¹ Godfrey of Bulloigne or the Recoverie of Jerusalem (London, 1600).

² London; 1600. Compiled by Robert Allot.

³ There are descriptions under the headings: Angels, Ambition, Beautie, Courage, Dread, Earth, Fame, Fate, Fear, etc., through all the five hundred pages.

⁴ By mathematical analysis we may get an idea of Fairfax's place in the poetry of his day. He is quoted fifty times. Spenser, the most popular, is quoted four hundred and fifty times. Drayton runs second with nearly three hundred, Daniel third with one hundred and eighty. Warner and J. Higgins (Mirrour for Magistrates) are high bidders. After these the numbers drop; there are few other men better represented than Fairfax, and among those that he equals or excels are Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Gascoigne, Sydney, Kyd, Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare, Dekker, Davies, Ben Jonson. Of the translators, only one, S. I. Harington, is given more space than Fairfax, and it is to be remembered that Harington had translated Orlando Furioso in a vigorous style some nine years before, and was by 1600 very well known. It may be concluded that Fairfax became an established poet soon after the publication of his Godfrey. In passing we may note that (judging from Allot's selection) it was for the aureate passages, in which he freely decorated his original, that Fairfax was chiefly admired.

⁵ Ben Jonson Works, Ed. by C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson (Oxford, 1925), i, 132-133.

⁶ He “said he has written a discourse of Poesie both against Campion and Daniel.” He condemned the stanza form (Godfrey of Bulloigne is written in ottava rime). “Sidney,” he said, “did not keep a Decorum … Spencers stanzaes pleased him not, nor his matter, … Samuel Daniel was a good honest Man, had no children, bot no poet, … translations of Homer and Virgill in Long Alexandrines were but Prose, … John Harringtones Ariosto, under all translations, was the worst … Done, for not keeping of accent deserved hanging … Shakesperr wanted Arte… . He thought not Bartas a Poet but a Verser, … He cursed petrarch,” etc.

⁷ In the same conversation we are told: “He read his translation of that Ode of Horace, Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, etc., and admired it.” His version begins:

Many may have read this translation with pleasure, but perhaps few have admired it so greatly as Jonson.

⁸ Godfrey, i, 14:

⁹ The most striking stanza of Clorinda's death is this one, in which Fairfax, slightly adorning the Italian, shows an amazing richness of image, without wholly passing from naturalness of emotion. In other places his sensuousness sometimes becomes oppressive; here it is still directed by poetic taste:

The last line is a typical Fairfax addition; there is no suggestion of it in Tasso.

¹⁰ London, 1624.

¹¹ “Sir, The command of his Maiestie, seconded by your Highnesse, hath caused mee to renew the impression of this booke. The former edition had the honour to be dedicated to the late Queene Elizabeth, of famous memorie, as appeareth by a worthy Elogie, here preserved. I could not leave this second birth of so excellent an Author, without a living Patron; and none could be found fitter than your Princetly self, who as you have highly commended it, so it is to be presumed, you will take it into your safe and Princely protection.”

¹² See note 20 infra.

¹³ London, 1675.

¹⁴ London, 1687.

¹⁵ Sir Roger L'Estrange, a noted Tory pamphleteer, and it would appear from his Civil War record, a man of passionate energy. Clarendon credited him with “a good wit and a fancy very luxuriant.” He was licencer of books at his time, and it is probably through his activity that the Godfrey was reprinted. He evidently admired the poem.

¹⁶ The poem is by Robert Gould (d. 1709?) the author of Love Given Over, The Corruption of the Times by Money, and other satires, along with a tragedy, The Rival Sisters, or the Violence of Love.

¹⁷ This 1687 Edition was reprinted in 1726, with a few changes. The reprint contains no new tributes to Fairfax.

¹⁸ Though the debt of Waller to Fairfax cannot be treated here, it may be illustrated by two (of many possible) passages in which Waller imitates Fairfax. Here is the first, from Instructions to a Painter, ff. 159-160 with its epithet phrase and careful balance:

The other qualities mentioned above are illustrated in this passage, also for the Instructions to a Painter, 11. 209-210:

¹⁹ John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern (London, 1700).

²⁰ London, 1711. It is interesting to note that the anonymous life from which the above is quoted has been generally attributed to Francis Atterbury. This may explain his requesting in 1705 from Brian Fairfax information about the poet.

²¹ British Museum, Addit. MSS, 5144, ff. 92-98, the autograph letter. Published in the Atterbury Correspondence, edited by J. Nichols (London, 1783). This account is one of the few sources for a biography of Fairfax. Since it was sent to Atterbury at his request, we may assume that he had an admiration for Fairfax. His copy of the Godfrey (1600 edition), with autograph notes is preserved in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford.

²² In the first volume of her proposed series, The Muses Library etc. being selections from the English poets “from the Saxons to the Reign of King Charles II,” she includes passages from the Tasso, with one of the previously unpublished eclogues, and a biography and criticism of Fairfax. It is to be remembered that in her excellent critical remarks both here and elsewhere she probably speaks for her friend, the scholar, William Oldys.

