Shakespeare, and it would be futile to attempt to make the record of the
pretended portraits complete. Upwards of sixty have been offered for
sale to the National Portrait Gallery since its foundation in 1856, and
not one of these has proved to possess the remotest claim to
authenticity. The following are some of the wholly unauthentic portraits
that have attracted public attention: Three portraits assigned to
Zucchero, who left England in 1580, and cannot have had any relations
with Shakespeare--one in the Art Museum, Boston, U.S.A.; another,
formerly the property of Richard Cosway, R.A., and afterwards of Mr. J.
A. Langford of Birmingham (engraved in mezzotint by H. Green); and a
third belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who purchased it in 1862.
At Hampton Court is a wholly unauthentic portrait of the Chandos type,
which was at one time at Penshurst; it bears the legend 'AEtatis suae 34'
(cf. Law's _Cat. of Hampton Court_, p. 234). A portrait inscribed
'aetatis suae 47, 1611,' belonging to Clement Kingston of Ashbourne,
Derbyshire, was engraved in mezzotint by G. F. Storm in 1846.
{292} In the picture-gallery at Dulwich is 'a woman's head on a boord
done by Mr. Burbidge, ye actor'--a well-authenticated example of the
actor's art.
{296a} It is now the property of Frau Oberst Becker, the discoverer's
daughter-in-law, Darmstadt, Heidelbergerstrasse 111.
{296b} Some account of Shakespeare's portraits will be found in the
following works: James Boaden, _Inquiry into various Pictures and Prints
of Shakespeare_, 1824; Abraham Wivell, _Inquiry into Shakespeare's
Portraits_, 1827, with engravings by B. and W. Holl; George Scharf,
_Principal Portraits of Shakespeare_, 1864; J. Hain Friswell,
_Life-Portraits of Shakespeare_, 1864; William Page, _Study of
Shakespeare's Portraits_, 1876; Ingleby, _Man and Book_, 1877, pp. 84
seq.; J. Parker Norris, _Portraits of Shakespeare_, Philadelphia, 1885,
with numerous plates; _Illustrated Cat. of Portraits in Shakespeare's
Memorial at Stratford_, 1896. In 1885 Mr. Walter Rogers Furness issued,
at Philadelphia, a volume of composite portraits, combining the Droeshout
engraving and the Stratford bust with the Chandos, Jansen, Felton, and
Stratford portraits.
{297} Cf. _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1741, p. 105.
{298} _A History of the Shakespeare Memorial_, _Stratford-on-Avon_,
1882; _Illustrated Catalogue of Pictures in the Shakespeare Memorial_,
1896.
{299} This was facsimiled in 1862, and again by Mr. Griggs in 1880.
{302} Lithographed facsimiles of most of these volumes, with some of the
quarto editions of the poems (forty-eight volumes in all), were prepared
by Mr. E. W. Ashbee, and issued to subscribers by Halliwell-Phillipps
between 1862 and 1871. A cheaper set of quarto facsimiles, undertaken by
Mr. W. Griggs, and issued under the supervision of Dr. F. J. Furnivall,
appeared in forty-three volumes between 1880 and 1889.
{303} Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from 200
to 300 pounds. In 1864, at the sale of George Daniel's library, quarto
copies of 'Love's Labour's Lost' and of 'Merry Wives' (first edition)
each fetched 346 pounds 10s. On May 14, 1897, a copy of the quarto of
'The Merchant of Venice' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was sold at
Sotheby's for 315 pounds.
{304} See p. 183.
{306} Cf. _Bibliographica_, i. 489 seq.
{308} This copy was described in the _Variorum Shakespeare_ of 1821
(xxi. 449) as in the possession of Messrs. J. and A. Arch, booksellers,
of Cornhill. It was subsequently sold at Sotheby's in 1855 for 163
pounds 16s.
{309a} I cannot trace the present whereabouts of this copy, but it is
described in the _Variorum Shakespeare_ of 1821, xxi. 449-50.
