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Poets, Patrons, and Professors (1962)

Poets, Patrons, and Professors

(1962)–J.A. van Dorsten–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Sir Philip Sidney, Daniel Rogers, and the Leiden Humanists


Vorige Volgende

III Friendship and friction

‘You ask me in earnest, illustrious Philip Sidney, what I think about the pronunciation of Latin - whether this “German manner” which we now use is the true one, or some other, which (like so many things) has died out long ago and since lain hidden under the darkness of ignorance and ancientness. It is a delicate and subtle question’.1 Thus wrote Lipsius on 17 March. Whether Sidney's ‘subtle question’ had arisen at Leicester's luncheon or in the house of Van Hout, it was appropriate that he should have put it to the Leiden expert - many years, incidentally, after Languet had advised him to continentalize his insular Latin diction2. The question was one result of the Englishman's academic sojourn, and more specifically of Leicester's second visit. So was the treatise De recta pronunciatione Latinae linguae dialogus3 which Lipsius immediately4 sat down to write and soon after the ‘third visit’ dedicated to Sir Philip as a formal professorial presentation to a foreign patron. The booklet, which was to enjoy a wide popularity5, perhaps contributed to Lipsius' renown in England of which Bonaventura Vulcanius was to speak in later years6. It certainly represented

the Sidney-Leiden contacts in their most promising days. What is more, it put Sidney and Lipsius together in print, in an Anglo-Dutch-Latin context. Lipsius has frequently shown himself, as in those letters of 1584 and 1585 when Dousa was in England to forward his greetings, an admirer of that ‘Flos Angliae’, as he had once called him,1 and one who was eager to be remembered by him. The De recta pronunciatione was another result of earlier contacts.

It is possible to suggest when the two first met. Since it was neither in Holland, because Sidney's first Dutch visit (1577) preceded Lipsius' arrival, nor in England, where the professor had never been, one must look for an occasion when their paths had crossed elsewhere. It appears that they could have seen each other on only one earlier occasion. In March 1577 Sidney, ‘son of the Viceroy’, had travelled to the imperial Court via Brussels (where he stayed with the ambassador Sir Thomas Wilson) and Louvain (where Don John of Austria resided). There at Louvain was Professor Justus Lipsius, whose, name should have been enough to attract the studious Sidney. Failing that, somebody else could have arranged an introduction, for with the English travellers, it will be remembered, was Lipsius' friend Daniel Rogers. From what we know about Rogers, he would have been delighted to introduce his friend to young Philip Sidney on that 6th of March 1577. If Rogers was responsible - and there is enough reason to suggest he was - this is yet another instance of his influence on the curious pattern of Anglo-Dutch relations of 1586.

Considering the dedication of De recta pronunciatione as a token of Lipsius' frequently repeated respect for the scholarly English nobleman, one cannot help noticing how singularly unrelated politico-religious principles and literary friendships could be: the differing views of the much-maligned Lipsius and of Sidney, the Protestant hero, must have been obvious to all. Let us also note that the Leiden scholar took his Dialogue even less seriously than he cared to state in the epistle dedicatory, although it was ambiguously implied. Sidney's question, he remarked, was ‘subtilis’ and ‘tenuis’,

‘subtle and delicate’, but what he really meant was ‘slight’. For in his correspondence, unknown to Sidney, he casually referred to his little treatise as ‘tenue in re tenui opus, nec dignum meliori ... aure’1; and in another letter confessed to have written ‘levi manu, ut in re levi’2.

But still, De recta pronunciatione was a fair beginning:

... What then will be my aim? To render you a service, Sidney: because it would be rude, or impudent rather, to refuse anything to a man whom the very gods ... have refused nothing. Do I refer to excellencies of appearance? You have been created both for physical strength and elegance. Of your mind? You are most erudite, and wit and judgement abound in you. Hardly anything is wanting in you that Nature and Fortune can provide. Forsooth, you are gifted: the more so because you do not abuse it, like the majority of that aristocracy, and turn it to ambition and pomp: but you make it contribute, where you can, to yourself and to the common weal. And this privately and publicly, in gown and in armour: with that lively force of mind everywhere sufficient, you are the favourite of Mars and never desert the rites of Sophia and the Muses. What Archilogus once proudly asserted, you can say with still better reason:
 
Although I am the servant and admirer of the god of war,
 
I yet retain the famous gifts of the Muses.
But I only touch on the fringes of your accomplishments without penetrating into them. Because I be hold your virtues in the same way as we look at sacred things: in silence rather than with applause. Your virtues I admire, but cannot pursue: I should almost say, adore without adorning.
O bright star of your Britannia (on whom Virtue, the Muses, and the Graces have vied with one another to shine), graciously accept this slight and dull piece of work from me, and let the value of this gift for a while be judged in the temple of Fame. Not, however, as a true and legitimate present: but as a hostage, and as a warranty of another work. Other things are worthy of you and myself: these I shall compose and dedicate, if I shall live: and thus may I live.
Be greeted by Lipsius, who wrote this at Leiden.3

Lipsius' present, therefore, though ‘tenuis’, was only a first instalment of future service to be offered to his ‘bright star of Britannia’.

