CHAPTER V.

DEDICATIONS OF SHAKSPEARE'S VENUS AND ADONIS AND RAPE OF LUCRECE TO THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON—BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE EARL—CRITIQUE ON THE POEMS OF SHAKSPEARE.

Shakspeare's dedication of his _Venus and Adonis_ to the Earl of Southampton, in 1593; the accomplishments, the liberality, and the virtues of this amiable nobleman, and the substantial patronage which, according to tradition, he bestowed upon our poet, together claim for him, in this place, a more than cursory notice as to life and character.

_Thomas Wriothesly_, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield, was born on the sixth of October, 1573. His grandfather had been created an Earl in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and his father, who married Mary, the daughter of Anthony, first Viscount of Montague, was a strenuous supporter of the rights of Mary Queen of Scots. Just previous to the completion of his eighth year, he suffered an irreparable loss by the death of his father, on the 4th of October, 1581. His mother, however, appears to have been by no means negligent of his education; for he was early sent to Cambridge, being matriculated there when only twelve years old, on the 11th of December, 1585. He was admitted of St. John's College, where, on the 6th of June, 1589, he took his degree of Master of Arts, and, after a residence of nearly five years in the University, he finally left it for Town, to complete his course of studies at Gray's Inn, of which place, in June, 1590, he had entered himself a member.

The circumstances which, so shortly after Lord Southampton's arrival in London, induced Shakspeare to select him as his patron, may, with an assurance almost amounting to certainty, be ascribed to the following event. Not long after the death of her husband, Lady Southampton married Sir Thomas Heneage, treasurer of the chamber, an office which necessarily led him into connection with actors and dramatic writers. Of this intercourse Lord Southampton, at the age of seventeen, was very willing to avail himself, and his subsequent history evinces, that, throughout life, he retained a passionate attachment to dramatic exhibitions. No stronger proof, indeed, can be given of his love for the theatre, than what an anecdote related by Rowland Whyte affords us, who, in a letter to Sir Robert Sydney, dated October 11th, 1599, tells his correspondent, that "my Lord Southampton and Lord Rutland come not to the Court (at Nonesuch). The one doth but very seldome. They pass away the tyme in London _merely in going to plaies EVERY DAY_."[2:A]

To a young nobleman thus inclined, imbued with a keen relish for dramatic poetry, who was ardent in his thirst for fame, and liberal in the encouragement of genius, it was natural for our poet to look not only with hope and expectation, but with enthusiastic regard. To Lord Southampton, therefore, though only nineteen years old, Shakspeare, in his twenty-ninth year[2:B], dedicated his _Venus and Adonis_, "the first heire of _his_ invention."

The language of this dedication, however, indicates some degree of apprehension as to the nature of its reception, and consequently proves that our author was not at this period assured of His Lordship's support; for it commences thus:—"Right Honorable, I know not how I shall _offend_ in dedicating my unpolisht lines to your Lordship;" and he adds in the opening of the next clause, "onely if your Honor _seeme but pleased_, I account myselfe highly praised." These timidities appear to have vanished in a very short period: for our author's dedication to the same nobleman of his _Rape of Lucrece_, which was entered on the Stationers' Books on May 9th, 1594, and published almost immediately afterwards, speaks a very different language, and indicates very plainly that Shakspeare had already experienced the beneficial effects of His Lordship's patronage. Gratitude and confidence, indeed, cannot express themselves in clearer terms than may be found in the diction of this address:—"The _love_ I dedicate to Your Lordship," says the bard, "_is without end_.—The _warrant_ I have of _your Honourable disposition_, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it _assured of acceptance_. What I have done is yours, what I have to doe is yours, being part _in all I have devoted yours_. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew greater; meane time, as it is, _it is bound to your Lordship_." Words more declaratory of obligation it would not be easy to select, and we shall be justified, therefore, in inferring, that Lord Southampton had conferred upon Shakspeare, in consequence of his dedication to him of _Venus and Adonis_, some marked proof of his kindness and protection.

Tradition has recorded, among other instances of this nobleman's pecuniary bounty, that he, at one time, gave Shakspeare a thousand pounds, in order to complete a purchase, a sum which in these days would be equal in value to more than five times its original amount.[3:A] This may be, and probably is, an exaggeration; but that it has been founded on the _well-known_ liberality of Lord Southampton to Shakspeare; on a certain knowledge that donations had passed from the peer to the poet, there can be little doubt. It had become the custom of the age to reward dedication by pecuniary bounty, and that Lord Southampton was diffusively and peculiarly generous in this mode of remuneration, we have the express testimony of Florio, who, dedicating his _World of Words_ to this nobleman in 1598, says:—"In truth, I acknowledge an entire debt, not only of my best knowledge, but of all; yea of more than I know, or can to your bounteous lordship, _in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years_; to whom I owe and vowe the years I have to live. But, as to me, _and many more_, the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honour hath infused light and life." Here, if we except the direct confession relative to "_pay_," the language is similar to, and not more emphatically expressive of gratitude than was Shakspeare's; and that, under the phrase "_many more_," Florio meant to include our poet, we may, without scruple, infer. To an actor, to a rising dramatic writer, to one who had placed the first fruits of his genius under his protection, and who was still contending with the difficulties incident to his situation, the taste, the generosity, and the feeling of Lord Southampton, would naturally be attracted; and the donation which, in all probability, followed the dedication of _Venus and Adonis_, we have reason, from the voice of tradition, to conclude, was succeeded by many, and still more important, proofs of His Lordship's favour.

The patronage of literature, however, was not the only inclination which, at this early period of life, His Lordship cultivated with enthusiasm; the year subsequent to his receival of Shakspeare's dedication of _The Rape of Lucrece_, saw him entangled in all the perplexities of love, and the devoted slave _of the faire Mrs. Varnon_. Of this attachment, which was thwarted by the caprice of Elizabeth, Rowland Whyte, in a letter to Sir Henry Sydney, dated September 23rd, 1595, writes in the following terms:—"My Lord Southampton doth with too much familiarity court the faire Mrs. Varnon, while his friends, observing the Queen's humours towards my Lord of Essex, do what they can to bring her to favour him; but it is yet in vain."[5:A] This young lady, Elizabeth Vernon, was the cousin of the celebrated Earl of Essex, between whom and Southampton differences had arisen, which this passion for his fair relative dissipated for ever.[5:B]

Yet the fascinations of love could not long restrain the ardent spirit of Lord Southampton. In 1597, when Lord Essex was appointed General of the forces destined to act against the Azores, Southampton, at the age of twenty-four, gallantly came forward as a volunteer, on board the Garland, one of Her Majesty's best ships,—an offer which was soon followed by a commission from Essex to command her. An opportunity speedily occurred for the display of his courage; in an engagement with the Spanish fleet, he pursued and sunk one of the enemy's largest men of war, and was wounded in the arm, during the conflict.[5:C] Sir William Monson, one of the Admirals of the expedition, tells us, that the Earl lost time in this chase, which might have been better employed[5:D]; but his friend Essex appears to have considered his conduct in a different light, and conferred upon him, during his voyage, the honour of knighthood.

On his return to England, in October, 1597, he had the misfortune to find that the Queen had embraced the opinion of Monson, rather than that of Essex, and frowned with displeasure on the officer who had presumed to pursue and sink a Spanish vessel, without orders from his commander; a censure which was intended also to reach the General, with whom she was justly offended for having assumed the direction of a service to which his judgment and his talents were inadequate.

Nor was the immediately subsequent conduct of Southampton in the least degree calculated to appease the anger of Elizabeth; he renewed his proposals of marriage, and again without consulting her wishes; he quarrelled with, and challenged the Earl of Northumberland, and compelled her to issue a mandate in order to prevent their meeting; and one evening, being engaged at play, in the presence-chamber, with Raleigh and some other courtiers, they protracted their amusement beyond the hour of the Queen's retirement to rest; and being warned by Willoughby, the officer in waiting, to depart, Raleigh obeyed, but Southampton, indignant and easily irritated, refused compliance, and, warm language ensuing, he struck Willoughby, who was not backward in returning the blow. When the Queen, the next morning, was apprised of this disgraceful scuffle, she applauded Willoughby for his spirited conduct, adding, that "he had better have sent Southampton to the porter's lodge, to see who durst have fetched him out."[6:A]

This heedless and intemperate ebullition of passion, the result of youth and inexperience, was atoned for by many sterling virtues of the head and heart; and the career of dissipation was fortunately interrupted by His Lordship's attention to his duty as a senator in the first place, and, secondly, by an engagement to accompany Mr. Secretary Cecil on an embassy to Paris. His introduction to parliamentary business began on the 24th of October, 1597, and terminated, with the session, on the 8th of February 1598; and two days afterwards, he left London to commence his tour.