{309b} The copy seems to have been purchased by a member of the Sheldon
family in 1628, five years after publication. There is a note in a
contemporary hand which says it was bought for 3 pounds 15s., a somewhat
extravagant price. The entry further says that it cost three score
pounds of silver, words that I cannot explain. The Sheldon family arms
are on the sides of the volume, and there are many manuscript notes in
the margin, interpreting difficult words, correcting misprints, or
suggesting new readings.
{309c} It has been mutilated by a former owner, and the signature of the
leaf is missing, but it was presumably G G 3.
{310} Correspondents inform me that two copies of the First Folio, one
formerly belonging to Leonard Hartley and the other to Bishop Virtue of
Portsmouth, showed a somewhat similar irregularity. Both copies were
bought by American booksellers, and I have not been able to trace them.
{311} Cf. _Notes and Queries_, 1st ser., vii. 47.
{312a} Arber, _Stationers' Registers_, iii. 242-3.
{312b} On January 31, 1852, Collier announced in the _Athenaeum_, that
this copy, which had been purchased by him for thirty shillings, and bore
on the outer cover the words '_Tho. Perkins his Booke_,' was annotated
throughout by a former owner in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Shortly afterwards Collier published all the 'essential' manuscript
readings in a volume entitled _Notes and Emendations to the Plays of
Shakespeare_. Next year he presented the folio to the Duke of
Devonshire. A warm controversy as to the date and genuineness of the
corrections followed, but in 1859 all doubt as to their origin was set at
rest by Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton of the manuscript department of the
British Museum, who in letters to the _Times_ of July 2 and 16 pronounced
all the manuscript notes to be recent fabrications in a simulated
seventeenth-century hand.
{314} The best account of eighteenth-century criticism of Shakespeare is
to be found in the preface to the Cambridge edition by Mr. Aldis Wright.
The memoirs of the various editors in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_ supply useful information. I have made liberal use of these
sources in the sketch given in the following pages.
{317a} Mr. Churton Collins's admirable essay on Theobald's textua
criticism of Shakespeare, entitled 'The Porson of Shakespearean Critics,'
is reprinted from the _Quarterly Review_ in his _Essays and Studies_,
1895, pp. 263 et seq.
{317b} Collier doubtless followed Theobald's hint when he pretended to
have found in his 'Perkins Folio' the extremely happy emendation (now
generally adopted) of 'bisson multitude' for 'bosom multiplied' in
Coriolanus's speech:
How shall this bisson multitude digest
The senate's courtesy?--(_Coriolanus_, III. i. 131-2.)
{318} A happy example of his shrewdness may be quoted from _King Lear_,
III. vi. 72, where in all previous editions Edgar's enumeration of
various kinds of dogs included the line 'Hound or spaniel, brach or hym
[or him].' For the last word Hanmer substituted 'lym,' which was the
Elizabethan synonym for bloodhound.
{320} Edition of 1793, vol. i. p. 7.
{327a} Cf. the opening line of Matthew Arnold's Sonnet on Shakespeare:
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
{327b} These letters have been interpreted as standing for the
inscription 'In Memoriam Scriptoris' as well as for the name of the
writer. In the latter connection, they have been variously and
inconclusively read as Jasper Mayne (Student), a young Oxford writer; as
John Marston (Student or Satirist); and as John Milton (Senior or
Student).
{328} Charles Gildon in 1694, in 'Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short
View of Tragedy' which he addressed to Dryden, gives the classical
version of this incident. 'To give the world,' Gildon informs Dryden,
'some satisfaction that Shakespear has had as great a Veneration paid his
Excellence by men of unquestion'd parts as this I now express of him, I
shall give some account of what I have heard from your Mouth, Sir, about
the noble Triumph he gain'd over all the Ancients by the Judgment of the
ablest Critics of that time. The Matter of Fact (if my Memory fail me
not) was this. Mr. _Hales_ of Eaton affirm'd that he wou'd shew all the
Poets of Antiquity outdone by Shakespear, in all the Topics, and common
places made use of in Poetry. The Enemies of Shakespear wou'd by no
means yield him so much Excellence: so that it came to a Resolution of a
trial of skill upon that Subject; the place agreed on for the Dispute was
Mr. Hales's Chamber at Eaton; a great many Books were sent down by the
Enemies of this Poet, and on the appointed day my Lord Falkland, Sir John
Suckling, and all the Persons of Quality that had Wit and Learning, and
interested themselves in the Quarrel, met there, and upon a thorough
Disquisition of the point, the Judges chose by agreement out of this
Learned and Ingenious Assembly unanimously gave the Preference to
Shakespear. And the Greek and Roman Poets were adjudg'd to Vail at least
their Glory in that of the English Hero.'
