Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Thomas Goffe

1590/1–1629

Introduction

Thomas Goffe, clergyman, poet and playwright, is known principally for the three plays he wrote during his years at Christ Church, Oxford: namely The Raging Turke, or, Bajazet the Second; The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First; and The Tragedy of Orestes, all posthumously published, in 1631, 1632, and 1633 respectively. Contemporary manuscript copies of the first two plays survive (GoT 9, GoT 11), as well as Goffe's own autograph part for the title-role of Amurath in the second of these plays, performed at Christ Church in 1618 (*GoT 8). This actor's part is accompanied not only by a poem by Goffe concerning the loss of his voice in that production (*GoT 5), but also by another part in his hand, that for the role of Polypragmaticus, played by him in February 1617/18 in the Christ Church production of Robert Burton's play Philosophaster (BuR 4).

A few other poems attributed to Goffe survive in manuscript copies (GoT 1-3, *GoT 7) and do not seem to have been as yet gathered for publication.

Three signatures of Goffe occur in his college disbursements books for 1619-23 (*GoT 12-14), to which may be added two examples of his handwriting in later years which were discovered and reproduced in facsimile by David Carnegie (*GoT 15-16). The somewhat rugged cursive italic hand in these obviously authentic documents does differ considerably from the more upright rounded hand found in the earlier dramatic manuscripts attributed to Goffe, but the similarities seem to be sufficient for identification.

Verse

An Epitaph vpon ye same [i.e. ye death of Mris Anne Berkly, wife to Mr Henry King] ('Ladies, when you to th' Temple goe')

Unpublished.

GoT 1 c.1624

Copy, subscribed Tho: Goff, on a folio leaf.

A folio composite volume of letters, verses, academic plays and other documents, in various hands and paper sizes, 253 leaves, in 18th-century black half-calf.

Assembled by Thomas Hearne (178-1735), antiquary, who has inscribed a slip attached to the front pastedown Tho: Hearne Junij 21o. 1709.

GoT 2 c.1624

Second copy, in a different hand, on a folio leaf.

A folio composite volume of letters, verses, academic plays and other documents, in various hands and paper sizes, 253 leaves, in 18th-century black half-calf.

Assembled by Thomas Hearne (178-1735), antiquary, who has inscribed a slip attached to the front pastedown Tho: Hearne Junij 21o. 1709.

A funerall Elegie, vppon the right Reuerand ffather in God Reu'rend Iohn King, Late Ld Bp: of London: ('I know how wittie greife is to inuent')

A 129-line elegy.

GoT 3

Copy, with a side-note near the end Explicit T.G. Obiit Ep:L: p'dict:30 Mart 1621. qui et tunc incidit in plu diem passionis dominæ.

A quarto verse miscellany, including seventeen poems by Donne and fifteen by Strode, the main part in a single hand, 334 pages (but pp. 3-4 extracted, and including a later index).

Possibly compiled by one W: H:: i.e. probably William Holgate (1618-46), of Queens' College, Cambridge, with late 17th-century additions apparently made by other members of the Holgate family, of Saffron Walden and Great Bardfield, Essex.

c.1630s [-late 17th-century]

Owned in the early 18th century by John Wale, who supplied the index on pp. 330-3. Owned before 1927 by Col. W.G. Carwardine-Probert, of Bures, Suffolk (descendant of the Holgate family).

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), as the Holgate MS: DnJ Δ 58 and StW Δ 22. Briefly discussed in W.G.P., Verses by Francis Beaumont, TLS (15 September 1921), p. 596, and in E.K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, 2 vols (Oxford, 1930), II, 222-4. Also discussed, with facsimiles on pp. 68 and 70 of pp. 181 and 13, in Michael Roy Denbo, Editing a Renaissance Commonplace Book: The Holgate Miscellany, in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, III, ed. W. Speed Hill (Tempe, AZ, 2004). pp. 65-73. For facsimile pages see DnJ 2931 and ShW 25. Complete microfilm in the Essex Record Office (T/A 98).

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 1057 pp. 195-7)
A Songe vpon ye loss of an Actors voyce, beeing to play a cheife part in ye Vniversitie ('Voyce, emptie ayre, soone perisht sounde')

Unpublished.

GoT 4

Copy, headed On a hoarse voice.

A small octavo verse miscellany, written from both ends, predominantly in a single hand in variant styles (ff. 1v-79v, 80r, 88v-96v, 119r-117r rev.), with additions in later hands (ff. 97r-104v, 116v-106r rev.), 164 leaves, in modern half red morocco.

