Study of the rare Elizabethan publication, Pandora,
containing the four Epytaphes written by Anne Cecil de Vere, Countess
of Oxford, following the death of her only son, has proved worthwhile
in bringing to light previously unnoted Shakespearean creative connotations.
[Published in the NEWS-LETTER for February, 1943.]
Let us now consider the volume from the point
of view of its actual authorship, the writer's name, "John Soothern,"
being generally believed to be an assumed one. The fact that the book
was not licensed for publication by the Stationers' Company lends extra
credence to this belief.
"John Soothern" evidently designed
his volume as a joint tribute to Edward de Vere, his Countess, and Queen
Elizabeth. For the sub-title reads, The Musyque of the beautie of
his Mistress Diana, and immediately following Anne Cecil's laments
for her son, Soothern includes another "Epitaph, made by the Queenes
Maiestie, at the death of the Princess of Espinoye." It seems hardly
possible that any poet or anthologist who wished to profit by his labors
would assume these liberties without some sort of permission. On the
other hand, the rarity of "Soothern's" book might indicate
that the edition had been suppressed by order of the Queen or members
of the Vere or Cecil families who considered the publication of such
personal poems in questionable taste.
Who was "John Soothern"? Although an
important contemporary witness to Lord Oxford's preeminence in scholarship
and the arts, and the pioneer exponent of the ode as a poetic form in
English literature, an impenetrable mystery has always surrounded his
identity.
On the title-page of his volume the name appears
as "John Soowthern," but in a sonnet on page 7 he refers to
himself as "Soothern," repeating this same spelling twice
in an epode on page 19, and finally in an elegy to Diana on page 24
states:
"My name, quoth I, is Soothern, and
Madame, let that suffice:
That Soothern which will rayse the Englishe language to the Skies."
This rather immodest insistence, quite unique
among English rhymsters of the period (and paraphrased by this writer
directly out of Ronsard) implies that "John Soothern" is a
descriptive pen-name assumed by a Frenchman residing in England. That
the author of Pandora was a native of the Gallic clime seems
apparent from many circumstances, as George Steevens pointed out in
the 18th century. [Chetham Society Pub. Vol. 108, pps. 252-3.]
...from his levity, pertness, unbounded vanity,
perpetual introduction of French words and phrases, unadopted by contemporary
writers of this country, from his French mode of spelling and sounding
English, his proper names with French terminations and especially
from his calling Ronsard "our old Ronsard of France,"
his ability to compose stanzas and quatrains in French language, the
epithet rude, which he bestows on us as a people, and his insolent
observations at the end of one of his Odes, Non careo patria, Me
caret Illa magis, I cannot help supposing this Soothern to have
been a native of France, perhaps a refugee, admitted as secretary,
a tutor, or for some other purpose, into the family of the Earl of
Oxford. Being thus domesticated, he might easily obtain confidential
transcripts of the Epitaphs written by the wife of his Patron and
Queen Elizabeth. That particular one composed by a British monarch,
on a Princess of his own nation, would naturally have struck his vanity
as a performance worth being preserved.
This shrewd analysis of Steevens' is borne out
by the fact that Lord Oxford did actually have a personal retainer who
was known as "Denys the Frenchman." We find mention of him
first under date of May, 1573, as one of "three of my Lord of Oxford's
men; Danve Wylkyns, John Hannam, and Deny the Frenchman," who are
accused by William Faunt and John Wotton, two of the messengers of the
Lord Treasurer's Office, in a letter to Lord Burghley from Gravesend,
of ambushing the said messengers with intent to kill or rob them. [S.
P. Dom. Eliz., 91, 36 and Ward p. 91.] This attempted hold-up which
took place on the old Gadshill section of the road between Gravesend
and Rochester, was likely enough the authentic original of the famous
highway robbery which "Shake-speare" staged on the same location
some years later with Prince Hal and Falstaff as principals:
Case ye, case ye; on with your visards: there's
money of the King's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the King's
exchequer.
I
Henry IV, II, 2. 50.
A memorandum in the Lord Treasurer's hand, among
the Cecil papers and evidently dating from the time of this attempt
upon Burghley's messengers, indicates that Lord Oxford had interceded
on behalf of "Denny the French boy and others" who were punished
by the Lord Treasurer for their participation in this desperate exploit.
