Seventeenth-century References to Shakespeare's
by David Kathman
The first part of this section consists of a lengthy excerpt from an essay by M. H. Spielmann which describes the many
inaccuracies (some of them quite ludicrous) in the work of Sir William
Dugdale and his engraver, Wenceslaus Hollar: inaccuracies that reflect the
hurried conditions under which Dugdale and Hollar worked and the general
indifference to pictorial detail in the days before photography. In this
brief follow-up essay, I will look at the seventeenth-century documentary
evidence relating to the monument (other than the Dugdale engraving), and
what this evidence implies for the Oxfordian scenario that the monument
originally depicted Shakespeare as a "dealer in bagged commodities" (as
Charlton Ogburn put it) rather than a poet. All this documentary evidence
shows that the monument was seen from the beginning as honoring a famous
poet; none of it shows any indication that the monument was ever taken to
depict a grain dealer or anything other than a poet.
according to the Folger numbering) contains three handwritten poems on the
last end page of the volume, written in a secretary hand dating from
approximately the 1620s. The first of these is the poem from
Shakespeare's monument in the Stratford church ("Stay passenger why go'st
thou by so fast"). The second is not recorded elsewhere, and goes as
Heere Shakespeare lyes whome none but Death could Shake
and heere shall ly till judgement all awake;
when the last trumpet doth unclose his eyes
the wittiest poet in the world shall rise.
[Shakespeare Quarterly 39 (1988):60]
The third poem is the one on Shakespeare's tombstone, also in the
Stratford church ("Good ffriend for Jesus sake forbeare"). Apparently,
somebody went to Stratford and transcribed the poems off the monument and
the tombstone, then transcribed them into a copy of the First Folio along
with another epitaph. This writer seems not only to have believed that
the man buried in Stratford was the author of the First Folio, but that he
was "the wittiest poet in the world."
- In 1630 an anonymous volume was published, entitled A Banquet of
Jeasts or Change of Cheare. Jest no. 259 in this volume is as follows:
One travelling through Stratford upon Avon, a Towne most
remarkeable for the birth of famous William Shakespeare,
and walking in the Church to doe his devotion, espyed a
thing there worthy observation, which was a tombestone laid
more that three hundred years agoe, on which was ingraven
an Epitaph to this purpose, I Thomas such a one, and Elizabeth
my wife here under lye buried, and know Reader I. R. C. and
I. Chrystoph. Q. are alive at this houre to witnesse it.
[Shakspere Allusion-Book, I, 347]
This jest implies that the writer had been in the Stratford church, and
that he believed that the William Shakespeare born there was "famous";
indeed, not yet 15 years after Shakespeare's death, he was apparently the
town's main claim to fame. True, the writer does not explicitly say that
Shakespeare was famous as a poet, but it is difficult to see why a grain
dealer would bring such fame to his home town.
- In 1631, a year before his death, John Weever published the massive Ancient
Funerall Monuments, which recorded many inscriptions from monuments around
England, particularly in Canterbury, Rochester, London, and Norwich.
Shakespeare's monument does not appear in the published book, but two of
Weever's notebooks, containing his drafts for most of the book as well as many
unpublished notes, survive as Society of Antiquaries MSS. 127 and 128. In one
of these notebooks, under the heading "Stratford upon Avon," Weever recorded
the poems from Shakespeare's monument and his gravestone, as follows:
Iudcio Pilum, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem
Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.
Stay Passenger, why goest thou by so fast
Read if your canst whome envious death hath plac'd
Within this monument Shakespeare with whome
Quick Nature dy'd whose name doth deck his Tombe
far more then cost, sith all yt hee hath writt
Good frend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare
Blest bee ye man that spares these stones
And curst bee hee that moves my bones.
In the margin opposite the heading "Stratford upon Avon", Weever wrote "Willm
Shakespeare the famous poet", and opposite the last two lines of the epitaph he
wrote "vpo[n] the grave stone". Although Weever, like Dugdale (see below), was
not 100% accurate in the details of his transcription, it is obvious that the
inscriptions on both the monument and the gravestone were substantially the
same in 1631 as they are today. Furthermore, Weever apparently knew
Shakespeare personally -- his 1598 Epigrammes includes the first full poem in
honor of Shakespeare ever printed, a sonnet entitled "Ad Gulielmum Shakespear"
in which he praises Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and Romeo and Juliet.
