Fulke Greville

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, by Edmund Lodge (circa 1620). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke
Born	3 October 1554 Alcester, Warwickshire
Died	30 September 1628 (aged 73) Warwick, Warwickshire
Nationality	English
Occupation	poet, dramatist, courtier, statesman

Sir Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and' 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke (3 October 1554 - 30 September 1628) was an English poet, dramatist, and statesman.

Life

Overview

Greville was a capable administrator who served the English Crown under Elizabeth I and James I as, successively, treasurer of the navy, chancellor of the exchequer, and commissioner of the Treasury. He is best known today as the biographer of Sir Philip Sidney, and for his sober poetry, which presents dark, thoughtful, and distinctly Calvinist views on art, literature, beauty, and other philosophical matters.

Greville was born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire, and educated at Shrewsbury and Cambridge. He was a Privy Councillor, and held various important offices of state, including that of Chancellor of the Exchequer (1614-21). In the latter year he was created a peer. He was murdered by a servant. His works, which were chiefly published after his death, consist of tragedies and sonnets, and poems on political and moral subjects, including Cælica (109 sonnets). He also wrote a Life of Sir Philip Sidney, whose friend he was. His style is grave and sententious.

Family

Greville was the only son of Sir Fulke Greville, by Ann, daughter of Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland. The father, who is eulogised by Camden (Britannia, i. 607) "for the sweetness of his temper," was a great Warwickshire landowner, 'much given to hospitality,' who was knighted in 1565, was elected M.P. for his county in 1580 and 1588, and died in 1606.

To Lord Brooke's grandfather, also Sir Fulke Greville, the family owed its high position in Warwickshire. This Sir Fulke — younger son of Sir Edward Greville of Milcote — was a notable soldier in the reign of Henry VIII, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Willoughby, and grand-daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Willoughby, lord Brooke. By this marriage the great mansion of Beauchamp Court came, with much other property, into Sir Fulke's possession. In 1541 Henry VIII gave him the site of Alcester monastery with many neighbouring estates, and he thus became one of the largest proprietors in the county. He was sheriff of Warwickshire in 1543 and 1548, and M.P. in 1547 and 1554. He died 10 Nov. 1559, and was buried in Alcester Church. His widow died in 1560 and was buried by his side.

Youth and education

The poet Fulke Greville, the 1st Sir Fulke's grandson, was born at the family seat, Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire, in 1554.

He was sent on 17 October 1564, when 10 years old, to the newly founded Shrewsbury School. Philip Sidney, who was of the same age, entered the school on the same day, and the friendship which sprang up between the boys developed into a lifelong attachment.

Greville proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he matriculated as a fellow-commoner 20 May 1568. Although Sidney went to Oxford, Greville maintained a close connection with him in his university days, and came to know his father, Sir Henry Sidney, president of Wales. Sir Henry was sufficiently impressed with his abilities to give him a small office connected with the court of marches as early as 1576, but Greville resigned the post in 1577 and came with Philip Sidney to court.

Courtier

Greville at once attracted the queen's favour, and "had the longest lease and the smoothest time without rub of any of her favourites" (Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, ed. Arber, p. 50). Bacon writes that he used his influence with the queen honourably, "and did many men good." But disagreements between her and Greville were at times inevitable. Elizabeth appreciated his society so highly that she refused him permission to gratify his desire for foreign travel. He nevertheless ventured abroad at times despite her orders, and suffered accordingly from her displeasure.

In February 1577 he accompanied Sidney to Heidelberg, where his friend went to present the queen's condolences and assurances of goodwill to Princes Lewis and John Casimir, who had just lost their father, the elector palatine. In 1578 he went to Dover to embark for the Low Countries to witness the war proceeding there, but Sir Edward Dyer was sent with "a princely mandate" to "stay" him. He managed, however, to accompany Secretary Walsingham on a diplomatic mission to Flanders a month or so later, but on his return "was forbidden the queen's presence for many months." In 1579 he accompanied Sidney's friend and tutor Languet on his return to Germany, and when coming home had an interesting interview with William the Silent, prince of Orange, of which he gives an account in his 'Life of Sidney' (1652, pp. 22 et seq.)

