a no3 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT' OF 1S9X A^/X^3^J'r. /JL//sy/^a3 5474 APR 9 1959 H The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013118371 WORKS OF THOMAS CAMPION THOMAS CAMPION SONGS AND MASQUES WITH OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESV EDITED BY a; h. bullen Let ^veil-tuned words amaze Witk harmony divine. LONDON a. h. bullen 47 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C. MCMItl •^•^n. A.V'^b'bt^V •'/it CONTENTS PAGE Introduction . . . . ix A Book of Airs .... i Two Books of Airs . . . .41 The Third and Fourth Books of Airs 85 Songs of Mourning. . . .131 Masque at the Marriage of the Lord Hayes . . . . .143 A Relation of the Entertainment given BY the Lord Knowles . . 177 The Lords' Masque .... 195 Masque at the Marriage of the Earl OF Somerset . . . .215 Observations in the Art of English Poesy ..... 229 Scattered Verses . . 268 Notes ...... 281 NOTE When I issued in 1887 the first edition of my anthology Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-hooks^ the merits of Thomas Campion still waited recognition. Frof. Arher had included the greater part of his songs in An EiigUsk Garner^ vol. iiL, but in 1887 Campion's admirers were few indeed. By critics and by anthologists he had been persistently neglected. I pleaded that the time had come for him to take his rightful place among our English poets ; and the plea was so successful that he now runs the risk of becoming the object of uncritical adulation. In the editio princess (which I issued in 1889) of his collected works, I included all his Latin poems ; but in the present volume I give only his English works— his songs, his masques and his Observations in the Art of English Poesy. The first edition of Campion's Latin poems (Campiani Poetnaia, 1595) is exceedingly rare. In 1889 I had not been able to trace a copy. At a later date Mr. W. H. Allnutt informed me that a perfect copy (the only perfect copy known) is in the possession of Viscount Clifden, who has very kindly allowed me to make free use of this precious little volume. A. H. BULLEK. February^ 1903. INTRODUCTION Dr. Thomas Campion was held in high esteem by his contemporaries ; but the materials for his memoir are very scanty. Dr. Jessopp, in the Dictionary of National Biography, suggests that he was probably the second son of Thomas Campion of Witham, Essex, gent., by Anastace, daughter of John Spettey, of Chelmsford.^ This suggestion cannot be accepted ; for it appears from Chester's Londmi Marriage Licences that Thomas Campion of Witham married Anastace Spettey in 1597, — when Dr. Campion was about thirty years of age. Sir Harris Nicolas, in his preface to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody (p. cxxi), pointed out that a Thomas Campion was admitted a member of Gray's Inn in 1586 ;' and conjectured that this was the poet, who is shown to have had some con- nection vrith the Inn from the fact that in 1594 he wrote a song, " Of Neptune's empire let us sing," &c., for the Gray's Inn Masque. Had Nicolas been ac- quainted with Campion's Latin epigrams, he might 1 See the Visitation 0/ London (Harleiaa Society, x83o, i. 134)- 2 See Admittances to Gray's fnn, Harl. MS. 1912. ix X INTRODUCTION have greatly strengthened his case by adducing the following verses ^ addressed to the members of Gray's Inn : — *' Ad Graios, " Graii, sive magis juvat vetustum Nomen Purpulii,2 decus Britannum, Sic Astraea gregem beare vestrum, Sic Pallas velit, ut fayere nugis Disjunct! socii velitis ipsi,^ Tetrae si neque sint, nee infacetae, Sed quales merito exhibere plausu Vosmet, ludere cum lubet, soletis." The words " disjunct! socii " plainly show that Cam- pion had at one time belonged to the society of Gray's Inn. But the legal profession (as we learn from more than one of his Latin epigrams) was not to his taste ; and he does not appear to have been called to the Bar. Applying himself to medicine, he took his degree of M. D. , and practised as a physician. Dr. Jessopp sup- poses that his degree was taken abroad ; but we have clear evidence to prove that he studied at Cambridge. W[illiam] C[lerke] in Polimanteia, IS9S, noticing various poets of the time, writes: "I know, Cam- bridge, howsoever now old, thou hast some young, bid them be chaste, yet suffer them to be witty ; let them be soundly learned, yet suffer them to be gentle- manlike qualified." The marginal annotation to the passage is " Sweet Master Campion." But I can find 1 This epigram is not in the first edition (1595) of Campion's Poemaia, It is found in the second edition (16x9), No. 227 of *' Epigrammatum Liber Secundus." 