Equally defined by a long history of Anglo-Dutch-Latin antecedents, and perhaps not nearly so ‘slight’, was Dousa's Odarum Britannicarum liber ad D. Elisabetham1 which must have appeared at about the same time. It is difficult to separate its significance as a political pamphlet and its ‘mere literary’ interest. One suspects the Odae to have served precisely that dual purpose. They were dedicated to the Queen, and not to Sidney as is sometimes supposed2, while their being reprinted in Musae Errantes thirty years later3 suggests some non-political value as well. At the time of his Odae, Dousa also issued a volume of elegies and epigrams.4 Some of these were similarly connected with English affairs, especially the third Elegy, ‘To Paulus Buys5 his colleague and companion in the English embassy’6. The laudatory Encomia Dousana of 1587, it will be remembered, were to a certain degree due to Dousa's third London visit, and may to some extent be regarded as a liber adoptivus to his Odae and Elegiae of the preceding year. Finally, his son contributed a Britannicorum Carminum Silva to the father's Odae. It is evident that the Muse of Noordwijk could not have been more devoted to the

welfare of a cause which fourteen years of travel, conference, and poetry had helped to promote.

To say that Dousa consciously summarized fourteen years of Anglo-Dutch relations is no exaggeration. For even his dedicatory verse to Queen Elizabeth was nothing else than a revision of the opening twenty lines of that same Ode, beginning

 
Queen, issue of great kings,
 
Yourself taught by the hand of the Muses,
 
Second to none among the Graces ...,

which had been his first poetic offering to the literary-minded Queen in 1572.1 It is followed by a letter from Vulcanius to Dousa, dated new year's day 1586. In it the Latin and Greek poet and occasional writer of Dutch translations2, a relatively new member of Dousa's circle, welcomed the Curator on his return to Leiden. A letter, not in verse, for ‘who could have written a poem after you had taken all the Muses across the sea with you?’ Now, however, ‘reduces tecum Musae omnes’, Vulcanius concluded. And so Dousa's book announced ‘the return of the Muses’. Five Odae he brought home, one on the Queen's birthday, others to William Cecil, Sir Thomas Heneage, Sidney3, and Alexander Neville. One poem to Groslotius and another to Melissus served as an appendix. His son's contribution was smaller, consisting of verses to the Queen, to Leicester, to Sidney4, and on a fountain near the Tower. But from a literary point of view the most exciting aspect of Dousa's Odae is that here for the first time in the history of Leiden poetry an Englishman contributed verses, not in Latin, but in his own language. Their author, Geoffrey Whitney, was typical also in that he had actually come with the intention of joining the Leiden vates.

Van Hout's billeting lists inform us that on 12 January

1586 ‘mr Witnay’ was given two beds in the house of ‘Joncvrou adriane van merwen’.1 A minor difficulty is the existence of two Whitneys2 (kinsmen?) both of whom presented themselves at Leiden on that day.3 The above ‘mr Witnay’, however, was Geoffrey Whitney the poet, for his namesake, who travelled with a servant, re-appeared in the lists (with that servant) on 10 March4, when the poet was a soldier no longer.

Geoffrey Whitney, probably already familiar with Dutch and Dutchmen on account of his Yarmouth background5, came to Leiden as a soldier (of some standing - ‘two beds’) and spent a few nights there during the first official entry. Before leaving England he had offered a volume of English emblems to Leicester.6 Coming to Leiden, therefore, as a gentleman-soldier, poet, and cliens of the Governor General, he was naturally drawn to seek the company of men like Dousa. The University, moreover, was just across the canal, a minute's walk from the house of Lady Adriana. It looks as if experiences in Leiden meant an untimely end to his military career. For he remained there, or returned very soon, and on 1 March paid a visit to Adrianus Saravia, the Rector Magnificus. ‘Godefridus Whitneus Junior Anglus’ was duly entered in the Volumen Inscriptionum. On the same day he rented a room in a fashionable University boarding house behind the huge St. Peter's church: ‘Galfridus Wythneus Anglus stud. litt. in edibus lochorstianis’7, an address which was particularly popular with English undergraduates. This made him a Leiden student proper; and, what is more, the

first to have had some experience in writing English verse. Another poet interested in vernacular composition had entered the Dousa circle.

His first contribution, perhaps, was to translate (in an admittedly unpromising way) young Dousa's welcome to Leicester into English poulter's measure.1 Dousa the Elder gave him the opportunity to show that he could, fortunately, do better than this.2 Conspicuously placed at the very be-

ginning of the Odarum Britannicarum liber, Geoffrey Whitney sang the praises of Dousa, of the Queen, and of Leiden, perhaps never realizing how strange an innovation the inclusion of his English ‘Carmen’ was to the traditional appearance of Dutch printed Latin poetry.