On Whit-Monday, 15 May 1581, Greville, with Sidney, the Earl of Arundel, and Lord Windsor, arranged an elaborate pageant and tournament at Whitehall for the entertainment of the queen and the envoys from France who had come to discuss her marriage with the Duke of Anjou. On the departure of Anjou from London in February of the next year, Greville was one of the courtiers directed by the queen to attend the duke to Antwerp.

Greville fully shared Sidney's literary tastes. Sir Edward Dyer was a friend of both, and the 3 formed an important centre of literary influence at court. "Two pastoralls made by Sir P. Sidney upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow-poets, Sir Edward Dier and Maister Fulke Greuill," open Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602; the 1st poem appeared originally in Englands Helicon]] (1600). Sidney expresses the deepest affection for both Dyer and Greville. The 3 friends were members of the literary society formed by Gabriel Harvey, and called by him the "Areopagus," whose chief object was to acclimatise classical rules in English literature.

In 1583 Giordano Bruno came to England, and Greville received him with enthusiasm. In Greville's house in London Bruno held several of those disputations which he records in his La Cena delle Ceneri (Frith, Life of G. Bruno, 1887, pp. 227 et seq.)

In the summer of 1585 Greville and Sidney arranged with Francis Drake to accompany the expedition preparing for attack upon the Spanish West Indies. Elizabeth would not sanction the arrangement, but the young men went secretly to Plymouth with a view to immediate embarkation. Imperious messages from court led Drake to sail without them (14 Sept.) Elizabeth flatly refused Greville's request, preferred on his return to London, to join Leicester's army, then starting for the Low Countries. Sidney, however, was allowed to take part in the expedition, in which he met his death (17 Oct. 1586). By his will Sidney left his books to Greville and Dyer, and Greville was one of the pallbearers when Sidney was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, 16 Feb. 1586-7. Greville lamented Sidney's death in verse, and penned a prose biography.

Greville was in Normandy for a short time with the English forces serving under Henry of Navarre about 1591. In 1597 Essex suggested that he should take part in the Islands expedition by convoying provisions to the Azores, but the queen refused her permission, and thenceforth Greville apparently contented himself with civil employment.

Cabinet minister

On 20 April 1583 Greville had been constituted secretary for the principality of Wales, and on 24 July 1603 he was confirmed in the office for life. But the duties do not appear to have been onerous or to have necessitated continuous residence in Wales.

He sat in parliament as member for Warwickshire in 1592-3, 1597, 1601, and 1620, and took some part in the debates. He interested himself in Francis Bacon, and interceded with the queen in his behalf in 1594, when Bacon was seeking to become solicitor-general. The letters that passed between them at the time indicate close personal intimacy. Michael (afterwards Sir Michael) Hicks [q.v.] was another friend, and was useful in helping Greville out of temporary pecuniary difficulties (cf. Letters in Lansd. MSS. 89, 90, printed by Grosart).

In March 1597-8 he became "treasurer of the wars," and in September 1598 "treasurer of the navy." When in August 1599 the second Spanish Armada was anticipated, it was proposed to nominate Greville rear-admiral (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1598-1601, p. 282). Greville took part in the arrest of the Earl of Essex on Sunday, 8 February 1600-1.

For the opening years of James I's reign he retained his office of treasurer of the navy, and worked vigorously. Higher preferment is said to have been denied him owing to the hostility of Robert Cecil, lord Salisbury. Salisbury died in 1612, and in October 1614 Greville succeeded Sir Julius Caesar in the office of chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, "in spite of his age," writes Chamberlain (ib. 1611-18, pp. 256-7). In the various discussions in which he took part in the council he supported the king's prerogative.