Previous to his quitting the capital, he, and his friends, Cobham and Raleigh, thought it necessary to entertain his future fellow-traveller; and, on this occasion, Southampton had recourse to his favourite amusement, the drama; for it is recorded that they "severally feasted Mr. Secretary, before his departure; and had _plaies_, and banquets."[7:A] The bare mention of this excursion, however, had afforded extreme grief to the fair object of his affections, who "passed her time in weeping[7:B];" and, in order to obviate the apprehended consequences of his absence, and consequently her sorrow, it had been secretly proposed that Lord Southampton should marry his mistress before his departure.[7:C] Circumstances having prevented the accomplishment of this plan, we are not surprised to learn that when His Lordship departed, on the 10th of February 1598, he left "behind him a most desolate gentlewoman, that almost wept out her fairest eyes."[7:D]

The travellers reached Paris on the 1st of March 1598, and on the 17th of the same month, Cecil introduced his friend, at Angers, to that illustrious monarch Henry the Fourth, telling His Majesty, that Lord Southampton "was come with deliberation to do him service." Henry received the Earl most graciously, and embraced him with many expressions of regard; and, had not the peace of Vervins intervened, His Lordship would have ardently seized the opportunity of serving the ensuing campaign under a general of such unrivalled reputation.

In the course of November 1598, there is reason to suppose that this enterprising nobleman returned to London[7:E]; soon after which event, his union with Elizabeth Vernon took place. His bride was the daughter of John Vernon of Hodnet, in the county of Salop, and she appears to have possessed a large share of personal charms. A portrait of her was drawn by Cornelius Jansen, which is said to have "the face and hands coloured with incomparable lustre."[8:A] The unjustifiable resentment of the Queen, however, rendered this connection, for a time, a source of much misery to both parties. Her capricious tyranny was such, as to induce her to feel offended, if any of her courtiers had the audacity to love or marry without her knowledge or permission; and the result of what she termed His Lordship's clandestine marriage, was the instant dismissal of himself and his lady to a prison. How long their confinement was protracted, cannot now be accurately ascertained; that it was long in the opinion of the Earl of Essex, appears from an address of his to the Lords of Council, in which he puts the following interrogation:—"Was it treason in my Lord of Southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither _long_ imprisonment, nor any punishment besides, that hath been usual, in like cases, can satisfy, or appease[8:B]?" But we do know that it could not have existed beyond March, 1599; for on the 27th of that month, Lord Southampton accompanied his friend Essex to Ireland, where, immediately on his arrival, he was appointed by the Earl, now Lord Deputy of that country, his general of the horse.

This military promotion of Southampton is one among numerous proofs of the imprudence of Essex, for it was not only without the Queen's knowledge, but, as Camden has informed us, "clean contrary to his instructions."[8:C] What was naturally to be expected, therefore, soon occurred; Lord Southampton was, by the Queen's orders, deprived of his commission, in the August following, and on the 20th of September, 1599, he revisited London, where, apprehensive of the displeasure of Her Majesty, he absented himself from court, and endeavoured to soothe his inquietude by the attractions of the theatre, to which his ardent admiration of the genius of Shakspeare now daily induced him to recur.

The resentment of the Queen, however, though not altogether appeased, soon began to subside; and in December 1599, when Lord Mountjoy was commissioned to supersede Essex in the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, Lord Southampton was one of the officers selected by Her Majesty to attend him. Farther than this she refused to condescend; for, though His Lordship solicited for some weeks the honour of kissing her hand, and was supported in this request by the influence of Cecil, he solicited in vain, and was at length compelled to rest satisfied with the expression of her wishes for the safety of his journey.

One unpleasant consequence of his former transient campaign in Ireland, had been a quarrel with the Lord Grey, who acting under him as a colonel of horse had, from the impetuosity of youthful valour, attacked the rebel force without orders; a contempt of subordination which had been punished by his superior with a night's imprisonment.[9:A] The fiery spirit of Grey could not brook even this requisite attention to discipline, and he sent Southampton a challenge, which the latter, on his departure for Ireland, in April 1600, accepted, by declaring, that he would meet Lord Grey in any part of that country. The Queen, however, for the present arrested the combat; but the animosity was imbittered by delay, and Lord Southampton felt it necessary to his character to break off his military engagements, which had conferred upon him the reputation of great bravery and professional skill, and had received the marked approval of the Lord Deputy, to satiate the resentment of Grey, who had again called him to a meeting, and fixed its scene in the Low Countries.

Of this interview we know nothing more than that it proved so completely abortive, that, shortly afterwards, Lord Grey attacked Southampton as he rode through the streets of London, an outrage which affords but a melancholy trait of the manners of the age, though punished on the spot by the immediate committal of the perpetrator to prison.

It had been happy, however, for the fame and repose of Southampton, had this been the only unfortunate contest in which he engaged; but he was recalled by Essex from the Low Countries, in order to assist him in his insurrectionary movements against the person and government of his sovereign. Blinded by the attachments of friendship, which he cultivated with enthusiastic warmth, and indignant at the treatment which he had lately received from the Queen, he too readily listened to the treasonable suggestions of Essex, and became one of the conspirators who assembled at the house of this nobleman on the 8th of February 1601. Here they took the decisive step of imprisoning the Queen's privy counsellors who had been sent to enquire into the purport of their meeting, and from this mansion they sallied forth, with the view of exciting the citizens to rebellion. An enterprise so criminal, so rash, and chimerical, immediately met the fate which it merited; and the trial of Essex and Southampton for high treason took place on the 19th of February, when, both being found guilty, the former, as is well known, expiated his offence by death, while the latter, from the minor culpability of his views, from the modesty and contrition which he exhibited in his defence, and from the intercession of Cecil and the peers, obtained a remission of the sentence affecting his life, but was condemned to imprisonment in the Tower.

