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GABRIEL HARVEY (c. 1545-1630)

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 42 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GABRIEL See also:HARVEY (c. 1545-1630)  , See also:English writer, eldest son of a ropemaker of See also:Saffron-See also:Walden, See also:Essex, was See also:born about 1545 . He matriculated at See also:Christ's See also:College, See also:Cambridge, in 1566, and in 1570 was elected See also:fellow of See also:Pembroke See also:Hall . Here he formed a lasting friendship with See also:Edmund See also:Spenser, and it has been suggested (Athen . Cantab. ii . 258) that he may have been the poet's See also:tutor . See also:Harvey was a See also:scholar of considerable See also:weight, who has perhaps been judged too exclusively from the brilliant invectives directed against him by See also:Thomas See also:Nashe . See also:Henry See also:Morley, See also:writing in the Fortnightly See also:Review (See also:March 1869), brought See also:evidence from Harvey's Latin writings which shows that he was distinguished by quite other qualities than the pedantry and conceit usually associated with his name . He desired to be " epitaphed as the Inventour of the English See also:Hexameter," and was the See also:prime mover in the See also:literary clique that desired to impose on English See also:verse the Latin rules of quantity . In a " gallant, See also:familiar See also:letter " to M . Immerito (Edmund Spenser) he says that See also:Sir See also:Edward See also:Dyer and Sir See also:Philip See also:Sidney were helping forward " our new famous enter-prise for the exchanging of Barbarous and Balductum Rymes with Artificial Verses." The document includes a tepid appreciation of the Faerie Queene which had been sent to him for his See also:opinion, and he gives examples of English hexameters illustrative of the principles enunciated in the See also:correspondence . The opening lines " What might I See also:call this See also:Tree ? A Laurell ?

0 bonny Laurell Needes to thy bowies will I See also:

bow this See also:knee, and vayle my bonetto " afford a See also:fair See also:sample of the success of Harvey's metrical experi" meats, which presented a fair See also:mark for the wit of Thomas Nashe . " He (Harvey) goes twitching and hopping in our See also:language like a See also:man See also:running upon quagmires, up the See also:hill in one syllable, and down the See also:dale in another," says Nashe in See also:Strange Newes, and he mimics him in the mocking See also:couplet: " But eh ! what See also:news do you hear of that See also:good See also:Gabriel Huffe-Snuffe, Known to the See also:world for a foole, and clapt in the Fleete for a Runner ? Harvey exercised See also:great See also:influence over Spenser for a See also:short See also:time, and the friendship lasted even though Spenser's See also:genius refused to be See also:bound by the See also:laws of the new See also:prosody . Harvey is the Hobbinoll of his friend's Shepheards See also:Calender, and into his mouth is put the beautiful See also:song in the See also:fourth See also:eclogue in praise of Eliza . If he was really the author of the verses " To the Learned Shepheard " signed " Hobynoll " and prefixed to the Faerie Queene, he was a good poet spoiled . But Harvey's genuine friendship for Spenser shows the best See also:side of a disposition uncompromising and quarrelsome towards the world in See also:general . In 1573 See also:ill-will against him in his college was so strong that there was a delay of three months before the See also:fellows would agree to See also:grant him the necessary See also:grace for his M.A. degree . He be-came reader in See also:rhetoric aboat 1576, and in 1578, on the occasion of See also:Queen See also:Elizabeth's visit to Sir Thomas See also:Smith at See also:Audley End, he was appointed to dispute publicly before her . In the next See also:year he wrote to Spenser complaining of the unauthorized publication of satirical verses of his which were supposed to reflect on high personages, and threatened seriously to injure Harvey's career . In 1583 he became junior See also:proctor of the university, and in 1585 he was elected See also:master of Trinity Hall, of which he had been a fellow from 1578, but the See also:appointment appears to have been quashed at See also:court, He was a protege of the See also:Earl of See also:Leicester, to whom he introduced Spenser, and this connexion may See also:account for his friendship with Sir Philip Sidney . But in spite of See also:patron-See also:age, a second application for the mastership of Trinity Hall failed in 1598 . In 1585 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of See also:Oxford, and is found practising at the See also:bar in See also:London .

Gabriel's See also:

brother, See also:Richard, had taken See also:part in the Marprelate controversy, and had given offence to See also:Robert See also:Greene by contemptuous references to him and his fellow wits . Greene retorted in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier with some scathing remarks on the Harveys, the worst of which were expunged in later See also:editions, See also:drawing See also:attention among other things to Harvey's modest parentage . In 1599 See also:Archbishop See also:Whitgift made a See also:raid on contemporary See also:satire in general, and among other books the tracts of Harvey and Nashe were destroyed, and it was forbidden to reprint them . Harvey spent the last years of his See also:life in retirement at his native See also:place, dying in 1630 . His extant Latin See also:works are: Ciceronianus (1577) ; G . Harveii rhetor, sive 2 dierum oratio de natura, arte et exercitatione rhetorica (1577); Smithus, vel Musarum lachrymae (1578), in See also:honour of Sir Thomas Smith; and G . Harveii gratulationum Valdensium libri quatuour (sic), written on the occasion of the queen's visit to Audley End (1578) . The Letter-See also:Book of Gabriel Harvey, A.D . 1573–80 (1884, ed . E . J . L .

See also:

Scott, See also:Camden Society), contains rough drafts of the correspondence between Spenser and Harvey, letters relative to the disputes at Pembroke Hall, and an extraordinary correspondence dealing with the pursuit of his See also:sister See also:Mercy by a See also:young nobleman . A copy of See also:Quintilian (1542), in the See also:British Museum, is extensively annotated by Gabriel Harvey . After Greene's See also:death Harvey published Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets (1592), in which in a spirit of righteous superiority he laid See also:bare with spiteful fulness the See also:miser-able details of Greene's later years . Thomas Nashe, who in See also:power of invective and merciless wit was far See also:superior to Harvey, took upon himself to avenge Greene's memory, and at the same time See also:settle his See also:personal account with the Harveys, in Strange Newes (1593) . Harvey refuted the personal charges made by Nashe in See also:Pierce's See also:Supererogation, or a New Prayse of the Old Asse . . . (1593) . In Christes Teares over See also:Jerusalem (1593) Nashe made a full See also:apology to Harvey, who refused to be appeased, and resumed what had become a very scurrilous controversy in a New Letter of Notable Contents (1593) . Nashe thereupon withdrew his apology in a new edition (1994) of Christes Teares, and See also:hearing that Harvey had boasted of victory he produced the most biting satire of the See also:series in Have with you to Saffron Walden (1596) . Harvey retorted in The Trimming of Thomas Nashe See also:Gentle-man, by the high-tituled patron See also:Don Richartlo de Medico campo • (1597) . His See also:complete works were edited by Dr A . B .

See also:

Grosart with a " Memorial Introduction " for the Huth Library (1884-1885) . See also See also:Isaac Disraeli, on " Literary Ridicule," in Calamities of Authors (ed . 184o) ; T . See also:Warton's See also:History of English See also:Poetry (ed . W . See also:Hazlitt, 1871) ; J . P . See also:Collier's See also:Bibliographical and See also:Critical . Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (1865), and the Works of Thomas Nashe .

End of Article: GABRIEL HARVEY (c. 1545-1630)
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