Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/203

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poet Josuah Sylvester (1563-1618), translator of Du Bartas's 'Deuine Weekes and Workes,' and towards the end of his life one of the most popular poets of the day, was the son of Robert Sylvester, a clothier, who had married a daughter of John Plumbe of Eltham, in Kent. After the death of both his parents in his early childhood, Josuah was brought up by his mother's brother, William Plumbe, who also lived at Eltham. He was sent to the Free Grammar School of King Edward VI. at Southampton, of which the headmaster was at that time the distinguished scholar Adrian à Saravia, afterwards Prebendary of Canterbury and Westminster, and one of the translators of the authorized version of the Bible. Two references to his school-days under Saravia occur in Sylvester's works, one in the 'Funerall Elegie' on the death of Mistress Margarite Hill (wife of Dr. Robert Hill and previously wife of Saravia), and the other in the later dedication (to the Earl of Southampton) of the 'Memorials of Mortalitie.'

Most of these facts are stated in the 'D.N.B.,' and also in Dr. Grosart's introductory memoir prefixed to his collected edition of Sylvester's works. They suggest a question to which they supply no answer—why was the boy sent from Eltham to the Southampton school? In my efforts to recall attention to the famous old boys of King Edward's School, Southampton, of which I am headmaster, certain facts have come to light which furnish an explanation, and moreover are interesting as being concerned with persons referred to in the poems. I think that they are of sufficient importance to be preserved.

William Plumbe died in 1593, and his will makes mention of his "good brother and freind M$r$ James Parkynson." This cannot mean that Parkynson was a brother of William Plumbe's wife, for it is known that Plumbe married first Margaret Southwell, widow of Sir Robert Southwell and daughter of Sir Thomas Nevil, and secondly Elizabeth Gresham, widow of John Gresham and daughter of Edward Dormer. Parkynson must therefore have married a sister of William Plumbe.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century a Captain James Parkinson was Constable of the Castle of Southampton, and Captain of Calshot Castle. In the circumstances it would not be very rash to surmise that he was the James Parkinson who had married Miss Plumbe; as we shall see, there are other pieces of evidence which place the matter beyond reasonable doubt.

Though Josuah Sylvester dedicated most of his later poems to royal or noble patrons (or such as he hoped would become so), this was not the case with the earlier ones. His first poem was published in 1590-1, and in 1592 he dedicated 'The Triumph of Faith' to his uncle, William Plumbe. Mr. Plumbe died a few months later, and a subsequent edition of the poem bore an inscription stating that it was "formerlie dedicated and now for ouer consecrated to the gratefull Memorie of the first kinde Fosterer of our tender Muses, my never-sufficiently-Honoured dear Uncle, W. Plumbe, Esq." Another well-known instance of his dedications to relatives or connexions is the much later case of 'Auto-Machia,' which