Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/419

 s. xii. NOV. 21, i9oa] NOTES AND QUERIES.

411

English Homer " addresses the " glorious mayde and moder " as follows :

Noble princesse that never haddest pere ! There was no conceivable reason why an Italian should have written an epitaph on Queen Elizabeth, couched in such inflated language, so far as one can see. He had little or no reason either to love or hate her memory. Far different was the case of the Spaniard, who could never forget the colossal disaster that befell his Armada during her reign. This is well shown in James Ho well's 'Familiar Letters,' one of Thackeray's favourite books, as he tells us in his delightful ' Roundabout Papers.' Writing from Madrid above the date of 1 August, 1623, the lively Welshman says that he had been " lately perusing some of the Spanish poets here, and lighted upon two epigrams, or epitaphs more properly, upon our Henry VIII., and upon his daughter Q. Elizabeth." The second runs thus : DE ISABEL, REYNA DE INGLATERRA. Aqui yaze lesabel,

Aqui la nueva Athalia,

Del oro Antartico Harpia,

Del mar incendio cruel :

Aqui el ingenio, mas dino [digno] De loor que ha tenido el suelo, ^e, para llegar al cielo, No huviera errado el camino.

" Prosed thus in English, for I had no time to put it on Feet," .Howell translates it as follows :

" Here lies Jezabel, here lies the new Athalia, the Harpy of the Western Gold, the cruel Firebrand of the Sea : Here lies a Wit the most worthy of Fame which the Earth [has] had, if, to arrive to Heaven, she had not mist her way." And then he adds :

" You cannot blame the Spaniard to be satyrical against Q. Elizabeth ; for he never speaks of her, but he fetcheth a Shrink in the Shoulder."

Still, though the lines are so bitter, the writer pays a tribute to the extraordinary genius of the last of the Tudors. Howell does not mention the author's name, but I feel pretty sure the verses were composed by Lope de Vega, and I hope some correspondent will tell us where, among the "21,316,000 verses" which are reckoned to have come from his, I will not say fountain, but cataract of a pen, these I have quoted are to be found Michael Drayton, on his ambling muse, was nowhere in such a race.

In this reply I have made use of the eleventh edition of the 'Epistolse Ho-Elianse, published in 1754, pp. 397-8. Though it be, I think, a beautiful specimen of the typo- graphy of the period, it is crowded witt misprints of every kind, which are correctec in the extracts given above. The statement

as to the fecundity of Lope de Vega's genius s taken from 'Letters from an English Traveller in Spain in 1778,' p. 257 (London, 1781), and from the same authority is derived he conjecture that the poet was the author if the epitaph on Queen Elizabeth, for he wrote a " poem in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, intitled 'Corona tragica de Maria Stuardo ' " (p. 255), and also this epigram on ' Charles, Prince of Wales, when he went to Madrid to court the Infanta of Spain" p. 198) :

Carlos Stuardo soy, Que, siendo Amor mi guia, Al cielo de Espana voy Por ver mi estrella Maria !

The same extraordinary genius composed another epic poem, entitled ' La Dragontea,' of which Admiral Drake is the hero, in a way. All these productions show that he was deeply interested in English history. And when I

earn that, in the ' Corona Tragica,' " Queen Elizabeth is a bloody Jezebel, a second Atha-

tiah, an obdurate sphinx, and the incestuous

progeny of a harpy " (' The Spanish Drama,' by G. H. Lewes, London, 1846, p. 78), I am convinced that Lope de Vega was the writer

of the above-quoted epitaph, and that it was published soon after her death in 1603. The Italian lines, so far as I am able to judge, were composed at a much later date, for there is a curious air of modernity about them, both in measure and expression.

JOHN T. CURRY.

' THE ABBEY OF KILKHAMPTON ' (9 fch S. xii. 381). I should like to add to my note that, according to the Gentleman's Magazine (May, 1816, p. 471), 'The Abbey of Kilkhampton' was published by the Rev. Sir Herbert Croft, Bart, in 1780 ; in 1781 he added a second part, and " continued to augment it through eight successive editions till 1788." According to the 'D.N.B.,' eight editions of the first part and three of the second appeared in 1780, and there were in all at least fourteen editions.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

SHAKESPEARE AND LORD BURLEIGH (9 th S. xii. 328, 396). In reply to the latter part of a query by S. M., I hope I may be allowed to draw attention to a very able and interest- ing article which appeared nearly twenty years ago in the Genealogist (New Series, vol. i. p. 82), having been contributed to that magazine by Mr. John A. C. Vincent, a well- known antiquary, and a valued correspondent of * N. & Q.' In this paper Mr. Vincent has shown that Elizabeth was the guest of the Earl of Oxford at Castle Hedingham from