We have more than once mentioned the great partiality of Lord Southampton to dramatic literature, and it is somewhat remarkable that this partiality should have been rendered subservient to the machinations of treason; for Bacon tells us, that "the afternoon before the rebellion, Merick, (afterwards the defender of Essex-house,) with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them the play of deposing _King Richard the Second_;—when it was told him by one of the players that the play was _old_, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it, there were forty shillings extraordinary given to play it, and so thereupon played it was."[11:A] It appears from the State Trials, vol. vii. p. 60., that the player to whom the forty shillings were given, was Augustine Philippes, one of the patentees of the Globe playhouse with Shakspeare, in 1603.

The term _old_ applied to this play, which, according to the report of the Queen, "was played forty times in open streets and houses[11:B]," has induced Dr. Farmer and Mr. Tyrwhitt to conclude that a play entitled _Richard the Second_, or _Henry the Fourth_, existed before Shakspeare's dramas on these subjects. This position, however, is dissented from by Mr. Chalmers, who says,—"In opposition to Farmer and Tyrwhitt, I hold, though I have a great respect for their memories, that it was illogical to argue, from a nonentity, against an entity; that as no such play as the Henry IV. which they spoke of had ever appeared, while Shakspeare's Richard II. was apparent to every eye, it was inconsequential reasoning in them to prefer the first play to the last: and I am, therefore, of opinion, that _the play of deposing Richard_ II. which was seditiously played on the 7th of February 1600-1, was Shakspeare's Richard II., that had been originally acted in 1596, and first printed in 1597."[11:C]

This opinion of Mr. Chalmers will be much strengthened when we reflect that Lord Southampton's well-known attachment to the muse of Shakspeare, would almost certainly induce him to prefer the play written by his favourite poet to the composition of an obscure, and, without doubt, a very inferior writer.

The death of Elizabeth terminated the confinement and the sufferings of Lord Southampton. No sooner had James acceded to the throne, than he sent an order for his release from the Tower, which took place on the 10th of April, 1603, and accompanied it with a request that he would meet him on his way to England. This might be considered as a certain presage of future favours, and was, indeed, speedily followed, not only by the reversal of his attainder, and the restoration of his property, but by an accumulation of honours. He was immediately appointed master of the game to the Queen; a pension of six hundred pounds per annum was allotted to his lady; in July, 1603, he was installed a knight of the garter, and created captain of Isle of Wight and of Carisbrooke Castle, and in the following Spring he was constituted Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, and was chosen by the King as his companion in a journey to Royston.

This flow of good fortune was, however, transiently impeded by the jealousy of James, who, stimulated by the machinations of some of his courtiers, envious of the returning prosperity of the Earl[12:A], was led to suspect that an improper intimacy had taken place between Southampton and his Queen; a charge of disaffection to His Majesty was, therefore, brought against His Lordship, and he was apprehended towards the close of June, 1604; but not the smallest proof of his disloyalty having been substantiated, he was immediately released, and as immediately retaken into favour.

Of his perfect reinstatement, indeed, in the affections of James we possess a decided proof. Rowland Whyte, writing to Lord Shrewsbury, on the 4th of March, 1604, says,—"My La. Southampton was brought to bed of a young Lord upon St. David's Day (March 1st) in the morning; a St. to be much honored by that howse for so great a blessing, by wearing a leeke for ever upon that day."[12:B] Now this child was christened at court on the 27th of the same month, "the King, and Lord Cranburn, with the Countess of Suffolk, being gossips[13:A];" an honour which was followed, in June, 1606, by a more substantial mark of regard, the appointment of His Lordship to be Warden of the New Forest, and Keeper of the Park of Lindhurst.

In November, 1607, Lord Southampton lost his mother, who had been wife successively to Henry Wriothesly Earl of Southampton, to Sir Thomas Heneage, and to Sir William Hervey. We are told by Lord Arundel that she "lefte the _best of her stuffe to her sonne_, and the greatest part to her husband[13:B]"; this bequest, however, could not have been very ample, for it did not obviate the necessity of her son's applying, shortly afterwards, to trade and colonisation with the view of increasing his property. In 1609, he was constituted a member of the first Virginia Company, took a most active part in their concerns, and was the chief promoter of the different voyages to America, which were undertaken as well for the purposes of discovery as for private interest.

