[In the following essay, Austin examines Harvey's Ode Natalita, a Latin ode to Peter Ramus, and contends that this shows Harvey to be an early, enthusiastic disciple of the French philosopher.]

With the appearance of his Ode Natalitia early in 1575, Gabriel Harvey became the first Englishman to publish a work on the French humanist, philosopher, and educational reformer, Peter Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée).¹

This ode in commemoration of Ramus and in praise of his system has hitherto been known only by title, from E. K.'s mention of it (in the gloss to September of Spenser's Shepheardes Calender) among others of Harvey's “most rare and very notable writings, partely vnder vnknown Tytles, and partly vnder counterfayt names.” There is no indication that any previous student of Harvey's writings has ever seen this work, and, wherever referred to, indeed, the Ode Natalitia has been regarded as lost.² It is, nevertheless, extant in an apparently unique copy in the Cambridge University Library.³ A small volume of Latin verse, earlier by two years than any previously known publication by Harvey, its title-page reads:

ODE NATALI- / TIA, VEL OPVS EIVS FERIÆ, / quœ S. Stephani protomartyris nomine / celebrata est anno / 1574. / In memoriam P. Rami, optimi, et cla- / rissimi virj. / Typographi gnoma. / Suum cuique integrum esto iudicium. / [Printer's device] / LONDINI / Excudehat Thomas Vautrollerius. / Typographus. / 1575.⁴

Although the author's name nowhere appears in the book, the initials signed to the formula by which he takes leave of the reader—Tvi, Et Doctorvm omnium studiosissimus, A. P. S.⁵—identify him as a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge;⁶ and for contemporary readers who knew of Harvey this was probably sufficient identification of the writer. With a knowledge of Harvey's later writings, we would be in no doubt today as to the authorship, even if we had not E. K.'s word for it: the work is unmistakably characteristic in subject-matter, in machinery and arrangement, in the notes to the reader, in the pose of extempore composition, and in the rhetorical devices employed.

Harvey represents the Ode Natalitia as the effusion of a single day;⁷ the two eclogues of which it is composed, he tells us, were written during the Christmas holidays (hence, Nativity Ode), 1574, in the morning and afternoon of St. Stephen's day (December 26)—just poured forth, as it were, extempore in a few hours before and after lunch.

Hanc Eclogam ante prandium effudi sané potius, quam elaboraui … statueram tineis potius comedendam, quam typographis edendam tradere.⁸

Hæc cum paucis horis, inuita, quod aiunt, Minerua, & indignante Mercurio, cecinissem: derepente sum ad cœnam vocatus.”⁹

It was not published, however, until after the first of March following, a prose note at the end being dated Cantabrigiœ Calend. Martijs. 1575.¹⁰ Since it was ever Harvey's habit to contrive fictitious dramatic settings for his writings, we need not accept as the literal truth his account of the date and circumstances of composition. Because of the plague, ordinary meetings of the University had been cancelled for the last months of 1574 and most members departed for their homes, to reconvene only after the Christmas holidays.¹¹ It is likely therefore that Harvey wrote the Ode in his father's home at Saffron Walden sometime during this recess, though not necessarily in one day, and then, on his return to Cambridge, polished it for publication.

Since it was obviously intended only as a general eulogy, the Ode Natalitia is rather slight in substance. There is first an allegory, in semi-dramatic form, of how the youth who is eager for learning takes the Method of Ramus as his guide and so passes by a smooth road to the knowledge of the Liberal Arts; then, in the second eclogue, we have a portrayal of Ramus' unfinished work, praise for his continuators, and finally an appeal to the learned to honor the memory of the incomparable philosopher by carrying on according to his teachings.

NATIVITY ODE OR A WORK OF THAT HOLIDAY WHICH IS CELEBRATED IN THE NAME OF ST. STEPHEN THE PROTOMARTYR, 1574.

Morning Eclogue (Ecloga Matutina): All the Arts together invite the studious Youth to the abodes of the Muses, of Apollo, Pallas, and the Graces. Method, a heavenly virgin who directs the goddesses of the Arts, assumes the rôle of guide. As each of the five Arts reformed by Ramus—Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry¹²—introduces herself, Method reiterates: “With me as leader the road is smooth, which before was rough. (Me duce plana via est, quæ salebrosa fuit.)”¹³ When the Youth begs admission, Pallas, attended by the Muses and Graces, embraces him; then Method leads him to the temple of Apollo and the god (Qui lucis Deus est & Methodi pater est) bids the happy Youth enter.