{329a} Milton, _Iconoclastes_, 1690, pp. 9-10.
{329b} Cf. Evelyn's _Diary_, November 26, 1661: 'I saw Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark, played, but now the old plays began to disgust the refined age,
since His Majesty's being so long abroad.'
{330a} _Conquest of Granada_, 1672.
{330b} _Essay on Dramatic Poesie_, 1668. Some interesting, if more
qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an
adaptation of 'Troilus and Cressida' in 1679. In the prologue to his and
D'Avenant's adaptation of 'The Tempest' in 1676, he wrote:
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
{332a} Cf. _Shakspere's Century of Praise_, 1591-1693, New Shakspere
Soc., ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and _Fresh Allusions_, ed.
Furnivall, 1886.
{332b} Cf. W. Sidney Walker, _Critical Examination of the Text of
Shakespeare_, 1859.
{333} See _Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare and other Poets by S. T.
Coleridge_, _now first collected by T. Ashe_, 1883. Coleridge hotly
resented the remark, which he attributed to Wordsworth, that a German
critic first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakespeare.
(Coleridge to Mudford, 1818; cf. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p.
cv.) But there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (see p.
344, note 1).
{334} R. E. Hunter, _Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration_,
1864.
{335} Thomas Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify the
new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom:
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen
With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT.
{338} _Essays of Elia_, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. 180 et seq.
{340a} _Hamlet_ in 1874-5 and _Macbeth_ in 1888-9 were each performed by
Sir Henry Irving for 200 nights in uninterrupted succession; these are
the longest continuous runs that any of Shakespeare's plays are known to
have enjoyed.
{340b} See p. 346.
{341} Cf. Alfred Roffe, _Shakspere Music_, 1878; _Songs in Shakspere_
. . . _set to Music_, 1884, New Shakspere Soc.
{342} Cf. D. G. Morhoff, _Unterricht von der teutschen Sprache und
Poesie_, Kiel, 1682, p. 250.
{344} In his 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' in the edition of his
_Poems_ of 1815 Wordsworth wrote: 'The Germans, only of foreign nations,
are approaching towards a knowledge of what he [_i.e._ Shakespeare] is.
In some respects they have acquired a superiority over the
fellow-countrymen of the poet; for among us, it is a common--I might say
an established--opinion that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is
pronounced to be "a wild irregular genius in whom great faults are
compensated by great beauties." How long may it be before this
misconception passes away and it becomes universally acknowledged that
the judgment of Shakespeare . . . is not less admirable than his
imagination? . . .'
{345} Cf. _Wilhelm Meister_.
{346a} Cf. _Jahrbuch der Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_ for 1894.
{346b} _Ibid._ 1896, p. 438.
{347} The exact statistics for 1896 and 1897 were: 'Othello,' acted 135
and 121 times for the respective years; 'Hamlet,' 102 and 91; 'Romeo and
Juliet,' 95 and 118; 'Taming of the Shrew,' 91 and 92; 'The Merchant of
Venice,' 84 and 62; 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 68 and 92; 'A Winter's
Tale,' 49 and 65; 'Much Ado about Nothing,' 47 and 32; 'Lear,' 41 and 34;
'As You Like It,' 37 and 29; 'Comedy of Errors,' 29 and 43; 'Julius
Caesar,' 27 and 29; 'Macbeth,' 10 and 12; 'Timon of Athens,' 7 and 0;
'The Tempest,' 5 and 1; 'Antony and Cleopatra,' 2 and 4; 'Coriolanus,' 0
and 20; 'Cymbeline,' 0 and 4; 'Richard II,' 15 and 5; 'Henry IV,' Part I,
26 and 23, Part II, 6 and 13; 'Henry V,' 4 and 7; 'Henry VI,' Part I, 3
and 5, Part II, 2 and 2; 'Richard III,' 25 and 26 (_Jahrbuch der Deutsche
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_ for 1897, pp. 306 seq., and for 1898, pp. 440
seq.)