2 The name " Purpulii "has reference to the masque of 1594 — " Gesta Graiorum ; or the History of the High and Mighty Prbce Henry, Prince of Purpoole" &c. Gra^s Inn was jocularly styled for the occasion " The State of Purpoole." INTRODUCTION xi no particulars about Campion's Cambridge career. He is not once mentioned in Messrs. Cooper's Atkenae Cantabrigienses. Among the poems " of Sundrie other Noblemen and Gentlemen " annexed to the surreptitious edition (Newman's) of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, 1591, was printed anonymously Campion's delightful song " Hark, all you ladies that do sleep ;" and in 1593 he was praised in the prologue to Peele's Honour of the Garter. It is clear that many of his poems had been circulated in MS., according to the custom of the time, among his friends. Peele addresses him as " thou That richly clothest conceit with well-made words." The reference in Polimanteia is probably to his English poems ; and in Harl. MS. 6910, which is dated 1596, three of his songs are found. Doubtless much of his best work was written before the close of the sixteenth century. The first of Campion's publications'was a volume of Latin poems, entered in the Stationers' Register 2nd December, IS94 (Arber's " Transcript," ^ ii. 666), and printed in the following year. So rare is the edition of 1595 that only one perfect copy, in the library of Viscount Clifden, is known to exist. This collection, with large additions and a dedication to Charles, Prince of Wales, was reprinted in 1619. The ' " Bichard ffeild £ntred for his copie vnder the wardens hands in court a booke intituled Thoma Campiank Poema . . . vj^." xii INTROD UCTION first edition of the Poemata is a i6mo., containing fifty leaves (Title page; verso blank; A 2 "Ad Lectorem," with "Errata" on verso ; sigs. B, C, D, E, F, G, each of eight leaves). It was issued by Richard Field, ^ Shakespeare's fellow- townsman and the printer of Venus atid Adonis and Lucrece. The first poem is in praise of Queen Elizabeth, **Ad Dianam " ; it is followed by poems on the Earl of Essex*("Ad Daphnin") and on the defeat of the Spanish Armada ("Ad Thamesin"). These three pieces were not reprinted in ed. 1619. The fourth poem, " Fragmentum Umbne," was afterwards en- larged. Then follows a group of sixteen elegies : 1 In the dedicatory address ("Ad Librum") to his friends Edward and Laurence Mychelburne, prefixed to the epigrams. Campion thus refers to Field : — ' ' I nunc, quicquid habes ineptiarum, Damnate in tenebras diu libelle, Dedas Feldisio, male apprehensum Praelo ne quis ineptior prophanet. Deinde ut fueris satis polite Impressus, nee egens novi nitoris. Mychelbomum adeas utrumque nostrum, Quos setas, studiumque par, amorque Mi connexuit optime merentes : Illis vindicibus nihil timebis Celsas per maris aestuantis undas Rhenum visere, lubricumve Tybrim Aut hostile Tagi aureum fluentum." (The text gives " Felsidio," but the correction " Feldisio" is made in the list of " Errata.") This dedication was retained in ed. 1619, but — as that volume was printed by E. GriiEn — the mention of Field was cancelled, and the opening lines ran : — " I nunc, quicquid habes ineptiarum Damnatum tenebris diu, libelle, In luceni sine candidam venire Excusoris ope eruditions : Exinde ut fueris," &c. INTRODUCTION xiii ten were reprinted in ed. 1619, with the addition of two new elegies. One of the six pieces that were omitted from the later edition is headed "Ad amicos cum aegrotaret," and vividly describes a fit of pro- found dejection. The rest of the volume consists of epigrams. Most of these were reprinted in ed. 1619, but a few are found only in the early edition. In ed. 1619 all the epigrams in the First Book were new : the epigrams reprinted from ed. 1595 were in- cluded (with more than a hundred additional pieces) in the Second Book. From the epigrams we learn something of the society in which Campion moved. A tribute of glow- ing admiration is paid to the famous lutenist and composer John Dowland. In 1597 Campion prefixed commendatory Latin verses to Dowland's First Book of Songs or Airs ; but I fear that in later years an estrangement must have been brought about, for the epigram given below from the 1595 volume was not reprinted in the edition of 1619 : — ^^ Ad lo. Dolundum \sic\. " O qui sonora coelites altos cheli Mulces, & umbras incolas atree Stygis, Quam suave murmur ! quale fluctu prominens £ygia madentes rore dum siccat comas, Quam suave murmur flaccidas aures ferit, Dtim lenis oculos leviter invadit sopor ! Ut falce rosa dissecta purpureum caput Dimittit, undique foliis spargens humum, Labtuitur hei sic debiles somno tori, Terramque feriunt membra ponderibus suis. Dolande, misero surripis mentem mihi, Excorsque cordse [sic] pectus impulsEe premunt. Quis tibi deorum tam potenti numine Digitos trementes dirigit? is inter deos Magnos oportet principem obtineat locum. xiv INTRODUCTION Tu solus afifers rebus antiquis fidem, Nee miror Orpheus considens Rhodope super Siquando nipes flexit et agrestes feras. At, 6 beate, siste divinas manus. Jam jam parumper siste divinas manus !