David Wilson-Okamura wrote:
> I am grazing this morning in Charles Lamb's letters. In a letter to
> Wordsworth, dated June 1806, he says "has copied from my own copy, and
> primarily from a book of Chalmers's on Shakspeare, a sonnet of
> Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is curious, as being
> manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of Spenser's with nothing
> in it about love or knighthood."
>
> Any guesses? Sonnet on Lewkenor's translation of Contarini?
I found the answer to this two months later in Frederick Hard, "Lamb on
Spenser," Studies in Philology 28 (1931): 656-70, at 133. The sonnet was:
To the Right Worshipfull, my singular good frend,
M. Gabriell Haruey, Doctor of the Lawes.
HARUEY, the happy aboue happiest men
I read : that sitting like a Looker-on
Of this worldes Stage, doest note with critique pen
The sharpe dislikes of each condition :
And as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the fauour of the great :
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat.
But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat,
Like a great Lord of peerelesse liberty :
Lifting the good vp to high Honours seat,
And the Euill damning euermore to dy ;
For Life, and Death is in thy doomefull writing:
So thy renowme liues euer by endighting.
Dublin : this xviii of Iuly : 1586.
-- Notice the date. It would, I think, have been six years since Spenser
had last seen Harvey. (Is that right? Do we have any evidence that
Spenser returned to England before 1589?) Interesting also that he
thinks of Harvey now as a law professor.
I'm struck by that phrase "great Lord of peerlesse liberty," where
"peerlesse" is "without equal" but also perhaps "without nobles." In
which case, Harvey = primus (great lord) inter pares (in a lordless
society). Cf. OED s.v. 1: "An equal in civil standing or rank; one's
equal before the law."
Harvey = Egalitarian Giant ???
For the playgoer as drama critic, cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 15:
When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment;
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows,
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment...
In Shakespeare's sonnet, the stars observe the play, but also give
direction (through their unseen rays). In Spenser's sonnet, Harvey is
both a drama critic, watching from the gallery, and a player himself,
being watched from above ("suspition").
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Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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