and it will be a strong implication of the forthcoming analyses in this chapter – that examples of Continental verse miscellanies likely reached Tottel by several avenues. Hence it is reasonable first to ask, what features were there for Tottel to notice and to learn from in the miscellanies printed by Giolito, Arrivabene, and Giaccerello? We may start with an observation about how the titles of several of the volumes draw attention to the high social standing of the authors included in their pages. Granted that none is named there specifically, such as we see in the prominent mention of Surrey’s name on the title page of Tottel’s Miscellany. Also, Giolito’s Libro Primo, Giaccerello’s Quarto, and Arrivabene’s Sesto merely advertise that their poems were written by “most excellent authors” (eccellentiss. auttori). Yet Giolito’s Libro Secondo makes the further claim that these authors are “noble men” as well as “excellent poets” (nobili huomini et eccellenti poeti), and Arrivabene’s title for the next volume takes it up another notch: they are “most noble” as well as “most excellent” (diversi nobilissimi et eccellentissimi autori). Giolito’s pre-empted Libro Terzo calls them “most noble intellects” (nobiliss. intelleti), which was modified for the first and second Quinto editions to “most noble talents” (nobiliss. ingegni). Whether touted on their title pages or not, however, all the volumes in the series include poems by eminent personages of the recent past or present – those, like Surrey, whom the 15   Quondam 1977, 53–104; Richardson 1999, 35–7; Nuovo and Coppens 2005, esp. 125–69. 16  Richardson 1999, 21; Grendler 1977, 9–12; Nuovo 1998, 38–45. 17  E.g., William Moone, “scholar of the law” in Padua in 1556–57, whom Jonathan Woolfson observes was probably the same Moone admitted in 1559 to Lincoln’s Inn (1998, 258).

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world honored not only for their noble talents and nobility of character but for their noble blood and titles. This, surely, was one aspect of the series’ appeal. For one lira and four soldi in Venetian coin,18 one could read the fervent love poems of a Count or Duke or Marquis, or the verses he exchanged with his family, his friends, or members of the intellectual “academy” that enjoyed his patronage. For example, not only did Lodovico Dolce dedicate Giolito’s Libro Quinto to the “illustre e valoroso Signor” Ferrante Carafa (1509–87), whose titles included Marchese di San Lucido, Conte D’Archi, Duke of Mondragone and Deputy of Naples, but Carafa himself is the most prominently represented author of the volume, with a total of 62 sonnets and a sestina.19 In Libro Sesto, there are 20 more sonnets and a canzone by Carafa; and in Libro Settimo he is represented by 24 sonnets and five other poems in rhyming couplets.20 We find also, in five of the first seven volumes of the series, 16 sonnets by Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara, while Alfonso d’Avalos, who was Marchese del Vasto and Governor of Milan from 1538 until his death in 1546, is the author of 29 sonnets in three volumes and the lead author of the 1552 and 1555 editions of Giolito’s Libro Quinto. Other titled nobles to whom poems are credited in at least one of the volumes are Giovan Vincenzo Belprato, Conte di Aversa (Quinto); Giovan Battista d’Azzia, Marchese Della Terza (Quinto and Sesto); il Conte Vinciguerra da Coll’Alto (Quinto and Sesto); il Duca D’Adri Girolamo Acqua Viva (lead author of Settimo); il Conte di Monte (Quarto), Giulio Roselli, Marquese d’Acquaviva (Quinto and Sesto), il Conte di Mataluni (Settimo), Horatio, Marchese di Capua (Settimo), il Marchese di Laino (Settimo), Castriota, Duca di Ferrandina (Terzo and Sesto), il Conte Collaltino di Collalto (Primo), and Regina di Navara (i.e., Marguerite de Navarre, in Libro Quarto). Still more poems in the series were authored by various lesser nobles: those who, like Sir Thomas Wyatt in England, were courtiers in the service of dukes, princes or kings, such as the “Cavalieri” Luigi Cassola in the first volume, Harmodio in the second and fourth, and Gandolfo Porrino in volumes 2–6. Finally, there are all the poems by the many “men of letters” who were connected to Italy’s courts as secretaries and tutors, including Annibal Caro (secretary to the Duke of Parma and others), who appears in volumes 1–6; Bernardo Tasso (secretary to the Prince of Salerno, etc.), in volumes 1–3 and 5; and Luigi Alamanni (serving Francis 18  This was the “original price” for Giolito’s Libro Primo, at any rate, as reported by Bogni 1890–7, 1:89. 19  This total is the same in all three versions of Libro Quinto, in the 1555 edition spanning pages 74–99, 368–77, 379. 20   See, in Libro Sesto, 17r–21r, 196r–200v, 203r; in Libro Settimo, 1–8, 159–71, 173– 4, 245–6.

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I, then Henry II, while in exile from Florence), in volumes 1–2 and 4–6. In sum, Italy’s Rime diverse series provided ideal models for the sort of verse miscellany that Richard Tottel was set to print for the English market: a volume of courtly poetry that included actual court poetry. But of course, Tottel had the comparative disadvantage of being able to acquire for his volume songs and sonnets of just two court personages by name: the deceased “noble earle” of Surrey (who, if he had lived, would have become the Fourth Duke of Norfolk); and the deceased knight, Sir Thomas Wyatt. Still, the renown of these names was of sure value, Tottel knew, and the number of their verses in his possession was substantial: 40 of Surrey’s, 96 of Wyatt’s.21 By making them the two lead authors of his collection, and by naming Surrey in the title and both of them in his prefatory notice, Tottel did nearly all that was possible to strengthen the impression that here too is a book in which real court poetry predominates. I say “nearly” because there may have been one or two other of Tottel’s editorial actions that had the same motive. We have noted that there are 94 anonymous poems in the first edition, 134 in the second, grouped under the heading “Vncertain auctours.”22 It is likely that Tottel simply translated incerti autori from the Italian miscellanies, although Hyder Rollins notes that the phrase is not uncommon in English manuscripts of the period (1965, 2:79–80). Beyond this mere coincidence of wording, however, there is the question of what lessons could be learned from the various ways that poems by incerti autori were printed in the Italian miscellanies. We might infer that Tottel learned from their editors what they had already picked up from each other. In two of the volumes in the Rime diverse series, Giolito’s Libro Primo and Arrivabene’s Sesto, there are no anonymous poems, but in the first edition of Libro Secondo, we recall, Giolito grouped 49 poems under the heading “D’incerti autori,” a total greater than any single named author’s in the volume.23 The next volume, printed by Andrea Arrivabene, has in contrast only nine anonymous poems, and, with the exception of one grouping of three poems, they all occur singly, attributed in each instance to one “incerto autore.”24 This style of distribution tantalizes. The implication is that the editor knows the anonymous authors’ identities, if he knows enough to distinguish one incerto autore from another. 21

  Q1 assigns 97 poems to Wyatt, but as noted in the introduction, one of these (R82/ M255) was moved to the uncertain authors section of Q2 and subsequent editions. 22   Rollins 1965, 1:121; Marquis 2007, 95. 23   This section spans 42 pages of text (120v–41v) in the first edition of Libro Secondo. Six of the 49 anonymous poems were dropped from the second edition, however, so their number is exceeded there by Antonio Francesco Rainerio’s 46 poems. 24  The nine poems occur in fols. 136v, 143r (recte 145r), 157r–8v, 160r, 167v, 170v–71r (three), 176v.

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It appears that Anselmo Giaccerello meant to exploit the appeal of such mystery in his Libro Quarto. The 18 anonymous poems in this volume appear, as in Libro Terzo, one at a time or a few at time, attributed in each case to a single unknown author; but only five of these poems are distributed amidst the poems by named authors.25 The rest are all grouped at the end of the volume but attributed to six different incerti autori: i.e., on p. 306 is a sonnet by one “incerto autore”; then follow five sonnets by a different “incerto autore” (307–9), then a madrigal by another “incerto autore” (309), and so on. Again, we are bound to wonder how the identities of these authors can truly be “uncertain” if their verses can be sorted like this. Giolito may have been irritated by Arrivabene’s and Giaccerello’s intrusions into his miscellany series, but by 1552 – when he and his editor Lodovico Dolce were preparing the volume that Giolito originally numbered Terzo, subsequently Quinto – they clearly had paid attention to their rivals’ innovations (at least to the former, if they did not yet know of the latter). Like his second volume, Giolito’s third contains many anonymous poems: 61 in the first edition, a number that drops in the second to 52 but rises to 65 in the third, exceeding even Ferrante Carafa’s total. But this time, the incerti autori are distributed throughout the volume rather than all grouped together, and while there are some groups of poems by two or more uncertain authors (e.g., in the 1555 edition, 11 fall under this heading on pages 382–7), most are distributed under separate “incerto autore” headings: four sonnets here (320–21), a canzone there (432–4), and others similarly. In Giolito’s Libro Settimo, finally, there are only two anonymous poems (156–7), both of them sonnets attributed to the same unidentified poet. Their heading – “D’incerto autore alla illustrissima et Eccellentissima s. donna Isabetta marchesana di Massa” – finally makes explicit what so far had been implied: that the anonymous poems, like many of the others gathered (most obviously the response poems), represent traces of social exchanges and relationships between various court personages, and that for whatever reason (the tame contents of the poems betray no clues) the authors, and/or the recipients, and/or those who possessed them desired their authorship to remain “uncertain.” Whether or not this was actually the case, it is apparent that the editors and printers of the Rime diverse miscellanies, from 1547 to 1556, made strategic decisions to suggest that it might be so, or at the very least to strengthen the impression that the anonymous poems they were printing shared the courtly origins of the surrounding ones by named authors.

25   The first is on p. 248; three by a single “incerto autore” are printed together on pp. 299–300; the fifth, too, is on p. 300.

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Let us now consider, from different marketing perspectives, Tottel’s original organization of the Miscellany and his reorganization of its contents for the second edition. As described in the introduction, a section of 40 “Songes written by Nicolas Grimald” follow Surrey and Wyatt’s poems in the first edition; these are followed by the section of 94 poems by “Vncertain auctours”; and the last two sections are headed “Other Songes and Sonettes written by the earle of Surrey” and “Other Songes and sonettes written by sir Thomas wiat the elder.” In the second editon, the poems under these two last headings are moved to the front of the volume with Surrey’s and Wyatt’s others.26 Grimald’s total was reduced to just ten poems in the second edition and moved to the very end of the volume, under the heading “Songes written by N.G.” Lastly, the section of “Vncertain auctours” was expanded by 40 poems and made to follow immediately after Wyatt’s.27 There have been various guesses at Tottel’s motive for abridging Grimald’s section and suppressing his name in the second edition, among them that Grimald complained after the first edition appeared: he was discomfited, perhaps, to see so many of his personal poems printed, including one to his mother; or maybe he had intended to publish a collection of his verses himself, so he was unhappy to see so many of them appear first in a miscellany. It has also been suggested that Grimald’s name had become generally reviled after he recanted his Protestant beliefs and (it was rumored) assisted in the government’s prosecution of Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and his own former patron, Nicholas Ridley.28 A professedly “more natural explanation” was suggested long ago by Gladys D. Willcock: “that it was felt that, in the first edition, too much space and prominence had been given to one who was not a member of the order of courtly makers who contributed to the bulk of the poems” (1922, 147). Rollins quotes this sentence approvingly, after stating his own judgement that “Grimald’s poems are rather noticeably out of harmony in [the first edition] because of their heavy-footed classicism and their uncourtly tone,” and “[a]mong the other contributors, too, Grimald was out of place: he was a member, not of the court circle, but of the university group” (1965, 2:87–8). The problem with this verdict is unwittingly conceded by Rollins himself, when he states in another place in his commentary that [t]he uncertain authors … show comparatively little knowledge of the Italian poets who had dominated Wyatt and Surrey. Among these contributors, on 26

 These are R262/M28, R263/M36, R264/M29, R265/30 (by Surrey) and R266–71/ M118–23 (by Wyatt). 27   Compare R168–261 (Q1) and M138–270 (Q2), and see n. 21 above. 28   Rollins dismisses this argument (1965, 2:78, 87), first ventured in Merrill 1922 and repeated in Merrill 1925, 366.

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the contrary, humanistic influence predominates, accounting for their frequent references to classic mythology, as well as for their translations or paraphrases from Ovid, Lucretius, Seneca, and Horace. (2:80)

So in the end, says Rollins, the anonymous poems in Tottel’s Miscellany have more in common with Grimald’s poems than with Wyatt’s or Surrey’s, whether or not their authors were members of “the court circle.” If this is the case, then the order of the author sections in the first edition neatly but unfortunately implies two distinct halves of the volume, with the heading “Songes written by Nicolas Grimald” being the transition from the courtly half to the humanistic half. Readers might therefore assume that the uncertain authors who followed Grimald were, like him, merely chaplains and university rhetoric lecturers. Perhaps it was Tottel’s effort to counterbalance this impression that explains his decision to reserve a small number of poems by Surrey and Wyatt for the very end of Q1.29 Granted, we might say to the contrary, that in doing this Tottel merely was imitating another of the features of the Italian miscellanies. With the exception of Giolito’s first two volumes, it is common in the Rime diverse series to find authors represented by two groupings of their verses (beyond their individual response poems, which are paired with their prompts); e.g., in Libro Terzo, Fortunio Spira has ten sonnets printed on fols. 80r–82r and another three on 188r/v. But in his organization of Q1, I suggest, Tottel may have had the added incentive of wanting to enclose the poems by Grimald and the uncertain authors within a sweet courtly wrapping: Wyatt and Surrey, before and after. The re-ordered author sections of Q2 would therefore represent Tottel’s alternative solution to the problem. By placing the uncertain authors immediately after Surrey and Wyatt, readers no longer had the evidence of Grimald’s name to indicate that a transition occurred from courtly to non-courtly. They were free to assume that the uncertain authors were anonymous “member[s] of the order of courtly makers,” as ordinarily it is still assumed, even if they did perceive a shift in the style or tone of their poems. With each successive reprint of the second edition and the public’s fading memories of the first, N.G. himself might eventually be taken as a courtly maker. If Tottel’s reorganization of author sections did have this purpose of emphasizing the Miscellany’s status as “an anthology of courtpoetry” (quoting Rollins again, 2:85), then, as we have seen, the Rime diverse series offered different models for the strategic incorporation of poems by 29

 The possible interpretation that Tottel put these poems at the end because he acquired them late in the process of printing Q1 does not hold, as poems by Wyatt at the end of Q1 are in the Egerton manuscript, Tottel’s source for Wyatt’s others. Nor is the placement of these poems explained by a need to fill up remaining leaves of a signature. The decision was evidently a strategic one.

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incerti autori to strengthen that emphasis. As in Giolito’s Libro Secondo, the uncertain authors’ poems are all grouped together in Tottel’s Miscellany, but by moving this section so that it comes third after Surrey’s and Wyatt’s, Tottel perhaps reveals what he had learned from the Italian volumes: that association by relative position is a means to imply that anonymous and named authors in a verse miscellany all move in the same circles. An alternative marketing perspective is one that would invite the Miscellany’s non-courtly readers to discern the implications of the above lesson to a circle they might define and belong to themselves. These readers, we should first assume, were not so naïve to think that an ability to craft courtly verse would be their ticket into Mary’s court. Tottel imagines them as those who are “studious of Englishe eloquence,” but I would suggest that in using this phrase he had a particular group of individuals in mind whom he knew exemplified this ideal customer base: those from the Inns who sometimes came to his shop to buy law texts, who sometimes brought their verses to him, and whose best efforts he printed alongside poems by other “Vncertain auctours” in the Miscellany. No other qualification but the achievement of “statelinesse of stile” was required for these individuals to be associated with the likes of Surrey, Wyatt, Grimald and other “sondry good Englishe writers” in the collection. For Tottel, also, the Rime diverse miscellanies were models of their kind because of their diversity – for the sheer number and variety of their rime and autori. Each new volume of the series included the poems of a unique selection of authors, many making their first appearance and others whose names would be familiar to anyone following the series’ progress. Thus, on the one hand, shoppers could look forward each time to seeing new poems by many of the period’s favorites: the five who appear in six of the seven volumes (Giulio Camillo, Bernardo Capello, Annibal Caro, Veronica Gambara, Francesco Maria Molza, and Benedetto Varchi) and seven others who appear in five of the volumes (Vittoria Colonna, Luigi Alamani, Niccolò Amanio, Lodovico Dolce, il Cavalier Gandolfo, Iacopo Marmitta, and Claudio Tolomei). On the other hand, the same customers could look forward to being introduced to many new poets with every volume, including those who would not appear in the series again: Libro Primo has 32 authors unique to it; Libro Secondo has 23; Terzo 9; Quarto 43; Quinto 24; Sesto 44; and Settimo 12. Adding all the other poets who feature in the series through 1556 – in two of the seven volumes (68 total), in three of the seven (29), and in four of the seven (11) – quantifies for us the Rime diverse series’ staggering scope: over 3,700 poems written by 309 named authors. Richard Tottel could have had no hope of inaugurating anything comparable in a series of English miscellanies, but he was at least able to gesture in Giolito’s direction by promising in his prefatory notice that “these [poems] presently” would be followed by “moe hereafter.”

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Adding new poems to a second edition that followed so shortly after the first showed that he was, at least at the outset, sincere in this purpose. More achievable, though by no means easily, was to try to match the Rime diverse volumes’ spectacular variety of poetic forms, which they achieved despite 80–90% of their poems being sonnets, all with an opening octave rhyming ABBA ABBA. (In this chapter, when treating of Italian and Italianate verse in Spanish, capitals designate hendecasyllabic [elevensyllable] lines, lower case heptasyllabic [seven-syllable]). In the final sestets of these sonnets, the two schemes generally considered most typical of the Italian sonnet prove the small minority. Rather than the pattern CDC CDC, the sonneteers of the Rime diverse miscellanies preferred CDC DCD and CDC EDE; and rather than CDE CDE, they more frequently wrote CDE CED, CDE DCE, CDE DEC, CDE ECD, or CDE EDC. Another means by which they displayed their virtuosity in the sonnet form was in their risposte or response poems, which usually repeat the same rhymes in the same order as the proposta to which their authors were responding and frequently also the same words.30 At the other end of the spectrum, there are just a handful of poems in each volume, or in some cases none, written in the few Italian formats that allow for little or no variation (although certainly these add to the overall variety of the contents): the capitoli, written in terza rima (the seven in Libro Quinto being the most of any volume); the stanzas written in ottava rima, rhyming ABABABCC (at nine, Libro Sesto has the highest number of poems written in this form, although the two longest are in Libro Quarto, with 50 stanzas each); and the sestine (Libro Secondo has the most at nine), which have six stanzas of six hendecasyllabic lines each, with the first stanza’s rhyme words repeated in different order in the later stanzas and each stanza’s last rhyme word used for the first line of the next stanza, concluding with a three-line envoy (commiato or chiusa) in which all six words occur. The poets nevertheless put their versatility on display when working within such constraints. There is the occasional sestina doppia, such as Molza’s in the third volume (3v–4v), which continues the repetition of the six rhyme words to 12 stanzas. The most audacious example is Claudio Tolomei’s sestina doppia in Libro Secondo, which makes do with just two rhyme words throughout (6v–7v), a feature of the very first of Surrey’s sonnets printed in the Miscellany. Another traditional form, the canzone, is well represented (ranging from Settimo’s 12 to Terzo’s 32), presumably in part because 30  An example is in Libro Settimo, 157–8, a pair of sonnets by Lodovico Dolce and Giovambattista Castaldo. Girolamo Ruscelli describes still other methods for composing reply poems in Del modo di comporre in uersi (1559), N2r–4v, on which see Richardson 2009, 99–100.

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of its Petrarchan prestige, in part because of its infinite plasticity. The stanzas of a canzone, with the exception of the variable-line commiato at the end, must all have the same rhyme scheme, but they are variable in every other way: their total number in each poem, the number of their lines, the rhyme scheme itself, and their line lengths, although the norm is some combination of eleven- and seven-syllables. Over 200 other poems in the Rime diverse miscellanies bolster the impression that poetic experimentation was a primary criterion of the volumes’ compilers. Most of these remaining poems are madrigals and ballads of varying line lengths, and except for the preponderance of rhymed couplets in the madrigali, these are written in a wide and playfully unpredictable variety of rhyme and metrical patterns. The series furthermore exemplifies early adaptations of classical forms in the vernacular. Most either take the form of capitoli in terza rima, as in three elegies by Fabio Galeota (Libro Quinto, 147–56); or they are written in hendecasyllabic rhyming couplets (distici), such as the 13 “Epigrammi di M. Lvigi Alamanni” printed in Libro Quinto, which range from one to six couplets in length.31 The first three of a series of classically titled poems by Ferrante Carafa in Libro Settimo (162–70) are likewise written in hendecasyllabic rhyming couplets: an “Epigramma”; an “Elegia”; and an “Epitalamio.” But then follow two metrically varied “odi.” The first ode (165–8) has alternating hendecasyllabic and heptasyllabic rhymed lines formatted as follows to mimic the meter of elegiac couplets in Latin.32 It opens, Con quai uoci dirò, con quai parole? C’hoggi si parle il Sole. Non Febo no; ma un Sol più chiaro e bello, Che’l regno ha tolto a quello.33

Carafa’s other ode (168–70) then appears in four-line stanzas of AAbb (quoting the opening two): Che scorgo, ahi lasso? ahi lasso, che scorgo io? Mendico e tristo? o diuin Idol mio. Come son d’herba i monti Priui quì? secchi i fonti? Come di fiori i prati, e i campi ameni Come solea, non ueggio adorni e pieni? 31

  411–14 in the 1552 edition, 473–5 in the 1553 edition.   See n. 142 below for an explanation of this meter. 33   Here and hereafter in this chapter, when a quotation of foreign language verse strictly serves the purpose of illustrating a verse form, translations are not provided. 32

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Come è il mar cosi nero? Come sì irato et fiero?

Finally, six poems printed in the first seven volumes of the Rime diversi miscellanies are in unrhymed hendecasyllabic lines, called versi sciolti: one each in the first and third volumes, four in Libro Quinto. The longest is a 269-line poem by Gianfrancesco Fabri in Arrivabene’s Libro Terzo.34 Versi sciolti was associated with dactylic hexameter in Latin, ideally suited to the noble styles of tragic drama and epic, and indeed, from 1539 through 1556 a translation of the Aeneid into versi sciolti was printed at Venice, book by book (each by a different translator), then subsequently reprinted in two or more books together. The first few installments were of course Surrey’s inspiration to translate books 2 and 4 of the Aeneid into English versi sciolti, which came to be called blank verse, used also for two poems in Tottel’s Miscellany. In Libro Quinto of the Rime diverse series, one example is Fabio Galeota’s “Egloga Amarilli Elpida,” describing in grave terms and versi sciolti’s grave meter Elpida’s unrequited love for the shepherdess Amyrillis.35 It begins: Lunge dal mar a piedi al gran Vesuuio; Là, doue il ciel nouellamente spoglia L’herbe a la terra, et l’ornamento al mondo; Staua Elpida doglioso, e’l suo cordoglio Non potea nascer d’altro, che di morte. [Beside the sea at the foot of great Vesuvius, there where heaven keeps stripping the plants from the earth and beauty from the world, Elpida lived in sorrow, and his heartache could give birth to nothing other than his death.]

This wonderful variety of poetic forms in each Rime diverse volume offered readers an impressive assortment of “pretiose gemme,” to cite a favorite metaphor from the editors’ dedications, or if that bare phrase failed to capture their worth, of “preciosissima gemma maestreuolmente legata in oro” (precious gems cunningly mounted in gold).36 Like rare gems also, 34

  184v [recte 183v]–7v. This was also one of the poems added to the second edition of Dolce’s and Giolito’s retrospective anthology, the Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori in 1556. 35   140–43 in the 1552 editions of Giolito’s Libro Terzo and his renumbered Libro Quinto, 156–9 in the 1555 edition. Amaryllis is a shepherdess mentioned in Vergil’s Eclogues 1.31 ff.; Elpida, ironically, means “hope” in Greek. 36   Here quoting Arrivabene’s dedication to Luca Grimaldo in Libro Terzo, 5r, and Bottrigaro’s to Giulio Grimanni in Libro Quarto, 5. Cf. the opening of Lodovico Dolce’s dedication to Ferrante Carrafa in the 1552 edition of Libro Quinto that starts after the salutation, “come carbonchi tra molte lucidissime gemme risplendono …” (A2r).

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we are to understand, the poems here printed were not easily acquired. In the case of the older ones, this mainly was owing to their lamentable neglect, either by those who had not properly cared for their manuscript copies or others who had overlooked or undervalued the poems when compiling the collected works of single authors. Thus Arrivabene explains that many of the poems in Libro Terzo had been “diffusely scattered, poorly known, and appreciated by few,” even “torn and spoiled,” until through his efforts they were “collected and brought from the darkness into the light, well purged and cleaned” so that “their true value and honor” could be admired.37 Readers might hope, too, that the Rime diverse volumes offered exclusive access to poems that their authors or their recipients had tried to keep from the press, whether because the authors discouraged the printing and sale of their vernacular verses generally, as Francesco Molza and Annibal Caro professed was their will,38 or for other reasons – never obvious – specific to the poems themselves or the people who possessed copies. To be sure, the circumstance that nearly 4,000 poems were printed in the Rime diverse miscellanies in just over a decade rather weakens the claim that these are rare and precious gems. Just as Steven May has observed about the dissemination of manuscript verse in England, Italian poems had clearly been breaching the confines of their coteries in numbers too large to support the usual notion of how coteries are supposed to work.39 But that seems not to have inhibited the enticement’s repetition. A year after Giolito printed his last volume in the Rime diverse series, Richard Tottel was reproaching England’s “vngentle horders” for having too long envied their “treasure” to his customers. Lodovico Dolce’s dedications of two miscellanies printed by Gabriel Giolito in 1556 likewise need to be examined alongside Tottel’s notice. The first, which Dolce addressed to Vincenzo Ritio, “Secretario della Illvstriss. Sig. Di Vinegia,” was printed originally with the retrospective anthology Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori in 1553 and was included again in the revised 37

  … doue queste gentili et ben colte rime andauano prima sparsamente uagando mal conosciute et poco apprezzate, et tuttauia piu lacerate et guaste, hora qui tutte insieme raccolte et tratte fuor de le tenebre escono a la luce ben purgate et nette a prender il lor uero pregio et honore (3r). Arrivabene’s dedication to Libro Sesto similarly compares its verses to “i pretiosi metali,” which through the “efforts and talents of others” are “brought to light” and rendered “useful, and necessary for us to live” (se l’altrui fatica, et ingegno, non gli portasse alla luce, et tali gli rendesse, quali li ueggiamo essere utili, et necessarii à questo uiuer nostro [A3r/v]). 38  Richardson 2009, 19–20. 39   In addition to his published comments (2009, 421–2), May has challenged the notion of coteries in recent conference and seminar presentations based on his research for the AHRC-sponsored project, “Early Modern Manuscript Poetry: Recovering our Scribal Heritage.”

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1556 edition. The other, addressed to Mattheo Montenero, “Gentilhvomo Genovese,” prefaces Libro Settimo in the Rime diverse series. To start with the points of contrast, the foregoing discussion attests that it would not have occurred to the editors, publishers, or printers of the Italian verse miscellanies that a reader might “mislike” the “statelinesse” of the poems’ “stile.” Tottel’s professed concern that “parhappes some” will reject his miscellany on this ground would have confirmed for them that the English still had one foot in the dark ages, for in Italy it was a given that “statelinesse of stile” was an expected and prized virtue of songs and sonnets written by “nobilissimi et eccellentissimi autori.” Likewise it was assumed that Italian poetry need not “defend” itself against poetry written in other vernaculars: Dante and Petrarch had surpassed the Provençal poets who had been their inspiration, and since then Italian poets had never lost their primacy. Quite naturally, then, Tottel divides the poets of modern times into “Italians, and other,” and on the question of which vernaculars are suited for writing most “praiseworthely,” the only debate was one for the Italians to conduct among themselves: which of their peninsular dialects should be crowned best and adopted generally? – the Tuscan of Petrarch and Boccaccio, though already archaic? or contemporary Tuscan? or Neapolitan, Milanese, or Venetian? Or should they strive instead for some happy amalgamation, a literary language formed from the most eloquent features of each regional language?40 Being the best of the moderns was no guarantee of measuring up to the ancients, however, so it is to this “defense” that Lodovico Dolce applies himself in the exordia to his two dedicatory epistles. To Vincenzo Ritio he claims, “I was always of a contrary opinion to that of others,” who, “moved by a certain reverence” of anything ancient, “consider the intellects of today far inferior to those of the past.”41 The dedication of Libro Settimo to Mattheo Montenero, printed later, repeats this statement with Dolce’s acknowledgment that he had voiced it before: “I was always of that opinion, most noble and learned Signor Mattheo, as I have written in another epistle, that our age may reasonably be compared to antiquity in the excellence of its every accomplishment.”42 In this way Dolce sets up his stratagem in 40

  I refer especially to the literary and editorial activity, and the controversy, generated by Bembo’s 1525 essay Prose della vulgar lingua, which advocated, in reaction to what he judged were debased poetic features of fifteenth century Petrarchan poetry such as Serafino’s, the adoption of the Tuscan usage of Petrarch and Boccaccio as something like a national standard. On this topic, see Richardson 2003, 48–127; Heiple 1994, 74–133. 41   Io fvi sempre, Mag. et Eccellente M. Vincenzo, di contrario parere a quello di alcuni; i quali piu da certa riuerenza mossi, che si porta naturalmente alle cose de gliantichi, che da ragioneuole discorso, istimano gl’ingegni de’moderni essere di gran lunga inferiori a quelli, che furono per adietro (Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori, 1556 edition [hereafter RD 1556], 3). 42   Io fvi sempre di questo parere, Nobilissimo, e dottissimo Signor Mattheo, come mi ricorda in altra epistola hauer detto; che la nostra età nella eccellenza d’ogni uirtù si possa

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both dedications of listing the ancient masters of several arts and praising their modern counterparts. “Not only Titian and Michelangelo, but others besides” now “contend with” Praxiteles in sculpture and Apelles in painting, he reminds Ritio;43 while “in the art of war our age has seen many Captains and Princes who of valor, genius, and fortune were not in any way second to those Caesars, Scipios, and Pompeys, about whose bravery all the books are stuffed.”44 As for poetic ability, Dolce continues, “our age has produced some Vergils and some Horaces,” starting with Petrarch, on whom “the heavens have poured all their greater treasures,” although now “in our day, not only Pietro Bembo but many learned others have contended with him, such that he is perhaps no longer the only one as he was for many years.”45 This point is elaborated for Montenero’s benefit: “To which of the ancient poets is Ariosto not justly to be compared? To which Bembo, Sannazaro, and Signor Dragonetto Bonifatio?” and “Molza, Guidiccione, Tasso, Caro, Carafa, Costanzo, Rota, Tansillo, Caracivolo, and so many other illustrious spirits of this most noble city [meaning, in the context of Libro Settimo’s selection, Naples]?”46 Tottel’s version of this argument is necessarily much briefer. He had but three names he could cite, only two of which he judged worth spotlighting in his notice to the reader, compared to the several hundred names of illustrious poets at Dolce’s fingertips. But in its essentials, we recognize, Tottel’s pitch is no different than Dolce’s. We have Horaces and Petrarchs too.

ragioneuolmente paragonare all’antica (Libro Settimo, frontmatter 2r). 43   Percioche, per tacere della Scoltura, e della Pittura; nelle quali lodeuolissime arti si troua hoggidi, non pure un Titiano, et un Michele Agnolo, ma altri ancora, che contendono con quei Prasiteli, e con quegli Apelli (RD 1556, 3–4). In the Libro Settimo dedication Dolce adds to the list of ancients two sculptors, Polyclitus and Phidias, and another painter, Zeuxis, while “Rafaello da Vrbino … Giorgio da Castelfranco, l’ingenioso Polidoro, Antono da Corregio, [and] Francesco Parmigiano” are added to the list of great modern artists (frontmatter 2v). 44   [N]ella disciplina della guerra molti Capitani, e Prencipi hanno uedute le nostre età, che di ualore, d’ingegno, e di fortuna non furono in ueruna parte secondi a quei Cesari, Scipioni, e Pompei, delle prodezze de quali son ripiene tutte le carte (RD 1556, 4). In discussing this particular “art,” Dolce here makes his lone mention of a non-Italian (in un solo Carlo Quinto ueggiamo lo esempio dogni perfettione). 45   … la nostra età ha prodotto de i Virgilij e de gli Horatiij [sic] … i cieli habbiano uersato tutti i lor maggior thesori in un Francesco Petrarca, e che le Muse habbiano cantato e pianto la sua celebratissima Laura, s’è pur ueduto a nostri giorni non pure un M. Pietro Bembo, ma molti altri dotti huomini hauer seco conteso in guisa, ch’egli forse non è piu solo, come è stato per molti anni (RD 1556, 4–5). 46   A quale de gliantichi Poeti non merita d’esser paragonato l’Ariosto? A quale il Bembo, il Sannazaro, et Signor Dragonetto Bonifatio … il Molza, il Guidiccione, il Tasso, il Caro, il Signor Ferrante Carafa, il Signor Angelo Costanzo, il Signor Rota, il Tansillo, il Caraciuolo, e tanti altri illustri spiriti di cotesta nobilissima Citta? (Libro Settimo, frontmatter 3r/v).

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Thereafter, Dolce’s dedications go in different directions. Libro Settimo’s concludes by further eulogizing Naples (“a hill giving glorious passage to the mountain of the Muses”47). The Rime di diversi eccellenti avtori’s, in contrast, proceeds via eulogy of Gabriel Giolito to the development of a new thesis – the same that is pressed by Tottel at the end of his notice. Giolito, says Dolce, “deserves generous and immortal praise” for having “obtained” (“not without much effort and industry”) and “reduced into one volume the verses of all the more excellent authors who have flourished in our times, previously printed by him in several books,” to the benefit of those who are “studious of vernacular poetry.”48 The great variety of these poems, Dolce promises, will “offer the greatest delight to readers” as they discover “in one gravity, in another loveliness of style, in this, grandness of conception, in that, beauty of expression”: and again, besides delight these verses promise to be of “no little utility” for readers, who will be able to “extract” from them “examples for imitation.”49 In this way, says Dolce, the verses collected in Giolito’s volume are not only “worthy of the [Muses’] ears” (degni delle sue [Muse] orecchie), but are in service to the public good: “occupata nelle publiche cure” (6). Tottel makes these claims more colorfully, and comically, in the way he seems to take cure as literally as he does utilità: by reading the learned authors of his miscellany, says Tottel, the “vnlearned” will “learne to be more skilfull” and “purge” their “swinelike grossenesse.” In neither of Dolce’s or Tottel’s remarks, we notice, is there any hint that there might be readers out there whose souls need curing. Both men seem enviably to live in a world in which the most urgent public concern is to swell the ranks and meet the needs of the studious. Finally in this section, I consider one other possibility: that Tottel’s Miscellany might in some measure have been provoked into being by the publication of a translated Italian verse work: an edition of Petrarch’s Trionfi printed shortly before the death of its translator, Henry Parker, tenth Baron Morley (1480/81–1556). Like Surrey and Wyatt, Morley spent the first part of his life in service to Henry VIII, but unlike them he reached old age, living in semi-retirement on his country estates. Described recently as “Translator to the Tudor Court,” Morley produced English versions of a wide range of devotional, classical, and Italian texts, from 47

  … Napoli, poggiò con gloriosi passi al colle delle Muse (ibid., 3v).   La onde bella et immortal laude merita il uirtuoso M. Gabriello Giolito, il quale non senza molta fatica et industria ha procacciato, di ridurre in un uolume le Rime di tutti i piu Eccellenti Autori, che siano fioriti ne tempi nostri, le quali altre uolte da lui in piu libri furono impresse; e quelle donare al mondo, a gli studiosi del la Volgar Poesia (RD 1556, 5). 49  Percioche oltre che diletto grandissimo potrà porgere a i Lettori la diuersità di si fatti Poemi; trouandosi in uno grauità, in altro leggiadria di stilo, in chi maestà di concetti, et in quale ornamento di parole … non picciola utilità ne potranno essi ritrarre a i componimenti loro dallo essempio et imitatione di questi tali (RD 1556, 5). 48

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Erasmus’s prayer in praise of the Virgin Mary to Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus, from Plutarch’s life of Theseus to Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio.”50 He presented these as New Year’s gifts – most of them that we know of to Henry VIII and his first daughter, Mary. The tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke, translated out of Italian into English by Henrye Parker knyght, Lorde Morley (STC 19811) was printed without date by John Cawood, but “1555?” is STC’s estimate. Morley dedicates this first printed edition to Lord Maltravers, though he acknowledges that the translation was done many years before and presented “to that most worthy kynge our late soueraygne Lorde of perpetuall memorye kynge Henrye theyghte, … a Prynce aboue all other mooste excellente” (A3r). His original motive for taking up this labor, Morley recalls, was a competitive one. He had learned of a French translation of the Trionfi made for Francis I, “whiche sayde booke, when I sawe the coppye of it, I thoughte in my mynde, howe I beynge an Englyshe man, myght do aswell as the Frenche man” (A3r). Morley’s dedication also includes a version of Tottel’s counsel to the “unlearned” not to spurn what he offers them but to “purge” the “swinelike grossenesse” that hinders their appreciation of noble verse: Euen so there be a nomber of that sorte, that percase when they shall eyther heare redde, or them selfe reade this excellent tryumphes, of this famous clercke Petrarcha, shall lytle set by them, and peraduenture caste it from them, desyringe rather to haue a tale prynted of Robyn Hoode, or some other dongehyll matter then of this, whiche I bare affirme, yea, and the Italians do the same, that the deuine workes set aparte, there was neuer in any vulgar speche or language, so notable a worke, so clerckely done as this his worke. (A2v)

As Morley moves on to ever more hyperbolic praise of Petrarch, the object of his censure extends beyond “that sorte” of rude reader who would prefer to wallow in “dongehyll matter.” He condemns also those moneygrubbing English printers who would rather keep turning a profit with Robin Hood tales than risk losses on learned works: And albeit that [Petrarcha] setteth forth these syxte wonderfull made triumphes all to the laude of hys Ladye Laura, by whome he made so many a swete sonnet, that neuer yet no poete nor gentleman could amend, nor make the lyke, yet who that doth vnderstande them, shall se in them comprehended al morall vertue, all Phylosophye, all storyall matters, and briefely manye deuyne sentences theological secretes declared. But alas who is he that will so reade them, that he 50   See the essays collected in Axton and Carley 2000, esp. Carley’s “Bibliographical Survey,” 27–68.

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wyl marke them, or what prynter wyll not saye, that he may winne more gayne in pryntynge of a merye ieste, then suche lyke excellente workes, suerlye (my good Lorde) very fewe or none, whyche I do lamente at my harte, consyderynge that aswell in French, as in the Italyan (in the whyche both tongues I haue some lytle knowledge) there is no excellente worke in latyn, but that strayght wayes they set it forth in the vulgar[.] (A2r/v)

Might Tottel have interpreted this as a challenge? Besides John Cawood, the printer of the book in hand, who else in England would take a risk with “suche lyke excellente workes” as Petrarch’s, let alone an “excellente worke in latyn,” as printers do “strayght wayes” in France and Italy? According to Morley, “very fewe or none,” but in 1556 Tottel printed Nicholas Grimald’s translation of Ciceroes thre bokes of duties, and the same year he collaborated on a new English edition of More’s Utopia.51 These seem fairly rapid rejoinders to Morley’s claim. The Miscellany, printed a year later, goes one better, for among its verses are numerous translations and imitations of “many a swete sonnet” by Petrarch and other “suche lyke excellente” Italian and Latin authors. Only another month after, Tottel printed Surrey’s translations from the Aeneid.52 Nobleminded printers are “fewe,” perhaps, but hardly are there “none,” Tottel would point out; and he leads the way, not Cawood. II. “Other” Praiseworthy Poets (1): Early Printed Miscellanies of French Verse Required by Tottel to infer which “other” foreign lands after Italy had produced authors of praiseworthy poems in small parcels, we would probably, like Tottel’s contemporaries, think first of France. This is the logical choice, given the still prominent place of French language learning in noble households and among the learned – especially the lawyers who used it professionally – following centuries of Norman rule over England, not to mention the considerable Burgundian influence on England’s court and literary culture during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII.53 Additionally, the first half of the sixteenth century saw a steady output of French verse 51

  Grimald’s translation was mentioned earlier in the introduction. Ralph Robinson’s translation, titled A frutefull pleasaunt, and wittie worke, of the best state of a publique weale, and of the new yle, called Utopia: written in Latine, by the right worthie and famous Syr Thomas More knyght, was printed by Tottel for Abraham Vele (STC 18095 [a variant is STC 18095.5]). A prior edition, not approved by Robinson according to him, was printed for Vele in 1551 by Steven Mierdman. 52   Certain bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis turned into English meter by the right honorable lorde, Henry Earle of Surrey (STC 24798), to be discussed further in the next chapter. 53   The seminal study of this influence is Kipling 1977.

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miscellanies, primarily from presses at Paris and Lyon, whose potential to inspire English poets to experiment with new verse forms, or to inspire a printer such as Tottel to bring out an English verse miscellany, might even have matched that of the Italian works just surveyed. I shall argue also that in one or two respects, the content and layout of these French miscellanies could have been instructive to Tottel. The plainest and most useful lesson of the French miscellanies was what the Italian ones likewise taught: that these works were popular enough to warrant multiple editions and attract competition. Most of them contain a variety of different verse forms, and toward midcentury this variety increased as poets began to favor new forms and experiment ever more freely with older ones. The most convenient witness to these developments is Brian Jeffery’s two-volume Chanson Verse of the Early Renaissance (1971–76), containing critical editions of 17 chanson collections printed in octavo, ca. 1515–43.54 As Jeffery explains, the 11 “tiny books” edited in the first volume, which range from just four to 24 leaves each, contain “poetry of the period which followed the principal age of the Rhétoriqueurs,” that is, the age that “preceded Clément Marot [whose dates are 1496–1544]” (1:11).55 These 11 books, he continues, “afford the reader one of the best existing means of studying the development of lyric poetry in France from the old-fashioned ballade, rondeau and virelai to the more modern strophic forms [i.e., poems composed of same-form stanzas]” (1:26). It is also evident, says Jeffery, that these earliest collections have the aim “of supplementing a musical source,” for though none is printed with a score and the tunes are not identified, they yet possess qualities beyond their popular themes that associate them with folk songs. The typical chanson in this volume, “unlike the poetry of the Rhétoriqueurs, or the chansons of Clément Marot, does not observe strict or consistent rules of structure or versification” (1:27): “rhymes are approximate … syllablecount is approximate, and final -e may or may not be counted” (1:28). In Jeffery’s second volume, we encounter the first large chanson collection, S’ensuyvent plusieurs belles Chansons nouvelles, with 218 poems printed in 108 leaves by Alain Lotrian of Paris in 1535. This work “breaks new ground by introducing many poems that are nothing but single stanzas,” 54

  The short miscellanies printed in the first volume are attested by unique copies only, none of them dated, several of them extant only in fragments, which Jeffery groups into two “generations of printed chanson collections”: the first, those printed at Paris by “Widow Trepperel(?), ca. 1512–25”; the second, those printed at Paris by “Alain Lotrian(?), ca. 1525– 30.” 55   Among the best-known fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century poets commonly called the “Rhétoriqueurs” are Octavian de Saint-Gelays, Jean Molinet, Jean Marot, and Pierre Gringoire.

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in contrast to the poems in Jeffery’s first volume that all have several (2:20). Similar to the single-stanza madrigals that proliferated in Italy during this period, French “cinquains, sixains, dizains, and so on” seem to have “served,” Jeffery posits, “as a dilettante poetic occupation,” and in line with this trend Lotrian’s volume appears to have been “designed more as a literary collection for people to read” rather than “to sing from” (2:18, 20). Although 81 of its 218 poems were reprinted from the earlier collections, S’ensuyvent plusieurs belles Chansons nouvelles also included 15 of Clément Marot’s metrically regular poems. This number was increased in one of the several revised editions that followed soon after: Les chansons nouvellement assemblées, printed anonymously in 1538, which opens with 32 poems reprinted from the 1532 volume of Marot’s “youthful works,” the Adolescence Clémentine. In contrast to their Italian counterparts, anonymity rather than attribution is the norm in most French miscellanies published in the first half of the sixteenth century.56 Also, the shift that Jeffery describes from poems written in multiple stanzas to “cinquains, sixains, dizains, and so on” in the short miscellanies that he edited is attested also in the period’s larger ones, but with the difference that in several of these “the old-fashioned” verse forms remain well represented alongside the emergent new ones.57 These collections commonly include, too, verses in large parcels interspersed among the small ones: compositions ranging from hundreds to thousands of lines, such as the debate poems, the lovers’ confessions, complaints and epistles, etc., that appear in the two earliest and best known of the century’s French miscellanies: Le Jardin de plaisance et fleur de Rethoricque (first three editions at Paris, ca. 1501, 1505 and 1515; others at Lyon, 1525 and 1530) and La Chasse et le départ d’amours, faict et composé par révérend père en Dieu messire Octovien de Sainct Gelaiz, evesque d’Angoulesme, et par noble homme Blaise d’Auriol, bachelier en chascun droit (Toulouse, 1509, ca. 1520s?,

56  These anthologies are catalogued in detail in Lachèvre 1922, including, wherever possible, the names of known or conjectured authors of the anonymous poems. For example, in the entries for the two miscellanies to be discussed next, Lachèvre identifies 43 authors of 123 poems in Le Jardin de plaisance, representing approximately a fifth of its contents, and 21 authors of 371 poems in La Chasse et le départ d’amours, representing approximately three-fourths its contents. 57   Jeffery notes that there is but one “old-fashoned ballade with envoy” and one rondeau in the chanson collections that he edits, and only about seven poems that “may be considered as regular virelais” (1971–76, 1:26–7). Each stanza of a virelai has two rhymes, that of the last line serving as the first rhyme of the next stanza; the ballade and rondeau forms are discussed below.

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1533, and 1536).58 These are indeed large anthologies, occupying 260 and 150 folio-sized leaves respectively, and the former is printed in double columns.59 Hence, in addition to its 38 long pieces, Le Jardin de plaisance has space for 488 rondeaux and 130 ballads; Le Chasse et le départ d’amours includes 406 rondeaux and 79 ballads besides the two long poetic sequences in its title.60 The rondeau and French ballad forms both accommodate a fair degree of variation despite their ostensibly rigid formal restrictions. The rondeau (not distinguished from a rondel at this stage) normally has three stanzas, usually of octosyllables or decasyllables, with the first line of the first stanza supplying the refrain (rentrement) at the end of the second and third stanzas. The first stanza typically has four or five lines, the second stanza three or four lines, and the third stanza five or six lines; but the entire poem consists of only two rhymes, with typical schemes being abba aba abbaa (12 lines total); aabba aaba aabba (14 lines); and aabba aaba aabbaa (15 lines). Following is an example of one of the hundreds of poems titled “another rondel” (Autre rondel) in Le Jardin de plaisance, with the refrain only half provided, as was usual scribal and printing practice, because it is already supplied by the first line: Beuuons et faisons bonne chiere Et ne soyons plus en soussy Tristesse soit mise en oubly Et enuie soit mise en biere Boute soit en vne tanniere Qui ne fera ce que ie dy Beuuons etc.

58   The first editions of both works were printed by Anthoine Vérard, on whose career see Winn 1997. The opening piece of Le Jardin de plaisance (A2v–B3r), as its full title indicates, is a primer in verse on the “science rethoricale” (usually called “L’Art de Rhétorique,” by which title it is witnessed in manuscript copies and was printed independently). “La Chasse d’Amours,” the lead poem of the latter volume, is a poem of 8,828 lines in a wide range of stanza types, with 29 speakers in all (including the narrator, “Lacteur”). 59  The Le Jardin de plaisance was printed in such large quarto format (25–7 centimeters) that editions are sometimes catalogued as folios, and La Chasse et le départ d’amours was printed in folio. 60   Le Jardin de plaisance has also four chansons, four dictiés (sayings), and two divinailles (divinings) in various stanza forms. In this section, the counts are again mine, cross-referenced against the information in Lachèvre 1922, Droz and Piaget 1924, 334 (with which my totals slightly differ), and Mühlethaler 2007, 35. Unlike Lachèvre, I do not count the 58 “pièces” of “Le Départ d’Amours” separately.

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Despeschons ce vin quil nempire Donnez nous en versez ycy Et certes ie beuray cecy Car ien prise bien la maniere Beuuons etc.61

The ballads in these earliest printed French collections usually have three or four stanzas of identical rhyme scheme and eight or ten octosyllabic or decasyllabic lines, an envoy that repeats the rhyme scheme of the stanza’s final four or five lines, and a refrain repeated at the end of the stanzas and the envoy. Like the rondeau, the same rhymes are used throughout the poem, but again, variations are common: some ballads have a two-line refrain; one ballad composed of ten-line stanzas has a seven-line envoy rhyming cccdcdd instead of the usual five lines rhyming ccdcd (i.e., an extra c-rhyme is added to the beginning of the envoy and an extra d-rhyme is added to its end); while several other ballads omit the envoy altogether.62 A few French miscellanies that were printed in the three decades prior to Tottel’s Miscellany merit particular notice. One of these was first published with a translated prose work by Leon Battista Alberti in Hecatomphile, De vulgarie Italien tourné en langaige Françoys. Les fleurs de Poesie Françoyse, printed in small quarto by Galliot du Pré at Paris and in sextodecimo by François Juste at Lyon in 1534. The Fleurs section contains 67 anonymous poems, the majority of them single stanzas, especially quatrains rhyming abba, huitains (alternatively huictains) rhyming abbaacac or ababbcbc, and dizains (alternatively dixains) rhyming ababbccdcd. This collection, moreover, has the unusual feature of titling its verses according to theme instead of form: for example, “Ung Amoureux plus hardy”; “Dialogue d’un aultre Amant se plaignant de sa Dame.”63 The same volume also includes several poems in Italianate verse forms: for example, Clément Marot’s translation of a canzone by Petrarch (Rime sparse 323) in six 12-line stanzas just as in the original, except that it has a four-line envoy (“O chançon mienne …”) instead of Petrarch’s three lines (28v–30r).64 Also, four of the first six poems are capitoli in terza rima (23r/v, 24r–6r), the first a translation of one by Bembo. Yet, between the first and second of these cutting-edge capitoli, the editor has placed a rondeau (23v–4r), and the collection includes traditional French ballads 61

  Quoted from the facsimile edition of Droz and Piaget (1924, 87v).  For examples see Droz and Piaget 1924, 99r/v, 108r/v, 109v–10r. 63  These poems appear on sigs. 36v and 39v–40r in the Lyon edition, to which citations hereafter are supplied in text. 64  For the attributions and sources of poems in Les fleurs de Poesie Françoyse, see Defaux 2002. 62

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besides (31r–2r, 40r/v), with envoys that repeat the rhyme scheme and the refrain of the latter half of their stanzas. There are, as well, examples of idiosyncratic verse forms, such as that of the lead poem, printed as a single 24-line stanza but divisible into three quintains rhyming ababb, cdccd, efefe and, it seems, a neuvain rhyming ghghghghg. Five expanded editions of the Hecatomphile accompanied by Les fleurs de Poesie were printed in 1536–40, and to the three editions printed in 1536 and 1537 were appended 21 mostly anonymous “Blasons anatomiques du corps féminin,” subsequently printed under their own title at least half a dozen times through 1554, with matching “contreblasons” added in 1543. One blason has eight stanzas of various lengths and rhyme schemes, but the rest are all written in rhyming couplets in lengths ranging up to 130 lines, each on a different body part or other aspect of a woman (her arms, her breath, her grace, her honor, etc.). So, for example, the “Blason du ventre” (Blazon on the belly) begins, O ventre rond, ventre ioly, Ventre sur tous le mieulx poly, Ventre plus blanc que n’est albastre, Ventre en esté plus froid que plastre, …65 [Oh belly round, belly sweet, belly most lustrous of all, belly more white than alabaster, belly that is more cool than plaster, …]

Predictably, Marot is the notable exception to this volume’s mostly anonymous contributions, being credited with both the “Blason” and “Contreblason du Tetin.”66 As these testify, to the end of his life and after, it was Clément Marot the court poet, not Marot the Protestant translator of the Psalms, whom these French miscellanies feature. In a different way amusing is Le plaisant Boutehors d’oysiveté, printed at Rouen in 1553 and twice more in 1554. The first edition contained 29 poems in sextodecimo; the second and third were printed in small octavo, with the last expanding the total to 41 poems. Of these, ten are in rhyming couplets ranging up to 150 lines, including the title poem and such others as a “Histoire joyeuse d’un Jongleur” (Joyous history of a Trickster), “Autre hystoire d’un Affronteur et d’un Curé de village” (A further history 65   Quoted from Sensuiuent les Blasons Anatomiques du corps femenin, Ensemble les contre blasons, de nouueau composez, et aditionez, Auec les figures, le tout mis par ordre. Composez plar plusieurs Poëtes contemprains (Paris: Charles l’Angelier, 1550, in sextodecimo), 25v–6r (with the “Contreblason du Ventre” on 70v–71r). 66   Ibid., 20v–21r and 66r–7r.

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of a Deceiver and a village Parish-Priest), and a debate poem “D’un Pipeur venant à confesse à un bon prestre” (Of a Cheat come to confess to a good priest). Most of its other poems, including the prefatory verse to the reader, are the modern single-stanza forms: two quatrains, 13 dizains, six huitains, and three onzains. But the traditional forms are represented in this collection too: there is a three-stanza chanson and a ballad with envoy. A starker combination of the old and new occurs in the Recueil de vraye Poésie Françoyse, prinse de plusieurs Poetes, les plus exellentz de ce règne, printed by Denys Janot at Paris in 1543 and, in a revised edition, 1544, then by Jean Temporal at Lyon in 1550 and again at Paris by François Regnault in 1555, all in sextodecimo. Unusually for French miscellanies, this collection was printed in roman and italic rather than black letter (or gothic) type, and like Les fleurs de Poesie Françoyse it supplies descriptive titles for many of its poems, the first being a “Tradvction d’vn Epigrame de Martial commencant: Vitamqui faciunt beatricem. par Clem. Marot” (2r).67 A second epigram by Martial, translated by Antoine Macault (fl. fifteenth century), follows Marot’s. The rest of the 125 poems range from love verse to a “Blason des cheueux” (Blazon of hair [11r–12v in the 1543 edition]) to epitaphs that were added for Marot after his death, written in poems of every length and verse form from quatrains to a 264-line dialogue in rhyming couplets between “Doleur and Volupté” (20v–26r), including ten rondeaux in a row (26r–31v). Another of the French miscellanies having only “verse in small parcels” is La Fleur de poesie françoyse recueil joyeulx contenant plusieurs huictains, Dixains, Quatrains, Chansons et aultres dictéz en ce petit livre, printed anonymously at Paris in 1542 and by Alain Lotrian in 1543. Its 56 sextodecimo leaves contain 230 poems (excluding the huitain to the reader), with the first 210 grouped according to their line lengths. Thus, the first section of 83 huitains is followed by 34 dizains, 3 neuvains, 65 quatrains, 18 cinquains, and 7 sixains. Next come three poems that, in one modern edition of the work, are called “Autres Piéces Épigrammatiques,” although Lotrian’s edition identifies two of them by their form: a “Douzain d’ung cure” and a “Rondeau.” Lastly is a section of old- and new-style chansons, 17 in all, some with several stanzas (a few of them strophic), the others single-stanza huitains, douzains, etc. But we must go back to that third “épigramme,” which Lotrian titles simply, “A une dame.” This happens to be the first sonnet to appear in a French verse miscellany. It follows an Italian rhyme scheme (abba abba cdc dcd), though as in Tottel’s Miscellany the quatrains and sestets are not signaled by indention: 67   I.e., a translation of Martial 10.47, the first line now normally rendered “Vitam quae faciunt beatiorem.”