_ ^^ Liquescit anima, quam cave exugas mihi." Another friend of Campion was William Percy (a son of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland), the author of a collection of sonnets, Caelia, 1595. Percy was a, member of Glocester Hall, now Worcester College, Oxford ; and to the same society belonged Edward Mychelburne (or Michel- bourne), who, with his brothers Laurence and Thomas, was among Campion's most intimate friends.^ Wood calls Edward Mychelburne " a. most noted poet of his time ; " but with the exception of two copies of commendatory verses prefixed to Peter Bales' Art of Brachygrapky, 1597, some Latin verses before FitzgefFrey's Affaniae and a contribution to Camdeni Insignia 1624, he published nothing. Both Fitzgeffrey and Campion thought very highly of his abilities, and urged him to print a work which they had read with admiration in MS. Another member of the Oxford circle was Baraabe Barnes, the lyric poet and sonneteer. For some unknown reason Campion quarrelled with Barnes, whom he assailed with epigrams both Latin and English. Nashe, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, refers gleefiiUy to that "universal applauded Latin poem of Master Campion's" in which 1 Epigrams to Percy, Edward Mychelburne and Laurence Mychelburne were reprinted in the 1619 edition, where is also found an epigram (not in ed. 1393) to Thomas Mychelburne. INTROD UCTION xv Barnes is taunted with cowardice.^ In or before i6o6 a reconciliation was patched up between Barnes and Campion ; for in that year Campion prefixed two copies of commendatory verses to Barnes' Four Books of Offices. But the quarrel was subsequently renewed; and in 1619 Campion not only retained the obnoxious epigram of 1595, but added another (i. 17) in ridicule of Barnes. Campion's relations with the brilliant satirist Thomas Nashe appear to have been most cordial. In the edition of 1595 we find the following epigram : — ' ' Commendo tibi, Nashe, Puritanum Fordusum, & Taclti canem Vitellum Teque oro tua per cruenta verbaj Ferque vulnificos sales, tuosque Natos non sine dentibus lepores, Istudque ingenii tui per acre Fulmen insipidis & inficetis Ferinde ac tonitru Jovis timendum ; Per te denique candidam Pyrenen, Parnassumque Heliconaque Hipfiocrinenque. Et quicunque vacat locus camcenis Nunc oro, rogocjue improbos ut istos Mactes continuis decern libellis : Nam sunt putiduli, atque inelegantes, Mireque exagitant sacros poetas Publiumque tuum, & tuum Maronem, Quos amas uti te decet, fovesque Nee sines per ineptias perire. Ergo si sapis undique hos latroaes Incursabis, & ernes latentes, Conceptoque semel furore uunquam Desistes, at eos palam notatos Saxis contuderit prophana turba." 1 "/« Bamu-m. " Mortales decern tela inter Gallica csesos Marte tuo perhibes, in numero vitium est : Mortales nuUos si dicere, Barne, volebas, Servasset numenim versus, itemque fidem. *' xvi INTRODUCTION The heading " Ad Nashum " was altered in ed. 1619 to "Ad Nassum," but undoubtedly the person ad- dressed was Nashe. It maybe noted that in ed. 1619 the first two lines ran : — "Commendo tibi, Nasse, pasdagogum Sextillum et Taciti canem Potitum." The "Puritanum " or "psedagogum" may have been Gabriel Harvey, but I can make no guess at his fellow-delinquent. The words " putiduli atque in- elegantes" and "exagitant sacros poetas" suggest that Campion is deriding Harvey's insipid attempts at writing English hexameters and elegiacs. An epigram in ed. 1 595, not reprinted in the later edition, is addressed to Sir John Davies, author of Orchestra and Nosce Tripsum : — " Ad. To. Davisium. " Quod nostros, Davisi, laudas recitasque libellos Vultu quo nemo candidiore solet : Ad me mitte tuos, jam pridem postulo, res est In qua persolvi gratia vera potest." The following couplet to Spenser was not reprinted : — " Ad Ed. Spencerum. " Sive canis silvas, Spencere, vel horrida belli Fulmina, dispeream ni te amem, et intime amem.'' There are memorial poems on Walter Devereux (brother of the Earl of Essex), who was killed by a musket shot under the walls of Rouen in September 1591, and on Sir Philip Sidney. One epigram is inscribed "Ad Ge. Chapmannum," doubtless George Chapman the poet. In ed. 1619 it was reprinted with the heading "Ad Corvinum," and under that INTRODUCTION