This pamphlet has been ascribed to John Lilly, but it must be confessed that its native vigour strangely contrasts with the famous Euphuism of that refined writer. [There can, however, be little doubt that he was the author of this tract, as he is alluded to more than once as such by Harvey in his “Pierce’s Supererogation;”—“would that Lilly had alwaies been Euphues and never Pap-hatchet.”—Ed.]
Tarleton appears to have had considerable power of extemporising satirical rhymes on the fleeting events of his own day. A collection of his Jests was published in 1611; the following is a favourable specimen:—“There was a nobleman asked Tarleton what he thought of soldiers in time of peace. Marry, quoth he, they are like chimneys in summer.”—Ed.
A long list of Elderton’s popular rhymes is given by Ritson in his “Bibliographia Poetica.” One of them, on the “King of Scots and Andrew Browne,” is published in Percy’s “Reliques,” who speaks of him as “a facetious fuddling companion, whose tippling and whose rhymes rendered him famous among his contemporaries.” Ritson is more condensed and less civil in his analysis; he simply describes him as “a ballad-maker by profession, and drunkard by habit.”—Ed.
Harvey, in the title-page of his “Pierce’s Supererogation,” has placed an emblematic woodcut, expressive of his own confidence, and his contempt of the wits. It is a lofty palm-tree, with its durable and impenetrable trunk; at its feet lie a heap of serpents, darting their tongues, and filthy toads, in vain attempting to pierce or to pollute it. The Italian motto, wreathed among the branches of the palm, declares, Il vostro malignare non giova nulla: Your malignity avails nothing.
Among those Sonnets, in Harvey’s “Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets, especially touching Robert Greene and other parties by him abused, 1592,” there is one, which, with great originality of conception, has an equal vigour of style, and causticity of satire, on Robert Greene’s death. John Harvey the physician, who was then dead, is thus made to address the town-wit, and the libeller of himself and his family. If Gabriel was the writer of this singular Sonnet, as he undoubtedly is of the verses to Spenser, subscribed Hobynol, it must be confessed he is a Poet, which he never appears in his English hexameters:—
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John Harvey the Physician’s Welcome to Robert Greene!
“Come, fellow Greene, come to thy gaping grave, Bid vanity and foolery farewell, That ouerlong hast plaid the mad-brained knaue, And ouerloud hast rung the bawdy bell. Vermine to vermine must repair at last; No fitter house for busie folke to dwell; Thy conny-catching pageants are past[86], Some other must those arrant stories tell; These hungry wormes thinke long for their repast; Come on; I pardon thy offence to me; It was thy living; be not so aghast! A fool and a physitian may agree! And for my brothers never vex thyself; They are not to disease a buried elfe.” |