Thomas Rymer (c. 1643 – 14 December 1713)[1] was an English poet, critic, antiquary and historian. His lasting contribution was to compile and publish 16 volumes of the first edition of Foedera, a work in 20 volumes conveying agreements between The Crown of England and foreign powers since 1101. He held the office of English Historiographer Royal from 1692 to 1714. He is credited with coining the phrase "poetic justice" in The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd (1678).
Although Rymer was still at Cambridge in 1662 when he contributed Latin verses to a university volume to mark the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, there is no record of his taking a degree. This may have been due to financial problems his father was suffering at the time, or to his father's arrest on 13 October 1663 — he was executed the following year for involvement in the Farnley Wood Plot, an intended uprising in Yorkshire against Charles II. Although Thomas's elder brother Ralph was also arrested and imprisoned, Thomas was not implicated. On 2 May 1666 he became a member of Gray's Inn. He was called to the bar on 16 June 1673.[4]
Career
Rymer's first appearance in print,[a] was as translator of René Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie (1674),[8] to which he added a preface in defence of the classic rules for unity in drama.[b] Following the principles set there, he composed a verse tragedy licensed on 13 September 1677, called Edgar, or the English Monarch, which failed. It was printed in 1678,[4] with a second edition in 1693.[9] Rymer's views on drama were again given to the world in a printed letter to Fleetwood Shepheard, a friend of Matthew Prior, entitled The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd (1678).[10] Here, in discussing Rollo Duke of Normandy by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman, Rymer coined the term "poetical justice".[11][12]
To Ovid's Epistles Translated by Several Hands (1680), prefaced by Dryden, Rymer contributed Penelope to Ulysses.[c] He was also one of those who Englished the so-called Dryden's Plutarch of 1683–1686 (5 vols.): the life of Nicias fell to his share.[13] Rymer wrote a preface to Whitelocke's Memorials of English Affairs (1682),[14] and in 1681 A General Draught and Prospect of the Government of Europe, reprinted in 1689 and 1714 as Of the Antiquity, Power, and Decay of Parliaments,[15] where ignorant of a future dignity that would be his, he had the misfortune to observe, "You are not to expect truth from an historiographer royal."[10]
Rymer contributed three pieces to the collection of Poems to the Memory of Edmund Waller (1688)[16][d] (afterwards reprinted in Dryden's Miscellany Poems),[18][e] and wrote the Latin inscription on all four sides of Edmund Waller's monument in Beaconsfield churchyard.[19][10]
The preface ("Lectori salutem") to the posthumous Historia Ecclesiastica (1688)[20] of Thomas Hobbes seems to have been written by Rymer.[f] An English translation appeared in 1722.[23] The Life of Hobbes (1681), sometimes ascribed to him, was written by Richard Blackburne.[g] He produced a congratulatory poem on the arrival of Queen Mary in Westminster with William III on 12 February 1689.[4][h]
Rymer's next piece of authorship was to translate the sixth elegy of the third book of Ovid's Tristia for Dryden's Poetical Miscellanies. The only version to contain Rymer's rendering seems to be the second edition of the second part of the Miscellanies, subtitled Silvae (1692).[24][i]
On the death of Thomas Shadwell in 1692, Rymer was appointed historiographer royal at a yearly salary of £200.[4] Immediately after, there appeared his much-discussed A Short View of Tragedy (1693),[31] criticising Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, which gave rise to The Impartial Critick (1693) of John Dennis, the epigram of Dryden.[32]
Foedera
Rymer's lasting contribution to scholarship was the Foedera, a collection of "all the leagues, treaties, alliances, capitulations, and confederacies, which have at any time been made between the Crown of England and any other kingdoms, princes and states."[33] Documents were presented in Latin with summaries in English.[33] Begun under a royal warrant in 1693, it was "an immense labour of research and transcription on which he spent the last twenty years of his life".[34][35]