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A une dame Au temps heureux que m’à jeune ignorance Receut lenfant qui des dieux est le maistre Vous congnoissant qu’il ne faisoit que naistre Voulustes bien le nourrir d’esperance, Mais puis que vous et sa perseuerance L’auez faict grand plus qu’aultre oncq ne peult estre En lieu d’espoir vous le laissez repaistre Seul à par luy de mon mal et souffrance, Ne pour essay que ie face, ou effort Possible m’est l’oster de sa demeure, Car plus que moy il est deuenu fort, Maulgré moy donc il fault qu’il y demeure, Mais maulgré luy aussi ay ce confort Qu’ilsortira aumoins mais que ie meure.68

The author of this sonnet has been identified from a manucript source as Mellin de St.-Gelais (ca. 1491–1558), Francis I’s poet laureate.69 It is remarkable not only for being the first sonnet in a French verse miscellany, but for being one of extremely few to be found in French verse miscellanies until the very end of the sixteenth century, when sonnets first became common in them.70 In fact, between the date that St-Gelais’s sonnet was printed in La Fleur de poesie françoyse, in 1543, and the year Tottel published his miscellany in 1557, only nine sonnets are recorded in collections of French verse. Five of these are verse epitaphs in praise of Marguerite de Navarre (d. 1549), printed in the Oraison funebre de l’incomparable Marguerite, royne de Nauarre (Paris, 1550).71 A sixth, the anonymous “Sonnet a Ronsard,” was added to the 1551 retitled edition of that work, Le Tombeau de Marguerite de Valois royne de Nauarre (L8r). One anonymous sonnet is among a selection of 20 verses appended to an edition of Bertrand de La Borderie’s Le Discours du voyage de Constantinople (Paris, 1546). Another, titled “Sonnet sur le départ 68

  Quoted from Lotrian’s 1543 edition, G2r/v; cf. Van Bever 1909, 108.   Lachèvre 1922, 309, citing MS. 728. Musée Condé. This sonnet is overlooked in Vaganay 1899 and Vaganay 1902–1903. For studies of the rise of the sonnet in France (Mellin de St.-Gelais frequently is credited for being the first to write sonnets in French), see the two long standard and still useful treatments of the subject in Piéri 1896 and Jasinski 1903. Excellent recent studies include Gendre 1996 and the essays collected in Balsamo 2004. 70   As is testified, for example, by the table in Lachèvre 1922, 290–559. 71  Two of the sonnets in the Oraison funebre are by Jean de Morel, two by Antoinette Deloynes, and the third is anonymous. 69

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de l’amye,” is among 30 poems in Le Livre de plusieurs pièces (Paris, 1548; 143r); and the ninth is one of 41 poems in the second edition of La louenge des femmes, Inuention extraite du Commentaire de Pantagruel, sus l’Androgyne de Platon, printed at Rouen in 1552.72 In other words, the most conspicuous sign of Italian poetic influence – the production of sonnets – is nearly absent from French verse miscellanies printed before 1557. The sonnet’s rise in France is instead documented in manuscripts and the numerous single-author collections that started to appear in the 1530s and rose to flood level during the 1540s and 1550s, most importantly the œuvres of Joachim Du Bellay, Pontus de Tyard, Olivier Magny, Jean Antoine de Baïf, Louise Labé, and Pierre Ronsard. This point, I suspect, needs to bear on our understanding of Richard Tottel’s aims in preparing his miscellany for market, even as we surmise that the manifest popularity and rich metrical variety of the French ones offered Tottel encouraging precedents. They did so primarily by continuing, even after the early 1530s, to include a mix of traditional multi-stanza rondeaux, ballads, and chansons alongside the modern single-stanza forms, with no one form in the clear majority, which is also what we see in Tottel’s Miscellany in contrast to the Italian miscellanies’ imbalance of 80–90% sonnets vs. 10– 20% everything else.73 Yet, for all of that, the Miscellany’s editing seems to have had the aim of strengthening the impression that its Italianate poems would make on those customers who recognized them as such: that it is an Italianate miscellany indeed, not a French one. He did this, obviously, by including the word “sonettes” in the title; by crediting the Italians by name, not the French, for having written “praiseworthely”; and by putting Surrey’s capitolo first in the volume, followed by a sonnet, and so on. Not obviously, Tottel – or the anonymous editor of Wyatt’s verses in the Miscellany – effected this purpose also by deleting ballad refrains from two of Wyatt’s poems and rewriting three others, as we shall see next. It has been noted that the major trajectory of French verse in this period was away from multi-stanza ballads and rondeaux with repeated refrains to strophic or to single-stanza poetry. In two instances, the Miscellany’s version of a poem by Wyatt lacks the refrains that are attested in other sources.74 72

  The first edition of La louenge des femmes, printed at Lyon in 1551, had just 34 poems.   In “surface appearance,” too, Tottel’s Miscellany looks most like its French counterparts because of its black letter type (though its poem titles are in roman), for as noted above, the great majority of French miscellanies are in black letter. 74   Compare R79/M84 and R225/M195 to the versions in Poems of Wyatt, nos. CLXXI and CCLXVI (181–2 and 257–8 respectively). The former is printed from the Devonshire MS. (British Library Additional MS. 17492), the latter from A Boke of Balettes (a.k.a. the second edition of The Court of Venus, ca. 1548, discussed in Chapter 3 of this study). Perhaps on similar grounds, the ballad by Chaucer that is printed as an anonymous poem in Tottel’s Miscellany (R238/M207) lacks its envoy. Among the new poems by uncertain authors that 73

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More radically altered are three poems that were originally written as rondeux, like the five others that they accompany in the Egerton manuscript. In Tottel’s Miscellany, the three appear as oddly rhyming sonnets.75 Kenneth Muir and Patricia Thomson, in their critical edition of Wyatt’s poetry, offer a frequently repeated explanation for this conversion, that “[t]hough the ‘rondel’ was known in England before W[yatt], the French version was evidently unusual enough for T[ottel] to reshape the poem as a sonnet.”76 More plausibly, to my mind, Wyatt’s rondeaux were reshaped into sonnets precisely because their reviser did know the form, he knew of its ubiquity in French poetry collections, and he opted to suppress this most conspicuous of signals of French poetic influence. The single-stanza poems that he had gathered, those that may well have been written in imitation of French huitains, dizains, douzains, etc., do not obviously send that signal because they just as well could have been written in imitation of Italian madrigals. But there is no mistaking a rondeau, with its limitation to two rhymes only and the first line repeated as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas. Hence, despite the result being a “strange” or “weird rhyme-scheme,” as Rollins comments (2:182), Tottel effectively disassociated his miscellany from French ones and augmented its Italianate character by printing these sonnets that were once rondeaux – as illustrated by the following beforeand-after example of Wyatt’s “What vaileth truth” (R70/M75).77 Egerton MS.: What vaileth trouth? or, by it, to take payn? To stryve, by stedfastnes, for to attayne, To be iuste, and true: and fle from dowblene: Sythens all alike, where rueleth craftines Rewarded is boeth fals, and plain. Sonest he spedeth, that moost can fain; True meanyng hert is had in disdayn. were added to Q2, there are two that have repeated refrains (R294/M252 and R298/M258), although as Chapter 2 details, these poems are in other respects metrically experimental and “modern.” 75  They are R69/M74, R70/M75 and R103/M107. 76   Poems of Wyatt, 263. The intended meaning of this statement may either be that the rondeau was “evidently unusual enough” for Tottel not to have recognized the form, such that he felt compelled to change it, or that Tottel revised Wyatt’s rondeaux out of concern that their form would be unfamiliar to his prospective customers. As I explain next, neither scenario seems likely to me. 77  Wyatt’s rondeau is quoted from Poems of Wyatt, 1–2, but with a space inserted between the first and second stanzas.

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Against deceipte and dowblenes What vaileth trouth?78 Decyved is he by crafty trayn That meaneth no gile and doeth remayn Within the trapp, withoute redresse, But, for to love, lo, such a maisteres Whose crueltie nothing can refrayn, What vaileth trouth? Tottel’s Miscellany: What vaileth troth? or by it, to take payn? To striue by stedfastnesse, for to attayn How to be iust: and flee from doublenesse? Since all alyke, where ruleth craftinesse, Rewarded is both crafty false, and plain. Soonest he spedes, that most can lye and fain. True meaning hart is had in hye disdain. Against deceyt, and cloked doublenesse, What vaileth troth, or parfit stedfastnesse. Deceaud is he, by false and crafty trayn, That meanes no gyle, and faithfull doth remayn Within the trap, without help or redresse. But for to loue (lo) such a sterne maistresse, Where cruelty dwelles, alas it were in vain.

One of the other converted rondeaux in the Miscellany (R103/M107) has the same rhyme scheme as that above, aabb aaab baab ba, although it is freer with approximations (rhyming prayer and desire, her and fier), while the other (R69/M74) rhymes aabb aaab aaab ba. These are “weird” sonnets to be sure, but it is possible that in their creator’s mind he was not so much doing violence to rondeaux as restoring them to something closer to the spirit of their originals. He may, that is, have known as much as or more than we now know about the Italian sources of some of Wyatt’s rondeaux, which at least in one case reached him via a French rondeau. That poem is 78

 As noted above, the refrains of French rondeaux typically were represented in manuscript and print by just the first few words of the first line and “etc.,” but “etc.” frequently was omitted because it was understood. Thus the refrains of Wyatt’s eight rondeaux were undoubtedly intended to be read or sung in full to satisfy the rhyme: not “What vaileth truth?,” therefore, but “What vaileth truth or by it to take pain?”; not “If it be so” but “If it be so that I forsake thee”; and not “Go burning sighs” but “Go burning sighs unto the frozen heart,” etc.

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Wyatt’s “If it be so that I forsake thee” (not in Tottel’s Miscellany), which was discovered to be a translation of Jean Marot’s rondeau, “S’il est ainsi que ce corps t’abandonne,” which in turn translates Serafino Aquilano’s sonnet, “Se questo miser corpo t’abandona.”79 Meanwhile, Petrarchan sources have been identified for two of Wyatt’s rondeaux: “Behold, love, thy power how she despiseth” (not in the Miscellany) is based on Petrarch’s Rime 121, a nineline madrigal; and “Go burning sighs, unto the frozen heart” (R103/M107) translates Petrarch’s Rime 153, a sonnet. In each case, Muir and Thomson suspect that “the substance of the Italian probably reached W[yatt] through a French rondeau” (Poems of Wyatt, 263, 282).80 As for the five others, an anonymous French rondeau – “Vielle mulle du temps passé, / Vostre visage est effacé” – has been suggested as the original for Wyatt’s “Ye old mule that think yourself so fair, / Leave off with craft your beauty to repair,”81 and although no certain sources have been identified for “What vaileth truth,” “For to love her,” “Help me to seek,” or “Thou hast no faith,” various editors and scholars have noted at least “slight” similarities between these and certain rondeaux by Clément Marot, or discerned in one or more of them “the appearance of being a translation or imitation.”82 In the present context, again, the question that tantalizes is whether Tottel or Wyatt’s anonymous reviser knew what we know, or more: whether he had awareness that for some of these poems, perhaps more of them than we realize, there was an original poem in Italian that was imitated in a French rondeau, which Wyatt in turn, embracing the fun of this sort of challenge, imitated in an English rondeau. Having in effect foiled Wyatt’s efforts by rewriting three of his rondeaux as oddly rhyming sonnets, this reviser may admittedly have “offered injury alike to the sense and the metre” of the poems,83 but we might infer that his aim was but to resolve a perceived marketing problem: rondeaux distract from the desired 79

 The three versions are printed in Mayer and Bentley-Cranch 1965. Wyatt could have encountered Marot’s poem in one of the early editions of Rondeaux au nombre de trois cens cinquante in which it appears (first undated editions printed in Paris by Galliot du Pré and Alain Lotrian, ca. 1527). It is also one of 350 rondeaux written in an early sixteenth century hand in a manuscript at Oxford University’s Taylor Institute (Taylor MS. 8°F 3A, formerly Arch. 1 d. 22, p. 38), on which see Chesney 1965. Serafino’s sonnet was printed repeatedly in his collected works; e.g., it is sonetto cxv in Opera dillo elegantissimo Poeta Serafino Aquilano (Venice: Nelle case di Pietro di Niconi da Sabbio, 1540), E2v. 80  The supposition is echoed in Rebholz 1978, 337–8. 81   The poem, extant in Bibliothèque Nationale MS. 5447 fonds français, is printed in Parry 1925, 461–2. Muir and Thompson suggest that it “is probably an analogue rather than a source” (1969, 299, comm. to no. XXXV). 82   Poems of Wyatt, 263–4, 280, 281 (comm. to nos. II, XV, XVII, XIX); Nott 1816, 2:545. 83  Nott 1816, 2:545.

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emphasis on Wyatt’s mastery of Italian poetic models. By the 1550s in France, it should be kept in mind, Du Bellay and Ronsard were voicing disdain for the rondeau, maligning Clément Marot for having continued to write in the form despite his discovering how to write sonnets.84 By printing Wyatt’s rondeaux as written, Tottel’s Miscellany would have been that much less fashionable for it. Nevertheless, I will bring this part of our inquiry to a close by returning attention to a feature that Tottel does seem to have borrowed from certain of the French miscellanies: the descriptive titles that were sometimes printed in place of the bare identification of the poems’ forms (i.e., in place of “Rondeau” … “Autre Rondeau” … “Balade” … “Huictain” … “Autre huictain” and so on). Rollins points out that such titles are rarely found in English manuscripts of the period (2:98). Likewise, the Italian miscellanies do not encourage the practice: except for titles alerting us that a poem is intended to mimic a classical form (“Ode,” for example), the usual headings are author attributions and, in the case of risposte, the names of addressees. The other exceptions are found in volumes of spiritual and moral verse, such as the Libro primo delle rime spiritvali, parte nvovamente raccolte da piu auttori, parte non piu date in luce (Venice: Al segno della speranza, 1550), where occasionally a poem is titled by its devotional theme (on the cross, against the devil, on the ascension, in praise of the virgin, etc.) or, for several of Piccolomini’s sonnets (185r–93v), according to the theme of their pious instruction (“Contra i studi delle scientie,” “A uno che dormiua la piu parte del giorno,” etc.). Very different are the descriptive titles given to many of the love and complaint poems printed in Hecatomphile … Les fleurs de Poesie Françoyse and the Recueil de vraye Poésie Françoyse, two miscellanies discussed above. The titles in these volumes, like those in Tottel’s Miscellany, tend to strike modern ears as cumbersome and gratuitous. In Les fleurs de Poesie, a poem only 13 lines long has the title, “Comment le plus noble et plus perfaict des vrays amans deffend amour honneste des opprobres cy devant dictz, et monstre qu’il nous est necessaire” (26r). A mere huitain is titled “Un Cueur amoureux respond au dict amour, et adresse ses parolles a sa dame, la quelle il estime auoir autant de puissance que Cupido” (27r). Other titles include “Demonstration des signes qu’amour fait faire a ses Martyrs” (25v); “Un Amoureux marry dit qu’amour vse de magicque, et non de diuinité” (28r); and “Un aultre amant pour exalter la puissance d’amour, atteste qu’il l’a reduict en vmbre par vne Dame” (32v). In the Recuil de vraye Poésie we read “D’un qui medisoit d’un aultre en son absence” (32v); a “Dizain à quatre damoyselles, blasmant aulcun qui ne leur tenoit compaignie” (43v); a poem “Pour la guarison d’une dame bien aymée” 84  For a convenient synopsis of the “Pléiade propaganda authored primarily by Ronsard and Du Bellay” against the “vielle garde poëtique françoyse,” see Nash 1985, 9–14.

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(44r); and “Libertè et seruitude, procedante d’amour” (46r). In titles such as these, it seems safe to posit, Richard Tottel found warrant for his own: “The louer being made thrall by loue, perceiueth how great a losse is libertye” (R300/M260); “Thassault of Cupide vpon the fort where the louers hart lay wounded and how he was taken” (R211/M181); “Complaint of the absence of her louer being vpon the sea” (RM17); “The louer shewing of the continuall paines that abide within his brest, determineth to die because he cannot haue redresse” (R240/M209); and so many others of this sort. III. “Other” Praiseworthy Poets (2): Early Printed Miscellanies of Spanish Verse This section will show that a number of Spanish verse miscellanies printed before 1557 potentially supplied Richard Tottel with exemplars as inspiring and instructive as the Italian and French ones.85 But further, as we give scrutiny to one particular edition of a Spanish miscellany, the question will arise whether Tottel’s represents a response to a specific provocation. This story begins and ends with Spain’s first and largest printed verse miscellany, the Cancionero general de muchos y diuersos autores, which went through multiple editions and revisions over four decades. The editio princeps was compiled by an otherwise little-known Hernando del Castillo and printed at Valencia in 1511 by Cristófal Kofman (a.k.a. Cristobal Cofman, identifed in the colophon as an “alemán de Basilea”). The volume’s 243 leaves of large folio are slightly fewer than Le Jardin de plaisance’s 260, but excepting a relatively small number of poems that are printed in double columns, the Cancionero general’s pages have triple columns of verse, accommodating in all 1,134 poems by 139 named authors and “más algunos.” Many of the poems comprise well over a hundred stanzas and exceed a thousand lines.86 A second Valencian edition, printed by Jorge Costilla in 1514, replaced

85   The first point of reference for study of printed Spanish verse miscellanies of this period, though incomplete and posthumously published, is Rodríguez-Moñino 1973. 86   A superb critical edition of the first and subsequent sixteenth-century editions of the Cancionero General is González Cuenca 2004, with the last of its five volumes containing a comparative table of each edition’s contents, several indices, and other appendices, against which the statistics I cite in this section have been checked. My tallies of poems in each edition of the Cancionero general differ from those of González Cuenca in 5:8–51 because I count separately the many response poems and verse glosas (of which there are 204 in the 1511 edition), whereas in his edition they are numbered, for example, 11/1, 11/2; 39/1, 39/2, 39/3; etc. See Rodríguez 2007, 41–51, for discussion of what is known of Hernando del Castillo (Fernando in the colophon) and of the identities of poets represented in the editions of 1511 and 1514.

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212 poems in the first edition with 210 new ones, the omissions and additions being scattered throughout the volume.87 The next three editions, which add the further notice in a subtitle that the cancioneros are “en metro castellano,” were printed at Toledo: first by Juan de Villäquiran, in 1517 and 1520, then by Ramon de Petras in 1527.88 These reprint the 1514 edition with but two exceptions: on fol. 114v two poems printed earlier in the volume (109r) are repeated, presumably by mistake; and the 1527 edition closes with a poem new to the anthology (203v). Publication then moved to Seville, where a newly revised edition was printed by Juan Cromberger in 1535 and again in 1540.89 Strangely, these have the same nearby repetition of two poems as occurred in the Toledo volumes, but the poem that was added in 1527 is not included, and another 17 poems that were in all the editions after the first are omitted.90 More substantively, the Seville editions introduce 78 new poems to the collection (189r–207r). Then, in 1557, the first edition not to appear in folio format and gothic type was printed by Martin Nucio at Antwerp: a 402-leaf octavo volume, printed in roman, titled Cancionero general: qve contiene mvchas obras de diuersos autores antiguos, con algunas cosas nueuas de modernos, de nueuo corregido y impresso. It is evident that the editor of this version consulted both the last Toledo edition of 1527 and one of the Seville editions, for it has the two repeated poems (206r and 215v–16r) and the one poem that was added in 1527 (374r); but it also prints one of the 78 poems that otherwise are found only in the Seville editions (397r), and Nucio omits a set of four poems that were added to the Toledo editions but then dropped by the Seville editions.91 Again, though, new poems are added to the collection, as Nucio advertises on his title page. Sixty “cosas nuevas,” written by certain “autores 87  This second edition printed at Valencia has the expanded title, Cancionero general de muchos y diuersos auctores, Otra vez impresso emendado y corregido por el mismo autor con adicion de muchas y muy escogidas obras: las quales quien mas presto querra ver vaya ala tabla y todas aquellas que ternan esta señal[,] son las nueuamente añadidas. 88  The 1517 and 1520 editions are titled Cancionero general nueuamente añadido: Otra vez ympresso con adicion de muchas y muy escogidas obras: las quales quien mas presto querra ver vaya ala tabla: y todas aquellas que ternan esta señal[,] son las nueuamente añadidas; the 1527 edition advertises that it is Agora [ahora, i.e., now again] nueuamente añadido. 89   Both the Seville editions are titled Cancíonero general: enel qual se hañadido agora de nueuo enesta vltima impression muchas cosas buenas: ha sido con diligencia corregido y emendado. 90  The repeated poems appear on fols. 103r and 108v; the poems dropped from the Seville editions appear on fols. 89v–91v, 101v, 105v, 184r, 191r–4v, 197v, 199r, 200v, and 203r/v in the Toledo editions. 91   In all three of the Toledo editions these poems that are omitted from the Seville and Antwerp editions are printed on fols. 191r–4v.

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modernos,” are printed at the end of the volume (352r–402v).92 We shall return to these remarkable “new things” by “modern authors” shortly. The organization of the successive editions of the Cancionero general followed that established in 1511, which in a heading above the first poem promises the reader “many diverse works” written “in the Castilian language” by “all, or the most renowned, troubadours of Spain, both ancient and modern,” encompassing works “of devotion, morality, love, [and] jests,” and their forms (now quoting the Spanish) including “romances [ballads93], villancicos [carols], canciones [songs], letras de inuenciones [poems on devices or emblems], motes [sayings], glosas [amplifications on other poems’ themes], preguntas [y] respuestas [questions and answers].”94 The collection opens with a section of moral and devotional poems (1r–22r), followed by selections grouped by author, starting on fol. 22r with nine poems by Don Ínigo López de Mendoza, Marquis de Santillana (1398–1458), 13 by Juan de Mena (1411–56), and then the obras of 26 others through fol. 122r. On this leaf we come to the first generic heading: “Aqui comiençan las canciones,” which section spans fols. 122r–31r. Next come “ballads with and without glosses” (131r–40r), and after these, the “inventions and letters of jousters,” although in place of visual depictions of the jouster’s heraldic devices treated in the letras, Hernando supplies brief descriptions of them (140r –43v).95 From fol. 143v to 146v there are the “motes” – “sayings” in single sentences (e.g., “Yo sin vos sin mi sin dios” and “Mi enemiga es la memoria”) – accompanied by brief glosses in verse. After this are the villancicos (146v–50v), the preguntas y respuestas (150v–60v), and then another large section of poems grouped by their authors, 40 in all, six of whom are “Anonimos” (160v–218v). The volume concludes with “las obras de burlas” (219r–34r), a portion that was apparently so much liked that Costilla’s revised version of it, in the edition of 1514, was issued separately in 1519 by yet a third Valencian printer, Juan de Viñao, under the title Cancionero de obras de burlas prouocantes a Risa, with 92

  The final sixteenth-century edition of the Cancionero General is a revision of Martin Nucio’s done at Antwerp “en casa de Philippo Nucio,” 1573. 93   “Ballads” is the usual translation for romances, but the word could refer to any literature written in the vernacular, or a bit less broadly, anything written in the Castilian octosyllabic meters described below. By the mid-sixteenth century, romanceros and cancioneros were both all-purpose words for vernacular poetry. 94   Cancionero general de muchas y diuersas obras de todos o delos mas principales trobadores despaña en lengua castellana assi antiguos como modernos, en deuocion, en moralidad, en amores, en burlas, romances, villancicos, canciones, letras de inuenciones, motes, glosas preguntas respuestas (1r). 95  As well as González Cuenca 2007, see also the study and critical edition of this portion of the collection in Macpherson 1998.

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66 poems printed in 56 quarto leaves. The year after, an octavo version of this collection with 11 additional burlesque verses was printed in Madrid by Luis Sanchez. The Cancionero general is now best known as Spain’s vastest stockpile of versos octosilábicos, which was far and away the predominant form of Spanish poetry throughout the fifteenth century and well into the sixteenth, whether the composition was a short cancion, a multi-stanza ballad or debate poem, or a long verse narrative. In this meter, the stress is consistently placed on the seventh syllable, but the number of syllables in a line can vary from seven to nine: i.e., a seven-syllable line with its last syllable stressed (verso agudo, a.k.a. oxítona), an eight-syllable line with the penultimate syllable stressed (verso llano, a.k.a. paroxítona), or a nine-syllable line with the antepenultimate syllable stressed (verso esdrújulo, a.k.a. proparoxítona).96 Popular ballads written in this form typically relied only on vowel rhymes, or rima asonante (e.g., rhyming mano, miro and guerreo) in the even-numbered lines, with changes to a new rhyme at unpredictable intervals; but Hernando del Castillo gathered relatively few of these for his collection, and mostly the examples are but fragments of much longer originals.97 The poems he sought were in the courtly or troubadour tradition that favored full rhymes (rima consonante) in repeated patterns. He also gathered a number of poems written in the more formal twelve-syllable style, versos de arte mayor.98 Furthermore, from its very first editions in 1511 and 1514, the Cancionero general included Castilian approximations of Italian verse forms. Among Juan de Mena’s verses, for example, are several poems modeled on the canzone. They are written in versos octosilábicos, not the combination of heptasyllabic and hendecasyllabic lines in which the Italians wrote their canzoni, but they have the requisite, identically rhymed stanzas and half-length “cabo” (coda) at the end that repeats the rhyme scheme of the latter half of the stanzas, and most interestingly, in them Juan de Mena illustrates the Castilian analogue to the Italian mixed-meter stanza. As the following sample from one of his poems illustrates (32r), its three rhyme sounds correlate to the three different verse types of versos octosilábicos. I have indicated each line’s verse type and rhyme to the right of the text, with the stressed seventh syllable identified by an accent mark and the elisions also signaled. 96

 For these patterns and terms, see Quilis 1969, 22–3, and in English, Rivers 1966, 23–5.  For examples see the romances section, 131r–40r, such as an “Otro romançe de Nuñez,” which in its even-numbered lines rhymes “adormescia … abria … sentia … dezia … mia … alegria … seria” (133v). 98   These are the poems that required printing in double instead of the usual triple columns, occurring on sigs. 16r/v, 28r–9r, 52r–63v, 192r–5r, 197r–8r. 97

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/ Ya por dios este pensar / no vos trayga͜ assi͜ engañada / mas quered considerar / que deleyte͜ es dessear / quanto mas ser desseada / Aun que ramo por memoria / vos de diana de palmas / en auer de mi victoria / no aureys pena ni gloria / como͜ en el limbo las almas.

verso agudo

a

verso llano b verso agudo

a

verso agudo

a

verso llano

b

verso esdrújulo

c

verso llano

d

verso esdrújulo

c

verso esdrújulo

c

verso llano

d

We find also in the first edition of the Cancionero general a “sesti plañendo la muerte de la reyna doña Ysabel reyna despaña y de las dos cecilias” – that is, “a sestina lamenting the death of Queen Isabel [d. 1504], Queen of Spain and the two Sicilies [i.e., Sicily and Naples],” composed in versos de arte mayor, and to the second edition were added 18 sonetti and six capitoli (16r–17v and 153v–4v), though these are in Italian. The sonnets are by Bartolomeo Gentile Falamonica (fl. fifteenth century), styled “Berthomeu Gentil” in Castilian, a member of a Genovese burgess family doing trade in Spain.99 All are pious poems and therefore appear in the section of “Obras de deuocion y moralidad”: the first five, for example, start every quatrain and tercet “Ecce hommo” (16r); a few others have titles indicating that they are “De trinitate,” or addressed “a la verge maria,” etc. The first of the anonymous capitoli, a love poem, is called a “Soneto en italiano, mostrando todos los effectos de amor ser dulces,” and the titles of the next three, on similar subjects, begin with the word “Otro,” or “another [sonnet],” but these are in fact terza rima compositions of 35–40 lines. Perhaps because the fifth poem in the sequence is longer than the others, having 64 lines, its form was given the weightier and technically correct heading, “Capitulo a una señora …”

99

  In addition to González Cuenca’s note on Gentile (2007, 4:2), see Chalon 1998.

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None of the poems added to the subsequent Toledo and Seville editions of the Cancionero general (printed 1517–40) reflected any further Italian influence on Spanish verse,100 and neither is such influence to be seen in the numerous other Spanish miscellanies of the early sixteenth century. The year 1543, however, saw the landmark event in Spain’s printing history that led to the flowering of Spanish Petrarchism and to the Cancionero general’s refashioning for its next edition published at Antwerp. In that year, a 245leaf quarto volume of poems by Juan Boscán (ca. 1490–1542) and Garcilaso de la Vega (ca. 1501–36) was printed at Barcelona by Carles Amores, funded by the publisher-bookseller Juan Bages. Las Obras de Boscan y algunas de Garcilaso dela Vega repartidas en qvatro libros has a selection of verses by Boscán in its first three books (alongside poems by various poetic correspondents in Libro Primero), and Garcilaso’s poetry occupies the fourth book (with the exception of one poem noted below). Originally the collection was being edited for the press by Boscán himself, as Ana Girón de Rebolledo, his widow, explains in the preface.101 But because he died suddenly of illness before completing the task, it was she who finalized the arrangements with Bages to have the book printed and sold. In the minority are the 37 poems of the first book that are written in traditional Spanish meters. A poem in versos de arte mayor, addressed to the Duchess of Soma, Boscán’s dedicatee, is followed by octosyllabic villancicos, canciones, coplas (here meaning stanzas or ballads) and glosas. These could have misled any reader casually browsing the volume’s first pages for an idea of its contents, but for the one poem printed just after the first-line index, immediately preceding Libro Primero (A6r): a “Soneto de Garcilasso,” written in hendecasyllables and rhyming ABBA ABBA CDE DCE, “which out of neglect was not placed at the end with [Garcilaso’s] other works” (que se oluido de poner ala fin con sus obras). Undoubtedly because this Italian-style sonnet was such fitting advertisement of what was to come, later editions kept it in this lead location with the same confession of an oversight. The volume’s official announcement of an intention to blaze a new path for Spanish poetry is Boscán’s celebrated “Epistle to the Duchess of Soma” (19r–21v), which introduces the content of Libro Segundo, the first Petrarchan sequence in Spanish.102 In this letter Boscán explains 100

  Indeed, the Toledo and Seville editions of the Cancionero general even reduced by one the examples of Italian influence, having dropped the sestina on the death of Isabel mentioned above. 101   The original contract between Boscán and Blages survives: see de Riquer 1945, 227–36; Rivers 1996, 68–9. 102  The translations that follow are mine, but for a translation of the whole of Boscán’s epistle, see Cruz and Rivers 2011, 233–42. For studies of Boscán’s preface and of his and

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what first motivated him to try to “join the Castilian language to the Italian method of writing” (iunt[ar] la lengua castellana con el modo de escriuir italiano [20r]), and he argues the advantages of doing so over continuing to write the kinds of “versos vulgares” (21v) that he had himself composed formerly and includes in Libro Primero, but that now he shall be seen to transcend. He begins modestly, professing to have started these poetic experiments “carelessly,” merely as a means to “pass away less troublesomely the tedious times of life,” like having “wine after conversation,” claiming, “I never thought that I had invented or made anything that would remain in the world.”103 He credits Andrea Navagero (1483–1529), Venetian ambassador to Spain, for urging this pastime on him: “one day in Granada,” Boscán recalls, while in conversation with Navagero “on matters of ingenuity and learning, and especially on the varieties of the many languages, he asked me why I had not attempted in the Castilian tongue to write sonnets and other metrical forms used by the good authors of Italy, and he not only asked me this lightly, but even he requested it of me, that I should do so.”104 “And thus,” says Boscán, “I began to try this type of verse.” At first he encountered “some difficulty,” for he found it “very artful, and to have some particularities different from our own”; but as he persisted, “little by little” he began to “warm up to it.”105 Still his progress was slow, but then Garcilaso added his encouragement, persuading Boscán of the value of the endeavor and also taking it up himself, such that “each day reasons occurred to me to advance what was begun.”106 Among his incentives, Garcilaso’s achievements more generally, see Armisen 1982, esp. 335–78; Heiple 1994; Navarrete 1994; Middlebrook 2009; and Cruz 1988a, 1988b. 103   [A]ssi tambien en este modo de inuencion (si assi quieren llamalla) nunca pense, que inuentaua, ni hazia cosa, que huuiesse de quedar en el mundo: sino que entre en ello descuydadamente, como en cosa, que iua tan poco en hazella, que no hauia para qué dexalla de hazer, hauiendola gana. Quanto mas, que vino sobre habla (20r). 104   Porque estando vn dia en Granada con el Nauagero … tratando con el en cosas de ingenio y de letras, y especialmente en las variedades de muchas lenguas, me dixo: porque no prouaua en lengua castellana sonetos y otras artes de trobas vsadas por los buenos authores de italia: y no solamente me lo dixo assi liuianamente, mas aun me rogo, que lo hiziese (20r/v). Navagero, along with his ambassador friend Baldassare Castiglione and Garcilaso, previously had encouraged Boscán to translate Il Cortegiano, which was printed in 1534. 105   Y assi començe a tentar este genero de verso. En el qual al principio halle alguna dificultad, por ser muy artificioso, y tener muchas particularidades diferentes del nuestro. Pero despues paraciendome, quiça con el amor delas cosas propias, que esto començaua a sucederme bien, fuy poco a poco metiendome con calor en ello (20v). 106   Mas esto no bastara a hazerme passar muy adelante, si Garcilaso con su iuizio, el qual no solamente en mi opinion, mas en la de todo el mundo ha sido tenido por regla cierta, no me confirmara en esta mi demanda. Y assi alabandome muchas vezes este mi proposito, y acabandomele de aprouar con su enxemplo, … al cabo me hizo ocupar mis ratos ociosos

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Boscán explains, was the regrettable circumstance that “this verse that the Castilians use, if we but look into it with some resolve, there is none who knows where it had a beginning.” This would not be an issue if there were anything “good” written in it. Were that the case, then “it would bear its own authority, and it would not be necessary to make such an effort to discover those who invented it.” But lacking both masterpieces and definite origins, native Spanish verse wants “the authority that would oblige us to do it honor.”107 The case is “very much the opposite with this other verse of our second book,” Boscán proposes, and in two respects. Firstly, the inherent “disposition” of the Italian verse forms is a flexibility that enables one “to treat any subject, whether grave or subtle, hard or easy,” and what is more, “to unite them with any style that one may find among the approved ancient authors.” Hence it is little wonder that these forms continue to thrive in Italy, “a land flourishing with wisdom, learning, judgement, and great writers.”108 Secondly, Boscán continues, Italian verse has an august lineage that can be traced from modern times all the way back to antiquity: Petrarch was the first to complete the process of putting it just right, and in this he kept it, and will keep it, I believe, forever. Dante was further back in time: he made very good use of it, but differently than Petrarch. In the time of Dante and a little before, the Provençales flourished, whose works, because of the fault of our times, are in the hands of few. From those Provençales issued many excellent Catalan authors, of whom the most excellent is Ausiàs March [ca. 1397–1459] … . [F]urther back of the Provençales, we still find the road that leads to this verse of ours (deste nuestro verso), because hendecasyllables, which had been derived from those forms in which the Latins made so much that is pleasing, possess nearly the same art, and are the same, inasmuch as the difference between the languages permit. And so, to conclude with our arrival at the source, the Latins too were not the inventors of these forms, but rather

en esto mas fundadamente. Y despues ya que con su persuasion tuue mas abierto el iuizio, ocurrieronme cada dia razones, para hazerme llevar adelante lo començado (ibid.). 107   Vi que este verso, que vsan los castellanos, si vn poco assentadamente queremos mirar en ello, no hay quien sepa de donde tuuo principio. … Y si el fuesse tan bueno, que se pudiesse aprouar de suyo, como los otros que hay buenos, no havria necessidad de escudriñar quienes fueron los inuentores del: Porque el se traberia su autoridad consigo, y no seria menester darsela de aquellos que le inuentaron. Pero el agora ni trabe en si cosa, por donde haya de alcançar mas [h]onrra dela que alcança, que es ser admitido del vulgo, ni nos muestra su principio: con la autoridad del qual seamos obligados a hazelle honrra (20v–21r). 108   … vna disposicion muy capaz, para recibir qualquier materia: o grave, o sotil, o dificultosa, o fácil, y assi mismo para ayuntarse con qualquier estilo de los que hallamos entre los authores antiguos aprouados … [y] Italia … es vna tierra muy floreciente de ingenios, de letras, de iuizios y de grandes escrittores (21r).

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they took them from the Greeks, as they had taken many other important things in various of the arts.109

Thus, Boscán argues, Italian verse forms are doubly hallowed, at once by “the authority of their own worth” and by “the reputation of the ancients and moderns who have used them.” They are “worthy,” therefore, “not only to be admitted into so good a language as is Castilian, but to be preferred to the vulgar verses.” If this is achieved, and Castilian writers become sufficiently practiced in using these forms, then perhaps the day may come (allowing that “the time’s disturbances do not obstruct it”) that “the Italians will greatly grieve to see the cream of their poetry transported to Spain.”110 Boscán’s argument in this epistle makes explicit, as we see, a parodox to which Tottel, in his notice to the reader, avoids drawing too much attention: the native tongue is noble only to the extent of its fitness to adopt the conventions of a foreign prestige language. But then, it could be argued, Boscán was under some obligation to tout the advantages of the new-style poetry more forcefully and specifically than was Tottel, given that it represented so radical a departure from the versos octosilábicos that still ruled the day. He was recommending that the strict metrical rules of alien verse-forms replace the strict metrical rules of native ones, whereas Tottel enjoyed the advantage of favoring metrical regulation over its virtual absence. In any event, the Boscan y Garcilasso collection was revolutionary. Libro Segundo, as noted above, contains Boscán’s “Canzoniere,” a sequence of 92 hendecasyllabic sonnets in various Italian rhyme schemes, with eleven canzoni written in the Italian style interspersed (22r–73r); Libro Tercero 109

  Petrarcha fue el primero, que en aquella prouincia le acabo de poner en su punto: y en este se ha quedado, y quedara, creo yo, para siempre. Dante fue mas atras: el qual vso muy bien del, pero diferentemente de petrarcha. En tiempo de Dante y un poco antes, florecieron los Proençales: cuyas obras, por culpa de los tiempos, andan en pocas manos. Destos Proençales salieron muchos autores ecelentes catalanes. De los quales el mas ecelente es Osias March. … [M]ás atrás de los Proençales, hallaremos todauia el camino hecho deste nuestro verso. Por que los hendecasyllabos, delos quales tanta fiesta han hecho los latinos, lleuan casi la misma arte, y son los mismos, en quanto la diferencia delas lenguas lo sufre. Y porque acabemos de llegar ala fuente, no han sido dellos tampoco inventores los latinos, sino que los tomaron delos griegos: como han tomado muchas otras cosas señaladas en diuersas artes (21r/v). 110   De manera que este genero de trobas, y con la authoridad de su valor propio, y con la reputacion de los antiguos y modernos que le han vsado, es dino, no solamente de ser recibido de vna lengua tan buena, como es la castellana: mas aun de ser en ella preferido a todos los versos vulgares. De manera que este genero de trobas, y con la authoridad de su valor propio, y con la reputacion de los antiguos y modernos que le han vsado, es dino, no solamente de ser recibido de vna lengua tan buena, como es la castellana: mas aun de ser en ella preferido a todos los versos vulgares. Y assi pienso yo, que lleva camino para sello: Porque ya los buenos ingenios de castilla, que van fuera dela vulgar cuenta, le aman, y le siguen, ye se exercitan en el tanto, que si los tiempos con sus desasossiegos no lo estorban, podra ser, que antes de mucho se duelan los italianos, de ver lo bueno de su poesía transfferido en españa (21v).

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opens with “Leandro,” a long Ovidian retelling of the Hero and Leander romance in versi sciolti, or Castilian blank verse (78v–118v). This is followed by four “capitulos” in terza rima (119r–40v), one of them an “Epistola de Don Diego de Mendoca, a Boscan” with Boscán’s “Respvesta.” Finally, 135 stanzas of “Octava Rima” conclude Boscán’s portion of the volume. Garcilaso’s contributions, in Libro Quarto, begin with a selection of 28 sonnets and four canzoni. His remaining seven poems then share Boscán’s ambition to bring classical literature to life in the Castilian tongue by way of Italian verse forms as intermediaries. First is the Horatian “Ode ad Florem Gnidi” (177v–9v), written in five-line stanzas of heptasyllabic and hendecasyllabic lines rhyming aBabB, a form inspired by Bernardo Tasso’s experiments with odes in Italian verse, thereafter called the lira in Spanish because this word occurs in the poem’s first line. Next, in terza rima, are two elegies, the “Elegia al Dvqve Dalua en la muerte de don Bernaldino, de Toledo” and “Elegia a Boscan” (179v–88r), followed by Garcilaso’s “Epistola a Boscan” in blank verse (188v–9v). The last poems are eclogues. The “Egloga al Virey de Napoles” (190r–97v), with Salicio and Nemoroso the speakers, at first appears by its layout to be a dialogue constructed of sonnets, but they are in fact mixed-meter stanzas rhyming ABCB ACce eFF GfG. In the “Egloga Segvnda,” Salicio and Nemoroso are joined by Albanio and Camilia for a contest conducted mostly in terza rima (198r–229v). “Egloga Tercera,” sung by Tirreno and Alzino, is entirely in stanzas of ottava rima (229v–37v). Famously, the reception of Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilasso dela Vega was mixed. On the one hand, the book was nothing less than an international publishing phenomenon. Soon after the first edition was printed in a thousand copies at Barcelona, in 1543, Boscán’s widow was in court to see the privilege enforced against two pirated editions that had already come out the same year, one from a rival Barcelonan press, the other from Lisbon.111 Two more editions followed in 1544, a quarto printed at Medina del Campo and a duodecimo printed at Antwerp by Martin Nucio. Octavo editions were printed at Salamanca and (it is conjectured) Rome in 1547, and after that, one duodecimo edition was printed after another: at Paris in 1548; at Lyon in 1549; twice at Antwerp by Nucio without date (1550–51?); at Valladolid and Venice in 1553, the latter printed by none other than Gabriel Giolito; at Barcelona and again at Antwerp in 1554, the latter printed by Joannes Steelsius; at Estella in 1555; and finally, in 1556, once more at Antwerp by Nucio.112 111

  See the discussion of the “prosecution of the Lisbon pirates” in Rivers 1996, 69, and in Rivers 1964, xiii–xiv. 112   Many years later, “Boscan and Garcilassoes Sonets and AEglogs” supplied the illustrations of schemes and tropes in Spanish for Abraham Fraunce’s Arcadian Rhetorike:

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Despite this runaway success, there were many in Spain who rejected the importation of Italian verse forms and the approximation of classical genres on grounds both poetic and patriotic. Versos octosilábicos, they argued, were naturally best suited for Castilian poetry, no matter the theme or register. Boscán and Garcilaso were accused by their critics of betraying the mother tongue rather than lauded for raising its international stature.113 A frequently printed expression of this view is a satirical poem by Cristóbal de Castillejo (ca. 1490–1550), its sonnet form being one of the targets of his ridicule: Garcilaso y Boscan siendo llegados al lugar donde están los trovadores que en esta nuestra lengua y sus primores fueron en este siglo señalados, los unos a los otros alterados se miran, demudadas las colores, temiéndose que fuesen corredores o espías o enemigos desmandados; y juzgando primero por el traje, pareciéronles ser, como debía, gentiles españoles caballeros; y oyéndoles hablar nuevo lenguaje, mezclado de extranjera poesía, con ojos los miraban de extranjeros. [Garcilaso and Boscán having approached the troubadours, who in our language and its beauties were once famous in this world, the latter look at the former in alarm, their colors paling, fearing that they are scouts or spies or renegade enemies; and judging them first by their clothes, they took them to be, as was right, gentle Spanish knights; and hearing them speak a new language, mixed with foreign poetry, they looked at them with the eyes of foreigners.114]

Or The Praecepts of Rhetorike made plaine by examples, Greeke, Latin, English, Italian, French, Spanish (1588). 113  On criticism of Boscán and Garcilaso by their contemporaries, see Navarrete 1994, 126–8; Heiple 1994, 3–34; and Reyes Cano 2000, 85–105. 114  Text and translation (the latter slightly adjusted) from Rivers 1966, 33.

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Castillejo satirized Boscán and Garcilaso by name in other sonnets also, one of them titled “Musas italianas y latinas,” as well as in stanzas of ottava rima and in the octosyllables he was defending, most vociferously in a poem titled, “Contra los que dexan los metros castel y siguen los Italianos.”115 This returns us to the Miscellany’s notice “to the Reader.” If we suppose that Tottel found occasion to learn of Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilaso, which should be a safe bet given that by 1557 it had been a steady international best-seller for 15 years, then he likely learned also that in Spain the book met with hostility from those who favored octosyllabic darkness over the golden dawn of hendecasyllables. This, in turn, may be the context of Tottel’s expression of concern that “parhappes some” will “mislike the statelinesse of stile remoued from the rude skill of common eares.” I doubt he felt real worry that any of his prospective customers would indignantly reject the “swete maierome” of syllabic verse for “swinelike” accentual verse, but he surely understood that an admonishment to the “vnlearned” not to do so would flatter the “learned” reader who knew enough to esteem (and pay for) poems written in the new stately style. The influence of Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilaso on Spanish verse miscellanies was not, as we have seen, immediate, but it did come decisively in 1554 with the Cancionero general de obras nueuas … Assi por ell arte Española, como por la Toscana, printed in 203 duodecimo leaves of roman type at Saragossa by Estéban G. de Nágera.116 The opening two thirds of the book contain canciones, villancicos, and other poems written in versos octosilábicos, including a section of Boscán’s works (49r–91r) that are claimed, not quite accurately, to be printed for the first time (14 of the poems had been printed before). At fol. 132r we reach the new-style poetry, under the heading “Sigvense las Obras que van por el Arte Toscana Compuestas por Diuersos Autores nunca aora Impressas.” The first six of these obras are by Don Juan de Coloma, Count of Elda: three canzoni followed by “La Historia de Orfeo en Octaua Rigma,” an “Egloga de Tres Pastores” (namely Eranio, Felicio, and Clonico, who sing alternately canzoni and in terza rima), and a “Capitvlo.” Then come 22 anonymous sonnets, several of them paraphrasing poems by the Catalan author whom we saw lauded by Boscán, Ausiàs March.117 The next section has the “Obras de don Diego de Mendoça” (173v–85v), which include one very 115

 These are printed together in Obras de Christóbal de Castillejo, Secretario del Emperador D. Fernando (Madrid, 1792), 238–51. 116   The unique copy of this work is in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel. I cite the modern critical edition by Carlos Claveriá (1993), but with the capitalization and punctuation slightly adjusted. 117   On the identification of sources in the Cancionero general de obras nueuas, see Crawford 1916.

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short “copla” in versos octosilábicos but otherwise are written in Italian meters: two canzoni; an “Elegia” in seven-line hendecasyllabic stanzas; an “Egloga” in which Melibeo and Damon sing in terza rima; and four sonnets. Then 46 more sonnets by “Diversos Autores” are grouped on fols. 186r–200v, many of them translations of Petrarch. Finally, as if to enclose the radical arte Toscana poems safely within familiar native verse forms, the last leaf of text reprints an octosyllabic ballad, the “Romance Vieio” from Alonso de Fuentes’s Quarenta cantos de diuersas y peregrinas historias (Seville, 1550). As it soon will be plain, when Philip II arrived on 20 July 1554 at Southampton, England, with his large retinue of Spanish grandees, lesser courtiers and attendants, copies of Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilasso were in their luggage. Possibly, too, they had the Cancionero general de obras nueuas with them, if Nágera printed it in the first half of that year and not the second; but if he did not, a copy was in their hands no later than the following year. Indeed, there was plenty of time for items such as books to be sent to them, as Philip remained in England through 29 August 1555, and at his departure he ordered a number of courtiers and attendants of his household to remain in London so that his royal presence at Mary’s court might at least be maintained vicariously. Many members of Philip’s train thus resided in England for just over a year, while some may have been posted there up to three years. And notoriously, they were not a happy lot. Ambassadorial dispatches and other letters reporting the experiences of the Spaniards in England during this period indicate that they were the constant theme of inflammatory rumors, that they suffered taunts, threats, swindling, the occasional armed robbery and other violent attack, and that they yearned therefore to be gone. It will be useful here to review some of their specific complaints in these documents, for as it happens, an appreciation of the scope of Spanish discontent in England is as indispensable to assessing the potential relationship between Tottel’s Miscellany and the last, augmented version of the Cancionero general as is our awareness of Boscán’s and Garcilaso’s revolutionizing of Spanish verse. Resentment toward their hosts was felt directly upon the Spaniards’ arrival, when they learned that the English nobles had arranged a full household and guard for Philip with the expectation that he would happily cover the cost of this favor. Ruy Gómez, writing one week into Philip’s stay to Francisco de Eraso, Count of Mélito, describes the umbrage felt on both sides: Before his Highness arrived here, they had a household ready for him with all the officials high and low, a master of the horse and a chamberlain, gentlemen of the chamber and so forth and so on, and a guard of one hundred archers; and they intend that his Highness shall pay for all this without any part of the expense

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being met by the Queen. … and if one of our number tries to do anything they take it ill and will not allow it. His Highness intends to set this matter to rights by ordering the two households to be combined, and to serve him together.118

Setting this matter to rights was not so easily achieved. In mid-November Simon Renard was reporting still that “The King has not yet decided which Englishmen he intends to have in his household, and several of them are dissatisfied about it.”119 As the two parties awaited resolution of the problem, one “Spanish gentleman” wrote to a friend at home, “The English hate us Spaniards, which comes out in violent quarrels between them and us, and not a day passes without some knife-work in the palace between the two nations.”120 Also in the meantime, the Spanish nobles and their households found themselves in want of suitable lodgings, as there was hardly room for them all at Windsor Palace or Hampton Court. This meant, to their distaste and danger, fending for themselves among the townspeople, though as Spain’s ambassadors jointly reported to Charles V on 8 August, “it will be very hard to induce the Londoners to lodge the Spaniards,” for some of the English are leaving no stone unturned to enrage the people against them, and have already provoked some skirmishes; … several [English] lords’ servants are already murmuring against them, calling them “knavish Spaniards” (kneves espaignars): words like to breed violence; and others say that only wretched, naked people have been brought over here. It is being rumoured that at Portsmouth, Southampton and Winchester there are 3,000 or 10,000 Spaniards come to conquer the realm.121

Besides the risk of encountering a mob of paranoid patriots, the “incredible numbers of robbers” who “go about in bands of twenty” also were a peril. Within weeks after Philip’s arrival it was reported that “robbers on the roads” had “attacked several persons, among them a servant of Don Juan Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena’s son, from whom they stole 400 crowns and all the gold and silver objects he had with him. Not a trace has been found of all this property nor of four chests belonging to his Highness’s household.”122 The Spanish visitors were not prepared to absorb such losses, for as Ruy Gómez admitted in another letter to Eraso, 118

  CSP Spain, 13.2.   Letter to the Emperor, CSP Spain, 13.98; in similar vein see 13.56. 120   CSP Spain, 13.72, letter of October 2, 1554, headed “A second letter from a Spanish gentleman who accompanied Philip to England, also addressed to a gentleman of Salamanca” (the first letter from this gentleman, calendared at 13.37, is cited below). 121   CSP Spain, 13.26. 122   CSP Spain, 13.37 and 11; see 13.72 for a similar complaint. 119

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“we have so little [money] that, if the English find out how hard up we are, I doubt whether we shall escape with our lives. At any rate, we shall have to without honour, for they will abuse us like pickpockets.”123 Upholding Spanish honor was a constant concern for Philip. He comported himself reproachlessly, in a manner aimed to lessen people’s prejudices against him, and he did what he could to keep his countrymen from brawling with Mary’s subjects or murdering them. This proved difficult, eventually leading Philip to threaten his retinue with terrible punishments, as described by the Venetian ambassador in a report dated 1 July 1555: King Philip, wishing to prevent all cause for scandal, issued a proclamation two days ago, to the effect that the first Spaniard who shall dare to use a weapon is to have his hand cut off, and under the severest penalties he has forbidden both horsemen and footmen to carry any sort of harquebuss, and he has given orders to hang by the neck any man, who, whether in defence or offence, shall dare raise the cry of “Spain” for assistance, not choosing that even in self-defence, as is almost always the case, they should come to blows, at the risk of tumult or insurrection; but rather put up, as they do, with any affront or persecution.124

To put it mildly, the Spaniards in England were frustrated by so many constraints on their accustomed style of living. In the same way that they concluded, to avoid thieves, “[t]he wise thing to do here is to imitate the English and go home early,”125 they likewise judged it wisest to live as an isolated community, restricting their movements and minimizing interactions with the English in order to avoid the inevitable insults and quarrels. “We Spaniards move among the English as if they were animals, trying not to notice them; and they do the same to us,” wrote one; “we certainly should all be delighted to get away from these barbarous folk.”126 A number of those in Philip’s original retinue did succeed in obtaining leave to go home to Spain, or to join Charles’s court in Flanders, or to secure a diplomatic commission that took them elsewhere before Philip himself departed England, but others were in London for the long haul, in particular the unfortunates whom, as were mentioned, Philip required to remain at Mary’s court to represent him in his absence or to staff the household that would prepare for his ostensibly imminent return. Barely more than a month after Philip arrived in Brussels, however, rumor had it that he had no intention of going to England again, and that his 123

    125   13.11. 126   124

CSP Spain, 13.7. Giovanni Michiel to the Doge and Senate, CSP Venice, 6.150. “A letter relating Philip’s voyage to England and marriage,” July 1554, CSP Spain, CSP Spain, 13.72.

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instructions to his “steward (maggiordomo), whom he left with the Queen, not any longer to allow any of the rest of his retinue to come hither” was “circulated rather for the purpose of gratifying the earnest desire of his consort” (that is, feeding Mary’s vain hopes).127 Whether this rumor first arose among the demoralized Spaniards who were left behind in England or made its way to them from abroad and demoralized them further, what it reflects is bitterness directed not only toward the “barbarous folk” who gave the Spaniards such bad welcome but against their prince who had apparently abandoned them there. Indeed, much of their resentment was reserved also for the emperor, who was to blame for arranging the marriage that was the cause of their misery. Such unhappiness needed an outlet. At least a few of them found it in the writing of verse, which in turn must have provided some amount of solace, in the form of mischievous amusement, for the fellow sufferers with whom it was shared. A delightful assortment of these poems made their way into Martin Nucio’s expanded edition of the Cancionero general printed at Antwerp in 1557. From its quarto size and roman font, it is at once clear that Nucio meant to give Spain’s oldest printed verse miscellany new luster by making it look like Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilasso and the Cancionero general de obras nueuas rather than the folio editions of the Cancionero general that preceded it. He surely understood, too, that this new format closely resembled that of the Rime diverse series printed in Italy. But the transformation is somewhat more than skin deep. Of the 59 poems that are new to this edition of the Cancionero general (occupying fols. 352r–402v), 39 are traditional forms written in versos octosilábicos or versos de arte mayor, but 20 have headings that identify them as Italian or classical literary forms: two poems are called “epigramas”; there is one “epitafio” and one “elegia”; another poem is called an “Obra nueua” by an “Incerto autore” (in fact only two of the newly added poems are attributed), consisting of 92 stanzas written in ottava rima; and there are 15 “sonetos,” one of them the volume’s concluding poem. Most of the complaint poems in Nucio’s edition follow a heading that introduces “certain new sonnets, stanzas, and songs done in the city of London, England, in the year 1555” by three unnamed “caualleros,”128 but others appear earlier and later than this section among Nucio’s newly appended material, indicating that there were other discontented caballeropoets besides just them. Several of the verses are quite plainspoken, as in the following octosyllabic cancion: 127

 Frederico Badoer to the Doge and Senate, November 1555, CSP Venice, 6.283.   Siguense ciertos Sonetos, coplas y canciones nueuos, hechos en la ciudad de Londres en Yngalaterra, Año M.D.LV. pordos caualleros, cuyos nombres se dexan para mayores cosas con ciertas obras de otro autor, cuyo nombre tambien se reserua (388r). 128

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Que no quiero amores en Yngalaterra pues otros mejores tengo yo en mi tierra. No quiero ni estimo ser fauorecido de amores me essimo qu’es tiempo perdido seguir a Cupido en Yngalaterra pues otros mejores tengo yo en mi tierra. Que fauores puede darme la fortuna por mucho que ruede el sol ni la luna, ni muger alguna en Yngalaterra pues otros mejores tengo yo en mi tierra. Que quando alla vaya a fe yo lo fio buen galardon aya del seruicio mio, que son desuario los de Yngalaterra pues otros mejores tengo yo en mi tierra.129 [I have no desire for love affairs in England, for I have better ones in my land. I neither want nor care to be favored; I exempt myself from love affairs, because it is a waste of time to chase Cupid in England, and I have better in my land.

129   389v–90r; González Cuenca comments on this poem that “La desaprobación del matrimonio es total en [esta] cancíon” (2004, 4:693 n. 1).

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What favors can Fortune give to me, however much it turns? Whether it is the sun or the moon or some woman in England,130 I have better in my land. When I can return there (by my faith how I hope it!), I shall have good reward for my service, because they are crazy in England, and I have better in my land.]

Other poems voice their grievances with the slightest degree of indirectness or from behind a gauze-thin veil of allegory. González Cuenca’s critical edition of the Cancionero general is helpfully scrupulous in noting which of these have the “motivo de la boda de Felipe II con su tía Maria Tudor,” lest a reader miss their significance.131 Here, for example, Charles V is denounced as a casamentero, a matchmaker, whose occupation has brought nothing but trouble to the world. Mal aya el primero mal aya el segundo mal aya el tercero que empeço en el mundo a ser casamentero. Que le maldigamos es cosa muy justa al traydor que gusta de engañar a entramos a Dios le pidamos que muera el primero que empeço en el mundo a ser casamentero. Casado se vea quien casar le plaze porque mal que haze porque suyo crea muger vieja y fea loca y sin dinero que empeço en el mundo a ser casamentero. 130   I.e., whether it is the wheel of Fortune turning, the sun and the moon orbiting, or some woman in England rolling over, …. 131   González Cuenca 2004, 4:663 n. 1, and similarly elsewhere.

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Infierno en la tierra nos dexo el traydor vida con dolor y perpetua guerra dos viuos entierra aquel trapazero que empeço en el mundo a ser casamentero. (393r/v) [A curse on the first, a curse on the second, and a curse on the third who started in this world to be a matchmaker! It is quite just to curse a traitor who enjoys deceiving both parties. We pray to God that the first had died who started in this world to be a matchmaker. He would see them married whom it pleases him to marry for the damage that it causes; thus he supplies an old and ugly woman, crazy and without money, he who started in this world to be a matchmaker. The traitor left us a Hell on Earth, a life of sorrow and perpetual war. The trickster buries the couple alive, he who started in this world to be a matchmaker.]

A favorite theme also is Philip’s relationship with Isabel Osorio, who had been, as González Cuenca notes, “la amante del príncipe” before Philip’s marriage to Mary (2004, 4:693 n. 1). One such poem even addresses Isabel by name, beginning “Who made you angry with me, Isabel? / Who keeps you in tears?” (Quien teme enojo Ysabel / quien con lagrimas te tiene [390v]). In another example, the jilted Isabel as “Marfidia” is given a pastoral sonnet to voice her sorrow: Estauase Marfidia contemplando en su pecho al pastor por quien moria ella misma hablaua y respondia que lo tenia delante ymaginando. Por sus hermosos ojos distilando lo que Orientales perlas parecia con voz que lastimaua assi dezia su cristalino rostro leuantando. No viua yo sin ti dulce amor mio de mi me oluide yo si te oluidare pues no tengo otro bien ni otra esperança. Tu fe sola es pastor en quien me fio

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y si esta en algun tiempo me faltare mi muerte me dara de mi vengança. (356v) [Marfidia was thinking to herself of the shepherd for whom she was pining in her heart; and in her imagination she was speaking and replying just as though she had him before her. Thus her beautiful eyes were pouring out what looked to be oriental pearls, and with grieving voice she said as follows, lifting her crystalline face: “Let me not live without you, my sweet love. I would forget about myself if I were to forget you, inasmuch as I have no other good nor other hope. Your fidelity, shepherd, is the only thing in which I trust and, if that should ever be wanting in me, take revenge on me by giving me my death.]

Two final examples in this vein will suffice. Both are based on a classical “fabula” that was the inspiration for several earlier poems written in Italian forms, but during the period that Philip resided in England, across the Channel from his lover Isabel, it acquired a new, amusingly topical application. Boscán’s long blank-verse narrative of the Hero and Leander story, mentioned above, is one of two poems about these fated lovers in Las Obras de Boscan y Garcilasso. The other is Garcilaso’s sonnet that is the lead poem of the volume, which its learned readers would have recognized is based on Martial’s epigram 14.181: Clamabat tumidis audax Leandros in undis Mergite me, fluctus, cum rediturus ero. [In the swelling surge daring Leander cried out, “Drown me, waves, on my way back!”]

Martial’s couplet is expanded by Garcilaso as follows: Passando el mar Leandro el animoso, En amoroso fuego todo ardiendo, Esforço el viento, y fuesse’mbraveciendo El agua, con vn impetu furioso: Vencido del trabajo pressuroso, Contrastar alas ondas no pudiendo, Y man del bien que alli perdia muriendo Que de su propia vida congoxoso: Como pudo’sforço su boz cansada, Y alas ondas hablo d’esta manera. (Mas nunca fue su boz dellas oyda) Ondas pues no se’scusa que yo muera,

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Dexad me alla llegar, y ala tornada Vuestro furor essecuta en mi vida. (6r) [Brave Leander was crossing the sea, burning completely in love’s fire, when the wind gathered force, and the water raged with violent fury. Overcome by the heavy effort, unable to contend against the waves, and dying more because of the good that he would lose there than distress for his own life, he strained his feeble voice as much as he was able and addressed the waves in this manner (though his voice never reached their ears): “Since it is not permitted me to escape death, just let me reach shore there, and on my return take out your fury on my life!”]

