William Basse
[3][4] From the references made in Basse's poems to Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire, it has been inferred that the poet was at one time also attached to his household at Rycote, Oxfordshire.
[5] Basse dedicated Polyhymnia to Bridget, Countess of Lindsey, second wife of Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey, and the opening poem in the volume is addressed to the Countess's grandfather, Francis Norris, 1st Earl of Berkshire:[4] In playne (my honour'd Lord) I was not borne Audacious vowes or forraigne legs to use; Nature denyed my outside to adorne, And I of art to learne outsides refuse.
Yet haveing of them both enough to scorne Silence and vulgar prayse, this humble Muse And her meane favourite at your command Chose in this kinde to kisse your noble hand.
"Urania", the last poem of the collection, bearing the date 1653, has all the metrical characteristics of the "Sword and Buckler" of 1602; and Bathurst's verses prove that Basse followed his poetical career through many generations.
Of the former, which the author describes as his first production, a unique perfect copy is in the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted in J.P. Collier's Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature, vol.
[12] In 1613 an elegy on Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, called "Great Brittaines; Sunnes-set, bewailed with a Shower of Teares, by William Basse", was issued by Joseph Barnes at Oxford.
It was dedicated by the author "to his honourable master, Sir Richard Wenman, knight", and was reproduced at Oxford by W. H. Allnutt from the perfect copy at the Bodleian in 1872.
The only copy of it was known to belong to Richard Heber, and afterward to Thomas Corser; on the fly-leaf is the autograph of Francis, Lord Norreys, to whom the opening verses are addressed, and to whose sister, Bridget, Countess of Lindsey, the collection is dedicated.
The second collection left by Basse in manuscript consists of three long pastoral poems, of which the first is dedicated to Sir Richard Wenman; bears the date 1653, and was printed for the first time in J.P. Collier's Miscellaneous Tracts, in 1872.
To it is prefixed a poem addressed to Basse, by Ralph (afterwards dean) Bathurst, who compares the author to an "aged oak", and says: ... thy grey muse grew up with older times, And our deceased grandsires lisp'd the rhymes.Bathurst's verses were printed in Warton's pleasant 'Life of Bathurst' (1761), p. 288, with the inscription 'To Mr. W. Basse upon the intended publication of his poems, 13 January 1651.
Wells and Taylor[14] list twenty-seven different seventeenth-century manuscript versions of the poem, ten of which attribute it to Basse, including one (British Library, Lansdowne MS 777, fol.
Basse's second ballad, "Tom of Bedlam", has been identified by Sir Harris Nicolas in his edition of Walton's Angler, with a song of the same name in Percy's Reliques, ii.