On 18 January 1614-15 he was one of the privy-councillors who signed the warrant for the torture of Edmund Peacham, a clergyman charged with writing a sermon derogatory to the royal authority (Spedding, Life of Bacon, v. 92). But when, in September 1615, the council discussed the policy of summoning a parliament, Greville said that "it was a pleasing thing and popular to ask a multitude's advice; besides it argued trust and begat trust" (ib. p. 201). In 1616 he was a member of the committee of the council appointed to inquire into Coke's conduct in the præmunire case.

In the House of Commons Greville was a useful supporter of the government. In 1618 he became commissioner of the treasury, and in January 1620-1 he resigned the chancellorship of the exchequer. A patent issued 29 January conferred on him (with remainder to his favourite kinsman, Robert Greville) the title of Baron Brooke, which had been borne by his ancestors, the Willoughbys. His services were, however, still needed in the opening session of the new parliament, and he sat in the Commons through the early months of the year.

On 15 November 1621 he took his seat in the House of Lords (cf. Notes and Queries, 4th ser. viii. 22, 88, 217, 234). Brooke was henceforth less active in politics. He was prevented by serious illness from attending the council when the Spanish marriage treaty was formally adopted (July 1623). But his political knowledge secured for him a seat on the council of war (21 April 1624), and on the committee of the council to advise on foreign affairs (9 April 1625). According to Bacon, Brooke was an elegant speaker in debate.

Patron

To poets he was a generous patron. Samuel Daniel writes that Greville

Did first draw forth from close obscuritie
My unpresuming verse into the light,
And grac'd the same, and made me known thereby
                  (Certaine Small Workes, 1607).

To Greville Daniel dedicated his Musophilus. John Davies of Hereford wrote a high-flown sonnet in praise of Mustapha "as it is written not printed" (cf. Scourge of Folly, 1610). Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, describes a visit to Warwick Castle, and the genial welcome proffered him by "the renowned chancellor." Brooke also befriended William Davenant, and took him into his service as his page.

With Bacon Brooke maintained friendly relations to the last. In Easter term 1618, when Sir Henry Yelverton,the attorney-general, submitted to the privy council an information against one Maynham for libellously defaming Bacon, Greville boldly defended his friend's character. In 1621 James I sent Brooke Bacon's manuscript history of Henry VII, and enjoined him to read it "before it was sent to press." This Brooke did, and returned it to the king with high commendations (Spedding, vii. 325-6).

Brooke, by a codicil to his will, charged his lands in Toft Grange, Foss-dike, and Algakirk, in co. Lincoln, with an annuity of £100 for the maintenance of a history lectureship at Cambridge, which he directed to be bestowed on Isaac Dorislaus, at one time his 'domestic' (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1627-8 p. 470, 1628-9 p. 438). Baker, writing early in the 18th century, mentions that the lectureship 'has been lost by the iniquity of the times,' Nothing seems now known of it at Cambridge.

Final years

James I proved in Brooke's case a liberal patron, and to him Brooke owed a vast extension of the landed property which he inherited in 1606 on the death of his father. Elizabeth had made him master of Wedgnock Park in 1597, and in 1605 James bestowed on him the ruined castle of Warwick. Dugdale writes "that Brooke bestowed much cost, at least £20,000, in the repairs thereof, beautifying it with the most pleasant gardens, plantations, and walks, and adorning it with rich furniture." Brooke also obtained a grant of the manor and park of Knowle. His position in Warwickshire was very powerful, and among the smaller offices he is said to have held there was that of recorder of Stratford-on-Avon. His name frequently appears in the town records.

Brooke met a violent death. On 18 February 1627-8 he made a will, leaving all his property to his cousin Robert Greville. Among those who witnessed the will was an old servant named Ralph Haywood. A few months later Brooke added a codicil granting annuities to many dependents, but he omitted to make any provision for Haywood. The neglect rankled in Haywood's mind, and on 1 September following, while waiting on his master as he lay in bed at his London house in Holborn, Haywood charged him with injustice. Brooke severely rebuked Haywood's freedom of speech, whereupon Haywood stabbed him with a sword. Haywood straightway withdrew to another room and killed himself.