The 1554 Cancionero general de obras nueuas has a sonnet on the same theme in imitation of Garcilaso’s, and as shown below, its final tercets are repeated verbatim in the first of two Hero and Leander sonnets in Nucio’s 1557 edition of the Cancionero general: [1554] [1557]

En el soberuio mar se via metido Leandro que de amor en fuego ardia Leandro y de sus ondas trastornado, puesto que a su desseo contrastaua y menos del temor de muerte elado el fluctuoso mar que no cessaua que del fuego de amores encendido, nadando a su pesar passar queria. Quando de congoxoso y oprimido, Alli mortal congoxa le afligia de aliento y fuerça ya desamparado, la fuerça y el aliento le faltaua de aquel estoruo ya desamparado y mas de aquel estoruo desmayaua mas que de su morir y entristecido, que del mortal peligro en que se via. Hablo d’esta manera mas fue en vano, Hablo desta manera mas fue en vano echando ell alma en el postrer acento echando el alma en el postrer acento d’una cansada voz y dolorida: de vna cansada voz y dolorida, O riguroso mar y ayrado viento, O riguroso mas terrible viento dexadme adonde voy allegar sano dexadme donde voy a llegar sano y luego me ahogad a la venida. y luego me ahogad a la venida. (168v)132 (356v)

[Translation of 1557 version: Leander, who was burning in love’s fire, kept swimming through the rolling waves that opposed his desire, determined to cross the sea that vexed him. There deadly anguish afflicted him, strength and breath faltered in him, and the obstacle of the water more dismayed him than the mortal danger in which he found himself. He spoke in this manner, though it was in vain, throwing his soul into the dying breath of his weary and doleful voice: “O cruel,

132

  Quoted from Claveriá 1993, 239.

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most terrible wind, allow me to arrive where I go safely and afterward drown me on my return!”]

The irresistible joke for the Spaniards in England, of course, is Leander’s altered situation after 25 July 1554. He is willing, even eager, to strike this bargain with the storm not just because he so ardently burns to spend one last night in the arms of his true love, but because he would rather die than return to his wife.133 It would make a neat plot, to be sure, if we could determine that Nucio printed his edition of the Cancionero general early enough in 1557 for it to have reached England with Philip’s second entourage when he and his court arrived there in March. This would allow time for the book to be passed about, barely discreetly, among the disgruntled caballeros at Mary’s court, generating among them much barely concealed mirth. It would allow time, too, for some of its insulting verses to be seen by Englishmen who understood that they were insulting, generating among them indignant conversations over beef and beer that soon reached the ears of Richard Tottel, who then rushed a miscellany of English verse into print by way of patriotic response. But in truth, a causal relation between the caballeropoets’ verses and Tottel’s Miscellany need not hinge on the publication date of Nucio’s Cancionero general, or even on any Englishman having a precise knowledge of what the poems said. During all that time the Spaniards spent at Mary’s court from late 1554 through early 1557, we can surely assume it was no secret that one of their pastimes was writing courtly love lyrics and other verses – after the model of the Italians, yes, but also in imitation of the cutting-edge Spanish authors whose works they had brought with them. This was natural behavior for worldly courtiers, after all, though it did contrast starkly with the current practice of their English counterparts at Mary’s court, whose writings appear to have been limited to religious and polemical subjects. To the Spanish courtiers, we can imagine, their appreciation and composition of sonnets, epigrams, elegies, etc., was further proof of their cultural sophistication, so unlike the barbarity of their hosts. Assuming that such “proof” was not kept private by the Spanish but allowed to be made known, if not flaunted, we can guess that there were varied English responses to it. The gravest heads would dismiss this sort of literary activity as frivolous, even impious, and feel no patriotic impulse to match it. Others might be moved to retort that England already had its own Juan Boscán, its own Garcilaso de la Vega, in the persons of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. An awareness that there were Spanish caballero-poets writing fashionable Italianate verse at the Marian court must have eventually spread outside the palaces to London’s assorted 133  The joke is extended in a sonnet describing Hero’s grief at the sight of Leander’s body washed ashore (400v–401r).

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circles who maintained regular contact with the queen’s counselors and were attuned to court culture: the lawyers, for example; and the printer who supplied lawyers with their law books. It would not be unreasonable for this printer to foresee that an English verse miscellany celebrating the ability of English authors to write “as praiseworthely” as the “Latins” and “Italians” – let alone others – would be well received at market. For the book’s intended customers would not be the Spanish courtiers themselves, obviously, but the Englishmen who would take satisfaction in having their own cultural sophistication confirmed. Still it is tempting to wonder whether certain of the caballero-poets’ satirical poems did get into English hands, were translated or paraphrased, and thereby contributed in some measure to goading Tottel’s Miscellany into being. Consider the following piece from Martin Nucio’s edition of the Cancionero general titled “The Psalm ‘By the waters of Babylon’ applied to the life that is passed in England, King Philip being there with his court, in the year 1555” (El Psalmo Super flumina Babylonis aplicado a la vida que se passaua en Yngalaterra, estando en ella el Rey don Felipe con su corte. Año de 1555). A note immediately below the title explains, Llamase el rio que passa por la ciudad de Londres, el Temissa: y assi lo declara en el segundo verso esta imitacion, para que mejor se entienda. El texto. Super flumina Babylonis. [The river that passes through the city of London is called the Thames, and thus it is called in the second verse of this imitation, for anyone who would understand it better. The text: By the waters of Babylon (i.e., Psalm 137)]

Then are printed just the first two lines of the “imitation,” Sobre la ribera estraña del Temissa nos sentamos, [Over the strange riverbank of the Thames we mourned, … ]

followed by another note: Dexamos de poner la resta de esta Cancion començada por algunos buenos respetos. (397r/v)

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[For various good considerations we left off the rest of the song after the beginning.]

By “good considerations,” I assume, we are meant to understand that the printer wishes to avoid paying any disrespect to holy scripture, not that he is sensitive to the hurt feelings of the barbarous tribe amidst whom the exiled Spaniards mourn. In 1539, Thomas Wyatt concluded his first ambassadorship to the court of Charles V and departed for home. One of his poems that Tottel acquired for the Miscellany marks that occasion: a strambotto, which is a single stanza of ottava rima, in which the poet bids farewell to Toledo’s Tagus River and prays for friendly winds to speed him on his journey across the sea, up the River Thames, to London, to his king and country. Tottel titled the poem, “Of his returne from Spaine”: Tagus farewel that westward with thy stremes Turnes vp the graines of gold already tried,134 For I with spurre and saile go seke the temmes, Gaineward the sunne that sheweth her welthy pride, And to the towne that Brutus sought by dreames, Like bended mo[o]ne that leanes her lusty side. My king, my countrey, I seke for whom I liue, O mighty Iove the windes for this me geue.135

Here, first printed in 1557, is another of the Miscellany’s many poems proving that the “stranger Spaniards” in England are not really so special with their Italian verse forms. Juan Boscán is but a Juan-come-lately. It is a poem, too, that can be read as a rejoinder to those Spanish exiles mourning their fate on the banks of the Thames. If you yearn so much for home, then by all means with spur and sail go seek the Tagus. Yet no one should mistake so subtle a “rejoinder” as this for political protest or other sort of confrontational gesture. By including Wyatt’s poem “Of his returne from Spaine” on sig. L1r in the Miscellany, Tottel did not paint in big letters on London’s city wall, “Spaniards go home.” What he did was produce a little book of poems for the London book market, a miscellany of songs and sonnets written by “sondry good Englishe writers” that promised to gratify its purchasers if Spanish assumptions of cultural superiority chafed them at all, or if otherwise it was a concern to them 134

  Cf. the aurifer Tagus in Catullus 29.19 and Ovid’s Amores 1.15.34, after the gold extracted from its sands. 135  R121/M131. For illuminating discussion of this poem and others as evidence of Wyatt’s poetical/political dialogue with Garcilaso, see Davis 2010.

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that “the honor of the Englishe tong” be defended. “Of [Wyatt’s] returne from Spaine” contributes to that purpose the same as other verses in the Miscellany, with just perhaps the one added bonus of suggesting subtly that these are pieces of native “treasure” more valuable even than Spain’s “graines of gold.” IV. Philip’s Latin Poet Laureate at the English Court and in London Bookshops. On October 22, 1555, in a ceremony at Brussels, Charles V crowned Nik Wagener of Mamer, Luxembourg – alias Nikolaus Mameranus – poet laureate of the empire.136 It was a fitting reward for Mameranus’s labors in the previous ten years. He was by then the author of nearly two dozen prose and verse works eulogizing the emperor’s exploits and celebrating such important events as the marriage of his son, Prince Philip, to Queen Mary I of England. But Mameranus’s talents extended well beyond the writing of encomiastic chronicles. He had also authored a great many other verses in classical Latin meters, from wittily ludic to severely moralizing ones, and contributed to the religious polemic of the period, editing and authoring several treatises in defense of Catholic orthodoxy. Charles abdicated within a year after that ceremony at Brussels, leaving the Spanish empire to Philip; and in the year following, from March through at least May 1557, Nikolaus Mameranus was part of Philip II’s entourage when the king made his second and last visit to Mary’s court, this time with the objective of enlisting England’s aid in the war against France.137 During his time of residence in London, Mameranus saw three slim collections of his verse printed in quarto there by Thomas Marsh, the only works of Latin poetry by any author, classical or modern, published in England in 1557. Two of the three books advertise on their title pages that Mameranus was poet laureate, and certainly the three of them put on full display their author’s facility at Latin verse composition. They also attest to Mameranus’s privileged relationship with Philip and Mary and assert his special calling to write for the religious and moral edification of their English subjects.

136   Charles also bestowed upon him at this ceremony the title comites palatini, or Count Palatine. For biographies of Mameranus (1500–ca. 1567) see Didier 1915 and Mameranus’s entry in the Biographie nationale du pays de Luxembourg, 2:299–321. 137   Mameranus may have remained in England until Philip’s departure on 5 July, although two letters dated in May from Mameranus to Mary (discussed below) give the impression that he was preparing to take his leave shortly afterward. For the political context of Philip’s return, see Loades 1991, 304–12; Parker, 2002.

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Such can be appreciated even from a quick review of the three books’ contents, starting with the one titled Oratio Dominica: Symbolvm Apostolorum, Mandata Catalogi: Sacramenta Ecclesiae, cum nonnullis aliis, carmine reddita (The Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the Commandments, the Sacraments of the Church, with some others, rendered into song), having ten pages of text in six leaves (STC 16817). It begins with two prefatory verses, the first a note to the reader admonishing him to live a Christian life according to the correct faith, the second a dedication to the son of Adriaan van der Burch, President of the Great Council at Mechelen that, on Charles V’s authority, supervised the 17 provinces of the Low Countries. Then follow three different versions of the Lord’s Prayer in Mameranus’s preferred meter, dactylic hexameter or “heroic verse.”138 The first version is in nine lines; the second, headed “Eadem breuius” (the same more briefly), has seven lines; and the third, “adhuc breuius” (still more briefly), is accomplished in just five lines (A3r). Thus, for example, the opening words of the prayer in Matthew, “Pater noster qui in caelis es sanctificetur nomen tuum,”139 in Mameranus’s long version are rearranged, stretched with the addition of the word ubique (everywhere), and distributed across one and a half lines of verse to make four dactyls, four spondees, and the first half of a fifth spondee that is elided with the next syllable, as follows (with scansion marks added): Qvī Pătĕr ǀ īn cāeǀlīs ēs ǀ nōstēr, ǀ sānctĭfĭǀcētu̽ r Nōmĕn v̆ǀbīquĕ tŭǀūm͜ [Ad- …]

In the shortest version, Mameranus fits all this into one line by condensing the four words “qui in caelis es” (who is in heaven) down to one vocative adjective, “summe” (highest), though again the meter requires him to add a word (oro, “I pray”). I quote this version in full, again marking the scansion: Sv̄mmĕ tŭǀūm nōǀmēn, Pătĕr ǀ ōrō, ǀ sānctĭfĭǀcētu̽ r Āduĕnĭǀātquĕ tŭǀŭm rēgǀnūm: fīǀātquĕ vŏǀlūntās Īn cāeǀlo͜ ̄ et tērǀrā: Pāǀnēm dā ǀ quōtĭdĭǀānu̽ m Ēxēmǀplō nōǀstrō, dīǀmīttās ǀ dēbĭtă ǀ nōstra̽ . Nēc sĭnĕ ǀ tēntāǀrī: sēd ǀ prāuō ǀ lībĕră͜ ab ǀ ōmnī. 138

  I.e., six feet of dactyls (one long syllable and two short syllables, marked ( – ᵕ ᵕ ), but any foot except the fifth may be replaced by a spondee (two long syllables, – – ), and the sixth foot is either a spondee or, because the second syllable may be short, a trochee ( – ᵕ ), in which case the final foot is commonly marked ( – x ). 139   Mameranus draws variously on the prayer’s two scriptural sources, Matthew 6:9– 13 and Luke 11:2–4.

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Afterward, put also into heroic verse, come Gabriel’s salutation to Mary from Luke 1:28–31, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and descriptions of the Seven Sacraments of the Church and the Seven Deadly Sins. Mameranus then offers five different versions of the medieval hymn of praise commonly called the minor doxology (“Glory be to the Father”). This hymn took various forms in various breviaries,140 but in Mameranus’s hands it is turned first into four lines of heroic verse, then three lines, then two, and finally, two alternative versions in the unusual iambic dimeter.141 I quote below one of the iambic versions. In each eightsyllable line, the long second and sixth syllables marked / have primary stress, the fourth and eighth syllables marked \ secondary. The traditional English form of the prayer is provided alongside for comparison: /

\

/

\

Deo Patri sit gloria, /

\

Glory be to the Father,

/ \

Eiusque soli Filio and to the Son, / \ / \ Cum Spiritu paraclito and to the Holy Ghost, / \ / \ Et nunc et in perpetuum. As it was in the beginning, is now, and (A4v) ever shall be, world without end.

The final leaves of the Oratio Dominica … carmine reddita contain a half dozen poems and prayers original to Mameranus, the last counseling readers not to “hasten after stupid ignorance and error” (Nec te corripiet stupida ignorantia et error). Two others defend the veneration of images, one in heroic verse, the other in elegiac couplets,142 and there is also a “Prayer to God for the Spanish fleet to receive a favoring wind” back from its battles against the Turks, followed immediately by a poem rejoicing that God had heard the prayer, for the fleet arrived home safely. The dozen leaves of the second book, Psalmi Davidis Qvinqve 1. 14. 36. 39 et 79. Heroico Versv in gratiam sereniss. Reginae Angliae redditi, cum subiecto de officio Principis carmine (Five Psalms of David, 1, 14, 36, 39, 140   It was also variously attributed, e.g., to Charlemagne, Ambrose, and Gregory the Great. In the headings to his fourth and fifth versions, Mameranus associates these with the form of the hymn that he took to be Ambrose’s. 141   A.k.a. iambic quaternarius. In classical texts, mainly drama, this meter ordinarily appears in combination with others: e.g., in Seneca’s Medea, lines 771–86, iambic trimeter and dimeter alternate. 142   Elegiac couplets have a first line in dactylic hexameter and the second in pentameter, the latter of which is constructed by omitting the second half of the third and sixth feet (leaving two half-feet to add up to one, though they are not adjacent), always with dactyls in the second and fifth feet. Other than the Metmorphoses, Ovid’s poetry is written in elegiac couplets.

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and 79, rendered into heroic verse in thanks to the most serene Queen of England, with a poem on the office of a Prince),143 similarly contain more than is indicated on the title page. After the dedication to Mary, to which I will return, there are the five psalm renditions followed by the speculum principis poem instructing rulers to “walk the path of God chaste and pure, as priests pronounce in their holy teachings” (Atque in calle Dei qui castus et immaculatus / Ambulat, vt sancto declarat dogmate vates [C2r]). Coming after is a poem “on the duty of everyone else” (De officio vniuscuiusque), advising readers to “walk the holy path of simplicity” (graditur sanctum simplicitatis iter [C2v]), and then a more scolding poem that warns courtiers to avoid their characteristic vices if they hope to reach heaven, both of which are in elegiac couplets. Reverting to heroic verse, Mameranus next celebrates the happy condition of “the new city of Philippeville,” the Burgundian fortress town so-named by Charles V whose first governor, Lazar of Schwendi, had recently repelled the French soldiers laying waste to the region. The last poem is a pastiche of scriptural phrases, as identified in marginal citations, again admonishing readers to lead a life of simple piety and obedience. Mameranus’s third book printed by Thomas Marsh is called a “lusus” (a piece of play or jest): Beso Las Manos et Point Dictionis Gallicae Vsus. Cum Carmine de Leone et Asino (“Beso Las Manos” and the Use of the French Word “Point,” with a Poem on the Lion and the Ass).144 The first pokes very mild fun at the frequent and flexible use of the saying, “Beso las manos” (I kiss the hands) in Spanish. “You ask what it means? Whatever you wish” (Qvod cupis et rogitas te noscere, … / Quid sit, velle quidem), as Mameranus explains: [Q]uae sit reuerentia verbo Tanta, et quam varium cunctos ducatur in vsum Hispanos inter, quibus hoc ex tempore seruit, Ad quaecunque volunt, dum inter versantur amicos: ......................................... Omnia nam quaecunque velis, aut plurima saltem, Vel quae testantur mentem gratam, atque benignam, Officiumque animi promptum, simul esse memento. Est bona namque dies: est nox bona, Beso Las Manos: Est que bonus vesper: sero est ac mane bonumque: 143

 ESTC S491787 (not in STC). Four of the heroic-verse psalms also appeared in an edition printed the same year in Cologne: Strena Mamerani ad Sacrae Regiae Hispaniae et Angliae Maiestatis Finantiarum Praefectos, videlicet Quatuor Davidis Psalmi 1. 14. 36. et 79. versu heroico redditi. 144   STC 17228. This book, having just six leaves in Marsh’s edition, was previously printed in Cologne, ca. 1550.

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Est salue atque vale, est magnas ago candide grates: Est tibi propino seu praebibo, Beso Las Manos. ........................................ Ad mensam seu conuiuis prandentibus ipsis, Accedens, benedicere vis, dic, Beso Las Manos: Hincque recessurus rursum dic, Beso Las Manos. (A2r/v) [For there is much deference in the word, and there is great variety in its use among the Spaniards, to whom it serves according to the time, for whatever purpose they wish, while conversing among friends. … For know it to be at once everything and whatever you might desire, or at least most things, or those things which declare a grateful and obliging mind and a willing kindness of spirit. For Beso las manos is good day: it is good night. And it is good evening; and it is good early and late. It is hello and farewell, I give honest great thanks. It is I drink to you or give toast, Beso las manos. … Coming to a meal or eating a dinner that you wish to bless, say Beso las manos: and when about to withdraw, say again Beso las manos.]

Similarly, in the next poem, Mameranus observes that in French point is “fitted to diverse matters,” and he strings together one sample sentence after another, such that point occurs 64 times in 60 lines of heroic verse, although the last instance is Mameranus’s admission that he has not shown all its meanings (Sed non Point totum dixi huius nominis vsum [B1r]). The amusing highlight of these two poems is a brief aside that occurs in the first one, where Mameranus writes that Christ, having been taken to the top of the temple and dared by Satan to jump,145 replies: [D]escensum mihi quod Cacodaemon ab isto Vertice commonstras modo, Señor, Beso Las Manos: Nanque bonas teneo per quas descendere possum Scalas, quando volo, quare Cacodaemon abito. (A3r) [Devil, the descent that you show me from this pinnacle, Beso las manos, Señor: for I have a good ladder by which I can descend whenever I wish, so Devil be gone with you!]

With “The Lion and the Ass,” we return to Mameranus’s accustomed mode of stern moral instruction, notwithstanding the whimsy of the animal allegory. In the speech of the Lion, Christ is compared to “a magnanimous Lion,” who “defeated the curse of deadly Hell,” “shattered the horrible

145

 As recounted in Matthew 4:5–7 and Luke 4:9–12.

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chains of the first transgression,” and “restored the liberty that had been lost.”146 The lion asserts also, in the heroic verse that befits him, that Vt Leo degeneres pecudes et vilia temnit Corpora, nec censet digna illa existere pugna: Sic nobis semper longe inferiora putemus Ac indigna quidem, quae versent pectora nostra Dedecus et vitium, turpis, sordensque voluptas, Ebrietas, Epicuri et comessatio porci. (B2r) [just as a lion scorns inferior animals and vile carrion, judging them not worth a fight, so let us ever hold inferior to us, unworthy of us, those things stirring sin and shame in our breasts: foul be-soiling lust, drunkenness, and the feasting of an Epicurean pig.]

It is the Ass’s turn next, who in elegiac couplets recommends the life of “ass-like simplicity” (“asinina … simplicitate”): Namque offendiculum semel in quo offendit asellus Vitat, et ingreditur mox alia ille via. Sic tu nunc vitae gradere in nouitate pudicae, Atque nouam casto pectore quaere viam. ..................................... Non etenim frustra est equitat quod Christus asellum, Simplex, innocuum, sed bene cautum animal. Simplicitas vitae: vitij cautela cauendi: Sic aderit semper gratia, paxque Dei. (B2v) [For the ass shuns the obstacle against which he stumbles, and next time walks another path. So now should you walk in the newness of a virtuous life, and seek a new path with a chaste heart. … For indeed, not for nothing did Christ ride an ass, a simple, harmless, but prudent animal. Simplicity of life, prudent of avoiding sin: this is the way one keeps close the grace and peace of God.]

146

 Translating from the following passage:

Vt Leo magnanimus Iuda destirpe, tribuque Christus mortiferi pestem deuicit Auerni, Et tetrae imperium secuit, decretaque mortis Morte sua, ac victor disrupit vincula primi Horrida delicti, libertatemque reduxit Amissam, antiquae diluto crimine culpae. (B2r)

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Before departing England, Mameranus included these three London imprints in a gift of eight of his books to Mary I, part of them presented to her on 16 May, the rest on 22 May, as documented in an extant letter to her itemizing them all.147 In the same letter, Mameranus reminds Mary of his “petition,” which also survives, offering advice on several matters that he urges her to consider for the betterment of her realm.148 He urges her to introduce coin in small denominations for the convenience of domestic trade; to establish English and Flemish coinage of equivalent value for the convenience of trade with the Low Countries; to require weekly sermons in every English parish “for the instruction of the people toward an improved and emended life”; and finally, to forbid public drinking and to tax drinking in taverns, for the shameful drunkenness that he has seen in England is unparalleled “in all of Christendom.” It is sorely tempting to imagine Mary’s English counselors and courtiers grumbling amongst themselves about this know-it-all poet laureate haunting the palace at Whitehall and presuming to tell the queen how to run her country. More to our purpose, we can guess just how irksome Mameranus’s books were to the Londoners who had the Latin and the curiosity to read them. For in one respect, they come across as rather precious virtuoso stage performances. The great Mameranus has taken his poet laureate act on the road to dazzle and delight the English: See what he can do. All those clever riffs on a Spanish locution; now the same again but with a French word; now before your very eyes he turns scripture and prayer into classical meters, first this way, then that. And all the while, Mameranus delivers stern reminders to flee the vices that endanger one’s soul and follow Christ on the path of true and simple piety, requiring of his readers that they feel the ponderous weight of his moral authority whose warrant, too, is the laurel that he wears. Perhaps more irritating, even to those who welcomed the return of the old religion, was the offensive manner in which Mameranus commended himself to their queen and rehearsed the wickedness of her realm’s recent history in his dedication to the Psalmi Qvinqve (A2r–3r). After beseeching Mary to accept him into her kind graces, Mameranus recalls the former golden age in England when Mass was heard, psalms were sung, the true faith was preached, and the people were called “to the fear and worship of God, and to a modest and holy and pious life.” But then, he laments, “that prior habit of living a blessed life was left to lapse” in “a time of iniquity”: “the worship of God, mutual love, and delight in religious 147

  SP 11/14 no. 13, fol. 38; see CSP Mary 272, no. 596, which replaces the record in CSP Edward and Mary, 113 no. 13. Three of the books were bound in one volume. All eight are identified in Warner 2010. 148   SP 11/14 no. 12, fols. 32–7; CSP Mary, 272–4, no. 597.

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ceremonies came to an end.”149 Thankfully, it was the Lord’s will that the rightful queen would eventually claim her crown. Resistance to Mary was “overpowered,” and Mamaranus now congratulates her by memorializing her triumph in this way: [T]remisceret omnis Praua cohors facie, pauitansque horrore iaceret Substrata ante pedes, culpam confessa malignam. ....................................... Inque fide veterum dedit illa calescere patrum Te totam sancta, firma vt Marpesia cautes Atque immota animo fortissima faemina stares, Plus pietate, viris praestares faemina, vera, Et saperes, priscumque decus, custode seuero, Ecclesiae Domini seruares corde repostum. ..................................... Deducta segete hac praua atque errore reciso Impio et insano[.] (A3r) [The whole depraved court trembled in your presence, and quaking with dread lay prostrate before your feet, confessing their evil crimes. … They promised you to inflame themselves with the holy faith of their ancestors, while you stood firm as Marpessian rock,150 unmovable in your will, a most powerful woman, and as a woman you understood and excelled more than the men in true piety, and in your heart you preserved with strict garrison the ancient dignity of the Lord’s Church … while the depraved multitude were ejected, the impious and insane error cut out.]

149

  Summarizing and translating the following passage:

Cum caneret quondam pia vita monastica laudes Nocte, dieque deo: cantus, psalmosque sonaret Omnibus in templis et plurima contio verbi Diuini fieret, cultusque et sacra frequenter Missarum, populum quae ad sancta et honesta vocabant Et pia: … ................................... Quae postquam fato atque die cessauit iniquo, Desiit et vitae mox consuetudo beatae Illa prior, cultusque dei refrixit et ipse Mutuus officiis amor ac dilectio[.] (A2r/v) 150  A borrowing from the Aeneid, and an odd one if Mameranus intended it to apply any more broadly than the strictest sense, “firm [of purpose] as a rock.” In the underworld, the shade of Dido is “firm as Marpessian rock” (6.471) when she refuses to hear Aeneas’s excuse for his flight from Carthage.

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In 1557, as Mameranus knew perfectly well, Mary’s church and government were still occupied by the business of cutting out the “impious and insane error” of Protestantism, for the “depraved multitude” was not yet wholly reformed or “ejected.” Granted, this sort of language was common enough in the writings of Mary’s most exuberant English supporters, but I suspect that what was tolerable, even agreeable, when it issued from their pens was not welcome when the author was understood to be Charles V’s and now Philip’s salaried cheerleader, whose tone was unmistakably that of a foreigner reveling in England’s humiliation as much as in Mary’s triumph. We might then wonder why Thomas Marsh printed Mameranus’s books at all, if an unfavorable reception was likely, but there are several possible explanations. One is that Mameranus himself was behind their publication. Intending to give a gift of his books to the queen, and desiring to see his fame flourish in England as it had done in northern Europe, he could have underwritten the costs by agreeing to buy a certain proportion of each press run and leaving the rest with the printer, who would try to sell them to his profit. Alternatively, Philip or one of the grandees in his train may have served as the sponsoring publisher. We also cannot rule out the possibility that Marsh himself covered the expense. His output during this period included several works of moral philosophy and Catholic piety, so he may have judged Mameranus a good fit. He might also have predicted that his more learned customers would be curious to see a real poet laureate in action, regardless of their ultimate verdict on his meters or his sycophancy. Whatever the motives or business arrangements, it is the timing of these publications that is to my mind suggestive. Between mid-March and midMay, 1557, Thomas Marsh issued three collections of Mameranus’s Latin poetry. In early June, Richard Tottel printed the first edition of an English verse miscellany that purports to show that English poems can be just as good as poems written in Latin, Italian, or any other language. It is a verse miscellany that says to the world, See what we can do, and importantly it does so without representing England as a religious battleground, without doubting the confessional allegiance of its readers or their loyalty to the queen. However unlikely it was that the outside world would pay any notice to this announcement in English, Tottel calculated that domestic book shoppers would respond favorably. It may be relevant then to invoke here Paul Marquis’s observation that the first edition of Tottel’s Miscellany shows signs of having been hastily assembled. “No wonder Q2 followed shortly on the heels of Q1,” he comments; “the collection needed an editor to straighten it out” (2007, xviii). Why the haste? Perhaps in part because Tottel’s impulse to champion English poetry at just this point in time had specific prompts, if not impertinent provocations, in the form of three books of Latin verse that hurried him to bring his miscellany to market.

Chapter 2

“To do as praiseworthely as the rest” This chapter, in its first two sections, documents the important formal differences between the verse that Tottel was selling “to the honor of the Englishe tong” and that which was fit only for “the rude skill of common eares,” the allegedly sorry product of his rivals’ presses. In surveying these other verse works, I focus especially on those known or conjectured to have been printed in the years 1556–57 because presumably these would have represented for Tottel the books that were most directly in competition with the Miscellany. Also I give scrutiny to the two other verse works printed by Tottel in this period, Thomas Tusser’s A hundreth good poyntes of husbandry and Surrey’s translations from the Aeneid, before moving on to survey the Miscellany’s astonishing range of meters and verse forms. At that point it will be necessary to qualify somewhat Tottel’s too blunt division between the “honorable stile” of the Miscellany’s poems and the backwater stuff found elsewhere, for it will be seen that every traditional stanzaic form used for other verses printed in the period is represented at least once in the Miscellany, and athough the majority of its poems are in syllabic meters, accentual verse is found there too.1 Yet we shall see too that poems in Tottel’s Miscellany put both new and familiar meters and verse forms to novel effect, thereby making good on Tottel’s implicit boast that nowhere else in London could such “graces” of “Englishe eloquence” be found but at his shop at the sign of the Hand and Star. The final section of this chapter examines poems that are variations on others in the Miscellany, whereby it is shown that creative imitation is itself modeled for those of Tottel’s readers who would count themselves “studious of Englishe eloquence.” The circumstance that there are more such poems in the revised second edition (Q2) than in the first (Q1) suggests that this feature was one of Tottel’s goals. What is more, the circumstance that Tottel was able to add new poems to Q2 whose composition was clearly prompted by poems in Q1, printed less than two months before, attests that he had collaborators in this effort, ready at hand.

1

  For the larger context of my analyses in this chapter, see the following studies on the development of English meter during the Tudor period: Ing 1968, Attridge 1974, Spiegel 1980, Woods 1985, Hardison 1989, and concisely, Dolven 2010.

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I. Poems for “the rude skill of common eares” The nostalgic disposition that has often been remarked of Mary’s reign (July 1553–November 1558) was reflected in government and church counter-reformation policies that invoked an idealized, pre-reformation past for their warrant, but it found expression, too, in the poetry that was published. Under Edward, Lollard and Protestant anticlerical satires, such as the anonymous Pierce the ploughmans crede issued early in 1553 (STC 19904), figured largest in London printers’ representation of England’s literary heritage. After Mary’s accession, a wave of reprints over the next few years did the work of reclaiming the earlier poetic canon. For example, two editions of The Fall of Princes by John Lydgate (ca. 1370–1449/50) appeared in 1554 for the first time since Robert Pynson’s edition in 1527 (STC 3176); Richard Tottel printed one of them (STC 3177), John Wayland the other (STC 3177.5 [STC 3178 is a variant]). In the following year, John King and Henry Sutton printed Lydgate’s Troy Book for Thomas Marsh (STC 5580), the first edition since Pynson’s in 1513 (STC 5579). John Gower’s (d. 1408) Confessio amantis, last printed by Thomas Berthelet in 1532 (STC 12143), was issued again from the house of Berthelet by his nephew and successor, Thomas Powell, in 1554 (STC 12144). The Pastime of Pleasure by Stephen Hawes, a “grome of kyng Henry the seuenth his chamber” (b. ca. 1474, d. before 1529), was published in three editions for the first time since Wynkyn de Worde last printed it in 1517 (STC 12949): one from John Wayland’s press in 1554 (STC 12950); the other two printed by William Copland in 1555 for Richard Tottel and John Walley respectively (STC 12951 and 12952). It was Copland, also, who printed two works by the Scottish poet and translator Gawin Douglas (ca. 1476–1522): a moral dream-vision titled The Palis of Honoure (STC 7073), previously printed in Edinburgh ca. 1535 (STC 7072.8), undated but probably published late in 1553; and the same year, the first known edition of Douglas’s magnum opus, The .xiii. bukes of Eneados of the famose poete Virgill translatet out of Latyne verses into Scottish metir (STC 24797). Similarly, among the books of shorter verse printed in the first years of Mary’s reign, most were written by John Skelton (ca. 1460–1529), England’s one-time “poete laureate,” as their title pages advertise. The books are undated, but they were all apparently printed in 1553–54: two editions of Phillyp Sparow (STC 22595 by William Copland for John Wight; STC 22595.5 by Robert Toy); two editions of Colyn Clout (STC 22602 by Copland for Wight and STC 22602.5 for Thomas Marsh); an edition of Why come ye nat to courte (STC 22616 by Copland for Toy, 22616.5 being a variant for Wight); and lastly, an edition of the small anthology, Here after foloweth certaine bokes compyled by mayster Skelton, Poet Laureat whose names here after shall appere. Speake parot. The death of the noble prynce

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Kynge Edwarde the fourth. A treatyse of the Scottes. Ware the hawke. The tunnynge of Elynoure Rummyng (STC 22599), jointly printed by John King and Thomas Marsh.2 In this context, we may observe, Wyatt’s and Surrey’s poems in Tottel’s Miscellany would have had a two-fold appeal. So large a gathering of them likely meant that most of the poems were new to most readers, even as they were also, like the reprinted works just listed, retrieved artifacts of a recovered literary history. The meters and verse forms of the major works by Lydgate, Gower and Hawes were mainly those used also for the minor, mostly forgotten poems that were printed in 1556–57. If we only count the English verse works that are extant and are known to have been or judged by STC probably to have been printed in London in these years, we can identify 15 extant titles, one of them printed in two editions, that would have represented Tottel’s most direct competition in the marketplace of newly printed verse, although this number does not include a few books such as The kalender of Shepardes, discussed below, that contain many poems alongside their prose contents.3 These 15 titles were produced by at least eight different London printers: Robert Caly (1); William Copland (1); John King (2); Thomas Powell (4); John Tysdale (2); John Walley (2); John Wayland (1, in two editions); Robert Wyer (1); and an anonymous printer for the bookseller William Seres (1).4 Thus, roughly half of the 18 printers who were then active in London – nine or ten of them including Tottel – issued at least one verse work in 1556–57. Five of these works are written in ballad quatrains, an example being A dialogue bytwene the commune secretary and Jalowsye. Touchynge the vnstablenesse of Harlottes (STC 6808), “sometimes attributed to Edward Gosynhyll” (ESTC) and printed in quarto by John King in 1556(?). This seems to have been the second and last edition; the first was printed by John Skot of Edinburgh in 1530(?). As shown below, the dialogue proceeds in four-stress accentual-verse quatrains rhyming aabb, with each speaker allotted one quatrain per turn. Jealousy begins by professing his desire to wed, but he is fearful of the prospect of being cuckolded. In other circumstances, a character named Jealousy would represent a vice to be

2

  The previous editions of these works are dated 1545? in STC: Phillyp Sparow (STC 22594), Colyn Clout (STC 22601), and Why come ye nat to courte (STC 22615), all printed by Robert Copland for Richard Kele; and Certayne bokes (STC 22598), printed by Richard Lant for Henry Tab. 3   Also it does not include the otherwise unattested ballads entered in the Stationers’ Register for 1557–58 (see Stationers’ Register 1:74/21b, 75–6/22a–b, and 78/23b), which may have been printed in either year or not at all. 4   Peter W.M. Blayney has observed that “William Seres was never a master printer” (2003, 7); others printed books for him.

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vanquished by a virtue, but this is not a dialogue in which the interlocutors contend. Instead, as we see below, they team up to berate wanton women. Because this is our first sample of accentual-stress verse, with linelengths ranging from eight to 12 syllables, I quote several stanzas from the poem with the (probable) stressed syllables indicated. Jalowsye. /

/

/

/

What a worlde is thys, I true it be acurst /

/

/

/

Fayne wolde I mary, yf that I durst /

/

/

/

But I trowe, syth the tyme that god was borne /

/

/

/

So many honest men helde of the horne. Secretary. /

/

/

/

What is the mater, be ye in any dout /



/

/

/

Pacyfye your mode, let it all come out /

/

/

/

Discharge your stomake, auoyde it forth /

/

/

/

Sorowes in store be nothynge worth. ................................. Jalowsye. /

/

/

/

Than thus[,] she that hath a rollynge eye / / / / And dothe conuey it well and wysely /

/

/

/

And therto hath a wauerynge thought /

/

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/

Trowe you that this trull wyll not be bought. Secretary. /

/

/

/

Yes but take hede by the pryce ye haue not losse /

/

/

/

A mad marchaunt that wyll gyue v. marke for a gose  / / / / Beware a rollyng eye, with waueryng thought, marke that

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/

/



/

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/

And for suche stuffe, passe not a dantyprat. Jalowsye. /

/

/

/

She that is very wanton and nyse /

/

/

/

Thynkynge her selfe meruaylous wyse /

/

/

/

And wyll come to hym that dothe her call /

/

/

/

Wyll she not wrastell for a fall. Secretary. /

/

/

/

Yes surely, for a fall as flatte as a cake /

/

/

/

And careth not how many falles she dothe take /

/

/

/

There is no fall can make her lame /

/

/

/

For she wyll be sure of the best game. (A2r/v)

Francis Seager used the same four-stress aabb quatrains for his catechistical primer, The schoole of Vertue (STC 22135, in octavo), which, as the title page advertises, is a “booke of good Nourture for chyldren, and youth to learne theyr dutie by.” In 1557 it was printed in a second edition for William Seres,5 and as the excerpt below illustrates, the lines of Seager’s quatrains were printed with breaks at each caesura: First in the mornynge when thou dost awake To God for his grace thy peticion then make. This prayer folowynge vse dayly to say Thy harte lyftynge vp Thus begyn to pray. 5

  The first edition is lost, but the title page of the 1557 edition says that it is “Newely perused, corrected, and augmented by the fyrst Auctour F. S.” STC conjectures a date of ca. 1550 and notes that the text of the third edition (STC 22134.5), printed by Richard Jones in 1567(?), “appears to be in an earlier form” than the others that survive. There were eight more editions through 1640.

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The mornynge prayer. O God from whom al good gifts procede To thee we repayre in tyme of our nede That with thy grace thou wouldst vs endue Vertue to folowe and vyce to exchue. (A2r)

Four-stress quatrains rhyming abab are used for two poems published in 1556–57. One is the only known edition of an anonymous and brief romance, Here begynneth a litell treatise of the Knight of Curtesy and the lady of Faguell (STC 24223), printed in ten quarto leaves by William Copland in 1556(?).Ostensibly, an actual twelfth-century love affair between one Captain Coucy and a Mademoisell Faiell supplied the essential plot elements. We are told at the outset that there was once a “noble knyght of curtesy” who attached himself to “a great lorde” in the country of “Faguell,” and in due time this knight and the lord’s lady developed a deep but wholly chaste love for each other: This lady of whome I spake before Seyng this knight so good and kynde Afore all men that euer were bore She set on hym her herte and minde His paramour she thought to be Hym for to loue wyth herte and minde Nat in vyce but in chastyte As chyldren that together are kynde This knight also curteyse and wyse With herte and mynde bothe ferme and fast Louyd this lady wythouten vyse Whyche tyll they dyed dyd euer laste. (A2v)

On the day that this knight and lady find opportunity to disclose the love in their hearts and exchange innocent kisses, a “spye” is witness to the scene and reports their “loue unlaufull” to the lord, who determines to rid himself of the knight by ordering him “To ryde and go throught the countre / To seke aduentures” and “fight / The christen fayth for to mayntayne” (A4r/v). The knight, preparing to depart, accepts from the lady a lock of her yellow hair as a keepsake. He travels from town to town, and “In euery place [he]

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smote his aduersaryes to the grounde,” until finally he is mortally wounded by a “rout” of “sarazyns.” With his final breath he charges his page to cut out his heart from his body, “wrappe it” in the lady’s “yelow here,” and bear it to her. Returning to Faguell to fulfill this mission, the page is intercepted by the lord, who is pleased to learn of the knight’s death but plots a terrible revenge upon his wife after discovering the grisly parcel: Than home is he to the kechin gone Coke he said herken vnto me Dresse me this herte and that anone In the deintiest wise that may be Make it swete and delycate to eate For it is for my lady bryght If that she wyst what were the meate Sothely her hert wolde not be lyght. (C1r)

Once the lady has eaten the dish (“For of good spyce there dyd none wante”), her lord reveals what it was. She swears then that she will never eat earthly food again and straightway “yelded vp her spyrit” (C2r). The other verse work in abab quatrains is the title poem of the first and only edition of Miles Hogarde’s pious primer, A new A B C paraphrasticallye applied, as the state of the worlde doeth at this daye require, printed in quarto by Robert Caly in 1557. By this date, Hogarde (alternatively Huggarde) was the leading polemical poet of Mary’s reign. He first saw his star rise on 25 November 1553 when he was appointed hosier to the queen, but whether or not Mary knew that she would be gaining a propagandist as well as a hosier in him, he in any case understood that he had been called to serve in both capacities. Four of his didactic and polemical works in verse were printed in quarto edtions by Robert Caly in the years 1554–55, variously identifying their author as “seruant to the Quenes maiestie” or “seruaunt to the quenes highnesse.”6 These earlier works were written in stanzas of rhyme royal (a form discussed below), but in A new A B C Hogarde wrote abab quatrains with alternating lines of four and three stresses: 6   In 1554 were printed Hogarde’s A treatise declaring howe Christ by peruerse preachyng was banished out of this realme: and howe it hath pleased God to bryng Christ home againe by Mary our moost gracious quene (STC 13560.5); A treatise entitled the Path waye to the towre of perfection (STC 13561); and The assault of the sacrament of the Altar containyng aswell sixe seuerall assaultes made from tyme to tyme against the sayd blessed sacrament: as also the names and opinions of all the heretical captaines of the same assaultes: Written in the yere of oure Lorde 1549 by Myles Huggarde, and dedicated to the Quenes moste excellent maiestie, beying then ladie Marie: in whiche tyme (heresie then raigning) it could take no place (STC 13556). In 1555 was printed A mirrour of loue, which such light doth giue, That all men may learne, howe to loue and liue (STC 13559).

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A Hath fyrst place, whiche place I muste As cause of wo to stande, Auarice and eke fleshely lust, Alone distroyed this lande. B Baren are we of blessednes Blinded with worldly care, Boldnes in vice we se expresse, Babes can the trueth declare. C Couitousnes with crafty dedes Can scarsly be rydde: Conspiracie muche canker bredes Couertly in heartes hydde. (A1v)

Following the A B C, Hogarde has a series of rhyming-couplet, Latin-English macaronic verses teaching readers to know their Pater noster, Ave Maria, the Creed, etc. I quote the first few lines from the Pater noster to illustrate: Pater noster, to God dayly we do call, But lord, qui es in coelis, alas fro the[e] we do fall: Sanctificetur, If all oure liuinges were, Nomen tuum, in more honour should appeare. Adueniat, say we, but what must it be, Regnum tuum, nay lorde fro that farre be we[.] (B1r)

Besides Hogarde, John Heywood was the other prolific poet of Mary’s reign.7 Today Heywood’s Henrician-era dramatic interludes are better esteemed, but in the 1550s he was mainly known for his ballads and epigrams. Thomas Berthelet printed Heywood’s An hundred Epigrammes in 1550 (STC 13294.5), an octavo volume reprinted by Thomas Powell in 1556 (STC 13295). The next known installment, Two hundred Epigrammes, vpon two hundred prouerbes, with a thyrde hundred newely added (STC 13296), was printed in the house of Berthelet (i.e. by Thomas Powell) in 1555.8 The epigrams in the original compilation of 1550 and 1556 may be characterized as a collection of rhyming couplet doggerel verses, witty moralistic anecdotes, and word quibbles, while the second, as 7   For a recent analysis of John Heywood’s and Hogarde’s contrasting poetics in the Marian period, see Betteridge 2004, and cf. Lerer 2010. 8   The title of this edition indicates that an earlier one containing just the two hundred is lost. Heywood would expand this compilation further, publishing a fourth and fifth hundred in 1560 and a sixth hundred in 1562, when he edited the volume of his own Workes.

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the title advertises, is a series of epigrams elaborating upon proverbs (often several on the same). Heywood only ever wrote accentual verse, and the poems in these collections are mostly rhyming couplets or abab quatrains, as in the following two samples on the theme of drinking: To muche or to littell. If that I drinke to muche, than am I drie, If I drinke to littell, more drie am I: If I drinke no whit, than am I driest, To muche, to littell, no whit, nought is the best. Thus drinke we no whit, or dinke till we burst, Yet poore drie soules we be euer a thurst. (STC 13294.5, A4v) Measure. Measure is a mery meane. Which fylde with noppy drynke. When mery drynkers drynke of cleane; Then merely they wynke. (STC 13296, B6v)

Heywood is also the author of a long debate poem that was reissued in this period: A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the englishe tongue, compacte in a matter concernyng two maner of mariages, an octavo printed by Thomas Powell in 1556 (STC 13293). The first edition had been published in quarto by Thomas Berthelet in 1546 (STC 13291), and in 1550 Berthelet brought out an octavo second edition, “Newely ouersene and somewhat augmented” (STC 13292). Thus Powell’s 1556 edition was the third, and it is the one verse work of 1556–57 that seems to be written in a random mix of four- and five-stress accentual verse couplets (not an uncommon feature of early Tudor verse), as indicated in the following excerpt: /

/

/

/

/

Two women I know, of whiche twaine the tone /

/

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/

Is a maide of flowryng age, a goodly one. /

/

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/

Thother a widowe, who so many yeres beares, /

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/

That all her whitnesse lythe in hir white heares. /

/

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/

This maide hath frendes riche, but riches hath she none

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/

/

/

/

Nor none can hir handes geat to liue vpon. /

/

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/

This wydo is very riche, and her frendes bare, /

/

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/

And both these, for loue to wed with me fond are. /

/

And both woulde I wed, the better and the wurs. /

/

/

/

The tone for her person, the tother for her purse. (A2r)

A good number of Heywood’s epigrams are written in the seven-line stanza known as rhyme royal, having the rhyme scheme ababbcc, and in 1556– 57 were printed five whole verse works written in this form.9 Geoffrey Chaucer used rhyme royal for many of his poems, as had been seen most recently in the folio edition of Chaucer’s Workes published in 1550(?) (STC 5071). Early in Mary’s reign, the editions of Lydgate’s Troy Book and of Gower’s and Hawes’s works mentioned above were mainly written in rhyme royal stanzas and/or rhyming couplets, and like those, all five rhyme royal poems printed in 1556–57 are accentual verse. Two of these were printed as broadsides. The first from which I quote is the only extant love poem printed in these years outside the ones in Tottel’s Miscellany: A new mery balad of a maid that wold mary wyth a servyng man (STC 7680, printed by John Walley in 1557[?]), which begins, Nowe prudentlie to ponder proverbes of olde, How that seldome or when commeth the better, With divers other tales as I have herd tolde, That the nigher the bone, the fleshe is much sweter. Thus a lover of late sente me his letter, Therfore let al my friendes saye what they can, I wyl have to my husbande a serving man. The sight of seruing men doth my herte good When I them beholde, and wot ye well why? Bicause they be lustie and ful of yonge bloude, Stronge and nymble, and very quicke of eye, Clene, braue in apparel, and made properlye: Wherefore let father and mother saye what they can,

9   The first recorded use of this term (rithme royall, but rithme and rhyme were used synonymously then) is in George Gascoigne’s Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, appended to The Posies of George Gascoigne (1575; STC 11636).

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I wyl haue to my husband a seruing man.10

The other rhyme royal broadside, printed by Thomas Powell in 1557, is John Heywood’s A breefe balet touching the traytorous takynge of Scarborow castell (STC 13290.7). In April of that year, a small band of rebels led by Thomas Stafford, second son of Lord Stafford, sailed over from France and captured Scarborough Castle, a crumbling structure in Yorkshire garrisoned by fewer than 20 men. Stafford proclaimed himself duke of Buckingham and protector of the realm, but two days later, without a fight, the castle was retaken and the rebels transported to the Tower. Stafford and company were executed before May’s end. Thus, with the purchase of Heywood’s ballad, one could pick up a rhyme royal memento of this ill-starred venture. It starts, O valiaunt inuaders, gallantly gaie, Who, with your compeeres, conqueringe the route, Castels or towrs, all standynge in your waie, Ye take, controlling all estates most stoute. Yet had it now bene good to looke aboute: Scarborow castel to haue let alone, And take Scarborow warnynge euerichone. By Scarborow castell, not Scarborow I onely meane, but further vnderstande Eche Hauene, eche hold, or other harborow That our good Kyng and Queene do holde in hande: As dewe obedience bindth vs in bande Their Scarborow castels to let a lone, And take Scarborow warnings euerychone.11

The longest verse work of 1556–57 is also in rhyme royal stanzas, and it too is by John Heywood: The Spider and the Flie (STC 13308), a “parable” of one hundred chapters printed by Thomas Powell in 1556, which is the only known edition. Because of the poem’s legalistic nature, I save my discussion of it for the next chapter, although soon in this chapter I will have occasion to quote C.S. Lewis’s memorable criticism of it. A fourth work in rhyme royal is Edward Gosynhill’s The prayse of all women (STC 12103), printed in a second and apparently last edition by John King in 1557(?) (in quarto; the first by William Middleton in 1542[?]). The poem is an instance of the “catalogue of famous women” genre, which in 10 11

  Quoted from Lemon 1866, 7 (no. 19).  No. 40 in Lemon 1866, 14, but here I quote from Milligan 1956, 272.

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fact extolls not all women but rather the expected ones from classical myth and literature and from the Old and New Testaments, as exemplified by the following two stanzas: Pallas the doughter of Iupyter Through her entere and pured brayne The goddesse named of the artyfycer Of wolle and oyle, fyrst founde the vayne For whyche inuencyon the story is playne Preferred she was before Neptune To gyue the name to Athenes towne. (A4v) ................................ God preserued Sarra twyse And ons Rebacca gracyously In case that they had done amys It had be longe of the man suerly God wolde there shulde be no suche foly In the woman yf ye marke well Recorde Sarra the doughter of Raguel. (C2r)

The last rhyme royal poem printed in these years was an edition in 1556(?)12 of Thomas More’s The boke of the fayre Gentylwoman, that no man shulde put his truste, or confydence in: that is to say, Lady Fortune: flaterynge euery man that coueyteth to haue all, and specyally, them that truste in her, she deceyueth them at laste (STC 18078.5), though its author is identified only by a prologue initialed “T.M.” This poem, issued in octavo by Rober Wyer, is one of the “juvenilia” pieces that would appear again in the first edition of Thomas More’s Works (STC 18076), printed by Cawood and Tottel in 1557. The four remaining verse works of 1556–57 are written in other stanza forms that also, like those above, have roots in the Middle Ages. One of them is the five-stress, eight-line stanza used by Chaucer for “The Monk’s Tale” rhyming ababbcbc. This stanza was used also by John Lydgate for The Fall of Princes, which incorporates “The Monk’s Tale.” In 1556(?), John Wayland printed the only two known editions of a poem written in the form, The bayte and snare of Fortune. Wherein may be seen that money is not the only cause of mischefe and vnfortunat endes: but a necessary mean to mayntayne a vertuous quiet lyfe. Created in a Dialoge betwene man and money (STC 3055 and 3055.5, in folios of ten leaves), by Roger Bieston. The poem for the most part is a translation of “an Italian original,” notes ESTC, “probably from the French version” done by Claude Platin (Le débat 12

  Emended STC date (3:293).

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de l’homme et de l’argent). Money opens the dialogue by boasting of his supremacy. I quote his first stanza and that of the Man’s reply: O all mankynde desyrous of honour, That woulde of worldly welth haue souyssaunce, Cum hyther to me that am of wurthy valour. I am the prince perelesse in puissaunce My name is money, that haue in gouernaunce All wurthy faytes to lose or els to bynde: Eche man requyreth to haue myne acquayntaunce, For doo fortune by my frendship they fynde ....................................... With boasting wordes they self how doest thou laude, Presumption in thee appereth to be great: Thou art false money, full of deceit and fraude. In vaunting wordes is set thy full conceite, Of cursednes thou art the chief receit: I am the man that shall it proue anon, Against thy pride so shall I lay a bayte, And cast thee forth a bone to pike vpon. (A2r)

Two other poems are written in different versions of accentual tail rhyme. An Epitaph vpon the deth of kyng Edward (STC 5229) is an anonymous broadside ballad printed in 1557(?)13 by John Tysdale for the bookseller John Charlewood. There was surely at least one earlier printing of this poem that has been lost, but as the short excerpt below attests, after lamenting young Edward’s death, the poem’s author was apparently mindful enough in honoring Queen Mary to give Tysdale and Charlewood confidence that their reprint would not get them into trouble. The stanzas rhyme aaBccB, the a and c lines being two-stress, the “tail” B lines threestress. Adewe pleasure, Gone is our treasure, Morning mai be our mirth. For Edward our king That rose did spring Is vaded and lyeth in earth. .............................. 13   Emended STC date (3:271). STC also notes that the attribution of this ballad to Thomas Churchyard is mistaken.

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And for our royall kinge, The noblest livinge, No longer with us may tarie, But his soule we do commende Unto the Lordes hande, Who preserue our noble Quene Mary. Longe with us to endure, With mirth and pleasure, To rule her realme aright, And her enemies to withstande By sea and by lande: Lord preserue her both daye and nighte. God save the Kinge and the Queene.

The shortest published poem of the period is an anonymous ballad on half-sheet folio, again printed by Tysdale for Charlewood: Remember, man, both night and day, thou must nedes die, there is no nay (STC 17236). It is merely a single five-line stanza, a rhymed quatrain with a half-length cauda or tail at the end that breaks the rhyme (hence, AAAAb, a form associated with the Wakefield Master). The poem is syllabic verse, however, not accentual: lines 1, 2 and 4 are regular iambic tetrameter and the half-length tail is iambic dimeter. The third line (“But yet …”) lacks a syllable, but the meter is uninterrupted so long as one pauses long enough at the caesura after “time.” Thy mortal body four med of clay Wyll sone resolue and passe away But yet the time, houre, nor day Uncertayne is, wherefore I say Remember man.14

The only other extant broadside from 1556–57 was printed by John Walley in 1557(?): A Newe Balade made by Nicholas Balthorp, which suffered in Calys the xv. daie of Marche M.D.L. (STC 1342). The author 14   Quoted from Lemon 1886, 15 (no. 43). It has been noted that the first words of this ballad’s title echo The Didache or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” 4:1.

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(whether Balthorp or someone posing as him) does not specify the crime for which he was made to “suffer,” and it is not known from other sources, but today the ballad is sometimes remembered for alluding to Surrey’s poem that starts “When Ragynge love …” (RM16). They share the same sextilla rhyme scheme (ababcc), a traditional Spanish ballad stanza used also for Italian frottole, though Surrey wrote iambic tetrameter, this author four-stress accentual verse.15 The Balade by Balthorp starts, When raging death with extreme paine Most cruelly assaultes my herte, And when my fleshe, although in vaine, Doth feare the felinge of that smarte. For when the swerde wil stop mi brethe, Then am I at the poynt of death. I call to minde the goodnes greate The father promised to us al, Howe that his sonne for should sweat Water and bloud, and drinke the gal, And should lose the life he hathe To pacifie his father’s wrathe.16

Among the books of mixed prose and verse printed in London in 1556– 57, the most magnificent was The kalender of Shepardes Newely augmented and corrected (STC 22412), printed in red and black inks by William Powell in over a hundred leaves of large folio with woodcut illustrations on nearly every other page. Written anonymously in French and printed several times at Paris in the late fifteenth century, The kalender was translated and published eight times in London from 1503 to 1528.17 Powell’s was the first edition since then. The book is a miscellany of astronomical information, calendrical charts, astrological predictions, medical advice and verse, with moral and religious poetry occupying 65 of its 204 pages (the great majority of it in English, a few pieces in Latin). That is a high enough proportion to make it reasonable to suppose that there were some among Powell’s customers who decided to purchase the book primarily for its poetry, just as

15

  Though Spenser used it for some parts of The Shepheardes Calendar, the iambic pentameter version of the sextilla is commonly called the Venus and Adonis stanza after Shakespeare’s poem in this form. 16   Quoted from Collier 1840, 14–16; no. 18 in Lemon 1886, 6. 17  On The kalender’s printing history, see Bennett 1952, 116–17.

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there were surely others who bought it for its many, frequently spectacular, pictures.18 This “newly augmented” edition of The kalender has many poems in traditional verse forms, such as the rhyme-royal “sayinge of the Sheparde to the plowman” and quatrains of abab and abcb. But often these patterns are mixed willy-nilly in The kalender’s poems with rhyming couplets and unrhymed lines (presumably this is a reflection also of the challenge of translating some verses from French originals). The clunky but impassioned “ballet of the woman Sheparde the which ballet is very necessary and profytable to loke vpon,” quoted below, is an example: two alternate-rhyme quatrains are followed by a rhyming couplet; a third alternate-rhyme quatrain is followed by two singular, unrhymed lines, then a rhyming couplet, then two quatrains in an abab bcbc pattern, and a final rhyming couplet to close. In consideryng my poore humanitie Aboue the earth borne with great wepynge I consyder my fragylytie My harte is ouer prest with synnynge I consyder death wyl come verely To take my lyfe, but the houre wot not I I consyder the deuyll doth watche me The worlde and the fleshe on me warreth streyghtly I consyder that myne enemies they bethe That wolde delyuer me from death to death I consdyder the many tribulations Of this worlde, wherof the lyfe is not clene I consyder an hundreth thousande passions That we pore creatures dayly fall in I consyder the longer I lyue the worse I am Wherfore my conscyence cryeth out on me I consyder for synne some be dampned as the boke sayth Which shall euer be delyuered from death to death I consyder that wormes shall eate me My sorowefull body, this is credyble I consyder that synners shall be At the iudgement of God most dredable. O virgin Mary aboue all thynge moste delectable Haue mercy on me at the dredefull day That shalbe so marueylous and doughtable Whiche my poore soule greatly doth fray.

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a b a b c d c d e e f g f g h • i • j j k l k l l m l m

}

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18   Such as those depicting sufferers and their tormentors in hell. See the entries for “The Editions of the Shepherds’ Kalendar” in Luborsky and Ingram 1998, 1:673–81.

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In you that I put my trust and fayth To saue me that I go not from death to death.

