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Francis Meres

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Rev. Francis Meres (1565 - 29 January 1647) was an English churchman, teacher, and miscellaneous writer.

Palladis Tamia 1598

Francis Meres (1565-1647), Palladis Tamia, 1598. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life[]

Overview[]

Meres was of a Lincolnshire family, studied at Cambridge and Oxford, and became rector of Wing in Rutland. He published in 1598 Palladis Tamia: Wit's treasury, containing a comparison of English poets with Greek, Latin, and Italian.[1]

Youth and education[]

Meres was born at Kirton in the Holland division of Lincolnshire in 1565.[2]

He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he earned a B.A. in 1587, and an M.A. in 1591. 2 years later he was awarded an M.A. from the University of Oxford.[2]

Career[]

His kinsman, John Meres, was high sheriff of' Lincolnshire in 1596, and apparently helped him in the early part of his career.[2]

John Meres appears to have promised him further means of support if he chose to settle at Cambridge. But on 14 July 1602 he became rector of Wing in Rutland, and kept a school there. He retained the living till his death on 29 January 1646–7.[3]

His wife Maria died 2 May 1631, aged 54. Meres, when entering his wife's death in his parish register, records her virtues at length both in English and Latin.[3]

He died on 29 January 1647.[2]

An only son, Francis, born in 1607 (B.A. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1628), was headmaster of Uppingham School 1641–1669. The son Francis was father of Edward Meres (B.A. 1679 and M.A. 1683, St. John's College, Cambridge), rector of Wing 1688–1690.[3]

Writing[]

Palladis Tamia[]

Meres rendered immense service to the history of Elizabethan literature by the publication of his Palladis Tamia: Wits treasury (1598). It was the 2nd in a series of volumes of short pithy sayings, Wits Commmonwealth, which began with Politenphuia: Wits commonwealth (1597), compiled by John Bodenham or by publisher Nicholas Ling.[2]

The Palladis Tamia contained moral and critical reflections borrowed from various sources, and embraced sections on books, on philosophy, on music and painting, and on poetry.[2] Meres, who writes euphuistically, and prides himself on his free use of similes, acknowledges obligations to numerous classical writers and to the following English authors: Hugh Broughton, Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Greene, Foxe, John Lyly, Sir John Harington, William Warner, Capgrave, and Thomas Playfere.[3]

Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury Francis Meres Love labours won excerpt 1598

excerpt from from Palladis Tamia, 1598.

The most attractive feature of the volume is "A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets" (ff. 279–89). Meres passes in review all English literary effort from the time of Chaucer to his own day, briefly contrasting each English author with a writer of like character in Latin, Greek, or Italian.[3]

In other sections, on ‘Bookes,’ ‘Reading of Bookes,’ ‘Philosophie,’ ‘Poets and Poetrie,’ he makes casual references to contemporary English authors, and in his section on ‘Painting’ and ‘Music’ he supplies a few comments on contemporary English painters and musicians. He thus commemorates in all 125 Englishmen; and his lists of Shakespeare's works, with his commendation of the great dramatist's ‘fine filed phrase,’ and his account of Marlowe's death are loci classici in English literary history.[3]

The work was reissued in 1634 as Wits Commonwealth, the second part: A Treasurie of Diuine, Moral, and Phylosophical Similes, generally useful, but more particularly for the use of schools,’ London, 1634, 12mo. A title-page, engraved by John Droeshout, and dated 1636, was prefixed to the unsold copies of this edition, and describes the work as Witts Academy. A Treasurie of Goulden Sentences, Similies, and Examples. Set forth cheefely for the benefitt of young Schollers, London, printed for Richard Royston.[3]

Meanwhile a 3rd volume of the series,[3] of which Palladis Tamia was the 2nd, appeared in 1599 as Wits Theater of the Little World, for which Nicholas Ling was again responsible. A 4th volume was Palladis Palatium: Wisedoms Pallace, or the fourth part of Wits Commonwealth (London, by G. Elde for Francis Burton, 1604, 8vo); this part is ascribed in the Stationers' Registers, iii. 264, to William Wrednot.[4]

The book has been partially reprinted in the Ancient Critical Essays (1811-1815) of Joseph Haslewood, E. Arber's English Garner, and Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays (1904).[2]

Miscellaneous[]

Meres has been identified with the ‘F M.’ who contributed verses to the Paradise of Dainty Devices in 1595. Charles FitzGeoffrey, in addressing to him a Latin poem in his Affaniæ, 1601 (p. 62), describes him as "theologus et poeta." But it seems doubtful whether he is the ‘Francis Meares’ who prefixed a Latin epigram to Randolph's Jealous Lover, 1640. He mainly confined himself to prose.[3]

A sermon entitled Gods Arithrneticke (1597), and 2 translations from the Spanish of Luis de Granada entitled Granadas Devotion and the Sinners Guide (both 1598), complete the list of his works.[2]

Publications[]

Non-fiction[]

  • Gods Arithmetick. London : By Richard Iohnes, 1597.
  • Palladis Tamia: Wits treasury. London: P. Short, for Cuthbert Burbie. 1598; New York: Scholastic Facsimiles and Reprints, 1968
    • also printed as Wits common wealth The second part. London: William Stansby, for Richard Royston, 1634
    • Witts Academy: A treasurie of goulden sentences similies and examples. London: William Stansby, for Richard Royston, 1636.

Translated[]

  • Luis de Granada, Granados Deuotion. London: E. Allde, for Cuthbert Burbie. 1598.
  • Luis de Granada, The Sinners Guyde. London: Iames Roberts, for Paule Linley / Iohn Flasket, 1598.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[5]

See also[]

References[]

  •  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Meres, Francis". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 163. . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 12, 2018.
  • Allen, Don C. "The Classical Scholarship of Francis Meres" PMLA, XLVIII: 1 (March 1933), 418–425.
  • Bentley, Gerald Eades. "John Cotgrave’s English Treasury of Wit and Language and the Elizabethan Drama" Studies in Philology, Vol. XL, 1943.
  • Greenwood, George (1916). "Francis Meres and John Florio". Notes and Queries. 12th series (London) I. https://archive.org/stream/s12notesqueries01londuoft#page/116/mode/2up. Retrieved 2 January 2014. 
  •  Lee, Sidney (1894) "Meres, Francis" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 37 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 272-274  . Wikisource, Web, Sep. 10, 2020.</ref>

Notes[]

  1. ↑ John William Cousin, "Meres, Francis," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 268. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 12, 2018.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Britannica 1911, xviii, 163.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Lee, 273.
  4. ↑ Lee, 274.
  5. ↑ Search results = au:Francis Meres, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 10, 2020.

External links[]

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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: Meres, Francis
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Meres, Francis

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