Brooke was 74 years old and did not long survive his wound. He died 30 September 1628, after adding one more codicil to his will bequeathing handsome legacies to his surgeons and attendants in his illness. On 27 October 1628 his body was carried to Warwick and buried in St. Mary's Church. The epitaph which he had himself composed was engraved on the monument which had been erected under his directions (Bigland, Parish Registers). It ran:

Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, councillor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney. Trophæum Peccati.

Writing

Brooke was a student of literature throughout his life, but his literary work was mainly done in his early years, and little of that was published in his lifetime. An elegy on Sidney in the miscellany called the Phœnix Nest (1593), a poem in Bodenham's Belvedere (1600), and 2 poems assigned to him in the 1st edition of Englands Helicon (1600), seem, together with The Tragedy of Mustapha (London, for N. Butter, 1609), to complete the list of works which were printed while he lived, and none of these appear to have been issued under his direction.

5 years after his death appeared his chief volume, a thin folio, entitled Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Right Honorable Fulke, Lord Brooke, written in his Youth and familiar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney, London, 1633. Here are included long tracts in verse entitled "A Treatie of Humane Learning," "An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour," and "A Treatie of Warres." There follow "The Tragedie of Alaham," "The Tragedie of Mustapha," and 'Cœlica, containing CIX Sonnets.' The text of 'Mustapha' differs considerably from the imprint of 1609, usually for, the better. The last pages are filled with letters in prose, one 'to an Honorable Lady' offering advice in domestic difficulties with her husband, and the other "A Letter of Trauell … to his Cousin Greuill Varney, residing in France," dated by the writer "From Hackney,' 20 Nov. 1609.

In 1652 appeared The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney, in prose, and 18 years later was published The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brooke: Being poems of monarchy and religion; never before printed, London, 1670. The publisher of the last volume, Henry Herringman, states that Greville, "when he was old, revised the poems and treatises he had writ long before" with a view to collective publication. He entrusted the task to an aged friend, Michael Malet, but the project was not carried out.

Brooke writes in his discursive memoir of Sidney with reference to his tragedies: "For my own part I found my creeping genius more fixed upon the images of life than the images of wit." This is a just criticism of all Brooke's literary work. To "elegancy of style" or "smoothness of verse" he rarely aspires. He is essentially a philosopher, cultivating "a close, mysterious, and sententious way of writing," which is commonly more suitable to prose than poetry. His subjects are for the most part incapable of imaginative treatment.

In his collection of love poems, which, though written in varied metres, he entitles sonnets, he seeks to express passionate love, and often with good lyrical effect; but the understanding seems as a rule to tyrannise over emotion, and all is "frozen and made rigid with intellect." Sidney's influence is very perceptible, and some of Brooke's stanzas harshly echo passages from Astrophel and Stella.

His 2 tragedies, Alaham and Mustapha, very strictly fashioned on classical models, are, as Charles Lamb says, political treatises rather than plays. "Passion, character, and interest of the highest order" are "subservient to the expression of state dogmas and mysteries." Mustapha found an ardent champion in Edmund Bolton, who wrote of it as the "matchless Mustapha" in his Hyper-critica (1622). In his 'Life of Sidney' Brooke expounds at length his object in writing tragedies, and explains that they were not intended for the stage.

But, despite its subtlety of expression, Greville's poetry fascinates the thoughtful student of literature. His views of politics are original and interesting, and there is something at once formidable and inviting in the attempt to unravel his tangled skeins of argument. His biography of Sidney is mainly a general disquisition on politics with biographical and autobiographical interludes. It was reprinted with much care by Sir S.E. Brydges at the Lee Priory Press in 1816.

