Misplaced Pages

#171828

51-515: The term was first recorded in 1622 in George Wither 's poetry collection Ivvenilia . Later, other notable poets, such as John Dryden and Alfred, Lord Tennyson , came to use the term for collections of their early poetry. The stories and poems which novelist Jane Austen wrote before the age of eighteen are called her Juvenilia . Exceptions to retrospective publication include Leigh Hunt's collection Juvenilia , first published when he

102-621: A bachelor's degree in 1559. He then studied law at Lincoln's Inn and was called as a barrister by 1572. He was a Roman Catholic , until a point in 1570 when his non-conformity with the Church of England became an issue with his Inn passing on a complaint from the Privy Council . Egerton built a respectable legal practice pleading cases in the Courts of Queen's Bench , Chancery and Exchequer . After Queen Elizabeth I saw him plead

153-509: A case against the Crown he was appointed Queen's Counsel . In 1579 he was elected Master of the Bench of Lincoln's Inn. On 28 June 1581 he was appointed Solicitor General . He married Elizabeth Ravenscroft, daughter of Thomas Ravenscroft of Bretton, Flint, in 1576 and by her had issue: As Solicitor General, Egerton became a frequent legal advocate for the crown, often arguing cases instead of

204-401: A century, has left a very uneven impression of his interests and affected his poetic reputation. George Gilfillan wrote that "Wither was a man of real genius, but seems to have been partially insane". Herbert Grierson found something to praise in early love poems, but spoke of "endless diffuse didactic and pious poems, if they can be called poems". C. V. Wedgwood wrote "every so often in

255-400: A long panegyric of a mistress, partly real, partly allegorical, written chiefly in seven-syllabled verse. Wither had begun as a moderate in politics and religion, but his Puritan leanings became more pronounced, as he moved from an Arminian to a more Calvinist position. His later work consists of religious poetry, and of controversial and political tracts. From 1614 he began to work on

306-684: A new psalm translation, a project in tune with the circle round Sir Edwin Sandys that Wither frequented. Preparation to the Psalter (1619) was an early work in English on literary aspects of the Bible, and initiated a campaign by Wither to substitute his own writings for the dominant psalms . His Hymnes and Songs of the Church (1622–1623) were aimed to counter exclusive psalmody , represented by

357-710: A patron of the young Francis Bacon . After the death of the Lord Keeper Puckering he was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and sworn a Privy Councillor on 6 May 1596, remaining Master of the Rolls and thus the sole judge in the Court of Chancery . During this time his first wife died, and he married Elizabeth Wolley , the widow of Sir John Wolley , and daughter of Sir William More of Loseley , Surrey. He bought Tatton Park , in 1598. It would stay in

408-502: A rising quality, but of a consistent political attitude. Where Hill identifies connections via the aristocratic patrons and politics, Alastair Fowler takes Drayton to be the poetic centre of a group, which besides Wither comprised Browne, John Davies of Hereford , William Drummond of Hawthornden , George Sandys and Joshua Sylvester . From c.1640 onwards, Wither assumed an overtly prophetic voice. His wide range of publication, in prose as well as various poetic genres over nearly half

459-659: A second similar patent was finally disallowed by the House of Lords . Wither defended himself in The Schollers Purgatory (1624). In this document, a 140-page diatribe against the Stationers Company for their refusal to print his work, Wither blames them for his financial ruin and hardship. Some more of Wither's religious poetry is contained in Heleluiah: or Britain's Second Remembrancer , which

510-709: A supporter of the Commonwealth who also proposed a more egalitarian social vision. His Respublica Anglicana (1650) was a reply to the Anarchia Anglicana (1649) of Theodorus Verax ( Clement Walker ), a Presbyterian opponent of the Independents. It defended ' engagement ', the notion that recognition of the Parliamentary regime should be required. Wither was a trustee of the Committee for