xvii title was included in my 1889 edition of Campion (PP- 339-340)- A clever but somewhat malicious couplet was directed against Nicholas Breton : — "/« Bretonent, " Carmine defunctum, Breto, caute inducis Amorem ; Nam muneris nunquam viveret ille tuis." This was retained in ed. 1619. Other epigrams show that Campion was jealous for the honour of his profession and viewed with contempt the pretensions of quacks.' Among the epigrams first printed in ed. 1619 we find mention of other firiends of Campion. Two are addressed to Charles Fitzgeffrey, the author of a spirited poem, Sir Francis Drake, His Honor- able Life's Commendation, &c., 1596. In 160 1 Fitzgeffrey published a volume of Latin epigrams, Affaniae, and addressed two of them to Campion. As Affaniae is a scarce little book, which few readers have seen, I will quote one of the epigrams : — '^ Ad Tkoynani Campianum. " O cujus genio Romana elegeia debet Quantum Nasoni debuit ante suo ! Ille, sed invitus, Latiis deduxit ab oris In Scythicos fines barbaricosque Getas. Te duce caeruleos invisit prima Britannos Quamque potest urbem dicere jure suam. 1 Campion was a physician of note. He is mentioned in a copy of satirical verses, "Of London Physicians," privately printed (in 1879) from a MS. common-place book of a Cambridge student, circa 1611 : — " How now Doctor Champion, musick's & poesies stout Champion, Will you nere leaue prating?" This is very mild satire. Many of his brother practitioners are far more severely noticed. b xviii INTROD UCTION (Magmis enim. domitor late, dominator et orbis yiribus effiractis, Cassivelane, tuis, Julius Ausonium populum Latiosque penates Victor in hac ohmjusserat urbe coli.) Ergo relegatas Nasonis crinune Musas In patriam revocas restituisque suis." A couple of fine epigrams are addressed by Campion to Bacon, whose De Sapientia Veterttm is enthu- siastically praised. To Bacon's learning, eloquence, and munificence Campion paid a worthy tribute : — " Quantus ades, seu te spinosa volumina juris, Seu schola, seu dulcis Musa (Bacone) vocat ! Quam super ingenti tua re Frudentia regnat, £t tota aethereo nectare lingua madens ! Quam bene cum tacita nectis gravitate lepores ! Quamsemel admissis stat tuus almus amor,! Haud stupet aggesti mens in fulgore metalli ; Nunquam visa tibi est res peregrina dare." Well-earned praise is bestowed on William Camden, and Sir Robert Carey, first Lord Monmouth, is very cordially greeted. Poor voluminous Anthony Munday is gently satirised. He had been a popular writer in his time, but the public had tired of him. Hence publishers would take his work only on con- dition that his name was kept off the title-page (a stipulation that publishers sometimes make to-day) : — " In Mun4i6JJi. "Mundo libellos nemo vendidit plures, Novos, stilo^ue a plebe non abhorrenti ; Quos nunc licet lectoribus minus grates Librarii emptitant, ea tamen lege Ne Mundus affigat suis suum nomen." From one epigram we learn that Campion was sparely built, and that he envied men of a full habit of body. INTRODUCTION xix " Crassis invideo tenuis nimis ipse, videtur Satque mihi felix qui sat obesus erit. Nam vacat assidue mens iUi, corpora gaudet, Et risu curas tristitiamque fugat. Praecipuum venit haec etiam inter commodai Luci, Quod moriens minimo saepe labore perit." I suspect that few will care to read all these epigrams, though Campion's Latinity is usually easy and elegant, and occasionally recalls the compact neat- ness of Martial. He handled hendecasyllables with some success, and the Sapphics are gracefully turned. Meres, in Palladis Tamia, 1598, mentions him among the "English men, being Latin poets," who had "attained good report and honourable advancement in the Latin empire. " It would be difficult to name any other English writer of that time whose Latin verse shows so much spirit and polish. But it is not by his Latin verse that Campion will be remembered. In 1601 appeared the first collection of his English songs, A Book of Airs. The music was written partly by Campion and partly by Phihp Rosseter ; but all the poetry, we may be sure, was Campion's. From the dedicatory epistle by Rosseter it appears that Campion's songs had been circulated in MS., " where- by they grew both public and, as coin cracked in exchange, corrupt " ; further, that some impudent persons had claimed the credit both of the music and the poetry. The unsigned address To the Reader, which follows the dedicatory epistle, was clearly written by Campion. " The lyric poets among the Greeks and Latins,'' we are told, " were first XX INTRODUCTION inventors of airs, tying themselves strictly to the num- ber and value of their syllables ; of 'Which