This entry in his private notebook shows that he knew that the poet he had
praised in print more than 30 years earlier was the same person buried in
Stratford upon Avon.
- In 1634 a military company of Norwich was travelling through the
English countryside. One Lieutenant Hammond of the company kept a diary
of what he encountered during his travels, and on or about September 9 he
made the following entry:
In that dayes travell we came by Stratford upon Avon, where
in the Church in that Towne there are some Monuments which
Church was built by Archbishop Stratford; Those worth observing
and of which wee tooke notice were these.... A neat Monument
of that famous English Poet, Mr. William Shakespeere; who
was borne heere. And one of an old Gentleman a Batchelor,
Mr. Combe, upon whose name, the sayd Poet, did merrily fann
up some witty, and facetious verses, which time would nott
give us leave to sacke up.
[Chambers, William Shakespeare, II, 242]
Hammond, writing 11 years after the First Folio and 12-18 years after the
erection of the monument, explicitly says that the monument is for "that
famous English Poet, Mr. William Shakespeere, who was borne heere."
- Next to the infamous engraving in Dugdale's Antiquities of
Warwickshire, Dugdale transcribed both the Latin and English verses from
Shakespeare's tomb, along with the verse from the gravestone. Except for
minor spelling differences (entirely typical of Dugdale), these verses are
the same as those seen today. The Latin reads:
Ivdicio Pylivm, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, popvlvs maeret, Olympvs habet
which may be translated thus:
In judgment a Nestor, in wit a Socrates, in art a Virgil;
the earth buries [him], the people mourn [him], Olympus possesses [him]
On the page facing the engraving of the monument, Dugdale writes the
following in his account of Stratford:
One thing more, in reference to this antient town is observable, that it
gave birth and sepulture to our late famous Poet Will. Shakespeare,
whose Monument I have inserted in my discourse of the Church.
[Shakspere Allusion-Book, II, 62]
Dugdale, like Lt. Hammond before him, explicitly says that the monument is
for "our late famous Poet Will. Shakespeare."
- In 1658, two years after the publication of Dugdale's Antiquities of
Warwickshire, Sir Aston Cokain's collection Small Poems of Divers Sorts
contained a poem to Dugdale. It was entitled "To my worthy, and learned
Friend Mr. William Dugdale, upon his Warwickshire Illustrated," and it
goes as follows:
Now Stratford upon Avon, we would choose
Thy gentle and ingenious Shakespeare Muse,
(Were he among the living yet) to raise
T' our Antiquaries merit some just praise:
And sweet-tongu'd Drayton (that hath given renown
Unto a poor (before) and obscure town,
Harsull) were he not fal'n into his tombe,
Would crown this work with an Encomium.
Our Warwick-shire the Heart of England is,
[Shakspere Allusion Book, II, 71]
Cokain does not specifically refer to the monument, but he has apparently
read Dugdale's book and thus seen the engraving. It does not seem to have
crossed his mind that the monument might depict a grain dealer; he
explicitly links "gentle and ingenious Shakespeare['s] Muse" both with
Stratford upon Avon and with Shakespeare's fellow countryman and poet
- In 1693, a Mr. Dowdall visited Stratford and wrote down some of his
observations in a letter. He wrote,
The 1st Remarkable place in this County that I visitted was
Stratford super avon, where I saw the Effigies of our English
tragedian, mr. Shakspeare.
[Shakspere Allusion Book, II, 391]
Dowdall then goes on to give the inscriptions from the monument and the
gravestone, along with some stories about Shakespeare that the 80 year old
parish clerk had told him.
To sum up, all the seventeenth-century evidence is consistent: it
indicates that the monument to Shakespeare was always seen as a monument
to a poet/playwright, and that from a very early time Stratford was famous
as Shakespeare's birthplace. The engraving in Dugdale's book is the only
possible anomaly among all this evidence, but Dugdale explicitly says that
the monument is for the poet Shakespeare, and two years later Cokain
implicitly says the same thing. Given Dugdale's and Hollar's demonstrable
inaccuracy in their other engravings, the general seventeenth-century
indifference to pictorial detail, and the mass of documentary evidence
just reviewed, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the monument
was ever substantially different from the way it appears today, and
no reason to believe that it was ever thought to depict a "dealer in