561-548: A unique copy in the Bodleian Library . Other editions of this book, which contained the lyric "Shall I, wasting in despair", appeared in 1617 and 1619. In 1621, he returned to the satiric vein with Wither's Motto: Nec habeo, nec careo, nec curo (Latin for "I have not, I want not, I care not"). It was said to be libellous, and Wither, for the second time, was imprisoned, but shortly afterwards released. In 1622 appeared his Faire-Virtue, The Mistresse of Phil Arete ,

SECTION 10

#1732772945172

612-414: A volume of gratulatory poems (1613) on the marriage of the princess Elizabeth . Some time between 1611 and 1613 he wrote Abuses Stript and Whipt , twenty satires directed against Revenge, Ambition, Lust. These satires—aimed at exposing "th'abuses of these wicked Times"—achieved some popular success and there were seven printings from 1613 to 1617. The volume included a poem called "The Scourge", in which

663-472: Is found definitely siding with the Parliament . He sold his estate to raise a troop of horse, and was placed by a parliamentary committee in command of Farnham Castle . After a few days occupation he left the place undefended, and marched to London . His own house near Farnham was plundered, and he himself was captured by a troop of Royalist horse, owing his life to the intervention of Sir John Denham , on

714-660: Is in the British Museum . In 1636 he translated The Nature of Man by Nemesius . Wither had served as captain of horse in 1639 in the expedition of Charles I against the Scottish Covenanters , and his religious rather than his political convictions must be accepted as the explanation of the fact that, three years after the Scottish expedition, at the outbreak of the English Civil War , he

765-538: The Dunciad "Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest" together "Safe, where no Critics damn, no duns molest". He was early known in the pastoral genre. He had figured as one of the interlocutors, Roget, in his friend William Browne 's Shepherds Pipe , with which were bound up eclogues by other poets, among them one by Wither. During his imprisonment he wrote what may be regarded as a continuation of Browne's work, The Shepherd's Hunting (printed 1615)—eclogues in which

816-499: The Attorney General . Briefly, he was MP for Cheshire, 1584–87. He was one of the prosecutors at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots , in 1586 at Sheffield. He was also the prosecutor in the trial of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel , for high treason . He was made Attorney General on 2 June 1592, he was knighted the next year. He was made Master of the Rolls on 10 April 1594 where he excelled as an equity judge and became

867-606: The Lord Chancellor was attacked, and a series of epigrams . Despite the fact that the satires referenced nobody by name, and that Wither had published them a year before with no trouble, he was arrested for libel "on or about 20 March 1614" and held in the Marshalsea prison for four months before being released. In A Satyre: Dedicated to His Most Excellent Majestie , Wither made a bold appeal to King James for his release, claiming that he had "not sought to scandalize

918-535: The Song for the Happily Married, Part 3 No. 21 ("Since they in singing take delight") and the Song for a Shepherd, Part 3 No. 41 ("Renowned men their herds to keep"). Wither has been classified as a Spenserian , with Michael Drayton , Giles Fletcher , Phineas Fletcher , and Henry More . The early Jacobean Spenserians were generally republican rather than imperial (at least in terms of ancient Rome), of

969-469: The Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter . Orlando Gibbons provided tunes for some of them. They were issued under a patent of King James I ordaining that they should be bound up with every copy of the authorized metrical psalms offered for sale. This patent was opposed, as inconsistent with their privilege to print the singing-psalms, by the Stationers Company , to Wither's great mortification and loss, and

1020-659: The Union of the Crowns . Egerton and Lord Buckhurst travelled to Northamptonshire in June 1603 to greet Anne of Denmark and her children as they journeyed towards Windsor Castle . Egerton remained in office, and King James made him Lord Chancellor and 1st Baron Ellesmere on 19 July 1603. He was removed from the office of Master of the Rolls on 18 May 1603, but as the office was granted to an absentee Scottish Lord he continued to perform its duties. Shortly afterwards he presided over

