Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes. Written in his Youth, and familiar Exercise with Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following page doth declare.

[Greville] (Fulke, Baron Brooke)

Published by Printed by Elizabeth Purslowe for Henry Seyle, 1633

About this Item

FIRST EDITION, lacking initial and terminal blanks, somewhat browned, title-page also slightly stained, and frayed at fore-edge, pp. [iii-iv], 23-82, 298, folio in 4's, contemporary blind ruled calf, sometime rebacked preserving most of original spine, new label when rebacked, corners worn, no endleaves at front, a single much later fly-leaf at rear, inside front cover inscribed 'Henry Duke of Newcastle, his booke 1676. 'Henry Duke of Newcastle' is the fourth but second surviving son of William Cavendish, first duke of Newcastle upon Tyne: he inherited the estate upon his father's death in 1676. Henry was interested in books only in so far as they were property, and he seems to have gone through the well-stocked library immediately, asserting possession with this inscription (see Cristina Malcolmson in Debating Gender in Early Modern England, 1500 1700, pp. 23-24: the Harley MS of Christina de Pizan's City of Ladies has the same inscription). Really therefore this is from the library of William Cavendish, the remarkable first Duke (and after 1645 that of his equally remarkable second wife Margaret too). The inscription is directly onto the inside of the front board (shewing that by 1676 the front paste-down had at least lifted), not a congenial surface for the duke's pen: the Newcastle is only legible if you know that's what it says. 'When Greville's Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes was published in 1633 under the supervision of Sir John Coke and Sir Kenelm Digby a further poem was omitted. It would appear that 'A Treatise of Religion' was removed from all copies on the orders of Laud, who was then bishop of London, on account of the slur on episcopacy and criticism of the established church. The first seventy-six sonnets of Greville's sequence entitled Caelica appear to have been written after 1577, when the three friends [the others being Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Edward Dyer] were experimenting with verse forms. The nature of Sidney's and Greville's friendly rivalry is revealed by the name of the central female figure in each collection: Sidney's mistress is Stella (a single star), Greville addresses his poems to the entire sky (Caelica). Both sonnet sequences can be seen as responses to the challenge presented by the practice of Petrarchan love. While Sidney fails to resolve the conflicting demands of selfless adoration and physical desire in the lover, Greville turns from exploring the psychological consequences of the conflicting demands to a cynical rejection of ideal earthly love. For him, women are unfaithful and men are inevitably self-deceiving' (ODNB). Loosely inserted is a fragment (perhaps half) of a vellum leaf, being a legal document or memorandum, concerning 'Sir Fulke Grevill', dated the feast of the Archangel Gabriel (29 September) of an unspecified year (the document is cropped at the fore-margin) in the reign of King James. (Hayward 68; Pforzheimer 437; STC 12361).

Seller Inventory # 64831

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes. Written in his Youth, and familiar Exercise with Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following page doth declare.
• Publisher: Printed by Elizabeth Purslowe for Henry Seyle
• Publication Date: 1633
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature