See other formats

Full text of "Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia"

CENTRE 
for 
REFORMATION 
and 
RENAISSANCE 
STUDIES 

VICTORIA 
UNIVERSITY 

T O R O N T O 

II- 



L 



GABRIEI. HARVEY'S MARGINALIA 



Seven ttundred and Eighty Co]ies trinted ; 
type distributed No    



GABRIEL HARVEY'S 
MARGINALIA 

Collected and Edited 
by 
G. C. MOORE SMITH 
PÆofe,sor of Engli,8 Language and LiteÆatuÆe in che Uni,eÆ,i of Sheel« 

SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS 
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 
MCMXIII 



Stratrd-,,pn-,qon. 



CONTENTS 

PRrrACr 
" GABRIEL HARVEY AT PrMBROt.r HALL' 
INTRODUCTION 
MARGINALIA (preçedcd by a list of books con- 
taining Harvey's signatures or MS. additions) 77 
APPENDIX I (Thomas Baker's transcripts) . OE 16 
APPENDIX II (Marginalia in Speght's Chaucer) 
NOTES 235 
ADbENbA ET COR.R.IGENbA 
INDEX . 313 

ILLUSTRATIONS 
GABRIEL HARVE¥'S AUTOGRAPH " FROM SPEGHT'S 
t CHAUCER » I 598 . 
Jo.N HARVtV's Housr 4 
MANTEL FROM JOHN HARVE'S HOUSE . 7 
COLLOTYPE FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE FROM 
In pcher ut 
the end of 
SPEGHT'S  CHAUCER' tbe olume 



PREFACE 

Tu/ general intention and scope of this book will be 
gathered from the Introduction which follows ; but after 
that Introduction and most of the following pages were 
printed off, the book received a most important addition 
in the new set of marginalia drawn ffom Harvey's copy 
of Speght's Cbaucer ( 598). 
These marginalia in their bearing on the date of 
ttamlet were discussed by Malone, Steevens, and Bishop 
Percy (the possessor) in the cighteenth century. Since 
then, it has been supposed that the book perished in 
a tire at Northumberland House (see p. 86). Although 
Mrs. Stopes assured me three years ago that this was 
an error, I was no nearer getting access to the volume, 
till Sir Ernest Clarke kindly informed me much more 
recently that he had been permitted to see it at the house 
of the lady who now owns it, herself a great-grand- 
daughter of Bishop Percy. After some further corre- 
spondence he was able to convey Miss Meade's very 
kind invitation to me to see the book. This invitation 
1 accepted with alacrity, and to crown my happiness, 
Miss Meade most cordially allowed me to publish the 
notes and photographic fac-similes. My readers will join 
me in gratitude to her for her generosity, and to Sir Ernest 
Clarke for his very great kindness in the matter. 
The special interest which these marginalia bave is 
twofold. First, they give Harvey's views of a later 
group of English poets and writers than any whom he 



viii Preface 

mentions in the previous marginalia, and this group 
includes Shakespeare. They are the most decisive 
proof we bave of Harvey's openness of mind and 
freedom from pedantry. Secondly, as was seen in the 
eighteenth century, one note, that on pp. OE3 OE, OE33, 
has a most important bearing on the date of Shakespeare's 
Hamlet. 
The following extract from J. o. Halliwell-Phillipps' 
&Iemoranda on the Tragedy of Hamlet, i879 (kindly 
copied for me by Sir Ernest Clarke) will show the 
different views taken ofthe note at different times by 
Emund Malone :D 
p. 46: There was once in existence a copy of Speght's 
edition of Chaucer, 1598 , with manuscript notes by Gabriel 
Harvey, one of those notes being in the following terms:D 
«'-l'he younger sort take much delight in Shakespear's Venus 
and Adonis, but his Lucrece and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince 
of Denmarke bave it in them to please the wiser sort.' This 
note was first printed in 1766 by Steevens, who gives the year 
1598 as the date of its insertion in the volume, but, observes 
Dr. Ingleby, we are unable to verify Steevens' note or collate 
his copy, for the book wbich contained Harvey's note passed 
into the collection of Bishop Percy, and his library was burnt 
in the tire at Northumberland House'.  Under these circum- 
stances one can only add the opinions of those who bave had 
the opportunity of inspecting the volume. Firstly, from a 
lettcr of Percy to Malone, 18o3, 'In the passage wbich extolls 
Shakespeare's tragedy Spenser is quoted by name among out 
flourishing metricians. Now this edition of Chaucer was 
 Itis curious that this statement should have been made again and again for 
three-quarters of a century when, as Sir Ernest Clarke bas pointed out to me, 
Joseph Cradock in his Literary and llisc«llaneous lernoir (8z8) had already 
denied the fact. ' It bas becn asserted that Dr. Percy sustained great losses at the 
tire at Northumberland house : but I [Cradock] vas present when his apartments 
were in flames, and can nov explicitly declare that ail his books and papers vere 
safely removed.' (I. p. 43-) 



Preface ix 

published in 598, and Spenser's deatb is ascertained to have 
been in Jauary,  598-9, so that these passages were ail written 
in  598, and provcs that Hamlct was writtcn before that year, 
as ),ou have fixed it'. Secondly, from aletter from Malone to 
Percy, written also in 8o3, in which he gives reasons for 
controverting this opinion, when I was in Dublin I remember 
),ou thought that, though Harvey had written 1598 in his 
book, it did hOt follow from thence that his remarks were then 
writtcn ; whilst, on the other hand, I contended that, from the 
mention of Spenser, they should seem to have been written in 
that year ; so that, like the two Reynoldses, 1 we bave changed 
sides and each converted the other ; for I bave now no doubt 
that these observations were written in a subsequent year. 
The words that deceive are, our now  flourishing metricians, by 
which Harvey does hot mean now living but now admired or 
in vogue; and what proves this is that in his catalogue he 
mixes the living and the dead, for Thomas Watson was dead 
before 593- ,Vith respect to Axiophilus I think you will 
agree with me hereafter that hot Spenser, but another person, 
was meant. Having more than once named Spenser, there 
could surely be no occasion to use an), mysterious appellation 
with respect to that poet. My theory is that Harvey bought 
the book in I598 on its pub}ication and then sat down to 
read it, and that his observations were afterwards inserted at 
various timcs. That passage, which is at the very end and 
subjoined to Lydgate's catalogue, one may reasonably suppose 
was hot written till after he had perused the whole volume'. 
Third.ly, from Malone's observations on the date of the tragedy, 
ed. I821, ii. 369, In a former edition of this essay I was 
induced to suppose that Hamlet must have been written prior 
lin Notes and Qu¢ries, 11 S. 1 viii, p. 3  (I6 Aug., 93), Professor Bensly 
kindly explains this reference. According to Yullcr' Cbur«h Hitory, x, pp. 47, 48 
(655) John Reynolds, or Rainolds, the author of Th" Overtbro of Stage Play 
wa originally a Papier and his hrother William a Protestant. By mutual disputa- 
tion they converted each other and so gave occasion to W. Alabaster's epigrarr 
 Bella inter gcmino plusquam civilia fratres' &c. Anthony  Wood in his ltbenoe 
(ed. Bliss» , 6  3) questions the truth of the story and says it tests on disputes carried 
on betv¢een John and Edmund Rainolds, hOt however to the conversion of each 
other.  The worà «now' àoes hot appear in the original MS. 



x Preface 

to 1598 , from thc loosc manner in wh/ch Mr. Stccvcns has 
mentioned a manuscript note by Gabriel Harvey in a copy, 
which had belonged to him, of Speght's edition of Chaucer, in 
which, we are told, he has set down Hamlet as a performance 
with which he was well acquainted in the year 598. But I 
bave been favoured by Dr. Percy, thc possessor of the book 
referred to, with an inspection of it; and, on an attentive 
cxamination, I have round reason to believe, that the note in 
question may have been written in the latter end of the year 
6oo. Harvey doubtless purchased this volume in  598, having, 
both at the beginning and end of it, written his name. But it 
by no means follows that ail the int«rmediate remarks which 
are scattered throughout were put down at the same time. He 
.,peaks of Trans/ated Tasso in one passage; and the first edition 
of Fairfax, which is doubtless alludcd to, appeared in  6oo.' 
Everything turns, as Malone said, on the meaning 
of the phrase 'our flourishing metricians', ls Harvcy 
referring to men whom he believed at the moment to 
be still alive ? or merely to men whose works were 
still sought after ? 
If the former, the note was clearly written before 
January, I .ç99, the date of Spenser's death, about which 
it was impossible for him tobe mistaken. We must, 
however, then suppose that Owen's Epigrams though 
hot published till 16o6 wcre already known to him in 
manuscript: and furthera more difficult supposition 
that he had forgotten that Thomas Watson had died 
in I .9 OE. If thcse suppositions appear possible, we may 
date the note I _9 8, the year in which the volume came 
into his banals. No difficulty arises from the mention 
of a translation of Tasso, for though Fairfax's translation 
first appeared in I6OO, Carew's translation of part of 
Tasso had been published in I .ç94- 



Preface xi 

If we consider I-Iarve), to bave included among 
our flourishing metricians' men whom he knew to be 
dead, the note ma), of course bave been written after 
Spenser's death. But how long after ? 
Malone says it 'may have been written in the latter 
end of the year I6cc'. He gives no reason except 
that Fairfax's Tasso had appeared in 16cc, and that in 
itself would not exclude a much later date for the note. 
Malone means, as I take it, merel), that the note for 
the reason mentioned could not well have been written 
before the end of 16cc. But could it bave been written 
much after that ? To my mind the words 'The Earle 
of Essex much commendes Albions England' are here 
decisive. They imply that Essex was alive, and we 
know that he perished in February, I6cI. 
/kccordingly, interpreting ' our flourishing metricians' 
to include men known to be dead, we arrive at the con- 
clusion that Harvey's note was written between some 
time in 1598 , when the Cb,Jucer came into his hands, 
and February, 16ci. 
The general result is that the note was certainl), 
written before Februar),, 16ci, and possibl), in the 
latter part of I598. Whenever the note was written, 
Shakespeare's Hamlet was already well known: from 
which it follows that the usually accepted date for the 
first performance of the drama, 16coE, is almost certainl), 
two years, possibly four years too late. That date has 
been arrived at, I suppose, by three considerations: 
first, that Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598) knows 
nothing of Hamlet; second, that the entry of the pla), 



xii Preface 

in thc Stationers' Register on OE6th July, 16ooE, contains 
the words, 'as yt was latelie Acted by the Lo: 
Chamberleyn his servantes'; third, that the passage 
relating to the 'aery of eyases' (which, however, may 
hot bave been in Shakespeare's original text) appears to 
bclong to the end of 16Ol, or beginning of 16o°. 1 
These considerations in themselves do not seem to 
preclude the possibility that the play had appeared as 
early at least as ,6oo, if hot as early as the end of 
I598. 
Ten years have passed since 1 began to collect 
Harvey's marginalia, and it is hardly possible for me 
to enumerate all the kind friends who have in different 
ways and at different times assisted me in my work. 
Certain of them, however, must not pass unmentioned. 
The Rev. J. T. Steele, Vicar of Saffron Walden, kindly 
gave me free access to the Registers of the Church, 
while Mr. Voynich, Mr. Ellis of New Bond Street, 
and Mr. F. T. Sabin allowed me permission to copy 
marginalia from books in their possession at the time. 
In copying the notes from Harvey's book in the Saffron 
Walden Museum, I owed much to the kind attention 
of the Curator, Mr. G. Maynard. I am indebted to 
my friend Professor Gollancz and to the Committee 
of the Saffron Walden Museum for trusting me for a 
short time with their very valuable books. When 1 
was at a distance and was in doubt about a reading, the 
information was kindly sent me by Dr. R. B. McKerrow, 
Mr. Walter Worrall of Oxford, or Mr. A. Esdaile or 

I See CW. Wallace, Cbddren ofthe Chapd pp. 173-185. 



Preface xiii 

Mr. A. I. Ellis ofthe British Museum. To Dr. McKer- 
row in particular I owe help, freely given, in many 
different ways. Some of my notes corne from him : 
still more from another friend, Professor E. Bensly 
of Aberystwith, who in the kindest manner put his 
extraordinary knowledge of out-of-the-way sources at 
my service. Other problems were solved or illustra- 
tions round for me by my friend and colleague, Pro- 
fessor W. C. Summers of Sheffield, and by Mr. Bullen. 
The notes so contributed are marked respectively 
'R.B.M.,' 'E. B.,' 'W. C. S.,' 'A. H. B.' 
Some valuable notes were kindly supplied to Mr. 
A. H. Bullen by Mr. Charles Crawford. One or two 
others came from my colleagues Mr. J. H. Sleeman and 
Mr. A. Hermann Thomas. In the case of others again 
I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Henry 
Jackson, O.M., Sir John Sandys, and Mr. J. H. Hessels. 
My thanks are due to the proprietors of the Essex 
Review for permission to reproduce the illustrations of 
John Harvey's house as conjecturally reconstructed, 
and of the mantelpiece that undoubtedly belonged to it. 
In conclusion, I cannot sufficiently express my sense 
of the kindness, consideration, and sympathy which l 

have received from Mr. Bullen in the course of the 
work. It owes much to his sound judgment and 
critical sense. 

G. C. M.S. 



(ABRIF-L -IARvEY'S ,UTOGRAPH  
,,o« Svçx's 'Ci^c', l çS. 



GABRIEL HARVEY AT PEMBROKE HALL 

Sumtyme my booke is vnto me A God, 
Sumtyme I throwe it from me A rodd. 
On while I studdy, as thowghe I were madd: 
An other while I playe ye vngracious ladd. 
To daye as merry, and lusty, as A crickett, 
To morrowe, as mallancholy and waspish, as A wickett. 
Robbin good fellowe, when I liste: 
With in lesse then an Hower all is whuiste. 
. . I am shaken, like A kixe, 
With A thowsande sutch fittes; 
And yet returne at laste 
To my accustomid taske. 
As close at Tullyes Orations and Aristotles Politickes, 
As on, that neuer hearde tell of other trickes. 
And but for sleepinge, and playinge, lwisse, 
I had kund them both by harte, longe ere this. 
• . Within A daye, or twoe, immediately followinge 
At Petrarche, and Boccace I must haue A flynge. 
• . Sumtyme of Lawe I bestowe A daye, 
And sumtyme Master Physician I playe. 
And sumtyme I addresse myselfe to Diuinity, 
And there continue till I gin to be wery. 
Ail kynde of bookes, good, and badd, 
Sayntish and Diuelish, that ar to be hadd. 



xvi Gabriel Harvey at Pembro/¢e Ha!! 

Owlde, and yunge, 
For marrer and tunge, 
Wheresoeuer they dwell, 
In Heauen, or in Hell; 
Machiauell, Aretine, and whome you will, 
That ar any waye renownid for extraordinary skill : 
Ether with myrte owne Familiar aloane, 
Or when twoe of us, like Dogges, strive for a boan'e, 
I reade and I reade till I flinge them awaye, 
And then Godnight Studye, tomorrowe is Hallidaye. 

Letterbook, fos. 65-6. 



