Great Britain -- History -- Poetry; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Sources
and Tenements in the territories of Normandy, Therilbie, Darbie, and
Burton co. Lincoln; leaving four sons, William, Thomas, Edward, and
Francis: but it is not easy to identify either father or son with our
“Baldwyne’s worthie name,
whose Mirrour doth of Magistrates
Proclayme eternal! fame.”
_Heywood._ 1560.
[41] John Skelton, poet laureat, born ...... died 21 June, 1529.
[42] John Dolman was student and fellow of the Inner Temple. He
translated _Those fyue Questions which Marke Tullye Cicero disputed in
his manor of Tusculanum_, 1561.
[43] Thomas Sackville was born at Buckhurst, in the parish of Withiam,
in the county of Sussex. He was the only son of Sir Richard Sackville,
knight, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentation to King Edward the
VIth. afterwards to Q. Mary, and Under Treasurer of the Exchequer to
Q. Elizabeth, (by Winifred Brydges); at whose death the jury upon the
inquisition found that he died 21st April, in the eighth year of the
reign of Elizabeth (1566), leaving his son Thomas S. then twenty-nine
years of age, thereby making the time of his birth in 1537, a year
later than that mentioned by all his biographers. Probably it should
stand 1536-7. He was first sent to Hart-hall, Oxford, but removed
to Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master of Arts, and was
celebrated as a Latin and English poet at both universities. Like
Phaer, Ferrers, and other contemporary wits, he was entered in the
Inner Temple, and so far persevered in the study of the law as to
be called to the bar. The earliest effort of his unrivalled genius
that has been preserved was a joint production, and forms the first
legitimate tragedy existing in our language. It was called by the
authors _Ferrex_ and _Porrex_, but is more generally known as the
tragedy of _Gorboduc_, and only composed for “furniture of part of
the grand Christmas,” or revels, a species of amusement that combined
dramatic representations with feasts and balls, and then occasionally
kept with great magnificence by the society of the Inner Temple. This
dramatic piece was first performed by the students in their hall,
and afterwards by them on the 18th Jan. 1561, before Elizabeth at
Whitehall. In this composition he is supposed to have assisted Thomas
Norton, as, according to the title of the spurious edition of the play,
of 1565, “three actes were written by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste
by Thomas Sackvyle;” but the authorised edition of 1570, only extends
to say it was “never intended by the authors thereof to be published,”
and without attempting any thing like the above apportionment. The
claim of Norton has been repeatedly doubted. Warton observes thereon:
“The force of internal evidence often prevails over the authority of
assertion, a testimony which is diminished by time, and may be rendered
suspicious from a variety of other circumstances. Throughout the whole
piece, there is an invariable uniformity of diction and versification.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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