The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687)

by William Winstanley

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.

As we account those Books best written which mix Profit with Delight, so, in my opinion, none more profitable nor delightful than those of Lives, especially them of Poets, who have laid out themselves for the publick Good; and under the Notion of Fables, delivered unto us the highest Mysteries of Learning. These are the Men who in their Heroick Poems have made mens Fames live to eternity; therefore it were pity (faith Plutarch) that those who write to Eternity, should not live so too. Now above all Remembrances by which men have endeavoured even in despight of Death, to give unto their Fames eternity, for Worthiness and Continuance, Books, and Writings, have ever had the Preheminence; which made Ovid to give an endless Date to himself, and to his Metamorphosis, in these Words;

Famque Opus exegi, &c.

Thus Englished by the incomparable Mr. Sandys.

And now the Work is ended, which Jove's Rage,

Nor Fire, nor Sword, shall raze, nor eating Age,

Come when it will, my Death's uncertain hour

Which only of my Body hath a power;

Yet shall my better Part transcend the Sky,

And my immortal Name shall never dy:

For wherefoe're the Roman Eagles spread

Their conquering Wings, I shall of all be read.

And if we Prophets truly can divine,

I in my living Fame shall ever shine.

With the same Confidence of Immortality, the Renowned Poet Horace thus concludes the Third Book of his Lyrick Poesie.

Exegi Monumentum ære perennius.

Regalique situ, &c.

A Monument than Brass more lasting, I,

Than Princely Pyramids in site more high

Have finished, which neither fretting Showrs,

Nor blustring Winds, nor flight of Years, and Hours,

Though numberless, can raze; I shall not die

Wholly; nor shall my best part buried lie

Within my Grave.

And Martial, Lib. 10. Ep. 2. thus speaks of his Writings;

——My Books are read in every place,

And when Licinius, and Messala's high

Rich Marble Towers in ruin'd Dust shall lie,

I shall be read, and Strangers every where,

Shall to their farthest Homes my Verses bear.

Also Lucan, Lib. 9. of his own Verse, and Cæsar's Victory at Pharsalia, writeth thus;

O great and sacred Work of Poesie!

Thou freest from Fate, and giv'st Eternity

To mortal Wights; but Cæsar envy not

Their living Names; if Roman Muses ought

May promise thee, whilst Homer's honoured,

By future Times shalt Thou and I be read;

No Age shall us with dark Oblivion stain,

But our Pharsalia ever shall remain.

But this Ambition, or (give it a more moderate Title), Desire of Fame, is naturally addicted to most men; The Triumph of Miltiades would not let Themistocles sleep; For what was it that Alexander made such a Bustle in the world, but only to purchase an immortal Fame? To what purpose were erected those stupendious Structures, entituled The Wonders of the World, viz. The walls of Babylon, the Rhodian Colossus, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Tomb of Mausolus, Diana's Temple at Ephesus, the Pharoes Watch-Tower, and the Statue of Jupiter in Achaya, were they not all to purchase an immortal Fame thereby? Nay, how soon was this Ambition bred in the heart of man? for we read in Genesis the 11th. how that presently after the Flood, the People journeying from the East, they said among themselves, Go to, let us build us a City, and a tower, whose Top may reach unto Heaven; and let us make us a Name. Here you see the intent of their Building was to make them a Name, though God made it a Confusion; as all such other lofty Buildings built in Blood and Tyranny, of which nothing now remains but the Name; which is excellently exprest by Ovid in the Fifteenth Book of his Metamorphosis.

Troy rich and powerful, which so proudly stood,

That could for ten years spend such streams of Blood,

For Buildings, only her old Ruines shows,

For Riches, Tombs, which slaughter'd Sires enclose,

Sparta, Mycenæ, were of Greece the Flowers;

So Cecrops City, and Amphion's Towers:

Now glorious Sparta lies upon the ground.

Lofty Mycenæ hardly to be found.

Of Oedipus his Thebes what now remains?