INTRODUCTION 

TH object ofthis book is to illustrate the lire, character 
and opinions of Gabriel Harvey by help of hitherto 
unpublished material. This material taken together 
with that round in Harvey's published works is so 
abundant that it would not be strange if Harvey stood 
out as the best known of all Elizabethan Englishmen. 
His lire with its bright morning, its noonday storms, 
and its long dull evening has a tragical and picturesque 
interest, which is heightened by the feeling that the 
causes of its failure lay in the man himself. And yet to 
most students of English literature Harvey is merely 
the Cambridge don who tried to induce Spenser to 
write English verse in classical metres, or the man who 
ungenerously attacked the dead poet Greene and round 
more than his match in the brilliant Tom Nashe. 
It might bave been thought that an editor of Harvey's 
works would have striven to make his complex character 
clear to other students ; but, unfortunately, Dr. Grosart 
ruade no study of Harvey's character, and was content 
to reiterate and reinforce the old taunts. Of late years, 
it is true, there bave been some attempts to treat Harvey 
more fairly and to understand him better. In a paper 
called 'Spenser's Hobbinol,' published in 869, * the 
late Professor Henry Morley defended Harvey's char- 
acter against many misrepresentations, partly on new 
evidence gathered from Harvey's marginalia in a copy 
of Quintilian ; and Dr. J. Bass Mullinger earned the 
gratitude of later students by the lire of Harvey which 
i Fortnigbtly Re,iezv, New Scrie-, vol. ». 
B 



Introduction 

he contributed to the Dictionary of National Biograph.v. 
I may, perhaps, claim that in my edition of Pedantius 
(IgOç),  by showing that the comedy confirmed the 
general truth of Nashe's picture, I contributed some- 
thing towards our knowledge of the manner of man 
that Harvey was. Finally, Dr. R. B. McKerrow in his 
monumental edition of Nashe's IP'orks studied the 
Harveys (hot Gabriel only, but his brothers as well), with 
that acuteness, soundj udgment and masterly knowledge 
of everything beari**g on his subject which makes lais 
work a perpetual delight to those who corne after him. 
Dr. McKerrow, however, was hOt dealing with Har- 
vey for Harvey's own sake, but with Harvey in his 
relation to Nashe, and it was naturally hot necessary for 
him to make use of the great mass of material for a 
knowledge of Harvey's life, reading, literary tastes, and 
ethical principles which he has left us in manuscript, 
especially in notes inscribed in his books. Some of 
Harvey's manuscript writings have indeed seen the 
light : his' Letter-book' bas been printed by Dr. E. J. L. 
Scott :  his notes in his Quintilian have been drawn 
on by Professor Henry Morley  : those in his copy of 
Gascoigne's Certayne Notes of Instruction by Professor 
Gregory Smith 4 : those in his copy of Hoby's Courtier 
(which I have hOt seen) have lately been published 
by Miss Caroline Runtz-Rees.  But the great mass 
of Harvey's manuscript notes has hitherto escaped 
attention: and I now publish the present selection 
because I believe that, in the light which they throw, 
the secret springs of Harvey's character and conduct 
will be revealed as they have never been revealed before. 

m Bang's Materialien vol. viii. 
2 Camden Socieg.Publications » Series i!. No. 33 
 utsup.  Eli=abetban CriticalEs, ay,, i. 38-6z.  Publications oftbe 
Modern Language A**ociation of America» xxv. 608. 



Introdt«tiot 3 

The marginalia are therefore the essential part ofthe 
present book. To make them, however, the more intel- 
ligible to readers who corne fresh to the subject, 1 havc 
prefixcd to them a short study of Harvey's lire and 
character, which I think will here and there supplcment 
or correct the accounts of Harvcy already existing. 
Whcther it will be considcred f'avourablc to Harvey, 
I neither know nor care. Enough ifit hclps thc reader 
to understand him better. 



4 Gabriel Harvey 

G/tI3RIEI. HARVEV, son of John Harvey, yeoman, of 
Saffron Walden, was born about 15 5 °. Unfortunately the 
Registers of Saffron Walden do not extend further back 
than I558 , and there may have been more than one 
John Harvey as the head of a family in the town. It 
is therefore rather difficult to determine how many 
brothers and sisters Gabriel had, but the following, at 
least, belonged to the family : 
Gabriell d. Feb., 163o-I. 
Alice, married Richard Lyon, yeoman, of Saffron Wal- 
den, 16 July, 157 o. Ofthis marriage the following 
children were born :--Gabriel, bap. 7 Mar., 1573-4, 
bur. 4 Sept., 1578 ; Mary, bap. I8 Sept., I575 ; 
Margret, bap. "2_ 7 Dec.,  576 ; Richard, bap. 26 Oct., 
i578 ; Mary, bap. 9Jan. , I58O-i ; Alice, bap. oE Apr., 
1583 ; Gabriel, bap. OE3 June, 1586, and John, bap. 
-9 Nov., 1588. Ofthese Richard and the younger 
Gabriel (a notary public) were alive in 1634. * Their 
father died before 1613-4 when his daughter Mary 
of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, was to be 
married by licence to Thomas Gwillim, Merchant 
Taylor. 
M ercy, probably of about seventeen or eighteen years 
of age at Christmas, 1574- 
Richard, bap. 15 Apr., 1560, d.  630. 
John, bap. 13 Feb., 1563-4, d. July, 1592. Married 

* The name Gabriel is hot infrequent in the Saffron Walden registers. 
-" See Harleian Sociey' Publ., rvii. p. 7- 



Martha, daughter of Mr. Justice Meade, by whom 
he left two daughters, Joan and Elizabeth. 
Mary, bap. 15 May, I567 . Married Phillip Collin 
3 I Mar., 16oo. The latter, at least, and some sons 
were alive in 163 I. 
In addition the following may bave belonged to the 
family : 
Christian Harvie, infant, bur. 19 Feb., 558-9 . 
Margaret 'daughter of John Harvey', bap. 6 Jan., 
156OE-3, bur. OE I Feb., 156OE-3 . 
John 'sonne of John Harvey', bur. OEo July, I57O. 
Thomas 'son of John Harveye', bap. 6 Sept., i567. 
Alice 'daughter of Mr. John Harvey', bur. 6 Aug., 
I59I. 
We know that one brother besides Gabriel, Richard, 
and John lived to grow up, l and was apparently alive 
in 1595. If this was Thomas, baptised 6 Sept., I567, 
four months after the baptism ofMary Harvey, we must 
suppose either that Mary's baptism had for some reason 
been deferred, or that the two children were twins, and 
for some reason Thomas's baptism was deferred. Tom 
Nashe writes in I595  :-- A¥other brother there is, 
whose naine 1 have forgot,' and Dr. McKerrow suggests 
to me that Nashe round it convenient to forget it, as it 
was the saine as his own. Further in a passage ofa letter 
of Harvey's dated 15753: ' which words . . . my brother 
Nedd, being a grammer scholler can hot finde, he saythe, 
in all his dictionary, which kost my father at the least xx 
good shillinges and twoe,' it is noticeable that the words 
my brother Nedd' are a correction and that Harvey first 
wrote my brother Tom' If the fourth brother was 
born in 1567 it is natural to find him a grammar-school 
boy in 1575- 

i Gabriel writes of his father : 'Four sonnes him cost a thousand pounds at 
lest.' Vorks (Grosart), i. z51.  IVors McKetow), iii. 58.  Letter-boo,p. 94- 



6 FmiIy 

Although we have hitherto only heard ofjurbrothers, 
it is quite possible that John who died in July, 1570, had 
also belonged to the family : and that we bave a case such 
as was by no means uncommon in the sixteenth century 
oftwo children ofthe same family bearing the same name. 
This would also be the case if Alice, buried 6 August, 
i.çgI , belonged (as probably she did) to the family. She 
is described as daughter of '14r. John Harvey'mand 
two years later, on OE 5 July,  593, the registers record the 
burial of' Mr. John Harvey'--undoubtedly Gabriel's 
father. \Ve know that the mother still survived : and 
probably she was the' Mrs. Alse Harvey'who was buried 
on the I4 April, I6I 3. It would seem likely, therefore, 
that the names John and Alice (or Aise), borne by the 
parents, were both given to two several children. 
The whole family would then consist of Gabriel [b. 
ci?c. I _ 50], Alice [Lyon] lb. «irc. 155 I], John, Alice, 
Mercy lb. circ. I556], Christian lb. I558"-9] , Richard 
[b. I56o], Margaret lb. 562-3], John [b. t563-4], 
Mary, Thomas lb. I567]. 
We do hot know the maiden-name ofGabriel's mother, 
but the Harveys were related to the family of Gyver 
in Saffron Walden. 1 They claimed relationship also with 
Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State under Edward V1 
and Elizabeth. Sir Thomas was a native of Saffron 
XValden, but the degree of relationship is impossible 
to determine. 
For a man with a large family John Harvey was fairly 
wcll-to-do. He is described in legal documents as a 
'yeoman', owning land and houses in Walden.-" Before 

 Will of Rev. Rich. Harve}-. 
-* See a document in the Record Office 'Chancery Proceedings, znd Series 
[$79-62), 241 l'qo. {.'. In another, 'Chancery Proccedings B & A Eliz. CC 
' he says he is 'seysed by coppy of courte Roull . . . in diverse customarye 
landes houlden of... Thornas Lord Howard." 



Honte at Saffron ll/'alden 7 

572 he had held the chief oflîce in his town .1 he sup- 
ported three sons at Cambridge and one elsewhere, with 
great charges2: and at the end of his lire, as we bave 
seen, he was designated CMr., in the church register. 
His bouse was situated on the site ofthe present Cattle- 
market, a little below the Market place. Part of it 
became an inn, 'The Eight Bells, 's and was hot demol- 
ished till 1855 , when it was round to contain two 
chimney pieces carved in clunch. These were transferred 
to the Saffron Walden Museum, where they may still 
be seen, along with a small oak window from the saine 
house. The more remarkable of the mantels illustrates 
the trade ofrope-making which John Harvey carried on 
in addition to his farming, and which was perhaps the 
chier source of his wealth. To quote in part from Dr. 
Grosart and in part from Mr. Goddard : 
' The frieze which is in high reliefis divided into three 
compartments by means of two trees : 
ALIIS NON NOBIS NEc ALIIS NEC NOBIS ALll5 ET NOBIS 
Ox with pack Three men making ]3ees at work 
a rope, the toaster 
sitting 
Nos'rRI PLACENTE[S] [S]UNT LaBOR[ES] 
The middle compartment also contains all the adjuncts 
to a farmyard--somewhat mutilated--e.g., the end of 
a bouse, a bullock or cow, yard with the head of a cow 
peeping out, a pig, poultry, bullock and corn and (seem- 
ingly) flax or hemp : also a plant of saffron, whilst on 
a tree hangs a satchel.' As Dr. Grosart says, it is pleasing 

I In the Charter of Incorporation of Walden which was obtained in 1549-5o 
and confirmed in 15ç 3 and 1558 , the body politic is described as «The Treasurer, 
Chamherlains T,enty-four Assistants and Commonalty.' Brayhrooke's History of 
ludley End, p. zç3. " Harvey's 142"orks (Grosart), i. 16o. 
a Lord Braybrooke in his HistÇry of/ludley End (1836), already speaks of «the 
removai of the mart for cattle to a yard at the south end of East St. formerly the 
Eight Bells public house» the site of which was purchased in 183 I.' 



8 Date nf Gabriel's Birth 

to see that the rope-making was held for honest labour, 
hot stigma, both by the old man and by Gabriel, if--as 
is likely--he supplied the Latin mottoes. 
I have said that Gabriel Harvey was born «about 
1550'. Such a date would be most consistent with the 
year of his matriculation, I566. It also agrees with a 
phrase used by Harvey in April, 573, 'it will be the 
worst spring that hapnid to me these xxii years,' and 
with his New Year's lines enclosed in his letter to 
Spenser of OE3 April, I58o , 'O that I had you three 
[-ç'ertue, Fame, and ,Vealth] with the loss of thirtie 
Commencementes,' though the sentiment approaches 
nonsense. -" Two reasons have been adduced for putting 
his date ofbirth some years earlier: one, Nashe's account 
of him in Have with you 3 (written apparently in I595) 
as 'of the age of fortie eight or vpwards' ; the other, 
Harvey's statement that Lord Oxford in the prime ofhis 
gallantest youth bestowed angels upon him in Christ's 
College.  As Lord Oxford was at Cambridge at the time 
of the Queen's visit in August, 1564, it is thought that 
this must have been the occasion on which he bestowed 
charity on Harvey, who must therefore bave already 
joined the University, though not yet matriculated. 
With regard to the first argument, not much weight can 
be attached to Nashe's loose account ofhis opponent's age. 
With regard to the second, Lord Oxford in 1564 could 
hardly be said to be' in the prime ofhis gallantest youth,' 

1 Harvcy's H:orks {Grosart), i. 1  : A. R. Goddard in Essex Reaiew vol. vii 
(z 898 ). Mr. Goddard quotes a newspaper published at the time of the demolition : 
'the valls of the old house even thc staircase, seem to have been covercd vith 
a vcry pcculiar style of stencilling in black and vhite, and the ancient bay indows 
with oak carved benches remained at the back of the house." Mr. Goddard's article 
is illustrated by a photograph of the mantelpiece and a drawing of the Harvey house» 
based on older sketches. 
*" Letter-book p.  and Igork (Grosart), i. 79- Cf. also ttbenurn, Dec. 5, 
 9o and Prof. H. Morley's argument in «Spenser's Hobbinol 
vol. v (New Stries). a Nashe' Igorks {McKerrow), iii. 
 Harvey's ll"orks (Grosart), i.  8 4. 



trom ocooot to ttortst s tottege, Cambridge 9 

having been born on OE April, 155 o. He owned Stansted 
Hall, within a short distance of Saffron Walden, till 
158oE , and may well bave visited Cambridge after 1564 
and have had some ground for taking an interest in the 
young Essex scholar. 
John Harvey's children, like the children of other 
farmers, took their share in the work of the farm. * 
For the boys» however, the Grammar School of Saffron 
Walden, founded in I5oE5, opened a vista of higher 
things.  Nashe in his humorous sketch of Gabriel's 
lire tells us that already at school he acquired that ' faire 
Romane hand' which many a writing-master might 
envy :--that he was argumentative and quarrelsome 
'a desperate stabber with penknivcs'; that he wrote 
ballads ; and called forth the enthusiastic admiration of 
lais schoolmaster. Much of this is no doubt true, and 
it was as a brilliant schoolboy that he was matriculated 
from Christ's College, Cambridge, on 28 June, 1566. 
His college expenses were largely defrayed by his father, 
but were partly met by the generosity of Sir Thomas 
Smith, and of Sir Walter Mildmay, who founded some 
exhibitions at Christ's College in 1569 .« Harvey tells 
us of the Latin letters which he was accustomed to 

I The above statement owes something to a letter which Dr. H. P. Stokes 
kindly sent me some years ago on the subject of Harvey's age. 
" His daughter Mercy in 574 writes *though mie bringing upp hath bene 
allwales so homelie and milkmaidlike' (L«tter-book, p. 147), and we find her mother 
and sister with some of their servants in the ruait-bouse 'sure turning yc mault, 
sum steaplng, sum looking on' {ibid. p. 43)- Cf. Sonnet xx 'His Apology of his 
good Father' 1. o (ll"orks I ed. Grosartt i. zS ) : 21lalt» haires» and hcmpe» and 
sackcloth must be had.' 
3 See a note at the end of his Smitbus :--*neque enim obliulsci queo quod olim 
pueri in Valdinensi gymnasio didiceramus.' John Disborowe became master of the 
school in 1564-5 (Carnbridge Uni,ersiy Grace-Book A, p. 186,) and remained there 
for many years {Registers of Walden). I do hot know the naine ofhis predecessor. 
4 Cf. Harvey's *Epistola Nuncupatoria' to Mildmay in his Smitbus» ,el Musarum 
LacbD'moe (I 577) : 
tLis erat» vtri horum Vates» Smithone propinquo 
An plus Mildmnlo deberet, maximus olim 
Qui studiorum esse b doctrinaru,nque Patronus.' 