Inscribed (f. 1v, in a court hand) Daniell Leare his Booke, witnesse William Strode, and (f. 164r) Mr Daniell Leare eius Liber: i.e. compiled chiefly by Daniel Leare, a distant cousin of the poet William Strode, probably at Christ Church, Oxford, before he entered the Middle Temple in 1633.

This suggestion, by Mary Hobbs, is supported by entries in the Caution Book of 1625-41 at Christ Church, where Strode is found (p. 22) paying £10 as college security for Leare and where Leare signs (p. 23) on this sum's repayment by Dr Fell on 13 May 1633. Forey suggests (p. lxxix) that he was the Daniell Leare of St Andrews, Holburne, whose will was proved in 1652; but it is more likely that he was the Daniel Leare to whom Henry King, Dean of Rochester, leased property at Chatham on 19 July 1655 (National Archives, Kew, SP 18/99/61). Daniel Leare's wife, Dorothy, was a member of the Hubert family with whom King was associated by virtue of the marriage of his sister Dorothy.

The volume includes 12 poems by Donne; 15 poems (plus a second copy of one and three of doubtful authorship) by Carew; 20 poems (plus two of uncertain authorship) by Corbett; and 84 poems (plus second copies of eight poems, four poems of doubtful authorship and some apocryphal poems) by Strode, the texts being closely related to, and in part probably transcribed from, the Corpus MS of Strode's poems (StW Δ 1).

c.1633 [-late 17th century]

Inscribed also John Leare (probably Daniel's younger brother); (f. 1r) Anthony Euans his booke (who married Daniel Leare's niece Dorothy Leare in 1663); (f. 1v) Alexander Croke his Book 1773; and (f. 164v) John Scott (who matriculated at Christ Church in 1632). Rimell & Son, 9 November 1878.

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980), and II.i-ii (1987-93), as the Leare MS: DnJ Δ 41, CwT Δ 15, CoR Δ 4, and StW Δ 10.

Discussed in Mary Hobbs, An Edition of the Stoughton Manuscript (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1973), pp. 185-90; in her Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellanies and their Value for Textual Editors, EMS, 1 (1989), 192-210 (pp. 189-90); and in her Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992), passim, with facsimile examples of ff. 79-80 facing p. 87.

*GoT 5 c.1617-18
Autograph

Copy, with several deletions and revisions probably in Goffe's hand, unascribed.

An octavo volume of actors' parts for four Latin and English academic plays, in different hands, ii + 68 leaves, in contemporary vellum.

Given to the library by Mr and Mrs John Fleming.

Harvard Theatre Collection (MS Thr 10.1 ff. [69r-70v])
GoT 6

Copy, headed Mr Gough of CC. Upon ye hoarsnes of his Voice when Hee was to act in a Tragedy un publique, wch Himselfe was ye author of.

A small quarto verse anthology, in a single minute hand (but for p. 206), arranged under genre headings (Epitaphs, Satyricall, Love Sonnets, etc.), probably associated with Oxford University, possibly Christ Church, 382 pages (including numerous blanks), in contemporary calf gilt.

Including 13 poems by Donne and 14 (plus one of uncertain authorship) by Corbett; the scribe is that mainly responsible also for the Thomas Smyth MS (DnJ Δ 48).

c.1630s

Later owned and used extensively as a notebook by Dr William Balam (1651-1726), of Ely, Cambridgeshire, who also annotated Cambridge University Library MS Add. 5778 and Harvard fMS Eng 966.4. Bookplate of N. Micklethwait. Owned in 1931 by the Rev. F.W. Glass, of Taverham Hall, near Norwich (seat in the 17th century of the Sotherton family and later of the Branthwayt and Micklethwait families).

Cited in IELM, I.i (1980) and II.i (1987), as the Welbeck MS: DnJ Δ 57 and CoR Δ 11. Discussed in H. Harvey Wood, A Seventeenth-Century Manuscript of Poems by Donne and Others, Essays & Studies, 16 (1931), 179-90. For Taverham Hall, see Thomas B. Norgate, A History of Taverham from Early Times to 1969 (Aylsham, 1969).

University of Nottingham (Pw V 37 pp. 201-2)
To Sir Constantine Huyghens, Knight, & Secretarie to the Lords the Ambassadors from the States of ye united Provinces of the Netherlands to his Matie. of G. Brittaine ('I dare not wth the same nor tongue nor art')
*GoT 7
Autograph

Autograph MS, signed Thomas Goffe, once folded as a letter and probably delivered to Huyghens.