111 n n

}

In sum, we can assume that it was such poetry as this that Tottel had in mind when he thought of what “the rude skill of common eares” would prefer to songs and sonnets written by the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others. Little wonder, then, that Tottel “exhort[s] the vnlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull, and to purge that swinelike grossenesse, that maketh the swete maierome not to smell to their delight,” just as it is unsurprising that the verse works of 1556–57 just surveyed have never attracted much attention, let alone admiration, from literary scholars. As usual it is C.S. Lewis who levies the most theatrically unkind verdicts. For him, Tottel’s Miscellany served the “grand function” of helping “to build a firm metrical highway out of the late medieval swamp” (1954, 237), and he had little patience for poets like Heywood who chose to remain mired where they were. Here, for example, are Lewis’s remarks on The Spider and the Flie, John Heywood’s most ambitious and likely his proudest career achievement: We must be especially thankful to those who by abstracts and judicious quotation have enabled us to see that the plot is not without spirit. But what abstracts necessarily leave out is the actual quality of the writing, the shambling rhythms (though you can find here and there a whole stanza that scans) and the unrelieved dullness of the language. Against execution like this all beauties of conception contend in vain; to ask us to admire them is like asking us to admire the fine features of a face covered with a loathsome disease of the skin. (1954, 146)

What supremely irritates Lewis in reading Heywood, we recognize, is exactly that feature which The Spider and the Flie shares with every other poem reviewed above except the mere five-line ballad, Remember, man: the “shambling rhythms” of accentual verse, which doesn’t scan like verse is supposed to. In the section that follows, I take up this issue of the relative appeal of accentual-stress and syllabic-stress verse for those who had not yet been habituated, like Lewis, to expect the latter. But that must come after an analysis of both types, and of the many other “graces” of “sondry good Englishe writers,” on display in Tottel’s Miscellany and in two other books printed by Richard Tottel in 1557. II. Poems “for thine profit and pleasure” “One of the most interesting features” of Tottel’s Miscellany, writes Hyder Rollins, “is its widely varied meters and stanzaic forms, a feature in which

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it was unrivaled for two or three decades” (2:102). If this observation can be made about the Miscellany during the first half of the Elizabethan era, which saw published numerous single-author poetry collections and competing verse miscellanies, all the more so was it “unrivaled” in 1557, and all the more instructive it will prove to document what specifically made it so. Hence this section surveys the tremendous, even dizzying variety of meters and verse forms in the Miscellany’s pages, to be compared and contrasted to those surveyed above. For those readers seeking familiar verse forms, Tottel did not deny them that pleasure: as noted earlier, every type of ballad, every traditional measure or rhyme scheme used for other verse works printed in 1556–57 appears also at least once in the Miscellany. But readers could find much else to delight them. If we exclude from our count the many single instances of miscellaneous rhyme patterns in its pages (and the comparatively fewer in other books, such as The kalender of Shepardes), even so the Miscellany contains roughly twice as many verse forms as are found in all other poems printed in this two-year period combined; and if we do count the idiosyncratic instances, the total is nearly six times as many. The extent to which just the sheer spectacle of this formal variety was one of the Miscellany’s appeals for its original purchasers must ultimately remain as mysterious as the identities of those original purchasers, but the following survey and next section of this chapter will at least demonstrate that this variety was highly prized by the Miscellany’s contemporary contributors. For them, the project represented a record of poetic imitation and exchange that started with Wyatt’s and Surrey’s exemplary relationship and ended with their own. Hence the different meters and stanzaic forms that they used are extraordinary not only for their variety but for showing how verse forms could be put to new kinds of work and play, including the means for this community of “sondry good Englishe writers” to define itself by the “graces” of its medium, not by confessional or other criteria. Prior to this return to the Miscellany, however, we must remark Richard Tottel’s two other verse publications of 1557 that, in William Ringler’s phrase, also helped further the Tudor-era’s “progression from metrical anarchy to regularity” (1988, 8). The earliest, dated 3 February,19 is the first edition of Thomas Tusser’s A hundreth good poyntes of husbandry (STC 24372), composed of a hundred aabb quatrains printed on 14 quarto leaves. Here, the maxim that poetry should be to the profit of readers is interpreted in the most practical terms, for Tusser offers pithy lessons pertaining to house and farm arranged under monthly headings, each section giving counsel appropriate to the season. So, for example, he 19

  It has not been proposed, though it is perhaps possible, that the colophon’s “third day of February. An. 1557” is a departure from Tottel’s ordinary practice and dated according to the old calendar, making the year 1558.

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advises buying “saultfishe and herring” once the harvest is in, and after having “Brought salte to thy house,” he says, it is best “packed up drie: / with peate strawe betwene, least it rot as it lie” (A3r). Other quatrains give tips on sowing one’s fields, gelding foals, ringing hogs, and mending barns. Tusser’s poem is distinctive also for being written in jaunty anapestic tetrameter. That is, each line starts with a headless anapest (an iamb [ ᵕ ̷ ] in other words) followed by three anapests ( ᵕ ᵕ ̷ ), as shown for the first two lines of the following excerpt that treats of chores proper to February: /

/

/

/

In Feuerell, rest not for taking thine ease: /

/

/

/

get into the grounde with thy beanes and thy pease. Sow peason betimes, betimes they will come: the sooner, the better they fill vp a rome. In euery grene, where the fence is not thine: the thornes stub out cleane, that the grasse may be fine. Thy neighbours wil borow, els hack them beliue: so neither thy grasse, nor the bushes shall thriue. (B4r)

At the back of A hundreth good poyntes of husbandry are three short poems exhorting readers to praise God and be industrious, one of which has a title that declares itself a “sonet, or brief rehersall of the properties of the twelue monethes afore rehersed.” This is one of the earliest appearances of the word sonnet in a printed English book,20 but one wonders if it was really Tusser who gave it this title or Richard Tottel, after he noted the poem’s length was 14 lines. In fact, Tusser’s “sonet,” as shown below, really is no different from his two other appended poems (in four lines and 12 lines) or from the hundred quatrains of his “good points”: all of them are couplets of anapestic tetrameter; or we might say alternatively that Tusser’s “sonet,” as seen below, merely comprises three of his usual aabb quatrains and an extra couplet. As Ianeuer fryse pot, bidth corne kepe hym lowe: And feuerell fill dyke, doth good with his snowe: A bushel of Marche dust, worth raunsomes of gold: And Aprill his stormes, be to[o] good to be solde: As May with his flowers, geue ladies their lust: And Iune after blooming, set carnels so iust: 20

  Assuming 3 February 1557 is the correct date (see immediately preceding note), this instance of the word is earlier than the OED’s first record of it in the title page of Tottel’s Miscellany (5 June).

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As Iuly bid all thing, in order to ripe: And August bid reapers, to take full their gripe. September his fruit, biddeth gather as fast: October bid hogges: to come eat vp his mast: As dirtie Nouember, bid thresh at thine ease: December bid Christmas to spende what he please: So wisdom bid kepe, and prouide while we may: For age crepeth on as the time passeth away. (D1r/v)

Perhaps among Tottel’s customers there were a few learned types who considered A hundreth good poyntes of husbandry an instance of georgic poetry, such as Vergil had modeled, thereby investing it in their eyes with more prestige than it would have had otherwise. More probably the book’s buyers were those who simply found attractive its ready-at-hand domestic wisdom packaged in easy-to-remember rhyming maxims. In any case it sold well enough to encourage Tusser to expand its scope and double its length, such that the second edition, printed by Tottel in 1562, advertises its hundred points of husbandry as Lately maried vnto a hundreth good poyntes of huswifry, newly corrected and amplified. This ultimately would be the verse work of 1557 that would stay in print longest. Over the next 80 years, first Tottel and then several other printers issued at least 22 more editions of it.21 The other verse work printed by Tottel in 1557 was Surrey’s translation of Vergil’s Aeneid, Books 2 and 4. This we must consider against some background. Prior to 1557, readers had occasional opportunity to encounter Surrey’s poetry in print, but most of it was anonymous.22 First was the lead poem in An excellent Epitaffe of syr Thomas Wyat, with two other dytties, wherin are touchyd, and set furth the state of mannes lyfe (STC 26054), printed by John Herford for Robert Toy, dated by STC 1545(?). Surrey also is the author of rhyming couplet paraphrases of Ecclesiastes 1–3 and at least the first of three psalms, no. 88, included in a 21   STC 24372.5 (1562)–24392 (1638), representing editions to the end of the period covered by STC. Tusser expanded his book once more for the 1573 edition, Fiue hundreth points of good husbandry vnited to as many of good huswiferie, nowe lately augmented (STC 24375). A testament to the popularity of this work is the fine that Owen Rogers risked (and incurred) for printing an unauthorized edition in 1561–62 (see note to STC 24372.5). 22   To the summary of whole poems that follows may be added Richard Sherry’s quotation of an anonymous verse in A Treatise of the Figures of Grammer and Rhetorike (1555, STC 22429; STC queries whether this work was printed by or for Robert Caly “in aed. R. Totteli”). Sherry exemplifies for his readers at one point how “oure Poetes, where for the Metre sake,” will “oftentymes bee fayne, to adde, to chaunge, to dyminyshe Letters, and Syllables, from the true writyng and reading of the woorde,” and he cites “thys verse, In wintars iuste returne whan Boreas gan his rayne,” where there “is taken awaye a syllable from the begynnyng, (gan) beyng put for began” (12r/v). The line quoted is the first of RM18.

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work discussed at more length in the next chapter, Certayne chapters of the Prouerbes of Salomon (1549 or 1550), which the title page misattributes to Thomas Sternhold (STC 2760). Charles Huttar is probably right that the verse paraphrases of psalms 31 and 51 in this volume are also Surrey’s (1965, 12–15). Finally, his translation of a Martial epigram was printed in William Baldwin’s Tretise of Moral Philosophy, issued in seven editions from 1547 to 1557. John Wayland’s edition of the Tretise, printed in 1556, was the only one of these to attribute the translation to Surrey. Thus it was in 1554 that a title page first advertised Surrey’s poetic talent, for in that year the bookseller William Awen23 engaged John Day to print The fourth boke of Virgill, intreating of the loue betwene Aeneas and Dido, translated into English, and drawne into a straunge metre by Henrye late Earle of Surrey, worthy to be embraced (STC 24810a.5). The “straunge metre” that the title mentions, as Derek Attridge recounts well, struck many of the more learned mid- and late-Tudor readers as very strange indeed. Roger Ascham assumed “that Surrey was attempting quantitative verse” (i.e., the application of Greek and Latin metrical rules to English), and Attridge cites later criticisms by Gabriel Harvey, Francis Meres, William Webbe and others that testify to an apparently widespread “inability” among men trained in the classics “to appreciate one type of metre as a result of preconceptions based on another type” (1974, 109–11). In fact, what Surrey had introduced to English, as was mentioned in the previous chapter, was unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, inspired by Italian translations of the Aeneid into versi sciolti. Three years after Day’s edition, Richard Tottel reprinted book 4 with the first publication of book 2 in Certain bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis turned into English meter by the right honorable lorde, Henry Earle of Surrey (STC 24798, in small quarto).24 So far as we know, Day’s and Tottel’s are the only Tudor editions of Surrey’s Vergil translations.25 It may be that from Tottel’s perspective, however, these editions did their service by fueling book buyers’ interest in Surrey’s own verses. William Awen, in his dedication of the 1554 volume to Surrey’s son, Thomas Howard the Duke of Norfolk, declares that he regarded the copy he had acquired of book 4 23   Variously Awen (as in STC) and Owen, even in the work under discussion, the former spelling in the dedication’s salutation to Surrey’s son (A2r), the latter in its signature (A2v). 24   Frederick Morgan Padelford (1920, 97–165) edits the text of Tottel’s edition plus a different version of book 4 that survives in a late sixteenth-century manuscript (MS. Hargrave 205). STC notes that Tottel “reprints” book 4 from John Day’s edition of 1554, but there are many significant differences between the two, indicating either editorial changes or an independent manuscript source. 25   Evidently they were judged to be superseded by the Phaer-Twynne translation of the whole Aeneid into fourteeners, the first seven books of which were printed by John Kingston for Richard Jugge in 1558 (see STC 24799–802).

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(“wrytten wyth the authors owne hande”) “as no smal treasure” because he “had heard it” to be “lyke as others the monumentes of that noble wyt of hys”; and in closing Awen expresses his hope that the duke will “take in good part” the publishing of Surrey’s translation, for if so, he says, “it shal no lytle encourage me hereafter to bring other hys workes to light, as they shal come to my hands” (A2r/v). By this means Awen made it known that there were other of Surrey’s works out there in circulation and that others might get to see them. Having acquired Surrey’s translation of book 2 to add to another printing of the fourth book, Tottel presumably understood that he was satisfying that interest. Clearly, too, he understood the potential for Surrey’s Aeneid to stoke the reading public’s desire to buy the Miscellany, and for the Miscellany to perform the same service for Surrey’s Aeneid. Tottel printed Certain bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis turned into English meter by the right honorable lorde, Henry Earle of Surrey on 21 June 1557, just 16 days after the first edition of Songes and Sonettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other, and only one month and ten days before the second edition. This brings us to the analysis of different verse forms in Tottel’s Miscellany, starting with the best known. Of the 271 poems in Q1, 53 are sonnets. Because three of Grimald’s sonnets were not reprinted in Q2, and only two sonnets were among the 39 anonymous poems added to this edition, the final number of sonnets was reduced to 52 out of Q2’s total of 280. These different sums do not include R75/M80, a sonnet by Wyatt that was misprinted in both Q1 and Q2, its fourth line (known from the Devonshire manuscript) dropped, thereby making it a 13-line poem. But then, Tottel never attempts to distinguish “sonettes” from the other “songes” in the collection, it should be noted. Indeed, Q1 puts one off the scent, when the heading of Thomas Wyatt’s second section, at the very end of the volume (2D2r), announces “Other Songes and sonettes written by sir Thomas wiat the elder,” but none of the six verses that follow is a 14-line decasyllabic sonnet as we would now expect. This is in contrast to the immediately preceding section, “Other Songes and Sonettes written by the earle of Surrey,” which does include a sonnet (R263/M36). Probably both of the following are true: Tottel himself did not, or did not always, think it important to distinguish the 14-line Italianate sonnet from any other “short poem or piece of verse” that people called sonnets according to the “looser sense of the word” (quoting the OED); and neither was Tottel inclined to be fastidious about page headings. The first sonnet in the Miscellany is the second poem of the volume (RM2), and like the first poem (a capitolo to be discussed), it is a display of Surrey’s poetic dexterity, firstly for the reason that it has just two rhymes throughout. In addition, Surrey nicely varies the iambic meter at four points with trochees ( ̷ ᵕ ), in two pairs of parallel phrases that have their stressed syllables marked below. The first pair, we see, is alliterative, “The

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soote season” and “The swift swalow”; the other is antonymic, “Somer is come” (with the stressed syllables rhyming) and “Winter is worne” (with the stressed syllables alliterating).



/

/

The soote season, that bud and blome furth bringes, With grene hath clad the hill and eke the vale: The nightingale with fethers new she singes: The turtle to her make hath tolde her tale: /

/

Somer is come, for euery spray nowe springes, The hart hath hong his olde hed on the pale: The buck in brake his winter cote he flinges: The fishes flote with newe repaired scale: The adder all her sloughe awaye she slinges: /

/

The swift swalow pursueth the flyes smale:26 The busy bee her honye now she minges: /

/

Winter is worne that was the flowers bale: And thus I see among these pleasant thinges Eche care decayes, and yet my sorow springes.

This two-rhyme pattern is unique in the Miscellany, but really it is but a showy variation on the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg, that Surrey is credited for inventing.27 The next three sonnets in the Miscellany are in this form, and in all Q1 has 15 English sonnets: eight by Surrey (RM 6–8, 11, 12, 14, R29/M33, 32/37), three by Grimald (R137, 146, 156), and four by uncertain authors (R173/M143, 179/148, 186/155, 232/202). R257/243 has an English sonnet rhyme scheme but the lines are iambic tetrameter instead of pentameter, and it is the only sonnet printed with line indentions (I shall return to it in the next section of this chapter). Q2 lacks the three English sonnets by Grimald but adds two more anonymous ones, R285/M235 and 300/260, the first of which is another written in iambic tetrameter. There are other variations on the English sonnet as well: two of Surrey’s sonnets and one of Thomas Wyatt’s 26

  Here “-sueth” is one syllable, “flyes” two.   In fact there is a precedent imbedded in John Metham’s Amoryus and Cleopes, written in 1449 and only extant in Princeton University Library MS. Garrett 141. This long narrative poem is mainly composed in rhyme royal, but other stanza forms are interspersed, including three that, attending only to their rhyme and disregarding the lines’ accentual-stress meter, would constitute a sonnet having the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. It occupies lines 338–401 in Page 1999. What this precedent underscores is just how traditionally English is the English sonnet: it is less a variation on Italian sonnet rhyme schemes than a particular deployment of basic ballad building blocks, abab and the rhyming couplet. 27

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have the rhyme scheme abab abab abab cc (RM9 and 10; R84/M88); another sonnet by Surrey rhymes abab cdcd eded ee (R263/M36); and still another of his rhymes abab abab acac cc (R36/M41). The most common sonnet form in Tottel’s Miscellany is that famously devised by Thomas Wyatt, which starts with the characteristic Italian quatrains rhyming abba abba but replaces the final two tercets of the Italian model with a third chiastic quatrain and a rhyming couplet: cddc ee. There are 20 of these sonnets by Wyatt in the Miscellany, the first one being R38/ M43,28 plus a twenty-first by an uncertain author (R218/M188). There would have been two more by Wyatt in this form but for printing errors: R75/M80 is the sonnet with a missing line mentioned above, while R41/ M46 has a line printed out of place in the second quatrain (the Egerton manuscript confirms this), resulting in a second quatrain that rhymes bbaa. Other sonnets in the Miscellany perform variations on Wyatt’s trademark scheme, including two of Wyatt’s that seem to find a way to close with a rhyming couplet even as they appear to mimic the final tercets of the Italian model. They both start abba abba, but their final lines could either be rendered bcbc bb (R43/M48) and cdcc dd (R37/M42) or bcb cbb and cdc cdd. One sonnet by Surrey and another by an anonymous author have the pattern abba cddc effe gg (RM13 and R233/M203), while another anonymous sonnet (R219/M189) is yet more experimental, having the unique pattern abba caac deed ff. We find also that it is one of the uncertain authors who supplies the single example of “a strict Petrarchan sonnet” in Tottel’s Miscellany,29 one rhyming abba abba cde cde (R241/M210). In Chapter 1 the three other sonnets in the Miscellany were discussed that were not intended by their author, Thomas Wyatt, to be sonnets at all but rondeaux: R69/M74, 70/75, and 103/107. As Rollins comments, these were rewritten, the lines “padd[ed] out” as necessary to make them all five feet, to create sonnets with a “weird” or “strange rhyme scheme” (the first aabb aaab aaab ba, the two others aabb aaab baab ba). I do not include in my count of sonnets in Q1 and Q2 a double sonnet by Thomas Wyatt (R101/M105) that rhymes abba cddc effe gg twice in succession and indents the fifteenth line to signal its two parts. None of Wyatt’s known single sonnets have this rhyme scheme, though as we saw above, the Miscellany includes two by other authors that do: RM13 by Surrey and R233/M203 by one of the anonymous contributors. Also excluded from my tally of sonnets are several 14-line poems composed of rhyming couplets or double rhyme-royal stanzas, to be discussed below. Two other of Wyatt’s poems in the Miscellany may represent 12-line 28   The others are R39/M44, 40/45, 42/47, 44/49, 45/50, 46/51, 47/52, 48/53, 49/54, 50/55, 51/56, 94/98, 95/99, 96/100, 97/101, 98/102, 99/103, 100/104, 102/106. 29   Quoting Rollins 1965, 2:297.

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fragments of sonnets (no manuscript sources of them are known): R75/M79 and 105/109, which rhyme respectively abab abab abcc and abba cddc effe. In the other direction, there are two 15-line poems and one 16-line poem that seem to allude to the English sonnet form. One, by Nicholas Grimald, appears only in Q1 (R141, rhyming ababab cdcd ede ff), whereas the others were among the anonymous poems added to Q2 (R299/M259, rhyming abab baba babab cc, and R301/M261, rhyming abab abcb ababab cc). Let us take stock. Sonnets account for just under 20% of the total number of poems in Q1 and Q2, but already we have remarked 13 different rhyme schemes, or 14 if we include Wyatt’s sonnet with the misplaced line (R41/M46).30 Moreover, as far as we know, only one of these patterns – the Surreyan sonnet – had appeared before in print. The well-known instance is the poem composed by William Baldwin to grace Christopher Langton’s A uery brefe treatise, ordrely declaring the principal partes of phisick that is to saye: Thynges natural. Thynges not naturall. Thynges agaynst nature (printed by Edward Whitchurch in 1547; STC 15205).31 Baldwin clearly enjoyed access to some number of Surrey’s poems: it was noted above that he included Surrey’s translation of a Martial epigram in his Tretise of Moral Philosophy. But Baldwin’s own imitation of Surrey’s form is not in the manner of the Miscellany’s poets. As the quotation of its first quatrain below reveals, the first known printed English sonnet is really but a dedicatory epigram, and it is written in four-stress accentual verse, not iambic pentameter: /

/

/

/

Who so desyreth health got, to preserue: /

/

/

/

And lost, to procure: ought chefely to knowe /

/

/

/

Suche naturall thynges, as therto maye serue: /

/

/

/

Great knowlege wherof, this boke wil him show.

But of course, syllabic-verse sonnets were not the only strange things that Tottel’s Miscellany had on offer. There are four capitoli in terza rima: the Miscellany’s lead poem by Surrey (RM1), plus Wyatt’s three epistolary satires (as they are generally called32), “My mothers maides when they do sowe and spinne” (R124/M134); “Myne owne Iohn Poyns” (R125/M135);

30

  An earlier analysis of the rhyme patterns of sonnets in Tottel’s Miscellany is Parker

1939. 31  Chapter 3 will discuss one other sonnet written in Surrey’s rhyme scheme, first printed in 1550 and reprinted in Tottel’s Miscellany. 32   They are grouped under this heading in Rebholz 1978, 186–94.

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and “A spendyng hand that always powreth out” (R126/M136).33 The “tour de force” example in this group is Surrey’s poem, titled “Descripcion of the restlesse state of a louer, with sute to his ladie, to rue on his diyng hart,” for the way that the progress of its interlinked tercets – rhyming aba bcb cdc ded and so on – is mirrored in the unfolding sequence of the poem’s interlinked conceits. The poem begins, The sonne hath twise brought furth his tender grene, And clad the earth in liuely lustinesse: Ones haue the windes the trees despoiled clene, And new again begins their cruelnesse, Since I haue hid vnder my brest the harm That neuer shall recouer healthfulnesse. The winters hurt recouers with the warm: The parched grene restored is with shade. What warmth (alas) may serue for to disarm The frosen hart that mine in flame hath made?

From its opening description of the changing seasons that measure the time since the speaker began to love, the poem goes on to employ, as we see above, the same changing of seasons to contrast nature’s nurturing cycle to his own perpetual state of suffering. The lines that follow then transform the summer-to-winter, heat-and-cold alternation into that between day and night, the daylight that the lover flees for the solitude of night’s darkness, where he complains in private and curses the stars for his fate; and finally these stars become the beacons by which the pilot-lover tries to navigate his way to port, except that his sails fail him, leaving him as if anchored in one spot, back again in his perpetual state of suffering. The Miscellany also contains two little-studied examples of Surrey’s “straunge metre,” blank verse. They are among Grimald’s ten poems in Q2 that survived the abridgement of his Q1 selection. The first, as its title advertises, treats “The death of Zoroas, an Egiptian Astronomer, in the first fight, that Alexander had with the Persians” (R165/M278). The second is a eulogy for Cicero (R166/M279). I return to these in Chapter 3. A very different metrical form, bequeathed by Wyatt to Surrey, Grimald, and the uncertain authors preserved in the Miscellany, is one notoriously 33

  Those who had encountered the (apparently) single edition, in 1549, of Certayne psalmes chosen out of the psalter of Dauid, commonlye called thee vii. penytentiall psalmes, drawen into englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat knyght (STC 2726) would have previously seen English examples of terza rima in print. The earliest instance of the form is an obscure passage in Chaucer’s “A Complaint to his Lady” (in some editions “A Balade of Pity”), lines 14–39 (excepting line 23 that introduces a new section), which is an unfinished piece of 127 lines that Benson notes “is best read as an experiment in versification” (1987, 633 and 642).

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regretted by C.S. Lewis, who called it Wyatt’s “ruinous legacy”: rhyming couplets in alternating lines of iambic hexameter and heptameter. George Gascoigne, who gave this form the name “poulter’s measure,” would call it by the 1570s “the commonest sort of verse which we vse now adayes.”34 Only two of Thomas Wyatt’s poems in the Miscellany are in this meter, but there are nine poems written in it by Surrey, seven by Grimald in Q1 (reduced to three in Q2), and 22 by uncertain authors in Q1 (increased to 25 in Q2).35 This in fact makes poulter’s measure “the commonest sort of verse” in Tottel’s Miscellany, accounting for 40 of the 271 poems in Q1 and 39 of Q2’s 280, and it is the vehicle for every kind of theme, from Surrey’s “Complaint of a louer, that defied loue, and was by loue after the more tormented” (RM5) to Grimald’s tribute to “frendship” (R154/M277) to an anonymous elegy on Richard Devereux, son of Walter, third Baron Ferrers (R169/M139). But most are love laments. The first example that Tottel’s readers would have encountered was Surrey’s 50-line poem titled “Description of the fickle affections panges and sleightes of loue” (RM4), which opens, Svche waiward waies hath loue, that most part in discord Our willes do stand, whereby our hartes but seldom doe accord. Disceit is his delight, and to begile, and mock The simple hartes whom he doth strike with froward diuers strok. He makes the one to rage with golden burning dart, And doth alay with leaden colde agayn the other hart. Whote glemes of burnyng fire, and easy sparkes of flame In balance of unegall weight he pondereth by aime.

A good number of the Miscellany’s poems with lines of regular length are likewise written in rhyming couplets: in Q1, 16 in pentameter, 12 in heptameter (commonly called fourteeners), and one in sixteeners. Twentyone of these 29 poems were among those by Grimald that were not 34   In “Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English,” appended to The Poesies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour (1575), Gascoigne explains, “I know not certainly howe to name it [viz. the long verse of twelue and fourtene sillables], vnlesse I should say that it doth consist of Poulters measure, which giueth .xii. for one dozen and .xiiii. for another” (U2r). See Lewis 1954, 224–25 on “the terrible poulter’s measure and the flat, plodding style which almost inevitably goes with it.” 35   The following poems in Tottel’s Miscellany are in poulter’s measure: By Wyatt: R104/M108, 127/137. By Surrey: RM4, 5, 18, 19, 22, 26, R33/M38, 264/29, 265/30. By Grimald: R128, 138; R151/M275, 152/276, 154/277, R155, 158. By uncertain authors: R168/M138, 169/139, 172/142, 180/149, 183/152, 184/153, 189/158, 190/159, 195/164, 196/165, 201/170, 204/174, 206/176, 208/178, 221/191, 224/194, 239/208, 242/4, 243/27, 251/218, 261/248, 283/233, 306/266, 308/268.

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reprinted in Q2: all nine of his rhyming couplets in fourteeners were cut, also 12 of his 15 in pentameter. In Q2’s expanded section of anonymous poems, on the other hand, there are six new rhyming couplet poems in heptameter, two in tetrameter, one in pentameter, and one in hexameter.36 Two of the heptameter poems in this group, R276/M226 and 277/227, are of special interest for being 14-line translations of sonnets by Petrarch (Rime sparse nos. 1 and 3). Scholars have not counted these among the sonnets of the Miscellany, reflecting Hyder Rollins’s comment that each “is apparently an attempt to write a sonnet, though it is in septenary couplets” (1965, 2:319). What proportion of the Miscellany’s Marian readers would have recognized them as translations of Petrarch is a point of conjecture, but presumably Q2’s minimally attentive readers would have registered them as additional instances of the 14-line, variably rhyming love poems among the Miscellany’s dozens, whether they called them sonnets or not. Here I print the second of the two with Petrarch’s text in the notes. This one represents a variation on the scheme in having the final two couplets share the same rhyme. Put another way, it is a translation of Petrarch’s Rime 3 into an English heptameter sonnet rhyming aabb ccdd eeff ff: It was the day on which the sunne depriued of his light, To rew Christs death amid his course gaue place vnto the night When I amid mine ease did fall to such distemperate fits, That for the face that hath my hart I was bereft my wits. I had the bayte, the hooke and all, and wist not loues pretence, But farde as one that fearde none yll, nor forst for no defence. Thus dwelling in most quiet state, I fell into this plight, And that day gan my secret sighes, when all folke wept in sight. For loue that vewed me voide of care, approcht to take his pray, And stept by stelth from eye to hart, so open lay the way. And straight at eyes brake out in teares, so salt that did declare, By token of their bitter taste that they were forgde of care. Now vaunt thee loue which fleest a maid defenst with vertues rare,

36   The following poems in Tottel’s Miscellany are rhyming couplets of regular lines: In heptameter, by Grimald: R139,140, 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 153, 163. In heptameter, by uncertain authors: R197/M166, 234/171, 246/213, 275/225, 276/226, 277/227, 288/238, 291/249. In pentameter, by Grimald: R129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 143, R149/M273, 150/274, R157, 160, 161, 162, 164 (quatrains rhyming aabb), R167/M280. In pentameter, by uncertain authors: R245/M212, 281/231. In tetrameter, by uncertain authors: R278/ M228, 286/236. In hexameter (quatrains rhyming aabb) by an uncertain author. R296/ M254. In sixteeners by an uncertain author: R194/M163.

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And wounded hast a wight vnwise, vnweaponed and vnware. (R277/ M227) 37

The author of this translation took pains, we should note, to include stressed alliteration in nearly every line, noticeable especially in such phrases as “farde as one that fearde none yll, nor forst for no defence” and “that day gan my secret sighes, when all folke wept in sight,” which lead to the grandly labored finale of five repeated w’s in the last line. This is one of a number of alliterative verses in the Miscellany, discussed as a group later in this chapter. But truly this particular instance is a strange and wonderful hodgepodge: an exotic Petrarchan sonnet in plodding fourteeners, working hard to hearken up old England’s alliterative tradition. The sonnets and poems in terza rima are joined in Tottel’s Miscellany by still other imported forms. One used by Wyatt, Surrey, and certain of the anonymous authors is the sextilla, the ababcc stanza that we saw used for A Newe Balade made by Nicholas Balthorp after Surrey’s model. To the 18 examples in Q1, two more were added to make 20 in Q2, varying in length from one to 14 stanzas, most of them written in tetrameter.38 Also, two of Wyatt’s and two anonymous poems in this stanza have a repeated refrain in the last line, reflecting the form’s medieval ballad roots. The opening two stanzas of R107/M111, by Wyatt, illustrate: Synce loue wyll nedes, that I shall loue: Of very force I must agree.

37

  Petrarch’s original is here reprinted from Durling 1976, 38.

Era il giorno ch’ al sol si scoloraro per la pietà del suo fattore i rai quando i’ fui preso, et non me ne guardai, ché i be’ vostr’ occhi, Donna, mi legaro. Tempo non mi parea da far riparo contr’ a’ colpi d’Amor; però m’andai secur, senza sospetto, onde i miei guai nel commune dolor s’incominciaro. Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato, et aperta la via per gli occhi al core che di lagrime son fatti uscio et varco. Però al mio parer non li fu onore ferir me de saetta in quello stato, a voi armata non mostrar pur l’arco. 38   The following tetrameter poems are written in the sextilla stanza form. By Surrey: RM16, 20, R262/M28. By Wyatt: R106/M110, 107/111, 113/117, 117/127. By anonymous authors: R174/M144, 175/145, 176/146, 191/160, 192/161, 222/192, 223/193, 225/195, 237/206, 252/219, 254/245, 290/246, 303/263.

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And since no chance may it remoue: In welth, and in aduersitie, I shall always my self apply To serue, and suffer paciently. Though for good will I finde but hate: And cruelty my life to wast: And though that still a wretched state Should pine my dayes vnto the last: Yet I professe it willingly. To serue, and suffer paciently.

There are several metrical variations on the sextilla stanza in Tottel’s Miscellany. Four poems in Q1 and six in Q2 (the first by Surrey, the others anonymous) are written in pentameter rather than tetrameter.39 Three of the six are single stanzas in length only, and could just as well be called sixains. Meanwhile, an anonymous four-stanza sextilla (R182/M151), an elegy on James Wilford (d. 1550), adds another foot yet to make its lines iambic hexameter. R235/M204, in five stanzas, goes the other direction: it is a sextilla in trimeter. Still others have mixed meters. R222/M192, for example, has eight stanzas with their a- and c-rhyme lines in tetrameter but the b-rhyme lines in trimeter, as seen in this sample: To loue, alas, who would not feare That seeth my wofull state, for he to whom my heart I beare Doth me extremely hate, And why therfore I cannot tell, He will no lenger with me dwell.

Another eight-stanza poem, R214/M184, uses tetrameter for its a- and c-rhyme lines but has seven syllables in its feminine b-rhyme lines, while R252/M219 has six stanzas with tetrameter abab lines but nine-syllable feminine-rhyme lines for the final c-couplet. As for apparent variations on the sextilla in both rhyme and meter, we have two anonymous poems written, respectively, in five and six stanzas of alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines rhyming abacbc instead of ababcc (R282/M232 and 305/265). Also there are two anonymous tetrameter poems that add an extra rhyming couplet to the sextilla rhyme scheme (hence, ababccdd). One has seven stanzas in this form (R226/M196); the other (R216/M186) we would call a huitain.

39

  These are R35/M40, 171/141, 217/187, 250/217, 279/229, 309/269.

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Italian frottole took many forms, but the particular one to which Thomas Wyatt was drawn far more than the sextilla’s scheme was the eight-line strambotto rhyming abababcc.40 Wyatt’s pentameter translations of six strambotti by Serafino Aquilano are printed in Tottel’s Miscellany, plus there are 16 other examples in which Wyatt translated Latin epigrams into the strambotto form or wrote original verse, such as “Tagus farewel,” quoted in Chapter 1.41 In Q1, there is one other pentameter strambotto besides Wyatt’s (R230/M200), and in Q2 an anonymous author’s was added (R280/M230) to bring the total to 24. Also it is an uncertain author who supplies the one tetrameter version (R229/M199). When a poem has more than one stanza in the abababcc rhyme scheme, it is known by the more familiar name ottava rima – the stanza form of Italian romance epic. Wyatt has one poem written in four of these stanzas (R109/M113), and in the uncertain authors section there is another of the same length (R220/ M190), except that it is written in five-stress accentual verse and a line in its last stanza was apparently dropped in printing. Among the Italian varieties of strambotti are several six-line forms (ababab, aabbcc, etc.). The Miscellany has one poem by Wyatt written in this shorter style (R269/M121, consisting of three couplets). Another of Wyatt’s poems in an eight-line stanza, R91/M95, might be described as a trimeter stylization of the ottava rima rhyme scheme. It is a loose translation of Petrarch’s Rime 206, a canzone composed of nine-line stanzas rhyming ABABBcccA, into six stanzas rhyming ababacbc. Strangest is Wyatt’s poem titled “A renouncing of hardly escaped loue” (R61/M66) written in two stanzas of pentameter lines rhyming aaaabbbb. I quote the first: Farewell the hart of crueltie. Though that with payne my libertie Deare haue I bought, and wofully Finisht my fearfull tragedy. Of force I must forsake such pleasure: A good cause iust, sins I endure Thereby my wo, whiche be ye sure, 40

 The strambotto, a traditional form with Tuscan and Sicilian roots, was written in various six- and eight-line rhyme schemes. 41   Wyatt’s strambotti rhyming abababcc are as follows: Translations of Serafino’s strambotti: R54/M59, 56/61, 72/77, 73/78, 90/94, 267/119. Translations of Latin epigrams: R114/M124 (Ausonius’s Latin translation of a Greek epigram ascribed to Plato), 115/125 (by Pandulpho [fl. 1500]); for these identifications see Rollins 1965, 2:209–10. Original poems: R55/M60, 63/68 (though Rollins notes multiple Ariostan parallels), 67/72, 68/73, 71/76, 85/89 (though Rollins conjectures an unidentified Italian source because an independent version exists also in French), 92/96, 93/97, 110/114, 112/116, 116/126, 120/130 (though Rollins notes that the opening lines are suggested by Petrarch’s Rime 103), 121/131, 123/133.

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126

Shall therwith go me to recure.

William Ringler and Stephen May document no other examples of this stanza in a sixteenth-century printed English book.42 An anonymous author, meanwhile, expands the strambotto by interpolating an extra ab couplet to make a ten-line poem that rhymes ababababcc. Perhaps it was the momentum of the repeated “As …” structure in the first three ab couplets, as we see below, that made the extra fourth irresistible. As Cypres tree that rent is by the roote. As brance or slyppe bereft from whence it growes As well sowen seede for drought that can not sproute As gaping ground that raineles can not close As moules that want the earth to do them bote As fishe on lande to whom no water flowes, As Chameleon that lackes the ayer so sote. As flowers do fade when Phebus rarest showes. As salamandra repulsed from the fyre: So wanting my wishe I dye for my desyre. (R215/M185)

Possibly one other ten-line poem may belong to this discussion of strambotto variations: Wyatt’s translation of a passage from Seneca’s Thyestes into the singular rhyme scheme ababcdecce (R118/M128). Or instead we might more properly say that we have reached the category of idiosyncratic verse forms in Tottel’s Miscellany, of which there are many. Another belonging to Wyatt is R268/M120, a riddle poem of eight lines all ending with the same word “not” (“A Lady gaue me a gift she had not, / And I receyued her gift which I toke not,” etc.). There are seven short iambic pentameter poems whose interestingly contrived rhyme schemes also are unique in the Miscellany, which may be charted as follows: In 9 lines:

aba bab acc aba abb acc

(R203/M173, anonymous) (R231/M201, anonymous)

In 11 lines:

abab baba bcc aba baa cac dd

(R244/M211, anonymous) (R209/M179, anonymous)

In 12 lines:

aa aa aa bb cc dd (R134/M272, by Grimald) aba abc bbc bdd (R202/M172, anonymous)

42

 Ringler 1988; May and Ringler 2004.

“To do as praiseworthely as the rest”

In 13 lines:

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abb acc add aeea (R213/M183, anonymous)

Two other anonymous poems, also in pentameter and both 27 lines long, have odd rhyme patterns that may not approach the random order of some of the verses in The kalender of Shepardes, but they are decidedly casual nevertheless. R247/M214 rhymes abab ccdcd efef gg hihi jiji kkll. R259/M220 is printed in two stanzas of different length, the first rhyming abbaa ccdd efgefg, the second hiih jjhh llmm. The Miscellany has yet a third 27-line poem written in pentameter (R260/M221), but its rhyme scheme reveals it to be a quite deliberate and playful experiment. Only two rhymes are used until a third rhyme makes a final couplet, at which point one retrospectively could deduce that the previous lines are five quintains with unique rhyme patterns: ababa bbaba babba baabb abaaa (Ringler identifies it as such [1988, TP 1049]43). Yet because the poem opens with the ubiquitous ballad pattern abab, the intuitive supposition is that one is reading a series of quatrains, each of which also has a distinctive combination of a and b rhymes (abba baba bbab aabb abaa), until one reaches acc at the end. Those same five quatrains could just as well be four sestets, however, and in fact these produce a more regular pattern, the first two being mirror images of each other (ababab, bababa), the latter two identical (bbabaa, bbabaa). This is something to see: Lyke the Phenix a birde most rare in sight With golde and purpose that nature hath drest: Such she me semes in whom I most delight, If I might speake for enuy at the least. Nature I thinke first wrought her in despite, Of rose and lillye that sommer bringeth first, In beauty sure excedyng all the rest, Vnder the bent of her browes iustly pight: As polisht Diamondes, or Saphires at the least: Her glistrying lightes the darkenesse of the night. Whose little mough and chinne like all the rest. Her ruddy lippes excede the corall quite.

quatrains quintains sestets + acc + cc + acc a a a b b b a a a b b b a a a b b b b b b a a a b b b a a a b b b a a a

} } }

} } }

} }

43  The a rhyme is consistent in this poem, the b rhyme sometimes approximate: “rest” is matched not only with “drest” and “least” but “cast” and “first.”

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}} } } }}

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Her yuery teeth where none excedes the rest. Faultlesse she is from fote vnto the waste. Her body small and straight as mast vpright. Her armes long in iust proporcion cast, Her handes depaint with veines all blew and white. What shall I say for that is not in sight? The hidden partes I judge them by the rest. And if I were the forman of the quest, To geue a verdite of her beauty bright, Forgeue me Phebus, thou shouldst be dispossest, Which doest vsurpe my ladies place of right. Here will I cease lest enuy cause me dispite. But nature when she wrought so fayre a wight, In this her worke she surely did entende, To frame a thing that God could not amende.

} } }

b b b b b b a a a b b b a a a a a a b b b b b b a a a b b b a a a a a a a a a c c c c c c

}

}

One might go so far as to observe that what is said of “nature” in the last three lines of this poem just as well applies to the poet. By his ingenious layering of rhyme schemes, he too “surely did entende, / To frame a thing that God could not amende.” A similarly experimental impulse produced R298/M258, one of the anonymous poems added to Q2. It has five tetrameter stanzas of seven lines each, the last being a refrain, with three different patterns for the three rhyme endings in each stanza. Hence the first and fourth stanzas share the same pattern (abacacb), and the third and fifth do (ababacb), while the second stanza rhymes abacabc. Yet, if we should perceive that b and c are assonantal slant rhymes (e.g., “late” and “sake” in lines two and four), we could instead say that every stanza has the same rhyme scheme, abababb, as Ringer identifies it (1988, TP 352). The alternatives are shown below: Do way your phisike I faint no more, The salue you sent it comes to late: You wist well all my grief before, And what I suffred for your sake. Hole is my hart I plaine no more, A new the cure did vndertake: Wherfore do way you come to late. For whiles you knew I was your own, So long in vaine you made me gape, And though my fayth it were well knowne, Yet small regard thou toke therat, But now the blast is ouerblowne. Of vaine phisicke a salue you shape,

a b a b or c a b or c b a b a b or c a b

“To do as praiseworthely as the rest”

Wherefore do way you come to late. How long or this haue I bene faine, To gape for mercy at your gate, Vntill the time I spyde it plaine, That pitie and you fell at debate. For my redresse then was I faine: Your seruice cleane for to forsake, Wherefore do way you come to late. For when I brent in endlesse fire, Who ruled then but cruell hate? So that vnneth I durst desire One looke, my feruent heate to slake. Therefore another doth my hyre, And all the profer that you make, Is made in vayne and comes to late. For when I asked recompence, With cost you nought to graunt God wat: Then said disdaine to great expence, It were for you to graunt me that. Therefore do way your rere pretence, That you would binde that derst you brake, For lo your salue comes all to late.

129

b or c a b a b a b or c b a b a b or c a b or c b a b a b a b or c b

The anonymous Q2 poem R294/M252 should also be grouped with the above. It is composed of five quatrains, lines 1, 3 and 4 (the refrain) in pentameter, line 2 in hexameter, the first rhyming aaaa, the rest abab. Yet if we assign each rhyme sound a letter, we discover that it follows the stricter pattern aaaa baba caca baba dada. With that we come to the other ballad schemes in Tottel’s Miscellany, the forms that would have been most familiar to mid-Tudor readers, although the great majority of these measures in the Miscellany are syllabic rather than accentual. Also their incredible variety far exceeds anything known to have been previously available in a printed English book. This holds true even of the ubiquitous pattern abab. To start, five poems, including one by Surrey and two by Wyatt, are written in trimeter abab stanzas.44 Five other poems, including two by Surrey and two by Wyatt, are composed of trimeter octaves rhyming ababcdcd.45 The linked 44   These are RM21 by Surrey, R65/M70, 108/M112, and 207/M177 by Wyatt (the last misidentified by Ringler as alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter [1988, TP 1187]), and R272/M222 by an uncertain author. 45   These are RM23 and 25 by Surrey; R77/M82 and 81/86 by Wyatt; and an anonymous poem added to Q2, R310/M270.

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rhyme variation on this scheme is The Monk’s Tale stanza, ababbcbc, represented in the Miscellany by Wyatt’s R78/M83. Yet another poem has two trimeter abab stanzas preceded by a rhyming hexameter couplet.46 Tetrameter stanzas rhyming abab are more abundant, totaling 17,47 and to these Q2 adds an example of an ababcdcd tetrameter octave (R307/ M267). There are also abab poems in mixed meters: five with alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter (R181/M150, 193/162, 255/239, 287/237, 304/264); one with alternating lines of pentameter and tetrameter (R256/ M240); and two others with their first, second and fourth lines in trimeter, the third line in tetrameter (R210/M180, 297/257). Similarly, an accentual-verse abab poem, R199/M168, alternates a-lines of four stresses and b-lines of three, while another, R212/M182, has three stresses in the first, second and fourth lines but four stresses in the third. Different sorts of variation are seen in two consecutive tetrameter poems, R257/M243 and 258/244. The first has been noted previously: it has an English sonnet rhyme scheme, but its idiosyncratic line indentions invite us instead to read it as two stanzas rhyming abab with a third in the sextilla’s scheme, ababcc; the second, “An answere” to the first, has two five-line stanzas rhyming ababb and a third stanza that rhymes ababccc. I return to this pair in the final section of this chapter. The Miscellany includes pentameter abab quatrains as well (sometimes called the Sicilian quatrain): two by Surrey (RM15, R28/M32), one each by Wyatt (R89/M93) and Grimald (R133/M271), and one by an uncertain author (R248/M215). Surrey also supplies an example of pentameter quatrains capped by a sextilla stanza (R31/M35) and, but for a line presumed to be missing, another pentameter poem having the scheme abab aba[b] cdcd cdcdd (R34/M39).48 In a poem of four stanzas, Wyatt added an additional b rhyme to the abab pattern to produce the single example in Tottel’s Miscellany of a form now commonly called the English quintain: The answere that ye made to me my deare, When I did sue for my pore hartes redresse: Hath so appalde my countenance49 and my chere: That in this case, I am all comfortlesse: Sins I of blame no cause can wel expresse. (R83/M87) 46

 R274/M224, an anonymous poem added to Q2.   These are: By Surrey: RM3, 24, 27/31. By Wyatt: R53/M58, 66/71, 79/84. By uncertain authors: R170/M140, 185/154, 188/157, 211/181, 236/205, 240/209, 249/216, 284/234, 289/242, 292/250, 293/251. 48  Rollins notes that this poem “is written on the order of a sonnet” and reports the opinion of Nott (1816, 359–61) that a line must be missing (1965, 2:159). 49   Pronounced as two syllables, “count’nance.” 47

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Finally in this category, Wyatt has an eight-line poem rhyming abab baba (R76/M81), a pattern with precedent in the quatrains of some Italian sonnets, such as Wyatt would have seen in Petrarch’s Rime 279. Two different types of tail-rhyme stanza occur in Tottel’s Miscellany, one of them by Wyatt (R111/M115). This has an aaab rhyme scheme for five stanzas, with the a-rhymed lines in pentameter and the last line in trimeter, producing an iambic version of carol measure. It starts, What rage is this? what furor? of what kinde? What power, what plage doth wery thus my minde: Within my bones to rankle is assinde What poyson pleasant swete?

The other tail-rhyme verse (R295/M253) has the pattern aaab also, but with the a-rhymes in iambic hexameter and the b-rhymes in tetrameter. This is another of the poems to which I return below. Lastly we come to the rhyme royal poems in Tottel’s Miscellany, which are written in a range of meters both accentual and syllabic. Of the former, ten of which are Wyatt’s, six are composed of four-stress lines while eight have the more usual five stresses.50 Of the latter, two of them by Wyatt, five are in iambic pentameter, one in iambic hexameter.51 Six of these poems are single stanzas only; the longest, “wiates complaint vpon Loue, to Reason” (R64/M69), has 21 stanzas. The rest have two to four stanzas, including the poem in the uncertain authors section that some of Tottel’s customers might have recognized as Chaucer’s “Balade de Bon Conseyl,” today commonly known by the title “Truth” (R238/M207).52 As noted in Chapter 1, however, Tottel only printed the ballad’s three rhyme royal stanzas, not its envoy. There are no rhyme royal poems by Surrey in Tottel’s Miscellany, but perhaps we may detect that one of Surrey’s ballads pays winking tribute to what appears to be Wyatt’s two-rhyme variation on the rhyme royal stanza in R57/M62. This poem by Wyatt replaces the usual final c-couplet at the end of the rhyme royal stanza with two more b-rhymes – that is, it has the rhyme scheme abab + b + bb (instead of cc). In RM17, Surrey 50   These are: Four-stress accentual poems in rhyme royal by Wyatt: R58/M63, 60/65, 80/85, 122/132, 266/118. By uncertain authors: R82/M255 (attributed to Wyatt in Q1 but reassigned in Q2), 122/132. Five-stress accentual poems in rhyme royal by Wyatt: R55/M57, 62/67; 64/69; 119/129; 270/122. By Grimald: R159. By uncertain authors: R238/M207, 273/223. 51   In pentameter by Wyatt: R59/M64, 271/123. By uncertain authors: R177/M147, 187/156 (with a line missing in the second stanza), 253/220. In hexameter by an uncertain author: R200/M169. 52   The poem circulated widely in manuscript and is included in the Tudor editions of Chaucer’s Works.

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writes a stanza that converts rhyme royal’s third b-rhyme to a c-rhyme, producing the pattern abab + c (instead of b) + cc. This concludes my survey of verse forms in Tottel’s Miscellany, and if my suspicion is correct about Surrey’s RM17 being something of a metrical rejoinder to Wyatt’s R57/M6, then it is the first of the response poems that are this chapter’s closing subject. Yet before turning to them, we should pause to consider some of the daunting interpretive challenges posed us by the remarkable formal variety that has just been documented. For indeed, this variety was “unrivaled” in English printed books before and long after the Miscellany’s first publication in June 1557, and thus it would seem reasonable to imagine at least a few readers that summer finding delight in such abundance, turning from poem to poem, remarking the rhyme scheme and stress pattern of each, perhaps not even much caring whether it conveyed a rejected lover’s complaint, a veteran courtier’s sage counsel, or a learned scholar’s homage to Eloquent Cicero. In particular, one would expect that such strange forms as the various sonnet schemes, terza rima, ottava rima, and blank verse, would have been greeted as something of an exotic spectacle by the Miscellany’s first purchasers, and that their marvel at the sight of them might account to some extent for the Miscellany’s brisk sales. This expectation would seem validated by some of the later verse miscellanies that competed with Tottel’s in Elizabeth’s reign, for although they contain nothing close to the Miscellany’s formal variety, they do tout on their title pages a selection of poems “framed and fashioned in sundrie formes” (as the postscript will note in more detail). Even so, it is necessary to account for evidence that seems to suggest contemporary indifference to all those “sundrie formes.” As Steven May reminds us, “the Surreyan (English) forms of the sonnet, terza rima, ottava rima, plus an array of other complex short-line stanzas … [a]ll suffered relative neglect during the first two decades of the Miscellany’s ascendancy as the premier printed anthology of English verse” (2009, 428).53 Also, the layout of these poetic forms in the Miscellany indicates that Tottel himself saw no value in drawing attention to their novel structures: the sonnets appear as unindented blocks, in contrast to the standard fourpart formatting (two quatrains, two tercets) of printed Italian sonnets; and neither is the tercet structure of terza rima poems in the Miscellany signaled by indentions, unlike capitoli in Italian books. 53

  See also, on the tardiness of the sonnet’s development, Rollins 1965, 2:108, but cf. Cathy Shrank’s important qualification that though “[t]he mid-Tudor sonnet might look and sound odd” because “it is not usually written in the form of fourteen pentameters with a tight rhyme scheme; it is not introverted; and it frequently discounts love,” nevertheless in other respects early Elizabethan poets were self-consciously participating in a Petrarchan and nascent English sonnet tradition that “provide[s] a context for the heterogeneous nature of many later sonnet sequences” such as Greville’s, Sidney’s, Daniel’s and Shakespeare’s (2005, 46–7).

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To address the latter point first, it would seem highly unlikely, after my analyses in Chapter 1, that Tottel was unaware of the manner in which poems were formatted in Italian books according to their type. This awareness, however, could well have been trumped by other considerations. In printed English poetry of the time, only a few formatting variations were customary, and they are the ones we do see in the Miscellany: stanza breaks are signaled by indention or a line space; poems with alternating long and short lines have the short lines indented; short-line refrains at the end of stanzas and envoys of tail-rhyme stanzas are indented. We cannot know how many of the Italianate poems in Tottel’s manuscript sources were indented according to foreign print conventions: probably many were, as in the Egerton manuscript of Wyatt’s verse, but many were not. It might be a plausible guess that Tottel chose to spare himself and others in his shop the extra time that would have been required at the editing and casting off stages to effect consistent indention patterns throughout, just as he might reasonably have chosen to spare his compositors the added opportunities for error by not burdening them with unfamiliar formatting practices. The evidence of Elizabethan poetic practice is similarly ambiguous. Granted, it is hard not to share C.S. Lewis’s regret that the poets of the 1560s latched onto poulter’s measure but avoided terza rima and the Surreyan sonnet – poets such as George Turberville, who lauds Surrey’s inventiveness in rhymed couplets of unvaryingly metronomic iambs (“No one is able to depaint at full, / The flowing fountaine of his sacred Skull …”).54 But there is some solace in remembering that no necessary correlation exists between the Miscellany’s features that later poets imitated and those that other readers admired. We might, for example, plausibly conjecture some number of the Miscellany’s owners being of worldly experience and taste, with facility in one or more of the European vernaculars and copies of foreign verse works in their libraries, attending with astonished thrill to Surrey’s and Wyatt’s most sophisticated moves. Yet it might never occur to these readers to pen a poem themselves. If next we shift our attention from the 1560s back to 1557, we discover that poems in the Miscellany actually did for a time inspire enthusiastic imitation and experiments with diverse meters and verse forms. The evidence of it – as we have begun to see and will soon explore further – is in the pages of the Miscellany itself. A different kind of interpretive challenge is posed by the predominance of syllabic verse in Tottel’s Miscellany. So natural does it now seem to us for poems to be written in this form, iambic pentameter especially, that we quickly become habituated to making minor pronunciation adjustments in

54   The poem is in Turberville’s Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets (1567), 9v–10r, a volume that contains no sonnets in the strict sense.

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order to sustain a poem’s established rhythm. The first two lines of Surrey’s capitolo, for example – /

/

/

/

/

The sonne hath twise brought furth his tender grene, /

/

/

/

/

And clad the earth in liuely lustinesse:

– are all the precedent needed to enunciate two syllables in lines three and four (marked with an umlaut) that we would not otherwise voice so distinctly: /

/

/

/

/

Ones haue the windes the trees despoilëd clene, /

/

/

/

/

And new again begins their cruëlnesse.

To ears that expect iambs, accentual verse is jarring. Its rhythms sound clumsy if not chaotic, and whatever “minor pronunciation adjustments” are required by it are not readily apparent. Hence the opprobrium that Lewis and others have heaped upon most mid-Tudor poetry. It would seem only natural, then, that the Miscellany’s syllabic verse would be eagerly welcomed by its first readers and that Tottel, anticipating this positive reception, would make adjustments to many of the poems, or enlist someone else to do so, in order to effect metrical regularity where it was found wanting in his source texts.55 By this means the poems were given a steady, stately gait – an “honorable stile” fit for gentle readers. Likewise it is unsurprising that the Miscellany’s early Elizabethan imitators embraced syllabic verse with such dogged zeal, even if, after having liberated themselves from the crude, outdated meters of their predecessors, they still had to work through a long phase of writing crudely in the new meters.56 But clearly, accentual verse must have sounded natural enough to early and mid-Tudor ears, not in any way “jarring.” It was, after all, written and read and sung with inflexions and other peculiarities of Tudor-era pronunciation, including significant regional variations, about which our knowledge is imprecise. And besides, accentual verse usually includes a 55   That such revisions were made is revealed by comparing the Miscellany’s poems with surviving analogues in manuscripts. The poetic consequences of these revisions have been the subject of much analysis: see, e.g., Daalder 1972; Mason 1972; Harrier 1975; Wall 1993, 23–30; Marotti 1993, 212–19. 56   Here I allude to Steven May’s characterization of this labored transition: “The national Muse had to hear that heavy, monotonous beat, had to practice it to excess, before it could move on [in the 1580s and ’90s] to attempt substitute feet and the modulation of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the varied rhythms of technically sophisticated poetry” (2009, 427).

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good number of regular iambic lines. The first lines of Miles Hogarde’s prefatory poem to A new A B C are perfectly iambic: /

/

/

/

When children first begin to learne, /

/

/

Their letters for to knowe …

That such lines as these resided happily alongside longer or shorter lines of accentual verse suggests that for most poets and readers neither meter was felt to have an advantage over the other, that both equally had the power to delight. Indeed, it must be stressed that the “regularization” of poems in the Miscellany was by no means thorough: nearly 30 of Wyatt’s verses retain irregular-length lines betraying their original composition as accentual verse, and there are another half dozen examples of accentual verse poems by other authors. At minimum we might safely assume that Tottel included these – that he or someone else “failed” to regularize them perfectly – because he knew very well the tastes of the times and was careful to have something for every palate, even if not all of it was written in the “honorable stile” that he recommended as most praiseworthy. More usefully, we should endeavor to discover whether the Miscellany’s accentual-verse poems themselves offered something metrically different, something more interesting and delightful, than readers could find in the accentual-verse poems being sold by Tottel’s competitors in the London book market. In those other verse works, it is of course true that key words are routinely emphasized by alliteration, rhyme, and stress. This occurs no more or less often, no more or less interestingly, wherever one might look – say, in The kalender of Shepardes,

/

/

/

/

I consyder for synne some be dampned as the boke sayth

/

/

/

/

Which shall euer be delyuered from death to death[,] (STC 22412, G5v)

or in John Heywood’s Dialogue of prouerbes, /

/

/

/

The Ducheman saieth, that seggyng is good cope. /

/

/

/

Good woordes bring not euer of good dedes good hope /

/

/

/

And these woords shew your words spoken in skorne. /

/

/

/

It pricketh betimes that will be a good thorne. (STC 13293, F4r)

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In the Miscellany, 35 of Q1’s 271 poems are accentual, if we include, as William Ringer does (1988), those attributed to Thomas Wyatt that were not wholly regularized. In Q2, one of 29 accentual-verse poems in Wyatt’s section was reassigned to the uncertain authors, and the total number in the volume was reduced from 35 to 34 because one of Grimald’s accentual-verse poems was among the 30 by him that were deleted. This relatively small proportion of the total corroborates what has been said about syllabic verse being a dominant feature of Tottel’s Miscellany, though it also confirms that the notorious, sometimes vilified regularizing of its supposed source texts was not as systematic as is normally asserted. Perhaps we might even credit Tottel, or if not him the anonymous editor of Wyatt’s texts in the Miscellany, for sometimes recognizing that Wyatt’s metrical peculiarities served a poetic purpose – that his meter had been put in the service of meaning – such that on these occasions, despite the changes made elsewhere in a poem, the regularizing impulse was curbed so as not to spoil an effect. Two consecutive strambotti in the Miscellany may be examples.57 These poems can be compared to their presumed (direct or indirect) source in the Egerton manuscript to locate the changes made to them.58 In the last line of the first poem, R55/M60, Wyatt’s original nine-syllable, four-stress accentual line, /

/

/

/

to styng that hert that would haue my place

was turned into iambic pentameter with the addition of the word “had,” and Wyatt’s “that” was changed to “the,” so that in the Miscellany the poem reads: The wandring gadling, in the sommer tyde, That findes the Adder with his rechlesse foote Startes not dismaid so sodeinly aside, As iealous despite did, though there were no boote When that he saw me sitting by her syde, That of my health is very crop, and roote, It pleased me then to haue so fayre a grace, To styng the hart, that would haue had my place.