IO .,tt Pembroke with Spenser 

write to this latter benefactor.  In IS69-7o, Harvey 
took his bachelor's degree, his naine appearing as 9th 
out of 114 in the Ordo Senioritatis.  On 3 November, 
I S7O , having failed to become a fellow of Christ's, he 
was elected, through Sir Thomas Smith's influence,  to 
a Fellowship at Pembroke Hall. 
Tall, dark, and handsome, 4 a passionate student, 
conscious of his superiority, and thirsting with unsatis- 
fied ambitions--the faults of his character which were 
to mat all hot yet clearly developedmGabriel Harvey 
was singularly qualified to win the enthusiastic attach- 
ment of some younger man of high soul and ardent 
imagination. Such an admiring friend Pembroke gave 
him in Edmund Spenser, a young Londoner, now a 
student in his second year, and therefore three years 
below Harvey in academical standing, though perhaps 
only a year or two his junior in age. Already Spenser 
had published a series ofsonnets, although anonymously, 
and for that reason alone must bave been a marked man 
among his fellow-undergraduates. Harvey no doubt 
fclt the attraction of his genius and lofty character ; and 
between the two sprang up a friendship in which each 
had much to give and much to receive. 
This friendship with an undergraduate was all the 
more valuable to I-Iarvey because he was hot popular 
with the other fellows of his college. He was ruade 
aware of this when in the spring of 1573 he was ready 
to take his M.A. degree. An unusual obstacle was put 
in his way, certain of the fellows of Pembroke refusing 
their consent to the grace being proposed. Whcn 
Harvey inquired into the cause of this proceeding, he 
found that charges of very various kinds were brought 

! Cùvonianu(I577), P. :4. " GvaceBook A, p. Z33.  Lettcv-book, p. 16z. 
 Nashe, passun. 



)pposition to Ha»vey t  

against bi,n. He was arrogant and unsociable,--in the 
Christmas holiday time he would rather read his books 
by himself than play cards in company. He was over- 
critical, ever in extremes of blame or praise. He vould 
defend paradoxes even against Aristotle, and it was to 
be feared that this singularity in philosophy would grow 
dangerous if he turned to study divinity. It was even 
said that he had been heard to commend puritans and 
precisians. Harvey denied that he had ever praised 
puritans quâ puritans, or had himself maintained any 
particular point ofpuritanism. Ifhe had dissented from 
Aristotle, his dissent had been mainly from four only 
of Aristotle's positions, and in this he had followed 
Melanchthon, Ramus and other moderns. On this 
point at any rate we shall hot be severe on Harvey. As 
Dr. McKerrow bas well said : ' The charge of maintain- 
ing paradoxes and strange opinio,s is perhaps the most 
honorable that can be brought against a scholar or a 
scientist : it is a charge which bas been brought against 
every man who bas contributed to the progress of the 
world, and never yet was a nonentity so accused.'l But 
how about the charge of arrogance and unsociability ? 
Dr. McKerrow again rightly draws attention to Harvey's 
reply. He was 'aferd les over mutch familiariti had 
mard al'he had at first been 'as sociable, and as gud 
a feIIow too, as ani,' but some had hot taken it weI1, so 
that he had had to withdraw himself ' althouh hot greatly 
nether" out of continual company. Harvey, as an egotist, 
a man feeding his soul on books and vast dreams, was 
perforce a being apart, except vith younger men like 
Spenser who would look up to him as a master. If he 
had been a man ofgood birth and a gentleman by nature, 
he could have been what he was and still kept on good 

 Nas|'-. 1Vorks, ". 7 o. 



terms with lais equals. But with all his lofty ambitions, 
he was a parvenu, without that instinctive sense of 
the happy mean in bearing and conduct which saves 
a natural gentleman from ridicule or dislike. Even in 
his letters to the Master ofhis College, Dr. Young, who 
was his firm friend, we see a want of savoir-faire a 
tendency to praise the Master according to the forms of 
rhctoric,--which was unbecoming in a man in Harvey's 
position. His Saffron Walden breeding had made him 
a scholar, but it had hot taught him how to behave 
himsclf modestly and easily in society. The defect 
might have been ruade good if Harvey had had any 
sense of humour ; without such a sense--and no man 
was ever more deficient in it than Harvcy--the defect 
was incurable. 
For a time his brilliance as a scholar carried him 
through, at least with those who could appreciate his 
high qualities and were hot brought in daily contact 
with him. Even in the present difficulty friends stood 
by him. Humphry Tindal, fellow of Pembroke, and 
aftêrwards President of Queens', rode to London and 
spokc with the Master, Dr. Young, and the latter wrote 
on Harvey's behalf to the fellows. His letters seem 
to bave rather irritated than mollified the cabal; but 
he then came down to Cambridge in person, and in a 
(ew days crushed ail opposition. Harvey received the 
desired degree, and the Senior Proctor, Walter Allen, 
a nqember of his old college, Christ's, gave him unso- 
licited the first place in the Ordo Senioritatis.  Some 
fresh opposition was in store for him when, in October, 
hê entered on the office of college lecturer in Greek, 
to which he had been appointed by the Master : but 

 The above account is bascd on the Lettcr-book and on Grace BookA, p. 262. 
" Like most fcllows of colleges, ho was also a tutor. Cf. L«tter-book, p. 47, mine 
ownc pupils'. 



University Pr/ector in Rbetoric  3 

again the incident shows Harvey at his best. There is 
the tone ofa true scholar in his words to Dr. Young of 
 November, 573: 'For the bestowing of the lecture, 
do in it as you shal think best for the behoof of the 
collidg. For mi part, I am the more desirus ofit, I must 
needs confes, bicaus ofthe stipend, which, notwithstand- 
ing, is hOt great : and yet suerly I wuld refuse no pains 
to do the schollars good, and to help forward lcrning in 
the meanist, if there wcre no stipend at al.'1 
Meanwhile he was obtaining recognition outside his 
own collcge. On z3 April, x 574 he was marie University 
Proelector or Professor in Rhetoric,  after having lectured 
as deputy sincc the beginning of Lent,  and he secms 
to bave been re-elected to the office for the years  574-5, 
and 575-6. 4 In this capacity he instructed practically 
ail the first year students of the University, lecturing 
in the Public Schools. Itwould seem that the first lecture 
ofthe course was a Latin oration on Rhetoric in general, 
after which thc lecturer expounded a work of Cicero or 
some other author. 
Two inaugural lectures Harvey published in 577, 
the one called Ciceronianus, the other (divided over two 
days) Rbetor. No scholar can read these discourses 
without surprise and admiration for Harvey's command 
ofthe Latin language, his eloquence, his scholarly open- 
mindedness and readiness to learn, and his extraordinary 
width ofreading. The Ciceronianus or Oratiopost Reditum 
was published in J une,  577, but was delivered, I imagine, 
in January, 575, when the University re-assembled 
after being dissolved for a term on account of plague. 
It is accompanied by a letter to William Lewin, who had 
been a Fellow of Christ's in Harvey's time, and had 
I L¢¢ter-boo, p. 5¢"  Grace Boo A, p. z7¢. 3 L¢tt¢r-book, p.  76. 
 In his copy of Quintilian {in the British Museum) Harvey describe himelf as 
«Rhetoricu Professor Cantabrig.  çT],  74  ç7ç," and the note as far as thc year 
 75 is concerned, is confirmed by the Lansdowne MS., xx. 77. 



14 Harvey's Ciceronianus 

himself also been Proelector in Rhetoric, but had now 
left the paths ofscholarship for those ofthe law. Lewin's 
reply, also printed in the book, testifies to his high 
opinion of Harvey. He says that he is but a youth 
(adbuc adulescentem), but that if he had persisted in 
his office of Proelector, he would have produced both 
for himself and the whole University incredible fruit 
and glory.  In the speech which follows, Harvey says he 
has been for nearly twenty weeks in his Tusculan villa, 
i.e., at his father's house at Saffron Walden, assiduously 
studying hot only the greatest ofthe old Roman writers, 
but renaissance writers such as Sturm, Manutius, 
Osorius, Sigonius and Buchanan. He had given more 
time to Cicero than to all the rest put together, yet 
sometimes he had dropped Cicero on Friendship to 
take up Osorius on Glory, if only to detect the secrets 
of Cicero's superiority. There had been a time when, 
like some of the earlier Renaissance scholars, he had 
been a pure Ciceronian--he had dragged tags from 
Cicero into his Latin letters to Sir Walter Mildmay, 
and had been unable to endure any praise of Erasmus, 
because his Latin was so impure. He had valued authors 
hot for their substance, but solely for their style. He 
had then corne across the Ciceronianus of Sambucus-- 
that had led him to the Ciceronianus of Ramus--and 
Ramus had given him new eyes. He now read Coesar, 
Varro, Sallust, Livy, Pliny and Columella, and found 
merits in ail. He began to find imperfections in Cicero, 
though still he felt that he was in the main the chief 
model for imitation. He was reconciled to renaissance 
writers such as Erasmus, Picus Mirandola, and Politian. 

1 A private letter of W. Lewin to Harveywritten hefore the other--is given hy 
Baker frorn a copy in Harvey's own hand (Camb. Unir. Library, Baker MSS., xxxvi. 
p.  o). Here Lewin says that after his father-in-law, Byng, no one in the University 
is dearer to him than Harvey. 



and Rhetor I 5 

He now cried--Away with those who treat all but 
Italians as barbarians, we will set against the Italians 
Ramus, Erasmus, Sturm, Freigius, Sir Thomas Smith 
and Sir John Cheke. Let a man learn to be hot a 
Roman but a Frenchman, German, Briton or ltalian. 
His hearers must strive hOt only tobe authors ofwords, 
but actors of deeds, they must learn from Cicero hot 
only rhetoric but dialectic, hOt only what he says, but 
why he says it. To-morrow they would hear Cicero 
himself. 
The other two orations, called the Rbetor, were 
published in November, 1577- The work was dedicated 
to Bartholomew Clarke, another Cambridge scholar who 
had found a career, as Harvey secretly hoped to do, in 
the great world of London. In this he extends his praise 
beyond the great Latin writers to writers in vernacular 
tongues--to Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sannazaro, 
Ariosto--to our own Chaucer, More, Eliot, Ascham 
and Jewel. Both speeches were delivered apparently at 
the Comitia, the Bachelors' Commencement, in March. 
Next day he would begin to study with his pupils the 
great writers on Rhetoric. 
As Professor Morley said,  such lectures are hOt the 
lectures of a pedant--they are the work of a strenuous 
open-minded student and of an inspiring teacher. 
After the publication of the Ci«eronianus, Harvey 
received a letter from Thomas Hatcher,  in which, after 
saying that from their first acquaintance, he had seen in 
him the image both of an honest man and a most polished 
writer, he complained that no mention had been made 
of Walter Haddon in Ciceronianus. Harvey replied that 
a similar complaint might be ruade in regard to Ascham, 
Christopherson, Linacre, Thomas More, Richard Pace: 
! Fortnigbdy Revieo, New Series, vol. v, 'Spenser's Hobbinol.' 
- Hatchet in  567 had edited the Lucubration« ofWalter Haddon. 



 6 M«rcy ltarvey's Love-affair 

while he thought highly ofHaddon, he would put Smith 
and Cheke in the first place, and Haddon in the second 
or third. From Hatcher's letter it seems that Harvey 
some time before had stayed with him at his house at 
Carebury, near Stamford.* 
We have now reached the year x577 ; but a word 
should perhaps be given to an incident in Harvey's lire, 
which he has narrated with curious minuteness in his 
Letter-book,  riz., the attempts ruade, about Christmas, 
I574, on the virtue of his sister Mercy, then a girl 
prohably of seventeen or eighteen, by a young lord, 
now identified as Philip, Lord Surrey, a married man 
of seventeen-and-a-half.3 The story ends with a letter 
written by Gabriel to the young nobleman, which one 
must hope put an end to his pursuit, and rescued Mercy 
from a position in which her own conduct had been 
somewhat ambiguous. Harvey no doubt has the inci- 
dent in his mind when in his copy of Erasmus' Parabolw 
to the words 'stultis magnifica fortuna iniucunda', he 
adds the note, ' you knowe, who vsed to write : Vnhappy 
Philip'. We may perhaps connect with Mercy's story, 
the letter written by Harvey from Pembroke Hall on 
0_ 9 March of some unknown year to Lady Smith, Sir 
Thomas Smith's wife, * asking ber to take one of his 
sisters into her service. 
In July,  576, Spenser took his M.A. degree and lefi 
Cambridge for the North of England. Perhaps Harvey 
accompanied him on hisjourney ; at any rate we find that 
he was in York in August of that year : "' and probably 
in coming or goinghe paid his visit to Hatcher at 
Carebury. In August, 1577, Sir Thomas Smith died. 