The warmth of temper which distinguished Lord Southampton in early life, seems not to have been adequately repressed by time and experience; he was ever prone to resentment, though not difficult to conciliate, and, unhappily, the manners of the age were not such as to impose due restraint on the tumultuary passions. A quarrel with Lord Montgomery, on a trifling occasion, which occurred in April, 1610, is but too striking an illustration of these remarks; "they fell out at tennis," relates Winwood, "where the rackets flew about their ears, but the matter was compounded by the King, _without further bloodshed_[13:C];" a passage, the close of which proves that they had fought and wounded each other with the instruments of their amusement!

We speedily recognise Lord Southampton, however, acting in a manner more suitable to his station and character; on the 4th of June, 1610, he officiated as carver at the magnificent festival which was given in honour of young Henry's assumption of the title of Prince of Wales; and in July, 1613, we find His Lordship entertaining the King at his house in the New Forest, whither he had returned from an expedition to the continent, expressly for this purpose, and under the expectation of receiving a royal visit. After discharging this duty to his sovereign, he again left his native country, and was present, in the following year, with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, at the siege of Rees, in the dutchy of Cleve.

It was at this period that his reputation as a patron of literature, attained its highest celebrity, and it is greatly to be desired that tradition had enabled us to dwell more minutely on his intercourse with the learned. His bounty to, and encouragement of, Shakspeare have conferred immortality on his name; to Florio, we have seen, he extended a durable and efficient support; Brathwayt, in his dedication of his "Scholar's Medley," 1614, calls him "learnings best favourite;" and in 1617, he contributed very liberally to relieve the distresses of Minsheu, the author of "The Guide to Tongues." Doubtless, had we more ample materials for his life, these had not been the only instances of his munificence to literary talent.

Still further promotion awaited this accomplished nobleman. When James visited Scotland, in 1617, he accompanied his sovereign, and rendered himself so acceptable by his courtesy and care, that, on the 19th of April, 1619, he was rewarded by the confidential situation of a privy-counsellor, an honour which he had long anxiously held in view.

This completion of his wishes, however, was not attended with the result which he had so sanguinely expected. He found himself unable, from principle, to join in the measures of the court, and the opposition which he now commenced against the King and his ministers, had, in a mind so ardent, a natural tendency to excess. In 1620, and the two following years, he was chosen, contrary to the wishes of government, treasurer of the Virginia Company, an office of great weight and responsibility, but to which his zeal and activity in forwarding the views of that corporation gave him a just claim. Such, indeed, was the sense which the company entertained of his merits, that his name was annexed to several important parts of Virginia; as, for instance, Southampton-hundred, Hampton-roads, &c.

Whilst he opposed the court merely in its commercial arrangements, no personal inconvenience attended his exertions; but when, in the session of parliament which took place towards the commencement of the year 1621, he deemed it necessary to withstand the unconstitutional views of ministers, he immediately felt the arm of power. He had introduced with success a motion against illegal patents; and during the sitting of the 14th of March, so sharp an altercation occurred between himself and the Marquis of Buckingham, that the interference of the Prince of Wales was necessary to appease the anger of the disputants.

This stormy discussion, and His Lordship's junction with the popular party, occasioned so much suspicion on the part of government, that on the 16th of June, twelve days after the prorogation of parliament, he was committed to the custody of the Dean of Westminster; nor was it until the 18th of the subsequent July, that he was permitted to return to his house at Titchfield, under a partial restraint, nor until the first of September, that he was entirely liberated.

Unawed, however, by this unmerited persecution, and supported by a numerous and respectable party, justly offended at the King's pusillanimity in tamely witnessing his son-in-law's deprivation of the Palatinate, he came forward, with augmented activity, in the parliament of 1624, which opened on the 9th of February. Here he sat on several committees; and when James, on the 5th of the June following, found himself compelled to relinquish his pacific system, and to enter into a treaty with the States-General, granting them permission to raise four regiments in this country, he, unfortunately for himself and his son, procured the colonelcy of one of them.[15:A]

Being under the necessity of taking up their winter-quarters at Rosendale in Holland, the Earl, and his eldest son Lord Wriothesly, were seized with a burning fever; "the violence of which distemper," says Wilson, "wrought most vigorously upon the heat of youth, overcoming the son first, and the drooping father, having overcome the fever, departed from Rosendale with an intention to bring his sons body to England; but at Bergen-op-zoom he died of a lethargy in the view and presence of the _Relator_, and were both in one small bark brought to Southampton."[16:A] The son expired on the 5th of November, and his parent on the tenth, and they were both buried in the sepulchre of their fathers at Titchfield, on Innocents' day, 1624.