It is curious to observe the expression of such a serene state of mutual friendliness in Whitney's well-turned phrases and find that in only a matter of weeks an open conflict was

to arise between Leicester and Leiden.1 There were various reasons: Leicester's growing dislike of the magistrates of Holland and his subsequent intimacy with the discontented States of Utrecht; his determination to appoint a professor regardless of the opinion of the Curators of the University; and the extremely ambiguous position of Saravia, the Rector, whose obscure dealings with Leicester at Utrecht rightly roused the Senate's suspicions. But all these reasons were subordinate to the general threat to the academic independ-

ence which was and is one of the most cherished of the University's assets.

If Leicester had been less blind to early warnings, he would have realized some tension at a very early date. On 1 February a new Rector was to be nominated, according to the Statutes by the ‘Gubernator Hollandiae’, who was now assumed to be Leicester. The following day one of the University's Curators, Paulus Buys - who, completely contrary to his earlier views, was becoming one of Leicester's most determined antagonists1 - indicated his preference for young Prince Maurice instead.2 It was finally Leicester, who re-elected Professor Saravia in a letter which Vulcanius read out to the Senate on 8 February3, Foundation Day. It may be worth noting that Adrianus Saravia, the refugee from Artois, an early convert to Calvinism, had stayed in England for long periods after 1558. In 1564 he taught divinity in the College founded by Queen Elizabeth on the isle of Guernsey, and in 1568 he was Orange's chaplain during the abortive Meuse campaign. Thereafter he returned to London as a minister first of the Walloon then of the Dutch refugee churches. In 1582 he settled at Leiden, where two years later he was nominated Professor of Theology. It is significant that in the summer preceding Leicester's arrival he was again in England. From 1587 onwards, when his position had become untenable in Holland, he again lived in England, where he died in 1613 as Rector of Great Chart in Kent. Saravia, in other words, was more English than French, Flemish, or Dutch.

But the ‘Praesidium Libertatis’ showed the first real signs of irritation when Leicester disregarded all good custom by trying to give a Chair in Greek to Petrus Rege(l)morterus of Antwerp. The proposal was not new. At one time Dousa and Rogers had supported Regemorterus' application for the employment of ‘the fruits of his studies’.4 But Leicester's

procedure was awkward and badly timed. On 6 May, the Curators and Burgomasters sent a cold reply, pointing out that there was no vacancy at all, but that they would bear the name in mind for some future occasion. Leicester had meanwhile gone to Utrecht - which was to prove his only reliable stronghold - and being little inclined to let the matter rest a conflict was imminent. A rumour spread that the entire University was to be taken over by the town of Utrecht, where Saravia then stayed - which made him naturally suspect in the eyes of his Leiden colleagues. On 6 May Saravia received an official reprimand for not consulting the Senate, and indeed for being absent. On 6 May, too, Dousa and Buys were sent to Utrecht to act on their University's behalf. On 30 May Burgomaster Van der Werff and Jan van Hout followed.1 Lipsius had given them a letter to Leicester's Leiden physician, John James, to further the cause of ‘Hautenus noster’.2 On 3 June they endeavoured to force the Lord Governor to commit himself by requesting him to confirm the University Patents.1 But Leicester persisted and again, towards the end of July, urged the belated appointment of Regemorterus3, now clearly a matter of principle. Then on 8

August the University once more rejected his proposal1 - obviously libertatis ergo.

Of course the University never moved to Utrecht, and, except for Leicester's political prestige, things remained the same. But the difference between his warm welcome at Leiden in January and the feelings caused by the unworthy Regemorterus-affair in May was no less emphatic than the change of heart which drove him from The Hague almost immediately after his triumphal entry into Holland. This is not the place to judge his personal responsibility, but two aspects of these events must be noted. Firstly, that Leicester's Leiden quarrels, while showing his changing loyalty to those who had for so long been among his staunchest supporters, were particularly radical in that they concerned a Governor-Generalship which had once almost looked like an Anglo-Leiden enterprise. Fourteen years of liberal diplomacy now seemed wasted, and the old faction would have to break up, to be replaced, perhaps, by others. Rogers was absent, Marnix confined to his house2, Buys very soon to be a prisoner. Only a very small minority still cherished hopes of brighter days, like Dousa who continued to write verses to Hotman in something like the old spirit3. Politically, however, their Anglo-Dutch union was beyond recovery. The other aspect is that adversity proved the new independence of Anglo-Dutch non-political ties. Indeed, not one literary friendship seems to have been affected by the fate of Leicester's party policy.

The year 1586 was not yet half finished when, in the middle of these commotions, Sidney marched eastward to begin his long-delayed campaign, Baudius going with him, perhaps still hopefully drafting his epic. The University remained where it was.


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