The opening two lines of the poem provide opportunity to make a crucial point. These lines each have ten syllables, and they may be read as iambic 57

 Ringler identifies the former poem as iambic pentameter and the latter as five-stress accentual (1988, TP 1854 and 2126 respectively). We might more rightly say that both poems are borderline instances of either category, as shall be seen. 58   They are nos. 46 and 48 in Harrier 1975, 139–40, 141.

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pentameter without stressing any syllable in an unnatural way. Hence they required no adjusting. But again, Wyatt did not compose the poem as iambic pentameter. He was writing four-stress accentual verse, with its characteristic mid-line strong caesura:

/

/

/

/



/

/

The wandring gadling, ǀ in the sommer tyde, /

/

That findes the Adder ǀ with his rechlesse foote …

Thus, as we proceed, it will be important to keep in mind that the irregularities in this poem and in others by Wyatt are not variations on syllabic verse such as we are accustomed to seeing in Elizabethan poetry. They are either vestiges of Wyatt’s original meter, in which context they were not at all irregular, or they are the product of editorial adjustments that did not, for one reason or another, accomplish the syllabic-verse regularization that editing usually achieved in the Miscellany. The third line of R55/M60 also has ten syllables and is readable in iambic pentameter, but it is best read with an opening spondee, stressing both the first two words, “Startes not” (the alliteration of “Startes” with “sodeinly” and “aside” encourages this pronunciation). This effect, and the three, rapidly enunciated unstressed syllables in the phrase “sodeinly aside,” nicely capture the sudden start and flight of the gadling, the startled jump and hasty stepping away from the snake: /

/

/

/

/

Startes not dismaid so sodeinly aside, …

A case could be made for different readings of the fourth line, either with four or with five stresses, as shown below; but in either case, Wyatt’s original 11 syllables, which the Miscellany allowed to stand, effectively transfer the impression of stumbling unsure-footedness from the wandering gadling to the Jealous Despite character, whose situation is parallel to the gadling’s but worse because for him there is no “boot” or means for escape. /

/

/

/

As iealous despite did, though there were no boote alternatively, /

/

/

/

/

As iealous despite59 did, though there were no boote

… A trochee at the start of the fifth line, with the stress on “When,” matches the stress on “Startes” at the beginning of the third line, thereby reinforcing 59

  With the second syllable pronounced “pit,” as often it was spelled, and unstressed.

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the parallel between the panicked start of the gadling and that of the jealous lover. But then, after this trochee, the poem’s meter in the Miscellany’s version can be read as settling into smooth iambs for the remainder: /

/

/

/

/

When that he saw me sitting by her syde, /

/

/

/

/

That of my health is very crop, and roote, /

/

/

/

/

It pleased me then to haue so fayre a grace, /

/

/

/

/

To styng the hart, that would haue had my place.

There are good grounds, then, both for the regularizing of the last line and for the decision not to regularize line 4. Irregular feet are precisely appropriate to describe the unfortunate-footed gadling and jealous lover, whereas the steady, unhurried rhythm of iambic pentameter represents the unperturbed state of mind of the poem’s speaker, “pleased” as he is to enjoy the “grace” of sitting by his lady’s side and, with no other exertion on his part, to “styng the hart” of his rival. The poem that follows right afterward in the Miscellany is Wyatt’s translation of a strambotto by Serafino (R56/M61), which in the original has the rhyme scheme abababcc.60 The version in Egerton departs from this scheme by having the word “meit” (meet) at the end of line 5, but in the Miscellany this is changed to “finde,” handily supplying the required third a-rhyme. Also, in line 1, the two-syllable word “nedeth” in Egerton is replaced by “nedes” to produce a ten-syllable, iambic pentameter line like those that follow in lines 2–7. The last line is also iambic, yet it has an extra eleventh syllable at the end that poses an awkward choice of pronunciation: /

/

/

/

/

What nedes these threatnyng woordes, and wasted wynd? /

/

/

/

/

All this can not make me restore my pray,

60

 Rollins (1965, 2:172) cites the original from the 1516 edition of Serafino’s Opere: À che minacci, à che tanta ira e orgoglio, Per questo non farai chel furto renda. Non senza causa la tua man dispoglio Rapir quel daltri non fú mai mia menda. Famme citar dauanti amor chio uoglio, Che la ragion de luno et laltro intenda. Lei il cor mi tolse, et io gli hó tolto un guanto Vorró saper da te se un cor ual tanto. (170r/v)

“To do as praiseworthely as the rest”

/

/

/

/

139

/

To robbe your good ywis is not my minde: /

/

/

/

/

Nor causelesse your faire hand did I display. /

/

/

/

/

Let loue be iudge: or els whom next we finde: /

/

/

/

/

That may both hear, what you and I can say. /

/

/

/

/

She reft my hart: and I a gloue from her: /

/

/

/

/

Let vs se then if one be worth the other.

In Egerton, the last line of this poem has the desired ten syllables, but we could excuse Tottel for judging it unusable: “let vs se nowe if thon [contraction of the and one] be wourth thothre [contraction of the and other].” The momentum of the iambic pentameter in the preceding lines encourages us to expect it in this one, so how oddly abrupt and discordant it would be to pronounce a trochee in the final foot (stressing the first syllable of “thothre”), as the natural pronunciation of “other” requires. The alternative is to allow the meter and the rhyme word “her” in line 7 force us unnaturally to stress the second syllable, “-thre.” Yet I do suspect, assuming Egerton is the source behind the Miscellany’s version, that its editor understood what Wyatt was up to, and that his fix, which is not a complete fix, reflects such understanding. To get the smooth iambic meter that was desired for most of the line, the elisions were removed: “the” was deleted from “thon” to make “one,” and “thothre” was separated into “the other.” Also “nowe” was changed to “then” to produce three iambs having a stressed th-sound instead of two. But the final couplet’s unsatisfactory rhyme was left unrepaired. The extra, unstressed “-er” at the end of line 8 remains mismatched with the stressed “her” of line 7 to reflect the mismatch of the described exchange. The speaker’s trespass of having reft his beloved’s glove, it is thereby underscored, is not at all worth the cruelty of her having first reft his heart. Sixteen of Wyatt’s sonnets in Tottel’s Miscellany retain features of their accentual-verse origins in the form of variable length lines and stress patterns, despite the interventions of their editor.61 In fact, the opening poem in Wyatt’s section (R37/M42) is a striking example, a mostly ten syllable per line sonnet of both five- and four-stress verses, only three of which are iambically regular: 61

  This number includes one of the three that were converted to sonnets from rondeaux: R37/M42, 38/43, 39/44, 40/45, 41/46, 42/47, 43/48, 44/49, 45/50, 46/51, 47/52, 49/54, 50/55, 51/56, 69/74 (converted rondeau), 97/101.

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/

/

/

/

/

The longe loue, that in my thought I harber, /

/

/

/

/

And in my hart doth kepe his residence, /

/

/

/

(5 stresses, iambic)

/

Into my face preaseth with bold pretence, /

/

/

(5 stresses)

/

And there campeth, displaying his banner.     / / / / / She that me learns to loue, and to suffer, /

/

/

(5 stresses)

/

(4 stresses) (5 stresses)

/

And willes that my trust, and lustes negligence (5 stresses) /

/

/

/

/

Be reined by reason, shame, and reuerence, /

/

/

/

With his hardinesse takes displeasure. /

/

/

/

(4 stresses, 9 syllables)

/

Wherwith loue to the hartes forest he fleeth, /

/

/

/

/

Leauyng his enterprise with paine and crye, /

/

/

/

And there him hideth and not appeareth. /

/

/

/

What may I do? when my maister feareth, /

/

/

/

/

But in the field with him to liue and dye, /

/

/

/

/

For good is the life, endyng faithfully.

(5 stresses, iambic)

(5 stresses) (5 stresses) (4 stresses) (4 stresses) (5 stresses, iambic) (5 stresses)

It may have been perceived, by Tottel and some of his customers as much as by Wyatt, that part of the fun of this and other accentual-verse sonnets, strambotti, etc., was exactly this packaging of England’s native meter in Italianate forms. Recall the analogous example by Juan de Mena that we saw in Chapter 1: a canzone that follows the Italian rhyming rules but is written in Castilian versos octosilábicos. The mirror image – modern syllabic verse packaged in a native form – is available in another of Wyatt’s poems, R78/M83. This is the one written in the rhyme scheme of the Monk’s Tale stanza, ababbcbc, in regular iambic trimeter throughout.62 In the same category are the Miscellany’s 18 alliterative poems (to the eight examples in Q1 were 62

 Reference to the one surviving manuscript copy of this poem, in the Blage MS. at Trinity College, Dublin (Egerton has some missing leaves), indicates that its editor may have needed to regularize just two lines to ensure that the iambic trimeter was uniform: where the Blage MS. has “Cawses you fet from far” in line 25, Tottel prints “Your sighes yow fet from farre”; and in line 28, Blage’s “Yet at you neuer the nar” is contracted to “Yet are ye nere the narre.”

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added ten more in Q2), the subject of a study by Richard H. Osberg.63 Alliteration, as noted earlier and illustrated just above by Wyatt’s sonnet (“learns … loue,” “reined by reason … and reuerence,” “forest … fleeth,” etc.), is integral to accentual verse in large part because it helps to signal where the stresses fall in variable-length lines that have no consistent stress pattern. Osberg characterizes the appearance of alliterative poems in Tottel’s Miscellany as “the persistence of a medieval style,” and he observes also that they are “the most conservative lyrics in the collection, not only in their language … but in their themes as well”: they are “admonitory in intention, warning us to avoid the snares of love’s folly, cautioning us against ‘worldly wo’ or ‘worldly welth,’ moralizing on the mutability of the world, lamenting this ‘lothsome life,’ ‘this cave of care,’ admonishing our ‘drede of death’” (1979, 351–2). Below is an example of what Osberg describes: the first eight lines of a penitential poem titled “The louer asketh pardon of his passed folie in loue” (R291/M249), with the pattern of alliterated sounds on either side of each line’s caesura indicated to the right. Ah loue how waiward is his wit ǀ what panges do perce his brest Whom thou to wait vpon thy will ǀ hast reued of his rest. The light, the darke, the sunne, the mone, ǀ the day and eke the night, His dayly dieng life, him self, ǀ he hateth in despight Sith furst he light to looke on her ǀ that holdeth him in thrall, His mouing eyen his moued wit ǀ he curseth hart and all, From hungry hope to pining feare ǀ eche hap doth hurle his hart, From panges of plaint to fits of fume ǀ from aking into smart.

(ww ǀ wpp) (th-w-th-w ǀ rr) (d ǀ d) (ddh ǀ hhd) (hllh ǀ hh) (hmhm ǀ hh) (hh ǀ hhh) (fppff ǀ f)

One might object that this poet’s “conservative” message is no more convincing than Petrach’s in the Rime sparse. Both deliver “warnings” to “avoid the snares of love’s folly,” but they do seem to revel rather much in the description of that folly, itemizing every love pang, every point of suffering, such that we are ultimately persuaded that theirs was after all a most fruitful folly. Likewise, the alliterative poems in Tottel’s Miscellany are not quite as “conservative … in their language” as Osberg claims. Not one of them is written in accentual verse. Their “medieval style” has been given a fashionable, syllabic-verse flourish. That, of course, is the professed point of Tottel’s Miscellany: to refine the tastes of the “vnlearned” and inspire those who are “studious of Englishe eloquence” to write more skilfully – after such models as “The 63

 Osberg 1979. He identifies the following as alliterative poems in the Miscellany: R170/M140, 171/141, 180/149, 192/161, 206/176, 220/190, 253/241, 261/248, 276/226, 277/227, 282/232, 288/238, 289/242, 291/249, 292/250, 293/251, 294/252, 295/253.

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louer asketh pardon” no less than Wyatt’s and Surrey’s noble verses. I turn now, in this chapter’s final section and again in Chapter 3, to argue that this was not solely a marketing pitch for Tottel. He knew some of those “studious” people, and the Miscellany gained from their labors. III. Poems by readers “studious of Englishe eloquence” Though Tottel “exhort[s] the vnlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull,” his customers who were already “learned” and “skilfull” were certainly best suited to “learne to be more skilfull” by reading the Miscellany. Therefore, we might reasonably assume that it was this learned constituency for whom Tottel’s invitation to English eloquence was most compelling, who responded most enthusiastically to the Miscellany’s eloquent verses, and who could easily have accounted for most or all of the Miscellany’s sales, given the modest size of press runs in the period.64 For them, its verses exemplified English versions of the Latin eloquence that they had been trained to admire and emulate, and for those who had become familiar with Italian and French verse besides, its lessons were all the more accessible because so many of the Miscellany’s poems are translations. Let us consider some of these to begin with. On any occasion that a reader knew the foreign-language source behind a given poem in the Miscellany, it was an opportunity to compare and to be instructed, to take note of how the poet had endeavored to convert the eloquence of the original into an English equivalent. Admittedly, readers are not guided in this task: only one of Grimald’s poems in Q1, R163, has a title explicitly stating that it is a translation (“… out of doctor Haddons latine”), while a few others have titles indicating they are translations without identifying the original (e.g., “The beginning of the epistle of Penelope to Vlisses, made into verse” [R275/ M225]). Yet these source texts were rarely obscure ones: most are by Petrarch or Serafino, or by standard Roman authors such as Ovid, author of Penelope’s epistle, or by Theodore Beza. What these translations demonstrated for the readers who recognized them is the marvelous versatility of the English tongue, a lesson underscored by the array of verse forms into which the originals were rendered. I noted above that Wyatt, for example, translated six strambotti by Serafino following their original rhyme scheme, abababcc, and that he used this same scheme to translate two Latin epigrams. In R59/M64, on the other hand, Wyatt expanded a seventh strambotto by Serafino into three stanzas of rhyme royal.

64

  The probable range for most editions of Tudor books is generally held to be 300–600.

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I noted also that an uncertain author supplied the Miscellany’s only sonnet written in a Petrarchan sonnet rhyme scheme (R241/M210, rhyming abba abba cde cde). As shown below, it is a translation – but not of any sonnet or other poem by Petrarch, Serafino or other Italian poet. The source is a passage of Latin verse from Seneca’s Hippolytus (a.k.a. Phaedra), spoken by the Chorus: Thessali Phoebus pecoris magister egit armentum positoque plectro impari tauros calamo vocavit. induit formas quotiens minores ipse qui caelum nebulasque fecit: candidas ales modo movit alas, dulcior vocem moriente cygno; fronte nunc torva petulans iuvencus virginum stravit sua terga ludo, perque fraternos nova regna fluctus ungula lentos imitante remos pectore adverso domuit profundum, pro sua vector timidus rapina.65

For loue Appollo (his Godhead set aside) Was seruant to the kyng of Thessaley, Whose daughter was so pleasant in his eye, That bothe his harpe and sawtrey he defide. And bagpipe solace of the rurall bride, Did puffe and blowe and on the holtes hy, His cattell kept with that rude melody, And oft eke him that doth the heauens gyde. Hath loue transformed to shapes for him to base Transmuted thus sometime a swan is he, Leda taccoye, and eft Europe to please, A milde white bull, vnwrinkled front and face, Suffreth her play tyll on his backe lepeth she, Whom in great care he ferieth through the seas.

Most usefully for the practicing learned poet, there are examples of alternative translations in Tottel’s Miscellany. The familiar ones are by Surrey and Wyatt, who put Petrarch’s Rime 91 into two different rhyme schemes.66

65 66



  Lines 296–308, quoted from Rollins 1965, 2:297.   Petrarch’s original is here quoted from Rollins 1965, 2:135: Amor, che nel penser mio mive et regna, e’l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene, talor armato ne la fronte vene ivi si loca et ivi pon sua insegna Quella ch’amare et sofferir n’ensegna e vol che’l gran desio, l’accesa spene ragion, vergogna et reverenza affrene, di nostro ardir fra sé stessa si sdegna. Onde Amor paventoso fugge al core, lasciando ogni sua impresa, et piange et trema ivi s’asconde et non appar piú fore Che poss’io far, temendo il mio Signore se non star seco infin a l’ora extrema? ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more.

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Surrey’s version (RM6) (abab cdcd efef gg) Loue, that liueth, and reigneth in my thought, That built his seat within my captiue brest, Clad in they armes, wherin with me he fought, Oft in my face he doth his banner rest. She, that me taught to loue, and suffer payne My doutfull hope, and eke my hote desyre, With shamefast cloke to shadowe, and refraine, Her smilyng grace conuerteth straight to yre. And cowarde Loue then to the hart apace Taketh his flight, whereas he lurkes, and plaines. His purpose lost, and dare not shewe his face. For my lordes gilt thus faultelesse byde I paynes. Yet from my lorde shall not my foote remoue. Swete is his death, that takes his end by loue. Wyatt’s version (R37/M42) (abba abba cdc cdd) The longe loue, that in my thought I harber, And in my hart doth kepe his residence, Into my face preaseth with bold pretence, And there campeth, displaying his banner. She that me learns to loue,and to suffer, And willes that my trust, and lustes negligence Be reined by reason, shame, and reuerence, With his hardinesse takes displeasure. Wherwith loue to the hartes forest he fleeth, Leauyng his enterprise with paine and crye, And there him hideth and not appeareth. What may I do? when my maister feareth, But in the field with him to liue and dye, For good is the life, endyng faithfully.

One reader of the Miscellany clearly understood the invitation that was extended in Q1 by the example of alternative translations, and he provided one “moe” for Tottel to include in Q2. In the first edition, Horace’s Carmina 2.10 is translated twice: first by Surrey into five abab stanzas of iambic pentameter (R28/M32), then by an uncertain author, who padded it out to 11 abcb stanzas of iambic tetrameter (R194/M163).

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For illustration, the opening eight lines of Horace’s original are followed below by the corresponding lines from each translation. Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum semper urgendo neque, dum procellas cautus horrescis, nimium premendo litus iniquom. Auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit, tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula.67 Surrey’s version:



An uncertain author’s version:

Of thy lyfe, Thomas,68 this compasse well mark: Who craftly castes to stere his boate Not aye with full sayles the hye seas to beat: and safely skoures the flattering flood: Ne by coward dred, in shonning stormes dark, He cutteth not the greatest waues On shalow shores thy keel in perill freat. for why that way were nothing good. Who so gladly halseth the golden meane, Ne fleteth on the crocked shoare Voyde of dangers aduisdly hath his home lest harme him happe awayting lest. Not with lothsom muck, as a den vncleane: But wines away betwene them both, Nor palacelyke, wherat disdayn may glome. as who would say the meane is best. (R28/M32) Who waiteth on the golden meane, he put in point of sickernes: Hides not his head in sluttishe coates, ne shroudes himself in filthines. Nor sittes aloft in hye estate, where hatefull hartes enuie his chance[.] (R194/M163)

The third translation was one of the poems added to the uncertain authors section of Q2 (R295/M253). It is cleverly written in six aaab tailrhyme stanzas that mimic the Sapphic stanzas of Horace’s Ode, which as seen above have three long lines of lesser Sapphic meter ( – ᵕ – – ᵕ ᵕ – ᵕ – x ) and a shorter fourth line of Adonic meter ( – ᵕ ᵕ – x ). As shown below in the first two stanzas of this translation, the a-rhymes are written in iambic hexameter, the b-rhymes in tetrameter, and each pair of tail lines is rhymed:

67

  Quoted from Rollins 1965, 2:152–3.  Rollins (1965, 2:153, citing Padelford) notes that “Thomas” (in the place of Horace’s “Licini” [i.e., Licinius Murena]) “more probably” refers to Surrey’s son or brother than to Wyatt. 68

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The wisest way, thy bote, in waue and winde to guie, Is neither still the trade of middle streame to trie: Ne (warely shunnyng wrecke by wether) aye to nie, To presse vpon the perillous69 shore. Both clenely flees he filthe: ne wonnes a wretched wight, In carlish coate: and carefull court aie thrall to spite, With port of proud astate he leues: who doth delight, Of golden meane to hold the lore.

This poem is clever in still another way: its mischievous parody of Q1’s anonymous translation. Its dogged alliteration is the first clue of this – e.g., R194/M163’s “sluttishe coates” and “ne shroudes himself in filthines” become “carlish coate” and “flees he filthe” in order to take the poem’s alliterating up a notch. But consider now the next few lines of each version. Surrey, translating Horace’s argument by analogy that those of the highest social standing risk most danger, writes: The lofty pyne the great winde often riues: With violenter swey falne turrets stepe: Lightninges assault the hye mountains, and cliues[.] (RM28/M32)

This becomes, in Q1’s anonymous version, The highest tree in all the woode is rifest rent with blustring windes: The higher hall the greater fall such chance haue proude and lofty mindes. When Iupiter from hie doth threat with mortall mace and dint of thunder the highest hilles ben batrid eft when they stand still that stoden vnder[.] (R194/M163)

The passage then gets re-concentrated in the following lines of the Q2 poem: Stormes rifest rende the sturdy stout pineapple tre. Of lofty ruing70 towers the fals the feller be. Most fers doth lightenyng light, where furthest we do see. (R295/M253) 69

  Pronounced as two syllables, “per’llous.”   “Obviously ruing is a printer’s error for rising, since the poet was translating Horace’s ‘celsae … turres’” (Rollins 1965, 327). 70

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It is quite clear that the author of this version has the other two in front of him, and he is having a good deal of fun. In his first line above, he adjusts the cumbersomely alliterative phrase “rifest rent” in R194/M163 (derived from Surrey’s “rives”), to “rifest rende,” but he then pushes it over the top with “Stormes” and “sturdy stout” (reprising the three st-sounds in “stand still” and “stoden,” in the last line of R194/M163 above) and – truly a masterstroke – with “pineapple tre,” combining Surrey’s “pyne” with the second author’s “tree,” but adding “-apple” for the bonus of its second p-sound and its silliness. In the same spirit we are warned in R295/M253 that, for lofty towers, “fals the feller be,” which is a drolly alliterative take on Surrey’s “violenter swey falne” and the second version’s “greater fall.” The words “fers” and “furthest” sustain the alliteration of f-sounds in this third poem’s next line, but the real gem is of course “lightenyng light.” No doubt we are expected to notice also the playful repositioning of “lofty” in this version. Surrey referred to the “lofty pyne” (translating “ingens / pinus”); the author of R194/M163, in one of his gratuitous embellishments, has “lofty mindes”; and then in R295/M253, “lofty” redundantly is attached to “r[is]ing towers” (“celsae … turres”; see n. 70). In short, R295/M253 is another of several indicators that the first edition of Tottel’s Miscellany elicited submissions for the planned second edition during June-July 1557. In this instance, someone saw what Surrey and an uncertain author in Q1 had accomplished, and he took up their challenge to be “more skilfull” in a translation of his own, doing so in a manner that was at once learned and lampooning. Moreover, the first edition of the Miscellany encourages this very sort of jesting risposta by modeling it. In particular, many of the Miscellany’s love poems, written by authors both named and anonymous, were engaged in a form of “dialogic exchange,”71 of role-playing, of imitating others’ voices to “wail supposed woes” and “recount supposed joys,” as Rollins describes, but also to tease others for their efforts, not for anyone’s moral edification but for the opportunity to exercise their eloquence for their own and their readers’ mirthful diversion. One of Surrey’s poems in Q1 sets the example. RM20 is a rejoinder to a poem in the uncertain author’s section, R199/M168, which has been identified from a manuscript source as an excerpt from a poem by John Heywood for Mary on the occasion of her birthday in 1534. In Tottel’s Miscellany, however, the poem’s final stanzas referring to Mary by name and relation (as “a kinges doughter”) are deleted, leaving only generic comparisons (“she is Diana chast,” “In

71   I quote Paul Marquis’s apt phrase (2007, xlix), though as noted in the next chapter, our application of it differs.

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trouth Penelopey”) and stereotypical praises of an undesignated beloved’s physical and moral virtues.72 It starts, Geue place you Ladies and be gon, Boast not your selues at all: For here at hande approcheth one Whose face will staine you all. The vertue of her liuely lokes, Excels the precious stone: I wishe to haue none other bokes To read or loke vpon.

Surrey’s poem, addressed to such lovers as this one who overpraise their ladies, piles the hyperboles higher: Geue place ye louers, here before That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine: My Ladies beawtie passeth more The best of yours, I dare well sayen, Than doth the sonne, the candle light: Or brightest day, the darkest night. And thereto hath a trothe as iust, As had Penelope the fayre. For what she saith, ye may it trust, As it by writing sealed were. And vertues hath she many moe, Than I with pen haue skill to showe.

Surrey’s manipulation of the other poem’s book metaphor, in particular, is wittily parodic. The author of R199/M168 boasts that his beloved is so unmatchably good a “boke” to “read or loke vpon” that he needs “none other bokes,” but we are invited by Surrey to mark that this lover nonetheless has marshaled his mediocre skills to write a second book that is this poem of his beloved, whereas no book can possibly do justice to Surrey’s lady, not even one written with the far better “skill” of Surrey’s “pen.” It is probable, but we cannot know for certain that it was Tottel who abridged Heywood’s poem, as he may have acquired it in the form he printed it. But the effect is clear: without knowledge of the poem’s original referent, any potential 72  Rollins (1965, 2:274–76) transcribes the manuscript version of R199 that is in “MS. Harleian 1703, fols. 108–109, made about 1572 by William Forrest,” who assigns it to John Heywood “with the statement that it celebrates Queen Mary I.” The final stanzas show that the poem commemorates Mary’s eighteenth birthday in 1534.

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political interpretation of Surrey’s risposta is pre-empted.73 The courtly game of one-upmanship in which this poem was once played is now conducted entirely, and impersonally, within the bounds of a printed book; the only relevant measures of its success are those of wit and style. From this example, the Miscellany’s contemporary contributors and other readers might pick up a technique or two. Just as well, they might extrapolate from it the ideal that the Miscellany seems designed to model – that of an autonomous textual space for the conducting of their own future exchanges. Let us examine further examples. Two consecutive sonnets in the uncertain authors section of the Miscellany pay tribute to Petrarch and Wyatt in a manner that is again both learned and sportive, and the main vehicle of the joke in each poem is the verse form. First, in R218/M188, the proposta written in Wyatt’s abba abba cddc ee rhyme scheme:

A praise of Petrarke and of Laura his ladie.

O Petrarke hed and prince of poets all, Whose liuely gift of flowyng eloquence, Wel may we seke, but finde not how or whence So rare a gift with thee did rise and fall, Peace to thy bones, and glory immortall Be to thy name, and to her excellence. Whose beauty lighted in thy time and sence So to be set forth as none other shall. Why hath not our pens rimes so perfit wrought Ne why our time forth bringeth beauty such To trye our wittes as golde is by the touche, If to the stile the matter aided ought. But ther was neuer Laura more then one, And her had petrarke for his paragone[.]

The question “Why hath not our pens rimes” been “so perfit wrought” as Petrarch’s is answered in the poem’s final lines, but also that answer is proved there and in earlier lines too. The world has had only one Laura, and she was Petrarch’s; our “stile,” not having the advantage of his perfect “matter,” must necessarily fall short, and so it does. The poet writes in syllabic verse, and he commits no egregious sins, but at times his meter 73   By 1534 Mary had lost her title of princess to her half-sister Elizabeth, born the previous year. Hence one decidedly ungenerous interpretation of Surrey’s reply to Heywood would be that he was extolling Elizabeth over Mary to mark the latter having been forced to “geue place” to the former in the king’s favor.

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and rhymes are not as “perfit” as they could be: “rise and fall” at the end of line 4 requires us awkwardly to stress the first and last syllables of “immortall” in line 5, which in turn pairs awkwardly with “shall” in line 8; while “one” and “paragone” in the last lines, though perhaps closer in pronunciation in Tudor times than they are today, do not quite match. Perhaps then we are being invited to judge the rhyme scheme itself not as a “noble” native modification but as further evidence of our fall from perfection. The opening quatrains of abba abba are in Petrarch’s style, but they are followed by another quatrain and a final couplet, not two tercets as Petrarch would have written. A second Laura in our time would surely have saved the poet from such infelicities. The author of the risposta immediately following (R219/M189) concedes that Petrarch is without peer, but he claims to know a living lady who is Laura’s superior and whose “parfit grace” can inspire a modernday poet to “praise aright”:

That petrark cannot be passed but notwithstanding that Lawra is far surpassed.

With petrarke to compare there may no wight, Nor yet attain vnto so high a stile, But yet I wote full well where is a file. To frame a learned man to praise aright: Of stature meane of semely forme and shap, Eche line of iust proporsion to her height: Her colour freshe and mingled with such sleight: As though the rose sate in the lilies lap. In wit and tong to shew what may be sed, To euery dede she ioynes a parfit grace, If Lawra liude she would her clene deface. For I dare say and lay my life to wed That Momus could not if he downe discended, Once iustly say lo this may be amended.

Earlier in this chapter I referred to this sonnet’s rhyme scheme as “experimental,” but in the context of its mate in R218/M188, we clearly do its author better justice by recognizing that he has deliberately, artfully flubbed it. He gets only the first quatrain right (abba): the second and third rhyme caac deed, as if to underscore the claim in his first two lines that “no wight” could ever “attain vnto so high a stile” as Petrarch, least of all him. Yet, for the first 12 lines of the poem, we are able to discern in a different respect that the lady who is his “file” seems to live up to the poet’s second

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claim. His regular iambic pentameter and the Italianate chiastic rhymes of his quatrains do have a “semely forme and shap” after all, their “iust proporsion” testifying to this lady’s power to impart a “parfit grace” on the poet’s verses in praise of her. But in the end this impression is dashed. In his final couplet, the poet drops out of pentameter and writes two 11-syllable lines of accentual verse, with four stresses in one line and probably six in the next: /

/

/

/

That Momus could not if he downe discended, /

/

/

/

/

/

Once iustly say[,] lo this may be amended.

The couplet is all the more clumsy coming as it does on the heels of the stressed d-rhyme word at the end of line 12, “wed,” which exerts an unwelcome pressure to stress the last syllable of “discended” in line 13 and of “amended” in line 14. If Momus the god of fault-finding were to come to earth, it seems that he would discover flaws in this poet’s lady after all, given that this sonnet that she inspired could use more than a little amending. Consider next “An epitaphe written by w.G. to be set vpon his owne graue,” in which the poor “w.G.” complains that he has been driven to an early grave by his wife’s endless harping.74 Lo here lieth G. vnder the grounde, Emong the greedy wormes: Which in his life time neuer founde, But strife and sturdy stormes, And namely through a wicked wife, As to the worlde apperes: She was the shortnyng of his life By many daies and yeres. He might haue liued long god wot, His yeres they were but yong: Of wicked wiues this is the lot, To kill with spitefull tong. Whose memory shall still remaine, In writyng here with me: That men may know whom she hath slaine. And say this same is she. (R255/M239)

74   See the introduction n. 28 on the reputed authorship of this poem and the longer version of it that survives in manuscript.

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“An aunswere” that follows right after supplies a funny retort to Mr. G’s complaints. If we assume that the speaker uses “she” for self-reference in the third person, then it is the accused wife who is allowed the closing argument in this debate: If that thy wicked wife had spon the thred, And were the weauer of thy wo: Then art thou double happy to be dead, As happily dispatched so. If rage did causelesse cause thee to complaine, And mad moode mouer of thy mone: If frensy forced on thy testy braine: Then blist is she to liue alone. So, whether were the ground of others griefe, Because so doutfull was the dome: Now death hath brought your payne a right reliefe, And blessed be ye bothe become: She that she liues no lenger bounde to beare The rule of such a frowarde hed: Thou that thou liuest no lenger faine to feare The restlesse ramp that thou hadst wedde. Be thou as glad therfore that thou art gone, As she is glad she dothe abide. For as ye be a sonder, all is one: A badder match can not betide. (R256/M240)

The humor of this poem goes in two directions. The wife, on the one hand, is allowed the pleasure of getting in the last word, and she is entertainingly disrespectful (“I’m glad you’re dead”). But there is, on the other hand, a laugh also at her expense in the circumstance that her reply is a stanza longer than w.G’s epitaph, and each of her lines is a foot longer. His poem is composed of four quatrains written in alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter; hers is five quatrains of alternating pentameter and tetrameter. Thus, even as the wife puts her deceased, testy-brained husband in his place, so to speak, she corroborates his complaint, talking more than he does with her “spitefull tong,” getting in the last word and many more. There is a similar metrical rejoinder to a poem titled “Against women either good or badde” (R257/M243). The indentions of this iambic tetrameter poem, as shown below, divide the whole into three stanzas, though its rhyme scheme is that of an English sonnet: A man may liue thrise Nestors life, Thrise wander out Vlisses race:

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Yet neuer finde Vlisses wife. Such chaunge hath chanced in this case. Lesse age will serue than Paris had, Small peyn (if none be small inough) To finde good store of Helenes trade. Such sap the rote dothe yelde the bough. For one good wife Vlisses slew A worthy knot of gentle blood: For one yll wife Grece ouerthrew The towne of Troy. Sith bad and good Bring mischiefe: Lord, let be thy will, To kepe me free from either yll.

“An answere” (R258/M244) rebuts this conclusion by interpreting differently the prior poem’s classical allusions, yet it does so also by going one better with its verse form. To each of the first poem’s three stanzas is added an extra line that repeats the end rhyme of the line preceding, as noted to the right: The vertue of Vlisses wife Dothe liue, though she hath ceast her race, And farre surmountes old Nestors life: But now in moe than then it was. Such change is chanced in this case. Ladyes now liue in other trade: Farre other Helenes now we see, Than she whom Troyan Paris had. As vertue fedes the roote, so be The sap and frute of bough and tree. Vlisses rage, not his good wife, Spilt gentle blood. Not Helenes face, But Paris eye did rayse the strife, That did the Troyan buildyngs race. Thus sithe ne good, ne bad do yll: Them all, O Lord, maintain my will, To serue with all my force and skyll.

a b a b b c d c d d e f e f g g g

In other words, this poem says to its predecessor: “You say abab cdcd, but I say ababb cdcdd; you say efefgg, but I say efefggg.”75 Who could withstand the superior force of that argument?

75

  This metrical “trump[ing]” is remarked also in Holton and MacFaul 2011, 506.

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By such examples as these we come to appreciate that the Miscellany’s “widely varied meters and stanzaic forms” had the potential to delight Tottel’s customers for reasons beyond the appeal of variety per se. Increasing the number of pairs or groups of poems that participate in the sort of amusing interplay that we are discovering was clearly one of Tottel’s priorities when he was editing Q2 for press, presumably because he understood that it was one of the sources of “profit and pleasure” for readers of the first edition. But he could not have achieved this without the involvement of poets who could supply him with new response poems or newly written paired poems. There are, in fact, two poems in Q1 that acquired companions in Q2. The first follows “An epitaph of maister Henry williams” (R253/M241), and is simply titled, “An other of the same” (R289/M242). But the latter is written in the dead Williams’s voice (“yet for all that here I lye”), which clearly indicates that its composition was prompted by the epitaph in Q1. The other instance is R290/M246, which was added to Q2 to follow Q1’s R254/M245. These deserve quoting in full to show the new poem’s comically pitiless refutation of the other. Here, the speaker of the first poem commends himself for ridding his heart of the love he formerly felt for a woman who has refused him: Against a gentlewoman by whom he was refused. To false report and flying fame, While erst my minde gaue credite light, Beleuyng that her bolstred name Had stuffe to shew that praise did hight. I finde well now I did mistake, Vpon report my grounde to make. I hearde it sayd such one was she, As rare to finde as parragon, Of lowly cheare of heart so free, As her for bounty could passe none. Such one so faire though forme and face, Were meane to passe in seconde place. I sought it neare thinkyng to finde, Report and dede both to agree: But chaunge had tride her suttell minde, Of force I was enforced to see, That she in dede was nothing so, Which made my will my hart forgo. For she is such as geason none, And what she most may bost to be:

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I finde her matches mo then one, What nede she so to deale with me? Ha flering face with scornefull harte, So yll rewarde for good desert? I will repent that I haue done, To ende so well the losse is small, I lost her loue, that lesse hath wonne, To vaunt she had me as her thrall. What though a gyllot sent that note, By cocke and pye I meant it not. (R254/M245)

“The answere” that follows this poem in Q2 roundly mocks the prior speaker’s “lewd lieng lips, and hatefull hart,” by reminding him in twice as many lines that he cannot claim to have “lost her love” when he never succeeded in winning it in the first place: Whom fansy forced first to loue, Now frensy forceth for to hate: Whose minde erst madnesse gan to moue, Inconstance causeth to abate. No minde of meane, but heat of braine Bred light loue: like heate, hate againe[.] What hurld your hart in so great heat? Fansy forced by fayned fame. Belike that she was light to get. For if that vertue and good name Moued your minde, why changed your will, Sithe vertue the cause abideth still. Such, Fame reported her to be As rare it were to finde her peere, For vertue and for honestie, For her free hart and lowly cheere. This laud had lied if you had sped, And fame ben false that hath be spred. Sith she hath so kept her good name. Such praise of life and giftes of grace, As brute self blusheth for to blame, Such fame as fame feares to deface: You sclaunder not but make it plaine, That you blame brute of brutish traine. If you haue found it looking neere, Not as you toke the brute to be. Bylike you ment by lowly cheere,

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Bountie and hart that you call free, But lewd lightnesse easy to frame, To winne your will against her name. Nay she may deme your deming so, A marke of madnesse in his kind, Such causeth not good name to go: As your fond folly sought to finde. For brute of kinde bent ill to blasé, Always sayth ill, but forced by cause. The mo there be, such as is she, More should be gods thank for his grace. The more is her ioy it to see. Good should by geason, earne no place, Nor nomber make nought, that is good. Your strange lusting hed wants a hoode. Her dealing greueth you (say ye) Byside your labour lost in vaine. Her dealing was not as we see, Sclaunder the end of your great paine, Ha lewd lieng lips, and hatefull hart, What canst thou desire in such desart. Ye will repent, and right for done. Ye haue a dede deseruing shame. From reasons race farre haue ye ronne. Hold your rayling, kepe your tong tame. Her loue, ye lye, ye lost it not. Ye neuer lost that ye neuer got. She reft ye not your libertie, She vaunteth not she had your thrall. If ought haue done it, let it lye, On rage that reft you wit and all. What though a varlets tale you tell: By cock and pye you do it well. (R290/M246)

The addition of this poem in Q2 in response to that above printed in Q1, I submit, is another telling trace of the circumstances of the Miscellany’s compilation. Tottel in his notice had expressed concern, half seriously I think, that there might be “some” who would “mislike the statelinesse of stile” in which the Miscellany’s poems are written, so he asked “help of the learned to defend their learned frendes, the authors of this work.” He also expressed some confidence that he would be able to print “moe” such poems “hereafter.” In this way Tottel advertised that the Miscellany was in in the same league and of the same sort as the verse

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miscellanies being sold at the time in Italy, France, and Spain. All contain some number of recently deceased big names: Surrey (d. 1547) and Wyatt (d. 1542), Pietro Bembo (d. 1547), Clément Marot (d. 1544), Juan Boscán (d. 1542), etc. But alongside them are many living authors, those who have living “learned frendes” who might defend or just as possibly spoof their efforts. Tottel’s Miscellany was thus, for that one summer of 1557, a fluid text, like Gabriel Giolito’s several revised versions of the first volumes in his Rime diverse series, with poems in the first edition inspiring the composition of more poems for future editions and future volumes. For this reason the uncertain authors section was much less a “tomb” than it was the collaborative project of a social network to which Tottel had ties. Those in this group whose poems were included in Q1 had shown Tottel that their English eloquence had already profited “by reding” whatever number of Surrey’s and Wyatt’s verses that they had seen, copied, purchased or traded for. Those who brought him their own newly written poems for inclusion in Q2 were then able to demonstrate that they had profited “by reding” Q1. The playful spirit and restless energy behind all the metrical experimentation that was witnessed in the preceding section of this chapter, and more so, the coltish, ribbing character of the poems seen in this section, are to me suggestive of the social world that we know Tottel knew: the world of the Inns of Court. Chapter 3 returns to the question of what there was at stake, for Tottel and for the young men of the Inns, in a miscellany of songs and sonnets published “to the honor of the Englishe tong, and for profit of the studious of Englishe eloquence,” in the summer of the martyrs’ fires.

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Chapter 3

“Thinke it not euill doon” With a different emphasis, we turn again to Tottel’s request that his gentle readers “thinke it not euill doon, to publish, to the honor of the Englishe tong, and for profit of the studious of Englishe eloquence, those workes which the vngentle horders vp of such treasure haue heretofore enuied thee.” The customary assumption is that Tottel discloses in this sentence a concern that the Miscellany would offend the particular, elite coterie of hoarders who had until then kept private their manuscript copies of Wyatt’s and Surrey’s works. This could be so, for we do not know the exact circumstances under which poems in the Egerton manuscript and other sources reached Tottel. He may well have been given to understand that it took some trouble to wrest them from their jealous owners. On the other hand, his request does look very much like a sales pitch, and that may be all the explanation that is necessary. As was seen in Chapter 1, the claim of offering readers rescued treasures had been made in more than one recently printed Italian verse miscellany. It could also have been meant as a decoy: a disingenuous admission of a minor evil to divert the attention of those looking for major ones. Some scholars have assumed, for example, that Tottel took a risk printing Wyatt the elder’s verses so few years after the rebellion and execution of Wyatt the younger. Or perhaps it was even generally known that Cardinal Pole – Archbishop of Canterbury and the queen’s principal counsellor – was at one time convinced that Wyatt the elder meant to assassinate him.1 For reasons such as these, one might imagine, Tottel was right to exercise the prudence that he did by leaving Wyatt’s name off the Miscellany’s title page. Yet I do think it highly doubtful that Tottel ever feared his printing of the Miscellany would in any way have serious political or financial repercussions. Tottel would not have jeopardized for it his lucrative patent to print law books, whether or not he could predict the Miscellany’s popularity.2 As it happened, the little book did sell well: 11 known editions in 30 years, nine of them from Tottel’s press through 1574. But in the 1

  During Wyatt’s embassy in Spain, that is; on which see Brigden 2012, 433–4, 441–2.   Here I echo Paul Marquis’s judgement that “Tottel was a political survivor. His ability to maintain his monopoly as a printer of law books during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor meant that he was not likely to forfeit his flourishing career in 1557 by publishing an anthology of poems that could be censored, or for which he would be prosecuted and sent to prison” (2007, lviii). 2

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context of what Tottel likely earned annually from the sale of yearbooks, editions of Littleton’s Tenures, and other staples of the legal profession, his profits on the Miscellany could hardly have been vital to his business. Yet Tottel knew perfectly well on what other grounds readers of the time judged books to be good or evil. The charge that he undoubtedly anticipated was that which had been made against The Court of Venus, most famously by John Hall, after it was last printed toward the end of the preceding decade: that its “bawdy ballads” were morally corrupting. Eventually this complaint did arise against Tottel Miscellany, as my postscript will review. Whether it helped or hurt the book’s sales, we cannot say, but presumably one subtext of Tottel’s assurance that the Miscellany provides models of English eloquence for the benefit of the studious-minded is that these are not lewd poems to incite the lust of the lascivious-minded. Equally, in giving this assurance, Tottel is claiming that the religious, political, and social upheavals of the English Reformation, and the polemics and persecutions of Mary’s reign more strictly, ought not to influence readers’ reception of the verses he prints. Eloquence, not religion, is the only criterion he would allow for judging them good or bad. This message is in conspicuous contrast to William Rastell’s recommendation of the English writings of Thomas More, printed mainly by Tottel in 1557.3 In Rastell’s dedication of the hefty volume to Queen Mary, he declares that these “workes” of his “dere vncle” be worthy to be hadde and redde of euerye Englishe man, that is studious or desirous to know and learne, not onelye the eloquence and propertie of the English tonge, but also the trewe doctryne of Christes catholike fayth, the confutacion of detestable heresyes, or the godly morall vertues that appertaine to the framinge and fourminge of mennes maners and consciences, to liue a vertuous and deuout christen life[.] (STC 18076, frontmatter 2r)

Without question, the “martyrs’ fires” that Rollins says were “sending a lurid glare throughout England” that summer would have been relevant context for readers to understand the import of Thomas More’s writings, and Rastell is explicit that their modeling of English eloquence is inseparable from More’s teaching of true doctrine. Tottel, in his notice to the Miscellany, does not assert the contrary – that style and content are separable; instead, he has nothing to say about content, as if he and the Miscellany’s readers lived in a time when “Christes catholike fayth” needed no defending against “detestable heresyes,” when no one need fear that love poems might malframe or malform “mennes maners and consciences.” 3

  See n. 39 of the introduction.

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Rollins, nevertheless, was not wrong to point out that Tottel’s Miscellany made its appearance in a summer remembered for its “martyrs’ fires” and “martyrs’ shrieks.” My claim is only that the Miscellany is a more subtly expressive artifact of its historical moment than he seems to have implied by that phrasing, or than has since been understood. Hence in this chapter I argue my view that there was a relationship between the production of Tottel’s Miscellany in 1557 and the terrible spectacle of executions by burning that year, and that the means to discover it is by again examining relevant evidence from the era’s press output. In doing so we shall find that writings which concerned themselves directly with the period’s troubles, the polemic and propaganda, are but one available context in which to view the Miscellany, and that others – such as the debate over the true history of Troy and pious denunciations of bawdy ballads – must also inform our understanding of the extent to which poetry’s potential to be judged evil by Marian readers influenced not only Tottel’s editorial decisions but the poems written by the Miscellany’s contemporary contributors. Therefore, in this chapter I attend especially to those poems that were added to Q2 and argue that Tottel’s most probable sources for them came from the ranks of his regular customers, the law students at the nearby Inns of Court, for whom the project of the Miscellany offered opportunities for exercising their eloquence that corresponded happily with their recreational interests, mimicked their legal training, and, not incidentally, reflected their complete disinterest in martyrdom. It offered also the opportunity to flout an enemy of love poetry, if I am right in my speculation that they are behind the ridicule of John Hall. In the process, these students briefly enacted the ideals of that sort of literati community that Tottel’s Miscellany offered to nurture. To commence this analysis, I turn first to the moralistic and related poems in the Miscellany whose nature and role in the volume await explanation. I. “These daies ben ill” It is true enough that Tottel’s Miscellany is a book “concerned chiefly with love,” as Rollins characterizes it. In sonnets and a variety of other verse forms, “lovers wail their supposed woes and recount their supposed joys.” But there are other kinds of poems too. In Q1, for example, we encounter 18 tribute poems by Nicholas Grimald and ten others in the uncertain authors section. Many of these are in the form of epitaphs for distinguished persons (Lord Maltravers, Captain Thomas Audley, Ann Parr Countess of Pembroke, etc.), while others address their intended recipients only by their initials, including “A neew yeres gift, to the l.M.S.” and four other

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epigrams written by Grimald for the daughters of Edward Seymour (Ladies Jane, Margaret, Katherine and Elizabeth) and their mother, Lady Anne Stanhope (R139, 142–5).4 These and other of Grimald’s tribute poems were not reprinted in Q2, but all ten by uncertain authors remained and two new ones were added: “Of his maistresse m.B.” (R304/M264) and “A praise of m.M.” (R306/M266).5 Whether or not the names behind the initials could be guessed by readers, these are poems that show authors at work cultivating their networks of social relations. Put another way, they are poems that some readers might well have valued for their instruction in the art of courting favor. Possibly, too, there were readers who recognized in certain other poems a form of courtly performance originally calculated to serve some unspecified but inferable political end. The most obvious examples are by Surrey and Wyatt, such as Surrey’s poem titled in the Miscellany, “Prisoned in windsor, he recounteth his pleasure there passed” (RM15), which includes fond remembrance of the time in his youth spent with Henry Fitzroy, Henry VIII’s son by Elizabeth Blount. One might guess that the author of such a tribute had hopes that it would win him early release, if it should happen to touch the heart of the king who “prisoned” him. Wyatt’s three poems in the Miscellany written in terza rima surely also had purposes beyond their professed ones, with readers in mind beyond their addressees. That titled “Of the Courtiers life written to Iohn Poins” (R125/M135), for example, was written ostensibly in reply to an innocent query from Poyntz, who asked “to know / The causes why” the poet had taken himself “homeward,” prompting Wyatt’s long explanation that he has been moved to “fle the prease of courtes” because he has too much integrity to indulge in the vices common to bad counselors and courtiers. To quote just a few examples, My Poyns, I can not frame my tune to fayne: To cloke the truth, for prayse without desert, Of them that list all nice for to retaine. I can not honour them, that set their part With Venus, and Bacchus, all their life long: ................................... I can not speake and loke like as a saynt: Vse wiles for wit, and make disceyt a pleasure: Call craft counsaile, for lucre still to paint. I can not wrest the law to fill the coffer: 4

 For these identifications, see Rollins 1965, 2:233.   Those printed in both Q1 and Q2 are R169/M139, R182/M151, R189/M158, R205/ M175, R209/M179, R213/M183, R227/M197, R246/M214, R248/M215, R253/M241. 5

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With innocent bloud to fede my selfe fatte: And do most hurt: where that most helpe I offer.

In fact, this capitolo is Wyatt’s paraphrase of a satirical poem by Luigi Alamanni, addressed to “Thommaso mio gentil,” and as Rollins observes, it was “no doubt” written “during Wyatt’s enforced exile in Kent after he had been released from prison in 1536.”6 Assuming Rollins is right, or even if one simply were aware that Wyatt spent most of his adult life in service to the Henrician court, this poem illustrates exactly what one would expect: that Wyatt had it in him to engage in strategic, self-serving dissimulation after all. At one of those moments in his career that he was in disgrace if not still in danger, he writes a poem surely intended to make its way into circulation at court, representing himself as the ideal philosopher-king’s ideal counselor, a man of temperance and truth, the very sort of subject whom an enlightened Henry VIII would most want to restore to favor. This is one of those poems, then, that some readers could have valued for their instruction in the art of being a political animal. Or perhaps for other of Tottel’s customers, these poems were viewed as Seth Lerer has suggested, as artifacts from the “tomb” of a bygone era, revealing not only the private “loves” but the precarious lives of those who “populated Henry’s court” (1997, 206). Their appeal in this case would be the opportunity they afford to watch political animals maneuvering to stay alive inside a lion’s den.7 The “depewitted” Wyatt’s capitoli clearly also belong to the category of moralistic poems in Tottel’s Miscellany, which number by my count 50 in Q1, 44 in Q2 (13 of Grimald’s poems in this category were deleted, seven by uncertain authors were added). The most frequent theme among these is the wisdom of moderation and of contentment with one’s humble station in the world, in poems with titles such as “Of the meane and sure estate” (R118/M128, similarly R28/M32 and R124/M134), “The courtiers life” (R119/M129, similarly R125/M135 and R126/M136), “Prayse of measure-kepyng” (R150/M274), “They of the meane estate are happiest” (R170/M140, similarly R191/M244 and R194/M163), and “Of the golden meane” (R295/M253). Related to these are the mutability poems: “Of the mutabilitie of the world” (R180/M149), “All worldly pleasures fade” (R197/M166), “That length of time consumeth all thinges” (R274/ M224), “Of the vanitie of mans lyfe” (R297/M257), etc.; and there are verses too “Against hourders of money” (R114/M124), “Against wicked

6

 Rollins 1965, 2:218; Alamanni’s poem is printed on 2:216–18.   Here I allude to the title of Derek Wilson’s book on the subject, In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII (2001). 7

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tongues” (R177/M147), “Of dissembling wordes” (R117/M127), and on the maxim that “Time trieth truth” (R206/M176). As Tottel understood well, a steady market existed for the commonplace moral instruction that these poems dispense. In the preceding chapter were mentioned the seven editions of William Baldwin’s Tretise of Moral Philosophy printed from 1547 to 1557. Two of these were done by Tottel, one ca. 1555, the other in 1557 (STC 1255.5, 1257). Yet this was just one of 22 books of moral instruction that were likely printed in the years 1556–57. Another was the sixth edition of Thomas Elyot’s The boke named The gouernour, printed by Thomas Marsh in 1557 (STC 7640; first edition 1531). For those who valued such teaching as Elyot provides in this work, a convenient and complete enough synopsis of it could be had in R270/M122, one of Wyatt’s poems in the Miscellany. I quote the first stanza of its three: If thou wilt mighty be, flee from the rage Of cruell wyll, and see thou kepe thee free From the foule yoke of sensuall bondage, For though thy empyre stretche to Indian sea, And for thy feare trembleth the fardest Thylee, If thy desire haue ouer thee the power, Subiect then art thou and no gouernour.

In like manner, every other topic treated by the Miscellany’s moralistic poems echoes the maxims and pithy advice available in the period’s most popular handbooks of moral philosophy.8 When, however, we turn to consider the three anonymous poems in the Miscellany that are written on religious themes, it is less clear which sorts of other religious works their readers would have associated them with. On the one hand, their all-purpose piety made them equally printable in Mary’s reign and in Elizabeth’s: their penitent self-reproach, complaints against a sinning world, and appeal for the Lord’s mercy are resolutely generic. On the other hand, it is possible that the Miscellany’s first readers in Mary’s reign took these poems as commentaries on their own time. “The repentant sinner in durance and aduersitie,” which comes first in the volume (R184/M153), concludes by contrasting the speaker’s desire to walk with God to the world’s preference for baser “work”: 8

  Among the other examples are the fifth edition of Elyot’s The Banket of Sapience, printed by John Day in 1557 (STC 7633 [a variant made for John Walley is STC 7633.3]); the fifth edition of Elyot’s The Image of Gouernaunce (STC 7667), printed by Thomas Powell in 1556 for the bookseller William Seres; and, mentioned previously, Nicholas Grimald’s translation of Cicero’s De officiis, printed by Tottel in 1556.

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My fayth my hope my trust, my God and eke my guide Stretch forth thy hand to saue the soule, what so the body bide. Refuse not to receiue that thou so dere hast bought, For but by thee alone I know all safety in vaine is sought. I know and knowledge eke albeit very late, That thou it is I ought to loue and dreade in ech estate. And with repentant hart do laude thee Lord on hye, That hast so gently set me straight, that erst walkt so awry. Now graunt me grace my God to stand thine strong in sprite, And let the world them work such wayes, as to the world semes mete.

At more length, “Descripcion of an vngodlye worlde” (R251/M218) catalogues men’s vices in support of its thesis that in “this wretched world” there “is not one that fereth god,” for even “those that seme as saintes are deuilles in their dedes[.]” One of the poems added to Q2 (R284/M234) expresses the same sentiment, starting, Complaine we may: much is amisse: Hope is nye gone to haue redresse: These daies ben ill, nothing sure is: Kinde hart is wrapt in heauinesse. The sterne is broke: the saile is rent: The ship is geuen to winde and waue: All helpe is gone: the rocke present. That will be lost, what man can saue?

The author then prays in conclusion, Mans strength is weake: mans wit is dull: Mans reason is blinde. These things tamend, Thy hand (O Lord) of might is full, Awake betime, and helpe vs send. In thee we trust, and in no wight: Saue vs as chickens vnder the hen. Our crokednesse thou canst make right, Glory to thee for aye. Amen.

Of course, the depravity of man in a fallen world was a commonplace theme that would have been thoroughly familiar to readers from church services and sermons, and much of the religious literature of the period was also devoted to them, including many of the sermons, prayers and meditations to be found in the 11 editions of devotional works that came from England’s presses in the years 1556–57. An example is the collection

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of Spirituall exercyses and goostly meditacions printed by John Kingston for John Walley in 1557 (STC 19784), which promises on its title page to bring “religyous” readers “to the perfect loue of god, and to the contempte of the worlde.”9 In the same two-year period, a dozen works of Catholic religious polemic were printed, and these we can assume had the potential to exert as much influence on readers’ reception of the Miscellany’s few religious poems as the devotional works. Consider, for example, Miles Hogarde’s famously vehement tract, The displaying of the Protestantes and sondry their practices, with a description of diuers their abuses of late frequented within their malignaunte churche, which saw its first edition and immediately afterward a second augmented one in 1556, both printed by Robert Caly (STC 13557, 13558).10 Hogarde’s purpose in this work, he explains, “chiefly is to display the factious opinions of suche, which not only doo erre, but also continue in errour” (3v [citations are to the first edition]), and he proceeds to deride the followers of Luther, Carolstadius, Zwynglius, Oecolampadius, the Anabaptists and others, citing against them not only scripture and the fathers of the Church but an array of recent and classical authors, from Thomas Elyot to Vergil, Cicero, Plutarch, and Xenophon. Hogarde is equally wide ranging in the topics he covers: he defends clerical celibacy and condemns the “dissolute preistes” who “cared not what women thei married common or other, so they myghte get them wyues” (65v); he defends fasting, confession, and the collection of alms; and he denounces many “rioters” and “liars” and “traiters” by name, including John Poynet, John Bale and John Hooper. 9

  The work contains extracts from Nicolas van Essche’s (1507–78) Exercitia in William Peryn’s translation. Two other examples of the type include John Ledley’s Godly meditacions verye necessarie to bee sayde of all Christen men (STC 17776, 1556? [corrected STC date, 3:292]), printed by John Mychell of Canterbury, and John Harpsfield’s A notable and learned sermon made vpon saint Andrewes daye last past in the cathedral churche of S. Paul (STC 12795, 1556), printed by Robert Caly. 10   The authorship of the first edition was left anonymous. The second edition advertises that it was “Made by Myles Huggarde seruant to the Quenes maiestie” and includes a new dedication to Mary. Other Catholic polemics printed in 1556–57 include A brefe treatyse declaryng what and where the churche is, that it is knowen, and whereby it is tryed and knowen (1556; STC 5219), printed by John Cawood; a second edition of St. Vincent of Lérins’s (d. mid-fifth century) Pro catholicae fidei antiquitate, translated by John Proctor as The waie home to Christ and truth leadinge from Antichrist and errour … against the most pernitious and detestable crafte of heretikes, whiche in his tyme by all subtell wayes, deuised to obscure and deface the doctrine and religion of the vniuersall churche (1556; STC 24755), printed by Robert Caly; and John Standish’s The triall of the supremacy wherein is set fourth the vnitie of christes church militant geuen to S. Peter and his successoures by Christe: And that there ought to be one head Bishop in earth Christes Vicar generall ouer all hys churche militant: wyth answeres to the blasphemous obiections made agaynste the same in the late miserable yeres now paste (1556; STC 23211), printed by Thomas Marsh.

