_Songs and Rimes of Shakspeare._--I find in Mr. J. P. Collier's _History of
Dramatic Poetry_ (a work replete with dramatic lore and anecdote) the
following note in p. 275., vol. iii.:
"The Mitre and the Mermaid were celebrated taverns, which the poets,
wits, and gallants were accustomed to visit. Mr. Thorpe, the
enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street, is in possession of a
manuscript full of songs and poems, in the handwriting of a person of
the name of Richard Jackson, all copied prior to the year 1631, and
including many unpublished pieces, by a variety of celebrated poets.
One of the most curious is a song in five seven-line stanzas, thus
headed: 'Shakespeare's Rime, which he made at the Mytre in Fleete
Streete.' It begins: 'From the rich Lavinian shore;' and some few of
the lines were published by Playford, and set as a catch. Another
shorter piece is called in the margin,--
'SHAKESPEARE'S RIME.
Give me a cup of rich Canary wine,
Which was the Mitres (drink) and now is mine;
Of which had Horace and Anacreon tasted,
Their lives as well as lines till now had lasted.'
"I have little doubt," adds Mr. Collier, "that the lines are genuine,
as well as many other songs and poems attributed to Ben Jonson, Sir W.
Raleigh, H. Constable, Dr. Donne, J. Sylvester, and others."
Who was the purchaser of this precious MS.? In this age of Shakspearian
research, when every newly discovered relic is hailed with intense delight,
may I inquire of some of your numerous readers, who seem to take as much
delight as myself in whatever concerns our great dramatist and his
writings, whether they can throw any light upon the subject?
Again: "A peculiar interest," Mr. Collier says, "attaches to one of the
pieces in John Dowland's _First Book of Songs_ (p. 57.), on account of
the initials of 'W. S.' being appended to it, in a manuscript of the
time preserved in the Hamburgh City Library. It is inserted in
_England's Helicon_, 4to., 1600, as from Dowland's _Book of Tablature_,
without any name or initials; and looking at the character and language
of the piece, it is at least not impossible that it was the work of our
great dramatist, to whom it has been assigned by some continental
critics. A copy of it was, many years ago, sent to the author by a
German scholar of high reputation, under the conviction that the poem
ought to be included in any future edition of the works of Shakspeare.
It will be admitted that the lines are not unworthy of his pen; and,
from the quality of other productions in the same musical work, we may
perhaps speculate whether Shakspeare were not the writer of some other
poems there inserted. If we were to take it for granted, that a sonnet
in _The Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, was by Shakspeare, because it is
there attributed to him, we might be sure that he was a warm admirer of
Dowland,
'whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense.'
However, it is more than likely, that the sonnet in which this passage
is found was by Barnfield, and not by Shakspeare: it was printed by
Barnfield in 1598, and reprinted by him in 1605, notwithstanding the
intermediate appearance of it in _The Passionate Pilgrim_."
May I inquire if any new light has been thrown upon this disputed song
since the publication of Mr. Collier's _Lyric Poems_ in 1844?
The song is addressed to Cynthia, and, as Mr. Collier says, is not unworthy
of Shakspeare's muse. As it is not of any great length, perhaps it may be
thought worthy of insertion in "N. & Q."
"TO CYNTHIA.
"My thoughts are wing'd with hopes, my hopes with love;
Mount, love, unto the moone in cleerest night,
And say, as she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxes my delight:
And whisper this, but softly, in her eares,
Hope oft doth hang the head, and trust shed teares.
"And you, my thoughts, that some mistrust do cary,
If for mistrust my mistresse do you blame,
Say, though you alter, yet you do not vary,
As she doth change, and yet remaine the same.
Distrust doth enter hearts, but not infect,
And love is sweetest season'd with suspect.
"If she for this with cloudes do maske her eyes,
And make the heavens darke with her disdaine,
With windie sighes disperse them in the skies,
Or with the teares dissolve them into rain.
Thoughts, hopes, and love return to me no more,
Till Cynthia shine as she hath done before."