3.8. List of contemporary witnesses
| Author | Works | Year | Earl of Oxford | William Shakespeare, the Author |
| Gabriel Harvey | Gratulationes Valdinenses | 1578 | Your British metres have been widely sung, while your Epistle testifies how much you excel in letters…. I have seen your many Latin things, and more English are extant… Minerva is in your right hand, Bellona reigns in your body… your glance shoots arrows | |
| Gilbert Talbot | Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury | 1579 | a device presented by ... the Earl of Oxford | |
|
Edmund Spenser |
The Speheardes Calendar |
1579 |
Cuddie, the perfect pattern of a Poet
How
I could rear the Muse on stately stage And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine / With
quaint Bellona in her order ...
quaint) strange Bellona; the goddess of battle, that is Pallas, which … shaked her speare at him [Vulcan] |
|
|
Gabriel Harvey |
Speculum Tuscanismi |
1580 | Every one A per se A, his terms, and braveries in Print, / Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points | |
| William Webbe | A Discourse of English Poetry | 1586 | honourable and noble Lords and Gentlemen in Her Majesty's Court, which, in the rare devices of poetry, have been and yet are most skilful; among whom the right honourable Earl of Oxford may challenge to himself the title of most excellent among the rest | |
| Robert Greene | Menaphon | 1589 | Melicertus | |
| George Puttenham | Arte of English Poesie | 1589 | Noble men and Gentlemen of her Maiesties owne servantes, who have written excellently well… of which number is first that noble Gentleman Edward Earle of Oxford | |
| Thomas Nashe | Strange Newes | 1593 | Master William / M. Apis lapis / Will.Monox | Gentle M. William, that learned writer Rhenish wine & Sugar |
| Gabriel Harvey | Pierces Supererogation | 1593 | Excellent Gentlewoman | Excellent Gentlewoman; Idle Hours |
| Thomas Edwards | Cephalus and Procris | 1593 | Adon | |
| Henry Willobie | Willobies his Avisa | 1594 | And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape | |
| Sir William Har... | Epicedium, a Funerall Song | 1594 | You that to shew your wits, have taken toyle In regist'ring the deeds of noble men; And sought for matter in a forraine soyle, As worthie subjects of your silver pen, Whom you have rais'd from darke oblivion's den. You that have writ of chaste Lucretia, Whose death was witnesse of her spotlesse life: | |
| Edmund Spenser | Colin Clouts Come Home Againe | 1595 | Aetion ... Whose Muse full of high thoughts invention, Doth like himselfe Heroically sound | |
| W[illiam].C[ovell]. | Polimanteia | 1595 | Lucrecia [of] Sweet Shakespeare. | |
| John Trussell | The first rape of faire Hellen | 1595 | (our friendship and our amity) | Phœbus’ Laurel will eternize (thy Poesie) |
| Thomas Nashe | Have with You | 1595 | Orpheus | |
| Joseph Hall | Virgidemiarum | 1597 |
Labeo ...
Who list complain of wronged
faith or fame, When he may shift it to another's name? |
|
| Francis Meres | Palladis Tamia | 1598 | Oxford | mellifluous & honey-tongued Shakespeare |
| John Marston | The Scourge of Villanie | 1598 | whose silent name / One letter bounds | |
| John Marston | The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image | 1598 | So Labeo did complain his love was stone, Obdurate, flinty, so relentless none | |
| Richard Barnfield | Poems in diverse Humours | 1598 | Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing Vein | |
| Gabriel Harvey | Marginalia | 1598/99 | Shakespeares Venus and Adonis ... his Lucrece and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke | |
| John Marston | Histriomastix | 1599 | when he shakes his furious Speare | |
| John Weever | Epigrammes | 1599 | Honey-tongued Shakespeare | |
| Anonymous | The Return from Parnassus | c.1599 | bovem ex unguibus | Shakespeare |
| Henry Chettle | England's Mourning Garment | 1603 | Melicertus | Melicertus |
| Anthony Scoloker | Epistle to Daiphantus | 1604 | Friendly Shake-speares Tragedies | |
| M. L. | Envies Scourge | 1604 ? | verses live supported by a speare | |
| Thomas Smithe | Sir Thomas Smithes voiage and entertainment in Rushia | 1605 | the late English quick-spirited, cleare-sighted Ovid (+) (Hamlet; "it is to be feared dreaming") | |
| William Barksted | Mirrha the Mother of Adonis | 1607 | His Song was worthie merrit (Shakespeare hee) (+) sung the faire blossoms | |
| Anon. = Ben Jonson | Preface to Troilus and Cressida | 1609 | Shakespeare | |
| Thomas Thorpe | Dedication of the Sonnets | 1609 | Shake-speare (+) | |
| George Chapman | The Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois | 1609 c | Oxford | |
| John Davies of H. | The Scourge of Folly | 1611 | Shake-speare (+) (To our English Terence [=Labeo], Mr. Will. Shake-speare.) | |
| John Webster | The White Devil | 1612 | Shake-speare | |
| Christopher Brooke | The Ghost of Richard III | 1614 | that writ my story (+) | |
| Thomas Freeman | Runne and a great Cast | 1614 | Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury | |
| John Davies of H. | Speculum Proditori | 1616 | I knew a Man | |
| Thomas Vicars | Manuductio | 1621 | qui a quassatione et hasta nomen habet | |
| Henry Peacham | The Compleat Gentleman | 1622 | Oxford | |
| Ben Jonson | W. S. First Folio | 1623 |
my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare ...
In his well toned and true-filed lines, |