Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 - Various - Страница 5

Dr. Rimbault, in the introduction to his edition of Kind-Hearts' Dream, for the Percy Society, says, "Of the author, Henry Chettle, very little is known: … we are ignorant of the time and place of his birth or death, and of the manner in which he obtained his living." (Pp. vii. viii.) I trouble you with this note in the hope that it may furnish him with a clue to further particulars of Henry Chettle.

Hutchins (Hist. of Dorset., vol. i. p. 53. ed. 1774) mentions a family named Chettle, which was seated at Blandford St. Mary from 1547 to about 1690, and gives the following names as lineal successors to property in that parish: Henry Chettle, ob. 1553. John, s. and h., ob. 1590. Edward, s. and h., ob. 1609, "leaving Henry, his son and heir, eleven years nine months old." Among the burials for the same parish (p. 57.) occurs "Henry Chettle, Esq., 1616;" and at pp. 119. 208. the marriage of "Henry Chettle, Gent., and Susan Chaldecot, 1610." This last extract is from the register of the parish of Steple, in the Isle of Purbeck, which also contains, says Hutchins, many notices of the Chettle family; but all, I should infer, subsequent to the year 1610.

I have ascertained that the statement in Hutchins corresponds with the entry in the register of Blandford St. Mary, of the burial of Henry Chettle in 1616; and that there is no entry of the baptism of any one of that name. In fact, the registers only begin in 1581. Now it is clear that there were two persons of this name living at the same time, viz. H.C., aged eleven years in 1609; and H.C., who marries in 1610. And if the conjecture of the learned editor be correct, as probably it is, that the poet, Henry Chettle, "died in or before the year 1607," it is equally clear that he was a third of the same name, and that he could not be the person whose name occurs as buried in 1616. But the name is not a common one, and there seems sufficient to warrant further research into this subject. I venture, therefore, to make these two suggestions in the form of Queries:

I. Can any internal evidence be gathered from the writings of Henry Chettle, as to his family, origin, and birthplace? Kind-Heart's Dream, the only one of his works which I have either seen or have the means of consulting, contains nothing specific enough to connect him with Dorset, or the West. It would seem, indeed, as if he were acquainted with the New Forest, but not better than with Essex, and other parts adjacent to London.

II. Would it not be worth while to search the Heralds' Visitations for the county of Dorset, the Will-office, and the Inquisitions "post mortem?" The family was of some consequence, and is mentioned even in Domesday-book as holding lands in the county. Hutchins blazons their arms—Az. 3 spiders, or; but gives no pedigree of the family.

E.A.D.