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Fulke Greville's Letter to a Cousin in France and the Problem of Authorship in Cases of Formula Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Norman K. Farmer Jr.
Norman K. Farmer Jr.*
Affiliation:
University Of Texas
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Extract

The inclusion of ‘A Letter Written by Fulke Greville to His Cousin Greville Varney Residing in France’ in the first collected edition of Greville's works in 1633 generated controversy from the beginning. Even before the book could be distributed, John Varney (Greville Varney's brother) wrote to Sir John Coke, who evidently supervised publication of the 1633 folio, and bitterly protested the publication of the letter. His objections rested on his belief that the letter wrongly implied the Varneys’ dependency upon their affluent kinsman, Fulke Greville. And John Varney hotly charged that the late Lord Brooke had somehow contrived by means of this letter, left among his papers, to clear himself posthumously of accusations that he had once used the Varneys harshly. Finally, Varney claimed to Coke that this letter was never written to his brother at all. The real recipient, he declared, was John Harris, a cousin to the Varneys who was then living in France.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , Summer 1969 , pp. 140 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1969

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References

1 H. M. C. Cowper (London, 1888), 1, 483.

2 Bullough, Geoffrey, ‘Introduction,’ Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville (Edinburgh, 1938), 1, 26.Google Scholar

3 H. M. C. Third Report (London, 1872), p. 203. Item 26 in this miscellany is entitled ‘Sir Ffulke Grevill to a couzin of his residing in Ffrance.’ There is no information about the provenance of the book. However, Miss Catherine Armet, Librarian for Lord Bute, generously informs me of a short description written by the Librarian to the 3rd Marquess of Bute, dated April 14,1871. This description is as follows: ‘A quarto volume (8x6) containing 76 leaves of paper, consecutively numbered, wherof 34b-37b and 76 are blank. Written by several hands in the xviith century. Bound in calf, somewhat recently.’ I am indebted to Lord Bute for supplying me with a photocopy of the letter which is written in a secretary hand described by Miss Armet as ‘the most common’ in the volume and ‘not confined to a particular section.'

4 Petyt MS. 538, vol. 36, fol. 78. Mr. W.W.S. Breem, Librarian of die Inner Temple, describes this as ‘a composite volume of 20-25 items, collected together haphazardly, and bound up as a unit for the sake of convenience, presumably by Petyt or under his direction.’ There is no information about the person who copied the letter.

5 MS. University College CLII, Item 7, fol. 13. Once again it is impossible to say who copied the letter and why. The hand is secretary. More, however, is known of the provenance of this book than those previously mentioned. Goswell gave the book to James Bedford, and later it belonged to G. Langbaine who wrote the index which appears as item 3.

6 The Letters and The Life of Francis Bacon (6 vols., London, 1861-72), n, 2-20. The manuscript is Lambeth MS. 936, fol. 218. It is written in a secretary hand with italic characteristics.

7 Quoted from The Works of Fulke Greville, ed. Rev. Alexander B. Grosart (London, 1870), IV, 301. This is the most recent printed version of the letter, taken, according to Grosart, from the 1633 folio and collated with the Bodley Library copy cited above.Grosart also cites a copy in The British Museum, but there is no record of such a copy today.

8 Lambeth MS. 936, fol. 218.

9 Spedding, II, 18.

10 [Richard Parr, The Life of The Most Reverend …James Usher] London, 1686, pp. 17-22 (additional pagination after 1-624).

11 Reliquiae Bodleianae (London, 1703), ‘To The Reader,’ sig. A8. See in this connection Maclean, Hugh N., ‘Reliquiae Bodleianae: Letter CCXXXII,’ Bodleian Library Record 6 (April, 1960), 537–541.Google Scholar

12 Dunn, Catherine, ‘Lipsius and the Art of Letter-Writing,’ Studies in the Renaissance 3 (1956), 145–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 For an account of this literature see Parks, George B., ‘Travel as Education,’ The Seventeenth Century (Stanford, 1951), pp. 264–290.Google Scholar

14 The Traveller, sig. B6-E6v.

15 McLuhan, Marshall, The Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto, 1962), pp. 130–133.Google Scholar This phenomenon may best be considered in the context provided by Goldschmidt, E. P., Medieval Texts and Their First Appearance in Print (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943).Google Scholar