That Brooke wrote more than has reached us is possible. He states that he burned, for no very intelligible reason, a 3rd tragedy on the subject of Antony and Cleopatra at the time of Queen Elizabeth's death (Life of Sidney, p. 172). He undoubtedly contemplated expanding his notice of Elizabeth's reign in his Life of Sidney into an elaborate historical treatise, beginning with the marriage of Henry VII, but mainly dealing with Elizabeth's life. He discussed the plan with Sir Robert Cecil, but Cecil objected to giving him free access to state papers, and made it plain that the work could not be published without much editing on the part of James and his ministers. Brooke consequently relinquished his plan.

Critical introduction

by Mary Augusta Ward

The poems of Lord Brooke, written for the most part "in his youth and familiar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney," according to the title page of the 1633 editions, have a real and permanent value, though they can never hope to appeal to any other than a limited and so to speak professional audience. They are the work of a man of great thinking power, and of singular nobility and uprightness of character. The sheer power of mind shewn in these strange plays and treatises and so-called sonnets is undeniable. Every now and then it leads their author to a genuine success, to a fine chorus, a speech of weird and concentrated passion as impressive as a speech of Ford’s, though even less human, a shorter poem of real and fanciful beauty.

But generally we find this inborn power struggling with a medium of expression so cumbrous and intricate and stumbling, that neither thought nor fancy can find their way through it. Words are taxed beyond what they can bear; all thoughts, whether great or trivial, are tortured into the same over-laboured dress; there is no ease, no flow, no joy. More than this; not only is the manner far removed from the true manner of poetry, but in large tracts of it the matter handled has nothing to do with poetry, "The Declination of Monarchy," "Of Weak-minded Tyrants," "Of Laws," "Of Nobility," "Of Commerce," "Of Crown Revenue,"— these are not the subjects of the poet. In the 17th century they were the subjects of the pamphleteer, and none could have treated them in prose with greater ability and a more Miltonic swing and pregnancy of phrase than Lord Brooke. Buried in pages of wearisome verse, his discussions of these and such-like topics, in spite of acuteness, in spite of a wide and modern political view, are intolerable as poetry and unreadable as political and philosophical argument. His theory — as it was the theory of so many of his later contemporaries, of Sir John Davies, of Christopher Brooke, and Sir William Alexander — seems to have been that all subjects of serious human interest were equally within the sphere of poetry, or could be turned into poetry by a sort of coup de main.

On the other hand, he not only attempted to treat scientific matter poetically, but also to treat genuinely poetical matter, such as natural beauty or human passion, or religious emotion, scientifically, making analysis and comparison play the part of feeling, and preserving the same stiffness and pedantry of movement in the most passionate or graceful situations.

Yet at bottom Lord Brooke had many of the poet’s gifts. His worst things contain a scant measure of fine lines and passages, such as perhaps few other Elizabethan writers below the highest circle could have written, expressed with admirable resonance and terseness. At his best he rises very high... But of the exquisite Elizabethan fluency and archness, the transparent sweetness of Spenser, the spontaneity and brilliancy of Sidney, Lord Brooke had little or nothing. His poetry bears witness in an extraordinary degree to the mental energy and acuteness of the time; it is wholly lacking in the Elizabethan charm.

Sir William Davenant is reported to have said of him, that he had written good poetry in his youth and had then spoilt it by keeping it by him till old age. Lord Brooke’s own explanation of the peculiar quality of his work however goes deeper than this. In the so-called Life of Sidney, after making a half apology for the romance and fancifulness of Sidney’s Arcadia, and justifying the book as after all not lacking in "images and examples (as directing threads) to guide every man through the confused Labyrinth of his own desires and life," he continues:

For my own part I found my creeping genius more fixed upon the images of life than the images of wit, and therefore chose not to write to them on whose foot the black ox had not already trod, as the proverb is, but to those only that are weatherbeaten in the sea of this world, such as having lost the sight of their gardens and groves, study to sail on a right course among rocks and quicksands.

Thus beside the young unpruned imagination of his friend, quenched before time had stolen from it a particle of its joyousness and luxuriance, he places his own elder and way-worn muse — the poetry of ‘Life’ beside the poetry of ‘Wit.’ Such a distinction breathes the spirit of a new world; and in parting Lord Brooke from the writer of Astrophel and Stella places him mentally beside Milton and Bacon.

The folio edition of his works, of 1633, the materials for which had been revised and collected for publication by the author, contains three treatises, on "Human Learning," on "Wars," and "An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour," the tragedies of Alaham and Mustapha, and the hundred and ten sonnets of Caelica. The Poems of Monarchy and Religion were published later in 1670. Mustapha had also appeared earlier in 1609. To these Mr. Grosart, in a recent complete edition has added a few miscellaneous poems, the lament for Sidney, published in The Phoenix’ Nest of 1593, 2 or 3 poems from England’s Helicon, and a doubtful one from The Paradise of Dainty Devices. Of these we are not now concerned with the treatises. They were originally meant to serve as choruses between the acts of Alaham and Mustapha — a whimsical instance of the impracticability of Lord Brooke’s genius — and, as we have already said, they are not without lines and passages of poetry. But in the main they are either matter for the biographer, or for the student of seventeenth-century speculation.

The collection of shorter poems under the name of Caelica contains a number of love-poems, some perhaps genuine, others mocking and cynical, which, as in Habington’s Castara, lead up to a concluding group of religious and philosophical pieces. With sonnets, properly so called, they have nothing more in common than the name. Some of them are undoubtedly echoes of Astrophel and Stella, harsh fantastic echoes which but rarely recall the music of the earlier strain. Sonnet 46, "Patience, weak-fortun’d and weak-minded wit," is an "exercise" on the same theme as Sonnet 56 of Astrophel and Stella. The end of Sonnet 45 is a reminiscence of the tenth song in the same collection, and two better illustrations of poetical failure on the one hand, and such poetical success as the kind of theme admits of on the other, could scarcely be brought together than the thirteenth sonnet of Caelica, "Cupid his boy’s play many times forbidden," as compared with the well-known "His mother dear Cupid offended late" of Astrophel and Stella. This list might be largely extended with ever-increasing profit to Sidney’s reputation.

Still, when all deductions are made, Caelica brings its own peculiar reward to the reader. There are veins of poetry in it of a remote and fanciful kind, and what is not poetry will often affect us with the old-world charm, which is the true explanation of Cultismo wherever it appears in literary history, the charm of ingenuity as such, of mind-play pure and simple. To which may be added that among the religious poems of Caelica there is perhaps simpler and sincerer work than Lord Brooke produced anywhere else.

With regard to the poem-plays of Alaham and Mustapha, which may be compared with the much inferior "Monarchical tragedies" of Sir William Alexander, nothing can be added to the well-known criticism of Charles Lamb, which describes them as "political treatises, not plays," in which "all is made frozen and rigid with intellect," or to Lord Brooke’s own account of them as intended to illustrate the "high ways of ambitious governours," and the public and private ruin to which such ways tend. In spite of tragical situations, in spite of the injured youth of Mustapha, and the maiden heroism of Caelica, they are not tragical, and for all their high intellectual interest they are very seldom poetical. In those rare instances however, where the poet succeeds in mastering and transforming the philosopher, there we have a very noble and perfect effect, such an effect as is reached in The Chorus of Tartars quoted below, where the plea of the world against the claims and promises of religion is put with a passion and directness which lifts it far above its surroundings.

The outer facts of Lord Brooke’s prolonged literary career bring the world of Spenser and the world of Milton together in a striking way. He, with Spenser, Dyer, and Sidney, was a member of Harvey’s ‘Areopagus,’ and there is other evidence of intercourse between him and Spenser. His friendship with Sidney is one of the classical stories in the history of English letters. On the other hand Davenant, the founder of the Restoration theatre, was the protégé of his old age, and he died the year before the composition of the "Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity".

Critical reputation

Of Brooke, Charles Lamb says: "He is nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus, for one of Sophocles and Seneca.... Whether we look into his plays or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect." He goes on to speak of the obscurity of expression that runs through all Brooke's poetry.