Again, in a letter from Sir Francis Vere to Sir
Robert Cecil, dated November 17, 1605, we find "Denys a Frenchman"
named as one of Oxford's retainers (together with Sir Roger Williams,
the well-proven original of Captain Fluellen in Henry V) who
accompanied the Earl on a visit to Paris when Sir Francis Vere "was
very young." [Cal. MSS. of the Marquess of Salisbury, Vol. 17.]
This was apparently during 1575, at which time Sir Francis would have
been about fifteen years of age.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Earl
of Oxford had a Frenchman among his personal followers of the same indiscreet,
swashbuckling temperament that "John Soothern" displays in
Pandora.
This "Denys" or Denis may also have
been one of the four personal attendants in Oxford's household that
Lord Burghley mentions in a letter to Sir Christopher Hatton, dated
March, 1583 [Nicolas, Life of Hatton, p. 321 and Ward. p. 232]:
"One of them waiteth upon his wife my
daughter, another is in my house upon his daughter Bess, a third is
a kind of tumbling boy, and the fourth is a son of a brother of Sir
John Cutts. . ."
It should also be observed that the Bard gives
Orlando, the hero of As You Like It, a personal attendant named
Dennis.
All circumstances considered, Oxford's "Denys
the Frenchman" appears to be the most likely original of "John
Soothern" that has ever been put forward.
Within a year or so of the surreptitious publication
of Pandora with its dedicatory odes "To the ryght honourable
the Earl of Oxenford, & c.," it appears that "Denys the
Frenchman" left England for the Lowlands, evidently in the train
of Lord Oxford when the Earl headed an expedition to Flushing in September,
1585. And from this time onward, the young compatriot of Ronsard seems
to have followed an active military career which won him the respect
and liking of the English notables with whom he served for many years.
In the records and correspondence relating to the Lowlands campaigns
he is referred to as "Denys the Frenchman" and also under
his full name and rank as Captain Morrys Denys. Among the Queen's "Officers
of Flushing" printed in a "'List of Officers and Soldiers
in the Low Countries for Two Years Ended 11 October 1588," we find
"Captain Denys, Gentleman Porter," associated with Sir William
Russell, the English Governor of Flushing. Again, in the roll of Captains
of the Horse Bands, the name of Morrys Denys appears with that of Sir
William Russell. Russell had won great fame as a cavalry leader at the
Battle of Zutphen in 1586 when Sir Philip Sidney lost his life. It is
further significant to observe that both Russell and Denys accompanied
the playwright Earl of Oxford on certain stages of his travels through
France and Italy in 1575-76. Russell's personal association with Oxford
and also with the Earl's French retainer should be worthy the attention
of Dr. Leslie Hotson, author of I, William Shakespeare, in view
of the great and abiding influence which Hotson asserts members of the
Russell family exerted upon William Shakspere of Stratford.
As one of the Queen's officers, Captain Denys
undoubtedly returned to England occasionally during his long service
in the armies of the Earl of Oxford, Lord Willoughby, Sir John Norris
and Sir Francis Vere. But he does not seem to have attempted further
literary ventures after the failure of Pandora to win him fame and fortune.
He lives in the later records of the Elizabethan Age solely as an able
soldier who finally died in action at the siege of Ostend. This occurred
during the early days of January, 1602. His passing is commented upon
by Sir William Browne in letters to Sir Robert Sidney, reproduced in
the Calendar of Mss. of Lord De L' Isle and Dudley. From the
same source we learn that Captain Denys' chief under-officer at Ostend
had been one "Lieut. Poynts." The latter name will ring familiarly
in the ears of all admirers of the Henry IV plays.
The above facts indicate clearly enough that
Lord Oxford's French retainer, Captain Morrys Denys, was really a man
of parts and that he could have been on terms of sufficiently intimate
acquaintance with the poet Earl's menage to have secured access to the
Countess of Oxford's writings and a copy of Queen Elizabeth's verses
on the death of the Princess Espinoye—just as the mysterious
"John Soothern" must perforce have been. Lord Oxford evidently
not only gave Captain Denys his start in life, but backed his rise to
military preferment in the Lowlands.
