Much more then men they be,
And ought like Doctors be enstald:
In seats of high degree.
What doth preserve the lives of men,
May clayme due honor right,
And should be praysd by tong and pen,
as farre as day gives light,
Long studie gives a glorious crowne,
A garland deckt with flowers,
Under whose shad, of rare renomine,
The Muses makes their bowers:
To set and see whose gifts excell,
In wit and cunning skill.
Who best doth work; who doth not wel,
And who bears most goodwill
To vertue, learning, and good mind,
The muses favour those,
And gives them grace of their owne kind
great secrets to disclose,
Revives ther wits, makes sharp their
sence
To judge, [ ], and know
Whose tong is typt with eloquence,
And whose fine pennes do flow,
And who the liberall art detaines,
And mortall vertue have,
In whome a hidded skill remaines:
And cunning knowledge brave.
It seemes a stranger here of late,
Hath from the gods divine,
Got credit, honour, and estate,
To please the Muses Nine.
The Surgeons of our King likewise,
The Surgeons of our King likewise,
Doth praese him for his skill,
His printed bookes may well suffice,
To win the worlds goodwill.
His merits far surmounts the love,
I beare to men of worth,
My pen doth but affection move,
His deeds doe set him forth.
His knowledge makes blind bonglers
blush
Their boldnes bring him fame,
Vaine [Vale mine] not worth a rush,
Where Low, but showes his name.
You paultry, senceles, saucie Jackes:
That patch up wounds in post,
Trudge hence, trusse up your pedlers
packs,
He cares not for your boast,
His face and brow from blot is cleere.
The Sages of our soyle,
Bids Doctor Low, still welcome here,
To your great shame and foyle.
Who well deſerves, is honoured much,
As tryall dayly showes,
Who hath good name, is wise and ritch,
And is loved where he goes.
Since of this Doctor and his Art,
Those vertues I rehearse,
I him in every poynt and part,
Salute with English verse.
Lowe, it seems, was not particular about who wrote his
commendatory poems. Presumably,
Churchyard, being regularly published, was all the qualification the surgeon
understood. Lowe was too young to have
been a field surgeon known to the old poet back during the day.
For all Lowe became quite famous we know little about his
personal predilections, whom he might have met where, etc. His book, however, teaches us that he is
smitten with Galen even more than was common among his fellow medical men at
the time.
Could Shakespeare be satiring Falstaff’s commendatory poem
on a subject he can only pretend to understand?
Might that be why there would appear to be nothing written by Galen on
the apoplectic deafness Falstaff attributes to him? While in Lowe’s book similar conditions are
addressed not by Galen but by Hippocrates?[1]
I decided not to include this in Edward de Vere’s
Retainer Thomas Churchyard: the Man Who was Falstaff as it is a bit of a
long reach (pending further information).
The many correspondences between Churchyard’s life and works and the
character of Falstaff, given there, were chosen as being less speculative, more
demonstrable.
[1] Shahan,
John M. Beyond A Doubt?, Shakespeare,
105. About Hippocrates being referred to in The Merry Wives of Windsor. “Hoeniger
also suggests that Shakespeare likely knew passages from Hippocrates’ Prognostic,
and speculates that Peter Lowe’s Whole Course of Chirurgerie (1597), which
included the first translation of the Presages of Hyppocrates was the
author’s likely source.” This is also
said of a reference in Richard II but that play was written in the late
1580s. Presumably after Humphrey Llwyd’s
translation of aphorisms from Hippocrates, Treasury of Healthe,
published in 1585, and dedicated to William Cecil, Baron Burghley.
[2]
Watt, Robert. Bibliotheca Britannica
lists a 1596 edition that does not seem to be verifiable by any second source. II.618v.
“LOWE, PETER, a native of Scotland, and Founder of the Faculty of
Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow; died there in 1612.—The whole Course of
Chirurgerie; wherein is briefly set down, the Causes, Signes,
Prognostications, and Curations of all sorts of
Tumours, Wounds, Vlcers, Fractures, Dislocations, and all other Diseases,
vsually practised by Chirurgeons, according to the opinion of all our auncient
Doctours in Chirurgerie. Compiled by Peter Lowe, Scotchman, Arelian Doctor in
the Facultie of Chirurgerie in Paris, and Chirurgian Ordinarie to the King of
Fraunce and Nauarre. Wherevnto is annexed, the Booke of the Presages of Deuyne
Hippocrates, deuyded into three partes; also the Protestation which Hippocrates
caused his Scholars to make. The whole collected and translated by Peter Lowe,
&c. Lond. 1596, 1597, 1612, 1634, 1654, 4tº,...
- How Edward de Vere Didn't Depart Italy (it turns out). July 19, 2017. "It seemed that Pasquale Spinola must have been mistaken or misled. There would not have been nearly enough time to visit Florence, Siena, Rome, Naples and Palermo and to return to Venice. Such a trip took considerable time in the 16th century."
- Edward de Vere's Memorial For His Son, Who Died at Birth May 1583. July 5, 2017. "The brief Viscount Bulbeck being the son of the renowned poet and playwright Edward de Vere, we might have hoped to have the text of the father’s own memorial poem. As far as traditional literary history is concerned, no such poem has yet been discovered."
- Shakespeare's Apricocks. February 21, 2017. "While he may never have been a gardener, he does seem more than superficially knowledgeable about the gardens of his day. One detail of such matters that he got wrong, however, is as much to the point as any."
- John Donne's"Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day". December 13, 2016. "Today, December 13, is Saint Lucy’s Day. In John Donne’s time, when the old calendar was still in use, it fell upon (and was, therefore, the feast of) the winter solstice."
- Enter John Lyly. October 18, 2016. "From time to time, Shakespeare Authorship aficionados query after the name “John Lyly”. This happens surprisingly little given the outsized role the place-seeker, novelist and playwright played in the lives of the playwright William Shakespeare and Edward de Vere."
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