The first edition of the Foedera consisted of 20 volumes dated 1704–1735. Sixteen were prepared by Rymer, of which the last two were published posthumously by his assistant Robert Sanderson, who himself compiled the remaining volumes, the last three being supplementary.[35]
George Holmes revised the first 17 volumes, published from 1727 to 1735, and a single folio in 1730 of corrections to the first edition.[35][36]
The "Hague edition" was published from 1737 to 1745 in "ten closely-printed folio volumes".[35][j] The first nine reprinted the London edition, with the tenth combining Paul de Rapin's French-language synopsis and an index to the Foedera.[35][36] Rapin's text had been translated into English in 1733.[38]
The Record Commission in 1800 proposed a "Supplement and Continuation" to the Foedera; in 1809 it decided instead to make a complete revision.[35] Seven parts were prepared before the project was abandoned due to dissatisfaction with the editing by Dr Adam Clarke and others.[35][36] Six parts in three volumes were published from 1816 to 1830 and the seventh in 1869, along with miscellaneous notes.[k] The work was thus revised up to the year 1383.[35][36] A three-volume English-language summary and index of the complete Foedera by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy followed.[40] The Victoria County History recommends citing the Record Commission (RC) edition where available and the Hague edition otherwise.[41]
Death
Rymer died on 14 December 1713 and was buried four days later in St Clement Danes' Church in the Strand in London.[2] He appears not to have left any immediate family.[4]
References
Notes
^A 1688 translation into English of William Bellenden's Ciceronis Princeps (first published anonymously in Paris in 1608)[5] sometimes said to be Thomas Rymer's first publication, has been shown by Curt Zimansky to be the work of Thomas Ross (1620–1675), courtier, poet and tutor to the first Duke of Monmouth.[6][7]
^"Thomas Rymer: Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie: The Preface of the Translator". English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition. Retrieved 26 March 2019. This page includes thoughts of other critics about Rymer, expressed in George Saintsbury (1911) History of English Criticism, pp. 133–134, Herbert E. Cory (1911) Critics of Edmund Spenser, pp. 120–121, Harko Gerrit De Maar (1924), History of Modern English Romanticism, p. 34, and H. T. Swedenberg (1944), Theory of the Epic in England, p. 47.
^This went through numerous expanding editions: e. g. Ovid; Rymer, Thomas (1776). "Penelope to Ulysses". In Dryden, John (preface) (ed.). Ovid's Epistles: with his Amours. Translated into English Verse by the Most Eminent Hands. London: Printed for T. Davies, W. Strahan, W. Clarke, et al.
^The poems are: On Mr. Waller. T. Rymer (p. 4); Monsieur St. Euremon. 1684 (In French). In English, by T. R. (p. 10); To Mr. Riley, Drawing Mr. Waller's Picture. T. R. (p. 26). "It is not improbable that the initials T. R., signed to several of the pieces, are those of Thomas Rymer, who is believed to have edited the volume and who signed one of the poems in full."[17]
^The poems are again On Mr. Waller By Mr. T. Rymer (pp. 223–225); Monsieur St. Euremon. 1684. In English, by T. R. (p. 234); To Mr. Riley, Drawing Mr. Waller's Picture. By Mr. T. Rymer (p. 267). The attribution of the Riley poem is 'By Mr. Rymer', rather than 'T. R.' in the 1688 version.
^William Molesworth, in his 1845 edition of Hobbes[21] says that the preface is by Rymer and that the original title page and motto must be ascribed to him. Patricia Springborg also says the introduction is by Rymer.[22]
^See Blackburne, Richard by Arthur Henry Grant in DNB, Volume 5: "Dr. Blackburne certainly wrote a Latin supplement to the short "Life", entitled "Vitae Hobbianie Auctarium", the first sentence of which supplies the chief evidence of his authorship of the "Life". Both these works would seem to have been derived from a larger and fuller "Life" in manuscript, written in English by John Aubrey and used with the knowledge and consent of the latter, and possibly with the assistance of Hobbes himself."