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But the bulk of Hogarde’s treatise is given to the defense of burning heretics (30 leaves, starting at 31v). He maintains that “sturdynes, and selfe loue, is the onely cause of the martirdomes of our martyrs” (40r), in contrast to the true martyrs of the Catholic Church such as St. Thomas of Canterbury and, more recently, John Fisher, Thomas More, and the Carthusian monks put to death in the reign of Henry VIII. “[O]ur martyrs in these dayes,” Hogarde complains, “in their life tyme go about nothinge els but to sowe sedition, either conspiracie againste their prince, and magistrates, or els to perswade the innocent with their vaine perswasions and folishe talke” (34r). Or put another way, in the phrasing of R284/M234, “These daies ben ill”; “those that seme as saintes are deuilles in their dedes.” It is possible, therefore, that when certain Marian-era readers came upon these words in Tottel’s Miscellany, the counterfeit “martyrs in these dayes” sprung immediately to mind, just as Hogarde described them. In modern histories of Mary’s reign, The displaying of the Protestantes is often cited to represent her apologists at their most cold-hearted. Most notorious of all is Hogarde’s gruesome claim that, because our heretikes wyll nedes haue their men to be taken for martyrs, some of them … gather together the burnt bones of these stynkyng martyrs, entendyng thereby … to shryne the same, or to preserue them for relykes, that at suche a tyme as when an heretike is burnt, ye shal see a route enclosing the fyer, for that purpose. And when the fyer is done they lye wallowyng like pygges in a stie to scrape in that hereticall dongehill for the sayde bones. (54r/v)

Indeed Hogarde could be ugly, as also could Thomas More in his controversial tracts that were reprinted by Tottel.11 I make this observation to suggest that there were grounds for contemporaries to associate Hogarde, Tottel and several other authors, translators, editors and printers as participants in a like project: the era’s recuperation and commemoration of Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher as the spiritual fathers of Mary’s Counter-Reformation.12 Robert Caly, for example, printed new editions of John Fisher’s 1521 sermon against Luther in 1554 and 1556 (STC 10896, 10897); Fisher’s Treatyse concernynge the fruytfull sayinges of Dauyd was reprinted in 1555 by Thomas Marsh (STC 10908); and sometime during the reign Thomas Berthelet’s shop printed the English version of Fisher’s compilation known as “The King’s Psalms” (STC 3006, the estimated date 1553–58 indicating that either Berthelet or his successor, 11

  A convenient treatment of this subject is in Fox 1982, 111–27, including the comment that in More’s controversial works “one can trace a pattern of progressive deterioration: dialogue gives way to debellation, … charity is displaced by violence” (111). 12  For recent major studies of this phenomenon, see Dillon 2002, Wizeman 2006.

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Thomas Powell, was its printer). Yet the main source for books by Thomas More in Mary’s reign was the press of Richard Tottel.13 In 1553 he printed an edition of the Dialoge of comfort against tribulacion (STC 18082), one of the works More wrote while imprisoned in the Tower; in 1556, he printed the second edition of More’s Utopia (see Chapter 1, n. 51); and in 1557, Tottel was the main printer of More’s Workes in the Englysh tonge, a collection dominated by More’s polemics, all of them on subjects that continued to be at the heart of Catholic-Protestant controversy.14 Thus, in summer 1557, the publication of Surrey’s Aeneid and 40 of his “songes and sonettes” could have been interpreted by some London book shoppers as yet further installments in the larger project of memorializing the casualties of Henry VIII’s reign in order to venerate Mary I’s. If Tottel anticipated that such a perception would help to sell copies of Surrey’s Aeneid or of the Miscellany, he took no pains to encourage it. The former volume includes no dedication or preface, and Tottel’s notice to the latter, we have seen, only extolls Surrey’s “honorable stile” for the “profit and pleasure” it can bring to the “studious of Englishe eloquence.” Likewise, if the Miscellany’s few overtly religious poems were included for their support of Catholic beliefs versus Protestant ones, one would have to conclude that their fulfillment of this aim is not obvious. Catholics could read them topically in this way, to be sure, but Protestants could just as easily read them oppositely, and either camp could simply take them as timeless expressions of lament for a corrupted world. There are and always have been “those that seme as saintes” but “are deuilles in their dedes,” always there are wolves who dress in sheep’s clothing, prompting good folk to cry out, “These daies ben ill, nothing sure is.” In sum, whatever the original intent of these poems’ authors, their messages were safely allpurpose, proving as fit to print in Elizabeth’s reign as they were in Mary’s. This point brings up the related question of how far Tottel or the Miscellany’s anonymous editor(s) needed to purge its verses of controversial religious content. Stephen Hamrick, in an essay treating 13

  There was but one of More’s works reprinted by a competitor of Tottel’s in Mary’s reign, mentioned in Chapter 2: The boke of the fayre Gentylwoman (Robert Wyer, 1556?; STC 18078.5). 14   “A Dialoge concerning heresies and matters of Religion,” defending “images” in churches (originally printed 1529, STC 18084); “The supplication of soules,” arguing for the existence of purgatory (originally printed 1529, STC 18092); “The first” and “seconde parte of the confutation of Tyndale” (originally printed 1532 and 1533 respectively, STC 18079 and 18080); “An aunswer … to a letter or litle boke that Ihon Frith made against the blessed Sacrament” (originally printed 1533, STC 18090); two works defending the Church’s traditional legal prerogatives against Christopher St. German’s writings (originally printed 1533, STC 18078 and 18081); and “A treatice vpon the blessed Sacrament of the Aulter,” which is another reply to Tyndale (originally printed 1534, STC 18077).

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of “Tottel’s Miscellany and the English Reformation” (2002), claims in one place that “the early modern editors of Tottel’s Miscellany removed many traces of the English Reformation from that text” (331); in another place, that “the early modern editor of Tottel’s Miscellany removed much in the way of Catholic imagery” from the poems (344), and in still another place, that the Miscellany “was heavily bowdlerized to remove Catholic sensibilities” (353).15 These statements seem to have their basis in Hyder Rollins’s comment that the Miscellany’s editor “exercised the functions of a censor, removing objectionable references and phrases” and making sure that “all comments on Roman Catholicism were ruthlessly struck out” (1965, 2:97). However, Rollins and Hamrick much exaggerate the known instances of the Miscellany’s censorship of poems, even though it is Rollins who lists them. They number merely five, two of which are political and two religious in nature, while the ground for the first one cited by Rollins is obscure: (1) the deletion of Wyatt’s reference to a “Kitson” in R126/M136, possibly the London sheriff Sir Thomas Kitson or the bookseller Anthony Kitson; (2) removal of Wyatt’s reference to corruption at Rome in R125/ M135;16 (3) deletion of antipapal stanzas from the epitaph for William Gray, R255/M239 (stanzas that I doubt were there; see introduction, n. 28); (4) deletion of John Heywood’s reference to Mary in R199/M168 (“complimentary though they were,” as discussed in Chapter 2); and (5) removal of a reference to the younger Wyatt in “A praise of Audley,” an anonymous poem celebrating the career achievements of a captain at Guisnes that included his helping to put down the Wyatt rebellion, R205/ M175. These instances support the view, which I accept, that Tottel desired to make the Miscellany as uncontroversial as possible, but they indicate that very little trouble had to be taken to achieve that end. “Censorship” was accomplished mainly just through the selection of poems whose messages already were “safely all-purpose.” I count among this number even the one poem in Tottel’s Miscellany that almost certainly makes topical reference to a specific political emergency in Mary’s reign. The poem, written in the sextilla stanza, is one that was added to the uncertain authors section of Q2 (R279/M229), where it has the title, “Of the troubled comon welth restored to quiet by the mighty power of god.” The fraught nature of this poem’s invocation of the Troy 15

  In the context of Hamrick’s essay, this notion of the editor’s ruthless bowdlerizing sets up the counter-claim that such efforts were not wholly successful, as Hamrick proposes to demonstrate “by piecing together the few remaining poems that record the signs of Catholic and Protestant pieties” (338). This effort is discussed in section II of this chapter. 16   Wyatt’s “Nor I ame not where Christe is geven in pray / For mony, poisen and traison at Rome, / A commune practise vsed nyght and daie” (Poems of Wyatt, CV, lines 97–9 [p. 91]) is altered in Tottel’s Miscellany to “Nor I am not, where truth is geuen in pray / For money, poyson, and treason; of some / A common practise, vsed nyght and day.”

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story to support an argument by analogy makes it especially interesting, as I shall argue. I quote it here in full to show how the author recalls details of Troy’s fall in the first half of the poem in order in the second half to assert their lesson for the present day, though as the title indicates, God this time intervened to save the “troubled comon welth” from suffering Troy’s fate. That prompts a different analogy in the last lines: the chosen people’s exodus out of Egypt. The secret flame that made all Troy so hot, Long did it lurke within the wooden horse. The machine huge Troyans suspected not, The guiles of Grekes, nor of their hidden force: Till in their beds their armed foes them met, And slew them there, and Troy on fire set. Then rose the rore of treason round about, And children could of treason call and cry. Wiues wroung their hands, the hole fired town through out, When that they saw their husbands slain them by. And to the Gods and to the skies they shright, Vengeance to take for treason of that night. Then was the name of Sinon spred and blowne, And wherunto his filed tale did tend. The secret startes and metinges then were knowne, Of Troyan traitours tending to this end. And euery man could say as in that case: Treason in Anthenor and Eneas. But all to[o] long such wisdome was in store, To[o] late came out the name of traytour than, When that their king the aultar lay before Slain there alas, that worthy noble man. Ilium on flame, the matrons crying out, And all the stretes in streames of blood about. But such was fate, or such was simple trust, That king and all should thus to ruine roon, For if our stories certein be and iust: There were that saw such mischief should be doon And warning gaue which compted were in sort, As sad deuines in matter but of sport. Such was the time and so in state it stoode, Troy trembled not so careles were the men. They brake the wals, they toke this hors for good, They demed Grekes gone, they thought al surety then. When treason start and set the town on fire,

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And stroied Troians and gaue Grekes their desire. Like to our time, wherin hath broken out, The hidden harme that we suspected least. Wombed within our walles and realme about, As Grekes in Troy were in the Grekish beast. Whose tempest great of harmes and of armes, We thought not on, till it did noyse our harmes. Then felt we well the piller of our welth, How sore it shoke, then saw we euen at hand, Ruin how she rusht to confound our helth, Our realme and vs with force of mighty band. And then we heard how treason loud did rore: Mine is the rule, and raigne I will therefore. Of treason marke the nature and the kinde, A face it beares of all humilitie. Truth is the cloke, and frendship of the minde, And depe it goes, and worketh secretly, Like to a mine that creepes so nye the wall, Till out breakes sulphure, and oreturneth all. But he on hye that secretly beholdes The state of thinges: and times hath in his hand, And pluckes in plages, and them againe vnfoldes. And hath apointed realmes to fall and stand: He in the midst of all this sturre and rout, Gan bend his browes, and moue him self about. As who should say, and are ye minded so? And thus to those, and whom you know I loue. Am I such one as none of you do know? Or know ye not that I set here aboue, And in my handes do hold your welth and wo, To raise you now, and now to ouerthrow? Then thinke that I, as I haue set you all, In places where your honours lay and fame: So now my selfe shall giue you eche your fall, Where eche of you shall haue your worthy shame. And in their handes I will your fall shalbe, Whose fall in yours you sought so sore to see. Whose wisdome hye as he the same foresaw, So is it wrought, such lo his iustice is. He is the Lord of man and of his law, Praise therefore now his mighty name in this, And make accompt that this our ease doth stand: As Israell free, from wicked Pharaos hand.

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Because a copy of this poem survives also in the Arundel Harington manuscript, and this manuscript formerly was assumed to predate Tottel’s Miscellany, Rollins guessed that it was “probably written about the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger (son of the poet),” although he noted also that one line – the last of the eighth stanza, “Mine is the rule, and raigne I will therefore” – perhaps indicates “that Lady Jane Grey’s rebellion is aimed at” (1965, 2:322).17 But we know now that Tottel’s Miscellany predates Arundel Harington and supplied the text for some of Wyatt’s poems there.18 Given also Ruth Hughey’s observation that the variants between these versions of R279/M229 are “not significant” (2:444), it seems more probable that this addition to Q2 was the source for Arundel Harington’s copy, that it was written sometime in May–July of 1557, and that it refers to the same rebellion that John Heywood condemns in his Breefe balet touching the traytorous takynge of Scarborow Castell, discussed in Chapter 2: that is, the short-lived Stafford Rebellion of April 1557, when Thomas Stafford seized Scarborough Castle and proclaimed himself duke of Buckingham and protector of the realm – or, to paraphrase him with words from the poem, “Mine is the rule, and raigne I will therefore.” Obviously, though, these very same words could be the motto for any planned coup, and the poem as a whole could apply to any rebellion. We see, in its final lines, that the author reappropriates the exodus analogy that was a favorite of Protestants for their flight from the Church of Rome, applying it instead to the safe escape of Mary’s reign from its enemies; but the analogy could just as well be reappropriated again and the poem read conversely as an outcry against some treason from which a Protestant reign might be saved. In whatever “time” it “hath broken out,” treason is a crime “Like to” that of “Anthenor and Eneas.” As simple and generic as this message is, however, the operation of the Troy analogy is not. Modern readers only familiar with the Aeneas of the Aeneid will be surprised by this poem’s representation of Vergil’s hero as a traitor to Troy. Hyder Rollins’s first note to it would only increase their confusion: “Many of the details about Troy,” he writes, “sound as if they were borrowed from Surrey’s translation of the second book of the Aeneid” (1965, 2:322). This observation would seem to suggest that the poem was composed in the month prior to Q2’s date of 31 July, for as we have seen, Surrey’s translation of Aeneid 2 had just been printed for the first time in Tottel’s edition of 21 June 1557. But that still leaves the major discrepancy of Aeneas being the hero, not a traitor, in Vergil’s poem. Rollins partially clarifies things when he acknowledges this discrepancy in his second note: “According to some accounts, Aeneas [in league 17 18

  Hughey judges the latter to be the “more likely” referent (1960, 2:444).   See the introduction to the present study, n. 21.

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with Antenor] was led by his hatred of Paris into betraying Troy to the Greeks” (ibid.). The accounts to which Rollins refers descended from the Ephemeris belli Troiani (probably written in the fourth century) and De excidio Troiae historia (fifth or sixth century), attributed to two ostensible eyewitnesses of Troy’s fall: respectively, one Dictys Cretensis, who purports to have been in the company of Idomeneus, leader of the Cretan ships that sailed to Troy in the Iliad; and Dares of Phrygia, a Trojan priest mentioned in Iliad 5. Down through the centuries of their transmission, the accounts of pseudo-Dictys and pseudo-Dares (hereafter, for convenience, I drop the “pseudo-” from their names) were elaborated, abridged, and translated in numerous redactions, such that some version of their Troy story was at least as familiar as Vergil’s to late medieval readers. That R279/M229 conflates details from different versions of Troy’s fall merits closer scrutiny than scholars have given it, especially in light of the circumstance that the “true version” of Troy’s history had surfaced as a topic of print polemic after three different accounts of it appeared on the market in 1553. In Chapter 2 one of them was mentioned, Gawin Douglas’s The .xiii. bukes of Eneados of the famose poete Virgill. Another was a new folio edition of The recuyell of the historyes of Troye, William Caxton’s translation of Raoul Le Fèvre’s Le Recueil des hystoires troyennes (fifteenth century), drawn mainly from Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troiae (thirteenth century), which was in turn a condensed version of the Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte More (twelfth century). Caxton first printed his Historyes at Bruges ca. 1475 (STC 15375); Wynkyn de Worde issued an edition and variant in 1502–3 (STC 15376, 15377); the 1553 edition was printed by William Copland (STC 15378). In this version of the tale, readers discover that “Anchises with his Sonne Eneas, and Anthenor with his sonne Polidamas went to counseyll together for to aduyse theym, how they might haue theyr liues saued agaynst the Grekes, and their goodes, and rather than fayle here of, they woulde betraye the Citie” (Bk 3, 39v). They strike a pact with Agamemnon and Ulysses to aid the Greeks after “Calcas and Crisis the preest counseyled the grekes, that they should make a greate horse of Brasse” – not wood – large enough to “holde within it a thousande knightes armed”; and Sinon, in this version, is not the fraudulent Greek who tricks the Trojans into bringing the horse within their walls but the builder of the horse itself, who “made it so subtilly that wythout no man coulde perceyue ne see entrée ne issue” (Bk 3, 43r). Aeneas and Antenor are thus the fraudulent “treatours” who advise Priam that “it shoulde be well dooen” to bring the horse inside the gates, as “it should be honour to the citie” (Bk 3, 43v). When all the Trojans are asleep, “Synon that bare the keyes of the horse” opened its doors, “and assone as they yssued out of the horse, they gaue a token of fyre to them that were in the feeldes to the end that they sholde come into the Citie for

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to put it al to destruccion” (ibid.). Aeneas and Antenor themselves lead Pyrrhus to Priam inside “the Palays of Ilion,” where Hecuba witnesses the slaying of her husband and curses Aeneas for his treachery (Bk 3, 44r). The redundant telling of the same events in two or more places, such as the Greek’s exit from the horse and opening the gates to their comrades described on fol. 43v and again on fol. 44r of Book 3, underscores that Caxton’s source truly was a recueil – a compilation of different sources – and that the job was not done seamlessly. Indeed, as we see in the following excerpt from his postface, which Copland reprinted in the 1553 edition, Caxton is somewhat defensive on this point because he knows there is little agreement between different sources. He requests “all them that shall rede this booke” not to desdaygne the simple and rude werke, nether to repli agaynst the sayinge of the maters touched in thys booke, though it accorde not vnto the translacion of other whiche haue written it, for diuerce men haue made dyuerce bookes, which in al pointes acorde not as Dictes, Dares, and Homerus, for Dictes and Homerus as Grekes sayn and writen fauorably for the Grekes, and giue to them more worship than to the Troyans. And Dares wryteth otherwise than they doo, … but all accorde in conclusion the generall destruccyon of that noble Citie of Troye, and the death of so many noble princes[.] (Bk 3, 48r)

Thomas Paynell, translator of the third account of Troy’s fall to appear in 1553, took on the more straightforward task of following a single source in The faythfull and true storye of the destruction of Troye, compyled by Dares Phrigius, which was a souldier while the siege lasted (STC 6274.5, printed by John Cawood), a version based on the French translation of Dares by Mathurin Heret (1518–85). From Paynell English readers could obtain a better understanding of Caxton’s statement that “Dares wryteth otherwise than” Dictys and Homer (not to mention Vergil), even though Dictys and Homer were not yet themselves translated, making it still necessary to infer their versions of events from redactions such as Caxton’s and brief references in other works. For although Dares agrees with Dictys that Aeneas and Antenor – along with Anchises, Polydamas and others – were “the betraiers of their countrey,” few other details in his narrative of Troy’s fall match the composite report of Le Fèvre/Caxton. For one thing, there is no Greek scheme to hide soldiers inside a giant gift horse. Instead, “the agrement” that was “appoynted” between the Trojan traitors and Greeks was that Polydamas would “bring the [Greek] hoste by night to the gate called Scea, where that withoute there was an horse heade grauen vppon the portall, and Antenor, and Anchises hauynge their Garrison there, shoulde in the nyghte open the gates to the Greekes, holdynge vp in the ayre the burning flame of fyre” to signal that the attack was begun

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(53r). As for the role of Sinon, he is the messenger who carries “a sure watche worde of Polidamas” enabling him to enter Troy and secure the oath of “Antenor, Eneas, Uealgon, Polidamas and Dolon” that they “wold deliuer vp the town” in return for the safety of “their wyues, children, frendes, familiers and neyghbours” (52v). Once the Greeks are inside Troy’s walls, Dares states that it was Antenor alone who “conueyed and brought” Pyrrhus (Paynell uses his other name, “Neoptolemus”) “into the kinges palace,” but instead of killing the king there Pyrrhus “pursued and chast Priamus” all the way to “the temple of Iupiter Herceus, where he at the last kilde hym,” while Hecuba, “fliyng with Polixena,” is reported to have “met Eneas, and delyuered her [daughter] vnto his kepinge, whome he set in his father Anchises house” (53v). Two years later, in 1555, the next history of Troy’s fall to appear in English was a large folio edition of John Lydgate’s Troy Book in rhyming couplets, printed by John King and Henry Sutton for Thomas Marsh (STC 5880). The title page of this edition declares the determination of its Marian editor, Robert Braham, to set the Troy record straight once and for all: Lydgate’s version is “advertised” as the “onely trewe and syncere Cronicle of the warres betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans.” Yet in the same breath, it is admitted that Lydgate’s source was exactly that of Caxton’s by way of Le Fèvre: the Latin Historia destructionis Troiae of “Guydo de Columpnis.” Hence the versions of Lydgate and Caxton agree in nearly every detail. Braham nevertheless, in his preface, insists on the superior historical authenticity of Lydgate’s poem. He dismisses the accounts by “Homer, Vergyle, Ouyde, and others,” who have “hytherto ben holden as chiefest reporters of that hystorye,” because the “affection” of these authors “towardes theyr countreythemen” and their “breakynge out” into “poetycall fictions” has resulted in a history “so peruerted: that the verye trouthe therof is not to be had in theyr dygestes.” Poor Caxton’s Recuile is then dismissed utterly. Braham asks, if a man studyouse of that historye, should seke to fynde the same in the doynges of Wyllyam Caxton in his leawde recueil of Troye: what shoulde he then fynde thyncke you? assuredlye none other thynge, but a longe tedious and brayneles bablyng, tendyng to no ende, nor hauyng any certayne begynnynge: but proceadynge therin as an ydyot in his follye, that can not make an ende tyll he be bydden. … [W]hych Caxtons recueil, who so lyst wyth iudgement peruse, shall rather thyncke his doynges worthye to be numbred amongest the trifelinge tales and barrayne luerdries of Robyn Hode, and Beuys of Hampton, then remaine as a monument of so worthy an history. (A2r)

Inexplicably, Braham seems not only unaware that Caxton and Lydgate ultimately shared the same source material and told the same story, but

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insensible of Lydgate’s own penchant for writing “tedious” narratives “tendyng to no ende.” Braham also is worse informed than Caxton about “the faythful and trew reporters of that historye … Daretus the Phrigyan, and Dytus the Grecyan,” whom he believes were “syncerelye and pythely digested” by “the lerned and dylygent Guydo of Columpna” into one truthful narrative (A2r). As we saw, Caxton knew at least by report that Dares and Dictys by no means “hooly” agree. But neither do the accounts of Dictys and Guido match in many significant details. Dictys, for example, reports that Helenus, one of Priam’s sons who turned traitor, gave the Greeks instructions for building the horse, and that Epeus and Ajax, son of Oileus, oversaw its construction, while the “material” that was used to build it is never specified.19 In Guido’s Historia, it is the priest Chryseis who advises the Greeks to build “a great horse of bronze.”20 The contention over whose chronicle of Troy’s fall is the “trewe and syncere” one in these books supplies, I suggest, even more useful context for interpreting R279/M229 than the identification of the specific rebellion that prompted it. Its author, we see, mixes details from the conflicting accounts: the tale of “Treason in Anthenor and Eneas” belongs to Dares and Dictys, not to Homer or Vergil, but Sinon’s “filed tale” clearly refers to his imposture in the Aeneid as an escaped Greek prisoner who begs the Trojans for their pity and tells them the lie of Calchas’s prophecy. The Greeks, moreover, are hidden within a “wooden horse,” as in Homer and Vergil, not a bronze (or “coper” or “brasse”) horse. One might assume that these various details from different sources were simply muddled in the author’s memory, but I think he provides a strong enough clue that he deliberately combined them, knowing full well that the narrative of Troy’s fall was a matter of dispute, when he comments, with what can only be ironic innocence, that “if our stories certein be and iust,” there were some among the Trojans who gave unheeded warning of the treachery in their midst. It would not have been possible for this author to have written this poem, with its idiosyncratic conflation of details from different recently printed sources, without his being aware that “our stories” of Troy’s history are anything but “certain” and “iust.” What, then, might we make of this winking acknowledgement? A tempting construal, insofar as it is one that appeals to our partiality 19

  See for example the text at 5.9: “itaque ut Heleno placuerat, multa materies, quae huiusmodi fabricae videbatur, per Epium atque Aiacem Oilei advecta” (Eisenhut 1973). The understanding that the horse was made of wood has become so much a matter of common knowledge that the modern translator of Dictys supplies the word “wood” in this passage and, in another place, the phrase “wooden horse” (Frazer 1966, 110, 112). 20   “Post sacrificium uero factum sacerdos Crisis maioribus Grecorum exercitus consuluit in secreto ut fieri faciant in similitudinem equi quendam magnum equum ereum vt in eo possent saltem mille milites constipari” (Griffin 1936, 230).

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for subversive subtexts, is that the poem’s aim is to undermine its own argument-by-analogy in order to imply something other than its dutifully obedient, “God save the Queen” surface message. That Antenor and Aeneas were traitors is in fact far from “certein,” so we cannot so blithely assert that this is a precedent “Like to our time.” If we question also whether our Troy stories be “iust,” that raises the stakes still higher, because applying these stories “to our time,” as this poem does, could then only put into question the official narrative of Stafford’s (or some other’s) rebellion, which for all we know maligns true patriots, as some sources say Antenor and Aeneas truly were in their time. I would not myself argue for this interpretation of the poem’s message. The irony of the phrase “if our stories certein be and iust” is not so potent that it ironizes the poet’s overall thesis that treason and rebellion are blameworthy at any time in history. On the other hand, the author has revealed an unsimple understanding of the rhetorical argument in which he is engaged and of the matter that he has marshaled for it. Like other readers of books about Troy’s fall, he has accumulated conflicting information about the event, such that he cannot confidently sort out what is “faythful and trew” from that which has been corrupted by “poetycall fiction” or personal bias. He therefore registers his awareness of the uncertain, even “unjust” nature of the Troy stories that are in circulation, but that awareness hardly prohibits him from using these stories as others have used them for centuries: to draw general parallels, to bolster arguments. No version of Troy’s fall can give guarantee of its historical validity, but this poet does assert the logical validity of his own, for it is a narrative of events that can be seen “Like [enough] to our time.” That assertion must nevertheless be taken on faith, in light of the poet’s resolutely vague description of the rebellion he refers to in “our time.” A “hidden harme” broke out, he says, “Wombed within our walles and realme about”; “then saw we euen at hand, / Ruin how she rusht to confound our helth, / Our realme and vs with force of mighty band.” These lines are as close to concrete as he gets, and so this poem that began with specificity in the recital of an analogue ends up being sufficiently abstract about “the thing itself” to leave it open to debate which rebellion is “aimed at” (quoting Rollins’s phrase again), which is to say also that the poem can just as well refer to any of the failed rebellions from which God delivered a “troubled common welth.” In this respect, R279/M229 is like most other poems in Tottel’s Miscellany – those that are written in the voices of despairing lovers, disillusioned courtiers, and sage moralists whose words seem less a passionate response to real-life experiences than a composition exercise written to particular textual prompts. This promptand-reply, proposta-risposta, or what Marquis terms the “dialogic” quality of many of the Miscellany’s verses was first previewed in Chapter 2. In the

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remaining two sections of this chapter, I investigate it more thoroughly in order to develop my argument for the role of young law students in helping Tottel not only to compile an English verse miscellany, but to articulate his ambitions for it. II. Wearers of “the Lawrell leafe” In the introduction to his edition of the Q2 text of the Miscellany, Paul Marquis points out that the revised content and organization of this version were intended to emphasize the “dialogic exchange” between poems, with some moved to new places and others added so that more poems in Q2 are “answered” than in Q1 (2007, liii). For my own part, I define this exchange in a more restricted sense than does Marquis, for I see it ordinarily manifesting itself in pairs of poems here and there in the volume, only rarely in a cluster of three or four. I am not persuaded that one can “stand back from the entire text of Q2,” as Marquis encourages, and discern larger groups of poems participating in “trajectories” (ibid.). Yet his point that Q1 does first exemplify these dialogic exchanges between poems is an essential one, for not only was this a dimension of the Miscellany that its editor-printer could decide to accentuate. It was also one that the Miscellany’s readers could decide to accentuate, if they were “studious” enough of “Englishe eloquence” and inspired sufficiently by Q1’s example to contribute new response poems or new pairs of promptresponse poems. I review first Tottel’s organizational changes toward this aim, starting with his repositioning of an anonymous poem in reply to one of Surrey’s (RM26). In Q1 and 2, the poem by Surrey is titled “A carelesse man scorning and describing the suttle vsage of women towarde their louers,” which begins with the line, “Wrapt in my carelesse cloke, as I walke to and fro.” Later in Q1’s uncertain authors section is a poem titled “Of the dissembling louer” (R243), which starts: “Girt in my giltlesse gowne as I sit here and sow.” In fact, in its place in Q1, this poem already provides a fitting reply to the poem that precedes it, titled “Of the sutteltye of craftye louers” (R242). But clearly, soon after Q1 was printed, Tottel recognized or was told its specific, intended match, for in Q2 the poem is moved into the section of Surrey’s poems and given the new title, “An answer in the behalfe of a woman of an vncertain aucthor.” Similarly, the poem titled “A comfort to the complaynt of Thestilis” in Q1 (R234) is companion to a poem printed 11 leaves before it, “The complaint of Thestilis amid the desert wodde” (R201); in Q2, the “comfort” is moved to follow the “complaynt” (M170, 171). Also, R261 in Q1, “An answere to a song before imprinted beginnyng. To walke on doutfull grounde,” referring

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to R178 over 70 leaves before it, appears together with its mate in Q2 (M247, 248).21 In Chapter 2 the two anonymous poems that were added to Q2 in reply to others printed in Q1 were discussed: the second epitaph for “maister Henry williams” (R289/M242) and the mocking “answer” (R290/M246) to “Against a gentlewoman by whom he was refused” (R254/M245). In the expanded uncertain authors section of Q2 we also discover a new pair of companion poems. The first, titled “The complaint of a hot woer, delayed with doutfull cold answers,” is followed by an “answer” from the hot wooer’s beloved that proves her to be not so cold after all. I first quote the opening and closing lines of his poem: A kinde of coale is as men say, Which haue assaied the same: That in the fire will wast away, And outward cast no flame. Vnto my self may I compare, These coales that so consume: Where nought is sene though men do stare, In stede of flame but fume. They say also to make them burne, Cold water must be cast: Or els to ashes will they turne, And half to sinder wast. As this is wonder for to se, Cold water warme the fire, So hath your coldnesse caused me, To burne in my desire. ........................ Which heat is stint when I do striue, To haue some ease sometime: But flame a fresh I do reuive, Whereby I cause to clime. In stede of smoke a sighing breath: with sparkes of sprinkled teares, That I should liue this liuyng death, Which wastes and neuer weares. (R287/M237)

21   Two other poems whose original sequence in Q1 is changed are R263/M36, which is separated from the other additional poems by Surrey in Q1 but follow Surrey’s others in tribute to Wyatt in Q2 (M33–5), and R82/M255, the poem assigned to Wyatt in Q1 but moved to the uncertain authors section in Q2.

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The beloved then replies, cleverly extending the wooer’s “hot coals” metaphor to the art of blacksmithing so as to recommend to him that he forge, from the fire of his sighs and water of his tears, a “key” or some such other suggestive object that would facilitate his success. The result, I believe, is the Miscellany’s one truly bawdy ballad. It merits quoting in full, partly for that reason, partly because this pair of companion poems will figure again in the story of John Hall, coming up in the final section of this chapter. Your borrowd meane to moue your mone, of fume withouten flame Being fet from smithy smokyng coale: ye seme so by the same. To shew, what such coales vse is taught by such as haue assayd, As I, that most do wish you well, am so right well apayd. That you haue such a lesson learnd, how either to maintaine, Your fredome of vnkindled coale, vpheaped all in vaine: Or how most frutefully to frame, with worthy workmans art, That cunnyng pece may passe there fro, by help of heated hart. Out of the forge wherin the fume of sighes doth mount aloft, That argues present force of fire to make the metall soft, To yelde vnto the hammer hed, as best the workman likes. That thiron glowyng after blast in time and temper strikes. Wherin the vse of water is, as you do seme to say, To quenche no flame, ne hinder heat, ne yet to wast away: But, that which better is for you, and more deliteth me, To saue you from the sodain waste, vaine cinderlike to be. Which lastyng better likes in loue, as you your semble ply, Then doth the bauen blase, that flames and fleteth by and by. Sith then you know eche vse, wherin your coale may be applide: Either to lie and last on hoord, in open ayre to bide, Withouten vse to gather fat by fallyng of the raines, That makes the pitchy iucye to grow, by sokyng in his veines, Or lye on fornace in the forge, as is his vse of right, Wherein the water trough may serue, and enteryeld her might By worke of smithes both hand and hed a cunnyng key to make, Or other pece as cause shall craue and bid him vndertake: Do as you deme most fit to do, and wherupon may grow, Such ioy to you, as I may ioy your ioyfull case to know. (R288/M238)

This splendid piece of sauciness is one of two poems added to Q2 – the other is the mocking answer to R290/M246, quoted in the previous chapter and mentioned again above – that to my mind peg the Miscellany’s contemporary contributors as a tight circle of young wits, full of piss and vinegar and drawn to mischief, but earnest enough about the artistry

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of their “dialogic exchanges” to take the time and trouble to craft, for example, 28 lines of rhyming couplets in iambic fourteeners. Perhaps we can go further and detect in the content of one or two other poems that their contributors were not just young wits in general but law students. A candidate to my mind is R299/M259, another of the anonymous poems added to Q2. In the second chapter’s survey of verse forms, this 15-line poem was mentioned as one that seems to allude to the English sonnet form, having the rhyme scheme abab baba babab cc. It differs also from other sonnets in the Miscellany in having a woman as the speaker, a victim of rape and murder: A cruell Tiger all with teeth bebled, A bloody tirantes hand in eche degre, A lecher that by wretched lust was led, (Alas) deflowered my virginitee. And not contented with this villanie, Nor with thoutragious terrour of the dede, With bloody thirst of greater crueltie: Fearing his haynous gilt should be bewrayled, By crying death and vengeance openly, His violent hand forthwith alas he layed Vpon my guiltles sely childe and me, And like the wretch whom no horrour dismayde, Drownde in the sinke of depe iniquitie: Misusing me the mother for a time, Hath slaine vs both for cloking of his crime.

This poem strikes me as something inspired by a mooting exercise in which students were tasked to determine the precise number and nature of the “bloody tirantes” crimes. The ambiguity is in the timing of his laying “violent hand” on the woman he raped. On one hand, her testimony that he did so “Vpon my guiltles sely childe and me,” naming the child first, implies the child has been born; but on the other hand, her testimony of his motive – “Fearing his hayanous gilt should be bewrayled” – seems to suggest that he murdered her before her pregnancy was far advanced, the better “for cloking of his crime.” Hence the pivotal question: was this “mother for a time” a mother long enough for the defendant to be guilty of one murder or two? This particular problem could have suggested itself to a bencher for the students’ deliberation following a recent event reported in Henry Machyn’s diary: “The xxvii day of May [1557] at after-none was a woman grett with chyld was slayne gohyng in Fynsbere feld with hosband with a narow shott in the neke, the wyche she was a puterer[’s]

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wyff.”22 Here, too, one must ask: was he who shot the fatal arrow guilty of one murder or two? For guidance on the matter, students could consult a law primer such as William Stanford’s Les plees del coron, one of the texts printed by Tottel that year (STC 23219). It is explained there that one who strikes a pregnant woman and causes her to lose her child, if the child is “formed” and “animate,” is guilty of homicide.23 On that criterion, then, the verdict would hinge. Even if the deceased speaker of R299/M259 was not yet “grett with chyld” like the pewterer’s wife, so long as her fetus was “formed” and “animate” the defendant would be guilty of rape and double homicide. Another seeming clue is R193/M162 and its handwritten continuation in the margin of one of the surviving copies of Q3. The printed lines are as follows: A student at his boke so plast, That welth he might haue wonne: From boke to wife did flete in haste, From wealth to wo to runne. Now, who hath plaied a feater cast, Since iuglyng first begoon? In knittyng of him selfe so fast, Him selfe he hath vndoon.

Rollins transcribes a second eight-line stanza written in “the margin of the Rosenbach copy of C,” a copy of Q3 that remains privately owned, “in a hand about as old as the copy itself” (1965, 2:271): gooe feede thie fylthie lustes wth venus fylthie flames I loue the lawe and muste I care not for suche dames gooe tosse thy ladyes trayne let me aplye my bookes and see what thowe shalt gayne when I gayne silluer hookes.

Silken thread and silver hooks normally referred to the tricks that wiley women used to lure and hook husbands. It seems to me plausible that 22

  Machyn’s Diary, 136.   Si sit aliquis qui mulierem pregnantem percusserit, vel venenum dederit, per quod fecerit abortiuum: si puerperium iam formatum vel animatum fuerit, et maxime si animatum: facit homicidium (STC 23219, 12v). 23

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these lines were either written by an actual law student, one with a sense of humor about society’s perception that lawyers win arguments and advance themselves through trickery, or by someone reflecting that perception by this joke at lawyers’ expense. If the former, this copy of the Miscellany was one owned by a versifying mid-Tudor law student such as I have conjectured; if the latter, it may suggest a general awareness at the time that the Miscellany contained verses written by students at the Inns of Court, as opposed to students at the universities, which consequently prompted this satirical second stanza. It is, moreover, the particular nature of the dialogic poems in the Miscellany that imply to me their composition by law students. In the Italian miscellanies, the proposta and risposta poems are written by named individuals who follow strict rules of epistolary decorum and poetic form; what we see in the Miscellany’s verses is fictive role-playing, minidramas between a dead husband and his widow, a lover and beloved, an unlucky lover and his refuser or a mocking friend or rival; or put another way, these poems are fun mini-mooting exercises, mini-arguments in utramque partem in which young law students marshal their eloquence for recreation. Of course, we may assume that such literary gamesmanship has a history as long as literary history, and again, the example of Surrey’s poem in response to Heywood’s in Q1 shows that the uncertain authors who contributed to the Miscellany were helping Tottel to accentuate an existing feature of the Henrician poems, not introducing one unique to law students. Wyatt, too, gives us an example of such exchange even within a single poem in Q1, with a final authorial line stating what readers should take from it: Louer. It burneth yet, alas, my hartes desire. Lady. What is the thing, that hath inflamde thy hert? Lo. A certain point, as feruent, as the fyre. La. The heate shall cease, if that thou wilt conuert. Lo. I cannot stoppe the feruent raging yre. La. What may I do, if thy self cause thy smart? Lo. Heare my request, alas, with weping chere. La. With right good wyll, say on: lo, I thee here. Lo. That thing would I, that maketh two content. La. Thou sekest, perchance, of me, that I may not. Lo. Would go, thou wouldst, as thou maist, well assent. La. That I may not, the24 grief is mine: God wot. Lo. But I it fele, what so thy wordes haue ment. La. Suspect me not: my wordes be not forgot. 24

  the] Q2, correction of thy in Q1.

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Lo. Then say, alas: shall I haue help? or no. La. I see no time to answer, yea, but no. Lo. Say ye, dere hart: and stand no more in dout. La. I may not grant a thing, that is so dere. Lo. Lo, with delayes thou dreiues me still about. La. Thou wouldst my death: it plainly doth appere. Lo. First, may my hart his bloode, and life blede out. La. Then for my sake, alas, thy will forbere. Lo. From day to day, thus wastes my life away. La. Yet, for the best, suffer some small delay. Lo. Now, good, say yea: do once so good a dede. La. If I sayd yea: what should therof ensue? Lo. An hart in pain of succour so should spede, Twixt yea, and nay, my doute shall styll renew. My swete, say yea: and do away this drede. La. Thou wilt nedes so: be it so: but then be trew. Lo. Nought would I els, nor other treasure none. Thus, hartes be wonne, by loue, request and mone. (R109/ M113)

For the group of law students whom I take to have been Tottel’s collaborators, this poem by Wyatt raises two questions at once. First, what for them was the special appeal of this dialogic dimension that the Miscellany modeled? And secondly, Seth Lerer’s question: “What does it mean to be love’s martyr” – with a heart that “burneth” with “feruent fire,” as the Lover above complains is his fate – “in the summer of the martyrs’ fires?” (2010, 89). Lerer asks a follow-up question that can be quoted here also, now that the relevant passage from Hogarde’s Displaying of the Protestantes has been provided (in the previous section of this chapter): “What does it mean to take this old, Petrarchan imagery of suffering and read it in an age of Hogarde’s ‘stinking martyrs’?” We have non-trivial answers to these questions. Crucially, to be a martyr to love – pierced by Cupid’s arrow, racked by Venus, and burned in flames of hot desire – means not to be tortured and burned as a religious martyr. The bleak reality of the executions, the screams and stink wafting from nearby Smithfield, would make, one would expect, any kind of imaginative space in which martyrdom is but fanciful a welcome enclave, but there is a critical parallel between this Petrarchan space and that of the Inns’ practice courtrooms. In the latter setting, evidence is marshaled, precedents are cited, cases are argued, and there are winners and losers, but no one is fined, no one is sentenced to prison, no one loses his property or his head. Comparably, in the Miscellany’s love poems, heavily loaded religious language is deployed without commitment or consequences:

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whether it is used to give expression to the powerful disturbances in one’s heart or to parrot or parody such expressions, it is understood as but intramural eloquence practice or recreational pastime, not taking sides in a lethal Catholic-Protestant debate. In writing and reading this poetry, no one’s soul is at stake and no one will be burned at the stake. Consider the unattractive alternatives: the sort of poetry that law students in their twenties wanted nothing to do with in Mary’s reign. The first samples are from the pen of a lawyer in his thirties, Bartholomew a.k.a. Bartlet Green of the Inner Temple, put to death in 1556. As Henry Machyn records, on the “xx[v]ii day of January whent in-to Smythfeld to berne betwyn vii and viii in the mornyng v men and ii women; on[e] of the men was a gentyllman of the ender tempull, ys nam master Gren; and they wer all bornyd by ix at iii postes.”25 Two poems by Green, expressing a condemned man’s fatalism, are introduced and quoted as follows in John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments.26 These verses were written in a boke of master Husseys of the Temple. Behold thy selfe by me, suche one was as I thou: And thou in tyme shalt be, euen dust as I am now. Bartlet Grene. These verses were also written in a boke of master william Fletewodes of the same house. My resting roade is founde, vayne hope and happe adew: Loute whom you list with chaunge death shall me ryd from you. Bartlet Grene.

In reporting these poems by Green, Foxe attests to a practice that we take for granted: law students and benchers in the Inns of Court kept copybooks into which they entered each others’ verses. But clearly, if there were any other Protestant-leaning law students besides Thomas Norton who contributed to Tottel’s Miscellany, they had no more desire than he had to write poems of this sort or to die as Bartlet Green did.

25 26

  Machyn’s Diary, 99.   The first edition, printed 1563 (STC 11222), here quoting 1465.

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Nor, as Foxe reports in a summary of Green’s tenure in the Inner Temple, did Green want any more to do with them, after having first fallen in with the frivolous habits of the Inns’ students but then grown out of them. In Foxe’s words, when Green “was placed in the temple at London, there to attayne to the knowledge of the commen lawes of the Realme,” he at first “continued still in his former study and earnest profession of the gospel.” How be it (such is the frayltie of our corrupte nature, without the speciall ayde and assistance of Gods holy spirit) through the continuall accompaning and fellowship of such worldly (I wil not say to[o] much youthful) yonge Gentilmen, as are commenly in that and the like houses, he became by litle and lytle an imitator of many of theyr fond folyes and youthfull vanities, aswel in his apparrel as also in banketinges and other superfluous excesses, which he afterward (being agayne called by gods mercyful correction) did sore lamente[.]27

Foxe paints a familiar picture of student life at the Inns; and indeed, a little over a year after Green’s execution, the governors of the four Inns determined collectively to address this problem of their students’ fond follies, youthful vanities, and superfluous excesses. At a parliament of the Middle Temple held on 12 May 1557, it was “Ordered, that none of the Company after the end of May shall wear breeches of any light colour nor use coifs of English lawn, velvet caps, scarfs, or ‘whynges’ in their study gowns.”28 Then at the next meeting on 25 June, a report was read of more detailed “orders made 22 June to be observed by the four Houses of Court”: “That none of the Companies, except Knights or Benchers, from 30 September next, shall wear in their doublets or hose any light colour except scarlet and crimson, or wear any upper velvet cap, or any scarf or wing in their gowns”; “That none of the said Companies, when in commons, shall wear Spanish cloak, sword and buckler, or rapier”; and finally, “That none of the said Companies, under the degree of a Knight, being in commons, shall wear a beard above three weeks growing.”29 These strictures are repeated in the black books of Lincoln’s Inn and the Inner Temple’s records, and presumably they were entered also in the records of Gray’s Inn from this period, now lost.30

27

  Ibid., 1458. Foxe bases this summary on Green’s own account of his experiences at the Temple in a letter written to his friends while he was imprisoned at Newgate (Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS. 260, 63r–4r, printed in Actes and Monuments 1563, 1465–6). 28   Middle Temple Records, 1:110. 29   Ibid., 1:111–12. 30   See Lincoln’s Black Books, 1: 320 (fols. 317–18); Inner Temple Records, 1:192–3.

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They are illuminating, too, in another respect – especially the orders against the wearing of beards, Spanish cloaks or velvet caps, swords, rapiers or bucklers. In March 1557, as we know, Philip and his court had returned to London, and once more their presence was causing commotions in the palace and in the streets. Evidently, the young bucks at the Inns of Court were imitating the sophisticated fashions of the Spanish courtiers, causing the Inns’ governors to be concerned that their charges were playing at being worldly dandies instead of buckling down to their studies. Undoubtedly they were mimicking the Spanish courtiers also by writing Petrarchan poetry, if they really needed any more encouragement in this direction. Neither of these forms of play-acting – the donning of a courtly style of dress or of a courtly style of verse – should be misinterpreted as evidence that law students harbored ambitions to fashion themselves into real-live courtiers by such means. It is the fun of play-acting, and not least its “reallife” inconsequentiality, that give it value. On the other end of the spectrum from Bartholomew Green’s two epitaphal poems quoted above is John Heywood’s Spider and the Flie, a murky legalistic allegory of England’s religious and political turmoil spanning two or more decades. As was noted in Chapter 2, this is a 100-chapter “parable,” filling 228 quarto pages in the only known edition (STC 13308, printed by Thomas Powell in 1556), and although it is indisputably Heywood’s major poetic achievement in Mary’s reign, it is also famously bad. Even before Heywood had died, a mocking reference to it appeared in William Harrison’s Description of England printed with Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (first edition 1577). Harrison’s chapter on “venemous beasts” has an aside noting that there is “one” in England who “hath made a booke of the spider and the flie, wherein he dealeth so profoundlie, and beyond all measure of skill, that neither he himselfe that made it, neither anie one that readeth it, can reach vnto the meaning thereof.”31 The obscurity of much of the poem’s allegory may be attributed to Heywood having started the poem in Henry VIII’s reign but not finishing it until Mary’s, such that the most penetrating interpretations have come from scholars treating of particular episodes in light of discrete events or political situations rather than from those who have ventured keys to the whole.32 After the narrator tells of watching a fly “fall in the spiders copweb” at his window in chapter 1, the parable proper starts in chapter 2 with the fly taking 26 stanzas to voice his despair (“Alas, alas, alas and

31

  Quoted from the 1587 edition (rpt. Holinshed’s Chronicles, 1:385).   A convenient summary of these interpretations is in Johnson 1970, 58–68, but see also the more recent remarks on the problem in Henderson 1999 and Hunt 2009. 32

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welawaie” [A3r33]) and to declare against “the propertie of Fortune, and of his owne estate past and presente” (quoting the chapter title [A2v]). With the arrival of the spider, the fly begs for a just hearing of his appeal to be let free: I hope ye will do iustice, suche As may with this iust iustice ioin iustly, In mine accounte your wisdome is to muche, To blot or blur your fame, for any flie, Whereby I stand in trust assuredly, Iust iudgement in this matter, now to haue And other thing then that, I do none craue. (D2r)

The spider agrees – “Thou shalt have iustice, though I susteyn lossis, / As reasonably may stand, for thy defence, / In reason, lawe, custome, and conscience” (D3r) – and a trial eventually begins, wherein (quoting chapter 11’s title) “the spider chargeth the flie, first with burglarie, which the flie answereth vnto: than the spider chargeth him with single felony, which the flie reasoneth vnto” (E2v). At last the spider hits upon the more appropriate charge of “trespass,” but the fly again defends himself so persuasively that to resolve the dispute both parties agree to “move to arbitrament.” In chapter 28 the spider calls in an ant; the fly appoints a butterfly. There is, I submit, some charm in the legalistic wrangling of Heywood’s parable. The table of contents synopsizes this feature nicely, so I quote here the summary of chapter 25: The flie cleymeth all hooles in all windowes to be flies in freeholde: and that spiders should builde by the sides or in the toppes: which case to be tride by law or custome, they in maner agree: but the flie mouing it to be tride at the comon law, the spider refuseth it. wherevpon ariseth matter of digression, in which the flie commendeth the spider for expedite heringe herof, briefly definyng the properties of iustice, mercie, and tirannie. (frontmatter B1r/v)

Yet, undeniably, the charm wears thin. Twenty-five chapters later, after protracted debates between the ant and butterfly on the nature of the allowable evidence and determination of each party’s honesty, the “brief effect” of the arbiters’ report is “That in as much as on both sides the euidence is one, and that the credence is one, by thonestie being one, they two can (in reason) no waie trie howe to laye thaccustomed right 33   The poem begins on a new A-signature after the front matter ending on C4r and a woodcut of the narrator observing a fly headed toward the spiderweb on C4v.

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more on thone side then on thother, they finallie leaue the case euen at libertie, as they founde it” (frontmatter B3r/v). At this midpoint in the tale, if readers do not trudge into the second half with undiminished enthusiasm, they might be forgiven. I wrap up my summary. The law having failed, other flies and spiders enter the scene en masse and prepare to settle the matter by war. During preparations for the first battle and afterward there are many more opportunities for long orations: the ant, for example, is captured by the flies and sentenced to death, but he is allowed to plead his neutrality; the spider’s wife and children beseech him “on knees” to make peace with the flies. Eventually a truce is struck, and for many chapters we are returned to the original situation of the fly and spider in mutual debate, which reaches a conclusion only when the spider asserts his advantage as imprisoner and “allegeth custom to be hys warrant to distroy the flie” (frontmatter C2v). Then, in chapter 89, “As the spider is about to kill the flie, the mayde of the hous commeth in and striketh downe the copweb and the spider to the ground” (ibid.). Queen Mary, of course, is the “mayde,” and after killing the spider with her foot she convenes a meeting of 12 spiders and 12 flies (some say representing Protestants and Catholics, others the two houses of Parliament) and lectures them on not disturbing the social order. I quote two of her 19 stanzas: This auncient order (in few woordes) here geeuene, Is all that I are: in you to be vsed. In lacke wherof, an all sorow you are dreeuene. In vse therof, in solace you in clused, Mysorder: bringing you thus confused, Let order: by your leauing of misorder, Quietnesse on your sides, and all sides forder. By order (from misorder) you to redeeme, (from sorowes of all sorts tosolace so sorted,) Is cause of my cuming. Not by meanes extreeme, But by most milde meanes: that maie be imported: In order to set you: and se you comforted To kepe order. Wherin you obeying mee, We may liue in loue all: eche in his degree. (2R1r/v)

The poem ends with the maid giving the window and casement a good cleaning with her broom, and in the conclusion the narrator praises her diligent hoousewifery and offers a parting prayer of thanksgiving to Queen Mary and King Philip.

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I think it improbable that students at the Inns of Court esteemed any more than others The Spider and the Flie, whether they were the serious ones preparing for their future professions or the resident dabblers who were there for the social scene. It is, like the longest, most taxing days of actual legal training, too long and tedious. Besides that, for any lawyer or law student who made it to the end or skipped to the end, it is a poem with a very dispiriting message. However murky Heywood’s allegory is at most points, the poem’s allegorical mode itself is thinly veiled: at every stage, Heywood is invoking some one or another dire event, such as a treason trial or a rebellion; the threat of bloodshed in the first half of the book turns eventually to real bloodshed in the second half; and in the end, whether he meant to or not, Heywood attests to the ultimate irrelevance of the law, for it is the monarch as dea ex machina who appears suddenly on the scene and resolves the matter. Oblivious to the details of the preceding dispute, she merely kills the spider and knocks down the fly and cobweb. Not by the legal process is “order” maintained, says she with her violence and words, but by “you obeying mee.” To Tottel’s Miscellany one turns for an alternative to the poetry of Marian martyrs and Marian apologists. There, the moralistic, political and religious verses are safely formulaic, while in the love poetry, tortures are insistently metaphorical, suffering is always hyperbolic. It is in these respects that my view of the Miscellany’s contemporary relevance runs counter to that of scholars who see in certain poems, or in the order of their compilation by Tottel, covertly Catholic or Protestant messages. Paul Marquis does not quite make such a claim, but he does come very close in his interpretation of the abridgement and relocation of Nicholas Grimald’s section of poems in Q2. In particular, Marquis calls attention to the three poems by Grimald that Tottel placed at the very end of the volume: “The death of Zoroas, Egiptian Astronomer, in the first fight, that Alexander had with the Persians” (R165/M278, based on the Alexandreis of Philippe Gualter de Châtillon); “Marcus Tullius Ciceroes death” (R166/M279, a translation of a Latin original by Theodore Beza); and lastly, “Of M. T. Cicero” (R167/M280, also Beza’s). By means of this new arrangement, Marquis claims, Tottel “ensures that the reader focuses” on poems by “an active participant in the Reformation [i.e. Beza]” and effectively “urges the reader to admire and appreciate the courageous resolve of classical figures that chose the honorable path of martyrdom instead of a life of subjection to the forces of oppression,” thereby “anticipat[ing] Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1563), which emphasizes the triumphs of faith of the Protestant martyrs.”34

34

  Marquis 2007, liii–liv, an argument advanced earlier in Marquis 2000.

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Tottel does not indicate that these poems are translations, let alone that they are Beza’s, but even if he had I would interpret the significance of their placement differently.35 To start with, in their verse forms, “The death of Zoroas[ter]” and the long poem on “Ciceroes death” are paying tribute to Surrey. They are, as Chapter 2 noted, the Miscellany’s only two poems written in the blank verse that Surrey introduced to English in his Aeneid translations, an edition of which had just been printed by Tottel on 21 June 1557. Likewise, if the eulogies for Cicero in the last two poems have contemporary relevance, they would seem to be again vehicles for honoring Surrey, who like Cicero was an unwilling victim of factional power politics. Hardly did either one willingly “cho[o]se the honorable path of martyrdom.” Thus Q2 was rearranged so that it ends with the focus returned to its beginning, on “the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward, late Earle of Surrey,” who lives on in his poetry and in the world’s praises just as “Tullie liues, and styll alyue shall bee” through his writings (R167/ M280). Moreover, as befits the verses of a university man, these last three pay tribute to the importance of scholars and scholarship – generally, and Grimald’s specifically. Alexander the Great, wise ruler that he is, refuses to engage with Zoroaster in battle because he will not be the one to rob the world of such wisdom. He withdraws to another part of the field, therefore, leaving Zoroaster to be slain by Meleager and “a hole route” of common “souldiours,” who “all in peeces hewed the silly seg.” The vulgar crowd has never valued learning. So likewise “stern Herennius,” after beheading Cicero, “off smyte” the hands with which Cicero had written his many learned works. Those readers who responded to Tottel’s promise that they would derive “pleasure and profit” from the “statel[y] stile” of the Miscellany’s verses might well be moved by Cicero’s cruel fate to seek out some of his learned works, such as his book On Duties, translated by Nicholas Grimald and just recently printed by Richard Tottel. In other words, I do suspect that Tottel’s decision to move these poems to the end of Q2 was spurred by marketing considerations and the desire to extol two models of eloquence, Surrey and Cicero, not by martyrs. The thesis that Tottel’s Miscellany “incorporated poetry that did ‘comment’ upon Catholicism, Protestantism, and the English Reformation” is argued with most conviction by Stephen Hamrick in an essay cited earlier in this chapter (2002, here quoting 330). His study opens with a series of attractively provocative claims, such as that the Miscellany “provides a key site at which to read the cultural impact of the Reformation” because 35   The following may no less be contrasted to Marquis’s claim that “[p]arallels can be drawn between the execution of Zoroaster and that of Surrey in 1547, and Cicero’s murder and Grimald’s brush with pubic execution at the stake, shortly after Mary assumed the throne in 1553” (2007, liv).

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poets “inscribed conflicting Catholic and Protestant pieties in their poems to renegotiate the Reformation conflict over ‘true religion’ on a battlefield of Petrarchan lyric” (ibid.). The evidence to support these and similar statements, however, is decidedly thin and strained. Surrey’s second poem in the Miscellany describing “the restlesse state of a louer” (RM3), for example, with its conventional Petrarchan language of “norish[ing]” a “sacred flame” in one’s “couert breast” and “worship[ing]” the beloved, leads to the claim that “such poetic imagery allowed a range of writers to voice a kind of Catholic religiosity that the Reformation had called into question” (335). In another place, the idea that “Protestant poetry in Tottel’s Miscellany incorporated complex images of Catholic practice to fashion a new form of iconoclasm, which creates rather than destroys” (338), is argued on the evidence of a poem about the fabled sculptor Pygmalion, who fell in love with one of his own creations (R172/M142). The poem “exhibits an anxiety over producing idolatrous art,” asserts Hamrick, even as it also exemplifies how “ostensibly Protestant poets” found means to “reconstruct the Catholic practice of making saints itself” (339). In short, Hamrick’s determination to read the Miscellany in the context of the English Reformation commits him to reading the English Reformation in every image he sees. A poet who prays to “Cupide God of loue” and exclaims, “I yeld thankes upon my knees, as thou dost well deserue,” elicits the comment that “already by 1549 kneeling to the name of Christ had become a controversial Catholic practice that some Protestants rejected” (339).36 Hamrick is hardly the first to take Petrarchan clichés too seriously, but history has shown that there are different ways of doing so. For Tottel and the contributors to the Miscellany’s stock of love poems, their concern was not, I am sure, that readers would detect encoded Catholic or Protestant anxieties or doctrinal positions between the lines, and we have no evidence that anyone ever did. Rather the danger was that these poems would be judged “euill doon” by the enemies of bawdy ballads, whom Tottel knew were always out there. In addition to the spectacle of John Hall’s protest against The Court of Venus at the start of the decade, to which I return soon, there was a book printed by Thomas Powell in the same year as Tottel’s Miscellany, The Instruction of a christen woman, made firste in latyne, by the right famous clerke mayster Lewes Viues [i.e., Joannes Ludovicus Vives (1492–1540)], tourned out of latyne into Englishe by 36

  To Hamrick’s credit, his most ambitious claim – that “writers encoded a Catholic poetics” within the Miscellany – is given a subsequent “methodological corrective” in Hamrick 2009, 3, where he explains, “I eschew my earlier use of the term ‘Catholic poetics’ because … such a term implies a narrow set of tropes, metaphors, and doctrinal positions characteristic of confessional English Catholic writing.” Possibly we may expect further refinement of the essay’s argument in Hamrick’s contribution to the volume of essays on Tottel’s Miscellany that he is editing, which at the time of this writing is forthcoming.