Afternoon Eclogue (Ecloga pomeridiana): Music and Astronomy complain that they have been left in an unkempt state and so have no lovers. Method assures them that, though Fate intervened (i. e., by the death of Ramus before his project was complete),¹⁴ there may come a Ramist to provide for them (instar Rami forsitan alter erit.) In answer to Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine, complaining that their principles are especially in need of reduction to order and system, Method suggests that followers of Ramus have already done much.¹⁵

Then, in an address to all professors of eloquence and philosophy, she urges that they spread Ramism in England. Ramus, she says, (1) eliminated lists of authorities, (2) diligently observed the laws of “artificial” judgment, and (3) wisely brought back the doctrine of Use. Turning to all aspirants to eloquence and philosophy, Method exhorts them to take Ramus, who “kindles new fires in frigid hearts,” as their absolute master. The Eclogue concludes with suggestions for epitaphs and epigrams to honor the philosopher's memory.

He had planned, the poet informs the reader, to extemporize an evening eclogue after dinner, but, alas! Ceres and Bacchus proved too much for Minerva and Apollo: the evening theme was put off to another time and place and the better part of the night was passed in Christmas games and talk.¹⁶

Harvey connected his eulogy of Ramus significantly with the feast-day of St. Stephen, the Protomartyr. To those of the Reform party, the parallel would have been plain: Ramus, slain in the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre two years before (August 26, 1572) was, like Stephen the Elder, a victim of reactionaries who persecuted the truth, of creed-bound bigots who stood against all change and progress.¹⁷

To the progressives at Cambridge, Ramus was preeminently the leader in the movement for university reform,¹⁸ and we learn from his Letter-book that Harvey did what he could to spread the knowledge of the Ramist academic reformation.¹⁹ In the spring of 1573, moreover, Harvey had stood up to the assault of those in his own college who charged him with being “a main defender of straung opinions, and that communly against Aristotle too.”²⁰ When his opponents hurled the epithet “Ramist” at him, Harvey answered that, though he held the highest opinion of Aristotle's works, he could not take them for gospel and that, where he differed from Aristotle, he was in good company.

Although it is well known that Harvey was in later years a vigorous advocate of Ramist ideas and that the influence of Ramus can be traced in his subsequent writings, his priority among English Ramists has not until very recently²¹ been recognized. Taken in conjunction with the evidence of the Letter-book, his Latin ode eulogizing the French philosopher's system now shows definitely that, at a time when Sidney, later to give a great impetus to the spread of Ramism through his patronage of Temple, was coming more and more under the influence of the Ramists of the continent, Gabriel Harvey was already an enthusiastic disciple of Ramus in England.

Notes

1. Ascham and Sidney have been wrongly described as the earliest advocates of Ramism in England (cf. Charles Waddington, Ramus, sa Vie, ses Ecrits, et ses Opinions, Paris, 1855, p. 396, and Frank P. Graves, Peter Ramus and the Educational Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, New York, Macmillan, 1912, p. 212). The view that Ascham had been a Ramist has persisted in the face of evidence to the contrary in his letters, as M. Guggenbeim long ago pointed out (“Beiträge zur Biographie des Petrus Ramus,” in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik, Leipzig, vol. 121, 1903, pp. 140-142. Cf. also CHEL, IV, 317), and in the Scholemaster (Works, ed. J. A. Giles, London, 1864-5, I, 318-21). Like his friend Sturm, the English humanist looked askance at Ramus' bolder anti-Aristotelian and anti-Ciceronian formulations. On the other hand, Sidney did become a staunch advocate of Ramism, and his interest was of great importance in stimulating and furthering the movement. His prominence as a Ramist was, however, of later date; for although it was during his travels abroad, after leaving England in 1572 at the age of eighteen, that Sidney came to know many of the leading continental followers of the French philosopher, his active support followed his return and was shown chiefly in his patronage of the writings of William Temple. He was still abroad when Harvey's tribute to Ramus appeared. Since, moreover, Temple (b. 1555), then an undergraduate at Cambridge, was not to publish his first Ramist work—the Admonitio … de Unica P. Rami Methodo … retinenda—until 1580, G. Gregory Smith's statement (Elizabethan Critical Esays, II, 432) that “Harvey was probably influenced by the Ramist enthusiasm of William Temple” is quite erroneous.