Thus perished, in the fifty-second year of his age, Henry Earl of Southampton, leaving a widow, and three daughters, who, from a letter preserved in the Cabala, appear to have been in confined circumstances; this epistle is from the Lord Keeper Williams to the Duke of Buckingham, dated Nov. 7th, 1624, and requesting of that nobleman "his grace and goodness towards the most distressed widow and children of my Lord Southampton."[16:B]

If we except a constitutional warmth and irritability of temper, and their too common result, an occasional error of judgment, there did not exist, throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a character more truly amiable, great, and good than was that of Lord Southampton. To have secured, indeed, the reverence and affection of Shakspeare, was of itself a sufficient passport to the purest fame; but the love and admiration which attended him was general. As a soldier, he was brave, open, and magnanimous; as a statesman remarkable for integrity and independence of mind, and perhaps no individual of his age was a more enthusiastic lover, or a more munificent patron, of arts and literature.

The virtues of his private life, as well as these features of his public character, rest upon the authority of those who best knew him. To the "noble" and "honourable disposition," ascribed to him by Shakspeare, who affectionately declares, that he loves him "without end," we can add the respectable testimony of Chapman, Sir John Beaumont, and Wither, all intimately acquainted with him, and the second his particular friend.

Chapman, in one of his dedicatory sonnets, prefixed to his version of the Iliad, not only applies to him the epithet "learned," but declares him to be the "choice of all our country's noblest spirits[17:A];" and Beaumont, in an Elegy on his death, tells us that his ambition was to draw

"A picture fit for this my noble friend, That his dear name may not in silence die."

In a beautiful strain of enthusiasm, he informs us, that his verses are calculated for posterity, and

——————————— "not for the present age; For what man lives, or breathes on England's stage, That knew not brave Southampton, in whose sight Most plac'd their day, and in his absence night?"

He then proceeds to sketch his character at the different periods of his life:—

"When he was young, no ornament of youth Was wanting in him;"

and, in manhood, he shone

"As best in martial deedes and courtly sports;"

until riper age, and the cares of the world, having begun to shade his head with silver hairs,

"His valiant fervour was not then decaide, But joyn'd with counsell, as a further aide."

After this eulogium on the more ostensible features of his life, which terminates with the assertion, that

"No pow'r, no strong persuasion could him draw From that, which he conceiv'd as right and law,"

he presents a most pleasing delineation of his domestic conduct and enjoyments:—

"When shall we in this realme a father finde So truly sweet, or husband halfe so kinde? Thus he enjoyde the best contents of life, Obedient children, and a loving wife: These were his parts in peace:"

and concludes with celebrating his love of letters and of literary men:—

"I keepe that glory last, which is the best, The love of learning, which he oft exprest By conversation, and respect to those Who had a name in artes, in verse or prose."[19:A]

Wither seems to have been equally impressed with the estimable character of Lord Southampton, and to have meditated a record of his life and virtues; for, in an epigram addressed to him, with a copy of his "Abuses Stript and Whipt," he exclaims,

"I ought to be no stranger to thy worth, Nor let thy virtues in oblivion sleep: Nor will I, if my fortunes give me time."[19:B]

In short, to adopt the language of an enthusiastic admirer of our dramatic bard, "Southampton died as he had lived, with a mind untainted: embalmed with the tears of every friend to virtue, and to splendid accomplishments: all who knew him, _wished to him long life, still lengthened with all happiness_."[19:C]

That a nobleman so highly gifted, most amiable by his virtues, and most respectable by his talents and his taste, should have been strongly attached to Shakspeare, and this attachment returned by the poet with equal fervour, cannot excite much surprise; indeed, that more than pecuniary obligation was the tie that connected Shakspeare with his patron, must appear from the tone of his dedications, especially from that prefixed to the "Rape of Lucrece," which breathes an air of affectionate friendship, and respectful familiarity.[20:A] We should also recollect, that, according to tradition, the great pecuniary obligation of Shakspeare to his patron, was much posterior to the period of these dedications, being given for the purpose of enabling the poet to make a purchase at his native town of Stratford, a short time previous to his retirement thither.

It may, therefore, with safety be concluded, that admiration and esteem were the chief motives which actuated Shakspeare in all the stages of his intercourse with Lord Southampton, to whom, in 1593, we have found he dedicated the "first heir of his invention."

Our reasons for believing that this poem was written in the interval which occurred between the years 1587 and 1590, have been already given in a former part of the work[20:B], and we shall here, therefore, only transcribe the title page of the original edition, which, though entered in the Stationers' books by Richard Field, on the 18th of April, 1593, was supposed not to have been published before 1594, until Mr. Malone had the good fortune to procure a copy from a provincial catalogue, perhaps the only one remaining in existence[20:C]:—

"VENUS AND ADONIS.

