George Turberville

A falconer; woodcut illustration from George Turberville's Book of Falconry or Hawking, 1575. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

George Turberville, or Turbervile (?1540 - 1610?) was an English poet.

Life

Overview

Turberville, belonging to an ancient Dorsetshire family, was born at Whitchurch, and educated at Winchester and Oxford. He became secretary to Thomas Randolph, ambassador to Russia; made translations from the Latin and Italian; and in 1570 published Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonets. He also wrote books on Falconrie and Hunting, and was among the earliest to use blank verse.

Family, youth, education

Turberville was born about 1540, the 2nd son of Nicholas Turbervile of Whitchurch, Dorset, by a daughter of the house of Morgan of Mapperton. He was descended from an ancient Dorset family, and James Turbervile, bishop of Exeter, was his great-uncle (see Hutchins, Dorset, i. 139).

Born at Whitchurch, says Wood, of a "right ancient and genteel family," the poet was admitted a scholar of Winchester College in 1554 at the age of 14, became a perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford in 1561, left it before he was a graduate the year following, and went to an inn of court, where he was much admired for his excellencies in the art of poetry.

Career

His Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets appeared "newly corrected with additions" in 1567. In the same year he published translations of the Heroycall Epistles of Ovid, and of the Eglogs of Mantuan (Gianbattista Spagnuoli, called Mantuanus), and in 1568 A Plaine Path to Perfect Vertue from Dominicus Mancinus.

Being esteemed a person fit for business as having a good and ready command of his pen, Turberville was engaged by Thomas Randolph (1523-1590) to be his secretary, when he was sent by Queen Elizabeth to go as ambassador to the Emperor of Russia. Randolph set out on his mission to Ivan the Terrible in June 1568, returning in the autumn of the following year; and it was apparently during this interval that Turbervile wrote from Moscow his Poems describing the Places and Manners of the Country and People of Russia, Anno 1568. The book, mentioned by Wood, has been lost; only 3 metrical letters describing his adventures survive, reprinted in Hakluyt's Voyages (1589).

"After his return from Muscovy," says Wood, who remains our sole authority, "he was esteemed a most accomplished gentlemen, and his company was much sought after and desired by all men." The Book of Falconry or Hawking and the "Noble Art of Venerie" (printed together in 1575) may both be assigned to Turberville.

Sir John Harington has an epitaph in commendation of "George Turbervill, a learned gentleman," in his 1st book of Epigrams (1618), which concludes, "My pen doth praise thee dead, thine grac'd me living." Arthur Brooke and George Gascoigne were apparently on intimate terms with Turbervile, who was probably the "G.T." from whom the manuscript of Gascoigne's A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres was obtained; but there seems no very good ground for identifying the Spencer to whom he wrote a metrical epistle from Moscow with poet Edmund Spenser. The attempt which has been made to identify Turbervile with "Harpalus" in Spenser's Colin Clout's come Home Again, is quite inconclusive.

The poet may be the George Turberville who was summoned before the council on 22 June 1587 to answer "certaine matters objected against him" (Privy Council Reg. xv. 135, cf. xiv. 23). The title page of his Tragical Tales (1587), which are translations from Boccaccio and Bandello, says that the book was written at the time of the author's troubles. What these were is unknown.

Wood says he was living and in high esteem in 1594. He probably died before 1611. From the fact that the 1611 edition of the Faulconrie is labelled "Heretofore published by George Turbervile, gentleman," it may be presumed that the original compiler and editor was dead by to that year.

Writing

Poetically, Turberville is a disciple of Wyatt and Surrey, whose matter he sometimes appropriated. Much of his verse is sing-song enough, but he disarms criticism by his humble estimate of his own powers. He himself writes with becoming diffidence of his poetical pretensions in the epilogue to his Epitaphs and Sonets, where he describes himself as paddling along the banks of the stream of Helicon, like a sculler against the tide, for fear of the deep stream and the "mighty hulkes" that adventured out so far.

His fondness for the octave stanza would probably recommend him to the majority of modern readers, and there is something decidedly enlivening (if not seldom crude and incongruous) in the blithe and ballad-like lilt of his verse. He did good service to our literature in familiarising the employment of Italian models, he himself showing a wide knowledge of the literature of the Latin speech, and of the Greek Anthology; and also as a pioneer in the use of blank verse and in the record of impressions of travel.

