John Weever
Encyclopedia
John Weever was an English
poet
and antiquary.
He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge
, where he was admitted as a sizar
on 30 April 1594. Weever's first tutor at Cambridge was William Covell
, himself a native of Lancashire and author of Polimanteia (1595) which contains one of the first printed notices of Shakespeare. Another of Weever's tutors was Robert Pearson, whom in later life he mentions with gratitude as a 'reverend, learned divine'. It is possible that Weever considered a career in the church himself but after receiving his degree on 16 April 1598 he appears to have left Cambridge and travelled to London, where he immersed himself in the literary scene. In late 1599 he published Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion, containing a sonnet
on Shakespeare, and epigram
s on Samuel Daniel
, Michael Drayton
, Ben Jonson
, Edmund Spenser
, William Warner
and Christopher Middleton
, all of which are valuable to the literary historian. The sonnet on Shakespeare is particularly interesting since it follows the typical Shakespearian sonnet form: this may indicate Weever had seen actual examples of Shakespeare's sonnets, which at this date circulated only in manuscript. Many other epigrams however relate to persons Weever knew at Cambridge and presumably were composed while he was still a student there. The book also has commendatory verses by some of Weever's Cambridge friends.
Weever was in York
in 1603 and later apparently in Lancashire. Eventually however he settled in London and married, buying a house in the parish of St. James
, Clerkenwell
. His wife's first name was Anne, but it is not clear from the surviving records whether she was Anne Edwards, who married a man named John Weaver in St. James' church
in 1614; or Anne Panting, who married a John Weaver in the same church in 1617; or neither of these.
Weever died between mid-February and late March of 1632 and was buried at St James, Clerkenwell
. His own funeral monument has since been destroyed but a copy of the verses on it survives in the 1633 edition of John Stow
's Survey of London.
and after a thousand lines in this vein abruptly veers toward satire, with a description of the mythological origins of the form and translations of satires by classical authors. It concludes with references to contemporary satirists Joseph Hall and John Marston
, and also to the 'Bishops' Ban' of 1599 which ordered the calling in and destruction of satirical works by Thomas Nashe
and others.
In 1601 an anonymous pamphlet called The Whippinge of the Satyre was published, which attacks three figures referred to as the Epigrammatist, the Satirist and the Humorist. These three are taken to refer to the contemporary writers Everard Guilpin, his kinsman John Marston
and Ben Jonson
. It has been convincingly argued that Weever was the author of this pamphlet, and that as a result he was attacked in his turn and lampooned onstage as the character Asinius Bubo in Thomas Dekker's Satiromastix, as Simplicius Faber in Marston's What You Will and as Shift in Jonson's Every Man Out Of His Humour. All these three characters are represented as being very small in stature and great lovers of tobacco, two characteristics which Weever himself admits to in his later works.
In 1601 Weever also published two more serious works of a religious tone, The Mirror of Martyrs and An Agnus Dei. The Mirror of Martyrs or The Life and Death of ... Sir John Oldcastle may have been part of a backlash. In his preface Weever calls it the "first trew Oldcastle," perhaps on account of the fact that Shakespeare's character Falstaff
first appeared as 'Sir John Oldcastle'. Weever's work is influenced by John Bale
's 1544 biography of Oldcastle, which presents him as a proto-Protestant martyr. In the fourth stanza
of this long poem, in which Sir John is his own panegyrist
, occurs a reminiscence of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
which serves to fix the date of the play. Weever's other work of this year, An Agnus Dei, is the life of Christ told in verse form. It has little literary merit but went through several editions, perhaps because it was produced as a tiny book less than two inches square.