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Rychard Hyrde (STC 24860), which includes the admonition that a girl not be allowed to read “Tirante Tristane, and Celestina the baude, mother of naughtynes,” nor “Lancelote du Lake,” nor “Pyramus and Thisbe” or any other such “fylth and viciousnes.” She should “beware” also of the ancient love poets – Sappho, Propertius and others – who are as “serpentes or snakes.”37 In 1557, too, John Cawood printed An exhortation of holye Basilius magnus, to hys younge kynsemen, styrrynge theym to the studie of humaine lernynge, translated from the Greek by William Barker (STC 1543.5), which includes discussion of “the vse and imitation of Poetes.” Basil counsels his “younge kynsemen” that “we ought to be enflamed in our hartes” whenever poets “rehearse the noble feates and wordes of notable men,” and “endeauour our selues to be the like”; “but when they vtter wicked men and theyr actes, then we ought to flee them, and to stoppe our eares at them, as Vlisses dyd at the Sirenes,” for “euyl talke is the way to euyl dedes” (B2r). And finally, as noted earlier, Thomas North condemned The Court of Venus in his prologue to The Diall of Princes printed by Thomas Marsh for John Wayland in 1557 (STC 12427). There North recommends the sage counsel of the speculum principis he has translated over such “diuerse other vaine bookes” as “Orson and Valentine”38 and “the Courte of Venus, … by whose doctrine” North complains, readers “learne not how they oughte to flye vice, but rather what way they may with more pleasour embrace it” (frontmatter B1v). Thus there was every likelihood that the Miscellany’s love poems would be denounced for their “fylth and viciousnes,” as Vives judged them; that poems such as Wyatt’s R109/M113, teaching men how the “hartes” of women may “be wonne, by loue, request and mone,” would be recognized as exactly the sort that St. Basil condemned when he warned, “euyl talke is the way to euyl dedes”; and that the poets seen praying to the God Cupid would be condemned for teaching readers by their example to make an idol of bodily lust rather than praying as they should to Christ.39 Such, I would submit, could have been a cause of worry not only for Tottel, who had an interest in getting returns on his investments. A backlash against the “euyl talke” of love poems would amount to an encroachment upon the poets’ cherished safe space for communal recreation, a redefining of their 37   Instead, Vives advises, she should be given “the gospelles” to read, “the actes, the epistoles of the apostels, and the olde Testament, sainct Hieronyme, sainct Ciprian, Augustine, Ambrose, Hillary, Gregorye, Plato, Cicero, Senec, and suche other” (10v–12v). 38   A reference to The Hystory of the two valyaunte brethren Valentyne and Orson, recently reprinted by William Copland for John Walley (ca. 1555; STC 24571.7). 39   Hyder Rollins, as if anticipating puritanical outcry in his own day, interestingly offers rare aesthetic commentary on R109/M113, asserting that “[t]his is a very pretty poem in which a sensual subject is handled with remarkable restraint and purity” (1965, 2:208).

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joyful social/vocational activity as something dangerously consequential in the world, deserving of censure and censorship. We can surmise a number of reasons for so many poems being assigned to “uncertain authors” in Tottel’s Miscellany, from the actual anonymity of the manuscript copies that Tottel received to the desire of young law-school poets not to advertise their diverted energies to governors of the Inns or to their fathers at home. The prospect of being subject to personal, printed attack from an affronted churchman or the likes of John Hall might be another. As events played out, any protest from Hall himself would have been unlikely in 1557, for he was at the time preoccupied. But presumably there were those who remembered him well as the most violent enemy of bawdy ballads, and so I think it unsurprising to find in Tottel’s Miscellany that Hall is the one living individual subjected to ridicule, at once taunted for his verses and his own “euyl dedes.” To this story, and the deeper import of this ridicule for the law students to whom I would credit it, I devote the final section of this chapter. III. Neither “to prouoke men to the desyre of synne” John Hall was a surgeon by training and profession, and he was a staunch defender of his calling. He wrote a verse polemic against the rival “arts of necromancie, witchcraft, sorcerie, incantations, and diuers other detestable and deuilishe practices,” printed by Rowland Hall (no relation) in 1563 (STC 12633); and in 1565, Thomas Marsh printed Hall’s translation of a thirteenth-century medical text by Lanfranco of Milan, Chirurgia parva, with Hall’s original verses appended “expostulat[ing] against the beastly abusers, both of chyrurgerie and phisike in our tyme” (STC 15192). Today, however, Hall is more often remembered for his campaign against lewd literature, first in a polemical preface to his verse translations from scripture, Certayne chapters taken out of the Prouerbes of Salomon … and certayne Psalmes of Dauid (STC 12631), printed in 1550, then in the form of a moralistic retort to the The Court of Venus titled The Couurte of Vertue, Contaynynge Many holy or spretuall songes Sonettes psalmes ballettes shorte sentences as well of holy scriptures as others etc. (1565; STC 12632). The reference to “songes” and “Sonettes” in the subtitle clearly alludes to the Miscellany, which for Hall was another example of the venery to be purged by his spiritual verses. As the proceeding discussion of Hall’s history and of his poetry will show, The Couurte of Vertue likely was intended also as a rejoinder to Tottel specifically, whose verse miscellany had made fun of him in the second edition of 1557 and had continued to do so in at least five more editions through 1565.

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To begin we must acquaint ourselves with the enigmatic printing history of The Court of Venus, which is the one known published English verse miscellany to precede Tottel’s. It poses a tantalizing mystery because it survives only in short fragments of three different editions, and these fragments include some poems that are attested elsewhere as Thomas Wyatt’s and others that could possibly be his, though in the surviving pages of the fragments themselves they are anonymous.40 As much as we do know about this book is owing to the meticulous labors of Russell A. Fraser, editor of a critical study and edition of the fragments, and Charles A. Huttar, who has contested certain of Fraser’s conclusions.41 The earliest fragment, in the collection of the Bodleian Library, is the longest: 15 octavo leaves from sigs. E and F. Following Fraser, I refer to it below as “Douce” after its Bodleian shelfmark, Douce g. 3. Its title page is lacking but it has the running title, The Court of Venus (STC 24650, printed by Thomas Gibson in 1538[?]). About ten years later (1549[?]), what looks to be another octavo edition of this work was printed, probably by William Copland, but it exists in only two leaves (the first has “Fo. 44” in the upper corner), and it has a different running title: A Boke of Balettes (STC 26053.5). This fragment, as Fraser explains, “was discovered in 1928 in the form of end-papers in a copy of the 1551 English translation of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia” (1955, 142). It is called “Stark” after its location in the Stark Collection of the University of Texas Library. As Fraser (24) and Huttar (1966, 182) both point out, there is a likelihood that “A Boke of Balettes” may only reflect a subtitle on Stark’s title page, as The Court of Venus is indeed “a book of ballads” and, in 1550, The Court was attacked by name in John Hall’s preface to his Prouerbes and Psalmes, which would be an oddly tardy protest if The Court of Venus had not been recently reprinted. The third fragment, in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, is an eight-leaf octavo A-signature from an edition printed by Thomas Marsh in 1563(?). Its title page survives: The Courte of Venus. Newly and diligently corrected with many proper Ballades newly amended, and also added thervnto which haue not before bene imprinted (STC 24650.5). Two years later, as was just remarked, Thomas Marsh would himself be the printer of Hall’s Couurte of Vertue. Possibly other editions of The Court of Venus have been lost, but as Huttar argues contra Fraser, a good case can only be made for one printed ca. 1557, or at any rate sometime before Marsh’s 1563(?) edition, on the basis of a record in the Stationers’ Register. Approximately halfway 40   What has long been the standard study of attribution problems in Wyatt’s verse (Harrier 1965) is in the process of being replaced by the researches of Jason Powell. 41   See Fraser 1955 and Huttar 1966. The information that follows is based on the introduction and appendices in Fraser’s edition, with Huttar’s cautions and corrections noted as necessary.

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through the entries for 1557–58 we find, “To henry Sutton to prynte this booke Called the Couurte of venus.”42 Thus Marsh’s Courte was either the first to make corrections and additions to Stark or his edition is a reprint of this lost exemplar (Huttar 1966, 191). Fraser and Huttar favor the latter scenario, on the grounds that Marsh was not the sort of printer to take the trouble to make changes to a ready-at-hand copytext.43 Indeed, they suggest also that Marsh reprinted the title page of his copytext verbatim, so that it was not his edition but Sutton’s lost one that first advertised a “Newly and diligently corrected” Court of Venus, “with many proper Ballades newly amended” and “added” that had “not before bene imprinted.” It is an appealing hypothesis that a new, expanded edition of The Court of Venus was printed in 1557–58 on the strength of the Miscellany’s popularity, and that for a short time at the end of Mary’s reign both of these English verse miscellanies were available on the London book market. We are aware, though, that printers sometimes registered books that they did not print. After Sutton entered The Court of Venus with the Stationers’ Company, he may have continued to “correct” and augment it until 1562, the year he left the trade, and at that time transferred the text and his rights to it to Marsh. On the other hand, in 1557 Sutton did print the one other book that he registered with the Stationers’ Company that year. It is entered seven items before The Court of Venus as “an enterlude upon the history of Jacobe and Esawe out of the xxvij chapeter of the fyrste boke of Moyses Called genyses.”44 Here it will be instructive to survey what the first two fragments of The Court of Venus preserve, since these were Tottel’s only known precedents for a printed English verse miscellany, and in one instance it will be seen that Tottel printed one of Wyatt’s poems that had first appeared, though it seems anonymously, in The Court. Excepting the single titled poem in the 42   Stationers’ Register, 1:78/23b. Fraser’s first reference to The Court of Venus in this register is misleading: he writes, “In the Stationers’ Register for July 19, 1557 appears the notice …” (1955, 11), which suggests that the entry was made on the very first day of the first year of the Register (19 July 1557–9 July 1558). In fact, none of the entries recording printers’ registration of titles is dated. Besides an edition of 1557–58, Fraser also asserts that there was “probably an edition in 1549” besides the Stark fragment (76); Huttar establishes that there is no strong basis for this supposition (1966, 182–91). 43   This view is less confidently held by Huttar (1966, 191) than by Fraser, who asserts that Marsh was “too slovenly a printer and too careless of the result to bestir himself by collating. Indeed,” he continues, “examples of [Marsh’s] printing verbatim from his copy without any eye to sense or honest craftsmanship are frequent and often ludicrous” (1955, 44). I have not conducted a survey of Marsh’s overall output to test this charge, but I would observe that Marsh’s printing of the three books by Nikolaus Mameranus was done with evident care, including three in-press corrections of minor typographical errors in Psalmi Dauidis Quinque (see the notes to this title in ESTC). 44   Stationers’ Register, 1:78/23a; the printed edition is STC 14327.

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first fragment, each is identifed below by its first line as printed in Fraser’s edition, with mutilated letters supplied by him in brackets.45 The 1538(?) Douce fragment has just three poems: 1. The last ten lines (two and half abab quatrains) of an otherwise unknown ballad (31r), considered by Fraser possibly to be Wyatt’s, but this has been generally doubted. 2. “Dryuen by dissyr to set affection” (31r/v), a poem in five abab quatrains that is attested only here. Because phrases from it are echoed in one of Wyatt’s poems in the Devonshire MS., “Dryven by Desire I Dyd this Dede,”46 Fraser concludes that this is an early version of that poem (1955, 33–4). Huttar replies that the few echoed phrases “belonged to the stockpile of poetic clichés” of the period and in all other respects the poems are substantially different (1966, 194). 3. A poem titled “The pylgrymse tale” (31v–45v), an anti-clerical satire in rhyming couplets ascribed in the text to Chaucer. As Fraser notes, this poem is “a part of the sixteenth-century Chaucerian apocrypha” (1955, 16), the mistaken attribution being “an error, generated perhaps deliberately to escape censorship” (31).47 It is doubted by Fraser, the STC’s editors, and others that “The pylgrymse tale” in Douce was reprinted in later editions of The Court of Venus. Nor does the Stark fragment of 1549(?) contain the other two poems that survive from the first edition. It has instead the following five: 1. The last four abab quatrains of “If fantasy would fauour” (44r, citing it by the first line of this seven-quatrain poem as it appears

45

  The following draws upon Fraser’s analysis of “The Contributors” (1955, 27–35), with Huttar’s qualifications (1966, 191–5). 46  The latter is edited in Poems of Wyatt, CXXVIII (139), and printed also in Tottel’s Miscellany R122/132. Muir and Thomson print “Dryuen by dissyr to set affection” under the heading “Poems from The Court of Venus” at the end of Poems of Wyatt, CCLXII (254). 47   This error was in part perpetuated by John Bale, who ascribed “Curiam Veneris” to Chaucer in his catalogue of British authors, the Illustrium maioris Britanniae scriptorum summarium (1548; expanded edition 1557–59). Fraser acknowledges the possibility that Robert Singleton, “a dissenting priest,” could have authored the “Tale” as well as The Court of Venus’s prologue that survives in the Folger fragment, as suggested by Bale’s different attribution of “Curiam Veneris” in his working notebook edited in Poole 1902. There Bale assigns it to Singleton, crediting Thomas Gibson – the printer of Douce – as his source. Fraser would leave the question of both documents’ authorship open (1955, 31–3).

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3. 4.

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in the Folger fragment). It exists also in the Egerton, Arundel Harington, and Devonshire MSS. and is accepted as Wyatt’s.48 “L[ou]e w[home ye] lyst and spare not” (44r/v), a five-quatrain poem rhyming abab. Fraser suggests (1955, 33) that this poem was “reworked” from a “slightly attenuated” version that occurs in the Devonshire MS., referring to “Hate whome ye lyste, I care not.”49 But again, Fraser overstates the similarity between these poems, and the Stark “version” has not been accepted as Wyatt’s.50 “Shall she neuer out of my mynde” (44v), another five-quatrain poem rhyming abab. Fraser considers it possibly by Wyatt, but this has been generally doubted.51 “My penne take payne a [lytle space]” (45r/v), a poem in five quintains (although here the last line of stanza four was dropped) rhyming aabab. It is in the Devonshire MS. and is tentatively accepted as Wyatt’s.52 The first five quintains and two lines of the sixth, again rhyming aabab, of Thomas Wyatt’s “[My lute a]wake perfourme the last” (45v). The poem appears also in the Egerton, Devonshire, and Blage MSS., as well as in Tottel’s Miscellany (R87/M91).53

It is possible, Fraser speculates, that the “short-poem section of The Court of Venus editions may in fact have been devoted exclusively to Wyatt’s poetry,” although his own view is “necessarily conservative”: that “five of the poems in the fragments are definitely Wyatt’s, three more are probably his, and seven are of uncertain authorship” (1955, 34–5). Huttar faults Fraser for not having been sufficiently conservative, not only in his attributions but also for assuming that the poems found in the late 1540s Stark fragment were printed also in the late 1530s Douce fragment. “There is nothing at all common today between the[se] fragments,” Huttar reminds us (1966, 192), so whereas “it cannot be proved that there were no poems by Wyatt in print before 1540,” neither can we assume on the evidence of Stark that any were: whichever year that the Stark fragment was printed is “the earliest date of which we can be certain” (195).

48

  Poems of Wyatt, XLIII (32).   Poems of Wyatt, CXXXVI (145); it appears also in the Blage MS. 50   Muir and Thomson print it with other “Poems from The Court of Venus” in Poems of Wyatt, CCLXIII (255). 51   The poem is extant also in British Library Additional MS. 18752; Muir and Thomson print it with other “Poems from The Court of Venus” in Poems of Wyatt, CCLXIV (255). 52   See Poems of Wyatt, CLXXIX (190). 53   See Poems of Wyatt, LXVI (48). 49

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Consequently, the only poems that we can in confidence say were among those that provoked John Hall’s ire against the The Court of Venus in 1550 are the five that survive in the 1549(?) Stark fragment. If we had to pick the bawdiest of these five, it would probably be Wyatt’s “If fantasy would fauour,” which begins and ends as follows.54 If fantasy would fauour As I deserue and shal My loue my lady paramour should loue me best of al And if I not attayne The grace that I desire Then may I wel complayne My seruyce and my hier .................... Yet gladly would I please The fantasy of my harte That may me only ease, And helpe my careful smarte Therefore my lady dere Let se your fantasye To make some hope appeare Of helpe and remedy For if ye be my frende And vndertake my wo My grefe is at an ende yf ye continew so Els fantasy doth not ryght As I deserue and shall To haue her day and night To loue me best of all[.]

Ostensibly, John Hall was just 20 or 21 years old in 1550, when his attack on The Court of Venus was printed in Prouerbes and Psalmes. According to the ODNB (which accepts without scrutiny Hall’s dates 54   Words missing in Stark are here supplied from the Folger fragment in Fraser’s edition (1955, 111, 124–5).

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in DNB), Hall was born in 1529/1530 and died in 1568/1569. Fraser, however, long ago stressed that the scattered pieces of evidence attesting to Hall’s age are ambiguous and sometimes conflicting, and that the 1529/1530 date has merely been “inferred from the evidence of a woodcut portrait of the author ‘aetat 35,’ which appears in the 1565 edition of Hall’s Chirurgery. But the portrait may of course have been cut before the year of publication” (1955, xi). Fraser also makes the reasonable observation that it is “unlikely that the man whose translation of The Proverbs of Solomon into English metre was published [originally] in 1549 was born but 20 years before.” It is possible that “John Hall was born not in 1529,” then, “but a good many years before” (ibid.). We can turn now to the substance of Hall’s complaints in the 1550 Prouerbes and Psalmes volume, where The Court of Venus is mentioned by title four times in the preface containing Hall’s diatribe against “rymes of vanities and songes of baudry.”55 Two of these instances are the ones normally quoted by scholars because they are manageably brief. First, having quoted a verse from Psalm 33 at one point, Hall pretends to imagine that there will be wicked readers among his audience who will object to it: Naye, Dauid, nay, Saythe our Englyshe menne, thou arte an vnwyse man, thy wordes are spente in waeste, whyche thou speakest vnto vs, for we haue songes made by wyse and learned men in the court of Venus[;] you art gods minstrel, and makest melody wyth spiritual songes to hys prayse, but we wyl sing songes of loue to the goddes of lechery. (A6r/v)

A page later, in a passage decrying the general decay of the times, Hall laments that in our myrth it is manifest what our doynges are, for our tonges are of the court of Venus, yea, and rather worsse, our talke so abhominable that it were a shame to rehearse, and all oure hole desyre is, to fulfyll thee lustes of thee fleshe, moch vnlyke to the doctryne of Iesus. (A7r)

These quotations alone, however, fail to capture adequately the full force of John Hall’s histrionic invective against lechers, bawds, and bawdy ballads. For that we really must see one other sentence that contains Hall’s third and fourth references to The Court of Venus. It is a long sentence, I grant: 539 words long. But it is a most remarkable sentence, for in it Hall lets loose the full force of his rage, and the longer he continues the better we are able to appreciate how very wide open to teasing and mockery Hall managed to leave himself – in days past, by giggling girls who evidently 55

  Quoted from Hall’s dedication to John Bricket in STC 12631 (A4r/v).

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traumatized him by calling him names, and subsequently, in Tottel’s Miscellany. Here is the sentence: Reader, I desyre the[e] that thou reade this boke, not to compare it to the learned and exquiset doynges of other men, as though my desyre were to haue the vayne glory and the prayse of men, but rather like as I haue bestowed tymes herein that myghte haue bene worsse occupyed doo thou also exercyse thy selfe in synging, ryming, and talking of the Prouerbes of Salomon, and Psalmes of Dauid, and other Chapters of the holy scripture, as is contayned in this lytle boke, or the workes of other men more learned, which for theyr doynges haue as moche deserued to be commended, as he, what soeuer he was that made the court of Venus, or other bokes of lecherous Ballades, the whych haue bene a greate occasion to prouoke men to the desyre of synne, whereas in these workes thou shalt learne to flee from evyl company, from drunckenes and drunkardes, from couetousnes and slouthfulnes, from wrathe and enuy, from whoredom and all the subtle behauiours of whores, with pryde, yea, and fynallye from al wickednes and sinne, withal maner of instructions that belong to a pure and godly lyfe, and I beseche almighty god, that these endustreus labors may give examples to al soch men and women as teach their children to cal their father whorson and their mother whore (yea, and that before they can speake any thing els) to be as redy to teach them to speake vertuous wordes, or to cal upon the name of the lord, and I besech almighty god, that al yong men from henceforth may be as dyligent to excede one another in vertuous things, as they be to excede one another in pryde or songes of baudry and abominable wicked communication, and that yonge women may haue the grace to geue as diligent eare, and haue as moch delight in vertue, as in vyce, for it is so now, that he whych can not swere, and fighte, and talke al maner of baudry, he is not mete to come in the company of women, for thei haue a prety name for soch a one, thei wil cal hym, Ihon hold my staf, but I wold to god these gygolat gerles were as apte to learne vertuous thinges, as they be to mock and floute men, and to take them at the worst, or as wel learned in vertue and godlines, as they be in the court of Venus, and as they be in dyinge of theyr heyre yelow, and then to brayde and curle it with bodkins and laye it out to be sene, and to paynte their faces, in doyng of the which they blot and put out the ymage of God, but nowe alas it is so, that it semeth vnpreuaylable to speake ought against wickedness, for none in a maner doth seke how to amend their mys, but rather with most stronge argumentes to defende the same, for what soeuer is most euil, is most estemed and called most good, and whatsoeuer is most good, is worst estemed and called moost euyl, wherefore al good men vpon a juste occasion, may say: oh most corrupt wretched world, so ful of wickednes, iniquitie, and synne. (A5r–6r)

That the author of such a tirade is represented by two poems in Tottel’s Miscellany might be explained, as I acknowledge below, otherwise than as a deliberate act of mischief. But I will argue that this interpretation is supported by two other circumstances. First, Tottel’s Miscellany was not the first publication in which verses by John Hall and the Earl of

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Surrey appeared within the same volume. Secondly, one of Hall’s poems that Tottel reprinted in the Miscellany appears to be a sanitized Surreyan sonnet. We need to look into this. Our starting point is Hall’s verse translation of chapters 1–11 from the Book of Proverbs. The preface in which Hall attacks The Court of Venus occurs in the second of five publications from Edward VI’s reign containing this translation. The earliest one printed was mentioned in Chapter 2: an undated book of 1549/1550, printed by John Case for William Seres, which attributes the contents to the Tudor period’s most popular Psalm translator rather than to the actual parties responsible, John Hall and the late Earl of Surrey. It has the title, Certayne Chapters of the prouerbes of Salomon drawen into metre by Thomas sterneholde, late grome of the kynges Magesties robes (STC 2760). In Case’s dedication of this volume to Thomas Spek, he explains that “The copye of thys boke was deliuered me by a frende of myne beynge sometyme seruaunte vnto maister Thomas Sterneholde, whereby it is to be coniectured, that the same were putte in metre by hym, yet not so parfectly perused, by reason of sodaine deathe, as perchaunce he wuold haue done, if he hadde longer lyued” (A2v). Perhaps “thys boke” was deemed by Case “not so perfectly perused” because of the rough-draft appearance of the manuscript, or because the quality of verse did not seem to him to match that of Sternhold’s Psalms. In any event it was soon after followed by a book from Thomas Raynald’s press, dated 1550, whose title corrects the misattribution of Hall’s pieces: Certayne chapters taken out of the Prouerbes of Salomon, wyth other chapters of the holy Scripture, and certayne Psalmes of Dauid, translated into English metre, by Iohn Hall. Which Prouerbes of late were set forth, Imprinted and vntruely entituled, to be thee doynges of Mayster Thomas Sternhold, late grome of the Kynges maiesties robes, as by thys Copye it maye be perceaued (STC 12631). Hall explains, in his dedication of this work to John Bricket, that upon the “counsel of good wyse and wel lerned men” he had “bene the bolder” to allow his Proverbs translations to “go openly a broad,” but after he saw them misattributed to Sternhold he realized that it was time to claim them as his own. Doing so entailed more than correcting a title page, however. In Case’s edition, following the Proverbs chapters translated by Hall (A1r–D8v, after duplicate sigs. A1–4 for frontmatter) are Surrey’s verse paraphrases of Ecclesiastes 1–3 (E1r–8v).56 Then follow translations of three psalms (F1r–2v), of which the first, Psalm 88 (“Domine deus salutis meae,” no. 87 in the Vulgate), is known to be Surrey’s.57 The other two, nos. 31 and 51 (“In te domine speraui” and “Miserere mei deus,” 30 56   Copies in British Library Additional MSS. 28635 and 36529, where they are attributed to Surrey. On these sources, see Padelford 1920, 168 and 174 (nos. 48–50). 57   Also in British Library Additional MSS. 28635 and 36529, attributed to Surrey.

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and 50 in the Vulgate [F2v–7v]), are not among Surrey’s works preserved in manuscript, but Huttar argues persuasively that they are by him also (1965, 12–15). In Raynald’s edition, Hall’s Proverbs translations (A8r– E7v) are followed by other of his translations from scripture into verse: “The .vi. chapter of the Boke of wysdom called Sapientia” (E8r–F2v); “The .ix. chapter of Ecclesiasticus” (F3r–4v); “The .iii. Chapter of the second Epistle of S. Paul, to the Thessalonians” (F5r–6v); and then, from fols. F7r to H3v, eight psalms identified by their first verse in Latin and, for the most part, their number in the Vulgate: nos. 21 (sic, recte 24, “Ad te domine leuavi”); 33 (“Benedicam dominum in omni”); 53 (“Deus in nomine tuo saluum”); 64 (“Te decit himnus deus in sion”); 111 (“Beatus vir qui timet”); 112 (“Laudate pueri domi”); 114 (“In exitu Israel de Egipto,” 113a in the Vulgate); and 144 (“Exaltabo te deus meus”). The omission here of the two psalm paraphrases in Case’s edition that have not been certainly established as Surrey’s, nos. 31 and 51, at least confirms that Hall knew neither of them was his. Raynald printed another edition of Hall’s Prouerbes and Psalmes apparently the same year as the first (1550?; STC 12631.3), but with additional changes that are of interest: Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians is omitted, but there are added the first “thre Chapters of Ecclesiastes,” this time in Hall’s own translation rather than Surrey’s (E7r–F8r). There is also a shorter and different selection of the Psalms: nos. 24, 64, and 112 are omitted, but 115 (113b in the Vulgate) is added.58 This version was reprinted again by Raynald in 1550(?) (STC 12631.5), and a third time ca. 1553 by an unknown printer for Anthony Kitson (STC 12631.7).59 Other Hall-Surrey connections come to light when we turn our attention to three anonymous poems that were printed in John Case’s edition of Certayne Chapters of the prouerbes of Salomon (STC 2760). Two of the poems appear right after Case’s dedication, under the heading “Certayne lessons” (A3r and A3v–4v); the third is at the end of the volume, titled “Againste nigardy, and riches,” with the running header “A ballade” (F7r– G3v). These poems were not included in the first of Raynald’s editions correcting the attribution of the Proverbs translations to Hall (STC 12631), as their place was taken by Hall’s preface to the reader in that volume; but all three reappeared in the next two editions printed by Raynald and the one commissioned by Kitson (STC 12631.3–.7): the two “lessons” poems 58

  Sigs. G5v–H3r. 34. Three of the four psalms that were numbered according to the Vulgate in the previous edition are renumbered in this edition: 33 as 34, 53 as 54, and 111 as 112. 59   STC 12631.5 is imperfect, but it is identical to STC 12631.3 up to sig. H2 and presumably was also in its six missing leaves (H3–8). STC 12631.7 is lost after having been broken up following its sale in 1937.

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were printed in the preface’s stead, and the third poem was brought back again with the title “Against nigardie and ryches” and the running header, “A ballade” (H3r–7v). In a book in which John Hall so adamantly asserts his authorship of the contents, the appearance of these three poems would seem to imply that Hall was claiming them also. Presumably, readers in the 1550s would have interpreted the evidence this way, although in the twentieth century Hall’s authorship of the two “lessons” poems has been disputed, and no one has ascribed the third poem to him. I will therefore need to address these matters of attribution as my analyses proceed. There are two explanations for the poem “Against nigardie” not yet having been ascribed to Hall. The first is the authority of William Ringler’s assertion that it is “really anon[ymous]” and just “printer’s filler” in Case’s 1549/1550 edition (1988, 272; TP 1208). The second explanation is premised on Hall’s supposed date of birth in 1529/1530: “Against nigardie and ryches” first appeared in print four or more years before 1549/1550, meaning that Hall would have had to have written it when he was no more than 15 or 16 years old. I have quoted Fraser’s doubts about the alleged date of Hall’s birth, but we may have further reason to question it when we consider the date that “Against nigardie and ryches” was first printed. Sometime shortly after Wyatt’s death, this poem was the last of three in another of the books previously mentioned in Chapter 2: An excellent Epitaffe of syr Thomas wyat. with two other compendious dytties, wherin are touchyd, and set furth the state of mannes lyfe (STC 26054), printed by John Herford for Robert Toy in 1545(?). The lead poem, as we know, is Surrey’s “Wyat resteth here” (A1r/v), printed anonymously but afterward attributed to Surrey in Tottel’s Miscellany (R31/M35). The second poem, the first of the two advertised “dytties,” is “The myrroure or Glasse of fortune,” a humorless, moralistic poem admonishing readers not to put faith in false friends. A sample stanza from its nine goes as follows: Whan thou art downe, fareweel a dew No more seruyce, thou hast at all Whan broken is, thy retinew On thy name than no man wyll call Disdaynfull wordes, on the[e] go shall Foes thou shalt haue, many a one Which wyll reioyce, at thy great fall Of all thy frendes, than hast thou none. (A2v)

This is followed by “A compendious dittie wherin is touched the state of mans lyfe,” which is the humorless, moralistic poem admonishing readers against “nigardie and ryches.” I quote the first ten of its 110 lines:

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No wyght in thys world, that wealth can attayne Onelesse he beleue, that all is but vayne And loke how it cometh, so leaue it to go As tydes vse their tymes, to ebbe and to flo, This mucke on the molde, that men so desyre Doth worcke them much wo, And moueth them to yre With grefe it is gotte, with care it is kepte With sorowe sone lost, that longe hath ben repte And wo worth that man, that first dolue the moulde To fynde out the myne, of syluer and golde (A3r)

It is plausible that both these “compendious ditties” are by John Hall. “The myrroure or Glasse of fortune” is written in the Monk’s Tale stanza, one used by Hall in The Couurte of Vertue,60 and the pair are well in keeping with the humorless, moralistic mode that was Hall’s only wont. Of course it is also possible that, on their own initiatives, Case and Raynald included the latter ditty in their respective editions of the Proverbs, etc., either for “filler” as Ringler claims or because they understood that it was popular, given that in 1547 Thomas Berthelet printed it independently as a broadside (STC 6920). When Raynald included it in the second edition of John Hall’s works in 1550, it was the fourth known printing of the poem inside a decade. But again, to anyone who had been paying attention to this progress, its last printing in a volume that otherwise contains only works by Hall would seem a clear indication that it was his. To anyone who knew that Surrey was the author of Wyatt’s epitaph, or that Surrey wrote the verse biblical paraphrases that were included with Hall’s in the volume printed by Case, the quick succession of Hall’s works printed by Raynald would be clear indication that Hall had made it a goal to separate out his verses from Surrey’s. That John Hall was a neighbor of the Wyatts in the town of Maidstone, Kent, might tempt us to speculate on the circumstances that led to the publication of Surrey’s poetry with Hall’s, or at least, in the case of the ditty “Against nigardie,” with a poem that later came to appear to be Hall’s. Also we might wonder if Surrey’s fall from grace and beheading in 1547 was a factor in Hall’s concern to disassociate his writings from Surrey’s by 1550. Yet, on the evidence of Hall’s furious protest against lewd literature quoted above, Surrey’s love poetry must have offended him on its own merits, just as the verses in The Court of Venus enraged him irrespective of his probable understanding that some of them were written by Wyatt. Moreover, Hall clearly had encountered Surrey’s love poems, whether by way of his neighbors or by coming across some number of them that 60

  See poem no. 72 and second stanza of no. 115 in Fraser 1961.

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were in general circulation, because the first of the two “lessons” poems that were reprinted by Raynald in the second and third editions of Hall’s works is a tetrameter sonnet written in the Surreyan or English rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg), as seen below. Perhaps not coincidentally, it has the same theme as the first of the two ditties printed with the Epitaffe of syr Thomas wyat – the contrast between true and false friends and one’s obligation to match good words with good deeds: Do all youre dedes wyth good aduyse Cast in your myndes alwayes the ende Wyt bought is of to dere a pryce the tried truste take as your frend For frendes I fynde ther be but two of countenaunce and of effecte: Of the one sorte there are ynoughe,61 but fewe ben of the other secte. Also beware the venyme swete, of fyled wordes and flattery For to deceyue they be moste mete, that best can play hypocrisye. Let wysdome rule youre dede and thought So shall youre worckes be wysely wrought. (STC 12631.3, A5r)

Hall’s intention in this poem should not be lost on us, for I am sure it was not lost on Richard Tottel or, if my supposition is correct, on the young contributors to the Miscellany’s uncertain authors section. Hall is doing in this poem what he would do again later, in The Couurte of Vertue, where we find humorless, moralistic versions of three of Thomas Wyatt’s ballads that were printed in the 1549(?) edition of The Court of Venus.62 Here it seems an implication of the rhyme scheme that Hall has written a rejoinder to a poem by Surrey, a poem that has prompted Hall to warn readers against “filed” and flattering words that are but “venyme swete” to deceive a “friend,” or, if we assume that Surrey’s was a wooing poem, against “filed” and flattering words that are but “venyme swete” to seduce a woman to her ruination.

61

  Pronounced “enow.”   Hall’s “A dittie named blame not my lute” in The Couurte of Vertue (L8r–M2v) makes over Wyatt’s “Blame not my lute”; “A song of the lute in the prayse of God, and disprayse of Idolatrie” makes over “My lute awake” (M2v–4r), a poem also printed in Tottel’s Miscellany (R87/M91); and “A dittie of the pen” (N5v–6v) makes over Wyatt’s “My penne take payne.” 62

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My vote for the likeliest target of Hall’s rejoinder-poem is the following of Surrey’s sonnets, titled “Request to his loue to ioyne bountie with beautie” in Tottel’s Miscellany (RM14). As shown below, the speaker of this sonnet leans a bit on the word “frende” to plead for his beloved’s “fauour” (the word appears in the second and in the second to last line in the poem), and he professes in his wooing that he has only the lady’s “honour” in mind. The golden gift that nature did thee geue, To fasten frendes, and fede them at thy wyll, With fourme and fauour, taught me to beleue, How thou art made to shew her greatest skill. Whose hidden vertues are not so vnknowen, But liuely domes might gather at the first Where beautye so her perfect seede hath sowen, Of other graces folow nedes there must. Now certesse Ladie, sins all this is true, That from aboue thy gyftes are thus elect: Do not deface them than with fansies newe, Nor chaunge of mindes let not thy minde infect: But mercy him thy frende, that doth thee serue, Who seekes always thine honour to preserue.

Hall, we can imagine, saw right through this profane “hypocrisye,” so to give warning to readers who might be snared by it, he wrote a pious counter-sonnet in the Siren Surrey’s rhyme scheme. In a letter to TLS published on 14 January 1932, Hyder Rollins announced his discovery that two poems in Tottel’s Miscellany which were added to the uncertain authors section of Q2 were written by John Hall, having come upon them “under the general title of ‘Certayne Lessons’” in the second of Raynald’s editions of Hall’s works: the Surreyan sonnet just quoted (R285/M235) and the poem immediately after (R286/M236), which reproduces the first 36 lines of the second “lessons” poem and is likewise a humorless, moralistic admonishment to match good words with good deeds.63 Subsequently, Charles Huttar published his finding that the latter of the two “lessons” poems is in fact a conflation of “two older poems in the burden-and-stanza form,” with surviving instances in several Tudor-period manuscripts (1965, 15). Huttar further argues, contra Rollins, that “the fact that in [Hall’s] own first edition the ‘Certaine lessons’ were dropped out (although he did reinstate them in later editions) suggests that he had no wish to claim them” (ibid.). Huttar, however, does not notice that the first poem is a Surreyan sonnet, and neither does he register that the second 63

 Rollins 1932, 28; noted in Rollins 1965, 334.

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Raynald edition of Hall’s works was just as much Hall’s own as the first, containing a new translation of Ecclesiastes 1–3 by Hall as well as a newly translated psalm. It is surely more probable that as Raynald was preparing this second edition he consulted with Hall on which texts from the first edition would be dropped in place of the new ones, and he obtained Hall’s approval, or honored his request, to reprint the two “lessons” poems and “Against nigardie and ryches” from the Case edition. Huttar also oversimplifies the picture in stating that, in the second of the two “lessons” poems, the “two older poems in the burden-and-stanza form” are “presented simply as couplets” and “run together without any stanza divisions” (1965, 16). Closer comparision between the printed version and a “roughly contemporary manuscript” of the originals noted by Huttar (Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS. 168) reveals that the combiner also wrote an introductory quatrain and rearranged the text of one ballad in order to provide a bridge between the two, making them more smoothly a single poem.64 To illustrate, I quote the poem from the second Raynald edition of Hall’s Prouerbes and Psalmes (STC 12631.5) with annotations to the right indicating the corresponding lines of each portion of the text in ballads #1 and #3 from CCC MS. 168). Also I have signaled the endpoint of the truncated version that Tottel printed in the Miscellany.

}

Who lyst to leade a quyet lyfe, Who lyst to ryd him selfe from stryfe New introductory quatrain Geue eare to me, mark what I say Remembre well, beare it away. Holde backe thy tongue, at meat and mele, The burden/refrain of Speake but fewe wordes, bestowe them well ballad #1 in the CCC MS. By wordes the wise man thou shalt espye By wordes a fole thou shalt sone try A wyse man can hys tongue make cease A fole can neuer holde hys peace Who loueth rest of wordes beware Stanzas 1–3 of ballad #1 in Who loueth wordes is sure of care the MS., minus the burdens For wordes oftimes, men haue ben shente, For sylence kept, fewe them repent Two eares, one tongue, onely thou haste Mo thynges to heare, then wordes to wast A fole in no wyse can him forbeare He hath two tongues, and but one eare

} }

64

  The originals are on fols 204r/v and 205r/v of the CCC MS., with another ballad between them. They are printed, “in a not wholly accurate transcription” (Huttar 1965, 16), in Goodwin 1844, 1–3 and 6–8.

“Thinke it not euill doon”

}

Be sure thou kepe a stedfast brayne Leste that thy wordes putte the[e] to payne Wordes wysely sette, are worthe65 muche golde The price of rashnes, is sone tolde Yf tyme requyre wordes to be had To hold thy peace I holde the[e] mad Talke onely of nedefull verytyes, Stryue not for tryfling fantasyes Wyth sobernesse the trouth boult out, Affyrme nothynge wherein hys doubte Who to thys songe wyll take good hede And spende no mo wordes then he nede Though he be a foole, and haue no brayne He shal by this great wysdom gayne Speake whyle time is, elles holde the[e] styll Wordes out of tyme, ofte thynges do spyll. Say well, and do wel, are thinges twaine Twise blest is he, in whome bothe do rayne Saywell is sure a worthy thynge, of saywell great goodnes doeth always sprynge Saywell from do well dyffereth a letter Saywell is good, but do well is better. Saywel is ruled by man some deale do wel to god doth wholy appeale. Say well is good, and doth many please. Doo well is better, and dothe the world ease. Saywell causeth many to Scrypture cleaue For lacke of do well, they quyckely leaue Yf saywel and dowell, were ioyned in fraime All were well and wonne, got were the game Saywell in daunger of deathe is colde. Do wel is earnest, and wonderous bolde. When say well for feare doth tremble and quake Do well is iocond, and good cheare doth make. (A5r–7r)

}

}

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Second couplet from stanza 6 of ballad #1 in the MS. Stanza 4 of ballad #1 in the MS.

Stanzas 7–8 of ballad #1 in the MS., the latter stanza slightly altered

First couplet from stanza 5 of Ballad #1 in MS. Burden of ballad #3 in MS. and end of poem in Tottel’s Miscellany

Stanzas 1–4 of ballad #3 in MS.

As the above makes clear, the two original ballads have not merely been “run together.” By calling on the reader to “Geue eare to me” and “mark what I say,” the author of the added opening lines makes all that is to come the single message of this single “I.” Also it is no small detail that he recognized in one of the first ballad’s stanzas a couplet that would 65

  worthe] STC 2670, correction of “worthye.”

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serve perfectly as a transition to the second ballad, and so he repositioned this couplet – “Speake whyle time is, elles holde the[e] styll / Wordes out of tyme, ofte thynges do spyll” – to make it precede the first couplet of the second ballad, which is its burden: “Say well, and do wel, are thinges twaine / Twise blest is he, in whome bothe do rayne. ” In short, this authoreditor produced a substantially new poem out of the two older ones, or at least, in his mind, it was a new enough poem, entailing work enough on his part, to justify his claiming it, as Hall implied he was doing by reinstating it in the second Raynald edition of his Prouerbes and Psalmes. As I bring this chapter to conclusion, therefore, I will hereafter assume what Tudor readers of Hall’s works would most naturally have assumed: that both of the “lessons” poems printed there and reprinted in Tottel’s Miscellany were by John Hall. I conceded earlier that there may be other explanations for their inclusion in the Miscellany besides the one I argue next. Copies of the printed poems could have been circulating anonymously in manuscript, for example, so that Tottel, when he acquired them by this means and added them to Q2, was wholly innocent of the irony that their author was an avowed enemy of love songs. Or, Tottel could simply have feigned innocence of Hall’s authorship, having decided that his moralistic verses fit well enough with the others in the volume. But I do think that there is a better answer to this mystery. Not despite Hall’s hostility toward love poetry, but because of it, his two “lessons” poems were added to Q2. It was, in fact, Hyder Rollins who long ago pointed to this motive, though he did so unwittingly. I quote the concluding paragraph of his 1932 letter to TLS: It has taken Hall nearly four centuries to be identified as one of the “uncertain authors” of the epoch-making “Songs and Sonnets.” In view, however, of his numerous and severe comments on “The Court of Venus” in his “Certayn chapters taken out of the Prouerbes of Salomon,” 1550, it seems highly probable that he himself considered the “honour” of being an involuntary contributor to the “Miscellany” positive dishonour. (28)

I suspect that this was precisely the point: to make John Hall feel that he had been dishonored, which undoubtedly would have been achieved just by its having been brought to his attention that two of his own verses had been printed in a book filled mostly with bawdy ballads, prominently those by Surrey. Even more galling to him, though, would have been his discovery of the two poems that immediately follow his in the Miscellany, both of which were also new to Q2. We encountered them earlier in this chapter: “The complaint of a hot woer, delayed with doutfull cold answers” (R287/M237), which has in its very first line the words, “…

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as men say,” echoing the “Say well” phrase in Hall’s poem before it; and afterward, “The Answer” to the “hot woer” (R288/M238), the poem that I observed was the Miscellany’s one truly bawdy ballad. In it, we remember, the woman who is the speaker turns out not to give “cold answers” at all, but instead invites her hot wooer to fan his smithing coals even hotter so that he might make himself a “cunnyng key” or “other pece as cause shall craue,” thereby enabling him to “grow,” and “do,” and enjoy “Such ioy” that she “may ioy” his “ioyful case to know.” It would hardly seem possible for Hall to read these two poems, printed as they were cheek by jowel with his own, without his once more being goaded into vein-popping rage. My hunch is that Tottel did not act alone in this piece of mischief, but that he received all four poems as a set from some party who knew that a second edition of the Miscellany was in the making. Again, I picture law students as Tottel’s most probable accomplices, specifically in this case a devious little cohort of them, barely able to contain themselves with glee at the evil genius of their scheme. Their express purpose was to taunt Hall and embarrass him, for there is an obvious motive for wanting to do so. Contributors to a volume comprising chiefly love poems will insist on having their fun, and such a one as Hall, who would damn this enterprise and call it “wickedness,” deserves a drubbing. Yet this has not covered all that Hall did to invite the Miscellany’s mockery, and there is another facet to this mockery’s message. An epigram by John Heywood, titled “Of Saying and doyng,” preceded the Miscellany in delivering it. This poem appeared in 1555, in Heywood’s Two hundred epigrammes, vpon two hundred prouerbes with a thyrde hundred newely added (STC 13296, no. 24). Because of its timing and phrasing, I take it to be addressed to Hall specifically, invoking his “Say well and do wel” poem in order to admonish him for his own “hypocrisye”: Saying and doyng, are two thynges, we say: But thy sayinges and doynges euery way, Ioyne iumpe in one thy wordes and dedes procede: But thou art good, nother in worde nor dede. (A5v)

The first line of this epigram clearly invokes the line in Hall’s poem, “Say well, and do wel, are thinges twaine.” The third line, with its phrase “Ioyne iumpe” (join jump) meaning “in perfect concord,” echoes Hall’s “Yf saywel and dowell, were ioyned in fraime ….” So what had Hall not done well “in worde nor dede” to prove himself not good? He had turned traitor. After lecturing his readers from atop so high a pedestal of pious self-regard, Hall had joined with other of his Maidstone neighbors in the rebellion led by Thomas Wyatt the younger against the

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queen’s Spanish marriage, which went so far as to enter London in arms to prevent it.66 Given that Hall was among the very last group of rebels to be spared death and dismemberment, it is even likely that he was among the band of Wyatt’s Kentish followers who twice passed by Richard Tottel’s shop on 7 February 1554, as recorded by several witnesses to their movements. John Proctor’s history of the adventure, for example, states that “Wyat him selfe and v. C. men or there about” passed by St. James Park to Charing Cross, and having avoided engagement with opposing forces there, “with a part of his company merchinge alonge in battaile raye entred into Fletstrete, and came ouer Fletebridge toward Ludgate,” which at the last minute was closed against him, barring his entry within the city walls. “When at length [Wyatt] perceiued that he had no helpe of frendes at London,” he “lefte his men standing styll in battail araye, and rode backe as farre as the temple barre gate, with a naked sword in his hande the hiltes vpward (as some report) at whiche gate he woulde haue gone throughe towardes Charinge crosse to the residue of his men, but was then stopped by force of the Quenes true subiectes, who wolde not suffer him to passe without temple bar.”67 Since Tottel had his shop on the west end of Fleet Street, just to the east of Temple Bar, he would have been within easy viewing distance of Wyatt’s arrest a block away.68 For the next several years, John Hall remained under attainder while others of his home town were punished or pardoned. Wyatt and several other leaders of the rebellion were promptly beheaded, then drawn and quartered; many were fined and released; but others waited for months or years to learn their fate. Hall was not among those granted pardon in February 1555, for example, even though these included such men as “Gervase Maplesden, butcher; Peter Maplesden, yeoman; Henry Cripps, knight; William Tilden, draper; Robert Marchaunte, smith; Alexander Fyssher, gentleman; Thomas Blundell, mercer; Clement Lutwyke, yeoman; all of Maydston,” who had been “attainted of high treason” and originally “adjudged to be hanged, drawn and quartered.”69 Meanwhile, the lawyers of England stayed busy as Wyatt’s property and others’ was parceled out to 66   On the relation of Hall’s Maidstone connections to his verses printed in The Couurte of Vertue, see Zim 1986. 67   Quoted from John Proctor’s The historie of wyates rebellion with the order and maner of resisting the same, wherunto in the ende is added an earnest conference with the degenerate and sedicious rebelles for the serche of the cause of their daily disorder (2nd edn, 1555; STC 20408), 70r/v. Cf. the three contemporary accounts in Machyn’s Diary, 54; Grey Friars’ Chronicle, 87; Chronicle of Jane and Mary, 49–50. 68   See the map in STC vol. 3, opposite p. 247 (9:3 on the grid). On evidence in deeds that indicate Tottel’s press was situated on the south side of Fleet Street rather than the north side, as previously was supposed, see Wolfe 2011. 69   CPR Philip and Mary, 2:92–3, 95 (18–22 February 1555).

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those who had fought in Mary’s defense, while the town of Maidstone as a whole was punished by having its charter of incorporation revoked.70 In summer 1557, when Tottel printed the first two editions of the Miscellany, Hall was still under attainder. Not until a whole year after that, on 4 June 1558, was he finally pardoned with 242 other named men and women of Kent for “all treasons and other offences against the queen and against the king and queen committed before 1 Oct., 1 and 2 Ph. and M.” It has been overlooked by Hall’s biographers that his name appears in the extant pardon document as “John Haull late of Maydston, ‘surgeon.’”71 Thus it seems to me that the grouping of Hall’s two moral “lessons” with the “hot woer” poem and its naughty “answer” in Tottel’s Miscellany had something quite sarcastic and jeering to say to Hall, along the lines of, “Tell us again, sir, what you have to say about matching good words with good deeds”; or, “Do tell us now, Mr. Hall, what you have to ‘say well’ for yourself.” At the same time, I do think – or it is my hope – that the mirthfully wicked means by which this message was delivered argues against the possibility of a much crueller motive behind it. One wonders about the timing of the decision to put John Hall’s two poems in Q2, and whether Tottel or those who supplied him with those poems knew that one Alice Benden was among seven burned at Canterbury on 19 June 1557 for heresy, and whether they knew that this Alice Benden was John Hall’s sister.72 It is possible, in other words, that in the eyes of some at the time, not only Hall’s own public disgrace but that of his sibling, too, proved him unfit to lecture others on the matching of good words with good deeds. If that was also an intended part of the Miscellany’s message to Hall, then its taunting of him invoked an actual martyr’s fire to assert the license of its hot wooing authors to be allowed their imaginary Petrarchan ones, unmolested by his carping. Tottel’s readers nevertheless are assured that the authors who claim this license are morally upright, devout, and dutiful subjects by the Miscellany’s inclusion of so many moralistic verses, its handful of safely pious ones, and its one invective against treason. But these messages did not by themselves 70

  The progress of this division of the “late parcels of the lands of Wyatt” may be followed in dozens of entries in CPR Philip and Mary, vols. 1–3. On the forfeiture of Maidstone’s charter see Russell 1881, 185. The standard modern history of Wyatt’s rebellion is Loades 1992. 71   CPR Philip and Mary, 3:52–7 (4 June 1558); Hall’s is the eighth name up from the bottom of p. 53. 72   Alice, married to Edward Benden, was among the “three men and four women” whose deaths at Canterbury Rollins dated 30 June 1557 in the passage quoted at the outset of this study (1965, 2:3). John Foxe learned her story from her two other brothers, Roger and Thomas Hall, and included it in the 1570 edition of Actes and Monuments (STC 11223), 2207–9.

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qualify their authors for membership in the club of “good Englishe writers.” That privilege hinges rather on the “graces” of one’s “stile,” on whether it is “honorable” or “statel[y]” or in another way illustrative of “English eloquence.” In a world in which words and actions had no shortage of perilous consequences, and in the very summer of the martyrs’ fires, Tottel’s Miscellany offered the prospect of haven in the form of a community of eloquent literati, by promoting to its readers standards of skill, learning, and artistry – the ability to appreciate syllabic verse forms, for example – that might serve to define their relation to each other and their relation to those in other parts of Christendom who likewise valued their verses “praiseworthely” written.

Postscript: “Moe hereafter” “I had rather then forty shillings I had my booke of Songs and Sonnets heere,” says Master Slender in the first scene of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.1 As a note tells us in the Norton edition of Shakespeare’s works, Slender is “[p]robably” referring to “Richard Tottel’s Miscellany, an out-of-date collection of love poetry on whose quotable quotes Slender wishes to draw in wooing Anne Page.” So, we are invited to understand, this hapless gentleman is slender-witted not only because he needs to crib from poets when he woos, but because he does not even know enough to steal from Sidney or Spenser (or Shakespeare). We will return to this testimony from poor Slender, for there is more to its joke. In the meantime, in this postscript I re-examine certain points in the Miscellany’s printing and reception history after the first two editions of 1557, including the publication of other miscellanies that Steven May aptly calls “its progeny,” and I offer an assessment of the Miscellany’s legacy in Elizabethan poetics in light of this study’s understanding of Tottel’s ambitions for it in Mary’s reign. Despite repeating, in every subsequent edition after the second, his promise in the notice to supplement “these [poems]” printed “presently” with “moe hereafter,” Tottel did not do so. We will need to interpret this circumstance, but we must do so in two stages, starting with the last edition in Mary’s reign: the third (STC 13862; Marquis’s Q3, Rollins’s C), printed sometime in the latter half of 1557 or in 1558, which reproduces Q2’s content and repeats in the colophon its publication date of 31 July 1557.2 This identical date has been variously interpreted. W.W. Greg and Hyder Rollins both assumed that brisk sales of the first edition prompted Tottel to prepare two settings of a second edition, one right after the other, on the supposition that a “generally recognized custom” or “trades’ union regulation for the benefit of compositors” limited the size of press runs, and that Tottel knew he could quickly sell more than a single run’s worth.3 1   I, i, 165–6 in the Norton edition (Greenblatt 1997), but here I have quoted the first folio’s spelling and capitalization (1623; STC 22273). The earlier, much shorter quarto version of the play (printed in 1602 and 1619) lacks Slender’s line. 2   It has been shown, however, that the editor or compositor of Q3 worked from copies of both the earlier editions, restoring many Q1 readings that were changed in Q2; see Marquis 2007, xxiii–xxvi, esp. n. 8; Rollins 1965, 13–20. 3   Greg 1904, 122–3 (and for Greg’s conclusion that the third edition is but a “duplicate setting” of the second, 128; quoted by Rollins 1965, 2:13–14, 20). Rollins recognized that

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According to this understanding, Tottel rushed two settings of the same edition out the door without altering the latter’s colophon date. Paul Marquis rightly points out that more time could have elapsed between the printing of Q2 and Q3 than Greg and Rollins assumed, possibly up to 18 months. But the ground for his argument requires qualification. He observes that the identical colophon date in Q2 and Q3 is not anomalous, for it was “Tottel’s standard practice to reprint books, especially calendars of English common law, yearbooks, statutes, and books of tenures, using the colophons of those titles printed at earlier dates.” He then surmises the following: By retaining the original date of the colophon in later reprints of law books, Tottel most likely assumed he was insuring his copyright and providing a sense of authenticity for his reader. One can argue, then, that when Tottel wished to reprint Songes and Sonettes after 31 July 1557 [the date of Q2] and before 1559 [the date of Q4], a slightly revised Q2 was given to his compositor to reprint, and that following what he took to be the house style in the matter of the colophon, the compositor carefully set the date that was before him [for Q3]. (2007, xxiv–v)

This explanation of Tottel’s motive for reprinting law books with an earlier edition’s date is surely right. But the practice cannot be called a standard one in Tottel’s shop. The evidence across Tottel’s career reveals a range of different dating practices too varied for any compositor ever to have mistaken one of them as a “house style,” while in the Marian era, Tottel’s reproduction of colophons from prior editions was in fact a rarity. STC’s index to Tottel’s publications over four decades provides a helpful but incomplete picture of the situation.4 Of the roughly 700 Tottel imprints listed there, 46 are marked “d/repeat” to indicate that they are dated the same as an earlier edition but, on typographical evidence, were determined by STC’s editors to have been printed in a later year.5 Eleven other books are marked “d/error” because they are judged to have been printed later than they are dated, presumably signaling lost prior editions whose colophons they reprint. Actually the 46 “d/repeat” total should be revised to 43. One of the books included, STC 10961.7, is a variant state “the two [settings] might better be spoken of as distinct editions,” and he concedes that probably “some time intervened” between their actual dates of publication (2:19–20). 4  See STC, 3:169–70. 5   As the proceeding discussion underscores, in order to resolve numerous otherwise intractable dating problems, the whole of Richard Tottel’s output begs to be analyzed by the method developed by R. Carter Hailey, who, among other breakthroughs, has made brilliant use of paper-stock evidence to establish the dates of two Shakespearean quartos (2007).

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of 10961.4 (dated 1567, the same as STC 10961) that in fact corrects the erroneous date to 1576.6 Two others, STC 10960 and STC 3344, are properly semi-instances of “d/repeat”: the former has the prior edition’s date on the title page but the correct date of 1560 in the colophon; the latter has a prior edition’s date of 1584 in the colophon but the correct date, 1586, on its title page. Not all the “multiple editions of the same date” from Tottel’s press were re-examined by STC’s editors for the purpose of establishing their “true dates.” Only a thorough dating of his yearbooks was completed.7 Even so, among Tottel’s books with a 1550s date, the candidates for redating are very few. Besides the third edition of Tottel’s Miscellany, we find just five others, and these are different versions of just two popular law books: 1. STC 15767 (an edition of Littleton’s Tenures in English) is dated the same as STC 15766: 16 April 1556. Tottel’s next edition of this work is dated 1572, so most likely STC 15767 was printed sometime in the 1560s.8 2. and 3. STC 15738.3 and STC 15738.7 (Littleton’s Tenures in Law French) are dated the same as STC 15738: 28 October 1557. Tottel’s next edition of this work is dated 1567, so it is likely that STC 15738.3 was printed in the period 1559–61 and that STC 15738.7 was printed 1563–65. 4. STC 18409 (The Natura brevium in English) is dated the same as STC 18408.7: 27 February 1557. Tottel’s next edition of this work is dated 22 February 1576, so most likely STC 18409 was printed sometime in the 1560s. 5. STC 18398.5 (The Natura brevium in Law French) is dated the same as 18398: 1557. Tottel’s next edition of this work is dated 21 Jan 1567, so it is likely that STC 18398.5 was printed in the period 1559–65. There are two points to make in light of these observations. First, as the examples above help document, repeated colophon dates in Tottel’s output are almost exclusively, not just especially, found in law books. The only 6

 Other examples of repeated dates being corrected in a variant copy are in STC 9901 and 9777. 7   STC, 3:169. 8   Note that the minimum difference between the printed date and STC’s estimated actual date of “d/repeat” books is two years, and there are only two examples of so short a span; usually five or more years elapsed. This two-year minimum is reflected in my estimate of date-ranges in the entries following.

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exceptions in all of Tottel’s career are Q3 of Tottel’s Miscellany and the third edition of Marcus Tullius Ciceroes thre bokes of duties, translated by Nicholas Grimald, which reprints the second edition’s colophon date of 14 April 1558 but is given the estimated dated 1563(?) in STC. Secondly, it is necessary to distinguish between different periods of Tottel’s career when describing his dating practices. The above-listed editions of Littleton’s Tenures and the Natura brevium repeat the dates of prior Tottel editions printed in Mary’s reign, but most probably they were themselves printed under Elizabeth. Other than Q3 of the Miscellany, there is just one other reprinted colophon from Tottel’s press that appears to have been printed before 1559: the 1556(?) edition of Christopher St. German’s law primer, Doctor and Student (STC 21571), which is dated the same as Tottel’s 1554 edition (STC 21570). All of Tottel’s other reprinted colophons were issued in 1559 or afterward, the majority of them after 1565.9 It is instructive, similarly, to trace the quite disparate “reprinting histories” of Tottel’s books in order to see his practice of repeating colophon dates in their proper light. For example: if we examine all the titles from his press that saw their first editions in Mary’s reign, we find one yearbook that he printed with the same colophon four times: STC 9874, containing reports for the Michaelmas and Hilary terms of 19 Edward IV. The first edition came out in 1556, and this date was repeated in editions of 1565(?; STC 9874.5), 1572(?; STC 9875), and 1582(?; STC 9875.5). There are no other instances of Tottel putting the same date on all editions of a book first printed before 1559. Instead, we commonly see a mixture of dating practices. The yearbook of 22 Edward IV (STC 9892), for example, was printed 8 Feb 1556, and this date was repeated for the next edition of 1564(?; STC 9892.5); but the next three editions have their own dates (STC 9893 printed in 1572, STC 9894 in 1578, and STC 9894.5 in 1582). A different combination is seen in the yearbook for 21 Edward IV. Tottel printed his first edition undated (STC 9885, in 1556?). The second edition, STC 9886, is dated 1566; the third repeats this date (STC 9887, printed 1573?); but the last is correctly dated 1584 (STC 9887.5). Nearly as often as these mixed examples, moreover (the ratio is roughly 4:5), Tottel repeated no colophon dates for the whole of a book’s printing history: e.g., the first edition of his yearbook for 30 and 31 Henry VI (STC 9723) is dated 1556, the next is dated 27 February 1567 (STC 9724), the last is dated 10 November 1575 (STC 9725); or alternatively, the first edition of his yearbook for 37 Henry VI was printed without a date (STC 9757, issued 1557?), but the next editions are dated 1567 (STC 9758) and 2 June 1575 (STC 9759). In terms of sum totals, 9   These include the two examples cited by Marquis (2007, xxiv n. 9): STC 9809 and 9863, dated 1557 but probably printed in 1566(?), according to STC.

