...Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth. --G. Herbert
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It's not a lot of fun studying George Herbert - but in The Temple he does elaborate upon the figure of the 'godly' courtier - opposing him to the 'worldly' courtier (where I would locate Oxford). At the end of his life, Oxford must have again encountered many enemies at court in his pursuit of the Danvers lands. George Herbert, Henry Herbert (brilliant and very active Master of Revels for 50 years) and Edward Herbert Lord Chirbury were future stepsons to Sir John Danvers (marriage 1609) - brother to the executed Charles Danvers. The Earl of Southampton had a close relationship with the Danvers boys - sheltering Charles and Henry after their run in with the Long family around 1594. Apparently Charles Danvers even went to the extremity of declaring his dislike for Lord Grey on the scaffold - because he was 'ill-affected' to Lord Southampton.
These men are probably identifiable as part of Jonson's 'better race at court' mentioned in Cynthia's Revels.
I can find no evidence that Oxford was close to Southampton (other than the terse dedications). The dedication to Venus and Adonis recalls the charge of deformity that had been levelled at Oxford in Speculum Tuscanismi by Harvey - where Harvey described Oxford's deformities and suggested he should look to Sidney or Dyer for a worthier pattern/form. From all appearances Southampton was a Sidneian/Essexian - and my best guess is that Oxford dedicated the long poems to him not out of love but out of irritation. Oxfordian elegance and wit were attacked as painted surfaces without substance that relied upon shameless appeals to the 'eye' and the Sidneian/Essexian clan were similar to Ben Jonson in their ways of representing virtue - an accord between inner and outer, an abhorrence of 'seeming', with a weighty, measurable 'substance' being continually gestured at.
The dates of Herbert's The Temple are uncertain but I think that this may be the source of Heminges and Condell's rather acerbic allusion to the Herbert brothers as 'Temples'. (The godly courtier succeeds in turning away from worldly distractions shaping himself into a virtuous Temple.) Bit tricky when God's courtier has to choose whom he served - the absolute monarch or The Lord - and this contradiction would become violently relevant around say late 1640's when quite a few declared for God rather than King Charles. (Sir John Danvers signed the King's death warrant - Philip Herbert swung a bit but finally declared for Parliament. Essex's son led the Parliamentary army. Thomas Herbert supervised the King's imprisonment.)
The image of the godly courtier may also shed some light on the Troilus and Cressida epistle. Concupiscent Shakespeare/Oxford would have been politically incorrect. (Lady Anne Clifford - Philip Herbert's second wife omits Shakespeare from her Great Picture possibly as a sign of her election and judgement - and republican Milton identifies Shakespeare's Book as the 'closet companion' of the 'deceitful' King Charles during his incarceration.)
I have argued that Oxford sank his own fame - having been subject to decades of deformations of his own image - and that he was further assisted in this erasure by the Sidneys and Herberts. Perhaps even a royal amnesty of sorts in order to smooth over the disruptions that had occurred during the final years of Elizabeth's reign.
Yet remnants of forms do remain - signifying the argument between competing factions - how to represent Virtue the most virtuously? When all speak English and all are Royal Subjects then Style speaks.
For example, in Herbert's 'The Church-porch' the Venus and Adonis stanza reappears - reclaimed for virtue - purged of worldly Venusian content and deceitful Shakespearean metaphors - devoid of concupiscence and stuffed full of sententious, substantial (supposedly), plain spoken and virtuous advice.
http://www.logoslibrary.org/herbert/temple/porch1.html
If reason move not Gallants, quit the room,
(All in a shipwrack shift their severall way)
Let not a common ruine thee intombe:
Be not a beast in courtesie; but stay,
Stay at the third cup, or forgo the place.
Wine above all things doth Gods stamp deface.
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Writing the Flesh.. The Herbert Family Dialogue
Jeffrey Powers-Beck
As numerous and prolific as any ...early modern literary families were the Herberts of Montgomery and London. The family included the admired patroness Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers (circa 1561-1627), her second husband, Sir John Danvers (circa 1588-1655), a leading member of the Virginia Company and one of the first exponents of Italian gardening in England, and Magdalen's literary sons, the poet-priest George Herbert (1593-1633), the poet-philosopher Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (circa 1581-1648), the Master of the Revels Sir Henry Herbert (1594-1673), the Oxford scholar Charles Herbert (circa 1592-1617), and the obscure sailor-poet Thomas Herbert (1597-before 1643). John Donne sometimes visited the Danvers House in Chelsea...(p.2)
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Essex's letter to Southampton (not published until 1642) testifies to Essex's volte face - this most worldly of courtiers signs off as a man who has been reborn to Christ (or at least repositioned).