Regarding this latter circumstance, cynics who
have attempted to explore the crabbed black-letter mazes of Pandora
may believe that Oxford gladly sponsored his temperamental servant's
military ambitions in order to keep Denys from committing further literary
indiscretions.
Nevertheless, the identification of this spirited
Frenchman as the real "John Soothern" adds another vital figure
to the group that made up the early Oxford-Shakespeare circle.
Both Pandora and its author are harshly
criticized in The Arte of English Poesie (1589), one of the contemporary
studies of Elizabethan poetry which states categorically that Lord Oxford
ranked "first" among the poets of his era.
In the Arte, "Soothern" is significantly
described—without being named—as a "minion"
or pampered favorite who attempts translations of Ronsard,
. . . of the hymns of Pyndarus and of Anacreon's
odes . . . and applieth them to the honour of a great noble man in
England (wherein I commend his reverent mind and dutie) but doth so
impudently rob the French Poet (Ronsard) both of his praise and also
of his French terms, that I cannot so much pitie him as be angry with
him for his injurious dealing. . .
Thus, while it seems inevitable that Oxford himself
may have taken a hand in suppressing his retainer's exhibition in bad
taste, the laudatory references that the irrepressible Frenchman filched
from Ronsard to apply to his master are now worthy of reproduction as
supplementary evidence that Oxford was known to his personal associates
as a man of outstanding genius in the arts.
Antistrophe
Muses, you have had of your father,
Only the particular favor,
To keep from the reeve infernal:
And therefore my wantons come sing,
Upon your most best speaking string,
His name that doth cherish you all.
Come Nymphs while I have a desire,
To strike on a well sounding lyre,
Of our virtues Dever the name.
Dever, that hath given him in part:
The love, the war, honour, and art,
And with them an eternal Fame.
Come Nymphs, your puissance is divine:
And to those that you show no favour,
Quickly they are deprived of honour,
And slaves to the chains Cossitine.
Epode
Amongst our well renowned men,
Dever merits a silver pen,
Eternally to write his honour,
And I in a well polisht verse,
Can set up in our Universe,
A Fame, to endure forever...
Antistrophe
For who marketh better than he,
The seven turning flames of the Sky:
Or hath read more of the antique,
Hath greater knowledge in the tongues:
Or understands sooner the sound,
Of the learner to love Music.
Or else who hath a fairer grace
In the Centaurian art of Thrace,
Half-horse, half-man, and with less pain,
Doth bring the Courser indomitable,
To yield to the raynes of his bridle:
Vaulting, on the edge of a plain.
And it pleases me to say too,
(With a lovange, I protest true)
That in England we cannot see,
Anything like Dever, but he.
Only himself he must resemble,
Virtues so much in him assemble.
There are several other references to Dever's
affinity to the Muses and his proficiency in the arts, but those given
above seem most striking, despite the crude doggerel in which they are
expressed.
In line two of the Epode quoted, Soothern says:
"Dever merits a silver pen."
In 1594, one W. H., identified as Sir William
Harbert, ascribes a "silver pen" to "Shakespeare."
[The Shakespeare Allusion Book. Vol. 1. p. 14.]
"For who marketh better than he,
The seven turning flames of the Sky:"
This is a reference to Oxford's interest in astrology
or astronomy, the "seven turning flames of the sky" being
the seven principal planets. Lord Oxford appears to have been one of
the most interested patrons of Dr. John Dee, foremost of Elizabethan
astrologers, according to a statement in A Compendious Rehearsal,
the book which Dee published in 1592 to clear himself of charges of
sorcery. In this work, Dee makes prominent mention of "the honourable
the Earl of Oxford, his favourable letters, anno 1570."
The foremost scholars of the age then gave serious
consideration to astrology. Oxford's interest in the subject is one
more testimonial to the catholicity of his education.
Coincidently, it should be noted that "Shakespeare"
studs his writings so generously with astrological allusions and metaphors
that it would require a bulky monograph to record and analyze them.
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck:
And yet methinks I have astronomy.
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality.
(Sonnet
14)
The Bard even utilizes astrological terms for
comedy effect, as in II Henry IV when Falstaff kisses Doll Tearsheet
and Prince Hal remarks:
"Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!
What says the almanac to that?"
"And look," adds Pointz, "whether
the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables,
his note-book. . ."
The Prince's sally derives point from the fact
that Saturn and Venus are never conjoined.
