Gervase Markham | Biography

Markham's works endlessly repeat themselves, and (like many other writers) he republished unsold copies of old books under new titles; sorting out all the bibliographical details of his works will provide steady employment for someone. The Company of Stationers' Register (23 April 1953) lists him as having revised for the press a poem, Thyrsis and Daphne, but the poem is not extant. Conceyted Letters, newly layde open (1618) has a preface signed "I. M.," but is now generally assigned to Nicholas Breton. Ariosto's Satyres (1608) is sometimes considered Markham's, though Robert Tofte claimed authorship in his Blazon of Jealousy (1615). Barnaby Rich's Allarme to England (1578), republished as Vox Militis (1625), is now assigned to G. Marcelline instead of Markham.

Markham's The Most Honorable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinuile, Knight (1595) is dedicated to Charles Blount, the eighth Lord Mountjoy, and includes a sonnet addressed to Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, that Frederick Gard Fleay uses to argue a competition between Markham and William Shakespeare for Southampton's favor. Fleay also contends that Shakespeare alludes to Markham in his sonnets. Readings in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poetic account of Sir Richard Grenville's fight, "The Revenge" (1880), show that Tennyson's poem probably owes some debt to Markham's: where Markham has "Sweet maister gunner, split our keele in twaine," Tennyson has "Sink me the ship, master gunner; sink her--split her in twain."

Markham's The Poem of Poems (1595) is dedicated to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney. Markham describes his verse adaptation in a preface: "I made loue to Salomons holy Song, & dissoluing my spirits in applause of that excellence, sought to attract it within the compasse of our most usuall stanzas." His translation of Devoreux (1597) laments the loss of Henry III of France and of the second earl of Essex's brother, Walter Devereux, who was slain before Rouen. Devoreux is dedicated to Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland, and Penelope, Lady Rich, Robert Devereux's sisters. R. Allot and E. Guilpin provide prefatory sonnets.The Teares of the Beloved (1600) is a long lament in six-line stanzas for the death of Christ. Marie Magdalens Lamentations for the Losse of her Master Jesus (1601) is a series of seven lamentations in the voice of Mary Magdalene on the death of Christ followed by a conclusion. The two volumes of Markham's English Arcadia (1607, 1613) are primarily prose mixed with some verse.

Gervase Markham was the brother of Francis Markham and third son of Robert Markham of Cottam, Nottinghamshire. He began a career as a soldier in the Low Countries and was a captain under the earl of Essex in Ireland. Markham's scholarly interests prevailed, however, and he turned to literature to support himself. He owned valuable horses and is thought to have imported the first Arabian horse. He sold an Arabian horse to James I for five hundred pounds. He was a prodigiously prolific writer: on 24 July 1617 the booksellers, no doubt fearing for the wear on their type, got him to sign a paper promising to write no more books on the treatment of the diseases of horses and cattle. In his Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, Ben Jonson declared Markham "not of the number of the Faithfill .j. Poets and but a base fellow." Markham married a daughter of J. Gelsthorp, but no record of children exists. He was buried at St. Gile's, Cripplegate, on 3 February 1637.