My Lord,
AS neither nature nor custome ever made me a man of complement, so now I
shall have lesse will than ever for to use such Ceremonies, when I have
left with Martha to be solicitus circa multa, and believe with Mary,
unum sufficit: but it is no complement or Ceremony, but a reall and
necessary duty that one friend oweth to another in absence &
especially at their seave taking, when in mans reason many accidents may
keep them long divided, or perhaps barre them ever meeting till they
meet in another world; for then shall I thinke that my friend, whose
honour, whose Person, and whose fortune is deare unto me, shall prosper
and be happy where ever he goes, and what ever he takes in hand when he
is in the favour of that God, under whose protection there is onely
safety, and in whose service there is onely true happinesse to be found.
What I thinke of your naturall gifts or abilities in this age, or in
this State, to give glory to God, and to winne honour to your selfe, if
you imploy the Talents you have received to their best use, I will not
now tell you, it sufficeth, that when I was farthest of all times from
dissembling, I spake truly, and have witnes enough: but these things
only I will put your Lordships in mind of.
First, that you have nothing that you have not received.
Secondly, that you possesse them not as Lord over them, but as an accomptant for them.
Thirdly, If you imploy them to serve this world, or your own worldly
delights, (which the Prince of this world will seek to entertain you
with) it is ingratitude, it is injustice, yea it is perfidious
treacherie. For what would you thinke of such a servant of yours, that
should convert your goods committed to his charge, to the advantage or
service of your greatest enemy; & what do you lesse than this with
God, since you have all from him, and know that the world, and Prince
thereof, are at a continuall enmity with him?
(snip)
I was longer a slave and servant to the world and the corruptions of it.
then you have bin, and therefore could hardlyer be drawn from it. I had
many calls, and answered some of them slowly; thinking a soft pace fast
enough to come to Christ and my selfe forward enough when I saw the end
of my journy, though I arrived not at it, and therefore I have been by
Gods providence violently pul'd, hal'd, and drag'd to the Marriage Feast
as the world hath seen. It was just with God to afflict me in this
world that he might give me joy in another. I had too much knowledge
when I performed too little obedience, and was therefore to be beaten
with double stripes: God grant your Lordship may feel the comfort I now
enjoy in my unfaigned conversion, but that you never feele the torments I
have suffered for my too long delaying it; I had none but Divines to
call upon me, to whom I said, if my ambition could have entred into
their narrow hearts, they would not have bin so humble; or if my
delights had bin tasted by them, they could not have been so precise:
but your Lordship hath one to call upon you, that knowes what it is you
now injoy, & what the greatest fruit and end is of all the
contentments that this world can afford. Thinke therefore deare Earl,
that I have staked & bounded all the waies of pleasure to you, &
left them as Sea markes for you to keep the Channell of religious
virtue; for, shut your eyes never so long they must be open at last, and
then you must say with me, there is no peace to the wicked. I will make
a Covenant with my Soul, not to suffer my eyes to sleep in the night,
nor my thoughts to attend the first busines of the day, till I have
prayed to my God, that your Lordship may believe and make profit of this
plaine, but faithfull admonition; and then I know your Countrey and
friends shall be happy in you, and Your self successefull in all you
take in hand; which shall be an unspeakeable comfort to
Your Lordships Cousin and true friend, whom no world
ly cause can divide from you ESSEX.
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But to return to Herbert and opening the bones to find nothing but filth. Recovering the English Sonnet form for the virtuous, young George writes to his mother Magdalene:
From The Life of Mr. George Herbert
by Izaak Walton
...in Cambridge we may find our George Herbert’s behaviour to be such, that we may
conclude he consecrated the firstfruits of his early age to virtue, and a
serious study of learning. And that he did so, this following Letter and Sonnet,
which were, in the first year of his going to Cambridge, sent his dear Mother
for a New-year’s gift, may appear to be some testimony.
– "But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up those springs, by which
scholars say the Muses use to take up their habitations. However, I need not
their help to reprove the vanity of those many love-poems, that are daily writ,
and consecrated to Venus; nor to bewail that so few are writ, that look towards
God and Heaven. For my own part, my meaning dear Mother—is, in these Sonnets, to
declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in Poetry, shall be all and
ever consecrated to God’s glory: and I beg you to receive this as one
testimony."
My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth poetry
Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?
Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the fame,
Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name!
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might
Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose
Than that, which one day, worms may chance refuse.
Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry
Oceans of ink; for, as the Deluge did
Cover the earth, so doth thy Majesty:
Each cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use.
Roses and lilies speak thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse
Why should I women's eyes for crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind
Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth; when Lord, in thee
The beauty lies in the discovery.
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SurFaces, Filth and Unworthyness:
Greville (Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon) - Life of Sidney
Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with
this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for
taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant WORTHYness from us: fit (as it
were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions:
yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God
is, that this WORTH, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect,
that both before his time, and since,experience hath published the usuall
discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making honour a
triumph, or rather TROPHY of desire, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be
worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions.
Notwithstanding, when the PRIDE of FLESH, and power of favour shall cease in
these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or FAME to publish
in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others?
What Pen without BLOTTING can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald
blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when
they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above
ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such
greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill
example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is
none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true
WORTH; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it
self.