Andrea McCrea sees the influence of Justus Lipsius in the "Letter to an Honourable Lady," but elsewhere detects a scepticism more akin to Michel de Montaigne.

Robert Pinsky has asserted that Caelica is comparable in force of imagination to John Donne.

Some believe that Greville is the true author of several plays attributed to Shakespeare.

Recognition

On James I's accession Greville was made a knight of the Bath. Elizabeth had made him master of Wedgnock Park in 1597, and in 1605 James bestowed on him the ruined castle of Warwick. Brooke also obtained a grant of the manor and park of Knowle.

A patent issued 29 January 1620-21 conferred on him (with remainder to his favourite kinsman, Robert Greville) the title of Baron Brooke.

Alexander Balloch Grosart reprinted all Brooke's extant works in his 'Fuller Worthies Library' (4 volumes, 1870).

A fine engraved portrait is inserted in the Grenville Library copy of Brydges's reprint of Greville's Life of Sidney.

His poem "Myra" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poetry

• Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes. London: E. Purslowe for H. Seyle, 1633. (comprises A Treatise of Humane Learning, An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour, A Treatise of Wars, Alaham, Mustapha, Caelica, A Letter to an Honorable Lady, and A Letter of Travel).
• The Remains of Sir Fvlk Grevill Lord Brooke: Being Poems of Monarchy and Religion: Never Before Printed. London:T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1670. (comprises A Treatise of Monarchy and A Treatise of Religion).
• Reflection: A poem in four cantos. Bath, UK: R. Cruttwell, 1790.

Plays

• The Tragedy of Mustapha. London: J. Windet for N. Butter, 1609.

Non-fiction

• The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sydney. London: Henry Seile, 1652.
• Maxims, Characters, and Reflections: Critical, satyrical, and moral. London: J. & R. Tonson, 1757.

Collected editions

• Works in Verse and Prose Complete (edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart). (4 volumes), privately printed, 1870; New York: AMS Press, 1966. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV
• Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville, First Lord Brooke (edited by Geoffrey Bullough). (2 volumes), Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1939; New York: Oxford University Press, 1945. (comprises Caelica, A Treatise of Humane Learning, An Inquisition upon Fame and Honor, A Treatise of Wars, Mustapha, and Alaham).
• The Remains: Being poems of monarchy and religion (edited by G.A. Wilkes). London: Oxford University Press, 1965 (comprises A Treatise of Monarchy and A Treatise of Religion).
• The Prose Works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (edited by John Gouws). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986 (comprises A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney ("The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney") and A Letter to an Honorable Lady).

Fulke Greville - Sonnett XClX

Sonnet 100 by Lord Brooke Fulke Greville

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

• Canons of Renaissance poetry
• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights
• Timeline of British poetry

References

•  Lee, Sidney (1890) "Greville, Fulke" in Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 23 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 159-163  Wikisource, Web, Dec. 20, 2017.

External links

Poems

• "Myra"
• Greville, Baron Brooke, Fulke (1554-1628) at Representative Poetry Online.
• Fulke Greville 1554-1628 at the Poetry Foundation
• Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke) at PoemHunter (2 poems)
• Greville in The English Poets: An anthology: Chorus of Good and Evil Spirits from Alaham, "An Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney"
  • Extracts from Mustapha: Chorus of Tartars. Chorus of Priests
  • Extracts from Caelica: Seed-time and Harvest, Elizabetha Regina, Sonnet: ‘Sion lies waste, and Thy Jerusalem’

Audio / video

• Fulke Greville poems at YouTube

Books

• Fulke Greville at Amazon.com

About

• Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Fulke Greville at NNDB
• Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628) at Luminarium
• Master of Shakespeare
• Selected poems of Fulke Greville (edited by Thom Gunn) reviewed by Joshua Weiner

Etc.

• Greville Lodge 4773 in the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), “Freemasonry”

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Greville, Fulke