* These two letters were copied by Baker from Harvey's own MS. (Baker MSS. 
xxxvi, p. to7).  pp. 43-58.  See Note ad .uerie, Eleventh Series, iii. z6t. 
* Letter-boo, p.  7 o. 
:" MS. note in 2q brief treaeie contcinyng raany proper Table,,  $76. 



ofmmus) V¢l tvlusarum Lachrymœe i 7 

There seems to be no reason to doubt Harvey's state- 
ment that Smith was in some way related to him: he was, 
as we know, his kind friend and adviser, and Harvey 
had stayed at his house, a Harvey was informed of his 
death and attended his funeral at Theydon Mount, 
Essexwan occasion on which he gave a sharp answer to 
Dr. Perne, Master of Peterhouse, who had called him 
a fox for having induced Sir Thomas' widow to present 
him with some rare manuscripts.  Perne, according to 
Harvey, was henceforth his lifelong enemy. On the day 
after the funeral, in an inn in London, Harvey began 
to write a series of Latin elegies on Smith which were 
published next year as Smitbus, velMusarum Lacbryme. 
Like his other Latin verses they show great facility, but 
no poetical feeling. Harvey was a rhetorician--perhaps 
we may say, a philosopher and statesman--but not 
a poet. 3 The collection was prefaced by a letter to 
Harvey's other patron, Sir Walter Mildmay; it closed 
with some verses to his younger brother and pupil, 
Richard Harvey, now an undergraduate of Pembroke 
and all but B.A., and some further verses purporting to 
have been addressed by Richard to his elder brother and 
tutor. It became characteristic of the Harveys that, in 
all they did, they brought their brothers on to the field 
with them. 
The year  578 saw perhaps the culmination of Gabriel 
Harvey's early career of brilliant success. On 26 July, 
Queen Elizabeth visited Audley End, the great house 

i Letter-book pp. 16z, 168, 170, 176. 2 Harvey's Iorks (Grosart), il.  13" 
z An undergraduate of Harvey's own tlmejudged him more favourably. A copy 
of Smitbus wel lFlusarum Lcbrym,e in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
contains the foilowing manuscript note : 
«Tu Rhetor me|ior seu sis Harueie poeta, 
Hu]us et iilius debita palma tibi est. 
Henricus Barber Cantabrigiensls 
Regalis Cellegii lreshman'. 
H. Barber matriculated on 3 De¢. 1580. 
C 



18 Ube Quecn at /ludley End 

close to Saffron Walden, and for a day or two Audley End 
became the seat ofthe University. It was a testimony to 
Harvey's position at Cambridge as a scholar and Latin 
orator that he was one of those chosen to dispute before 
the Court, especially as Dr. Howland had written z some 
days before to Lord Burleigh, 'Theactorsaresuch as I do 
hOt doubt but will greatly commend themselves, and 
delight the hearers'. With the Queen were Burghley, 
Chancellor of the University, the Earl ofLeicester, his 
nephew Philip Sidney, Lord Oxford and others of the 
noblest and most famous ofthc land. Doubtless Harvey 
saw in this gathering an opportunity for commending 
himself to some illustrious patron and, inspired by the 
example of Sir Thomas Smith, Sir John Cheke, Lewin 
and Clarke, hoped to exchange the shades of a College 
for the sunshine of the Court. Already he could call 
Lord Leicester his special lord or patron. Who gave him 
the introduction we do hOt know, but he seems to have 
been in comcxion with Leicester as early as  576.  He 
now probably ruade the acquaintance of Philip Sidney, 
and was fascinated, as ail were who came within the 
circle of that grave and noble spirit. Ho was ata dance 
with ladies of the Court and, greatest triumph of all, 
attracted the notice of the Queen who asked Leicester 
who he was, remarking that he had the look of an Italian, 
and allowing him to kiss her hand. 
Was Harvey's modesty proofagainst this intoxicating 
experience ? Or did the farmer's son show beneath the 
fine clothes, exciting the smiles and scorn of those who 
watched him ? 

t Calendar of MSS. at Hatfield {Hist. MSS. Coin.), il. p. 89. 
s The Gratulationes IValdinenses lib. il},  578, contain « Epigramma in eflïgiem.. 
Comltis Leicestrensis duobus abhin¢ annls Londini conscriptum et ex eo tempore à 
multis descriptum copied ?)." Also ' Epigramma in eflïgiem . . Cornitis Varuicensis 
I Leicester's brother» Lord Warwick) eodern . . rempote exaratum.' 



Harvey at Court  9 

This is the account that Nashe gives ofhis behaviour : 
I haue a talc at my tungs end.., of his hobb}'-horse reuelling 
& dominering at ludley-end, when the Queene was there ; to 
which place Gabriill(to doo his countre}' more worship & glor}') 
came rufling it out huffty tuffty in his suite of veluet. There 
be them in Cambridge that had occasion to take note of it, for 
he stood noted or scoard for it in their bookes man}' a faire da}, 
after. . . 
There did this out Talatamtana or Doctour Hum, thrust 
himselfe into the thickest rankes of the Noblemen and Gallants, 
and whatsoeuer they were arguing of, he would hot misse to 
catch hold of, or strike in at the one end, and take the thearne 
out of their mouths, or it should goe hard. In selle saine order 
was hee at his pretie toyes and amorous glaunces and purposes 
with the Damsells, & putting baudy riddles vnto them. In fine, 
some Disputations there were, and he ruade an Oration belote 
the Maids of Honour... 
The proces ofthat Oration, was of the saine woofe and thrid 
with the beginning: demurely and maidenly scoflîng, and blush- 
ingly wantoning & making loue to those soft skind soules & 
sweete Nymphes of Heli«on ; betwixt a kinde of careless rude 
ruflîanisme, and curious finicall complement : both which he 
more exprest b}' his countenance, than anie good jests that hec 
vttered. This finished.., by some better frends than hec was 
worthie of, and that afterward round him vnworthie of the 
graces they had bestowed vpon him, he was brought to kisse 
the Queenes hand, and it pleased ber Highnes to say.. that he 
lookt something like an Italian. No other incitement he needed 
to rouze his plumes, pricke up his eares, and run away with the 
bridle betwixt his teeth, and take it vpon him.., but now he was 
an insulting Monarch aboue A4onarcha the Italian, that ware 
crownes on his shooes ; and quite renounst his naturall English 
accents & gestures, & wrested himselfe whol}' to the Italian 
puntilios, speaking out homely Iland tongue strangely, as if he 
were but a raw practitioner in it, & but ten daies belote had 
entertained a schoole-master to teach him to pronounce it. 
Ceremonies of reuerence to the greatest States (as it were hot 
the fashion of his cuntray) he was very parsimonious and nig- 
gardl}' of, and would make no bones to take the wall of Sir 
Philip $idney and another honourable Knight (his companion) 
about Court }'et attending.., is Halle fellowe well met with those 



'o Gratulationes Valdinenses 

that looke highest.., follows the traine of the delicatest fauorites 
and minions... * 
Harvey himselfwas unaware that he had exposed himself 
to ridicule. He rejoiced in his apparent conquest of all- 
powerful friends, and when all was over, sat down to 
complete his success by celebrating in verse the events 
in which he had played a part. So we bave from his 
pen a new volume of facile Latin verse, the Gr,tula- 
tiones l'aldinenses. It is in four books, each presented 
separately to a different person whose favour he would 
conciliate--the first book to the Queen (to whom Harvey 
also presented the printed work at the bouse of 
Mr. Capell in Hertfordshire), * the second to Leicester, 
the third to Burghley (his separate copy in Harvey's MS. 
is now in the British Museum),S the fourth to Lord 
Oxford, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Philip Sidney. A 
poem is devoted to the Queen's remark that he looked 
like an Italian, another to his having kissed her hand, 
another to the ladies of the Court. He urges rather 
indiscreetly the Queen's marriage with Leicester, who, 
unknown to Harvey, was already secretly married to 
the Countess of Essex. He addresses Sidney in tones 
ofwarm affection. The book concludes characteristically 
with an epigram addressed to Gabriel himself by his 
brother Richard. The whole shows Harvey's eagerness 
after the favour of the great, and his lack of restraining 
good-sense. With all his great qualities, he was his own 
worst enemy. 
 Nashe's l, VorkJ (McKerrow), iii. 7t-7- 
 Note b¥ E. K. in Spenser's SbepbeardJ Calender (September). An Arthur 
Capell was a fellow-commoner of Pembroke in ! 575- See Letter-bool, p. lSZ, and 
Lansdowne MS. zo, 77- a Lansdowne MS.  zo, ! z. 



Devotes bimself to Civil Law OE t 

II 

WHEI Harvey was introduced to the Queen by Lord 
Leicester, it was as a man who was about to go abroad 
in Leicester's service. 1 For some reason or other, this 
project fell through, and it is hot clear that at any rime 
of his lire Harvey crossed the Channel. 
A change of lire was now, however, before him. His 
fellowship at Pembroke was expiring, and a request 
made by Lord Leicester that it should be continued for 
a year, though backed by Dr. Fulke,  the new Master 
of the College, was hot complied with. 
For years past he had inclined towards the study of 
Civil Law. In a letter to Sir Thomas Smith, 3 evidently 
written at the end of r573, he says that if he had 
obtained a fellowship at Christ's, he supposes it would 
have drawn him into the ministry, but he now rejoices 
that he was not elected, and his present intention is 
to make the Civil Law his study, 'partly now and fully 
hereafter.' Sir Thomas invited him to see him, and gave 
him advice as to his course of reading, 4 and in a letter 
evidently to be dated about the following April, » Harvey 
says that though there was then a fellowship for Essex 

i There had been some intention of sending him abroad a few months earlier, as 
is seen from the dedication to John Aylmer, Bishop of London, of Richard Harvey's 
.qstrologicall Discourse (1553) , where he refers to Aylmer's «singular curtesie toward 
my hrother Gahriel uhen he should haue trauailed to Smalcaldie'. Queen Elizabeth, 
urged by Duke Casimir, nominated deputies [ Laurence Humphry, John Still, John 
Hammon, Daniel Rogers] to attend a Conference of German Protestant princes 
which w-s to bave been held at Schmalkalden on 7 June, 1575. The conference 
,as, ho,ever, given up and the deputies did rot leave Englad. Both Dr. Daniel 
Rogers and Dr. Still were frlends of Harvey's and one of them may bave procured 
some appointment for him in connexion with the mission. (Foreign Paters 
577-$, Nos. 546, $zo($), 868, 9, 9z: 75-9» Nos. z, z, 47-) 
 Lett«r-book p. 88. Dr. Fu[ke's |etter is dated zztad August,  578. 
 Letter-book» p. 16z.  ibid. p. 65.  ibid. p. 76. 



z z Fellow of Trinity Ha# 

men vacant at Christ's, he would not accept it ifit were 
offered him, unless it were accompanied by a dispensation 
from taking orders, so resolved was he to make the Civil 
Law his profession,  how slowlyyet soever I go unto it.' 
Fortune therefore favoured him when within a few 
months of losing his fellowship at Pembroke he was 
elected on 18 December, x 578, to a new fellowship at 
Trinity Hall, the home of the study of Civil Law in 
Cambridge. Perhaps his election was assisted by the 
Master, Dr. Henry Harvey, who may have been a 
distant kinsman. 
Early in the year  578 Dr. John Young, Master of 
Pembroke, who had been so good a friend to Harvey 
rive years before, became Bishop of Rochester. We 
may imagine that Harvey besought his patronage for 
the young Pembroke poet, Spenser, while he urged 
Spenser to leave the North and his unhappy love-affair 
and make a career in southern England.  
Then, if by me thou list advised be, 
Forsake the soyle that so doth thee bewitch : 
Leave me those billes where harbrough nis to see, 
Nor holy-bush, nor brere, nor winding witche : 
And to the da|es resort, where shepheards ritch 
And fruictfull flocks bene everywhere to see. - 
&t any rate Spenser went south, and became the 
Bishop's Secretary. This we know from a note in one 
of Harvey's books, 'Ex dono Edmundi Spenseri Epis- 
copi Roffensis Secretarij x 578-' a 
How long Spenser held this post we do hot know. 
In the September Eclogue of the Sbepbeards Calender» 
I Dr. Grosart has produced some evidence that Spenser left the North in 1577 
and was Secretary to Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland at the end of 1577 and beginning 
of 1578. At any rate he was 'ith the Bishop in 1578. Spense h/'Vorks (Grosart), 
i. 65- 7. "- 8bepberds Calender (June). Sec E. K.'s note. 
a The book Turler's Trauail«r (1 75), was seen by me by kind permission of 
Mr. F. T. Sabin. It now belongs to Dr. Gollancz, who has called attention to the 
interest of this note, as Mr. W. C. Hazlitt had also donc previously. 



Renewed Intercourse with Spenser OE 3 

1.  76, where the Bishop under his pastoral name' Roffyn ' 
is in question, we are explicitly told ' Colin C10ut, I wene, 
be his selle boye' : and one must infer that when Hobbi- 
noll in the April Eclogue, 1. -',. I, says, ' Colin thou kenst, 
the southerne shepheardes boye', the Southern Shepherd 
is again the Bishop, though E. K. writes vaguely, ' Seem- 
eth hereby that Colin perteyneth to some Southern noble 
man, and perhaps in Surrye or Kent.' In the July 
Eclogue, 11. 79-8 , ' the salt Medway' must surely be 
due to an acquaintance with the river at Rochester. It 
seems, however, probable that Spenser soon after his 
coming south was introduced, again through Harvey's 
means, to Philip Sidney, and by him to Lord Leicester, 
and that he left the Bishop's service sometime in 1579 
for that of the great Earl. 1 
Two days after being elected to his fellowship at 
Trinity Hall, Harvey was with Spenser in London, and 
received from him the copy of Howleglas now in the 
Bodleian, in which he wrote the following note, now 
partly obliterated : 
This Howletglasse, with Skoggin, Skelton, and L[a]zarillo, 
giuen me at London, of Mr. Spensar xx Decembris [  5 ] 78 on 
condition [that I] shoold bestowe ye reading of tbem oue[r] 
befo,'e ye first of January [imme]diatly ensuing: otherwise 
to forfeit unto him my Lucian in fower uolumes. Whereupon 
I was ye rather jnduced to trifle away so many howers, as 
were jdely ouerpassed in running thorowgh ye [foresai]d foolish 
bookes : wherein methowg[ht] not ail fower togither seemed 
comparable for s[utt]le and crafty feates with Jon Millet, wbose 
witty shiftes, & practises af reported amongst Skeltons Tales. 
During the first winter after his return Spenser was 
writing or revising his Sbepbeards Calender, that series 
! Harvey writes to Spenser on 23 April, lSgo (I4"orks» ed. Grosart, i. 81):-- 
' Imagin me to corne into a goodly Kentish Gard«n of your old Lords or some oth¢r 
Noble Man': this is I suppose Bishop Young i and Spenser's connexion withhim 
was now over. If so, it is noticeablc that Harvcy, like E. K., speaks of the Bishop 
by implication as a nobleman. 



24 The Shepheards Calender 

of eclogues which brought a new music into English 
poetry, and inaugurated a new era in our literature. 
Suflïcient to say of it here that it is an eternal monu- 
ment to the friendship of Edmund Spenser for Gabriel 
Harvey, of Colin Clout for Hobbino]. In the January 
Eclogue the love-sick Colin bas no other way ofshowing 
the intensity of his passion for Rosalind than by saying 
that he now disdains the kindness of Hobbinol, ' Albee 
my love he seeke with dayly suit.' In April Hobbinol 
is seen lamenting that ' the ladde whom long I lord so 
deare Nowe loves a lasse that all his love doth scorne.' 
The June Eclogue contains Colin's lament to his' deare 
frend Hobbinol' that he is forsaken, and Hobbinol's 
exhortation to him to return to the south, the land of 
wealthy patrons, and once more practise poetry : 
Colin, to hear thy rymes and roundelayes, 
çVhich thou wert wont on wastful h),lls to singe, 
I more delight then larke in Summer dayes : 
Vhose echo ruade the neyghbour groves to ring, 
And taught the by'rds, which in the lower spring 
Did shroude in shady leaves from sonny rat, es, 
Frame to thy songe their chereful cheriping, 
Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy swete layes. 
And in the closing couplet of Colin Clout's December 
Lamentation, the naine of his friend is tenderly linked 
with that of his love : 

Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true, 
Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu. 

