Works
In 1602 two poems by 'William Bas' were published in London. The one was entitled 'Sword and Buckler, or Serving Man's Defence;' the other 'Three Pastoral Elegies of Anander, Anetor, and Muridella.' 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. ii., in 1864. The only copy known of the latter is in Winchester College library. In 1613 an elegy on Henry, 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.
No other volume of Basse's poems was printed in his lifetime, but two manuscript collections, prepared for the press, are still extant. Of these one bears the title of 'Polyhymnia,' and has never been printed. The only copy of it now known belonged to Richard Heber, and afterwards 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. Another manuscript of 'Polyhymnia,' described by Cole in his manuscript 'Athenæ Cantab.' and now lost, differed materially from the Corser manuscript. The second collection left by Basse in manuscript is now the property of F. W. Cosens, Esq.; it 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, January 13, 1651.'
According to Kathman, Basse's most famous occasional poem is his 'enormously popular sixteen-line elegy on Shakespeare':
written between 1616 (when Shakespeare died) and 1623 (when Jonson responded to Basse in his own tribute to Shakespeare in the First Folio). Wells and Taylor 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. 67v) in the handwriting of Basse's friend William Browne. It first reached print in the 1633 edition of John Donne's poems, but was dropped from the 1635 edition, and was next printed in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems, with a correct attribution to ‘W. B.’ and the title ‘On the Death of William Shakespeare, who Died in Aprill, Anno. Dom. 1616’ (sig. K8v). The same year it was also printed anonymously in Wits Recreation.
Basse also wrote a commendatory poem for Michael Baret's 'Hipponomie, or the Vineyard of Horsemanship' (1618), and he has been identified with the 'W. B.' who contributed verses to Massinger's 'Bondman' (1624), although William Browne has also been claimed as their author. In Izaak Walton's 'Compleat Angler' the piscator remarks, 'I'll promise you I'll sing a song that was lately made at my request by Mr. William Basse, one that hath made the choice songs of the " Hunter in his Career " and of " Tom of Bedlam," and many others of note; and this that I will sing is in praise of Angling.' Basse's 'Angler's Song,' beginning 'As inward love breeds outward ^alk,' then follows. Of the other two songs mentioned by Walton, a unique copy of 'Maister Basse, his careere, or the new hunting. To a new Court tune,' is in the Pepys collection at Cambridge; it is reprinted in 'Wit and Drollery' (1682), p. 64, and in 'Old Ballads ' (1725), ii. 196. The tune is given in the 'Skene MS.' preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, and a ballad in the Bagford collection in the British Museum, entitled 'Hubert's Ghost,' is written 'to the tune of Basse's Career.' 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. 357; but many other ballads bear the same title, and this identification is therefore doubtful. In 1636 Basse contributed a poem to the 'Annalia Dubrensia.'
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