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Thomas Freeman (?1590-1630), Rubbe, and A Great Cast: Epigrams, 1614. Courtesy Shakepeare Documented.
Thomas Freeman, (?1590-1630), was a minor English poet and epigramist who is mostly remembered for writing an early poem addressed to Shakespeare.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Freeman was a Gloucestershire man, "of the same family of those of Batsford and Todenham, near to Morton-in-Marsh." (Wood, Athenæ)[1]
He became a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1607, and earned a B.A. 10 June 1611 (Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 341).[1]
career[]
"Retiring to the great city and setting up for a poet," he published in 1614 a collection of epigrams in 2 parts, 4to, dedicated to Thomas, lord Windsor. Rvbbe and a Great Cast is the title of the 1st part, and Rvnne and a Great Cast. The Second Bowle of the 2nd. It is a scarce and interesting volume. There are epigrams on Shakespeare, Daniel, Donne, Chapman, Thomas Heywood, and Owen, the epigrammatist; also an epitaph on Nashe.[1]
A piece by Freeman, "Encomion Cornubiæ," is reprinted in Ellis's Specimens,' 1811, iii. 113.[1]
Writing[]
His Epigram 92 is an early example of Shakespeare criticism.
- To Master W: Shakespeare.
- Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury thy braine,
- Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleepe,
- So fit, for all thou fashionest thy vaine,
- At th' horse-foote fountaine thou hast drunk full deepe,
- Vertues or vices theame to thee all one is:
- Who loues chaste life, there’s Lucrece for a Teacher:
- Who list read lust there’s Venus and Adonis,
- True modell of a most lasciuious leatcher.
- Besides in plaies thy wit windes like Meander:
- Whence needy new-composers borrow more
- Thence Terence doth from Plautus or Menander.
- But to praise thee aright I want thy store:
- Then let thine owne works thine owne worth vpraise,
- And help t'adorne thee with deserued Baies.
His epigram 37 has attracted some attention from modern readers, owing perhaps to its self-reflexive commentary:[2]
- Whoop, whoop, me thinkes I heare my Reader cry,
- Here is rime doggrell: I confesse it I;
- Nor to a certaine pace tie I my Muse;
- I giue the Reines, anon the Curbe I vse;
- And for the foote accordingly I fit her,
- To diuerse matter vsing diuerse meeter,
- Her lines, they are as long as I allot her,
- As why not, vessels be as please the Potter,
- Nor care I for a Censors ciuill hood,
- I please my selfe, at home my Musicke's good.
Publications[]
- Rubbe, and a Great Cast: Epigrams. London: Nicholas Okes, for L. Lisle, 1614.[3]
See also[]
References[]
- Bloxam, John Rouse. Magdalen College Register, The Demies, Vol. II. John Parker: Oxford, London, 1876, pp. 33–34.
Bullen, Arthur Henry (1889) "Freeman, Thomas" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 20 London: Smith, Elder, p. 241 Wikisource, Web, Apr. 16, 2020.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- 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: Freeman, Thomas
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