Chambers, E.K., ed. Aurelian Townshend's Poems and Masks (edited by E.K. Chambers, 1912). Forgotten Books, 2018. Courtesy Goodreads.
Aurelian Townshend (sometimes Townsend) (1601-1643 fl.) was a 17th-century English poet.
Life[]
Townshend was a son of John Townshend of Dereham Abbey, Norfolk, and great-grandson of Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham.[1]
He was for a time steward to Sir Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury, and letters from him to Cecil, written in 1601 and 1602, are preserved among Lord Salisbury's manuscripts (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th and 7th Reps.)[1]
From an early age he had a reputation as a writer of graceful verse, which gained him many friends among courtiers who shared his literary tastes, as well as among professional men of letters. Ben Jonson was long on terms of very close intimacy. In 1602 Sir Thomas Overbury told Manningham the diarist: "Ben Jonson the poet nowe lives upon one Townesend and scornes the world" (Manningham, Diary, 130).[1]
In 1608 Townshend was invited by Edward Herbert (afterwards 1st Lord Herbert of Cherbury to accompany him on a continental tour. He was useful to Herbert from his perfect colloquial knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish. With Herbert he was the guest of the Duc de Montmorenci, governor and virtual sovereign of Languedoc, and visited the court of Henri IV.[1]
At Charles I's court Townshend enjoyed, with his friends Walter Montagu and Thomas Carew, a high literary reputation, and became apparently a gentleman of the privy chamber.[1]
At least as early as 1622 Townsend was married and settled as a "housekeeper" in Barbican, London, near the earl of Bridgwater's residence. The baptisms of 5 of his children — George, Mary, James, Herbert, and Frances — are recorded in the register of St. Giles, Cripplegate, between 1622 and 1632. Herbert died in infancy.[1]
On 3 June 1629, on petition to the king, Townshend was granted the custody of the widow of Thomas Ivatt, a searcher of London. She was a lunatic, and Townsend obtained the administration of her estate (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628–9, pp. 560, 567).[1]
In 1631, when Ben Jonson was driven from court through the influence of Inigo Jones, Townsend succeeded him as composer of court masques. On 8 January 1631–2 a masque entitled Albion's Triumph was presented by the king and his lords at Whitehall. The masque contained an allegorical representation of the English capital and court. It was afterwards printed with the names of the performers for Robert Allot, with the date 1631 (London, 4to). Some copies have the author's name, while others are anonymous.[1]
On 13 February 1631-2, Shrove Tuesday, a 2nd masque by Townshend, Tempe Restored, was presented before Charles and his court at Whitehall by the queen and 14 of her ladies. The story relates to Circe and her lovers. The work was printed with the date 1631 (London, 4to). Both these masques were designed and planned by Inigo Jones, Townsend being merely employed to supply the words.[1]
According to Collier (Shakespeare, 1858, i. 72), the earl of Pembroke (in a manuscript note in a copy of Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More (edit. 1642), which was sold among Horace Walpole's books), states that Townshend was living in Barbican in poor circumstances, and had "a fine fair daughter," mistress to the Palsgrave, and afterwards to the earl of Dorset.[1]
In 1643 Townsend presented a petition to the House of Lords setting forth that he was threatened with arrest for £600 at the suit of Tulley, a silkman, for commodities ordered for Lewis Boyle, lord Kinalmeakey, the son of Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork. He pleaded that he was the king's ordinary servant, and that he himself owed Tulley nothing, and asked for protection. On 3 March 1642–3 the House of Lords decided to grant him their protection, and bestowed on him the freedom of privilege of parliament (Lords' Journals, v. 632–636).[1]
In the confusion of the civil war Townshend disappears. He may have been alive in 1651, as among other complimentary verses prefixed to the Nympha Libethris, or the Cotswold Muse’ of Clement Barksdale, printed at Worcester in 1651, are some signed "Tounsend," which were possibly written by Aurelian.[1]
Writing[]
Townsend has been undeservedly neglected as a poet.[1] His poetry is remarkably formal and simultaneously free. His language is delicate, and his lines musical.[2] Many of his lyrics, which possess much charm and grace, are scattered through manuscript miscellanies.[1]
His reply to "The Enquiry" (a poem attributed to Carew or Herrick), entitled "His Mistress Found," is printed in Carew's Poems and Masques (ed. Ebsworth, 1893).
A song "Upon Kind and True Love," appeared in Wits Interpreter in 1640 (entitled "What is most to be liked in a Mistress?"), and was reprinted in Choice Drollery (1656). This poem, with another in Choice Drollery, "Upon his Constant Mistress," is anonymous, but both are attributed to Townshend.[1]
Commendatory verses by him were prefixed to Henry Carey, earl of Monmouth's Romulus and Tarquin (translated from the Italian of Malvezzi), 1638, and to Lawes's Choice Psalmes set to Music for Three Voices, 1648.[3]
Townsend probably edited the 1st and best edition of Carew's Poems, which appeared in 1640. Carew addressed him with much affection in a poem "In Answer to an Elegiacal Letter (from Aurelian Townsend) upon the Death of the King of Sweden." There Carew apparently attributes to Townshend a share in the Shepherd's Paradise by Walter Montagu.[3]
Townsend is alluded to disparagingly in Suckling's Session of the Poets in company with George Sandys.[3]
Critical reputation[]
T.S. Eliot praised the musicality of Townshend's poetry, and Hugh Kenner argues that Townshend's mixture of formality and liberty set the stage for Andrew Marvell. Others, though, consider him distinctly minor (e.g. Rumrich and Chaplin).[2]
Recognition[]
Beloe included "His Mistress Found" and another poem by Townshend, entitled "Youth and Beauty," in his Anecdotes of Literature (1812, vi. 195, 198).[1]
A.H. Bullen in Speculum Amantis (1889) printed Townsend's poem "To the Lady May" from the Malone MS. 13, f. 53. The Speculum also contains a song "Upon Kind and True Love," attributed to Townshend.[1]
In popular culture[]
2 poems by Townshend were set to music in Henry Lawes's Ayres and Dialogues (1655),[1]and 2 others in Lawes's Second Book of Ayres (1655).[3]
Publications[]
Plays[]
- Albion's Triumph: Presented in a masque at court. London: Aug: Mathewes for Robert Allet, 1631.
- Tempe Restor'd: A masque. London: A.M., for Robert Allet & George Bakek, 1631.
Collected editions[]
- Poems and Masques (edited by E.K. Chambers). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912.
- Poems and Masques; with music by Henry Lawes & William Webb. (edited by Cedric C Brown). Reading, UK: Whiteknights, 1983.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat..[4]
See also[]
References[]
Carlyle, Edward Irving (1899) "Townsend, Aurelian" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 57 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 103-104- Kenner, Hugh, ed. Seventeenth-Century Poetry. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
- Rumrich, John P. and Gregory Chaplin, eds. Seventeenth-Century British Poetry, 1603-1660. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. p. 311.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 Carlyle, 103.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Aurelian Townshend, Wikipedia, April 5, 2021. Web, Apr. 26, 2021.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Carlyle, 104.
- ↑ Search results = au:Aurelian Townshend, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Apr. 26, 2021.
External links[]
- Poems
- Books
- Aurelian Townshend at Amazon.com
- About
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Townsend, Aurelian
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