What Happened to the Shakespeare First Folio Commendatory Verses?

In this series:

• Leonard Digges and the Shakespeare First Folio.
• Leonard Digges with Context.
• What Happened to the Shakespeare First Folio Commendatory Verses?

I have mentioned in my book Edward de Vere Was Shakespeare¹ yet another interesting anomaly in the production of the Shakespeare First Folio. As folios or as major books by a popular author go, it has remarkably few commendatory poems.

xxxiii. The writers who provided the customary commendatory poems are unlikely (with the exception of Jonson) to have known either Shake-speare or Shakspere. They were as undistinguished a group as one could imagine for a volume by “the wonder of our stage”. Edward Blount, the publisher of the Folio, seems to have provided Leonard Digges and I. M. (who is suspected to have been James Mabbe whose father does seem to have purchased some manors from De Vere, in 1577, and an inn from Will Kempe’s father, in 1565² ) because they happened to be available authors from his publishing house. Hugh Holland appears to have been solicited by Jonson. Neither Jonson nor the Herberts saw fit to bring in bigger names or any of those still living who knew the secret of The Bard’s pen-name.

Besides Jonson we have a long time friend of Jonson and two members from the publishing stables of Edward Blount. Besides Jonson, none is likely to have known the author of the book.

There have been attempts to represent Leonard Digges as having known the author personally but the assertion does not stand up under scrutiny. While Digges knew the work of Shakespeare and his step-father may have been the Thomas Russell who drafted the Stratford man's will, Leonard and William only lived briefly, if at all, in neighboring towns.

The Digges boys retained a family property in London, for personal use, and likely remained there where they could get a quality education and extend their social contacts. Leonard went to Oxford University in 1603. From there he traveled for ten years to various European universties.³

 There is only one occasion that we know with certainty that he visited Stratford-Upon-Avon.  He seems to have arrived at the invitation of the aforesaid young Combes who he had befriended as a fellow student at Oxford.  It was 15 years after the death of Shaksper of Stratford and the letter that tells us of his visit also informs us that he was not familiar with the place and had to ask questions of the locals in order to learn a  bit about it.  He gives no sign that he even briefly visited the house or the tomb of Shaksper.⁴

The group of Oxford fellows took a tour of the environs of London, and stopped a Stratford-upon-Avon at the invitation of their old Oxford mate Thomas Combes. It was around Christmas. They had a jolly time. Neither is Shakespeare mentioned nor his monument. His family receives no visit. No stop is made to pay Digges' respects at the Trinity monument.

Well-wishes are sent to his publisher, Edward Blount, back in London. It is Blount who is the sure connection between the First Folio and the commendatory verse of Digges and I[ames] M[abbe] ̶ two of his authors ready at hand and eager to please.

While both Jonson and Hugh Holland had connections with Blount they weren't in his stable of authors. They both condescended to provide commendatory verses of the most complimentary sort for each other's work. Both had attended William Camden's Winchester School at the same time. Holland is listed among Coryate's “Gentlemen, that meet the first Fridaie of euery Moneth at the signe of the Mere-Maide in Bread- ftreete in London.” As, of course, is Jonson. Shakespeare is not.

In Jonson's 1616 folio we find such august names as John Selden (also a member of the Mermaid Tavern supper-club), George Chapman, Hugh Holland, Francis Beauont. Beaumont made very clear that Jonson was a dear personal friend. Beaumont and Fletcher's 1647 folio sports commendations from most of the great writers of the time: John Denham, Edmund Waller, Aston Cokaine, Richard Lovelace, Ia[mes] Howell P.C.C., Thomas Stanley, Roger L'Estrange, George Buck, William Cartwright, Robert Herrick, James Shirley.

The question can only be asked: “Where are the commendations that might be expected for a great work by a great poet?” Where are Thomas Middleton or John Fletcher ̶ both of whom are said to have co-written plays together with Shakespeare? Where is John Marston, who made clear that he knew Shakespeare personally and who imitated him at every opportunity? Where George Chapman? Anthony Munday? Thomas Lodge?

Why are the meager commendatory verses on the First Folio written by Edward Blount's ready hands? Jonson's personal friend? Why only this for the “Soul of the Age”?

Sweet swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James !
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a Constellation there !
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy flight fro' hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.

Why were those who knew Shakespeare not called upon to praise the Stratford man? Had they no good word to say? Except for Jonson, who seems to have been called upon to raise that man to immortality... and to praise his great patrons the Herbert brothers for having made the whole thing happen.

1Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Edward de Vere Was Shakespeare: at long last the proof (2013,2017). xxxiii. Citing Brown, Henry. Shakespeare's Patrons & Other Essays (1912). 94. Citing Lansdowne Ms. No. 841, fol. 11. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1543136257/

2Rendel, William, The Inns of Old Southwark (1888), 185. Also Oxford Authorship, http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/ Probate/PROB_11-71_ff_70-1.pdf “JaM may have been the son of the John Mabbe who purchased Oxford's manors of Gibcrack and Little Yeldham, in 1577, when John was 4 or 5, and grandson of the John Mabbe the owner of the Tabard Inn in Southwark (i.e. the Tabard Inn of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). A description of a deed sold on e-bay indicates that John Mabbe purchased the Tabard on 10 April 1565 from Sir Thomas Kempe of Olantigh (d.1591), father of the comedian, Will Kempe.” According to James Fitzmaurice-Kelly’s introduction to the 1894 edition of Mabbe’s translation of La Celestina, Mabbe’s grandfather bore the name “John” and his father “James”. He himself was born in 1577.

3See my “Leonard Digges and the Shakespeare First Folio.” Virtual Grub Street, November 30, 2017. https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2017/11/leonard-digges-and-shakespeare-first.html

4See my “Leonard Digges with Context” Virtual Grub Street, December 10, 2017. https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2017/12/leonard-digges-with-context-shakespeare.html

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Edward de Vere and Marlowe’s Dido of Carthage. July 5, 2022. “It was an historical effort and an historical two years for Elizabethan theater.”
• The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice. May 25, 2022. “The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks,…”
• The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
• How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
• 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."
• Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.