The 8bepbeards Calender did hot see the light till the 
end of 579- Then it was modestly ushered into the 
world with a dedication to Philip Sidney from the un- 
named author, and a letter addressed by the editor, 
Edward Kirke, 'to the most excellent and learned, both 
orator and poete, Mayster Gabriell Harvey.' Kirke had 



Harvey's Lost t4/'orks OE 5 

been, like Spenser, a sizar of Pembroke Hall, and he 
was a staunch admirer not only of Spenser but of 
Spenser's elder friend. He bids Harvey, if envy and 
malice should stir up any wrongful accusation against 
the poet, to defend his cause 'with your mighty 
Rhetorick and other your rare gifts of learning.' 
To his letter Kirke adds a quaint postscript, ' From 
my lodging at London thys o. ofAprill, 579-' In this 
he urges Harvey to publish 'those many excellent 
English poemes of yours which lye hid,' and no longer 
withhold from men 'so divine pleasures, which they 
might conceive of your gallant English verses, as they 
bave already doen ofyour Latine Poemes, which, in my 
opinion, both for invention and Elocution are very deli- 
cate and superexcellent.' And in a note to the September 
Eclogue, after mentioning Harvey's Musarum lacbrym,e 
and Gratuhttiones, E. K. refers to ' other his sundrye 
most rare and very notable writings, partely under un- 
known tytles, and partely under counterfayt names, as 
his Uyrannomastix, his Ode Natalitia, his Rameidos and 
especially that parte of Philomusus, his divine lnticos- 
mopolita, and diuers others of lyke importance.' 
It would seem, then, that Harvey by this time had 
composed a number of poetical works, in English and 
in Latin, but had been chary of giving them to the 
world. Most of them never did see the light ; and it 
would have been better for Harvey ifthis had been the 
case with all. However, we may take it that early in 
 579 he was seriously thinking of publication, and that 
Kirke's words were intended to prepare the public for 
what was to corne. One of the works mentioned by 
Kirke was entered on the Stationers' Register on the 
3cth June to Richard Day, viz., ' Anticosmopolita, or 
Britannioe Apologia.' It was probably never printed, 



z6 Verlayes 

for Harvey writes in April, x58o , 'My Anticosmo- 
polita remayning still in statu quo, and neither an inch 
more forward, nor backwarde, than he was fully a twelue- 
month since in the Courte, at his laste attendance vppon 
my Lorde there.'  Perhaps an appeal made to Lord 
Leicester to assist in its publication had proved fruitless. 
Richard Harvey writes in 1583 of the' favourable accep- 
tance' his brother's zlnticosmopolita had received from 
Bishop Aylmer of London, * but even the Bishop may 
hot have been disposed to defray the cost ofpublishing it. 
Harvey's Letter-book contains (on pp. 58-64) a puzz- 
ling letter, dated ' the xo ofthis present and as bewtifull 
a sunnye daye as cam this summer 579,' in which he 
remonstrates with Spenser for having published his 
poems or Verlayes, and having sent him a copy. 
Nothing is known of any such publication. It is clear, 
however, from the various titles of proposed works 
which we find in the Letter-book that Harvey looked 
forward to getting some of his poems published in a 
manner which would suggest that he was hOt privy to 
their seeing the light. And this letter to Spenser of the 
summer of I579 is, I believe, a draft made in advance 
ofwhat hewas prepared to say (and to let the public read) 
after one ofthese proposed works had been issued. The 
fullest sketch-title in the Letter-book  is curiously one of 
the Ferlayes, dedicated to Mr. Edward Dyer by Benevolo 
(i.e., Spenser), and dated ' This first of August, 1580. ' 
Harvey would hot have drafted this dedication and title 
if the l/'erlayes had appeared against his consent a year 
earlier. 
Ail this shows a certain inclination to finesse or 
trickery in Harvey's character, which manifested itself 

! I4/'orks (Grosart), i. 68. 
-" I owe this reference and the reference to the Stationers' Registcr to Dr. 
McKerrow (Nashe's 4/'OrkS» V. 63). a p. 89. 



Letters of Harvey and Spenser 27 

still more clearly in later years. One may add that the 
specimens ofhis poetryscattered through the Letter-book, 
whether in halting hexameters or Skeltonian doggrel 
are so tasteless and clumsy, with no merit beyond a 
copious vocabulary, that Harvey is convicted of an 
extraordinary lack of self-criticism if he thought they 
deserved to be publishedmas was indeed proved when 
some did see the light a year later. 
Their publication came about in this way. In the 
course of the year 158o rive letters which had passed 
between Harvey and Spenser were given to the public 
by a supposed friend of the writers, who took occasion 
to extol Harvey's letters and to ask that others which 
he had heard of might also be given to the world. 
After what we have seen of Harvey's literary artifices, 
this is a little suspicious. The letters appeared in two 
groups, with two title pages : first, the three last of the 
series ; and, secondly, the two first.  All were written 
between October, t 579,and May, t 58o,--two by Spenser 
and three longer ones by Harvey. 
Spenser was apparently no longer Secretary to the 
Bishop of Rochester but in the service of Lord Leicester, 
though living in Westminster, where he died twenty 
years later. At Leicester House he would be frequently 
In the society of Philip Sidney and Edward Dyer. 
These two gentlemen had been fired--not apparently 
by Harvey or Spenser but by Archdeacon Drant--with 
the desire of introducing into England poetry written 
in classical metres and without rime, and in their 
àpt,e¢e' (as Spenser writes jestingly) they had pre- 
scribed the laws ofquantity in English verse, improving 
on rules submitted to them by Drant. Spenser himself, 
who in the past had withstood Harvey's exhortations 
 Ttt Por and vittie, familiar Letters. Two o,n very commendable 
Letters. Ent. Sttioners' Registcr, June 3o. 



OE8 The Letters 

in favour of classical metres, from the feeling that 
Harvey and Ascham stood alone in the preference, had 
come over to the cause when he saw it had powerful 
patrons at Court. ' I am, oflate, more in loue wyth my 
Englishe Versîfying 1 than with Ryming: whyche I should 
haue done long since, if I would then haue followed your 
councell.' ' I perceiue you.. continue your old exercise 
of Versifying in English: which glorie I had now 
thought shoulde haue bene onely ours heere at London 
and the Court.' He encloses some English lines of his 
own in ' lambicum trimetrum.' This letter was begun at 
¥estminster on October  5th and ended on the 16th. 
With it, however, were enclosed a Latin poem of Fare- 
well to Harvey before Spenser's expected voyage to 
France, and a postscript, dated ' Leycester House this 
5 ofOctober 1576. ' These additions had by mistake not 
been sent earlier. * The Latin poem is specially interest- 
ing for the light it throws on Spenser's view of his own 
character and Harvey's. He himself was distracted by 
love, and maintained ' in parvis bene qui scii desipuisse, 
Soepe superciliis palmam sapientibus aufert.' Harvey was 
ready to sacrifice ail the sweets of life to his ambition. 
Spiritus ad summos, scio, te generosus Honores 
Exstimulat, maiusque docet spirare Poetam, 
Quam levis est Amor, & tamen haud levis est Amor omnis. 
Ergo nihil laudi reputas oequale perenni, 
Proequê sacrosancta splendoris imagine tanti, 
Coetera, quoe vecors, uti Numina, vulgus adorat, 
Proedia, Amicitias, vrbana peculia, Nummos, 
Quoeque placent oculis, formas, spectacula, Amores, 
Conculcare soles, vt humum, & ludibria sensus. 
Digna meo cette Harveio sententia, digna 
Oratore amplo, generoso pectore, quem non 
Stoica formidet veterum Sapientia vinclis 
Sancire eeternis : sapor haud tamen omnibus idem. 
I 'Versifying' with Spenser implies writing according to clasical prosody. 
-* The point was made clear to me by Dr. McKerrow. 



Ube Letters OE9 

To this letter and its enclosures Harvey replied on 
OE30ctober, from 'Trinitie Hall, stil in my gallerie.' 
He calls Drant 'your gorbellied toaster,' 1 and sneers 
at his rules, which he had neither seen nor heard of 
before. Evidently he is jealous of Drant for robbing 
him of the glory of converting Sidney and Dyer to his 
views of versifying. At some length he dwells on 
Spenser's expectation of going abroad in Leicester's 
service. He even seems to refer to a similar prospect 
for himself when, speaking of' Titles,' he says, ' I hope 
by that time I have been resident a yeare or twoo in 
Italy, I shall be better qualifyed in this kind.' This, 
however, is probably hot to be taken seriously. There 
is a curious break in the correspondence between 23 
October, I579 and April, I58o. Was Spenser abroad 
in this interval ? 
Spenser's next letter, dated 2 April, refers to a visit 
Harvey had paid him 'the last time we lay together 
in Westminster,' but we bave no evidence that Harvey 
had visited Leicester House at that time. He promises 
to give Harvey Drant's rules of quantity as improved 
by Sidney and himself, says he is now going to work 
at his Faery Queene, and begs Harvey to return it to 
him with his criticism. He refers to the earthquake 
which had just been felt in London.  Harvey's letter 
of 7 April tells how he had felt the earthquake when 
playing cards with some ladies at a gentleman's house, 
near Saffron Waldron (apparently), and gives the sub- 
stance of" a disquisition on earthquakes ruade to his 
friends the same evening, in which he advanced natural 
causes for their occurrence, and tried to dissipate idle 

1 Drant sa)'s of himself in Sl,oa  Corpore concrevi, turboe numerandus obesoe.' 
(...) 
 Spenser's letter quarto Norias Aprilis' z April} must be wrongl)' dated, as 
the earthquake took place on 6 April. Probabl¥ 'Nonas' was a slip for qdus'. 



30 Tbe Letters 

terrors. Speaking of his poems he says ' my Anticos- 
mopolita [is] neither an inch more forward, nor backe- 
warde than he was fully a twelve-month since in the 
Courte, at his laste attendaunce upon my Lorde there.' 
Does this imply that Harvey had himself hot been in 
attendance on Lord Leicester for some time ? I see 
nothing in these letters to support the common state- 
ment that Hariey was a regular visitor at Leicester 
House at the meetings of Sidney and Dyer's «Areopagus'. 
Harvey ends his letter with a severe criticism of the 
state of the University, which was occupied rather with 
modern French and Italian literature than deep learning, 
which was permeated with the spirit of worldly self- 
seeking, and in which wealthy and noble youths were 
allowed to lire as they liked, regardless of academical 
discipline. He makes a particular attack on one per- 
sonality of the University, whom, addressing Spenser, 
he calls 'your old Controller.' From what happened 
afterwards we know that he meant Dr. Perne. 1 In the 
last letter of the rive, written in answer to Spenser's of 
the OEnd (?) April, Harvey introduces several sers of 
English verses ofhis own, including Speculum q"uscanismi, 
a satire on an Englishman Italianate, and, characterist- 
ically enough, several sets done for him by his brother 
John, then aged sixteen and a third year student of 
Queens' College. He writes with excellent good sense 
on the laws ofquantity in English. If our verse is to be 
measured by syllables long by nature or by position, 
we must first have an orthography conformable to our 
natural speech, i.e., phonetic spelling ; and we must hot 
make syllables long in verse which in our natural prosody 
are short, e.g., the middle syllables of 'carpenter,' 

 How Spenser could have corne under the control of the lblaster of Peterhouse 
is hard to see. Perne was, however, Vice-Chancellor in I 574-5, and Spenser may 
have corne into conflict with him in that capacit)'. 



:t e Letters give offence 3  

'suddenly,' ' merchandise.' Here, so far from Harvey 
forcing his pedantry on Spenser, he is protesting against 
the excess of pedantry to which Spenser had fallen a 
victim, along with Sidney and Dyer, at the hands of the 
« fat-bellyed Archdeacon.' Harvey was no pedant, with 
ail respect to those who bave treated him as the pedant 
par excellence. He was a critical reader of all literatures 
and all sciences of his day. What failed him was that 
play of mind which can take delight in dreams and 
shadows and music--what we call pure imagination: 
and there is no greater example of it than his faint 
praise of the Faery Queene in this letter. For himself, 
he acknowledges that he had spent too much ofhis lire 
in desultory reading and trifling, and it was time to be 
making a career. ' I truste I shall shortly learne to 
employ my trauaile, and tyme, wholly or chiefely on 
those studies and practizes, that carrie, as they sa)re, 
meate in their mouth.' 
If he hoped that the publication of these letters 
would assist him to make a career, he was sadly dis- 
appointed. In the first place the publication of rive 
private letters of two young Cambridge men of thirty or 
under was a proceeding certain to excite ridicule, and 
no one could believe then, any more than now, that the 
publication was without Harvey's connivance. But the 
contents of the letters were also open to objection. The 
University was aggrieved at the picture drawn of its 
degeneracy. Lord Oxford, instigated by John Lyly, 
the author of Eupbues, was said to have taken offence 
at the Speculum 'uscanismi as a satire on himself (he had 
quarrelled with Philip Sidney the year before), and Sir 
James Croft, the Controller ofthe Queen's Household, 
saw an attack on bim in the passage directed against 
Spenser's old Controller, Dr. Perne. 



3 2 Harvey's Defence 

According to Nashe's account in later years, Harvey 
had to take refuge in the house ofa nobleman (no doubt 
Lord Leicester), whence Sir J. Croft ferreted him out 
and had him sent to the Fleet.  
Harvey acknowledged that he had to give an explana- 
tion ofhis words to the University, to which he professed 
his dutiful and entire affection. He denied that his 
Speculum quscanismi was directed against Lord Oxford 
or gave him any offence. He acknowledged that letters 
passed between him and Sir James Croft which were 
read at the Queen's Council Table, but he denied aga.in 
that he was ever sent to the Fleet. He explained the 
tone of his letter by his irritation at being crossed through 
the ill-will of Dr. Perne in his candidature for the Public 
Oratorship ofthe University. 
læetters may bee priuately written, that would hot bee pub- 
likely diuulged : I was then yong in yeares, fresh in courage, 
greene in experience» and as the manner i% somewhat ouer- 
weeninge in conceit" and for varietie ofstudy, and some deeper 
intelligence in the affayres of the worlde, otherwhiles reading 
ituectiues, and Satyres, artificially amplif},ed in the most exag- 
gerate and hyperbolicall kinde, I coulde hardlie refraine from 
discoueringe some little part of my reading : I had curiously 
laboured some exact, and exquisite poyntes ofstudie and practise, 
and greatly misliked the preposterous and vntoward courses of 
diuers good wits, ill directed : there wanted not some sharpe 
vndeserued discourtesies to exasperate my minde: shall I 
touch the vlcer ! it is no such mysterye, but it may be reuealed : 
I was supposed not vnmeet for the Oratorship of the vniuer- 
sit},, which in that springe of mine age, for my Exercise, 
and credite I earnestly affected : but mine owne modest petition, 
my friendes diligent labour, our high Chancelors most-honour- 
able and extraordinarye commendation, were ail peltingly 
defeated, by a slye practise of the olde Fox : . . . some like 
accidents of dislike, for breuity I ouerslip : young bloud is hot ; 
youth hasty : ingenuity open : abuse impatiente : choler 
stomachous : temptations busie : the Inuectiue vaine, a sturring, 
 Nashe's .tl'ork (McKerrow}, iii. 7 8. Harvey's l"ork Grosart), i. 18o, &c. 