{348a} Jusserand, _A French Ambassador_, p. 56.
{348b} Cf. Al. Schmidt, _Voltaire's Verdienst von der Einfuhrung
Shakespeare's in Frankreich_, Konigsberg, 1864.
{350a} Frederic Melchior, Baron Grimm (1723-1807), for some years a
friend of Rousseau and the correspondent of Diderot and the
_encyclopedistes_, scattered many appreciative references to Shakespeare
in his voluminous _Correspondance Litteraire Philosophique et Critique_,
extending over the period 1753-1770, the greater part of which was
published in 16 vols. 1812-13.
{350b} _Melanges Historiques_, 182 ?, iii. 141-87.
{350c} _Ibid._ 1824, iii. 217-34.
{351a} Very interesting comments on these performances appeared day by
day in the Paris newspaper _Le Globe_. They were by Charles Magnin, who
reprinted them in his _Causeries et Meditations Historiques et
Litteraires_ (Paris, 1843, ii. 62 et seq.)
{351b} Cf. Lacroix, _Histoire de l'Influence de Shakespeare sur le
Theatre Francais_, 1867; _Edinburgh Review_; 1849, pp. 39-77; Elze,
_Essays_, pp. 193 seq.; M. Jusserand, _Shakespeare en France sous
l'Ancien Regime_, Paris, 1898.
{352} Cf. Giovanni Andres, _Dell' Origine_, _Progressi e Stato attuale
d' ogni Letteratura_, 1782.
{353a} Cf. _New Shaksp. Soc. Trans._ 1880-5, pt. ii. 431 seq.
{353b} Cf. _Ungarische Revue_ (Budapest) Jan. 1881, pp. 81-2; and August
Greguss's Shakspere . . . elso kotet: Shakspere palyaja Budapest, 1880
(an account in Hungarian of Shakespeare's Life and Works).
{354} Cf. _Macmillan's Magazine_, May 1880.
{361} Compiled between 1669 and 1696; first printed in _Letters from the
Bodleian Library_, 1813, and admirably re-edited for the Clarendon Press
during the present year by the Rev. Andrew Clark (2 vols.)
{362} See pp. 367-8.
{364} The earliest attempts at a concordance were _A Complete Verbal
Index to the Plays_, by F. Twiss (1805), and _An Index to the Remarkable
Passages and Words_ by Samuel Ayscough (1827), but these are now
superseded.
{366a} Jordan's _Collections_, including this fraudulent will of
Shakespeare's father, was printed privately by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps
in 1864.
{366b} See p. 267.
{367a} Reference has already been made to the character of the
manuscript corrections made by Collier in a copy of the Second Folio of
1632, known as the Perkins Folio. See p. 312, note 2. The chief
authorities on the subject of the Collier forgeries are: _An Inquiry into
the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's
Annotated Shakspere Folio_, _1632_, _and of certain Shaksperian Documents
likewise published by Mr. Collier_, by N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London,
1860; _A Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy concerning the
Authenticity and Genuineness of Manuscript Matter affecting the Works and
Biography of Shakspere_, _published by J. Payne Collier as the Fruits of
his Researches_, by C. M. Ingleby, LL.D. of Trinity College, Cambridge,
London, 1865; _Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn's
College of God's Gift at Dulwich_, by George F. Warner, M.A., 1881;
_Notes on the Life of James Payne Collier_, _with a Complete List of his
Works and an Account of such Shakespeare Documents as are believed to be
spurious_, by Henry B. Wheatley, London, 1884.
{367b} See _Calendar of State Papers_, Domestic, 1595-7, p. 310.
{368a} See Warners _Catalogue of Dulwich MSS._ pp. 24-6.
{368b} Cf. _ibid._ pp. 26-7.
{369a} See p. 235, note I.
{369b} Cf. Warner's _Dulwich MSS._ pp.30-31.
{369c} See p. 254, note I.