As early as his first publication in 1599 Weever had demonstrated an interest in funeral monuments. Developing this, he spent the first three decades of the seventeenth century collecting such inscriptions. He travelled throughout England
and to parts of Scotland
, France
, the Low Countries
and Italy
. Back in England he made friends among the chief antiquaries of his time, including Sir Robert Cotton
and the herald Augustine Vincent
. The result of extensive travels in his own country appeared in Ancient Funeral Monuments (1631), now valuable on account of the later obliteration of the inscriptions. This folio volume has a portrait of Weever as its frontispiece, and gives his age as 55. The Society of Antiquaries
also holds two notebooks in Weever's own hand which contain an early draft of Ancient Funeral Monuments, as well as other material not published in that work.
The Huth Library contains a unique copy of a thumb-book Agnus Dei (1606), containing a history of Christ. The Mirror of Martyrs has been reprinted for the Roxburghe Club (1872).
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and antiquary.
Life
He was a native of Preston, Lancashire. Little is known of his early life and his parentage is not certain. He may be the son of the John Weever who in 1590 was one of thirteen followers of local landowner Thomas Langton put on trial for murder after a riot which took place at Lea Hall, Lancashire.He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
, where he was admitted as a sizar
Sizar
At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar is a student who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job....
on 30 April 1594. Weever's first tutor at Cambridge was William Covell
William Covell
-Life:He was born in Chadderton, Lancashire, England, and proceeded M.A. at Queens' College, Cambridge in 1588.In the 1590s Covell took part in the controversy about how far the newly-reformed Church of England should abandon the liturgy and hierarchy of the past, to which debate he contributed...
, himself a native of Lancashire and author of Polimanteia (1595) which contains one of the first printed notices of Shakespeare. Another of Weever's tutors was Robert Pearson, whom in later life he mentions with gratitude as a 'reverend, learned divine'. It is possible that Weever considered a career in the church himself but after receiving his degree on 16 April 1598 he appears to have left Cambridge and travelled to London, where he immersed himself in the literary scene. In late 1599 he published Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut, and Newest Fashion, containing a sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
on Shakespeare, and epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s on Samuel Daniel
Samuel Daniel
Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian.-Early life:Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married...
, Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...
, Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
, Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
, William Warner
William Warner (poet)
William Warner was an English poet.-Life:William Warner was born in London about 1558. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree. He practised in London as an attorney, and gained a great reputation among his contemporaries as a poet...
and Christopher Middleton
Christopher Middleton (d. 1628)
-Life:The Dictionary of National Biography gives tentative information. He may be identical with the Christopher Middleton of Cheshire who matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, 12 December 1580, aged 20. A clergyman of the same name, who graduated B.D. from St...
, all of which are valuable to the literary historian. The sonnet on Shakespeare is particularly interesting since it follows the typical Shakespearian sonnet form: this may indicate Weever had seen actual examples of Shakespeare's sonnets, which at this date circulated only in manuscript. Many other epigrams however relate to persons Weever knew at Cambridge and presumably were composed while he was still a student there. The book also has commendatory verses by some of Weever's Cambridge friends.
Weever was in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
in 1603 and later apparently in Lancashire. Eventually however he settled in London and married, buying a house in the parish of St. James
St James Church, Clerkenwell
St James Church, Clerkenwell is an Anglican parish church in Clerkenwell, London, England.- Nunnery of St Mary: c. 1100 - 1539 :The parish of St James, Clerkenwell, has had a long and sometimes lively history. The springs which give Clerkenwell its name are mentioned during the reign of Henry II...
, Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...
. His wife's first name was Anne, but it is not clear from the surviving records whether she was Anne Edwards, who married a man named John Weaver in St. James' church
St James Church, Clerkenwell
St James Church, Clerkenwell is an Anglican parish church in Clerkenwell, London, England.- Nunnery of St Mary: c. 1100 - 1539 :The parish of St James, Clerkenwell, has had a long and sometimes lively history. The springs which give Clerkenwell its name are mentioned during the reign of Henry II...
in 1614; or Anne Panting, who married a John Weaver in the same church in 1617; or neither of these.