Harvey's Defence 33 

and tickeling vaine: the Sat),ricall humour, a puffinge and 
swellinge humor: Conceit penneth, leisure peruseth, and 
Curtesy commendeth many needlesse discourses: Idlenesse, 
the greatest Author & variablest Reader in the world : some 
familiar friendes pricked me forward : and I, neither fearing 
daunger, nor suspecting ill measure, (poore credulitie sorte 
beguiled) was hOt vnwilling to content them, to delight a few 
other and to auenge, or satisfie my selfe, after the manner of 
shrewes, that cannot otherwise ease their curst hearts, but 
by their owne tongues, & their neighbours eares. Signor 
Immerito (for that naine will be remembred) was then, and is 
still my affectionate friend, one that could very wel abide 
Gascoignes Steele glasse, and that stoode equallie indifferent to 
either part of the state Demonstratiue : man)' communications, 
and writings may secretlie passe betweene such, euen for an 
exercise of speech, and stile that are not otherwise conuenient 
to be disclosed : it was the sinister hap of those infortunate 
Letters, to fall into the left handes of malicious enemies, or 
vndiscreete friends : who aduentured to imprint in earnest, 
that was scribled in iest (for the moody fit was soone ouer :) 
and requited their priuate pleasure with my publike displeasure : 
oh my inestimable, and infinite displeasure, rVhen there was 
no remedie, but melancholy patience : and the sharpest parte of 
those vnluck), Letters had bene ouer read at the Councell Table : 
I was aduised by certaine honourable, and diuers worshipfull 
persons, to interpreate my intention in more expresse termes : 
and thereupon discoursed euerie particularitie, by way of Articles 
or Positions, in a large Apology ofmy duetiful, and entire affec- 
tion to that flourishing Vniuersitie, my deere Mother i which 
Apology, with not so few as forty such Academicall Exercises, 
and sundry other politique Discourses, I haue hitherto sup- 
pressed... 
Happ), man I, if these two be my hainousest crimes, and 
deadliest sinnes, To bee the Inuentour of the English Hexa- 
meter, and to bee orderlie clapt in the Fleete for the foresaide 
Letters : where he that sawe mee, sawe mee at Constantinople. 
IndeedeSir IamesCroft(whom I never touched with theleast tittle 
of detractions) was cunningly incensed and reincensed against 
mee: but at last pacified by the voluntarie mediation of my 
honourable fauourers, M. Secretary Wilson, and Sir Walter 
Mildmay : vnrequested by any line of my hand, or any woord 
ofmy mouth. Neither dicl I otherwise sollicite, or intreate Sir 
D 



34 Facatzcy in the Public Oratorshit 

Iames, till I had assured notice of his better satisfaction : when I 
writte vnto him, as became mee» in respectiue, and duetifull sorte: 
not for feare of any daunger, but for loue of honourable fauour. 
V¢hich Letters.. the wise knight., accepted fauourablie ... : 
and for my selle earnestly affirmed, I was first wronged by other, 
and then mistaken by him : but now round another man, then 
I was supposed. As for my olde Controwler, Doctor Perne . . . 
he was old enough to answeare for himselfe, and should not bee 
defended b)r him. Onel)r he wished me to proceede louingly 
with the Vniuersity, howsoeuer I dealt with that Doctor. And 
that was ail the Fleeting, that euer I felt : sauing that an other 
company . . . would needs forsooth verye courtly perswade the 
Earle of Oxforde, that some thing in those Letters, and namely 
the Mirrour ofTuscanismo, was palpably intended against him : 
whose noble Lordeship I protest, I neuer meante to dishonour 
with the least preiudicial word of my Tongue, or pen : but euer 
kept a mindeful reckoning of manï bou»den duties toward 
The-same : since in the prime of his gall.test youth, he be- 
stowed Angels vpon mee in Christes Colledge in Cambridge, 
and otherwise voutsafed me manï gratious fauours at the affec- 
tionate commendation of my Cosen, M. Thomas Smith, the 
sonne of Sir Thomas, . . . But the noble Earle, not disposed 
to trouble his Iouiall mind with such Saturnine paltery, stil 
continued» like his magnificent selfe : and that Fleeting also 
proued, like the other, a silly bullbeare, a sorry puffe of winde, a 
thing of nothing.  
This trouble must have occurred in the summer of 
l.çSo. One must retrace one's steps, however, at this 
point to touch on the story of Harvey's candidature for 
the Public Oratorship. 
Richard Bridgewater, LL.D., of King's College, had 
been Public Orator since i.ç73. His resignation had 
been apparently expected for some time, and Gabriel 
Harvey, after his brilliant success as Proelector in 
Rhetoric, may well have looked forward to succeeding 
him. At last, on OE50ctober, I579, Bridgewater an- 
nounced his resignation in a Latin letter to Lord 
Burghley, the Chancellor.  He says that he would 
1 Harvey, FoureLetters. lorles(Grosart)i. 171]&c. " LansdowneMS.21],81L 



Harvey's Candidature 35 

bave resigned earlier if he had thought that the Uni- 
versity could have elected some one with the same 
unanimity and concord with which it had elected him. 
' But since I perceive that this cannot by any means be, 
owing to the importunate ambition of certain persons 
who are contending about it as though it were amatter 
of lire and death, I corne to you and lay my office at 
your feet.' He had hopes that his successor would 
be John Preston (afterwards Master of Trinity Hall). 
For some reason Bridgewater's resignation was hot 
known in the University till early in the following 
April, when Harvey, returning to Cambridge on the 
Ioth (afterexperiencing the earthquake in Essex), found 
that the post was vacant and other candidates were 
already in the field. Two days later he wrote the follow- 
ing letter to Lord Burghley :1 
Dabit hanc mihi ueniam, uti spero, tua Clarissima Amplitudo, 
arque Dignitas, Honoratissime, Sapientissimeque Vir, us, pristina 
fretus, cure in Academicos communiter ornnes, turn in me 
priuatim unum, tare excellenti benignitat% beneficentiaque tua ; 
paul6 in hoc tempore possim uel quàm ipse soleam, audaciùs 
uel, qum tantus feras auctoritatis tuœe splendor, liberiùs ; in re 
longè mihi optatissima, arque antiquissima, singulare quoddam 
implorare Patrocinium tuum. Quod ut pace iam tua semel 
iicea b utcunque meo aliquo merito non licet, ira plan ab 
Honore tuo peto, arque contendo; nihil us unquam neque 
petierim sane humiliùs, neque contenderim uehementius. Neque 
enim tare uoluntate mea aut iuvenili aliqua confidentia incitatus, 
qutm proesentis ui quadam necessitatis, proeter institutum im- 
pulsus, in eo Proesidium, arque opem Summi Cancellarij nostri 
obtestor, in quo domesticorum potiùs suffragia deberem Senatus- 
que Academici sententiam expectare. Sic enim nimirùm habet» 
us expediam, si placet, paucis. 
I Lansdowne MS., 28, 83. The letter is dated 'Pridie ldus Aprilis x579.' 
I think, however, that ' 1579 ' is a slip for' I8O,' On.*- must remember that 
according to then usage, the new year had only begun on zsth Mar¢ so that the 
mistake is intelligible. This letter asks Burleigh for a recommendation. Harvey's 
lester of 16 June, t 5go, thanks him for giing him one. One cannot suppose that 
more than a year had passed in the interval. In 158o the Vice-Chancellor was 
John Hatcher brother of Harey's oid friend, Thomas Hatcher so we can under- 
stand that he xas one of Harey's supporters. 



3 6 Harvey's/lppeal to Lord Burleigh 

Accidit nuper meo quodam, uel infoelici fato, uel miserabili 
solitudine, ut priùs Orator Academioe Bridgeuaterus munere 
se isto abdicare uellet ; tresque id alij me multo iuniores, (de 
coeteris uel inimici iudicent) importunis cum suis, tum ami- 
corum precibus, à ploerisque Doctoribus, Magistrisque propt 
omnibus eflqagitasse,lt ; quàm ego nudiustertiùs domum reuersus, 
et nihil omnin6 tale suspicatus, iamque priuata quadam certarum 
rerum occupatione distentus, id aliquo modo resciscere potuissem. 
Fatetur quidem mei amantissimus Procancellarius, se mihi po- 
tius, quàm cuiquam alij suffragaturum fuisse, nisi mea illi partim 
absentia, partira etiam post reditionem silentium persuasisset, nec 
id me omnin6 curasse ; et ira iuri iam esse ciuili addictum, atque 
astrictum, ut ab eius adhuc quotidiano studio, nulla uellem cui- 
usquam muneris procuratione diuelli. Fatentur idem Doctores : 
Magistri etiam plerique omnes proritentur" nunc uer6 necessari6 
sibi standum esse promissis : nisi extraordinaria a]iqua ratione, 
et tanquam personali quopiam Priuilegio, (quod i]li uehementer 
cuperent) mihi possem ipse in tantis diflîcultatibus, atq ue angustijs 
subuenire. 
Quid facerem ? Solus mihi occurrebat Honoratissimus, idem- 
que beneficentissimus, atque optimus Cancellarius, qui suis id ad 
Procancellarium, reliquosque Doctores et unis, et breuissimis 
Literis, quam facillim effectum date posset, quod et ego tare 
impens, tamque ardenter postularem, et il]i (re iam integra, 
sa]uaque superioris promissi ride) quam libentissim, cupidissi- 
mèque concederent. Quod si impetrare quamprimùm liceret 
 Proestantissima Dominatione tua (celeritatem namque res 
desiderat) noe ego me tibi long omnium obligatissimum, obstric- 
tissimumque existimarem.. Datum Cantabrigioe, ex Aula Trini- 
tatis. Pridie Idus Apriles, 1579- Quia equitare ipse per valetudi- 
nem non potui, rogaui ornatissimum uirum, amicissimumque 
meure, Doctorem Stillum, ut, meo nomine, expectatissimas tuas 
ad Academiam Literas, (de honoririca enim, et propensa vo]un- 
tate, spero profect6 optimt) pro arbitrio, placitoque tuo proesto]a- 
retur. 
Tui Amplissimi Honoris, semper, ut par est, obseruantissimus, 
longëque obsequentissimus, 
GalL Halvjtss. 
According to Harvey Dr. Perne was using his influ- 
ence against him, and although Lord Burleigh wrote 



Burleigh's Fruitless Letter 37 

a letter in his favour it had no effect. Harvey thanked 
Burleigh on the I4th June in the following terms :1 
Ex quo Honoratissimas tuas accepi, easdemque singularis 
cuiusdam beneuolentiœe, fauorisque plenas, meo ad Academiam 
nomine, non ita pridem perscriptas Literas ; semper, Amplissime 
Domine, in ea fui sententia, semperque ero, Infinitum quiddam 
esse, quod ego, homo minutus, et unus  multis Academicus, 
perexiguœe quidem certe facultatis, uoluntatis solùm non con- 
temnendae, Honoratissimœe debeam Dominationi tuœe. 
Quanquara enim nondum eum sint effectum, qui à me opta- 
batur, sperabatur à meis, consecutœe, (neque enim vetus Orator; 
lic+t idem Doctor, quod haud scio an unquara sit visum antea, 
et licèt Septennium illud exegerit, quod est Lege, Consuetudi- 
neque proestitutum, et licët etiam, quod caput est, homo diues, 
atque diuitis Episcopi Cancellarius, pluribus implicetur negoti- 
orum turbis, quàm ut unquam ipse per se, aut soleat, aut possit 
huius functioni muneris incumbere ; eo se, aliquo adhuc modo 
priuari, seu potius leuari patitur): ita tamen causam ageban t meam, 
et tam illustre atque luculentum prœe se ferebant eximioe cuiusdam, 
et perhonorificœe benignitatis Testimonium tuœe, quod etiam 
Propria Manus ornabat, augebatque plurimum ; ut non modo 
Honori me tuo multis Obligationum uinculis putem obstrictum, 
sed perpetuam, et agnoscere priuatim cogar, et public profiteri 
debeam, Seruitutem. 
Certè nunquam committam, ut non summi uidear ]3eneficij 
loco ducere, In Illius esse quantulacunque Gratia, cul uel notum 
esse, summum reputo Beneficium. In qua cure multis abhinc 
annis opinione uixissem, nec diu assequi possem tamen, quod 
tantopere cuperem, sperarem in die% in hebdomade% in menses, 
in annos singulos, effeci aliquando tandem . . . ut et aliquam 
mei notitiam, et qualecunque haberes obseruantissimi illiu% 
deditissimique animi chartaceum Monumentum... Ad quas.. 
Favoris tui Primitias, cure tantus, et Valdini iam tutu, et alibi 
non ita rouit6 post, et ex eo, illarum maximè dignatione Literarum 
quasi Cumulus Honoratissimarum Beneuolentiarum accesserit.. 
(I should be utterly ungrateful if I did hot venerate you). 
Cantabrigioe tuoe, ex Aula Trinitatis. 8 Calendas Julias, 
58o. 
GABRIL HARUJUS. 

1 Lansdown¢ MS. 3o 7- 



38 Harvey once more Jubilant 

It would scem from the above letter that the effect of 
Perne's intervention was to induce Bridgewater to con- 
tinue in office for some time longer. And it was not till 
March, x 5 8c)-I, that a new Orator was elected, and then 
the choice fell on a rival. Harvey, then, by June,  580, 
felt that he had been foiled in his candidature through 
the machinations of Perne. This led him to attack the 
University, and Perne in particular, in his letter to 
Spenser, and was one cause of the troubles (mentioned 
on page 3 I) which the publication of his letters brought 
on him. 
Vhen F, is difficulties were over he returned to 
Cambridge, as Nashe would have us believe, in no way 
crestfallen. 
Where after his arriuall, to his associates and companions he 
priuatly vaunted what redoublcd rich brightnes to his naine, 
this short eclipse had brought, and that it had more dignified and 
raisd him, than ail his endeuours from his childhood. With 
such incredible applause and amazement of his Iudges hee 
bragd hee had cleard himselfe, that euery- one that was there 
tan to him and embrast him, and shortly hee was promist to be 
cald to high preferment in court, not an ace lower than a 
Secretariship, or one of the Clarks of the Councell. Should I 
explaine to you how this wrought with him, and how in the 
itching heate of this hopefull golden worlde and hony moone, 
the ground would no longer beare him, but to Sturbridge 
Fayre,  and vp and downe Cambridge on his foot-cloth maies-- 
tically he would pace it, with manie moe madde trickes of 
youth nere plaid before i in stead of making his heart ake with 
vexing, I should make ),ours burst with laughing. Doctor 
Perne in this plight nor at any other rime euer met him, but 
he would shake his hand and crie F'anitas vanitatum, omnia 
vanitas, Vanitie of vanitie% and ail things is vanitie. 
His father he vndid to furnish him to the Court once more, 
where presenting himsclfe in ail the cGulours of the raine-bow, 
and a paire of moustachies like a black horse tayle tyde up in 
a knot, with two tuffts sticking out on each side, he was askt 

 Sturbridge Fait opened annually in September. 



lSecomes Secret, try to Lord Leicester 39 

by no meane personage Unde hec insania ? whence proceedeth 
this folly or madnes ? & he replied with that wether-beaten 
peice of a verse out of the Grammer, 8emel innaniuimus omne«, 
once in our dayes there is none ofvs but bave plaied the ideots ; 
and so was he counted and bad stand by for a Nodgscombe. 
He that most patronizd him, prying more searchingly into him, 
and tïnding that he was more meete to make sport with, than 
anie way deeply to be employd, with faire words shooke him 
of, & told him he was fitter for the Vniversitie, than for the 
Court or his turne, and so bad God prosper his studies & sent 
for another Secretarie to Oxford. 1 
This seems to imply that in the late autumn of  580 
Harvey was for a rime in Lord Leicester's service as 
his Secretary. We may remember that this was the rime 
when Spenser left Leicester's service in order to accom- 
pany Lord Grey of Wilton to lreland, " and it would 
be very natural that he should persuade Lord Leicester 
to put Harvey in the place he was vacating. That 
Harvey was for a time at Court under Leicester's 
patronage is clear from Spenser's Colin Clouts corne home 
again, where, after Colin has been inveighing against the 
Court, Hobbinoll (Harvey) retorts (I. 73 OE) : 
Ah, Colin, then said Hobbinoi, the blame 
Which thou imputest is too generall, . . . 
For well I wot sith I myselfe was there 
To wait on Lobbin (Lobbin well thou knewest), &c. 
' Lobbin' is undoubtedly Leicester. See E.K.'s note 
on Shqheards Calender, xi.   3 : ' Lobbin, the naine of 
a shepherd, which seemeth to have bene the loyer and 
deere frend of Dido.' 
One might hesitate to accept any statement about 
Harvey given by an enemy. Nashe's account is curi- 
ously confirmed, however, by the Latin play Pedantius, 

 Nashe's lF'ork (McKcrrow), iii. 7 8. 
Lord Grey landed in Dublin on z August. 



