William Barksted
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (September 2013) |
William Barksted (
Biography
William Barksted in 1609 performed in
Nothing later concerning him has been discovered, except an anecdote worked into the Wit and Mirth of
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 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
Both Mirrha and Hiren owe much to "Venus and Adonis", and their author pays the following tribute to
- 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
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Barksted, William". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.