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then, if we trace the subsequent printing histories of all 98 books issued by Tottel in the period 1553–58, we find that 82 of them were reprinted at least once for a total of 209 second or subsequent editions; that 123 of these 209 reprint-editions were newly dated; that 23 of the 209 were printed without date; and that at most 36 of the 209 repeat the date of the first Marian edition, while up to 26 others repeat the date of a second or subsequent edition printed in the Elizabethan period.10 In other words, repeated colophon dates in Tottel’s history are in roughly a 2:1 minority, all but two were done during Elizabeth’s reign, and just as anomalous are the two exceptions to the law-book rule: Tottel’s Miscellany and Grimald’s translation of Cicero. Thus it is essential to ask whether Tottel may have had one set of motives for reprinting law books with old colophons, which he did over a span of decades, and another set of motives for doing so with a little book of verse and a translation of Cicero in 1557 and 1563.11 I do not think the coincidence that Nicholas Grimald was the translator of Cicero’s De officiis and one of the poets represented in Tottel’s Miscellany helps to explain these books’ repeated colophons, but there is something else that they share that may. The first edition of Ciceroes thre bokes of duties (STC 5281), printed in 1556, was significantly expanded in 1558 with the addition of Cicero’s Latin text in parallel columns with Grimald’s English. It was the reprint of this revised second edition, in the third edition, that has the repeated colophon date of 14 April 1558, just as it is the reprint of the revised second edition of Tottel’s Miscellany, in the third edition, that has the repeated colophon date of 31 July 1557. This, then, looks to be a particular version of the “assurance of authenticity” explanation that Marquis offers for repeated dates in the law books. If Tottel knew that there were customers specifically seeking the new and improved second editions of the Miscellany or of Grimald’s Cicero, his making the third edition look like more copies of the second would fulfill that demand. Possibly, too, in the case of the Miscellany, Q3’s repeated colophon date served the purpose of buying Tottel time to gather “moe” poems for a planned future edition. Whatever the circumstances of Q3 and its repeated colophon date, if we assume that it was printed no later than October 1558, it is apparent that between the time of its publication and that of the next edition events 10

  These last two totals include the erroneously dated editions for which lost prior ones are probable. 11   Just as another set of motives was clearly in play each time that Tottel reprinted a 1552 edition of the statutes from 2 & 3 Edward VI, not only repeating the date of the original edition’s colophon but the name of its printer, Richard Grafton. He did this four times between the late 1550s and late 1580s (STC 9424–6.5).

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transpired that affected Richard Tottel’s attitude toward the Miscellany and other such works that were, after all, peripheral to his main business. On 17 November 1558, Mary I died and Elizabeth I succeeded her. For nearly two months, Tottel waited to learn if his coveted patent “to be the sole printer of books on the common law” would be renewed. It was so on 12 January 1559, and still with the favorable proviso granting “that no one shall print any other book of which Tottell has first undertaken the publication.”12 The new license furthermore had no time restriction: it was granted “for life,” with just the single stipulation, “so long as [Tottel] shall behave well in using the licence.” It is improbable, I should say, that this warning was meant to warn Tottel off from printing subversive Catholic tracts under his new Protestant ruler. The emphasis is on his “using” of the license, meaning specifically his potential to use this instrument that already gave him an unfair advantage in the book market to even more unfair advantage, such as by exploiting his monopoly on law books to overcharge customers or by extending his claim to so broad a selection of books that other printers would be put out of business.13 That fate was a constant worry for printers who lacked patents, so undoubtedly, on Elizabeth’s accession, these unfortunates clamored either to have the system abolished altogether or to have the patents transferred to themselves. Tottel was able to keep his, but with a wag of the finger to play nice. For the rest of his career, Tottel concentrated his energies on the business of law books. He continued to reprint the Miscellany and a few other works of other types that had first sold well in Mary’s reign, producing, for example, another four editions of Grimald’s Cicero by 1583, but in Elizabeth’s reign Tottel’s output was not nearly as eclectic as it had been. After bringing out Jasper Heywood’s translation of Seneca’s Troas in 1559, he did not print any new translations or works of literature that were comparable in significance to Heywood’s Seneca or to Grimald’s Cicero, Surrey’s Vergil, or the songs and sonnets of Surrey, Wyatt, “and other.” Perhaps we may infer from this that Tottel’s appreciation of the value of his law book patent was driven home to him after the scare of the first months of Elizabeth’s reign, so that afterward he lost interest in competing with other presses for sales of other types of books and grew all the more vigilant about protecting his special turf, as is evident by his more frequent reproduction of old colophon dates in the law books from his press. 12

  CPR Elizabeth, 1:62–3.   A record survives of just such a complaint against Tottel, lodged in 1577 by “the unprivileged stationers to Lord Burghley,” wherein Tottel is accused of having “the printinge of all kindes of lawe bookes, which was common to all Printers, who selleth the same books at excessiue prices, to the hinderance of a greate nomber of pore studentes” (citing Lansdowne MS. 48, 180–81; cf. Byrom 1927, 209–10). 13

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In the Miscellany, however, Tottel had a proven bestseller, and he printed a fourth edition in the first full year of Elizabeth’s reign that again, like Q3, reprinted Q2’s content (STC 13863). This edition is dated 1559, without specification of the day or month of printing, and it is the last in a quarto format.14 Tottel apparently sold out within a few months, for in the same year he felt justified to print at least one more edition. The sequence of the fifth and sixth editions is as yet undetermined because one of them, dated 20 October 1559, was only recently discovered (ESTC S492366). The other, STC 13865.5, is simply dated 1559, like the fourth edition, but it exists also in a variant state lacking this publication year on its title page (STC 13863.7), which may or may not suggest that it was printed in a later year.15 The seventh known edition is dated 1565 (STC 13864); the eighth 1567 (STC 13865), and the last from Tottel’s press 1574 (STC 13866). The tenth and eleventh editions were issued by two different printers: John Windet in 1585 (STC 13867) and Robert Robinson in 1587 (STC 13868). These, I should stress again, are the editions that are extant: as Rollins has observed, it is “highly probable” that other Elizabethan editions of the Miscellany “were published and have disappeared without leaving a trace” (1965, 2:37). Across the same span of decades, the market success of Tottel’s Miscellany encouraged a few other London booksellers and printers to bring out verse miscellanies of their own.16 As discussed in the previous chapter, the Miscellany’s first competitor may have been printed as early as the latter half of 1557 or 1558, if Henry Sutton printed his supposed, expanded edition of The Court of Venus then. It certainly came no later than 1563(?), when Thomas Marsh printed his edition of this work. Also, it is probable that a first edition of A Handefull of plesant delites was printed in the mid-to-late 1560s, based on an entry to Richard Jones in the Stationers’ Register for 1565–66.17 A four-leaf fragment survives of a ca. 1575 edition of this miscellany, printed apparently by William How for Richard Jones (STC 21104.5), and there is a single leaf from a 1595(?) edition (STC 21105.5), but a 1584 edition is attested in full (STC 21105), enabling Rollins to observe that it contains only ballads that had, “before their collection in [A Handefull of plesant delites], been printed on 14

  More precisely its format is quarto-in-eights, with “two sheets being sewed together in each quire” (Rollins 1965, 2:20). 15   Cf. my discussion of the sequence of the three extant editions dated 1559, and the possibility that one or more of them could have repeated 1559 dates on their title pages and/or colophons, in Warner 2011, 206. 16   For studies of the works surveyed below, see Pomeroy 1973, Nebeker 2009. 17   Stationers’ Register, 1:313/141r. On the printing history of this miscellany, see Rollins 1919 and Rollins 1924, xii–xv.

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broadsides” (1924, x). Its full title, as shown below, seems fairly clearly to betray an effort on the part of its printer, Richard Jones, to invoke some of the Miscellany’s selling points: namely, the inclusion of sonnets (one even titled “A new Courtly Sonet” [B2r], though technically the volume has none); the attraction of works written in a variety of meters and verse forms; and the inclusion of new works as well as old, some by named authors, others by unnamed “others.” As we see also, the title advertises a new feature. Readers are told the tunes to which each verse may be sung (“To the tune of Greensleeves,” “To the tune of Labandala Shot,” etc.): A Handefull of plesant delites, Containing sundrie new Sonets and delectable Histories, in diuers kindes of Meeter. Newly deuised to the newest tunes that are now in vse, to be sung: euerie Sonet orderly pointed to his proper Tune. With new additions of certain Songs, to verie late deuised Notes, not commonly knowen, nor vsed heretofore, By Clement Robinson, and diuers others.

The next known English verse miscellany appeared in 1576: The Paradyse of daynty deuises, aptly furnished, with sundry pithie and learned inuentions (STC 7516), printed according to STC’s conjecture by Richard Jones for the bookseller Henry Disle. Its title page goes on to tout its authors as “sundry learned Gentlemen,” including “E.O.” (by whom Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford would be understood) and “L. Vaux” (Lord Vaux the elder). A second, 1577 edition of this miscellany is apparently lost, notes Rollins (1927, xvi–xviii), but it proved a bestseller: subsequent editions survive from 1578, 1580, 1585, 1590(?), 1596, 1600 and 1606 (STC 7517–24). Jones apparently hoped to capitalize on the popularity of A Handefull of plesant delites and The Paradyse of daynty deuises with still a third miscellany that he printed in 1578: A gorgious Gallery, of gallant Inuentions. Garnished and decked with diuers dayntie deuises, right delicate and delightfull, to recreate eche modest minde withall. First framed and fashioned in sundrie formes, by diuers worthy workemen of late dayes: and now, ioyned together and builded up: By T[homas] P[roctor] (STC 20402).

This collection has a number of reworked poems from A Handefull of plesant delites, notes Rollins (1926, xxi–xxiv), so perhaps on that account, despite the stupendous title, it did not sell well enough to merit a second edition. On the other hand, a far superior miscellany, the last of the

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sixteenth century,18 seems also to have been limited to one edition. It is another that emphasizes the high station of its authors, printed in 1593 by John Jackson: The Phoenix Nest. Built vp with the most rare and refined workes of Noble men, woorthy Knights, gallant Gentlemen, Masters of Arts, and braue Schollers. Full of varietie, excellent inuention, and singular delight. Neuer before this time published. Set foorth by R. S. of the Inner Temple Gentleman (STC 21516).

Surprising to us in hindsight, this is the first miscellany after Tottel’s to contain poems that are really sonnets, and it boasts a wide variety of other verse forms as well, including an opening elegy for “the right Honorable sir Philip Sidney knight” written in the sextilla stanza. The continued publication of verse miscellanies in the Elizabethan period inevitably provoked others besides John Hall to admonish society away from the baleful influence of love poetry, although in time they would redirect their ire toward the comparatively more baleful influence of the public theater. In 1562, for example, a broadside ballad by Thomas Bryce titled “Against filthy writing and such like delighting” was printed by Edmund Halley (STC 3725), which asked in outrage, What meane the rimes that run thus large in euery shop to sell? With wanton sound, and filthie sense, me thinke it grees not well ................................................... Tel me is Christ, or Cupide Lord? doth God or Venus reigne? And whose are wee? whom ought wee serue?

Beginning in the same year (1562), John Day’s successive editions of Sternhold’s and Hopkins’ Whole booke of Psalms began admonishing readers on their title pages to “[lay] apart all vngodly songes and ballades, which tende only to the norishing of vyce, and corrupting of youth.”19 In similar vein are two stanzas from a poem prefacing Matthew Parker’s The whole Psalter translated into English metre (STC 2729), printed in 1567(?) by John Day. After singing the praises of “Dauids skill,” the poet apostrophizes,

18

  I have excluded from this summary the volumes of poems that were advertised by their printer, Richard Jones, as being written by Nicholas Breton, despite (quoting STC) their being “only partly Breton’s.” See STC 3631 (1597 but entered 7 January 1594 in the Stationers’ Company register); STC 3633 (1591); and STC 3634 (1597). 19

  Here quoting STC 2430 (1562), printed by John Day.

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Depart ye songes: lasciuious, from lute, from harpe depart: Geue place to Psalmes: most vertuous, and solace there your harte. Ye songes so nice: ye sonnets all, of lothly louers layes: Ye worke mens myndes: but bitter gall, by phansies peuishe playes. (B2r)

The hostility is more seething in the two prose excerpts that I quote next. In Thomas Becon’s The Book of Matrimony, published by John Day in The worckes of Thomas Becon (STC 1710, dated 1564 though its three volumes are separately dated 1560–63), Becon recalls that the Lacedemonians bothe banyshed Archilochus the Poet, and also burnt his bookes, althoughe neuer so learned and eloquent, because they woulde not haue the mindes of their youthe and other Citezens corrupted and defiled by the reding of them.20 These men shall rise up against us English men at the day of judgement, whych banishe not, nor burn not, but rather Print, publishe, set forth and sell baudy balades and filthy bookes unto the corruption of the reders, as the court of Venus, and such like wanton bookes. (3A2v)

Thus we have traversed from one disturbing spectacle to another – from Rollins’s claim that Tottel’s Miscellany was “eagerly read by the very people who watched the burning of the martyrs” to Thomas Becon’s warning that England’s continued tolerance of its publishers, printers, and vendors of “wanton bookes” will consign the nation generally, on the day of judgement, to be burned in hell. A call for book-burning appears also in Edward Dering’s Briefe and necessary instruction verye needefull to bee knowen of all housholders (STC 6679), printed by John Awdely in 1572. After decrying the chivalric romances, Robin Hood tales, saints’ lives and such other “witless deuices” that once were printed and sold “vnder the Popes priuiledge” (A2v), Dering complains that in the present time “we have printed vs many bawdy songes,” and indeed

20   The source of this anecdote is Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium, 6.3.

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we haue gotten our Songes and Sonets, our Pallaces of pleasure,21 our vnchaste fables and Tragedies, and such lyke Sorceries, moe then any man may recken. Yea some haue be so impudent, as new borne Moabites, which wallow in their own vomit, and haue not bene ashamed to entitle their bookes, The Court of Venus, The Castle of Love,22 and manye such other as shamelesse as these. O that there were among vs some zealous Ephesians, that bookes of so great vanity might be burned vp.23 (A3r)

If, during all this time, Dering and other pious authors failed to dampen the reading public’s enthusiasm for lewd literature such as “our Songes and Sonets,” we must consider other possible explanations for the Miscellany seeing its last known edition in 1587. Hyder Rollins, speculating on the apparent failure of The Phoenix Nest to merit a second edition after the first in 1593, suggests that it was overshadowed by the “fancifully named sonnet-sequences” that began “pouring from the press about 1593” (1931, xli).24 Presumably these books would have diminished the appeal of Tottel’s Miscellany, too. And yet, The Paradyse of daynty deuises, a miscellany first printed in the mid-1570s, remained popular enough to be printed in four new editions after 1590, so it was not necessarily the perception among book shoppers that miscellanies per se were out of fashion or that Tottel’s Miscellany was “out-of-date” that accounts for its eclipse. I think instead it was Surrey who had been eclipsed. That is, the Earl of Surrey’s long-enduring star-power was eventually diminished by the death of Sir Philip Sidney at the battle of Zutphen in 1586, when suddenly the public had a new celebrity-courtier, cut down before his time, to occupy

21  I.e., The Palace of Pleasure Beautified, a collection of amorous tales including that of “Rhomeo and Iulietta.” The first volume was printed in 1566 by John Kingston and Henry Denham for Richard Tottel and William Jones (STC 19121), and reprinted in 1569 by Thomas Marsh (STC 19122). The second volume was printed by Henry Bynneman for Nicholas England in 1567 (STC 19124). 22   The castell of loue [by Diego de San Pedro, fl. 1500], translated out of Spanishe into Englyshe, by Johan Bowrchier knyght, lorde Bernis, was first printed in 1548(?) by Richard Field for John Turke (STC 21739.5). It was reprinted by Robert Wyer for Richard Kele in 1552(?) and by John King ca. 1555 (STC 21740 and 21742, respectively), but Dering was more likely provoked by a lost 1565 edition registered to Thomas Purfoot (Stationers’ Register, 1:265/117r). 23   A reference to the Ephesians who burned their books of magic after accepting Christ (Acts 19:19). 24   Rollins’s three examples are William Smith’s Chloris, or The complaint of the passionate despised shepheard (1596, STC 22872), Thomas Lodge’s Phillis: honoured with pastoral sonnets, elegies, and amorous delights (1593, STC 16662), and William Percy’s Sonnets to the fairest Coelia (1594, STC 19618).

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its interest. Besides the three collections of Latin eulogies issued in 1587,25 there were printed four English poems devoted to Sidney’s praise: Thomas Churchyard’s Epitaph of Sir Phillip Sidney Knight (1586; STC 5228); Vpon the life and death of the most worthy, and thrise renowmed knight, Sir Phillip Sidney by Angel Day (1586?; STC 6409); The Life and Death of Sir Phillip Sidney, by John Phillips (1587; STC 19871), and Sir Phillip Sidney, his honorable life, his valiant death, and true virtues, by George Whetstone (1587; STC 25349). Against these, the 1587 edition of Tottel’s Miscellany had to compete; and just a few years later, in 1591, Sidney’s own songs and sonnets appeared in two editions of Astrophel and Stella (STC 22536 and 22537, printed by John Charlewood and John Danter respectively), the first of these with the advertisement that “sundry other rare sonnets of diuers noble men and gentlemen” were appended.26 Thus, having poems by Sidney and “other” available to them, perhaps fewer book buyers felt a need for Surrey “and other.” Yet on many levels, Sidney and the other poets of Elizabeth’s reign had considerable need of the Miscellany’s precedent. The diversity of poetic forms analysed in Chapter 2 of this study will have contributed supporting evidence for the most familiar of those “levels.” The case for an unfamiliar one is made in this study’s analysis of Tottel’s prefatory notice and in my speculation that the Miscellany was to some extent a collaborative “Innsof-Court project.” For Tottel and for the Miscellany’s contemporary contributors, I argued, its publication represented the claim of literati to a privileged social space, to grounds for communal identity, and to a poetic principle that ought logically to keep this community of “good Englishe writers,” their noble-minded printers, and their “learned” readers immune from the outcries of pious critics or the sometimes worse consequences that now and then befell those who produced or possessed books judged by church or crown to be “euill doon.” On one hand, no Elizabethan treatise on literature, including Sidney’s, provides a blunt statement of this principle – namely, that because the practice and display of eloquence by some poets is pursued to the “honor of the Englishe tong” and to “profit” the “studious of Englishe eloquence,” the measures of eloquence alone are those by which their verses ought to be evaluated and either praised or blamed. On the other hand, by jest and implication Sidney gestures toward this principle in both the Defence of Poesy and Astrophel and Stella, and 25

  Namely the following: Academiae Cantabrigiensis Lachrymae tvmvlo Nobilissimi Equitis, D. Philippi Sidneii Sacratae (STC 4473); Exeqviae Illvstrissimi Eqvitis, D. Philippi Sidnaei, Gratissimae Memoriae ac Nomini Impensae (STC 22551); Peplvs. Illvstrissimi Viri D. Philippi Sidnaei Svpremis Honoribvs Dicatvs (STC 22552). 26  Officially, STC 22536 was suppressed for being unlicensed (see Stationers’ Register, 1:555); in the licensed STC 22537, the poems by others were dropped.

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the latter of these is unmistakably premised on it, hardly on the criteria that Sidney espouses in the former or that Shakespeare satirizes. It was yet another denunciation of lewd literature, The S[c]hoole of Abuse, Conteining a plesaunt inuective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Iesters, and such like Caterpillers of a Commonwelth (two editions in 1579: STC 12097, from which I quote below, and 12097.5), that impelled Sidney to write his essay, though he does not deign to name this text that he refutes or its author, Stephen Gosson, an Oxford student who presumptuously dedicated it to Sidney.27 Mainly Gosson’s diatribe is against the theater, but he starts with a catalogue of classical poets and reviles them all. Vergil, for example, “shewes his art in the lust of Dido,” while Ovid’s “cunning” is revealed “in the incest of Myrrha,” referring to her story in Metamorphoses 10, and in “That trumpet of Bawdrie, the Craft of loue [Ars amatoria]” (A2r). “Sappho,” meanwhile, “was skilfull in Poetrie and sung wel,” Gosson concedes, “but she was whorish” (A5r). The situation is hardly different in the present day, he complains, for it is the rare poet who does not prove a “deceitfull Phisition” administering “sweete Syroppes, to make his poyson goe downe the smoother” (A2r). The only safe course, Gosson concludes, is to steer clear from all poetry – for “[t]he Syrens songue is the Saylers wracke,” and “Harpies haue Virgins faces” (ibid.) Sidney acknowledges, in The Defence of Poesie, that the charge of a corrupting influence is one of “the most important imputations laid to the poore Poets” (F4a). The art of poetry, some say, is but “the nurse of abuse, infecting vs with pestilent desires, with a Sirens sweetnesse, drawing the minde to the Serpents taile of sinfull fansies” (F4v).28 But Sidney, we find, only contests the over-generalization of this charge, not its grounds. “If the Poet do his part aright, he wil shew you … nothing that is not to be shunned” (D3v), claims Sidney, and he grants readily that many a poet does not “do his part aright,” but rather “abuses” his art like Gosson’s deceitful physician. “[N]ot onelie loue, but lust, but vanitie, but scurrilitie, possesse manie leaues of the Poets books,” he agrees, and such works are indeed a public menace, for “Poesie may not onely be abused,” but “being abused by the reason of his sweete charming force, it can do more hurt then anie other armie of words” (G2v). Sidney only would insist that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let us “not say, that Poetrie 27

  Sidney’s Defence was issued three times in 1595: an unauthorized edition titled An Apologie for Poetrie (STC 22534, printed by James Roberts for Henry Olney); the first authorized edition (STC 22535, by Thomas Creed for William Ponsonby); and STC 22534.5, also issued by Creed but described by STC as an “issue of quires B–L of 22534 [with the title page] to 22535 prefixed.” 28  Citations of The Defence are to STC 22535.

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abuseth mans wit, but that mans wit abuseth Poetrie”; and “shal the abuse of a thing, make the right vse odious?” (G2r). As elsewhere in The Defence, Sidney in this passage rehearses age-old arguments excusing the arts of poetry and rhetoric from moral censure, which would not be cause for surprise unless one expected consistency between Sidney’s practice and his preaching. And of course, one should not. At least insofar as Sidney was already the author of poems that could be accused of “drawing the minde to the Serpents taile of sinfull fansies,” he knew very well that he was being slyly disingenuous in The Defence. An infamous example is the “Second Song” in Astrophel and Stella, a poem whose bad-boy speaker happens upon his beloved sleeping under a tree and steals a kiss, but throughout his narrative of the episode he hints at far worse mischief.29 “Since sweete Sleep her eyes hath charmed,” he says, “Now wil I teach her, that she / When she wakes is too too cruel”; “Now will I with that Boy proue / Some play while he is disarmed”; “Now wil I attempt to knowe, / What no her tongue sleeping vseth”; and still more scandalizing, “Now I wil inuade the fort, / Cowards Loue with losse rewardeth.” He pauses at this point momentarily, thinking “of the danger” and “her iust and high disdaine,” but then in the song’s final stanzas he rallies himself to commit his shocking trespass: Yet those lippes so sweetly swelling, Do inuite a stealing kisse; Now but venture will I this, Who will read must first learne spelling. Oh sweet kisse, but ah shee is waking, Lowring beautie chastens mee. Now will I for feare hence flee, Foole, more Foole for no more taking.

Thus our prior suspicions are confirmed: if he will “but venture” a kiss, then he has other things in mind that he will not venture. He even rebukes himself, in his flight afterward, for having taken only a kiss rather than “more taking.” But perhaps the song’s most wicked moment is in its correlation of the distance between learning to spell and the ability to read and that between a kiss and the “more” not taken. Like the final line of Wyatt’s dialogue-poem in Tottel’s Miscellany, where the Lover boasts of having shown his readers how “hartes be wonne, by loue, request and mone” (R109/M113), this analogy of Sidney’s is surely a coy acknowledgement 29   Quoted below from STC 22536, 47–8, where it is called a “Second Sonnet” under the heading, “Other Sonnets of variable verse” (46).

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that his poem is exactly the sort that the Halls and Gossons of the world warn should not be read, just as one should not violate sleeping ladies. Here, says Sidney with puckish grin, is a poem that will get Gosson’s goat, for obviously it must fill readers’ heads with “sinfull fansies” and teach them to dare sinful deeds. We find ourselves hard pressed to take very seriously Sidney’s dour judgement in The Defence of Poesy that poets who write of “lust” and “scurrilitie” abuse their art. Near the end of The Defence, Sidney turns to critique the English “Paper-Blurrers” who in his day are writing a “Lyricall kind of Songs and Sonets” (H3r, I2v), and though he here applies a new critical criterion for the task, if anything it is even clearer that he does so tongue in cheek. This criterion, as we see below, is that of convincing authenticity. For “truly,” Sidney complains, many of such writings as come vnder the banner of vnreasistable loue, if I were a mistresse, would neuer perswade mee they were in loue: so coldly they applie firie speeches, as men that had rather redde louers writings, and so caught vp certain swelling Phrases, … then that in truth they feele those passions. (I3r)

In contrast to the poet whose eloquence conveys at least a credible impersonation of authentic passions, or more properly those he feels “in truth,” the mere “Versefiers” of Sidney’s day load up their songs and sonnets with “far fet words” and “figures and flowers,” or write as if “bound to follow the method of a Dictionary,” so that the “hony-flowing Matrone Eloquence” in their verses is “apparrelled, or rather disguised” by them “in a Courtisanlike painted affectation” (ibid.). Poems of this sort are manifestly artificial, fake, and therefore doomed to fail in their presumed task of wooing a woman. This premise that love poems must be persuasively authentic because they have actual missions to accomplish reappears at the end of The Defence, in the first part of Sidney’s jesting “Curse” on those who impugn the art of poetry: “that while you liue, you liue in loue, and neuer get fauour, for lacking skill of a Sonet” (K2r). It is familiar, too, from the ironic first sonnet of Astrophel and Stella, which like the “Second Song” ends with the poet calling himself “Foole”: Louing in trueth, and fayne my loue in verse to show, That the deere Shee, might take some pleasure of my paine: Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pittie winne, and pittie grace obtaine. I sought fit wordes, to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inuentions fine, her wittes to entertaine, Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flowe,

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Some fresh and fruitfull showre, vpon my Sunne-burnt braine. But wordes came halting out, wanting inuentions stay, Inuention Natures childe, fledde Stepdames studies blowes: And others feete, still seem’de but straungers in my way, Thus great with Childe to speake, and helplesse in my throwes, Byting my tongue and penne, beating my selfe for spite: Foole saide My muse to mee, looke in thy heart and write. (1)

The irony of course is in this poem’s relationship between its declaration of authenticity and its form. “Astrophel” assures us that he has learned his lesson and rejected the words and meters that he has “redde” in other “louers writings” (quoting The Defence again), so that here and from here on out he will write only undiluted expressions of the “paine” and “woe” that “in trueth” torment his heart. Yet this is a 14-line sonnet, written in the rhyme scheme that Surrey invented and that the poet-lover “redde” in Tottel’s Miscellany. Has he not forsworn himself? Not at all, we are supposed to imagine him replying. Words that flow from his heart do so in the meters and rhymes inherent to them. The attentive reader will observe that this is not a 14-line iambic pentameter sonnet but a 14-line iambic hexameter sonnet; and the first two quatrains do not rhyme abab cdcd, such as Surrey wrote, but abab bcbc. Only an insensitive pedant would object that these are trivial variations on convention. Rather they are guarantees of authentic feeling. In other words, one reads Sidney’s poetry and his pronouncements on the art of poetry alert to the likelihood that they poke fun in various directions, including at themselves; which may leave us without a definitive Sidneyan position on the poetics of “that Lyricall kind of Songs and Sonets,” but with a wink he has at least signaled that he is not really in agreement with the enemies of love poems and neither does he subscribe to a too-simple notion of authenticity-vs.-artifice. Shakespeare’s allusion to Tottel’s Miscellany in The Merry Wives of Windsor similarly is a joke at the expense of different parties. The usual understanding, noted at the start of this postscript, is that by the 1590s Tottel’s Miscellany had become unfashionable enough in Shakespeare’s eyes to associate it with one of his numbskulls, the tongue-tied Master Slender who wants to crib from it to woo Anne Page. But equally Slender’s line, “I had rather then forty shillings I had my booke of Songs and Sonnets heere,” is a teasing jab at the alarmists who warn that “the mindes of [the] youthe and other Citezens” will be “corrupted and defiled by the reding” of “baudy balades and filthy bookes.” In Master Slender their worst fears are realized, or thrown back at them, if we but infer that it was his book of songs and sonnets that doubtlessly inflamed him with “sinfull fancies” in the first place. The lewd verses in Tottel’s Miscellany corrupted this citizen, goading him to lust

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shamelessly after Anne Page. If he had remembered to bring his copy with him, who would dare imagine what outrage he might have committed? Where Sidney comes closest to articulating the poetic principle on which his and Shakespeare’s jokes are premised is in The Defence’s celebrated response to the charge that poetry “is the mother of lyes” (F4v). “Now the Poet,” says Sidney, “he nothing affirmeth, and therefore neuer lieth” (G1r), and for clarification of this insight Sidney asks: “Now dooth the Lawier lye, then when vnder the names of Iohn of the Stile, and Iohn of the Nokes, hee putteth his Case?” (G1v). The names John of the Stile and John of the Nokes, like John Doe in later times, could stand in for the name of an unknown party in actual court cases, but more generally these were fictitious names used for hypothetical examples in explanations of the law. This is their function in Christopher St. German’s popular law primer mentioned earlier in this postscript, The [two] dyaloges in Englishe, betwene a Doctour of diuinitie, and a Student in the lawes of Englande (the title of Richard Tottel’s 1556[?] edition, STC 21571). These dialogues, separately or together, were printed in at least 20 editions in the sixteenth century, eight times by Tottel, and throughout the text St. German describes “Iohn at Style,” “Iohn at Noke,” and sometimes “Henry Harte” embroiled in disputes over land titles and rents, terms of leases, the settling of debts and so on.30 Presumably these gentlemen were likewise invoked in lectures and in mooting and bolting exercises at the Inns of Court, and at times students played the parts of John of the Stile and John of the Nokes, giving testimony as fictitious litigants who had suffered or perpetrated any number of supposed wrongs. When these lessons were done, the same students for their amusement presumably took up other parts, including sometimes love’s martyrs, the “fictitious lovers” who “wail their supposed woes and recount their supposed joys” (Rollins 1965, 2:3). In sum, to assert that the poet “nothing affirmeth” is as much as to say that sonnets do not really wooeth. Astrophel is the poet’s counterpart to the imaginary plaintiff in a mock trial. No one should think his function was to seduce Penelope, the Lady Rich, in real life. On the same account, the “far fet words,” superfluous “figures and flowers,” and verses that “follow the method of a Dictionary” are faults not because they would fail to convince a lady that her wooer feels the hot passions that he claims, but because they are artless attempts at English eloquence. This is a judgement that depends upon shared notions of the standards of English eloquence, such as we saw Tottel offer to instill in readers of the Miscellany. It depends, more importantly, on these notions being shared by a community 30

 For instances in STC 21571 see 10r, 50v, 49r, 74v, 78v (misprinted 68), 79v (misprinted 69), 93r, 102r (misprinted 72) 120v, 156v (misprinted 176), 159r (misprinted 179).

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of readers and writers secure enough or venturesome enough to be guided by such standards instead of others that assume poetry’s duty to affirm good morals and right faith. Sidney, though he did not quite own up to it, belonged to this community when he wanted to, together with whichever “Vncertain auctour” or “auctours” wrote “The complaint of a hot woer, delayed with doutfull cold answers” and his dearly beloved’s randy risposta, “to the honor of the Englishe tong.”

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_____. 2009. Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richter, Bodo L.O. 1953. “Printers and Poets: Notes on Giolito and the Petrarchists.” Library Chronicle 19: 77–92. Ringler, William A., Jr. 1988. Bibliography and Index of English Verse Printed 1476–1558. London: Mansell. Rivers, Elias L., ed. 1964. [Garcilaso de la Vega’s] Obras completas. Madrid: Editorial Castalia. _____. 1966. Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain. New York: Dell. _____. 1996. “Garcilaso, Góngora, and Their Readers.” In EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, vol. 2: Signs of the Early Modern – 15th and 16th Centuries. Ed. David Lee Rubin. Charlottesville, VA: Rockwood Press. 67–78. Robin, Diana. 2007. Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rodríguez-Moñino, Antonio. 1973. Manual bibliográfico de cancioneros y romanceros impresos durante el siglo XVI. Ed. Arthur L-F. Askins. 2 vols. Madrid: Editorial Castalia. Rodríguez, Óscar Perea. 2007. Estudio biográfico sobre los poetas del Cancionero General. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Rollins, Hyder Edward. 1919. “The Date, Authors, and Contents of A Handfull of Pleasant Delights.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 18: 43–59. _____, ed. 1924. A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584): By Clement Robinson and Divers Others. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. _____, ed. 1926. A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. _____, ed. 1927. The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576–1606). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. _____, ed. 1931. Phoenix Nest (1593). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. _____. 1932. “Tottel’s ‘Miscellany’ and John Hall. The Times Literary Supplement, 14 January: 28. _____, ed. 1965. Tottel’s Miscellany (1557–1587). 2nd edn, rev. by Douglas Bush. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1st edn 1928. Russell, J.M. 1881. The History of Maidstone. Maidstone: William S. Vivish, and London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co. Shrank, Cathy. 2004. Writing the Nation in Reformation England, 1530– 1580. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _____. 2005. “‘Matters of love as of discourse’: The English Sonnet, 1560– 1580.” Studies in Philology 105: 30–49.

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Spiegel, Glenn S. 1980. “Perfecting English Meter: Sixteenth-Century Criticism and Practice.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 79: 192–209. Tomasi, Franco, and Paolo Zaja. 2001. Rime diverse di molti eccellentissimi autori (Giolito, 1545). Turin: Edizioni RES. Vaganay, Hugues. 1899. Bibliographie du sonnet français, ais au XIXe siècle. Louvain: Polleunis et Ceuterick. _____. 1902–1903. Le sonnet en Italie et en France au XVIe siècle. Essai de Bibliographie Comparée. 2 vols. Lyon: Universite de Lyon, Facultés catholiques. Van Bever, Adolphe, ed. 1909. Le Fleur de Poésie Françoyse recueil joyeulx contenant plusieurs huictains, dixains, quatrains, chansons et aultres dictez de diverses matieres, etc. Paris: E. Sansot. Wall, Wendy. 1993. The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Warner, J. Christopher. 2010. “A Gift of Books from the Emperor’s Poet Laureate to Queen Mary I.” The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 7th Series 11: 345–49. _____. 2011. “‘Sonnets en Anglois’: A Hitherto Unknown Edition of Tottel’s Miscellany (1559).” Notes and Queries New Series 58: 204–6. Willcock, Gladys D. 1922. “A Hitherto Uncollated Version of Surrey’s Translation of the Fourth Book of the ‘Aeneid.’” Modern Language Review 17: 163–72. Wilson, Derek. 2001. In the Lion’s Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII. London: Hutchinson; rpt. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Wimsatt, Jr, W.K. and Monroe C. Beardsley. 1959. “The Concept of Meter: An Exercise in Abstraction.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 74: 585–98. Winn, Mary Beth. 1997. Anthoine Vérard: Parisian Publisher, 1485–1512. Geneva: Librairie Droz. Wizeman, William. 2006. The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s Church. Aldershot: Ashgate. Wolfe, Heather. 2011. “From Printing House to Coffee House.” The Collation: A Gathering of Scholarship from the Folger Shakespeare Library. 11 September. . Woods, Susanne. 1984. Natural Emphasis: English Versification from Chaucer to Dryden. San Marino: Huntington Library. Woolfson, Jonathan. 1998. Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485–1603. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Zim, Rivkah. 1986. “The Maidstone Burghmote and John Hall’s Courte of Vertue (1565).” Notes and Queries New Series 33: 320–27.

Index Note: Only in-text citations of modern scholarship are indexed. Page numbers in italics signal quotation and discussion of poems by the indexed author.

Alamanni, Luigi (poet) 35–6, 40, 42, 163 alliterative verse 123, 140–41 Amanio, Niccoló (poet) 40 Amores, Carles (printer) 67 anapestic meter 113 Anonymity in printed verse miscellanies 30, 36–40, 193–4 Aquilano, Serafino (poet) 27, 60, 125n.41, 138, 142, 143 Aretino, Pietro (poet) 30 Ariosto, Lodovico (poet) 30, 45, 46 Arrivabene, Andrea (printer, editor) 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 43, 44 Arundel Harington MS. of Wyatt’s and others’ poetry 13, 172, 198 Ascham, Roger (author) 7, 115 Attridge, Derek 115 Awdely, John (printer) 224 Awen, William (editor) 115 Bages, Juan (bookseller) 67 Baïf, Antoine de (poet) 57 Baldwin, William (poet, author) 22, 115, 119, 164 Bale, John 166, 197n.47 ballad measures 42, 50–3, 57, 64–5, 97, 105, 107–9, 117n.27, 123, 127, 129–31 ballads, bawdy, and lewd literature 9–10, 160, 192–4, 199–202, 205–7, 210–11, 223–5, 227–9, 230–32 Balthorp, Nicholas 108–9 Barker, William (translator) 193 Baron, Helen 13 Basil, St. 193 Becon, Thomas 224

Bembo, Pietro (poet) 45n.40, 46, 54, 157 Benoît de Sainte More 173 Berthelet, Thomas (printer) 96, 102, 103, 167, 205 Beza, Theodore (poet) 27, 142, 190 Bieston, Roger (poet) 106 Blage MS. of Wyatt’s and others’ poetry 140n.62, 198 blank verse (form) 43, 115, 120 blason (genre) 54 Blundeville, Thomas (poet, translator) 22 Boleyn, George (poet) 17 Bonifatio, Dragonetto (poet) 46 Borde, Andrew 7 Boscán, Juan 67–74, 81, 84, 85, 157 Bottrigaro, Hercol (editor) 31 Braham, Robert (editor) 175–6 Bryan, Sir Francis (poet) 17 Bryce, Thomas (poet) 223 Bynneman, Henry (printer) 225n.21 Caly, Robert (printer) 97, 101, 114n.22, 166, 167 Camillo, Giulio (poet) 30, 40 Canand, J. (pseudonym?; poet) 15 Cancionero general (verse miscellany) 7, 62–7, 77–82, 84 Cancionero general de obras nuevas (verse miscellany) 73, 77, 82–3 canzone (forms) 41–2, 53, 140 Capello, Bernardo (poet) 40 capitole (form) 41, 53, 119–20, 132 Carafa, Ferrante (poet) 31, 35, 37, 42–3, 46 Caro, Annibal (poet) 35, 40, 44, 46

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Case, John (printer) 202, 203, 205, 208 Castaldo, Giovambattista (poet) 41n.30 Castiglione, Baldassare (author) 30 Castillejo, Cristóbal de (poet) 72–3 Cawood, John (printer) 48, 49, 106, 174, 193 Caxton, William (printer, translator) 173–4, 175–6 chansons (forms) 50–51, 53 Chansons nouvellement assemblées, Les 51 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 75, 76, 85, 86, 94 Charlewood, John (bookseller, subsequently printer) 107, 108, 226 Chasse et le départ d’amours, La (verse miscellany) 51–2 Chaucer, Geoffrey 15, 57n.74, 104, 106, 120 n.33, 131, 197 Cheke, John (poet) 15 Cholmely, Ranulf 19 Cholmely, William 19 Churchyard, Thomas (poet) 17, 107n.13, 226 Cicero 13, 48, 49, 120, 132, 164n.8, 166, 190–1 Colletanio de cose nove (verse miscellany) 29 Collone, Guido delle 173, 175, 176 Coloma, Don Juan de (poet) 73 Colonna, Vittoria (poet) 35, 40 Copland, Robert (printer) 97n.2 Copland, William (printer) 96, 97, 100, 173, 174, 193n.38, 195 Costilla, Jorge (printer) 62, 64 Court of Venus, The (verse miscellany) 9, 10, 27, 160, 192, 193, 194–201, 202, 205, 206, 221 Crane, Mary Thomas 2–3 Creed, Thomas (printer) 227n.27 dactylic hexameter 87 Danter, John (printer) 226

Dares of Phrygia (pseudo-) 173, 174, 176 Day, Angel (poet) 226 Day, John (printer) 115, 164n.8, 223, 224 Denham, Henry (printer) 225n.21 Dering, Edward 224–5 Devonshire MS. of Wyatt’s and others’ poetry 116, 197, 198 Dialogue bytwene the commune secretary and Jalowsye 97–9 Dolce, Lodovico (poet, editor) 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 40, 41 n.30, 44–7 Domenichi, Lodovico (poet, editor) 29, 30 Douglas, Gawin (poet, translator) 96, 173 Du Bellay, Joachim (poet) 57, 61 Dictys Cretensis (pseudo-) 173, 174, 176 Disle, Henry (bookseller) 222 Egerton MS. of Wyatt’s poetry 12–13, 58, 136, 138–9, 159 elegiac couplets 88 Elyot, Thomas 164, 166 Epitaph upon the deth of kyng Edward 107 Fabri, Gianfrancesco (poet) 43 Ferrers, George 22 Ferrino, Bartolomeo (poet) 30 Field, Richard (printer) 225n.22 Fioretto de cose nove (verse miscellany) 29 Fisher, John 167 Fleur de poesie françoyse, La (verse miscellany) 55, 56 frottole (forms) 125 Forrest, William (poet) 7, 148n.72 Foxe, John 185–6, 190 Fraser, Russell A. 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 204 Fuente, Alonso de (poet) 74 Galeota, Fabio (poet) 42, 43 Gambara, Veronica (poet) 40

Index

Gandolfo Porrino, il Cavalier (poet) 35 Garcilaso de la Vega 67, 68, 71, 74, 81–2, 84 Gascoigne, George (poet) 22, 104n.9, 121 Giaccerello, Anselmo (printer) 31, 32, 34, 37 Gibson, Thomas 195, 197n.47 Giolito, Gabriel (printer, editor) 29–40, 44, 47, 71, 157 Gómez, Ruy 74–5 González Cuenca, Joaquín 79 Gorgious gallery of gallant inventions (verse miscellany) 222 Gosson, Stephen 227 Gosynhyll, Edward (poet) 97, 105 Gower, John (poet) 96, 97, 104 Grafton, Richard (printer) 19, 220 n.11 Gray, William (poet) 16 Green, Bartholomew (a.k.a. Bartlet, poet) 185–6, 187 Greg, W.W. 215 Grimald, Nicholas (poet, translator) 38 poems in Tottel’s Miscellany 10– 11, 13, 14, 28, 38–9, 40, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 130, 142, 161–2, 163, 164n.8, 190–1 translation of Cicero’s De officiis 13, 49, 191, 219, 220 Guidiccione, Giovanni (poet) 30, 46 Hall, John (poet, translator) 10, 160, 161, 180, 192, 194, 195, 199–213 poems in Tottel’s Miscellany 15, 206, 207, 208–9 Hall, Rowland (printer) 194 Halley, Edmund (printer) 223 Hamrick, Stephen 167–8, 191–2 Handfull of plesant delites (verse miscellany) 221, 222 Harington, John, the Elder 15 Harmodio, il Cavalier (poet) 35 Harrison, William 187

245

Hawes, Stephen (poet) 96, 97, 104 Hecatomphile . . . [et] Les fleurs de poesie françoyse (the latter a verse miscellany) 53–4 Heret, Mathurin 174 Herford, John (printer) 114, 204 Hernando del Castillo (editor) 62, 64 Heywood, Ellis 21 Heywood, Jasper (poet, translator) 20, 21, 220 verse preface to his trans. of Seneca’s Thyestes 17–18, 21–2, 23 Heywood, John (poet) 7, 15, 20–21, 102, 105, 135, 172, 211 poem in Tottel’s Miscellany 147–9 (148), 169, 183 Spider and the Flie 105, 111, 187–90 (188, 189) Heywood, Richard 21 Heywood, Stephen 21, 22, 23 Hogarde, Miles (poet, author) 7, 101–2, 135, 166–7, 184 Holinshed, Raphael 187 Homer 174, 175, 176 Hopkins, John (poet, translator) 223 Horace 27, 39, 144–7 How, William (printer) 221 Hughey, Ruth 13 Huttar, Charles 115, 195, 196, 197, 198, 203, 207–8 Hyrde, Richard 192–3 iambic dimeter 88 Inns of Court 5, 14–24, 34, 157, 161, 181–90, 194, 211, 231 Jackson, John (printer) 223 Janot, Denys (printer) 55 Jardin de plaisance et fleur de rethoricque, Le (verse miscellany) 51–3 Jeffery, Brian 50–51 Jones, Richard (printer) 99n.5, 221–2 Jones, William (bookseller) 225n.21 Jugge, Richard (printer) 115n.25

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Kalender of Shepardes 97, 109–11, 112, 127, 135 King, John (printer) 96, 97, 105, 175, 225n.22 Kingston, John (printer) 166, 225n.21 Kitson, Anthony (bookseller) 169, 203 Kofman, Cristófal (printer) 62 Labé, Louise 57 Lant, Richard (printer) 97n.2 Le Fèvre, Raoul 173, 174, 175 Lerer, Seth 2, 3, 163, 184 Lewis, C.S. 2, 105, 111, 121, 133, 134 Littleton’s Tenures 5, 160, 217, 218 Lotrian, Alain (printer) 50, 55 Luere, Simon de (printer) 29 Luigi Cassola, il Cavalier (poet) 35 Lydgate, John 11, 96, 97, 104, 106, 175–6 Machyn, Henry 181–2, 185 Magna Carta 5, 20 Magny, Olivier (poet) 57 Mameranus, Nicholas (poet) 7, 86–94 (87, 88, 89–90, 91, 93) March, Ausiàs (poet) 73 Marguerite de Navarre (poet) 35, 56 Marmitta, Iacopo (poet) 40 Marot, Clément (poet) 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 157 Marot, Jean (poet) 50 n.55, 60 Marotti, Arthur F. 2 Marquis, Paul 14, 24–5, 94, 177, 178, 190–91, 216 Marsh, Thomas (printer) 7, 86, 89, 94, 96, 97, 164, 167, 175, 193, 194, 195, 196, 221 Martial 81, 67, 115, 119 Mary I, Queen of England 148, 149 n.73 court of 74–7, 86, 92 literature in reign of 96 represented in Heywood’s Spider and the Flie 189–90

Spanish verse on her marriage to Philip I 77–85 Mason, H.A. 2 May, Steven 11–12, 14, 44, 126, 132, 215 Medici, Lorenzo de’ (poet) 30 Mena, Juan de (poet) 64, 65, 66, 140 Metham, John (poet) 117n.27 Middleton, William (printer) 19, 105 Mierdman, Steven (printer) 49n.51 Molza, Francesco Maria (poet) 30, 31, 40, 41, 44, 46 Monk’s Tale stanza 106, 130, 140 More, Elizabeth 20 More, Thomas 20, 49, 105, 160, 167–8 Morley, Henry Parker, Lord (poet, translator) 48–9 Muir, Kenneth 58 Nágera, Estéban G. de (printer) 73 Natura Brevium 5, 20, 217, 218 Navagero, Andrea (poet) 30 New merry balad of a maid that wold mary wyth a servyng man 104–5 North, Thomas (poet, translator) 21, 23, 193 Norton, Thomas (poet) 16, 21–2, 185 Nucio, Martin (printer) 63, 71, 77, 82, 83, 84 Obras de Boscan y algunas de Garcilaso dela Vega repartidas, Las 67–74, 77, 81–2 Olney, Henry (bookseller) 227n.27 Osberg, Richard H. 141 Osorio, Isabel 80–84 ottava rima 41, 85, 132 Ovid 39, 88n.142, 142, 175, 227 Paradise of daynty devices (verse miscellany) 222, 225 Parker, Matthew 223 Paynell, Thomas (translator) 174–5 Petrarch 27, 45, 47–49, 53, 60, 74, 122, 141, 142, 143, 149–50

Index

Petras, Ramon de (printer) 63 Peyghan, John 19 Peyghan, William 19 Phillips, John (poet) 226 Philip II, King of Spain his court in England 74–7, 86, 94, 187 Spanish verse on his marriage to Mary I 77–85 Phoenix Nest (verse miscellany) 223, 225 Pierce the ploughmans crede 96 Pietrasanta Plinio (printer) 32 Plaisant boutehors d’oysiveté, Le (verse miscellany) 54–5 Plutarch 22, 48, 166 Pole, Reginald 159 Ponsonby, William (bookseller) 227n.27 poulter’s measure 120–3 Powell, Jason 12, 13 Powell, Thomas (printer) 17, 96, 97, 102, 103, 105, 164n.8, 167–8, 192 Powell, William (printer) 19, 109 Pré, Galliot du (printer) 53 press runs, estimates 34, 142 Proctor, John 212 Puttenham, George (poet) 22–3 Pynson, Richard (printer) 12, 96 Rastell, Joan 20 Rastell, John (printer, author) 20 Rastell, William (printer, editor) 20, 21, 160 Raynald, Thomas (printer) 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210 Rebolledo, Ana Girón de 67, 71 Recueil de vraye Poésie Françoyse (verse miscellany) 55 Redman, Robert (printer) 19 Regnault, François (printer) 55 Renard, Simon 75 rhyme royal (form) 104, 131 Rime di diveri autori Bresciani (verse miscellany) 32

247

Rime diverse di molti autori (ver miscellany series) 29–47 Raccolte dai rime diverse di . . . autori (verse miscellany) 32, 44–7 Ringler, William 112, 126, 127, 128, 136, 204, 205 Roberts, James (printer) 227n.27 Robinson, Robert (printer) 221 Rokeby, Ralph 19 Rollins, Hyder 1–2, 3, 11, 15–17, 24–5, 38–9, 111–12, 122, 160–61, 163, 169, 172–3, 177, 182, 207, 210, 215, 221–2, 224, 231 rondeau (form) 52, 57–61 Ronsard, Pierre (poet) 56, 57, 61 Roper, William 20 Roper, John 20, 21 Ruscelli, Girolamo (editor) 32, 41n.30 Rusconi, Giorgio (printer) 29 Sackville, Thomas (poet) 17, 21 Sanchez, Luis (printer) 65 Sand, D. (pseudonym?; poet) 15 Sannazaro, Jacopo (poet) 27, 46 St.-Gelais, Mellin de (poet) 56 St. Germain, Christopher 168 n.14, 218, 231 St. Leger, Anthony (poet) 15 Santillana, Don Ínigo López de Mendoza, Marquis de (poet) 64 Sappho 193, 227 Sapphic stanza 145 Seager, Francis (poet) 99–100 Seneca 39, 126, 85n.134, 143 S’ensuyvent plusieurs belles chansons nouvelles (verse miscellany) 50–51 Serafino, see Aquilano, Serafino Seres, William (bookseller) 97, 99, 164n.8, 202 sestina (form) 41 sextilla (form) 21, 109, 123–4, 130, 169, 223 Shakespeare 11, 109 n.15, 215, 227, 230–31

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Sheffield, Edmund (poet) 17 Sherry, Richard 8, 114n.22 Sidney, Sir Philip (poet) 215, 225–32 Singleton, Robert 197n.47 Skelton, John (poet) 96–7 Skot, John (printer) 97 Smithe, Henry (printer) 19 Sonetti de gli Academici Trasformati di Milano (verse miscellany) 31 Songs and sonnets, see Tottel, Richard; Tottel’s Miscellany sonnet (forms) 30, 41, 56–9, 113–14, 116–19, 122–3, 139–40, 143, 144, 202, 206 Spenser, Edmund (poet) 109 n.15, 215 Spira, Fortunio (poet) 39 Stafford, Thomas, rebellion of 9, 105, 172 Stampa, Baldessare (poet) 30 Stanford, William 182 Stationers’ Company and Register 19, 20, 97n.3, 195–6, 221 Steelsius, Joannes (printer) 71 Sternhold, Thomas (poet, translator) 115, 202, 223 strombotto (forms) 85, 125–6 Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of (poet) 191, 205–6, 225 poems in Tottel’s Miscellany 10, 36, 39–40, 41, 43, 97, 109, 114, 116–18 (117), 120, 121, 123, 129, 130, 131–2, 133, 134, 144, 148, 157, 159, 162, 168, 183, 192, 226 translation of Bks 2 and 4 of Vergil’s Aeneid 43, 49, 114–16, 168, 172, 191, 202, 205, 207, 210 translation of Martial epigram 115, 119 verse paraphrases of Ecclesiastes 1–3 and selected psalms 114–15, 202–3 Sutton, Henry (printer) 96, 175, 196, 221 tail rhyme 107–8, 131

Tasso, Bernardo (poet) 35, 46 Terracina, Laura (poet) 30 terza rima (form) 41, 42, 53, 119– 120, 132 Terze rime del Molza, del Varchi, del Dolce e d’altri (verse miscellany) 29 Thompson, Patricia 58 Tolomei, Claudio (poet) 40, 41 Tottel, Richard (printer) 212 his prefatory notice to the Miscellany 5–6, 8–10, 27, 28, 57, 83–4, 85–6, 96, 111, 112, 115–16, 134, 141–2, 159, 160 his printing of the Miscellany 49, 57, 83–6, 94, 133, 157, 159–60, 168, 191, 193–4, 206, 211, 215–16, 219–21 his printing of law books and/or connections to Inns of Court 4–5, 14–15, 19–20, 160, 182, 216–19, 220, 225n.21, 231 his printing of other works 49, 96, 106, 112–16, 168, 191, 218, 219, 220 see also Tottel’s Miscellany Tottel, William (Richard’s father) 19 Tottel, William (Richard’s son) 19 Tottel’s Miscellany citations of, method 24–5 contents of and revisons to 10–11, 14, 25, 36, 38–41, 57–62, 116, 178–84, 201–2, 210–11, 213 question of its editing 10–11, 14, 57–62, 135, 168–9, 178–84, 193–4, 201–2, 210–11, 213 question of the source texts 12–14, 57–61, 210 question of its influence 1, 2–3, 132–3, 226 poems quoted from (by nos. in editions of Rollins and Marquis) 59 (R103/M107), 85 (R121/M131), 117 (RM2), 120 (RM1), 121 (RM4), 122–3 (R277/M227), 123–4 (R107/ M111), 124 (R222/M192),

Index

125–6 (R61/66), 126 (R215/ M185), 127–8 (R260/M221), 128–9 (R298/M258), 130 (R83/M87), 131 (R111/M115), 134 (RM1), 136–8 (R55/M60), 138–40 (R56/M61), 140 (R37/ M42), 141 (R291/M249), 143 (R241/M210), 144 (RM6, R37/ M42), 145–7 (R28/M32, R194/ M163), 146–7 (R295/M253), 147–8 (RM20), 148 (R199/ M168), 149–51 (R218–19/ M188–9), 151 (R255/239), 152 (R256/M240), 152–3 (R257/ M243), 153 (R258/M244), 154–5 (R254/M245), 155–6 (R290/M246), 162–3 (R125/ M135), 164 (R270/M122), 164–5 (R184/M153), 165 (R284/M234), 169 n.16 (R125/ M135), 170–71 (R279/M229), 179 (R287/M237), 180 (R288/ M238), 181 (R299/M259), 182 (R193/M162), 183–4 (R109/M113), 191 (R165–7/ M278–80), 206 (285/235), 207 (RM14), 208–9 (R286/M236), 287–8 (R287–8/M237–8) moralistic and/or religious verse in 161–9 a political poem in 169–77 response poems in 132, 147–57, 177–80, 183–5, 211–12 translated poems in 59–61, 122–3, 125, 126, 138–9, 142–7 see also Tottel, Richard Toy, Robert (printer, bookseller) 96, 114, 204 Treatise of the Knight of Curtesy and the lady of Faguell 100–101 Trepperel, Widow (printer) 50 n.54 Troy, invocation in Tottel’s Miscellany and question of its history 169–77 Turberville, George (poet) 133 Tusser, Thomas (poet) 112–14 Tyard, Pontus de (poet) 57

249

Tysdale, John (printer) 97, 107, 108 Varchi, Benedetto (poet) 40 Vaux, Thomas, Second Baron of Vaux (poet) 15 Vele, Abraham (printer) 49 n.51 Vérard, Anthoine (printer) 52n.58 Vergil 166, 172, 174, 176, 227 translations of the Aeneid 12n.7, 43, 49, 95, 96, 114–16, 172 verse forms (see also by name) English, outside Tottel’s Miscellany 96–111; within Tottel’s Miscellany 111–12, 120–23, 127–32, 140–41, 142; accentual-stress vs. syllabicstress in 8, 28, 111, 133–40 French 50–61 Italian and Italianate 8, 41–3, 53–4, 55–61, 65–6, 67–74, 77, 81–4, 85, 115, 116–18, 125–6, 132–3, 136–40, 142 Latin 42, 43, 87–8, 145 Spanish 64–5, 77, 124 verse miscellanies (see also by title) English 9, 10, 27, 160, 192, 193, 194–201, 202, 205, 206, 221–3 French 49–62 Italian 28–47; response poems in 41, 183 Spanish 62–86 versi sciolti (form) 43, 115 versos de arte mayor (form) 65 versos octosilábicos (form) 65–6, 72, 140 Villäquiran, Juan de (printer) 63 Vives, Ludovicus 192–3 Wall, Wendy 2 Walley, John (printer) 96, 97, 104, 108, 164n.8, 166, 193n.37 Wayland, John (printer) 96, 97, 106, 115, 193 Whetstone, George (poet) 226 Whitchurch, Edward (printer) 119 Wight, John (bookseller) 96 Willcock, Gladys D. 38 Wilson, Thomas 8 Windet, John (printer) 221

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The Making and Marketing of Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557

Worde, Wynkyn de (printer) 96, 173 Wyatt, Sir Thomas (poet) 204 poems in Tottel’s Miscellany 10, 12–13, 36, 39–40, 58–9, 85, 97, 116, 117–21, 123–4, 125–6, 129–32 (130, 131), 132, 133, 136–40, 141, 144, 157, 159, 162–3, 169, 172, 183–4, 193

poem in The Court of Venus 199 Wyatt, Thomas the Younger, and Wyatt’s Rebellion 12, 159, 169, 172, 211–13 Wyer, Robert (printer) 97, 106, 168 n.13, 225n.22 Yelverton, Christopher (poet) 17, 22 Zoppino, Niccoló (printer) 29