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Godolphin-Sidney-9

Sidney Godolphin (1610-1643), 1793 engraving by R. Clamp.. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Sidney Godolphin (?1606-1643), was an English poet, courtier, and member of Parliament from 1628 until 1643. A Cavalier poet, he died fighting for the Royalist army in the English Civil War.

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Godolphin, the 2nd son of Sir William Godolphin (died 1613) of Godolphin, Cornwall, by his wife, Thomasin (Sidney), was baptized 15 January 1609–10 (Boase and Courtney).[1]

He was admitted a commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, on 25 June 1624, aged 18; remained there for 3 years; and afterwards entered one of the inns of court, and travelled abroad.[1]

Career[]

Godolphin was elected to the House of Commons for Helston in 1628; again to the Short parliament in March 1640; and to the Long parliament in October 1640. He was known as an adherent of Strafford, and was among the last royalist members to leave the house.[1]

Upon the breaking out of the civil war he made a final speech of warning (Somers Tracts, vi. 574), and left to raise a force in Cornwall. He joined the army commanded by Sir Ralph Hopton, which crossed the Tamar and advanced into Devonshire. Their declaration signed by Godolphin is in Lismore Papers’ (2nd ser. v. 116).[1]

Godolphin was a young man of remarkable promise, intimate with Falkland and Clarendon, and is commended by Thomas Hobbes in the dedication of Leviathan (1651) to his brother, Francis Godolphin, and also in the Review and conclusion of the same work.[2] Clarendon, in his Brief View of the Leviathan, contrives to accept Hobbes's eulogy and insult the eulogist in the same sentence, remarking that no 2 men could be "more unlike in modesty of nature and integrity of manners."[1]

Clarendon, in his own Life (i. 51–3), describes Godolphin as a very small man, shy, sensitive, and melancholy, though universally admired. In Suckling's Session of the Poets he is called "Little Sid." His advice, according to Clarendon, was highly valued by the commanders in spite of his want of military experience.[1]

Godolphin, was shot in a skirmish at Chagford, a village which, as Clarendon unkindly and erroneously observes, would otherwise have remained unknown. He was buried in the chancel of Okehampton Church 10 February 1642–3.[1]

Writing[]

Godolphin left several poems, which were never collected in a separate volume. The Passion of Dido for Æneas, as it is incomparably expressed in the fourth book of Virgil, finished by Edmund Waller, was published in 1658 and 1679, and is in the 4th volume of Dryden's Miscellany Poems (1716, iv. 134–153).[1]

Godolphin was among the "certain persons of quality" whose translation of Corneille's ‘Pompée’ was published in 1664. A song is in Ellis's Specimens (1811, iii. 229), and another in the Tixall Poetry’ (1813, 216–218). Other poems in manuscript are in the Harleian MSS. (6917) and the Malone MSS. in the Bodleian Library. Commendatory verses by him are prefixed to Sandys's Paraphrase (1638), and an "epitaph upon the Lady Rich" is in Gauden's Funerals made Cordials (1658).[1]

His poems were collected and published by Oxford University Press in 1930, with a preface by John Drinkwater..[3]

Critical introduction[]

by George Saintsbury
Godolphin, though always regarded with interest by the few who mentioned him, and, though holding the exceptional position of having perished in actual fight at the opening of the rebellion, was, in the stormy times of his death, neglected so far as publication of his poems was concerned.

A few pieces — a commendatory poem to Sandys on the latter’s Paraphrases, a few others in other books, and the beginning of a translation of the 4th book of the Virgil's Aeneid, continued by Waller, and published in the 4th volume of Dryden’s Miscellany — did, indeed, appear in or near his time. Ellis gave one of his most charming things, “Or love me less or love me more,” in his Specimens; and Scott another in the so-called Tixall Poetry. But the earliest attempt to collect his work from these sources and from the 2 MSS., no. 39 of Malone’s in the Bodleian and Harl. 1917 in the British Museum, was made by the present writer.

The Virgilian piece is an early and interesting document of the heroic couplet on its regular side; but the lyrics are his real title to fame. These lyrics, few as they are, have the strongly miscellaneous and occasional character which belongs to almost the entire group — there are paraphrases of the Psalms, hymns, epistles (with some curious and, as yet, unexplained sporting references) and so forth. But, as usual, the charm lies in the love-lyrics: that given by Ellis and referred to above; the perhaps even better “No more unto my thoughts appear,” which is in common measure of the special Caroline stamp, while the other is in Long meter; some fine pieces — a Chorus, a Meditation in octosyllabic couplets, some lighter attempts, as the song “’Tis Affection but dissembled”; a very curious compound, perhaps intended to be detached, of common and long measure; and so forth. Once, in some triplets, he has a piece where almost the whole appeal lies in “metaphysical” thought and word-play on the difficulty of knowing his mistress from Virtue herself—

Conceits of one must into the other flow …
You are in it, as it is all in you —

and such like puerilities, unsublimated by the strangeness of touch which Donne would have given them, and emphasised by the stopped antithetic couplet. But this is almost Godolphin’s only slip into the pitfalls of the period. Of its graces and merits, he has much; and it is difficult not to think that, in a different station and circumstances, he would have had much more.[4]

Recognition[]

Godolphin's poetry was included in the New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950.

In popular culture[]

It is alleged that Godolphin's ghost haunts The Three Crowns Hotel in Chagford. He is said to stride the corridors in full uniform.[5]

Publications[]

  • Poems (edited by William Dighton, with preface by John Drinkwater). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.[3]

See also[]

References[]

  • PD-icon Stephen, Leslie (1890) "Godolphin, Sidney (1610–1643)" in Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 22 London: Smith, Elder, p. 42 . Wikisource, Web, Apr. 23, 2020.

Notes[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Stephen, 42.
  2. Hobbes, English Works (Molesworth), iii. 703.
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Enchiridion, Psalms, Hymns, and Virtual Songs, David Goodall, Web, June 17, 2012.
  4. from Sidney Godolphin, Minor Caroline Poets, VII. Cavalier and Puritan, Cambridge History of English and American Literature, New York: Putnam; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1907–1921. Bartleby.com, Web, Apr. 23, 2020.
  5. Haunted Places. hauntedplaces.co.uk

External links[]

Poems
About

PD-icon 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: Godolphin, Sidney (1610–1643)

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