C. A. Van Sypesteyn sale, May 1825, lot 144.

A folio composite volume of miscellaneous letters and papers, in various hands, 56 leaves, mounted on guards in modern half dark red morocco.

Dramatic Works

The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First

First published London, 1632. Ed. David Carnegie, Malone Society, 1968 (Oxford, 1974).

*GoT 8
Autograph

Goffe's autograph actor's part for the role of Amurath in his play. [1618].

Facsimiles of the first page of this MS in the Malone Society edition, Plate IV, and in DLB, vol. 58, Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists, ed. Fredson Bowers (Detroit, 1987), p. 120; and of f. 57r in David Carnegie, The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor, The Library, 5th Ser. 26 (1971), 161-5 (Plate XII).

An octavo volume of actors' parts for four Latin and English academic plays, in different hands, ii + 68 leaves, in contemporary vellum.

Given to the library by Mr and Mrs John Fleming.

Harvard Theatre Collection (MS Thr 10.1 ff. [55r-69r])
GoT 9

Copy, in a single secretary hand, headed The Tragady of Amurath third Tyrant of the Turkes As it was publiquely prsented to ye Vniversity of Oxon: By ye students of Christchurch Mathias day i6i8, including The Argument, Prologue, and Dramatis Personæ, on 25 quarto leaves.

Pen-trials on the first leaf by one Thomas Piggott or Pygott.

This MS recorded in HMC, First Report (1870), Appendix, p. 49. Discussed in the Malone Society edition, pp. vi-viii.

The Couragious Turke, or, Amurath the First, Act II, scene ii, lines 489-98: Song ('Drop golden showers, gentle sleepe')
GoT 10

Copy of the song, in a musical setting.

Mentioned in Malone Society edition. Edited from this MS in Jorgens, XII, pp. 61, 403.

MS songbook.

Owned and probably compiled by Elizabeth Davenant (sister of Sir William Davenant), of Oxford.

c.1624-30s

Complete facsimile of this MS volume in Jorgens, VII (1987). Discussed in John P. Cutts, Mris Elizabeth Davenant 1624: Christ Church MS. Mus. 87, RES, NS 10 (1959), 26-37.

Christ Church, Oxford (MS Mus. 87 f. 3v)
The Raging Turke, or, Bajazet the Second

First published London, 1631. Ed. David Carnegie, Malone Society, 1968 (Oxford, 1974).

GoT 11

Copy, in possibly several largely italic hands, headed Baiazet, 56 quarto leaves, followed on sixteen leaves by Vox Populi 1620, in leather.

c.1618-20

Bookplate of Sir Richard Newdigate, 1709. Among papers of the Newdegate family, Viscounts Daventry, of Arbury Hall, Nuneaton.

Warwickshire County Record Office microfilm, M1 351/5, item 22.

Documents

Document(s)
*GoT 12
Autograph

Autograph signature.

Disbursements book for 1619-20.

1619-20
Christ Church, Oxford (MS xii. b. 64 passim)
*GoT 13
Autograph

Goffe's signature.

Disbursements book for 1620-1.

1620-21
Christ Church, Oxford (MS xii .b. 65 passim)
*GoT 14
Autograph

Goffe's signature.

Disbursements Book for 1622-3.

1622-3
Christ Church, Oxford (MS xii. b. 67 passim)
*GoT 15 1622
Autograph

Goffe's autograph petition to Christ Church for permission to take up a rectorship of the parish of East Clandon, Surrey, in Latin, 11 October 1622.

Facsimiles in David Carnegie, The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor, The Library, 5th Ser. 26 (1971), 161-5 (Plate XIII), and in Thomas Goffe, The Couragious Turke, ed. David Carnegie, Malone Society (Oxford, 1974), Plate V.

Sub-Dean's Books.

Christ Church, Oxford (MS liii. b. 2 f. 7v)
*GoT 16
Autograph

Autograph memorandum signed by Goffe, 24 August 1626, f. 17v in the parish register of East Clandon, covering births, baptisms, marriages and burials, from 1558 to 1713, on vellum leaves.

1626

Formerly Guildford Muniment Room, PSH/CL.E/1/1.

Facsimile of Goffe's entry in David Carnegie, The Identification of the Hand of Thomas Goffe, Academic Dramatist and Actor, The Library, 5th Ser. 26 (1971), 161-5 (Plate XIV, opposite p. 13), and in Thomas Goffe, The Couragious Turke, ed. David Carnegie, Malone Society (Oxford, 1974), Plate VI.

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