Weever died between mid-February and late March of 1632 and was buried at St James, Clerkenwell
St James Church, Clerkenwell
St James Church, Clerkenwell is an Anglican parish church in Clerkenwell, London, England.- Nunnery of St Mary: c. 1100 - 1539 :The parish of St James, Clerkenwell, has had a long and sometimes lively history. The springs which give Clerkenwell its name are mentioned during the reign of Henry II...
. His own funeral monument has since been destroyed but a copy of the verses on it survives in the 1633 edition of John Stow
John Stow
John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...
's Survey of London.
Works
In 1600 Weever published Faunus and Melliflora, which begins as an erotic poem in the style of Shakespeare's Venus and AdonisVenus and Adonis
Venus and Adonis, a classical myth, was a common subject for art during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Some works which have been titled Venus and Adonis are:-Literary works:...
and after a thousand lines in this vein abruptly veers toward satire, with a description of the mythological origins of the form and translations of satires by classical authors. It concludes with references to contemporary satirists Joseph Hall and John Marston
John Marston
John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
, and also to the 'Bishops' Ban' of 1599 which ordered the calling in and destruction of satirical works by Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...
and others.
In 1601 an anonymous pamphlet called The Whippinge of the Satyre was published, which attacks three figures referred to as the Epigrammatist, the Satirist and the Humorist. These three are taken to refer to the contemporary writers Everard Guilpin, his kinsman John Marston
John Marston
John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...
and Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
. It has been convincingly argued that Weever was the author of this pamphlet, and that as a result he was attacked in his turn and lampooned onstage as the character Asinius Bubo in Thomas Dekker's Satiromastix, as Simplicius Faber in Marston's What You Will and as Shift in Jonson's Every Man Out Of His Humour. All these three characters are represented as being very small in stature and great lovers of tobacco, two characteristics which Weever himself admits to in his later works.
In 1601 Weever also published two more serious works of a religious tone, The Mirror of Martyrs and An Agnus Dei. The Mirror of Martyrs or The Life and Death of ... Sir John Oldcastle may have been part of a backlash. In his preface Weever calls it the "first trew Oldcastle," perhaps on account of the fact that Shakespeare's character Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
first appeared as 'Sir John Oldcastle'. Weever's work is influenced by John Bale
John Bale
John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being...
's 1544 biography of Oldcastle, which presents him as a proto-Protestant martyr. In the fourth stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
of this long poem, in which Sir John is his own panegyrist
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
, occurs a reminiscence of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
which serves to fix the date of the play. Weever's other work of this year, An Agnus Dei, is the life of Christ told in verse form. It has little literary merit but went through several editions, perhaps because it was produced as a tiny book less than two inches square.
As early as his first publication in 1599 Weever had demonstrated an interest in funeral monuments. Developing this, he spent the first three decades of the seventeenth century collecting such inscriptions. He travelled throughout England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and to parts of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Back in England he made friends among the chief antiquaries of his time, including Sir Robert Cotton
Sir Robert Cotton
Sir Robert Cotton may refer to:*Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington, , English antiquary*Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Combermere , MP for Cheshire*Robert Cotton , English politician...
and the herald Augustine Vincent
Augustine Vincent
-Life:He was born presumably in Northamptonshire, about 1584, third and youngest son of William Vincent and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Mabbott of Walgrave, merchant of the staple. He early obtained a post in the Tower of London. He had access to the documents preserved in the Tower, and...
. The result of extensive travels in his own country appeared in Ancient Funeral Monuments (1631), now valuable on account of the later obliteration of the inscriptions. This folio volume has a portrait of Weever as its frontispiece, and gives his age as 55. The Society of Antiquaries
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
also holds two notebooks in Weever's own hand which contain an early draft of Ancient Funeral Monuments, as well as other material not published in that work.
The Huth Library contains a unique copy of a thumb-book Agnus Dei (1606), containing a history of Christ. The Mirror of Martyrs has been reprinted for the Roxburghe Club (1872).