Major Works

Turberville debuted as an author with Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonets, with a Discourse of the Friendly Affections of Tymetes to Pyndara his ladie. Newly corrected with additions, 1567; imprinted by Henry Denham, b. 1. 8vo (Bodleian Library; no earlier edition seems known. The British Museum has only the impression of 1570; it was reprinted by Collier in 1867). The title recalls the "Songs and Sonnets of Tottel's Miscellany, and the Eglogs, Epitaphes, and Sonettes (1563) of Barnabe Googe, whom Turbervile had studied with care. A number of his own epigrams (e.g. "Stand with thy Snoute," 83) were appropriated verbatim and without acknowledgment by Timothy Kendall in his Flowers of Epigrammes, 1577. Turbervile has epitaphs upon Sir John Tregonwell, Sir John Horsey, and Arthur Brooke.

In Moscow he wrote Poems describing the Places and Manners of the Country and People of Russia, Anno 1568. No copy of this work, as cited by Wood, appears to be known, but some of the contents were evidently included among his later verse (Tragical Tales) under the heading "The Author being in Moscouia wrytes to certaine his frendes in Englande of the state of the place, not exactly but all aduentures and minding to have descrybed all the Moscouites maners brake off his purpose upon some occasion." There follow 3 extremely quaint epistles upon the manners of "a people passing rude, to vices vile enclinde," inscribed respectively to "Master Edward Dancie," "to Spencer,’ and "to Parker.' The 3 metrical epistles were reprinted in Hakluyt's Voyages, 1589.

Turbervile's next venture appears to have been a compilation entitled The Booke of Faulconrie, or Hawking. For the onely delight and pleasure of all Nobleman and Gentlemen. Collected out of the best authors, as well Italian as Frenchmen, and some English practices withall concerning Faulconrie, the contents whereof are to be seene in the next page folowying. Imprinted by Christopher Barker at the signe of the Grashopper in Paules Churchyard, 1575, 4to, b. l., with woodcuts; dedicated to the Earl of Warwick. Another edition appeared in 1611, "newly revised, corrected, and augmented," with a large cut representing the Earl of Warwick in hawking costume (the engraving is colored by hand in the British Museum copy). A versified commendation of hawking and an epilogue are supplied by the author. In the 2nd edition James I is substituted for Elizabeth in the woodcuts.

Bound up with both editions generally appears "The Noble Art of Venerie, or Hunting," which is also ascribed to Turbervile. The 1575 edition of this is dedicated by the publisher to Sir Henry Clinton, and both are prefaced by commendatory verses by Gascoigne and by ‘T.M.Q." The book was reprinted alone in 1908 as Turbervilles' Booke of Hunting. However, the British Library says that while "The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hunting is usually bound with George Turberville’s Booke of Faulconrie and Hauking (1575), and for a long time they were thought to be written by the same man," today "most scholars now agree that The Noble Arte of Venerie was produced by George Gascoigne (1534/5?–1577)."

This volume was followed by Tragical Tales; translated by Turbervile in time of his troubles out of sundry Italians, with the arguments and lenuoye to eche tale. … Imprinted by Abele Jeffs, 1587, b. 1. 8vo, dedicated to "his louing brother, Nicholas Turbervile, Esq." (Bodleian and University Library, Edinburgh, the latter a copy presented by William Drummond of Hawthornden; 50 copies were reprinted at Edinburgh in 1837 in a handsome quarto). Following the Tragical Tales (all of which, 10 in number, are drawn from Boccaccio, with the exception of Nos. 5 and 8 from Bandello, and 2 of which the origin is uncertain) come a number of "Epitaphs and Sonets" (cf. Collier, Extracts from Stationers' Registers, 1557–1570, p. 203; and art. Tye, Christopher). The sonnets, as in the previous volume, are not confined to any one metere or length; the epitaphs commemorate, among others, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, Henry Sydenham, Gyles Bampfield (probably a relative), and "Maister Edwards, sometime Maister of the Children of the Chappell," There are several allusions in the body of the work, as well as on the title, to the author's mishaps and troubles of mind, but what these troubles were we are not told.

Miscellaneous

Turbervile has some verses before Sir Geoffrey Fenton's Tragicall Discourses (1579) and at the end of Rowlands's Pleasant Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes, 1596.