{370} Most of those that are commonly quoted are phrases in ordinary use
by all writers of the day. The only point of any interest raised in the
argument from parallelisms of expression centres about a quotation from
Aristotle which Bacon and Shakespeare not merely both make, but make in
what looks at a first glance to be the same erroneous form. Aristotle
wrote in his _Nicomachean Ethics_, i. 8, that young men were unfitted for
the study of _political_ philosophy. Bacon, in the _Advancement of
Learning_ (1605), wrote: 'Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be
regarded wherein he saith that young men are not fit auditors of _moral_
philosophy?' (bk. ii. p. 255, ed. Kitchin). Shakespeare, about 1603, in
_Troilus and Cressida_, II. ii. 166, wrote of 'young men whom Aristotle
thought unfit to hear _moral_ philosophy.' But the alleged error of
substituting _moral_ for _political_ philosophy in Aristotle's text is
more apparent than real. By 'political' philosophy Aristotle, as his
context amply shows, meant the ethics of civil society, which are hardly
distinguishable from what is commonly called 'morals.' In the summary
paraphrase of Aristotle's _Ethics_ which was translated into English from
the Italian, and published in 1547, the passage to which both Shakespeare
and Bacon refer is not rendered literally, but its general drift is given
as a warning that moral philosophy is not a fit subject for study by
youths who are naturally passionate and headstrong. Such an
interpretation of Aristotle's language is common among sixteenth and
seventeenth century writers. Erasmus, in the epistle at the close of his
popular _Colloquia_ (Florence, 1530, sig. Q Q), wrote of his endeavour to
insinuate serious precepts 'into the minds of young men whom Aristotle
rightly described as unfit auditors of moral philosophy' ('in animos
adolescentium, quos recte scripsit Aristoteles inidoneos auditores
ethicae philosophiae'). In a French translation of the _Ethics_ by the
Comte de Plessis, published at Paris in 1553, the passage is rendered
'parquoy le ieune enfant n'est suffisant auditeur de la science civile;'
and an English commentator (in a manuscript note written about 1605 in a
copy of the book in the British Museum) turned the sentence into English
thus: 'Whether a young man may bee a fitte scholler of _morall_
philosophie.' In 1622 an Italian essayist, Virgilio Malvezzi, in his
preface to his _Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito_, has the remark, 'E non e
discordante da questa mia opinione Aristotele, it qual dice, che i
giovani non sono buoni ascultatori delle _morali_' (cf. Spedding, _Works
of Bacon_, i. 739, iii. 440).
{371} Cf. Birch, _Letters of Bacon_, 1763, p. 392. A foolish suggestion
has been made that Matthew was referring to Francis Bacon's brother
Anthony, who died in 1601; Matthew was writing of a man who was alive
more than twenty years later.
{372} Cf. _Life_ by Theodore Bacon, London, 1888.
{374a} See pp. 4, 77, 127.
{374b} See p. 126.
{375a} Gervase Markham, _Honour in his Perfection_, 1624.
{375b} _Loseley MSS._ ed. A. J. Kempe, p. 240.
{375c} His mother, after thirteen years of widowhood, married in 1594
Sir Thomas Heneage, vice chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth's household; but
he died within a year, and in 1596 she took a third husband, Sir William
Hervey, who distinguished himself in military service in Ireland and was
created a peer as Lord Hervey by James I.
{376a} By kind permission of the Marquis of Salisbury I lately copied
out this essay at Hatfield.
{376b} In 1588 his brother-in-law, Thomas Arundel, afterwards first Lord
Arundel of Wardour (husband of his only sister, Mary), petitioned Lord
Burghley to grant him an additional tract of the New Forest about his
house at Beaulieu. Although in his 'nonage,' Arundel wrote, the Earl was
by no means 'of the smallest hope.' Arundel, with almost prophetic
insight, added that the Earl of Pembroke was Southampton's 'most feared
rival' in the competition for the land in question. Arundel was
referring to the father of that third Earl of Pembroke who, despite the
absence of evidence, has been described as Shakespeare's friend of the
sonnets (cf. _Calendar of Hatfield MSS._ iii. 365).