2. R. B. McKerrow does not include it in the bibliography, “The Works of the Harveys,” in his edition of Nashe (Works, London, 1904-10, V, 163-174), nor does A. B. Grosart mention it in his edition of Harvey (Works, London, 1884); both G. C. Moore Smith (Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia, Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1913, p. 25) and Hans Berli (Gabriel Harvey: Der Dichterfreund und Kritiker, Zurich, 1913, pp. 31-32) think it never saw the light. There was no entry of the work in the Stationers' Register.

3. I^*. 6. 11¹⁰ (F). I wish to thank the authorities of the Cambridge University Library for providing me with a photostat. C. E. Sayle (Early English Printed Books in the Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, The University Press, 1900-07) and Pollard and Redgrave (Short-title Catalogue, No. 21481) enter the Ode under the initials “A.P.S.” (v. infra).

4. Signatures A-Aiiij, plus seven unsigned pages (for convenience, referred to below as if signed). Among the Bagford Collections in the British Museum can be seen the title-page of Harvey's own copy of the Ode Natalitia bearing his autograph monogram (MS. Harl. 5990, No. 22).

5. Sig. Biii verso.

6. A. P. S. = Aulæ Pembrochianæ Socius. Cf. the form of address his friend, the antiquary Thomas Hatcher, uses in a letter to Harvey: Amico suo longe charissimo M: Gabrieli Harvejo, Aulæ Pembrochianæ Socio (G. C. Moore Smith, op. cit., p. 216. Cf. also ibid., p. 220. Harvey was Fellow of Pembroke from 1570 to 1578. Apparently on this ground alone, Sayle (op. cit.,) has, “Qu. by Gabriel Harvey?”

7. In the sub-title and in a “Poeta ad Lectorem” note at the end: Habes humanissime Lector, non Apellis vnius diei lineam, sed rudis poetæ vnarum feriarum opus … (Sig. Biii recto).

8. Sig. Aiiij recto. The coy disclaimer, put forth with characteristic word-play (viz., he had thought rather to give the work over to the worms as edible than to the printer as editable), is altogether Harveyan. Cf. Works, ed. Grosart, I, 269: “I terme it a Trifle for the manner: though the matter be, in my conceit, superexcellent. …”

9. Sig. Biii recto.

10. Ibid.

11. O. H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, II, 322.

12. In his self-appointed task of making over the university curriculum, Ramus had published (among others) works on Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, and Geometry, viz.: Rudimenta grammaticæ (1559), Dialecticœ partitiones (1543), Rhetoricœ distinctiones (1549), Geometriæ libri tres (1555), and Geometriœ libri septem et viginti (1569).

13. Cf. Harvey's Ciceronianus (p. 36): “Tu [Ramus] erranti comiter monstrasti viam: & rectam ingredi semitam docuisti.”

14. Ramus' unfinished writings on music and astronomy were lost in the pillage of his study at the time of his death (Waddington, op. cit., p. 473); in a letter to the Cardinal of Lorraine, October 22, 1570 (ibid., p. 226), he had asked leave to complete his reform of the seven liberal arts that he might thereafter devote himself wholeheartedly to his studies of the Scriptures.

15. The last verses of Method's reply (Sig. Bi recto) may reflect Harvey's own aspiration:

    Si tamen hi tantum renuant tolerare laborem,
    Ramus at est aliquis credo futurus, Amen.

    (If, however, they decline to undertake so great a work, I believe there will be some other Ramus, Amen.)

16. Verum Ceres, atque Bacchus Mineruam, & Apollinem retuderunt. Itaque nocturnam illam lucubrationem in aliud tempus, in aliumque looum reseruauimais: & bonam, magnamque nootis partem natalitijs tum lusibus, tum Colloquijs contrivimus. (Sig. Biii recto).

17. Cf. Stephen's address before the council: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?” (Acts 7: 51-2) The Biblical parallel to Ramus and the Huguenots was complete: “And they stoned Stephen. … And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem and they were all scattered abroad. … And devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him (Acts 7: 59, 8: 1-2).

18. J. B. Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, University Press, 1884), pp. 242-3.

19. Letter-book of Gabriel Harvey, ed. Edward V. L. Scott. (Camden Society, New Series, vol. XXXIII, 1884), pp. 167, 180-1.

20. Ibid., p. 10.

21. See H. S. Wilson's article, “Gabriel Harvey's Lectures on Rhetoric,” in ELH (September, 1945), p. 180.