1071-600: The "country party" rather than the "court party", nostalgic for Elizabeth I, and in favour of the older ornateness rather than the plain style of James I, however Wither is described by Joan Grundy as adopting a deliberate plainness of style. According to Christopher Hill : ... we can trace a line from Spenser ... through a group of poets ... ranging from Shakespeare, Drayton, the two Fletchers, William Browne and Samuel Daniel to George Wither. Or again: A line of poets could be traced from Sidney and Spenser through Sylvester and Browne to Wither— not, admittedly, of

SECTION 20

#1732772945172

1122-676: The 19th century. The Egertons later had a family chapel (the Bridgewater Chapel) with a burial vault in Little Gaddesden Church, where many monuments commemorate the Dukes and Earls of Bridgewater and their families. As Lord Keeper, Egerton's judgements were admired, but Common-law judges often resented him for reversing their decisions. He also attempted to expand the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to include

1173-613: The British Poets , vol. v. (1819). Most of Wither's works were edited in twenty volumes for the Spenser Society (1871–82); a selection was included by Henry Morley in his Companion Poets (1891); Fidelia and Fair Virtue are included in Edward Arber 's English Garner (vol. iv, 1882; vol. vi, 1883), and The Poetry of George Wither was edited by Frank Sidgwick in 1902. A selection of Wither's hymns

1224-665: The Lord Old Man, the Lord Carnal Delight, and the Lord Luxurious'. This view has been held by most later critics and scholars, in addition to the possibility of earlier editions containing text which was erased in later editions. Several scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also claimed that Wither had offended Lord Chancellor Ellesmere with one of the verses in Abuses . This claim, however,

1275-713: The Sale of the Late King's Goods and was paid £100 in March 1650 for his work making inventories of the former royal palaces. A small place given him by the Protector was forfeited after Wither expressed criticism of Cromwell. He was involved in 11 court cases, from 1643 to 1661, including Onslow's libel suit over the poem Justiarius Justificatus . At the Restoration he was arrested, and remained in prison for three years. He

1326-522: The Stationers Company. Wither was in London during the plague of 1625, and in 1628 published Britain's Remembrancer , a voluminous poem on the subject, interspersed with denunciations of the wickedness of the times, and prophecies of the disasters about to fall upon England. It reflects on nature of poetry and prophecy, explores the fault lines in politics, and rejects tyranny of the sort

1377-602: The barren acres of his verse is a stretch enlivened by real wit and observation, or fired with a sudden intensity of feeling". After a period of neglect, George Ellis anthologised Wither in Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790). Samuel Egerton Brydges published The Shepherds Hunting (1814), Fidelia (1815) and Fair Virtue (1818), and a selection appeared in Ezekiel Sanford 's Works of

1428-420: The family for more than three centuries. Also at this time (1597 or 1598) he hired John Donne as secretary. This arrangement ended in some embarrassment since Donne secretly married Ann More, Elizabeth's niece, in 1601. Elizabeth died around the beginning of 1600, and then Egerton married Alice Spencer , whose first husband had been Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby . She survived him by two decades, and

1479-400: The full amount, and complained from time to time of his embarrassments and of the slight rewards he received for his services. An order was made to settle a yearly income of £150 on Wither, chargeable on Sir John Denham's sequestrated estate, but there is no evidence that he ever received it. He became a political and religious writer using verse as his medium. He is considered to stand out as

1530-468: The ground that so long as Wither lived he himself could not be accounted the worst poet in England. A reported episode from 1642 or 1643 has Wither with Henry Marten mocking the coronation regalia. At this time, in any case, Wither's views were converging with those of the advocates of true popular sovereignty, and his political poem Vox Pacifica called for a purge of Parliament. He was promoted to

1581-404: The imposition of fines to enforce his injunctions. In the 9th Parliament of the reign of Elizabeth (1597–1598), he supported legal reform and the royal power to create monopolies . In November 1599 Egerton, seeking the queen's favour, asked a courtier Michael Stanhope to give her a gift of pearls. She told Stanhope to return them to Egerton, who felt that Stanhope had let him down. Sir Thomas

