William Barksted (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1611) was an
English actor and poet.
Biography
William Barksted in 1609 performed in
Ben Jonson's ''Epicene'', and in 1613 in
Beaumont and
Fletcher's ''Coxcomb''. When he performed in ''Epicene'' he was of the company "provided and kept" by Kirkham, Hawkins, Kendall, and Payne, and in Jonson's
folio of 1616 he is associated with "Nat. Field, Gil. Carie, Hugh Attawel, Joh. Smith, Will Pen, Ric. Allen, and Joh. Blaney." This company of actors, in the reign of
Elizabeth the "children of the chapel", under
James I was the "children of the queen's revels"; but on the title-page of ''Hiren'' it is "his Maiesties", not the "queen's" revels, so that the designation may have varied. Certain documents (a bond and articles of agreement in connection with
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe (c. 1550 – 6 January 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance ...
and
Edward Alleyn
Edward "Ned" Alleyn (; 1 September 156621 November 1626) was an English actor who was a major figure of the Elizabethan theatre and founder of the College of God's Gift in Dulwich.
Early life
Alleyn was born on 1 September 1566 in Bishopsga ...
) introduce Barksted's name in 1611 and 1615–16, as belonging to this company of actors referred.
Nothing later concerning him has been discovered, except an anecdote worked into the ''Wit and Mirth'' of
John Taylor, the Water Poet, in 1629. In some copies also of the ''Insatiate Countess'', dated 1631, the name of John Marston is displaced by that of William Barksted. It was possibly as actor that he became acquainted with
Henry, earl of Oxford, and
Elizabeth, countess of Derby. The former he calls, in the verse-dedication of ''Hiren'', "the Heroicke Heroes". The Countess of Derby is addressed as "Your honor's from youth oblig'd".’
Works
Barksted was the author of the poems ''Mirrha, the Mother of Adonis; or Lustes Prodegies'' (1607); and ''Hiren, or the Faire Greeke'' (1611). On the title-page of the latter, he describes himself as "one of the servants of his Maiesties Revels". There is a "Prologue to a playe to the cuntry people" in Ashmole MS. 38 (art. 198), which
William Carew Hazlitt
William Carew Hazlitt (22 August 18348 September 1913), known professionally as W. Carew Hazlitt, was an English lawyer, bibliographer, editor and writer. He was the son of the barrister and registrar William Hazlitt, a grandson of the essayist a ...
attributed to Barksted, that is signed "William Buckstead, Comedian". Such unhappily is the little personal fact that research has yielded.
Barksted has been identified by some with W. B., the author of a rough verse-translation of a "Satire of Juvenal", entitled ''That which seems Best is Worst, exprest in a paraphrastical transcript of Iuvenal's tenth Satyre. Together with the Tragicall Narration of Virginius's Death interserted'', London, 1617. This is a paraphrase resembling in method Barksted's ''Mirrha'', which is paraphrased from the tenth book of
Ovid's ''
Metamorphoses''.
Both ''Mirrha'' and ''Hiren'' owe much to "Venus and Adonis", and their author pays the following tribute to
Shakespeare at the close of ''Mirrha'':—
:But stay my Muse in thine owne confines keepe,
:And wage not warre with so deere lou'd a neighbor,
:But hauing sung thy day song, rest and sleepe,
:Preserue thy small fame and his greater fauor:
:His song was worthie merrit (Shakspeare hee)
:Sung the faire blossome, thou the withered tree:
:Lawrell is due to him, his art and wit
:Hath purchas'd it, Cypres thy brow will fit.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barksted, William
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing
16th-century births
17th-century deaths
17th-century English poets
17th-century English male writers
17th-century English writers
English male stage actors
17th-century English male actors
English male poets