The recent death of Stanyhurst, 1618, strengthens our belief that the Time-Poets was not later than 1620-32.
To William Basse we owe the beautiful epitaph on Shakespeare, printed in 1633, “Renowned Spencer, lye a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer,” etc., and at least two songs (beside “Great Brittaine’s Sunnes-set,” 1613), viz., the Hunter in his Career, beginning “Long ere the Morn,” and one of the best Tom o’ Bedlam’s; probably, “Forth from my sad and darksome cell.”
The name of John Shanke, here suggestively famous “for a jigg,” occurs in divers lists of players (see J. P. C.’s Annals of the Stage, passim), he having been one of Prince Henry’s Company in 1603. That he was also a singer, we have this verse in proof, written in the reign of James I. (Bibliog. Acc. i. 163):—
That’s the fat foole of the Curtin,
And the lean fool of the Bull:
Since Shanke did leave to sing his rimes
He is counted but a gull.
The Players on the Banckeside,
The round Globe and the Swan,
Will teach you idle tricks of love,