Juvenilia - Misplaced Pages Continue

1632-426: The king was denounced for fostering. In 1635 he was employed by Henry Taunton , a London publisher, to write English verses illustrative of the allegorical plates of Crispijn van de Passe , originally designed for the emblem book by Gabriel Rollenhagen , "Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum" (1610–1613). The book was published as a Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne , of which the only perfect copy known

1683-484: The rank of major. He was present at the siege of Gloucester (1643) and at Naseby (1645). He had been deprived in 1643 of his nominal command, and of his commission as justice of the peace , in consequence of an attack upon Sir Richard Onslow , who was, he maintained, responsible for the Farnham disaster. In the same year parliament made him a grant of £2000 for the loss of his property, but he apparently never received

1734-559: The state, nor sowne sedition." The cause for his initial imprisonment is somewhat unclear, as the Abuses were in fact very general, and had not satirized any one person by name. Charles Lamb commented that a man should be convicted of libel when he named no names but Hate, and Envy, and Lust, and Avarice, is like one of the indictments in the Pilgrim's Progress , where Faithful is arraigned for having 'railed on our noble Prince Beelzebub, and spoken contemptibly of his honourable friends,

1785-655: The trial of Barons Cobham and Grey de Wilton for high treason for their part in the Main Plot . In the first Parliament of James I Lord Ellesmere attempted to exercise the right of the Lord Chancellor to disqualify members from sitting in the House of Commons , but in the end, yielded that right to the House itself. He attempted to persuade Parliament to support the King's plans for a union of England and Scotland, but

1836-400: The two poets appear as Willie and Roget (in later editions Philarete). It is largely allegorical. The fourth of these eclogues contains a famous passage in praise of poetry; the poets are explicit that pastoral is just a preliminary to other work. In 1615, the year of his release from prison and admission to Lincoln's Inn, Wither printed privately Fidelia , a love elegy , of which there is

1887-542: Was a conforming Anglican; but by this time he had moved closer to the Quakers . In Parallelogrammaton (1662) he compared to them as predecessors the prophets Ezekiel and Habakkuk . Wither died in London. His extant writings, noted by Thomas Park in Brydges's British Bibliographer , number over a hundred. Wither wrote, generally, in a pure English idiom, and preferred the reputation of "rusticity". According to

1938-542: Was a friend of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex , and often interceded to mend relations between Essex and the Queen. After Essex returned from Ireland in disgrace he was placed in the Lord Keeper's custody, under house arrest at York House, Strand . He was one of the judges at Essex's first trial, and tried to persuade him to apologise and beg mercy from the Queen. He pronounced the sentence against Essex, although it

1989-609: Was a prolific English poet, pamphleteer , satirist and writer of hymns. Wither's long life spanned one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of England, during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, the Civil War, the Parliamentary period and the Restoration period. Wither was born in Bentworth , near Alton , in the heart of Hampshire , the son of George Wither Senior of that place and his wife, Mary, who

2040-538: Was an English nobleman , judge and statesman from the Egerton family who served as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor for twenty-one years. Thomas Egerton was born in 1540 in the parish of Dodleston , Cheshire, England. He was the illegitimate son of Sir Richard Egerton and an unmarried woman named Alice Sparks from Bickerton . He was acknowledged by his father's family, who paid for his education. He studied Liberal Arts at Brasenose College , Oxford , and received

2091-526: Was an important patron of the arts, usually known as the Dowager Countess of Derby. At Ashridge , Hertfordshire, Thomas Egerton purchased Ashridge House , one of the largest country houses in England, from Queen Elizabeth I, who had inherited it from her father who had appropriated it after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. Ashridge House served the Egerton family as a residence until