Besides the works already referred to, Turbervile executed some reputable translations:

1. The Heroycall Epistles of the Learned Poet, Publius Ovidius Naso, in English verse. With Aulus Sabinus Aunsweres to certaine of the same, 1567, London, b. 1., 8vo; dedicated to Lord Thomas Howard, viscount Bindon (see Collier, Bibl. Cat. ii. 70). A 2nd edition appeared in 1569, a 3rd in 1570, and a 4th in 1600, all in black letter. 6 of the epistles are in blank verse.

2. The Eglogs of the Poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, Turned into English Verse and set forth with the argument to every Eglog by George Turbervile, Gent. Anno 1567. By Henry Bynneman, at the signe of the Marmayde: dedicated to his uncle “Maister Hugh Bamfild” (Corser; the British Museum copy lacks the colophon at the end with Bynneman's device). Another black-letter edition appeared in 1572 (cf. Bibl. Heber. iv. 1486). Another was printed by John Danter in 1594, and again in 1597. These numerous editions point to the high estimation in which "the Mantuan" was held at the time (cf. Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost, iv. sc. 3).

3. A plaine Path to perfect Vertue: Devised and found out by Mancinus a Latine Poet, and translated into English by G. Turberuile Gentleman.... imprinted by Henry Bynneman, 1568; dedicated "to the right Honorable and hys singular good lady, Lady Anne Countess Warwick." The British Museum copy bears the book-plate of (Sir) Francis Freeling and the manuscript inscription, dated 5 Sept. 1818, "I would fain hope that I may consider this as unique."

About 1574, according to the dedication to the Faulconrie, Turbervile commenced a translation of the "haughtie worke of learned Lucan," but "occasions" broke his purpose, and, in the bantering words of a rival, "he was inforced to unyoke his Steeres and to make holy day" (Second Part of Mirrour for Magistrates, 1578).

A far from accurate reprint of Turbervile's Poems (i.e. Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonets) appeared in Chalmers's English Poets (1810, ii. 575 sq.).

Critical reputation

Apart from the commendation of the witty Sir John Harington already referred to, Turbervile received the praise of Puttenham in his Art of Poesie, and of Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598). Puttenham, however, afterwards speaks of him as a "bad rhymer," and it is plain from words let fall by Nashe (in lines prefixed to Greene's Menaphon) and by Gabriel Harvey (in Pierce's Supererogation of 1593) that he came to be regarded as the worthy poet of a rude period, but hopelessly superannuated by 1590. Tofte speaks of him very justly in his translation of Varchi's Blazon of Jealousie (1615) as having "broken the ice for our quainter poets that now write."

He is rather curtly dismissed by Park and by Drake as a smatterer in poetry, and a "translator only of the passion of love."

Recognition

His Epitaphs &c. were reprinted by Alexander Chalmers in English Poets (1810), and by J.P. Collier in 1867.

Publications

Poetry

• Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets. London: Henry Denham, 1567, 1570.

Non-fiction

• The Booke of Falconrie or Havvking (printed with The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hvnting). London: Henry Bynneman, for Christopher Barker, et al, 1575; London: Thomas Purfoot, 1611.

Translated

• Mantuan, The Eglogs of the Poet B. Mantuan Carmelitan, turned into English verse. London: H. Bynneman, 1567, 1572.
• Jaques du Fouilloux, The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hvnting (translation also attributed to George Gascoigne). Printed with The Booke of Falconrie or Havvking, 1575, 1611
  • Turberville's Booke of Hunting, 1576. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1908.
• Ovid, The heroycall epistles of the Learned Poet Publius Ouidius Naso : in English verse. London: Henry Denham, 1567; London: Iohn Charlewoode, [1584?]; London: Cresset Press, 1928.
• Giovanni Boccaccio & Matteo Bandello, Tragicall Tales Translated by Turberville in the Time of his Troubles. London: Abell Ieffs, 1587
  • also published as Tragicall Tales, and other poems. Edinburgh: privately published, 1837.

Except when noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

Poems George Turberville - Of Drunkenness

• Canons of Elizabethan poetry
• List of British poets
• Timeline of English poetry

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Turberville, George". Encyclopædia Britannica. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 411. . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 13, 2018.
•  Seccombe, Thomas (1899) "Turberville, George" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 57 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 321-322  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 13, 2018.

External links

Poems

• George Turberville at AllPoetry (2 poems)

Books

• Geprge Turberville at Amazon.com

About

• George Turberville in the Encyclopædia Britannica

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: Turberville, George
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Turberville, George