Or of Pandion's Athens, but their Names?

So also Sylvester in his Du Bartus.

Thebes, Babel, Rome, those proud Heaven-daring Wonders,

Lo under ground in Dust and Ashes lie,

For earthly Kingdoms even as men do die.

By this you may see that frail Paper is more durable than Brass or Marble; and the Works of the Brain more lasting than that of the Hand; so true is that old Verse,

Marmora Mæonij vincunt Monumenta Libelli:

Vivitur ingenio, cætera mortis erunt.

The Muses Works Stone-Monuments outlast.

'Tis Wit keeps Life, all else Death will down cast.

Now though it is the desire of all Writers to purchase to themselves immortal Fame, yet is their Fate far different; some deserve Fame, and have it; others neither have it, nor deserve it; some have it not deserving, and others, though deserving, yet totally miss it, or have it not equall to their Deserts: Thus have I known a well writ Poem, after a double expence of Brain to bring it forth, and of Purse to publish it to the World, condemned to the Drudgery of the Chandler or Oyl-man, or, which is worse, to light Tobacco. I have read in Dr. Fuller's Englands Worthies, that Mr. Nathanael Carpenter, that great Scholar for Logick, the Mathematicks, Geography, and Divinity, setting forth a Book of Opticks, he found, to his great grief, the Preface thereof in his Printers House, Casing Christmas-Pies, and could never after from his scattered Notes recover an Original thereof; thus (saith he) Pearls are no Pearls, when Cocks or Coxcombs find them.

There are two things which very much discourage Wit; ignorant Readers, and want of Mecænasses to encourage their Endeavours. For the first, I have read of an eminent Poet, who passing by a company of Bricklayers at work, who were repeating some of his Verses, but in such a manner as quite marred the Sence and Meaning of them; he snatching up a Hammer, fell to breaking their Bricks; and being demanded the reason thereof, he told them, that they spoiled his Work, and he spoiled theirs. And for the second; what greater encouragement to Ingenuity than Liberality? Hear what the Poet Martial saith,

Lib. 10. Epig. 11.

What deathless numbers from my Pen would flow,

What Wars would my Pierian Trumpet blow,

If, as Augustus now again did live,

So Rome to me would a Mecænas give.

The ingenious Mr. Oldham, the glory of our late Age, in one of his Satyrs, makes the renowned Spenser's Ghost thus speak to him, disswading him from the Study of Poetry.

Chuse some old English Hero for thy Theme,

Bold Arthur, or great Edward's greater Son,

Or our fifth Henry, matchless to renown;

Make Agin-Court, and Crescy-fields out-vie

The fam'd Laucinan-shores, and walls of Troy;

What Scipio, what Mæcenas wouldst thou find;

What Sidney now to thy great project kind?

Bless me! how great a Genius! how each Line

Is big with Sense! how glorious a design

Does through the whole, and each proportion shine!

How lofty all his Thoughts, and how inspir'd!

Pity, such wondrous Parts are not preferr'd:

Cry a gay wealthy Sot, who would not bail,

For bare Five Pounds the Author out of Jail,

Should he starve there and rot; who, if a Brief

Came out the needy Poets to relieve,

To the whole Tribe would scarce a Tester give.

But some will say, it is not so much the Patrons as the Poets fault, whose wide Mouths speak nothing but Bladders and Bumbast, treating only of trifles, the Muses Haberdashers of small wares.

Whose Wit is but a Tavern-Tympany,

The Shavings and the Chips of Poetry.

Indeed such Pedlars to the Muses, whose Verse runs like the Tap, and whose invention ebbs and flows as the Barrel, deserve not the name of Poets, and are justly rejected as the common Scriblers of the times: but for such who fill'd with Phebean-fire, deserve to be crowned with a wreath of Stars; for such brave Souls, the darlings of the Delian Deity, for these to be scorn'd, contemn'd, and disregarded, must needs be the fault of the times; I shall only give you one instance of a renowned Poet, out of the same Author.