"The fiery Trigon" refers to Falstaff's
servant Bardolph, who is making the most of his time with Falstaff's
old love, the hostess of the Boar's Head. In the language of astrology,
the Trigon represents the triangle. (.A good quip in the sense that
Pointz uses it.) A "fiery Trigon" develops when the three
upper planets meet in a fiery sign, signifying rage and contention to
follow.
These are but one or two of a hundred equally
interesting examples of the effective use to which "Shake-speare"
puts his keen understanding of the ancient "science" of astrology.
In fact, it is the Bard, above all writers, who has said the last word,
astrologically:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
"John Soothern's" references to Lord
Oxford's love of "antique" literature and of his "knowledge
in the tongues" and understanding of music can all be verified
from numerous sources, including the statements in books dedicated to
the Earl by Arthur Golding, Thomas Twyne, Anthony Munday, John Farmer
and others.
We have previously noted the parallel between
"Soothern's" tribute to Oxford's horsemanship and the Kings
tribute to the Norman' gentleman who was "incorpsed and demi-natural"
with his charger in Hamlet. [Feb. 1943. NEWS-LETTER.]
There is another contemporary word picture of
the literary Earl as a youthful performer in the lists, written in Latin
by Giles Fletcher, uncle of John Fletcher, the dramatist, and translated
by B. M. Ward, which should be inserted here. Many persons may see in
Fletcher's lines of 1571-72 an early presentment of the real-life "Shake-
speare" in action:
. . . he controls his foaming steed with a
light rein, and armed with a long spear rides to the encounter. Fearlessly
he settles himself in the saddle, gracefully bending his body this
way and that. Now he circles round; now with spurred heel he rouses
his charger. The gallant animal with fiery energy collects himself,
and flying quicker than the wind, beats the ground with his hoofs,
and again is pulled up short as the reins control him.
Bravo, valiant youth! 'Tis thus that martial
spirits pass through their apprenticeship in war. Thus do yearling bulls
try the feel of each other's horns. Thus too do goats not yet expert
in fighting begin to butt one against the other, and soon venture to
draw blood with their horns.
The country sees in thee both a leader preeminent
in war, and a skilful man-at-arms. Thy valour puts forth leaves, and
begins to bear fruit, and glory already ripens in thy earliest deeds.
[Eclogue. In nuptias clarissimi D. Edouardi Vere. Hatfield MSS.
(Cal. XIII. 109) and Ward pps. 60-61.
And now, one final observation concerning the
ties, both personal and literary, that have been found to bind with
telling effect the names of Morrys Denys, "John Soothern,"
Edward de Vere and "William Shake-speare."
In his book, The French Renaissance in England
(1910), Sir Sidney Lee remarks:
The poetaster Soothern introduced the word
(ode) and the form into the English language in 1584 when he published
his volume of crude imitations of Ronsard.
If it is true that Lord Oxford's personal retainer
introduced the word ode into the English language, then it is equally
true that "William Shake-speare" was the first playwright
to give this word wide currency, for he uses it in two of his early
comedies. In As You Like It, Rosalind tells Orlando:
"There is a man haunts the forest, that
abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their bark; hangs
odes upon hawthorns and elegies upon brambles. . ."
Also in Love's Labors Lost, Dumain announces:
"Once more I'll read the ode that
I
have writ. . ."
[Murray's New English Dictionary quotes
these lines from L. L. L. with the date of composition given
as 1588, as the first appearance of the word ode in English.]
Thereupon, this character in the Bard's comedy
proceeds to read the opening movement of a correctly scanned ode—so vastly superior to any of the crude examples of "mingle-mangle"
which Oxford's French swashbuckler had tried to inflict upon the public
in 1584 that conclusions regarding the present-day rarity of the volume
become inevitable. Oxford, as the real "Shake-speare," simply
couldn't tolerate his retainer's bad taste and so had as much of the
evidence of it destroyed as possible. At the same time, as a constructive
critic, he dashed off a proper ode to show the poor fellow who had tried
to honor him how a real lyric of this type should be done.
As everyone who knows "Shake-speare"
must be familiar with the haunting melody of Dumain's ode, we will merely
set down the opening lines:
On a day—alack the day!—Love, whose month is every May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air. . .
Charles Wisner Barrell