sort you shall find here only one song, in Sapphic verse ; the rest are after the fashion of the time, ear-pleasing rhymes without art." Let us be thankful that there was only one Sapphic, and that the rest of the songs were in "ear-pleasing rhymes." It would have been a sad loss to English poetry if Campion had abandoned rhyme and written his songs in unrhymed metres formed on classical models. In 1602, the year after the publication of his Book of Airs, he produced his Observations in the Art of English Poesy, in which he strove to show that the " vulgar and unartificial custom of rhyming " should be forthwith discontinued. The specimens of unrhymed verse that he gives in his Observatiotis — iambic dimetres, trochaics, Anacreontics, and the rest — are, with few exceptions, merely interesting as metrical curiosities. There was a time when Spenser busied himself with profitless metrical experiments and sought the advice of such persons as Drant and Gabriel Harvey ; but both Spenser and Campion soon saw the error of their ways. Rhyme found an able champion in Samuel Daniel, who promptly published his Defence cf Rhyme, 1602 (ed. 2, 1603), in answer to Campion's Observations. Daniel expressed his surprise that an attack on rhyme should have been made by one "whose commendable rhymes, albeit now himself an enemy to rhyme, have given heretofore to the world the best notice of his worth." He was careful to state, with that courtesy which distinguished him. INTRODUCTION xxi that Campion was "a man of fair parts and good reputation.'' Ben Jonson wrote (as we learn from his conversations with Drummond) a Discourse of Poesy "both against Campion and Daniel" ; but it was never published. "Ear-pleasing rhymes without art." Such is the description that Campion gives of his songs. " Ear- pleasing " they undoubtedly are ; there are no sweeter lyrics in English poetry than are to be found in Campion's song-books. But ' ' without art " they assuredly are not, for they are frequently models of artistic perfection. It must be admitted that there is inequality in Campion's work ; that some of the poems are carelessly worded, others diffuse. But when criticism has said its last word in the way of disparagement, what a wealth of golden poetry is left ! There is nothing antiquated about these old songs ; they are as fresh as if they had been written yesterday. Campion was certainly not "bom out of his due time " ; he came at just the right moment. Lodge and Nicholas Breton were less fortunate ; they could not emancipate themselves, once for all, from the lumbering versification on which their youth had been fostered. Campion's poetry is sometimes thin, common-place if you will, but it is never rude or heavy. "In these English airs," he writes in the address To the Reader before Two Books of Airs, " I have chiefly aimed to couple my words and notes lovingly together " ; and he succeeded. His lyrics are graceful and happy and unconstrained ; never a jarring note ; everywhere ease and simplicity. John xxii INTRODUCTION Davies of Hereford (in the addresses To Worthy Persons appended to The Scourge of Folly, 1610-11) praised him in most felicitous language : — " Never did lyrics' more than happy strains, Strained out of Art by Nature so with ease. So purely hit the moods and various veins Of Music and her hearers as do these." The praise could hardly be bettered ; for every reader must be struck by Campion's sureness of touch and by his variety. His devotional poetry impresses the reader by its sincerity. The achievements of our devotional poets are for the most part worthless, and our secular poets seem to lose their inspiration when they touch on sacred themes. To fine religious exaltation Campion joined the true lyric faculty ; and such a union is one of the rarest of literary pheno- mena. His sacred poems never offend against good taste. In richness of imagination the man who wrote "When thou must home to shades of underground," and "Hark, all you ladies that do sleep," was the equal of Crashawe ; but he never failed to exhibit in his sacred poetry that sobriety of judgment in which Crashawe was sometimes painfully deficient.^ In 1607 was published Campion's first masque, 1 I suspect that Campion clung to the older faith. He may have been related to Edmund Campion the Jesuit, executed in I58i._ Some of his most intimate friends — the Mychelburnes, William Percy, Monson and others — were Roman Catholics. Whatever may have been his religious convictions, no charge of disloyalty could be laid against him. In the Latm poem " Ad Thamesin " he had exulted over the* defeat of the Spanish Armada, and in "Bravely decked, come forth, bright day"