On Butler, who can think without just rage,

The glory and the scandal of the age,

Fair stood his hopes, when first he came to Town,

Met every where with welcoms of renown,

Courted, and lov'd by all, with wonder read,

And promises of Princely favour fed:

But what reward for all had he at last,

After a life in dull expectance pass'd?

The wretch at summing up his mispent days,

Found nothing left, but poverty, and praise:

Of all his gains by Verse he could not save

Enough to purchase Flannel, and a grave:

Reduc'd to want, he in due time fell sick,

Was fain to die, and be interr'd on Tick:

And well might bless the Feaver that was sent,

To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent.

Thus you see though we have had some comparable to Homer for Heroick Poesie, and to Euripides for Tragedy, yet have they died disregarded, and nothing left of them, but that only once there were such Men and Writings in being.

I shall, in the next place, speak something of my Undertakings, in writing the Lives of these Renowned Poets. Two things, I suppose, may be laid to my charge; the one is the omission of some that ought with good reason to have been mentioned; and the other, the mentioning of those which without any injury might have been omitted. For the first, as I have begg'd pardon at the latter end of my Book for their omission, so have I promised, (if God spare me life so long) upon the first opportunity, or second Edition of this Book, to do them right. In the mean time I should think my self much beholding to those persons who would give me any intelligence herein, it being beyond the reading and acquaintance of any one single person to do it of himself.

And yet, let me tell ye, that by the Name of Poet, many more of former times might have been brought in than what I have named, as well as those which I have omitted that are now living, namely, Sir Walter Rawleigh, Mr. John Weever, Dr. Heylin, Dr. Fuller, &c. but the Volume growing as big as the Bookseller at present was willing to have it, we shall reserve them to another time, they having already eternized their Names by the never dying Histories which they have wrote.

Then for the second thing which may be objected against me, That I have incerted some of the meanest rank; I answer, That comparatively, it is a less fault to incert two, than to omit one, most of which in their times were of good esteem, though now grown out of date, even as some learned Works have been at first not at all respected, which afterwards have been had in high estimation; as it is reported of Sir Walter Rawleigh, who being Prisoner in the Tower, expecting every hour to be sacrificed to the Spanish cruelty, some few days before he suffered, he sent for Mr. Walter Burre, who had formerly printed his first Volume of of the History of the World, whom, taking by the hand, after some other discourse, he ask'd him, How that Work of his had sold? Mr. Burre returned this answer, That it sold so slowly, that it had undone him. At which words of his, Sir Walter Rawleigh stepping to his Desk, reaches the other part of his History, to Mr. Burre, which he had brought down to the times he lived in; clapping his hand on his breast, he took the other unprinted part of his Works into his hand with a sigh, saying, Ah my Friend, hath the first Part undone thee? The second Volume shall undo no more; this ungrateful World is unworthy of it; When immediately going to the fire-side he threw it in, and set his foot on it till it was consumed. As great a Loss to Learning as Christendom could have, or owned; for his first Volume after his death sold Thousands.

It may likewise be objected, That some of these Poets here mentioned, have been more famous in other kind of Studies than in Poetry, and therefore do not shine here as in their proper sphere of fame; but what then, shall their general knowledge debar them from a particular notice of their Abilities in this most excellent Art? Nor have we scarce any Poet excellent in all its Species thereof; some addicting themselves most to the Epick, some to the Dramatick, some to the Lyrick, other to the Elegiack, the Epænitick, the Bucolick, or the Epigram; under one of which all the whole circuit of Poetick Design is one way or other included.

Besides, should we have mentioned none but those who upon a strict scrutiny the Name of Poet doth belong unto, I fear me our number would fall much short of those which we have written; for as one writes, There are many that have a Fame deservedly for what they have writ, even in Poetry itself, who, if they come to the test, I question how well they would endure to open their Eagle-eyes against the Sun. But I shall wade no further in this Discourse, desiring you to accept of what is here written.

I remain
Yours,

William Winstanley.

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