NOTES AND QUERIES. 
265 
WILLIAM BASSE AND HIS POEMS. 
I read with great pleasure Mr. Collier’s in- 
teresting paper on “ William Basse and_ his 
Poems,” inserted in your 13th Number. 
little is known of this once popular poet, but it is 
very desirable that that little should be collected 
together, which cannot be better effected than 
through the friendly system of inter-communica- 
tion established by your valuable journal. 
From my limited researches upon this subject, it 
appears that there were two poets of the name of | 
William Basse. Anthony Wood (Athen. Oron., 
edit. Bliss. iv. 222.) speaks of one William Basse, 
of Moreton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, who was 
some time a retainer of Lord Wenman, of ‘Thame 
P . e. Richar is t in the | alle 
Park, 7. e. Richard Viscount Wenman, i | age Waltiaial Rae snata! 
peerage of Ireland. And I find among my MS. 
biographical collections that a William Basse, of 
Suffolk, was admitted a sizar of Emanuel College, 
Cambridge, in 1629, A. B. 1632, and A. M. in 
1636. The William Basse who wrote Great 
Brittaines Sunnes-set in 1613, was also the author 
of the MS. collection of poems entitled Polyhymunia, 
mentioned by Mr. Collier. In proof of this it is 
merely necessary to notice the dedication of the 
former “To his Honourable Master, Sir Richard 
Wenman, Knight,” and the verses and acrostics in 
the MS. “To the Right Hon. the Lady Aungier 
Wenman, Mrs. Jane Wenman, and the truly 
noble, vertuous, and learned Lady, the Lady 
Agnes Wenman.” Basse’s Poems were evidently 
intended for the press, but we may conjecture 
that the confusion of the times prevented them 
from appearing. Thomas Warton, in his Life and 
Literary Remains of Ralph Bathurst, M.D., has a 
copy of verses by the Dr. “To Mr. W. Basse, 
upon the intended publication of his Poems, 
January 13. 1651;” to which the learned editor 
adds, “I find no account of this writer or his 
poems.” The whole consists of forty-four verses, 
from which I extract the beginning and the 
end: —- 
* Basse, whose rich mine of wit we here behold 
As porcelain earth, more precious, ’cause more old ; 
Who, like an aged oak, so long hath stood, 
And art religion now as well as food ; 
Though thy grey Muse grew up with elder times, 
And our deceased grandsires lisp’d thy rhymes ; 
Yet we can sing thee too, and make the lays 
Which deck thy brow look fresher with thy praise. 
* * . * * 
Though these, your happy births, have silent past 
More years than some abortive wits shall last ; 
He still writes new, who once so well hath sung: 
That Muse can ne’er be old, which ne’er was young.” 
These verses are valuable as showing that Basse 
was living in 1651, and that he was then an aged 
man. ‘The Emanuelian of the same name, who 
took his M. A. degree in 1636, might possibly be 
his son. At any rate, the latter was a poet. 
There are some of his pieces among the MSS. in 
| the Public Library, Cambridge; and I have a 
small MS. volume of his rhymes, scarcely soaring 
Very | above mediocrity, which was presented to me by 
an ancient family residing in Suffolk. 
A poem by William Basse is inserted in the 
Annalia Dubrensia, 1636, in praise of Robert 
Dover and his revival of the Cotswold games; but 
it is not clear to which of the two poets we may 
ascribe it. Malone attributes two rare volumes 
to one or other of these poets. ‘The first, a trans- 
lation or paraphrase of Juvenal’s tenth satire, 
| entitled That which seems Best is Worst, 12mo., 
1617 ; the second, “* A Miscellany of Merriment,” 
entitled A Helpe to Discourse, 2nd edit. 8vo., 
1620: but the former is more probably the work 
I may mention that a 
copy of Basse’s Sword and Buckler, or Serving 
Man's Defence, 1602, is among Malone’s books in 
the Bodleian. 
Izaac Walton speaks of William Basse, ‘ one 
that hath made the choice songs of the Hunter 
in his Career, and of Tom of Bedlam, and many 
others of note.” The ballad mentioned by Mr. 
Collier, ‘“ Maister Basse his Career, or the Hunting 
of the Hare,” is undoubtedly the one alluded to 
by Walton. I may add, that it is printed in Wit 
and Drollery, edit. 1682, p. 64.; and also in O/d 
Ballads, 1725, vol. iii. p. 196. The tune is con- 
tained in the Skene MS., a curious collection of 
old tunes in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh ; 
and a ballad entitled Huderi’s Ghost, to the tune 
of Basse’s Carrier, is preserved among the Bagford 
| Collection of Old Ballads in the British Museum. 
With regard to the second ballad mentioned by 
Walton, our knowledge is not so perfect. Sir 
John Hawkins in a note (Complete Angler, 5th 
edit. p. 73.) says :— 
« This song, beginning — 
‘ Forth from my dark and dismal cell,’ 
with the music to it, set by Hen. Lawes, is printed in 
a book, entitled Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, to 
sing to the Theorbo Lute, and Bass Viol, folio. 1675, 
and in Playfield’s Antidote against Melancholy, 8vo. 
1669, and also in Dr. Percy’s Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 350; but in the latter with 
a mistake in the last line of the third stanza, of the word 
Pentarchy for Pentateuch.” 
A copy of the Choice Ayres, 1675, is now before 
me, but Henry Lawes’s name does not appear to 
the song in question. Sir John has evidently 
made a mistake; the air of Mad Tom was com- 
posed by John Cooper, alias Giovanni Coperario, 
for one of the Masques performed by the Gentle- 
men of Gray’s Inn. (See The English Dancing 
Master, 1651, in the British Museum, and Ad- 
ditional MS. 10,444, in the same repository.) With 
regard to the ballad itself, there is an early copy 
(of the latter part of the sixteenth century) pre- 
