TO THE HIGH
Seneschall of the right
W'orshipfull Fraternitie of Sireniacal
Gentlemen, that meet the first Fridaie of every Moneth,
at the signe of the Mere-
Maide in Bread- streete in London,
from Asmere [Ajmer], India, the which was later printed in his THOMAS CORIATE Traueller for the English Wits: Greeting (1616).1 The intrepid Coriate, unfortunately died in 1617.
The cover design of his book features him riding an elephant. The publisher of travels tales, Samuel Purchas, collected his letters to the various members of the Fraternitie and published them in his enormously popular Purchas' Pilgrims series.
In one letter to Laurence Whitaker, the aforesaid Seneschall of the Sireniacals, he writes
I have rid upon an Elephant since I came to this Court, determining one day (by Gods leave ) to have my Picture expressed in my next Booke , sitting upon an Elephant. The King keepeth a thousund Women for his owne body, whereof the chiefest (which is his Queene ) tis called Normal.2
Presumably, the thousand women was beyond any engraver's skill. As we can see, the elephant made the... ahem... cut.
The Sireniacal Gentlemen refers to the supper club that met at the Mermaid Tavern, on Bread Street, in London. Coryate made a point of addressing each of the members of the club individually by name.
There is no other such roster extant.
Some 50 years later, Thomas Fuller reported an oral history asserting that Shakespeare was a member and the club was delighted to witness epic wit-combats, on club nights, between he and Johnson.3
Many were the wit-combates betwixt him and Ben Johnson, which two I behold like
a Spanish great Gallion, and an English man of War; Master Johnson (like the former) was built far higher in Learning solid, but Slow in his performances. Shake- spear with the English-man of War, lesser in bulk, but lighter in failing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his Wit and Invention.
Fuller was cousin to the tireless self-promoter, William Davenant, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of Shakespeare and was a source of other Shakespeare myths. It is more than a little likely that he got his information from Davenant or their still more imaginative friend John Aubrey. Regardless, there is not a stitch of evidence to support his story.
Still, the picture is an attractive one. So attractive that it has since been entered the scholarly record as fact. Such has been common practice in filling the entirely un-literary documented biography of the man from Stratford.
That said, it must be admitted that there is evidence of a possible connection between Shakspere of Stratford and the Mermaid Tavern. The owner of the property upon which the Mermaid stood, one William Johnson, is listed as a partner in Shakspere's purchase of the Blackfriars Gate House on March 10, 1613 [O.S.].
Furthermore, the author Hugh Holland, a member of the Fraternitie of Sireniacal Gentlemen, according to Coryat, provided a dedicatory poem to the Shakespeare First Folio. It gives no sign of the author having been a personal friend. Both congratulatory poems for the folio, other than Holland's, were provided by equally minor writers previously published by Edward Blount partner in the Folio project — not at all members of the Mermaid club.
For his part, Holland had had multiple close connections to Ben Jonson, editor-in-chief of the Folio. The two had been students together in the famous Westminster school of William Camden. Jonson had contributed a long allegorical ode to Holland's book-length poem Pancharis. Holland donated a congratulatory poem to Jonson's play Sejanus.
Jonson wrote poems to, or featuring, members of the Fraternitie, Hugh Holland, John Donne, Robert Cotton and a prose dedication to Richard Martin. He wrote more than one poem to Francis Beaumont who does not appear on Coryat's list and who Coryat may not have met due to his extended absences for travel.
But Jonson never wrote the name Shakespeare in public print until the First Folio. He owed a great deal to his patron, William Herbert, Lord Chamberlain to the King, to whom the Folio was dedicated, together with his brother, son-in-law to Edward de Vere.
The name Shakespeare never appeared beneath any commendatory poem overtly congratulating any living writer of his day. Poems of that genre did appear in association with the initials E.O. and the moniker Ignoto.
Beaumont wrote verse letters to Ben one of which makes reference to the Mermaid. Another does not, but does mention Shakespeare in a most intriguing way. I look forward to writing about those letters in the days ahead.
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| Was Shakespeare Gay? What Do the Sonnets Really Say? |
1Coriat, Thomas. THOMAS CORIATE Traueller for the English Wits: Greeting (1616). 37ff.
2Purchas, Samuel. Purchas, his Pilgrimes (1625). I.594. Date only 1615.
3Fuller, Thomas. The History of the Worthies of England (1662). “The Worthies of England,” 126.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- On the Possibility that Edward de Vere and Shakspere of Straford Shared a Beer in Southwark. February 9, 2026. "The Earl of Oxford would have taken this route in 1575, as would Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne,"
- Du Bartas – Dinosaurs = Shakespeare's Gaunt Speech in Richard the Second. November 30, 2025. "After quite some time it was discovered that one John Eliot's French lesson book Ortho-epia Gallica included..."
- Sonnet 130: Shakespeare's Reply to a 1580 Poem by Thomas Watson. September 7, 2024. “Interesting to see our Derek Hunter debating with Dennis McCarthy, at the North group,...”.
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
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 V.G.S. Oxfordian Shakespeare Poetry Page for many poems by Shakespeare together with historical context.
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