Vilia miretur Vulgus, mihi flavus Apollo, Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.

London. By Richard Field, and are to be solde at the Signe of the White Greyhound, in Paules Church Yard. 1593."

This, the earliest offspring of our poet's prolific genius, consists of one hundred and ninety-nine stanzas, each stanza including six lines, of which the first four are in alternate rhime, and the fifth and sixth form a couplet. Its length, indeed, is one of its principal defects; for it has led, not only to a fatiguing circumlocution, in point of language, but it has occasioned the poet frequently to expand his imagery into a diffuseness which sometimes destroys its effect; and often to indulge in a strain of reflection more remarkable for its subtlety of conceit, than for its appropriation to the incidents before him. Two other material objections must be noticed, as arising from the conduct of the poem, which, in the first place, so far as it respects the character of Adonis, is forced and unnatural; and, in the second, has tempted the poet into the adoption of language so meretricious, as entirely to vitiate the result of any moral purpose which he might have had in view.

These deductions being premised, we do not hesitate to assert, that the _Venus and Adonis_ contains many passages worthy of the genius of Shakspeare; and that, as a whole, it is superior in poetic fervour to any production of a similar kind by his contemporaries, anterior to 1587. It will be necessary, however, where so much discrepancy of opinion has existed, to substantiate the first of these assertions, by the production of specimens which shall speak for themselves; and as the conduct and moral of the piece have been given up as indefensible, these must, consequently, be confined to a display of its poetic value; of its occasional merit with regard to versification and imagery.

In the management of his stanza, Shakspeare has exhibited a more general attention to accuracy of rhythm and harmony of cadence, than was customary in his age; few metrical imperfections, indeed, are discoverable either in this piece, or in any of his minor poems; but we are not limited to this negative praise, being able to select from his first effort instances of positive excellence in the structure of his verse.

Of the light and airy elegance which occasionally characterises the composition of his _Venus and Adonis_, the following will be accepted as no inadequate proofs:—

"Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green, Or, like a nymph, with long dishevel'd hair, Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.

* * * * *

"If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues, And every tongue more moving than your own, Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs, Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown."

To terminate each stanza with a couplet remarkable for its sweetness, terseness, or strength, is a refinement almost peculiar to modern times; yet Shakspeare has sometimes sought for, and obtained this harmony of close: thus Venus, lamenting the beauty of Nature after the death of Adonis, exclaims,

"The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim; But true-sweet beauty liv'd and dy'd with him;"

and again, when reproaching the apathy of her companion,—

"O learn to love; the lesson is but plain, And, once made perfect, never lost again."

Nor are there wanting passages in which energy and force are very skilfully combined with melody and rhythm; of the subsequent extracts, which are truly excellent for their vigorous construction, the lines in Italics present us with the point and cadence of the present day. Venus, endeavouring to excite the affection of Adonis, who is represented

——————— "more lovely than a man, More white and red than doves or roses are,"

tells him,

"I have been woo'd, as I entreat thee now, Even by the stern and direful god of war, Whose sinewy neck in battle ne'er did bow— Over my altars hath he hung his lance, His batter'd shield, his uncontrolled crest, And for my sake hath learn'd to sport and dance, _To coy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest_:"

and, on finding her efforts fruitless, she bursts forth into the following energetic reproach:—

"Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone, Well-painted idol, image, dull and dead, Statue, contenting but the eye alone, _Thing like a man, but of no woman bred_."

The death of Adonis, however, banishes all vestige of resentment, and, amid numerous exclamations of grief and anguish, gives birth to prophetic intimations of the hapless fate of all succeeding attachments:—

"Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend; It shall be waited on with jealousy, _Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end_;—

It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear; It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust; It shall be merciful, and too severe, _And most deceiving when it seems most just_;—

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, And shall be blasted in a breathing-while; The bottom poison, and the top o'er-straw'd With sweets, that shall the sharpest sight beguile: The strongest body shall it make most weak, _Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak_."

These passages are not given with the view of impressing upon the mind of the reader, that such is the constant strain of the versification of the _Venus and Adonis_; but merely to show, that, while in narrative poetry he equals his contemporaries in the general structure of his verse, he has produced, even in his earliest attempt, instances of beauty, melody, and force, in the mechanism of his stanzas, which have no parallel in their pages. In making this assertion, it must not be forgotten, that we date the composition of _Venus and Adonis_ anterior to 1590, that the comparison solely applies to narrative poetry, and consequently that all contest with Spenser is precluded.

It now remains to be proved, that the merits of this mythological story are not solely founded on its occasional felicity of versification; but that in description, in the power of delineating, with a master's hand, the various objects of nature, it possesses more claims to notice than have hitherto been allowed.