Her account runs: “Edward Fairfax, Esq., a Gentleman of so much Merit, that he eminently deserves to be ranked among the First of our English Writers; yet has He hitherto been treated with so much Neglect, to say no Worse, That no one Author has afforded us a tolerable Sketch of his life; or given Themselves the Trouble to make the slightest Enquiring after Him. Philips so far overlooks' him, that he was forc'd to Crowd him into his Supplement [acknowledged in Mrs. Cooper's preface to be an error, Sackville being the crowded poet] and his Transcriber Winstanly, does, in a Manner, the same, by postponing him till after the Earl of Rochester. Sir Thomas Pope Blunt makes no mention of him at all; and Mr. Jacob informs us that he wrote in the Reign of King Charles the First; tho' He dedicates his Translation of Tasso to Queen Elizabeth; Indeed all that name him, do him the Justice to allow he was an accomplished Genius; but then ‘tis in so cool, and careless a Manner, as plainly indicates they were very little acquainted with the Merit they prais'd… . ‘Twas impossible for the great Mr. Dryden to be so insensible and, accordingly we find him introducing Spencer, and Fairfax, almost on the Level, as the leading Authors of their Times; nay tacitly yielding the Palm in Point of Musick to the last; by asserting, That Waller confessed He ow'd the Harmony of his Numbers to the Godfrey of Bulloign, of Fairfax. … In Fact, this Gentleman is the only Writer down to D'Avenant that needs no Apology to be made for him on Account of the Age he lived in, … . His Diction being, generally speaking, so pure, so elegant, and full of Graces, and the Turn of his Lines so perfectly Melodious, That I hardly believe the Original Italian, has greatly the Advantage in either; Nor could any Author, in my opinion, be justified for attempting Tasso, anew, as long as as his Translation can be read.”

²³ London, 1738. Mrs. Rowe renders the beginning of Book IV:

The equivalent Fairfax passage is:

²⁴ London, 1738. Brooke's translations are smooth, but inaccurate, his nature descriptions are luscious formality. Here is an example from Book iii, Stanza 1:

²⁵ London, 1738. Hooke's attempt is rather turgid:

²⁶ The Works of Virgil, ed. by Joseph Warton (London, 1753), ii, 60.

²⁷ In the Bodleian, Douce TT 65.

²⁸ Such unwarrantable alterations are common; ii, 96, (8) and iv, 4, (8) are examples.

²⁹ London, 1763.

³⁰ This is overlooking the work of Doyne.

³¹ Hoole apparently neglects the fact that there had been at least five editions of the Godfrey, one only shortly before his writing.

³² In the first edition these remarks do not appear, Fairfax being there wholly ignored. This quotation is from the third edition of 1767.

³³ Joseph Warton, in an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, 1782 edition. Vol. ii, p. 422, etc. Warton seems from his edition of Milton's minor poems to have known Fairfax well. Most of the notes for this edition derive from Thomas Warton. They show knowledge and respect for the Godfrey. And Joseph Warton, in his edition of Pope, iv, 205, apparently placed Fairfax beside Shakespeare: “The taste and knowledge of Charles I in the fine arts are universally acknowledged; and his fondness for Shakespeare and Fairfax's Tasso shows his judgement in Poetry.”

³⁴ In his Life of Waller, Lives of the Poets.

³⁵ Written about 1749, and first printed with interpolations by the editor in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, i (1768), 63. In his letters Collins has announced the intention of writing to the editor of the 1749 Godfrey, but such a communication has not been found.

³⁶ In scenes like these, which daring to depart

³⁷ The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, edited by E. V. Lucas (London, 1935), No. 22.

³⁸ Misquoted: Johnson did not say “old version,” nor “elegant translation of my friend Mr. Hoole.” The passage in question reads: “As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry the reader may judge how much he improved it.” The Lives of English Poets, etc. Vol. I (Dublin, 1779), p. 131 (Life of Waller).

³⁹ It would be idle to conjecture though interesting to know, who these writers were. Wordsworth was perhaps one. It is known that he admired the book and was presented a copy with the three versions of the first stanza written in, “at his particular request.” See, Notes and Queries, Vol. ii (1850), p. 359. Scott also approved it, for in his Demonologia and Witchcraft, he calls Fairfax “a scholar of classical taste and a beautiful poet.” Hartley Coleridge in a note on p. 175 of his Lives of Distinguished Northerns (1833), gives a brief biography of Edward Fairfax with some praise of his poetry. There is a clipping, too, in the Bodleian 1624 Godfrey, Douce T 299, pasted inside the cover and attributed to Southey in which Fairfax is lauded. But to trace all Romantic mentions of Fairfax would be a long and needless task.

⁴⁰ The reference here is, of course, to Hoole.

⁴¹ Johnson actually said: “Will perhaps not soon be reprinted.”

⁴² Not having access at present to the first edition, I have used the Singer reprint for these final quotations. It sometimes admits minor alteration of orthography.