SOME ACCOUNT OF GEORGE PEELE AND HIS WRITINGS. GEORGE PEELE, a gentleman by birth,* was, it is said, a native of Devonshire.t "Malone conjectures that he was born in 1557 or 1558 ; but, since in the first extant Matriculation-book § of the University of Oxford, about the year 1564, Peele is mentioned as a member of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), and since it is unlikely that he was entered before the age of 12 or 13, we may reasonably carry back the date of his birth to 1552 or 1553. According to Wood he was elected 'student of Christ-church 1573, or thereabouts.' He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts on the 12th of June, 1577, determined during the following Lent, and was made Master of Arts on the 6th of July, 1579." So I wrote in 1828,-long before the late Dr. Bliss had communicated to me the following extract from a * "Generosus" : see, post, the extract from the " Depositions" in the University Court; which at once overthrows Mr. Collier's hypothesis that he was the son of a bookseller. "Peele," says Mr. Collier, was, we have every reason to believe, the son of Stephen Peele a ballad-writing bookseller, two of whose productions are printed in the earliest publication of the Percy Society. The Rev. Mr. Dyce was not aware of Peele's parentage." Note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 39, ed. Shake. Soc. "George Peele was, if I mistake not, a Devonian born." Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 688, ed. Bliss. Some of Peele's biographers, who wrote after Wood, positively state that he was born in Devonshire, but they produce no authority to confirm the assertion. In the Jest "How George Peele was shaven," &c. (see Peele's Jests at the end of the present vol.) we are told, that "the gentleman" who patronised him "dwelt in the west country."-The document quoted in the preceding note designates him as "civitatis Londonensis",-" of the city of London",-which certainly does not necessarily imply that he was born in London. Reg. Congreg. K. K. 234, b; 252, 276, b. For these exact references to the University Registers, as well as for other valuable communications, I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Bliss. volume of MS. Depositions in the University Court, Oxford: which, unless I misunderstand it, proves that Peele, being twenty-five years old when he gave evidence in March 1583, must have been born in 1558; and, moreover, that the date assigned above to the first extant Matriculation-book of the University of Oxford is incorrect : "Testis inductus ex parte Johannis Yate super positionibus [possessionibus ?] heris [et hæreditamentis ?] juratus, in perpetuam rei memoriam, examinatus XXIX° Martii 1583, "Georgius Peele, civitatis Londonensis, generosus, ubi moram traxit fere per duos annos, et antea in Universitate Oxoniæ per novem annos, etatis XXV annorum, testis, &c. "Ad primum dicit esse verum, for so the executor Hugh Christian hath confessed to this deponent. "Ad secundum dicit that he thinketh it to be trewe, for Horne hath tolde this deponent so. "Ad tertium dicit esse verum, for that the land descended to this deponent in the right of his wife, and that the said Horne hath sayed to this deponent that he might make his choise whether he wold lay the band vppon the executor or the heyre of the land, being this deponent's wife, et aliter non habet deponere, ut dicit." We are informed by Wood that Peele "was esteemed a most noted poet in the University "+; and it is most probable that the Tale of Troy, which he published in 1589, and which he calls "an old poem of mine own," was written during his academic course. To the same period of his life we may assign his English version of one of the two Iphigenias of Euripides,-a lost work, and known to me only from the following verses by Dr. Gager, which are now for the first time printed : "In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam. "Aut ego te nimio forsan complector amore, Aut tua sunt aptis carmina scripta modis. Dr. Bliss remarks: "These Depositions of the various witnesses in various causes are reduced into writing by the Registrar of the Court, entered in a book by him, and then signed by the witness; but the evidence in the causes is not continuous, that is, the examinations are entered day by day as they take place," &c. He took the degrees in arts, that of master being compleated 1579. At which time, as he was esteemed a most noted poet in the University, so afterwards," &c. Ath. Ox. vol. i. col. 689, ed. Bliss. To Wood's account Dr. Bliss adds, "He is characterised as 'poeta' in the transcript of degrees made for Edward Rowe Mores, now among Gough's MSS. in the Bodleian." They form a portion of a volume of MS. poetry by Dr. Gager (in his own hand-writing) which was lent to me by the late Mr. Rodd the bookseller.-Gager was elected student of Christ-Church in 1574 (see Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 87, ed, Bliss). His Latin plays were much admired: two of them are mentioned post, p.p. 326-7. Oxoniæ fateor subitum mirabar acumen, Et tua cum lepidis seria mista jocis. Ergo si quicquam, quod parvum est, carmine possim, Cumque tui nimio non sim deceptus amore, Perge, precor, priscos tibi devincire poetas ; "In eandem. "Carmina dum sero meditabar vespere mecum Hic me nescio quis cubito deprendere cœpit, Robora dat celsum, dat quoque fraga, nemus: Magni, si tentes, illa laboris erunt : Nostra quidem fateor; sed inest quoque gratia nostris, Et satis ingenuis perplacuere viris. Græca quidem doctis, etiam Romana, legantur; Sed tamen innumeros utraque lingua latet. Iis [Is?] hæc scribuntur: quanquam bene reddita nostris, Et doctis placeant illa vel illa modis. * i. e. Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis is here alluded to. From the "Deposition" of Peele at Oxford, March 29th, 1583 (see ante, p. 324), we learn that just before that date he had been residing about two years in London; and that he was possessed of some "land which had descended to him in the right of his wife." We can hardly doubt that during those two years he had occasionally employed his pen for the metropolitan theatres, and it is not improbable that he had also occasionally exercised his histrionic talents. Of his wife nothing more is known. In June, 1583, Albertus Alasco, a Polish Prince Palatine, spent several days at Oxford, having been recommended by the Queen to the attentions of the University; and in an old Account-book, which contains the charges for his entertainment there, the following items are found : "To Mr. Peele for provision for the playes at Christchurche, xviijli." "The Charges of a Comedie and a Tragedie and a shewe of fire worke, as appeareth by the particular bills of Mr. Vice-chancelor, Mr. Howson, Mr. Maxie, and Mr. Peele, 86i 18s 2d" Peele perhaps may have acted in the two Latin plays exhibited on this occasion: but it is more likely that he only assisted in getting them up. Of Alasco's visit to Oxford we have a minute description in Holinshed, part of it running thus. vp the high street vnto saint Maries church, on either side the waie, were decentlie marshalled scholers in their gownes and caps, batchelors and maisters in their habits and hoods. At saint Maries the orator of the vniuersitie (notable in his facultie) presented him a booke, in which were closelie couched verie rich and gorgeous gloues. From thense he marched to Christs church, where he was, whilest he abode in the vniuersitie, most honourablie interteined. And the first night being vacant, as in which he sought rather rest in his lodging than recreation in anie academicall pastimes, strange fire workes were shewed, in the great quadrangle, besides rockets and a number such maner of deuises. On the second daie his first dinner was made him at Alsoules college, where (besides dutifull receiuing of him) he was solemnelie satisfied with scholerlie exercises and courtlie fare. This night and the night insuing, after sumptuous suppers in his lodging, he personaly was present with his traine in the hall; first at the plaieing of a pleasant comedie intituled Riuales §; then at the · Effugiunt, &c.] From Ovid, Am. iii. ix. 28; "Diffugiunt avidos carmina sola rogos." + Which we are sure he did at some period of his life: see post, p. 330. These extracts from the Account-book were obligingly sent me by Dr. Bliss. § By Dr. Gager, whose eulogies on Peele have been before cited. setting out of a verie statelie tragedie named Dido*, wherein the queenes banket (with Eneas narration of the destruction of Troie) was liuelie described in a marchpaine patterne; there was also a goodlie sight of hunters with full crie of a kennell of hounds, Mercurie and Iris descending and ascending from and to an high place, the tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rosewater, and snew an artificiall kind of snow, all strange, maruellous, and abundant. Most of the actors were of the same house [Christ-Church], six or seauen of them were of saint Johns, and three or foure of other colleges and hals,+"&c. We hear no more of Peele at Oxford. The remainder of his life appears to have been passed chiefly in London, where he figured as one of the "authors by profession" who formed so numerous a body during the Elizabethan reign. -Among the town-wits of those days habits of debauchery were but too prevalent. Not a few of them hung loose upon society, now struggling with poverty and "driven to extreme shifts," and now, when successful plays or poems had put money in their purses, revelling in the pleasures of taverns and ordinaries; § some of them terminating a career of folly by miserable and untimely death. Peele, there is every reason to believe, mingled as eagerly as any of his contemporaries in the dissipations of London. He seems to have lived on terms of intimacy and friendship with the following persons, of whom, though they were all admired and celebrated in their day, the first-mentioned has alone acquired enduring fame: Christopher Marlowe; Robert Greene||, a dramatist of considerable powers, and a miscellaneous writer of inex * Also by Dr. Gager. Large portions of it, which I recovered from the author's own MS., are printed in Appendix III. to my edition of Marlowe's Works, ed. 1858. + Chronicles, &c., vol. iv. p. 508, ed. 1808. "From Oxford," says Berkenhout (Biog. Lit. p. 404), "he [Peele] went to London, where he became intimately acquainted with the two principal dramatic poets of that age, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, as appears from his letter to his friend Marle [Marlowe]." Berkenhout, who "had no doubt of the authenticity" of this letter, was not aware that the date assigned to it was 1600, that Marlowe died in 1593, and that Peele was dead in or before 1598: it is as follows. "Friend Marle, I must desyre that my syster hyr watche and the cookerie book you promysed, may be sente bye the man. I never longed for thy company more than last night we were all very merrye at the Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasauntely to thy friende Will that he had stolen his speeche about the qualityes of an actor's excellencye, in Hamlet his Trajedye, from conversations manyfold whych had passed betweene them, and opinyons given by Alleyn touchinge the subjecte. Shakespeare did not take this talke in good sorte; but Jonson put an end to the strife with wittylye remarkinge, 'This affaire needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned, no doubte; do not marvel: have you not seen him act tymes out of number !' Believe me most syncerilie your's G. PEEL." § But let us not forget the remark of Gifford : "Domestic entertainments were, at that time, rare: the accommodations of a private house were ill calculated for the purposes of a social meeting, and taverns and ordinaries are therefore almost the only places in which we hear of such assemblies. This undoubtedly gives an appearance of licentiousness to the age, which, in strictness, does not belong to it." Memoirs of Ben Jonson, p. cxc. || I may mention that, when I wrote the above notice of Greene (in 1828), my edition of his Dramatic Works and Poems had not yet made its appearance. |