4o Ridiculed at Cambrtdge tri t'ecantlus 

acted at Trinity College, Cambridge, probably in 
February, 58o-t. Nashe himselfe tells us  that in the 
chief character of the comedy, Pedantius himself, ' the 
concise and firking finicaldo fine Schoole-master,' Harvey 
'was full drawen and delineated from the soale of the 
foote to the crowne ofhis head. The iust manner of his 
phrase in his Orations and Disputations they stufft his 
mouth with, & no Buffianisme [buffoonery] throughout 
his whole bookes but they bolsterd out his part with : 
• . . I leaue out halfe ; hot the carrying vp of his gowne, 
his nice gare on his pantofles, or the affected accent of 
his speach, but they personated. And if I should reueale 
all, I thinke they borrowd his gowne to playe the Part in, 
the more to flout him.' The play, as we bave it, abun- 
dantly confirms Nashe's statement. 
We have references to Pedantius' rhetorical discourses 
in the public schools, to his personal peculiarities, his 
mustaches and pantofles, to his going to Court, where 
a favorite pupil had preceded him, to the airs he gave 
himselfin the company ofthe great, to his ignominious 
return, to a difference with the University which led 
him to retire to his Tusculan villa. His poems, the 
Speculum uscanismi and Musarum Lacbryme, are intro- 
duced by naine.  
It is clear that though Harvey had gained the devoted 
love and admiration of Spenser, though his abilities and 
learning were beyond dispute, he had ruade himself 
ridiculous in Cambridge, and given a handle to his 
enemies. Next month Anthony Wingfield,  who perhaps 
had a hand in the composition of Pedantius,  was elected 

 kl/orks, iii. 80. -" See my edition (Bang's Materialien, viii. pp. xxxii-I). 
 Possibly he was known to be a persona g, rata at Court as the Queen had 
previously desired Trinity College to confer on him the rectory of Caisshaw in 
Bedfordshire, xvhich the Master and Fellows in a letter of 3 Dec. * 579 said would 
be contrary to their statutes (Lansdowne MS. 28, 86). 
 Pedantius» ut sup. pp. xi-xvii. 



ls hOt elected Public Orator 4  

Public Orator of the University, and Harvey had sus- 
tained his first great defeat. 
It was a curious coincidence that, when Harvey in 
May, 1583, was appointed by his College to fill a vacancy 
in the office of Junior Proctor ofthe University, he had 
as his five-months colleague Anthony Wingfield. 



4 OE Harvey and lais Brothers 

11I. 

IT is time to turn for a moment to Harvey's private 
circumstances. He still had a haven of refuge in his 
father's house at Saflî'on Walden, and he round balm for 
his wounds in the extraordinarily close attacbment which 
united all the members ofthe family to which he belonged. 
Two of his brothers, as we have seen, had followed him 
to Cambridge. Richard had been matriculated as a pen- 
sioner of Pembroke on  5 June,  575, had proceeded 
B.A. in 577-8, commenced M.A. in 58 I, and become 
a fellow ofhis college, where he probably remained till 
he was preferred to the rectory of Chislehurst in October, 
586. Dr. McKerrow says: 'The most noteworthy 
feature ofhis University career would seem to have been 
his partisanship ofthe Ramistic logic, in praise ofwhich 
he wrote his Ephemeron sive Pwan, in gratiam perpurgat.e 
reformat, eque Dialectic,e,  583-' The book was dedicated 
to Lord Essex, who was ever a bountiful patron of its 
author. Rare us' Logic must bave been generally studied 
in the University, as it x;-as among the books bought for 
Lord Essex himself on his entering Trinity in  577- 1 
Gabriel Harvey, as we bave seen, had shocked conserva- 
tive minds in his early days at Pembroke by supporting 
some of Ramus' tenets against Aristotle ; and in this 
revolt against the infallibility of Aristotle, Richard 
followed his elder brother, with similar ill results to 
himself. Nashe addresses Richard : 'Thou hadst thy 
hood turnd over thy eares when thou wert a Batchelor, 
for abusing Aristotle, and setting him vp on the Schoole 

 Lansdosne MS. zS, 4 6. 



Richard Harvey 43 

gates, painted with Asses eares on his head.' * He must 
have been a scholar ofsome mark among his contempor- 
aries for (apparently in the year 1583-4) he was University 
Proelector in Philosophy. Not having Gabriel's rail 
stature--' Pigmey Dicke,' Nashe calls himmhe seems 
to have also lacked his great intellectual force, while 
he had his full share of Gabriel's weak points. The 
only extant letter of Gabriel's addressed to him * was 
apparently called forth by some foolish conduct vhich 
had caused him to be punished by the Master of his 
College (possibly the act referred to by Nashe). Gabriel 
urges him to solicit the Master without delay for his 
'restitution,' and then settle himself to other things, 
especially his «Astronomicall Dialogues.' This work, 
on which Richard was engaged, was no doubt that which 
appeared under the title An Astrological Discourse,  early 
in 1583. It prophesied all sorts of ill consequences from 
the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter which was to take 
place on 28 April of that year, and entailed boundless 
ridicule on its author when its predictions came to 
nothing. The whole was addressed to Gabriel, whose 
attitude towards his brother's pursuit is well shown and 
is creditable to him : ' You advertize me either hOt so 
much to addict my selfe to the studie, and contempla- 
tion of Judiciall Astrologie ; or else by some euident 
and sensible demonstration, to make certeine and infal- 
lible proofe what general good I can do my countrie 
thereby, or what speciall fruite I can reap thereof unto 
my selfe.' In a prefatory letter to John Aylmer, Bishop 
of London, Richard announces that he is 'shortly to 
professe Diuinity (so soone as my place in the Colledge 
shall call me thereunto).' 
1 Nashe's Worts s i. a95. Dr. McKerrow shows that the first wotlls probably 
mean 'Thou wast suspended from thy degree.'  Letter-book, p. 83. 
a Though, as Dr. McKerrow points out, this is not in dialogue form. 



44 John Harvey 

The third brother, John, matriculated as a pensioner 
of Queens' College in June, 578, perhaps choosing 
that college because Sir Thomas Smith had j ust founded 
some scholarships there for which preference was to be 
given to his own naine and kindred and to scholars of 
Saffron \Valden School. He graduated B.A. in  58o- I, 
and M.A. in z584, when he seems to have become 
tutor at Wendon Lofts, near Saffron Walden, in the 
family of Mr. Justice Meade, whose daughter Martha 
he afterwards married. He, too, was bitten with a 
passion for astrology, and early plunged into author- 
ship. On the eve of the conjunction of Jupiter and 
Saturn in 583 he put forth An .4strologicall .4ddition 
to Richard's work, and so secured his own share of 
ridicule. ' My brother Gabriel,' he says, ' beeing of him 
selle otherwise affected, bath hot disliked either of my 
brother Richard's, or of my exercise in this kinde ;' and 
addressing Gabriel himself, he expresses his gratitude 
for Gabriel's tare of his early studies. ' I must be 
thankful first vnto God, and then vnto those, whom it 
hath pleased him to make my founders, and chieflie 
your selle.' 
It is easy to understand that these demonstrations 
of fraternal admiration taken in conjunction with the 
writings ofthe younger Harveys helped to bring ridicule 
on all three brothers. 
Nashe tells us, 1 and we may take his statement for 
what it is worth, that there was ' a shewe' ruade at Clare- 
Hall of the three Harveys, and another of' the little 
Minnow Dodrans Dicke, at Peterhouse called 
Dunsfurens, Dick Haruey in a frensie. 
Whereupon Dick came and broke the Colledge glasse 
windowes : and Doctor Perne (being then either for 

iii. 80. 



1ll the Brothers laughed at 45 

himselfe or Deputie Vice-Chancellour) caused him to be 
fetcht in, and set in the Stockes till the Shew was ended, 
and a great part of the night after.' 
Another illustration of the impression ruade by the 
Harveys may be round in a letter written by an Oxford 
undergraduate in this year, x 583, to a cousin who had 
just left the University :1 
Cognato suo charissimo Stephano Waterhouso 
Salutem. 
Prodijt his ultimis diebus Johannis Harveij Libellus in quo 
fratris sui Richardi parte, strenue et viriliter agit adversus otaries 
inimicorum insultus, nihil prmter insulsam loquacitatem et 
insignem arrogantiam spirans, vt eodem simul omnes ovo genitos 
iurares esse : imo ovum ovo tare simi]e non est quam Johannes 
Richardo et vterque Gabrieli. Nec dubitat etiam adhuc incon- 
cinnus bi,trio in scoenam rursus prodire Richardus, et ridiculum 
suum Poean de restituta logica cure profuso astantium risu occi- 
nere. Emisit enim in vulgus et in lucem edidit Libellulum qui 
inscribitur Poean Harveij de restituta logica, quo nihil unquam 
legi insulsius, nihil ineptius, nihil iejunius: a quo si verba 
demas, omnia dempseris et ne hilum quidem reliqueris. Prodijt 
etiam tandem repertus a tenebris in quibus per rot decursa 
oetatum spacia delituit, Ciceronis de consolatione libèllus, quem 
iicet supposititium arbitrentur nonnulli, quibus non gravate 
meure etiam ascribam iudicium ; singulari tamen artificio con- 
textus, et ipsissimam Ciceronis phrasin referens, vix potest a 
coeteris Ciceronis iibris dignosci. Nisi nimis multa repeteret 
quoe pas, ira in alijs Ciceronis libris reperiuntur, omnino Cice- 
ronis Libellulum esse eiurarem. Nisi rei nummarim diflïcultate 
laborarem, istos ad te codices deferendos curarem. 
Vale raptim e collegio .,Eneanasensi 
Augusti vltimo An. Dni. t 583, 
Cognatus tibi addictissimus, 
ROIERTUS BATTUS.  

I Rawlinson MS., D. 98, 46. 
 Rob. Batt, of Y'orkss arm., matric. Brasenose 9 Nov.s I $79, aged 9  B.A.s 
6 Feb.s  Sz-3 ; M.A. (Unir. Coll.) z 9 Apr.  86 i B.D.  594- Stcph. Water- 
house, of Y'orks, gent, matric. Magd. Hall, 9 Apr., 
Coll.)  jul),s  8 : M.A. z 7 June,  çS. I have given the whole letter because 
Nashe accuses Gabriel ofhaving forged the spurious Ciceronian work De eonsolatione 
(otherwise attributed to Sigonius). It is noteworth, tht Batt does hot do tbis. 



4 6 Facancy in the l¢astership of Frinity Hall 

In February, 584-5, died Dr. Henry Harvey, 
Master of Trinity Hall,  and was buried on Friday, 
the tth. The fellows of the college had deferred any 
meeting to elect a successor till after Dr. Harvey's 
funeral, and they had still hot met when a letter was 
received from Sir Francis Walsingham conveying the 
Queen's command that the election should be stayed. 
They now held a meeting, and addressed a letter to 
Walsingham and to Lord Burleigh asking the Queen 
hOt to nominate an), one for the mastership until she 
had read the statutes prescribing the manner of election 
and the qualifications of the toaster, which they there- 
fore enclosed. The letter was signed by ten fellows, but 
Gabriel Harvey's name is not among them.  Harvey 
himself had hot stayed to sign the letter. He had 
believed himself sure of being elected, and was bitterly 
disappointed at the check to his hopes. He posted up 
to London, and delivered a letter of his own to Lord 
Burleigh. 
I beseech you good My Lord, haue patience this once, and 
I will hot troble, or importune yo" L. again in hast. Myself 
woold not be seen to stay after yo r L. answer, assuring me of 
repulse, for xl 1i. The summe of my proesent intendiment is 
this. Partly A reuerence to yo" L. great autority, and part[y 
so round and peremptory A signification of ber Ma ty« pleasure 
contrary to my long hope, and frustratory expectation, so 
alltogither astoonished me at ye very first, that I do scarsely 
remember myselfe euer so tung-tyed before. I was yesterday 
at Trinity Hall, when we uniuersally agreeid on this Answer 
to ye Letters sent from yo  L. & M. Secretary first to obey 
ber Maiestyes commaundiment for ye stay : and then to make 
humble supplication, that it might please her Maty to vouchsafe 
us A fuller cognisaunce of the Cause, and farther consideration 
ofowr statutes concerning ye order and forme ofowr proceeding 

 The date of his death as given by Cooper and the D.N.B. (zoth February) 
is clearl wrong. 
 Lansdowne MSS., 43, 4 °. The letter is dated ;çth Feb. 