{377a} Cf. _Apollinis et Musarum [Greek text]_, Oxford, 1592, reprinted
in _Elizabethan Oxford_ (Oxford Historical Society), edited by Charles
Plummer, xxix. 294:
_Comes_ Post hunc (_i.e._ Earl of Essex)
_South-_ insequitur clara de stirpe Dynasta
_Hamp-_ Iure suo diues quem South-Hamptonia
_toniae_. magnum
Vendicat heroem; quo non formosior
alter
Affuit, ant docta iuuenis
praestantior arte;
Ora licet tenera vix dum lanugine
vernent.
{377b} Historical MSS. Commission, 7th Report (Appendix) p. 521b.
{378} Peele's _Anglorum Feriae_.
{379} _Cal. of the Duke of Rutland's MSS._ i. 321. Barnabe Barnes, who
was one of Southampton's poetic admirers, addressed a crude sonnet to
'the Beautiful Lady, The Lady Bridget Manners,' in 1593, at the same time
as he addressed one to Southampton. Both are appended to Barnes's
collection of sonnets and other poems entitled _Parthenophe and
Parthenophil_ (cf. Arber's _Garner_, v. 486). Barnes apostrophises Lady
Bridget as 'fairest and sweetest'
Of all those sweet and fair flowers,
The pride of chaste Cynthia's [_i.e._ Queen Elizabeth's] rich crown.
{380} See p. 233, note 2.
{383a} The original letter is at Hatfield. The whole is printed in
Historical Manuscripts Commission, 3rd Rep. p. 145.
{383b} The quotation is a confused reminiscence of Falstaff's remarks in
I _Henry IV_. II. iv. The last nine words are an exact quotation of
lines 190-1.
{383c} _Sidney Papers_, ii. 132.
{383d} See p. 175.
{385a} See Nash's _Works_, ed. Grosart, v. 6. The whole passage runs:
'How wel or ill I haue done in it I am ignorant: (the eye that sees round
about it selfe sees not into it selfe): only your Honours applauding
encouragement hath power to make me arrogant. Incomprehensible is the
height of your spirit both in heroical resolution and matters of conceit.
Vnrepriuebly perisheth that booke whatsoeuer to wast paper, which on the
diamond rocke of your judgement disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt. A
dere louer and cherisher you are, as well of the louers of Poets, as of
Poets them selues. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe my
selfe, though now and then I speak English: that smal braine I haue, to
no further vse I conuert saue to be kinde to my frends, and fatall to my
enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee
to canonize your name to posteritie, if in this my first attempt I am not
taxed of presumption. Of your gracious fauer I despaire not, for I am
not altogether Fames out-cast . . . Your Lordship is the large spreading
branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to deriue their
whole nourishing.'
{385b} The complimentary title of 'Amyntas,' which was naturalised in
English literature by Abraham Fraunce's two renderings of Tasso's
_Aminta_--one direct from the Italian and the other from the Latin
version of Thomas Watson--was apparently bestowed by Spenser on the Earl
of Derby in his _Colin Clouts come Home againe_ (1595); and some critics
assume that Nash referred in _Pierce Pennilesse_ to that nobleman rather
than to Southampton. But Nash's comparison of his paragon to Ganymede
suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592 while Derby
was thirty-three. 'Amyntas' as a complimentary designation was widely
used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively to any one patron of
letters. It was bestowed on the poet Watson by Richard Barnfield and by
other of Watson's panegyrists.
{386} Two manuscript copies of the poem, which has not been printed, are
extant--one among the Rawlinson poetical manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library, and the other among the manuscripts in the Inner Temple Library
(No. 538). Mr. John S. Farmer has kindly sent me transcripts of the
opening and concluding dedicatory sonnets. The first, which is inscribed
'to the right honorable the Lord S[outhampton]' runs:
Pardon, sweete flower of matchles poetrye,
And fairest bud the red rose euer bare,
Although my muse, devorst from deeper care,
Presents thee with a wanton Elegie.
Ne blame my verse of loose unchastitye
For painting forth the things that hidden are,
Since all men act what I in speeche declare,
Onlie induced with varietie.
Complaints and praises, every one can write,
And passion out their pangs in statlie rimes;
But of loues pleasures none did euer write,
That have succeeded in theis latter times.