Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T22:54:47.124Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A History of Fairfax Criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charles C. Bell*
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

Edward Fairfax, Elizabethan poet and translator, is most famous for his version of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. Opinions of this book have varied so greatly that Fairfax critics alone afford an interesting cross-section of English taste. We may see the author admired by his contemporaries for his Italianate richness of description, praised by the seventeenth century for his smoothness and heroics, neglected by the eighteenth for his lack of elegance and rime (i.e., of couplets), revived by the romantics for his touching passages of emotion, and left on the shelf today because, perhaps, we have other things to think about.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 1947 , pp. 644 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1947

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Godfrey of Bulloigne or the Recoverie of Jerusalem (London, 1600).

2 London; 1600. Compiled by Robert Allot.

3 There are descriptions under the headings: Angels, Ambition, Beautie, Courage, Dread, Earth, Fame, Fate, Fear, etc., through all the five hundred pages.

4 By mathematical analysis we may get an idea of Fairfax's place in the poetry of his day. He is quoted fifty times. Spenser, the most popular, is quoted four hundred and fifty times. Drayton runs second with nearly three hundred, Daniel third with one hundred and eighty. Warner and J. Higgins (Mirrour for Magistrates) are high bidders. After these the numbers drop; there are few other men better represented than Fairfax, and among those that he equals or excels are Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Gascoigne, Sydney, Kyd, Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare, Dekker, Davies, Ben Jonson. Of the translators, only one, S. I. Harington, is given more space than Fairfax, and it is to be remembered that Harington had translated Orlando Furioso in a vigorous style some nine years before, and was by 1600 very well known. It may be concluded that Fairfax became an established poet soon after the publication of his Godfrey. In passing we may note that (judging from Allot's selection) it was for the aureate passages, in which he freely decorated his original, that Fairfax was chiefly admired.

5 Ben Jonson Works, Ed. by C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson (Oxford, 1925), i, 132-133.

6 He “said he has written a discourse of Poesie both against Campion and Daniel.” He condemned the stanza form (Godfrey of Bulloigne is written in ottava rime). “Sidney,” he said, “did not keep a Decorum … Spencers stanzaes pleased him not, nor his matter, … Samuel Daniel was a good honest Man, had no children, bot no poet, … translations of Homer and Virgill in Long Alexandrines were but Prose, … John Harringtones Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst … Done, for not keeping of accent deserved hanging … Shakesperr wanted Arte… . He thought not Bartas a Poet but a Verser, … He cursed petrarch,” etc.

7 In the same conversation we are told: “He read his translation of that Ode of Horace, Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, etc., and admired it.” His version begins:

Happie is he, that from all Businesse cleere,
As the old race of Mankind were,
With his owne Oxen tills his Sires left Lands,
And is not in the Usurers bands.

Many may have read this translation with pleasure, but perhaps few have admired it so greatly as Jonson.

8 Godfrey, i, 14:

Of silver wings he tooke a shining paire,
Fringed with gold, unwearied, nimble, swift;
With these he parts the windes, the clouds, the aire,
And over seas and earth himselfe doth lift:
Thus clad he cut the spheares and circles faire,
And the pure skies with sacred feathers clift.
On Libanon at first his foot he set,
And shooke his wings, with roarie May-dewes wet.

9 The most striking stanza of Clorinda's death is this one, in which Fairfax, slightly adorning the Italian, shows an amazing richness of image, without wholly passing from naturalness of emotion. In other places his sensuousness sometimes becomes oppressive; here it is still directed by poetic taste:

As violets blew mongst lillies pure men throw,
So palenes midst her native white begunne.
Her lookes to heav'n she cast, their eies I trow
Downeward for pitie bent both heav'n and sunne,
Her naked hand she gave the knight, in show
Of love and peace, her speech (alas) was donne,
And thus the virgin fell on endlesse sleepe.
Love, beautie, vertue, for your darling weepe.
(Godfrey, xii, 69)

The last line is a typical Fairfax addition; there is no suggestion of it in Tasso.

10 London, 1624.

11 “Sir, The command of his Maiestie, seconded by your Highnesse, hath caused mee to renew the impression of this booke. The former edition had the honour to be dedicated to the late Queene Elizabeth, of famous memorie, as appeareth by a worthy Elogie, here preserved. I could not leave this second birth of so excellent an Author, without a living Patron; and none could be found fitter than your Princetly self, who as you have highly commended it, so it is to be presumed, you will take it into your safe and Princely protection.”

