Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/328

 (the engraving is coloured by hand in the British Museum copy). A versified commendation of hawking and an epilogue are supplied by the author. In the second edition James I is substituted for Elizabeth in the woodcuts. Bound up with both editions generally appears ‘The Noble Art of Venerie, or Hunting,’ which is also ascribed to Turbervile. The 1575 edition of this is dedicated by the publisher to Sir Henry Clinton, and both are prefaced by commendatory verses by Gascoigne and by ‘T. M. Q.’

This volume was followed by ‘Tragical Tales, translated by Turbervile in time of his troubles out of sundry Italians, with the arguments and lenuoye to eche tale. … Imprinted by Abele Jeffs,’ 1587, b. 1. 8vo, dedicated to ‘his louing brother, Nicholas Turbervile, Esq.’ (Bodleian and University Library, Edinburgh, the latter a copy presented by William Drummond of Hawthornden; fifty copies were reprinted at Edinburgh in 1837 in a handsome quarto). Following the ‘Tragical Tales’ (all of which, ten in number, are drawn from Boccaccio, with the exception of Nos. 5 and 8 from Bandello, and two of which the origin is uncertain) come a number of ‘Epitaphs and Sonets’ (cf., Extracts from Stationers' Registers, 1557–1570, p. 203; and art. ). The sonnets, as in the previous volume, are not confined to any one metre or length; the epitaphs commemorate, among others, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, Henry Sydenham, Gyles Bampfield (probably a relative), and ‘Maister [Richard] Edwards, sometime Maister of the Children of the Chappell’ [see ]. There are several allusions in the body of the work, as well as on the title, to the author's mishaps and troubles of mind, but what these troubles were we are not told. The poet may be the George Turberville who was summoned before the council on 22 June 1587 to answer ‘certaine matters objected against him’ (Privy Council Reg. xv. 135, cf. xiv. 23).

From the fact that the 1611 edition of the ‘Faulconrie’ is labelled ‘Heretofore published by George Turbervile, gentleman,’ it may be presumed that the original compiler and editor was dead prior to that year.

Turbervile has some verses before Sir Geoffrey Fenton's ‘Tragicall Discourses’ (1579) and at the end of Rowlands's ‘Pleasant Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes,’ 1596. Sir John Harington has an epitaph in commendation of ‘George Turbervill, a learned gentleman,’ in his first book of ‘Epigrams’ (1618), which concludes, ‘My pen doth praise thee dead, thine grac'd me living.’ Arthur Broke [q. v.] and George Gascoigne were apparently on intimate terms with Turbervile, who was probably the ‘G. T.’ from whom the manuscript of Gascoigne's ‘A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres’ was obtained; but there seems no very good ground for identifying the Spencer to whom he wrote a metrical epistle from Moscow with Edmund Spenser, the poet. The attempt which has been made to identify Turbervile with ‘Harpalus’ in Spenser's ‘Colin Clout's come Home Again,’ is quite inconclusive.

Besides the works already referred to, Turbervile executed some reputable translations: 1. ‘The Heroycall Epistles of the Learned Poet, Publius Ovidius Naso, in English verse. With Aulus Sabinus Aunsweres to certaine of the same,’ 1567, London, b. 1., 8vo; dedicated to Lord Thomas Howard, viscount Bindon (see, Bibl. Cat. ii. 70). A second edition appeared in 1569, a third in 1570, and a fourth in 1600, all in black letter. Six of the epistles are in blank verse. 2. ‘The Eglogs of the Poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, Turned into English Verse and set forth with the argument to every Eglog by George Turbervile, Gent. Anno 1567. By Henry Bynneman, at the signe of the Marmayde: dedicated to his uncle “Maister Hugh Bamfild”’ (the British Museum copy lacks the colophon at the end with Bynneman's device). Another black-letter edition appeared in 1572 (cf. Bibl. Heber. iv. 1486). Another was printed by John Danter in 1594, and again in 1597. These numerous editions point to the high estimation in which ‘the Mantuan’ was held at the time (cf. Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost, iv. sc. 3). 3. ‘A plaine Path to perfect Vertue: Devised and found out by Mancinus a Latine Poet, and translated into English by G. Turberuile Gentleman ....’ imprinted by Henry Bynneman, 1568; dedicated ‘to the right Honorable and hys singular good lady, Lady Anne Countess Warwick.’ The British Museum copy bears the book-plate of (Sir) Francis Freeling [q. v.] and the manuscript inscription, dated 5 Sept. 1818, ‘I would fain hope that I may consider this as unique.’ About 1574, according to the dedication to the ‘Faulconrie,’ Turbervile commenced a translation of the ‘haughtie worke of learned Lucan,’ but ‘occasions’ broke his purpose, and, in the bantering words of a rival, ‘he was inforced to unyoke his Steeres and to make holy day’ (Second Part of Mirrour for Magistrates, 1578).

At the Bodleian Library are two manuscripts (Rawl. [Poet.] F 1 and F 4), ‘Godfrey of Bulloigne or Hierusalem rescued, written in Italian by Torquato Tasso and translated