^(Rymer 1689). Rymer compares Mary to Pyhrra, Deucalion's bride: according to Ovid, after the Deluge the couple threw rocks over their shoulders, which metamorphosed into babies who grew up and re-populated the world.
^Dryden and Jacob Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies has a somewhat involved publishing history of numerous editions with various titles, reprints and bindings.[25] The second edition of the second part (1692) seems to be the only one to contain Rymer's translation, and was apparently only published bound up with some copies of the second edition of the first part (also 1692).[26]
The first edition of the second Ppart appeared as Sylvæ: or the Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies (1685).[27] A second edition of Sylvae was published in 1692 and was bound with the second edition of part one of the Miscellany Poems (1692) (Part One, 1st ed. published 1684, reissued 1685). This second edition of the first and second Parts was published in 1692 (Dryden 1692). It seems to be the only version to contain Rymer's translation. There are online copies or text-only versions, but none seem to be freely available. In addition, some copies of the first edition of Sylvæ (not containing Rymer's Ovid) were bound with the second edition of the Miscellany Poems. Rymer's Ovid does not seem to appear in the third edition of the first part of the Miscellany Poems (1702)[28] or in the fourth edition of the second part of the Miscellany Poems.[29] The third part (or volume) is Examen Poeticum (1693).[30]
Bond, Christopher (September 2009). "The Phœnix and the Prince: The Poetry of Thomas Ross and Literary Culture in the Court of Charles II". The Review of English Studies. 60 (246): 588–604. doi:10.1093/res/hgn169.
Dennis, John (1909) [1693]. "The Impartial Critick". In Spingarn, Joel Elias (ed.). Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. III: 1685–1700. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hobbes, Thomas (1722). Rymer, Thomas (ed.). A True Ecclesiastical History, from Moses to the time of Martin Luther, in Verse. Made English from the Latin original. Historia ecclesiastica, carmine elegiaco concinnata. Translated by John Rooke. London: Printed for E. Curll. hdl:2027/njp.32101073248617.
Oppenheimer, Carl H. (1940). The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library. 3. New York: Privately Printed.
Plutarch (1693). "Nicias". The third volume of Plutarch's lives. Translated from the Greek, by several hands. Translated by Thomas Rymer. (Early English Books Online – text only). London: Printed by R. E. for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges Head in Chancery-Lane, near Fleet-street.
Rymer, Thomas (1688a). "Preface". In Hobbes, Thomas (ed.). Historia ecclesiastica carmine elegiaco concinnata Authore, Thoma Hobbio Malmesburiensi. (Early English Books Online – text only) (in Latin). Augustae Trinobantum (London).
Rymer, Thomas (1693a) [1678]. Edgar, or the English Monarch: an Heroick Tragedy. (Early English Books Online – text only) (2nd ed.). London: Printed for James Knapton, at the Crown in St. Pauls-Church-yard.
Rymer, Thomas (1853) [1682]. "Preface to the first edition". In Whitelocke, Bulstrode (ed.). Memorials of the English affairs from the beginning of the reign of Charles the First to the happy restoration of King Charles the Second, Vol. 1. (4 vols.) (Repr. of 2nd, 1732 ed.). Oxford University Press.
Sherbo, Arthur (2013) [2004]. "Rymer, Thomas (1642/3–1713)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24426. Retrieved 17 October 2017.(subscription required)
Irving Ribner: "Dryden's Shaksperian criticism and the neo-classical paradox", The Shakespeare Association Bulletin Vol. 21, No. 4 (October 1946), pp. 168–171. Published by: Oxford University Press [3] Published by Jacob Tonson, Bookseller
Keith Walker: The American Scholar Vol. 61, No. 3 (Summer 1992), pp. 424–430. Published by The Phi Beta Kappa Society [4]. On p. 429 Walker mentions a preface by Rymer to some lewd poems by the Earl of Rochester: Poems on several occasions by the E... of R... (1680), but the Online books page of University of Michigan seems not to have the preface [5].
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