12 See note 20 infra.

13 London, 1675.

14 London, 1687.

15 Sir Roger L'Estrange, a noted Tory pamphleteer, and it would appear from his Civil War record, a man of passionate energy. Clarendon credited him with “a good wit and a fancy very luxuriant.” He was licencer of books at his time, and it is probably through his activity that the Godfrey was reprinted. He evidently admired the poem.

16 The poem is by Robert Gould (d. 1709?) the author of Love Given Over, The Corruption of the Times by Money, and other satires, along with a tragedy, The Rival Sisters, or the Violence of Love.

17 This 1687 Edition was reprinted in 1726, with a few changes. The reprint contains no new tributes to Fairfax.

18 Though the debt of Waller to Fairfax cannot be treated here, it may be illustrated by two (of many possible) passages in which Waller imitates Fairfax. Here is the first, from Instructions to a Painter, ff. 159-160 with its epithet phrase and careful balance:

He feels no Wound, but in his troubled Thought;
Before for Honour, now Revenge, he fought.
This is from, Godfrey, vi, 70:
For in the secret of her troubled thought,
A doubtful combat, love and honour fought.

The other qualities mentioned above are illustrated in this passage, also for the Instructions to a Painter, 11. 209-210:

Fierce, Goodly, Young, Mars he resembles, when
Jove send him down to scourge perfidious Men,
which derives from the Godfrey, v, 44:
Was none so stout, so fierce, so faire, so yong,
God Mars he seemed descending from his spheare,
Or one whose lookes could make great Mars to feare.

19 John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern (London, 1700).

20 London, 1711. It is interesting to note that the anonymous life from which the above is quoted has been generally attributed to Francis Atterbury. This may explain his requesting in 1705 from Brian Fairfax information about the poet.

21 British Museum, Addit. MSS, 5144, ff. 92-98, the autograph letter. Published in the Atterbury Correspondence, edited by J. Nichols (London, 1783). This account is one of the few sources for a biography of Fairfax. Since it was sent to Atterbury at his request, we may assume that he had an admiration for Fairfax. His copy of the Godfrey (1600 edition), with autograph notes is preserved in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford.

22 In the first volume of her proposed series, The Muses Library etc. being selections from the English poets “from the Saxons to the Reign of King Charles II,” she includes passages from the Tasso, with one of the previously unpublished eclogues, and a biography and criticism of Fairfax. It is to be remembered that in her excellent critical remarks both here and elsewhere she probably speaks for her friend, the scholar, William Oldys.

Her account runs: “Edward Fairfax, Esq., a Gentleman of so much Merit, that he eminently deserves to be ranked among the First of our English Writers; yet has He hitherto been treated with so much Neglect, to say no Worse, That no one Author has afforded us a tolerable Sketch of his life; or given Themselves the Trouble to make the slightest Enquiring after Him. Philips so far overlooks' him, that he was forc'd to Crowd him into his Supplement [acknowledged in Mrs. Cooper's preface to be an error, Sackville being the crowded poet] and his Transcriber Winstanly, does, in a Manner, the same, by postponing him till after the Earl of Rochester. Sir Thomas Pope Blunt makes no mention of him at all; and Mr. Jacob informs us that he wrote in the Reign of King Charles the First; tho' He dedicates his Translation of Tasso to Queen Elizabeth; Indeed all that name him, do him the Justice to allow he was an accomplished Genius; but then ‘tis in so cool, and careless a Manner, as plainly indicates they were very little acquainted with the Merit they prais'd… . ‘Twas impossible for the great Mr. Dryden to be so insensible and, accordingly we find him introducing Spencer, and Fairfax, almost on the Level, as the leading Authors of their Times; nay tacitly yielding the Palm in Point of Musick to the last; by asserting, That Waller confessed He ow'd the Harmony of his Numbers to the Godfrey of Bulloign, of Fairfax. … In Fact, this Gentleman is the only Writer down to D'Avenant that needs no Apology to be made for him on Account of the Age he lived in, … . His Diction being, generally speaking, so pure, so elegant, and full of Graces, and the Turn of his Lines so perfectly Melodious, That I hardly believe the Original Italian, has greatly the Advantage in either; Nor could any Author, in my opinion, be justified for attempting Tasso, anew, as long as as his Translation can be read.”

23 London, 1738. Mrs. Rowe renders the beginning of Book IV:

“But while to bring about their great Intent,
The Christian Army all their Vigour bent;
The potent enemy of Human-kind,
Revolv'd thir happy Progress in his Mind;“ etc.