Queen Commands tbe Election tobe Stayed 47 

in that behalfe. Which humble supplication makith exceed- 
ingly for me : considering how ye statures of },e howse make 
especialljt for me ; how the suffrages of jte cumpan), make 
especiall)' for me ; and in truth how euery fauorable, and 
charitable respect makith especially for me. ]]y owr statures, 
none is eligible, but ether A fellow, suflïciently qualified, or for 
want ofsuch, A student in the Towne at this præsent. Vhere- 
unto thes principall considerations ar to be addid, ut non 
beneficiati beneficiatis, pauperiores ditioribus praeferantur. Ail w' 
circumstances were supposid more agreable unto me then any 
my competitour. Then for uoyces, I had fiue of ten ; the 
other fiue being deuided in to three partialityes, for Bettes, 
II/hitcraft, and Berrv. so that no man now is proeiudiced, and 
ouerthrowen by ber Maiestyes Mandate, but my porc miserable 
selfe, who (if I had taken an other course,) might uery likely 
haue proeuentid any such Mandate. But reposing my only 
hope first & last in yo  L. and with consideration hot vsing 
Mine owne Lord in so great an affaire ofyo' Vniuersity, I ara 
wofully disapoyntid. I woold to God, my case had hot bene, 
or were hot more fauorable, and more commiserable in ail 
respectes, then ye case of any my Competitour. Trul)', My 
Lord, there is no scholler in lngland of my continuaunce and 
trauayle in study, that standith in so slender condition, as 
myselfe. I neuer },et had any thing bestowed uppon me, hauing 
referrid great part of my studyes to aduaunce the honour of ye 
greatist in autority, with as much regard to ye pruesente state, 
as possibely I cowld. Alàs ] this benefitt woold haue ruade me : 
m l, competitours af made alreddy ; and shall haue lytle accesse 
ether of woorship, or commodity by this petite prœeferment. As 
for )re judgment of any out Heddes, the uery truth is, hot any 
o! of them knowith me to an), purpose, but on[y D. Still, and 
hot he so much, as My L. of Rochester, nor euen he nether so 
much, as I can make certain and infallible proofe of uppon euery 
triall of ualu. Nether did I euer requier the testimony of any 
on of them, till yesterday after on of ye clock in ye afternoone 
I moouid M. Chaderton  to that effect, only to prœeuent A 
counterpractis, that uery secretly wa» intimatid unto me. And 
but that I thowght it more materiall, and weighty, to deale 
immediatly abooue, I was halfe persuadid to experiment the 
rest in lyke sort. I saw prœesent comfort, or discomfort to ly in 

i The first Master of Emmanuel ( 



48 Harvey's Bitter Disappointment 

her Maiestyes hand, and therefore after assuraunce what was 
doon by Mr. Bett«,, M. Berry, and ve rest, I stayed not ye 
subscription to o" Answer, but prouided myselfe for this iorny, 
taking horse at three of ye clock, &c. Truly My brothers, and 
myselfe w tb my man, haue nyghhand kylled fower good geid- 
inges abowt this suyte, besyde other charge abooue my hability. 
So that I remayne now more vndoon, then before. My finall 
most humble suyte is, that in case ber Maiesty shall uppon inti- 
mation ofowr statures, condescende to owr humble supplication, 
it may please yo' good L. to continu my good Lord ; and thynke 
fauorably ofso fauorable, and œequitable A cause. Myselfe euen 
for uery shame to shewe my face in ye Towne, am now con- 
straynid to go post, as I cam post. Thus hoping that yo r good L. 
will i nterpret ye proe misses no otherwyse then was meant (only to 
declare m), singular Interest in this suyte, whatsoeuer bath bene 
speciously suggestid) I committ yo" L. to ye protection of God. 
Here in London, Raptissimè. This uery Munday morning. 
Yo" good Lordshippes euer most dutifull 
at commaundiment, V nhappy Haruey. 
I know owr Doctors, as well, and better then they know me : 
and I dowt not but I may be hable to creditt, or discreddit ye 
best of them w tb more effect, then ye best of them can 
creditt, or discredit me : as I hope yo' wisdom wiil acknowledg 
vppon sum more jnward knowledg of me. In ye meane, I 
beseech yo' good L. proesume the best, howsoeuer these petite 
goouernours proesume of my goouernement withowt tryail, or 
other iustifiable cause. May it please yo" L. to pardon this 
forcid toediousnes for once: and euer after I protest breuity. 1 
From these letters it seems clear that Harvey had 
not been elected Master as is commonly stated. And 
he was not destined to be elected. Once more he was 
thwarted by secret enemies. On I5 February, thirteen 
Doctors of the Arches who had been brought up in 
Trinity Hall, knowing, no doubt, of the royal missive, 
recommended to Lord Burleigh for the Mastership 
«Mr. Berye, one of the ancientest fellowes of the saine 
house. ' But even they had been forestalled, for before 
the death of Dr. Henry Harvey four heads of houses, 
 Lansdowne MS., 4z, 7- -" Lansdowne MS., 4, 4- 



Ubomas Preston elected 49 

Richard Howland, Bishop of Peterborough and Master 
of St. John's, Andrew Perne, Master of Peterhouse, John 
Bell, Master of Jesus, and Thomas Byng, Master of 
Clare and Professor of Civil Law, had recommended to 
Lord Burleigh Thomas Preston, late of King's College, 
saying' he bath allwayes shewed himselfvoyde of faction' 
and 'the howse at this present (as wee heare) is hot all- 
together free from that inconvenience.'* Perne had once 
more acted as Harvey's enemy--and a powerful one. 
When the royal mandate arrived, it was in favour of 
Thomas Preston. = 
It is possible to associate with this fresh disaster a 
strange episode of Harvey's lire which occurred in this 
year. In 1584, after completing seven years as a student 
of Civil Law, he performed the exercises for his Doctor's 
degree. For some reason he was hot inaugurated and in 
December accordingly forfeited 2os. to the University 
chest. 3 In 585, after thus declining the degree of his 
own Alma Mater, he obtained leave of absence from 
his college, 4 went to Oxford, performed his exercises 
there, and was admitted a Doctor of Civil Law of that 
University on 3 July " As he had hot been previously 

I Lansdowne MS., 42, 72. 
 Thomas Baker (Baker MS., xxxvi, p. o7, Universitï Librarï, Cambrldge) 
speaks ofthe incident in these terres : 
' He [Harveï] was chosen Master but was supplanted bï the cunning & con- 
duct of some of the Heads, on one or more of w t' he reflects bitterly in his English 
works. He was a man of hright and livelï parte & was once in fayot wlth the Lord 
Burleigh our Chancellor who reccommended him hither for the Oratorship : but a 
flashï wit, a rambling Head, & a factious spirit ruin'd his Interest here & put the 
Heads upon procuring the Queen's Mandat for a man of a more peaceable retaper." 
a Grace Book A,, p. 89.  Trinitï Hall. Book of wtcta. 
 The note in the *Registrum Universitatis Oxon.' (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), il. Pt. . 
49, is worth giving. ' z July,  8 $. Harueï, Gabrlel, Master of Trlr. H. Cambr. asked 
D.C.L. in Oxford. He was M.A. Camb. and had had grace to incept there in law 
as was testified in Congregation bï the oath of Richard Wafeeld, John Harueï, and 
William Barker. He was lic. D.C.L. at Oxford on * Julï *85.' How Harveï 
came to be described, or to descrihe himself, as «Master of Trinity Hall', is hard 
to sec. Perhaps the election was still pending, but this is hardly a sufficient justi- 
ficatlon. It is thls note which seems to be the basis of the common statcment that 
Harvey had been elected Master. 
E 



So D.C.L. of Oxford 

admitted at Cambridge, his proceeding was perhaps 
irregular. At any rate Nashe is never tired of twitting 
him with it: 1 
So it is that a good Gowne and a well pruned paire of 
rnoustachios, hauing studied sixteene yeare to rnake thirteene 
iii english Hexameters, came to the Vniuersity Court regentium 
f.ff non» to sue for a commission to carry two faces in a hoode : 
they hot vsing to deny honour to any man that deserued it, bad 
him performe ail the Schollerlike ceremonies and disputatiue 
right appertaining thereto, and he should bee installed. 
Noli me tangere : he likt none of that .... 
Pumps and Pantofles, because they were well blackt and 
glistered jolly freshly on it, being rubd ouer with inke, had 
their grace at length to be Doctour, Ea lege, that they should 
do their acts (that is, performe more than they were able). 
•. so to Oxford they trudge, hauing their grace ad diputandum» 
and there are co»firmed in the saine degree they tooke at 
Cambridge. 
It seems clear from a note in Harvey's Commonplace- 
Book  that he somehow broke down in performing his 
Acts at Oxford. Commenting on the words ' Ciues 
Audacissimi, et apud multitudinem dicere potentissimi,' 
he adds, 'At Cambridg, in my proctorship my default ; 
at Oxford, in my Acts for my Doctorship.' 
We have hurriedly traced Harvey's career to the year 
I585. We bave seen his triumphs--and we have seen 
them overclouded by reverses• He has reached the age of 
thirty-five; he is a Doctor of Laws, nominally practising in 
the Court of Arches, but probably never getting a case ;3 
he has been at Court and has an overweening confidence 
in his powers of playing a part in public life, but his 
public career has led to nothing and will lead to nothing. 
It is now time to ask what side-lights on his character, 
his successes and failures, are thrown by the notes, 
which he made so freely in his beautiful handwriting in 
his books. 
I Nashe's IIe'orks (McKerrow}, i. ZTg. 
" Add. MSS., 3z 494, P- 5 ° r. 3 Nashe (McKerrow), iii. 73 $5 -6. 



Harvey's Marginalia 5  

IV 

HARw"s marginalia give usjust what we should like to 
ha,ce in the case of his greater contemporaries, Spenser 
and Marlowe and Shakespeare. They add, it is true, only 
a few small details to the known facts of his lire ; but 
they throw a flood of light on the books he read, and 
on the thoughts he cherished in secret. When they are 
before us we can indeed say with Dr. E. J. L. Scott that 
Harvey is better known to us than almost any Elizabethan 
writer, though Grosart, who had no liking for him and did 
hOt even master the best-known facts of his lire, strangely 
opined that there was hardly any Elizabethan of whom 
we knew so little. 
The mother ofGabriel Harvey was probably a woman 
' of energetic character, and this is borne out by the one 
saying her son attributes to her, ' Ail the speed is in the 
morning.' He quotes some jesting rimes of a rather 
cynical kind which his father used to repeat, and he tells 
a little story of his own sense of filial duty under pro- 
vocation. His brother Richard appears as smitten with 
admiration for a fair lady ofthe Court ; his brother John 
as an example of rapid learning. 
Harvey tells us something about Spenser, besides 
the fact already referred to that Spenser was for a time 
secretary to Bishop Young of Rochester. x, Ve hear of 
Spenser's admiration of Du Bartas' astronomical book 
(the 4th Day of the t st Week), and also of his regret 
that he had hot more skill himself in astronomical rules, 
tables, and instruments. 
When he would illustrate a rich man's foolish hanker- 
ing for some thing he does hot possess, he thinks of 



New Ligbt on bis Lire and Reading 

Philip, Lord Surrey, who left the side of his young 
countess to court Mercy Harvey; when he would 
illustrate tergiversation and falsity, he thinks of Dr. 
Perne. 
It is from Harvey's marginalia that we know that he 
was University Prœelector in Rhetoric from I573- 4 to 
1575-6 ; that he lost his ready speech on some occasion 
during his Cambridge Proctorship, and again when 
keeping his Acts for the Doctor's degree at Oxford; 
that he succeeded Lancelot Brown in a medical fellow- 
ship at Pembroke ; from them, too, that we hear of a 
disputation in which he was engaged at Trinity Hall, 
and of a match in quick repartee in which he bore off 
the honours at Oxford. 
But these facts about himself and his friends are 
unimportant compared to the new knowledge we get of 
Harvey's reading, of his literary judgments, and of his 
deepest thoughts on lire. The books ofhis which I bave 
handled range from Erasmus' Parabolw, which was in his 
possession in 1566, the year of his going up as a fresh- 
man to Christ's, to a medical work in which he inscribes 
his naine in 159 O. The earliest books are, as one would 
expect, of a humanistic kind, Erasmus, Xenophon in 
Latin, Quintilian, Cicero's Letters, a history of Cicero. 
Events ofthe moment meanwhile make him bu" books 
on Mary, Queen ofScots. A number ofbooks on travel 
and geography, which he acquired in the seventies, 
connect themselves with his hopes of travelling abroad 
in Lord Leicester's service. From 1574 onwards he buys 
books of law, the study to which he was now to devote 
himself. In I584 he is taking up medicine, and about 
the same time resuming the mathematical and scientific 
studies which he had begun years ago at Pembroke. He 
now has special artisans who make instruments for him. 



His wide Literary Interests 53 

Harvey's notes, made generally in Latin, next often 
in English, sometimes in Italian, and here and there in 
French or Spanish, testify to his wide reading in the 
classics, in English, Frertch, and ltaliart literature, in 
works of rhetoric, geography, history, law, politics, and 
in the mathematical and experimental sciences. Several 
times he makes a chart of his reading for a week. Often 
he bursts out into enthusiasm over his favourite authors. 
They are not limited to the great writers of Greece 
and Rome, but include Ramus, Machiavelli, Aretine, 
Du Bartas, Angelus Decembrius, Guevara, Blaise de 
Vigenère, Tasso, Ariosto, Jewel, Chaucer, More, Hey- 
wood, Sidney, Spenser, Smith, Ascham, Wilson, Digges, 
Blundevile, Hakluyt. 
Harvey's reading in a number oflanguages is seen to 
have been enormous, his interests encyclopoedic, tending 
always to the practical, to law, history, politics, natural 
philosophy rather than to pure literature. It is remarkable 
that he makes little reference to the contemporary stage. 
He has a word for Gorboduc, but none for the plays of 
Greene, Marlowe, or Shakespeare, except that now-lost 
note which was seen by Steevens and Malone in Harvey's 
copy of Speght's Chaucer ( 598) : ' The younger sort 
take much delight in Shakespeares Venus and Adonis, 
but his Lucrece and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of 
Denmarke have it in them to please the wiser sort.'  
The most interesting of Harvey's literary criticisms 
occur in his notes on Gascoigne's Posies. 
The chiefvalue ofthe marginalia, however, lies in the 
light which they throw on H arvey's character and attitude 
towards life. 

 Note in the Variorum Shakespeare (1Si  and 18zl) before Hamlct. Harve),'s 
copy of Speght's Chaucer has been supposed to ha,e perished in the tire vhich 
destroyed Bishop Perc,'s iibrar,. Mrs. Stopes, however, assures me that it exists, 
and that an account of its contents wiii shorti), be published. 



54 ,'1 Man of the Renaissance 

Harvcy is often called a Puritan. Ifto be a Puritan is 
to have a strong sense of personal religion, a spirit of 
self-humiliation, a disposition to despise this lire in com- 
parison with that which is to come, a fanatical intolerance 
of a ceremonial form of religion, Harvey seems to me to 
bave been as little ofa Puritan as any man could be. He 
shows nothing of thé spirit of the fanatic, and the only 
approach to religiousness which I have seen in his notes 
is in the little story to which I have referred, in which 
he promises to pray for his father. 
In his home ttarvey used the language of an ordinary 
Christian ; he believed as a statesman in the necessity of 
religion to a commonwealth ; he was shocked at open 
blasphemies and professed atheism. More than this 
one cannot say. He was too much a man of the ltalian 
Renaissance to be a very fervent Christian. 
Conceive what is meant by the man of the Italian 
Renaissance: the man who aims at universal know- 
ledge ; who can sympathize with the intellectual detach- 
ment of Machiavelli and the audacious licence ofAretine; 
who yet would make scholarship a means rather than an 
end ; who firmly holds that worldly success, power and 
riches are things worth striving for, and things which can 
be won if one is only resolute ; that resolution may 
require the casting away of many moral scruplesmcon- 
ceive such a typical man, and you bave Harvey as he 
appears in these notes written only for his own eye. No 
man lives up to his principles, nor perhaps down to his 
principles, and in the living Harvey there were no doubt 
amiable qualities which could hot be justified by his 
professed opinions ; but Harvey, as he depicts himself 
in these personal notes, is, I believe, the Renaissance man 
pure and simple, and in him we see the full influence ofthe 
Renaissance more clearly than in any other Englishman 
known to us. 



Political Ambitions 5 5 

Harvey was following the Italians when he published 
his ina