An English Garner | Page 4

Meres, Maister of Arts
in both Universities.' On the title-page is the motto '_Vivitur ingenio,
cetera mortis erunt_.' It was printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie.
From the address to the reader, which does not appear in the first
edition, though it was apparently intended for that edition, we learn that
it had been undertaken because of the extraordinary popularity of Wits
Commonwealth, which 'thrice within one year had runne thorough the
Presse.' Meres's work differs importantly from Wits Commonwealth. It
is not merely a compilation, but contains original matter, generally by
way of commentary. The extracts are much fuller, many being taken
from modern writers, notably Robert Greene, Lyly, Warner, and Sir
Philip Sidney. In 1634 the work was re-issued under another title,
_Wits Commonwealth, The Second Part: A Treasurie of Divine, Moral,
and Phylosophical Similes and Sentences generally useful. But more
particular published for the Use of Schools_. In 1636 it was again

reprinted. The only part of Meres's work which is of interest now is
what is here reprinted. It belongs to that portion of his compilation
which treats of studies and reading, the preceding sections discussing
respectively of 'books,' of 'reading of books,' of 'choice to be had in
reading of books,' of 'the use of reading many books,' of 'philosophers,'
of 'poetry,' of 'poets,' consisting for the most part of remarks compiled
from Plutarch, and in one or two instances from Sir Philip Sidney's
_Defence of Poetry. A portion of the passage which immediately
precedes the Discourse may be transcribed because of its plain
speaking about the indifference of Elizabeth and her ministers to the
fortune of poets; though this, with curious inconsistency, is flatly
contradicted, probably for prudential reasons, in the Discourse itself--
'As the Greeke and Latin Poets have wonne immortal credit to their
native speech, being encouraged and graced by liberal patrones and
bountiful benefactors; so our famous and learned Lawreate masters of
England would entitle our English to far greater admired excellency, if
either the Emperor Augustus or Octavia his sister or noble Maecenas
were alive to reward and countenance them; or if witty Comedians and
stately Tragedians (the glorious and goodlie representers of all fine
witte, glorified phrase and great action) bee still supported and uphelde,
by which meanes (O ingrateful and damned age) our Poets are soly or
chiefly maintained, countenanced and patronized.'
Of the author of this work, Francis Meres or Meers, comparatively little
is known. He sprang from an old and highly respectable family in
Lincolnshire, and was born in 1565, the son of Thomas Meres, of
Kirton in Holland in that county. After graduating from Pembroke
College, Cambridge, in 1587, proceeding M.A. in 1591 at his own
University, and subsequently by ad eundem at Oxford, he settled in
London, where in 1597, having taken orders, he was living in Botolf
Lane. He was presented in July 1602 to the rectory of Wing in Rutland,
keeping a school there. He remained at Wing till his death, in his
eighty-first year, January 29, 1646-7. As Charles FitzGeoffrey, in a
Latin poem in his Affaniae addressed to Meres, speaks of him as
'_Theologus et poeta_', it is possible that the 'F.M.' who was a
contributor to the Paradise of Dainty Devices is to be identified with
Meres. In addition to the Palladis Tamia, Meres was the author of a
sermon published in 1597, a copy of which is in the Bodleian, and of

two translations from the Spanish, neither of which is of any interest.
Meres's Discourse is, like the rest of his work, mainly a compilation,
with additions and remarks of his own. Much of it is derived from the
thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham; with these
distinctions, that Meres's includes the poets who had come into
prominence between 1589 and 1598, and instituted parallels,
biographical and critical, between them and the ancient Classics. It is
the notices of these poets, and more particularly the references to
Shakespeare's writings, which make this treatise so invaluable to
literary students. Thus we are indebted to Meres for a list of the plays
which Shakespeare had produced by 1598, and for a striking testimony
to his eminence at that date as a dramatic poet, as a narrative poet, and
as a writer of sonnets. The perplexing reference to _Love's Labour's
Won_ has never been, and perhaps never will be, satisfactorily
explained. To assume that it is another title for _All's Well that Ends
Well_ in an earlier form is to cut rather than to solve the knot. It is
quite possible that it refers to a play that has perished. The references to
the imprisonment of Nash for writing the Isle of Dogs, to the unhappy
deaths of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, and to the high personal
character of