The equivalent Fairfax passage is:

“While thus their worke went on with luckie speed,
And reared rammes their horned fronts advance,
The ancient foe to man, and mortal seed,
His wannish eies upon them bent askance.

24 London, 1738. Brooke's translations are smooth, but inaccurate, his nature descriptions are luscious formality. Here is an example from Book iii, Stanza 1:

“The eastern Breeze, fresh Harbinger of Dawn,
Sprung from the Surge, and whisper'd o'er the Lawn,
Aurora wak'd, suffused with early Dew,
And round her Form her purpling Vesture threw,
Her orient Locks increasing Glory shed,
And Eden's Rose adorned her radiant Head.

25 London, 1738. Hooke's attempt is rather turgid:

“O Heavenly Muse! for not of Pindus thou,
Nor deck'd with fading Bays thy hallow'd Brow,
Nor in Aonia's Hill art wont to rove,
But sit'st enthron'd amid the Quires above,
Where round thy Head a circling Glory plays
Of Stars effulgent with immortal Rays,
Thou did my Breast celestial Warmth receive !
Thou tune my Numbers!“ etc.

26 The Works of Virgil, ed. by Joseph Warton (London, 1753), ii, 60.

27 In the Bodleian, Douce TT 65.

28 Such unwarrantable alterations are common; ii, 96, (8) and iv, 4, (8) are examples.

29 London, 1763.

30 This is overlooking the work of Doyne.

31 Hoole apparently neglects the fact that there had been at least five editions of the Godfrey, one only shortly before his writing.

32 In the first edition these remarks do not appear, Fairfax being there wholly ignored. This quotation is from the third edition of 1767.

33 Joseph Warton, in an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, 1782 edition. Vol. ii, p. 422, etc. Warton seems from his edition of Milton's minor poems to have known Fairfax well. Most of the notes for this edition derive from Thomas Warton. They show knowledge and respect for the Godfrey. And Joseph Warton, in his edition of Pope, iv, 205, apparently placed Fairfax beside Shakespeare: “The taste and knowledge of Charles I in the fine arts are universally acknowledged; and his fondness for Shakespeare and Fairfax's Tasso shows his judgement in Poetry.”

34 In his Life of Waller, Lives of the Poets.

35 Written about 1749, and first printed with interpolations by the editor in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, i (1768), 63. In his letters Collins has announced the intention of writing to the editor of the 1749 Godfrey, but such a communication has not been found.

36 In scenes like these, which daring to depart

From sober truth, are still to nature true,
And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view,
Th' heroic Muse employ'd her Tasso's art.
How have I trembled, when at Tancred's stroke
Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd !
When each live plant with mortal accents spoke,
And the wild blast up-heav'd the vanish'd sword !
How have I sat when pip'd the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British fairfax strung:
Prevailing poet ! whose undoubting mind
Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung !
Hence at each sound imagination glows !
Hence at each picture vivid life starts here !
Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows,
Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
And fills th' impassion'd heart, and wins the harmonious ear.

37 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by E. V. Lucas (London, 1935), No. 22.

38 Misquoted: Johnson did not say “old version,” nor “elegant translation of my friend Mr. Hoole.” The passage in question reads: “As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry the reader may judge how much he improved it.” The Lives of English Poets, etc. Vol. I (Dublin, 1779), p. 131 (Life of Waller).

39 It would be idle to conjecture though interesting to know, who these writers were. Wordsworth was perhaps one. It is known that he admired the book and was presented a copy with the three versions of the first stanza written in, “at his particular request.” See, Notes and Queries, Vol. ii (1850), p. 359. Scott also approved it, for in his Demonologia and Witchcraft, he calls Fairfax “a scholar of classical taste and a beautiful poet.” Hartley Coleridge in a note on p. 175 of his Lives of Distinguished Northerns (1833), gives a brief biography of Edward Fairfax with some praise of his poetry. There is a clipping, too, in the Bodleian 1624 Godfrey, Douce T 299, pasted inside the cover and attributed to Southey in which Fairfax is lauded. But to trace all Romantic mentions of Fairfax would be a long and needless task.

40 The reference here is, of course, to Hoole.

41 Johnson actually said: “Will perhaps not soon be reprinted.”

42 Not having access at present to the first edition, I have used the Singer reprint for these final quotations. It sometimes admits minor alteration of orthography.