Juvenilia - Misplaced Pages Continue

2142-454: Was dictated by the Queen. During Essex's rebellion, he was sent to persuade Essex to surrender, but was instead held hostage for several hours until one of Essex's supporters freed him to gain pardon from the Queen. Egerton bought a house at Harefield and in August 1602 staged an elaborate entertainment for the queen. James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England as James I at

2193-423: Was not able to secure his release until after Northampton's death in June 1614. After his release from prison, Wither was admitted, in 1615, to Lincoln's Inn . In 1621, Wither's satirical Wither's Motto: Nec habeo, nec careo, nec curo (Latin for "I have not, I want not, I care not") sold over 30,000 copies of this poem were sold, according to his own account within a few months. Like his earlier invective, it

2244-516: Was possibly from the family of Hunt. His grandfather, Richard Wither, lived at Manydown in Wootton St Lawrence , where the family had resided since at least 1344. His early schooling took place under Rev. John Greaves, the father of John , Sir Edward and Thomas Greaves . Between the ages of fifteen and seventeen he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford . Despite his neighbours' advice that his father put him to some mechanic trade, he

2295-708: Was printed in Holland in 1641. This work assumed the knowledge of metrical psalms. Besides hymns, the book contains songs, especially the Cradle Song, Part 1 No. 50 ("Sleep, baby, sleep, what ails my dear"), the Anniversary Marriage Song, Part 2 No. 17 ("Lord, living here are we"), the Perambulation Song, Part 2 No. 24 ("Lord, it hath pleased Thee to say"), the Song for Lovers, Part 3 No. 20 ("Come, sweet heart, come, let us prove"),

2346-616: Was published in 2011 by The Phoenix Press in The Gibbons Songbook. While primarily a realisation of the tunes Orlando Gibbons wrote for The Hymns and Songs of the Church , a selection of verses from the hymns is paired with the original verses from the King James Bible which inspired Wither to create the hymns. Lord Chancellor Ellesmere Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley , PC (c. 1540 – 15 March 1617), known as Lord Ellesmere from 1603 to 1616,

2397-467: Was rejected by Pritchard, who blames the misreading of the verses. Pritchard makes the case that the reason for Wither's imprisonment was that he angered Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton , by accusing him and others of colluding with the Spanish—;and Catholic—government. Pritchard mentions that Northampton was at the height of his power when Wither was arrested, and notes that he

2448-490: Was said to be libellous, and Wither was again imprisoned, but shortly afterwards released without formal trial on the plea that the book had been duly licensed. Ben Jonson turned satire back on Wither, portrayed as the Chronomastix of the masque Time Vindicated . Wither avenged himself, by a reference to Jonson's drunken conclave. He was obliged to print this book with his own hand, in consequence of his quarrel with

2499-506: Was sent to one of the Inns of Chancery , eventually obtaining an introduction at Court. It is thought that he spent some time in Ireland, perhaps with Adam Loftus at Rathfarnham Castle . He wrote what amounted to a masque for a wedding that took place there in 1610, of the parents of Francis Willughby . He wrote an elegy (1612) on the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales , and

2550-510: Was still in his teens; and Lord Byron 's publication of Fugitive Pieces when the author was only 17 years old, and his subsequent publication of Hours of Idleness at the age of 18. In these early pieces, Byron explores many of the themes that would shape his later works. This article about a literary genre is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . George Wither George Wither (11 June 1588 O.S. (21 June 1588 NS ) – 2 May 1667 O.S. (12 May 1667 NS ) )

2601-539: Was unsuccessful. In 1606 he ruled that Scottish subjects born after the succession of James I were naturalised English subjects. Lord Ellesmere supported the Royal prerogative , but was concerned to define it, and ensure it was never confused with the ordinary legal processes. Towards the end of his life, he stood out against the arguments made by Sir Edward Coke , the Lord Chief Justice , and ultimately aided

SECTION 50

#1732772945172
#171828