After the noble pictures of the horse which we find drawn in the book of Job, and in Virgil, few attempts to sketch this spirited animal can be expected to succeed; yet, among these few, impartial criticism may demand a station for the lines below:—

"Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, And now his woven girts he breaks asunder, The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds, Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder.—

His ears up prick'd; his braided hanging mane Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end; His nostrils drink the air, and forth again, As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:—

Sometimes he trots, as if he told the steps, With gentle majesty, and modest pride: Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, As who should say, lo! thus my strength is try'd.—

Look, when a painter would surpass the life, In limning out a well-porportion'd steed, His art's with Nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed; So did this horse excell a common one, In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.

Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad-breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide."

Venus, apprehensive for the fate of Adonis, should he attempt to hunt the boar, endeavours to dissuade him from his purpose, by drawing a most formidable description of that savage inmate of the woods, and by painting, on the other hand, the pleasures to be derived from the pursuit of the hare. The danger necessarily incurred from attacking the former, and the various efforts by which the latter tries to escape her pursuers, are presented to us with great fidelity and warmth of colouring.

"Thou had'st been gone, quoth she, sweet boy, ere this, But that thou told'st me, thou would'st hunt the boar, O be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, Whose tushes never-sheath'd he whetteth still, Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

On his bow back he hath a battle set Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret; His snout digs sepulchres where-e'er he goes; Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way, And whom he strikes, his crooked tushes slay.

His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed, Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter; His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed; Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.—

But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me; Uncouple at the timorous flying hare, Or at the fox, which lives by subtlety, Or at the roe, which no encounter dare: Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.

And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch to overshoot his troubles, How he out-runs the wind, and with what care He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles:—

Sometime he runs among the flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell; And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell; And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

For there his smell with others being mingled, The hot scent-snuffling hounds are driven to doubt, Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled With much ado the cold fault cleanly out; Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies.

By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still; Anon their loud alarums he doth hear; And now his grief may be compared well To one sore-sick, that hears the passing bell.

Then shall thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way; Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay."

This poem abounds with similes, many of which include miniature sketches of no small worth and beauty. A few of these shall be given, and they will not fail to impart a favourable impression of the fertility and resources of the rising bard. The fourth and fifth, which we have distinguished by Italics, more especially deserve notice, the former representing a minute piece of natural history, and the latter describing in words adequate to their subject, one of the most terrible convulsions of nature.

———————————— "as one on shore Gazing upon a late-embarked friend, Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend."

* * * * *

——————— "as one that unaware Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood."

* * * * *

"Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood."

* * * * *

"_Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain._"

* * * * *

"_As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground, Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes._"

We shall close these extracts from the _Venus and Adonis_, with two passages which form a striking contrast, and which prove that the author possessed, at the commencement of his career, no small portion of those powers which were afterwards to astonish the world; powers alike unrivalled either in developing the terrible or the beautiful.

"And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies, To cross the curious workmanship of nature, To mingle beauty with infirmities, And pure perfection with impure defeature; Making it subject to the tyranny Of sad mischances and much misery;

As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood, The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: Surfeits, impostumes, grief, and damn'd despair—

And not the least of all these maladies, But in one minute's sight brings beauty under— As mountain snow melts with the mid-day sun."

* * * * *

"Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty; Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow: O thou clear god, and patron of all light, From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow The beauteous influence that makes him bright."[27:A]

If we compare the _Venus and Adonis_ of Shakspeare with its classical prototypes; with the _Epitaphium Adonidis_ of Bion, and the beautiful narrative of Ovid, which terminates the tenth book of his Metamorphoses, we must confess the inferiority of the English poem, to the former in pathos, and to the latter in elegance; but if we contrast it with the productions of its own age, it cannot fail of being allowed a large share of relative merit. It has imbibed, indeed, too many of the conceits and puerilities of the period in which it was produced, and it has lost much interest by deviating from tradition; for, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, "the common and more pleasing fable assures us, that

———— "when bright Venus yielded up her charms, The blest Adonis languish'd in her arms;"[28:A]

yet the passages which we have quoted, and the general strain of the poem, are such as amply to account for the popularity which it once enjoyed.

That this was great, that the work was highly valued by poetic minds, and, as might be supposed, from the nature of its subject, the favourite of the young, the ardent, and susceptible, there are not wanting several testimonies. In 1595, John Weever had written at the age of nineteen, as he informs us, a collection of Epigrams, which he published in 1599[28:B]; of these the twenty-second is inscribed _Ad Gulielmum Shakspeare_, and contains a curious though quaint encomium on some of the poet's earliest productions:—

"Honie tong'd Shakspeare, when I saw thine issue, I swore Apollo got them, and none other, Their rosie-tainted features clothed in tissue, Some heaven-born goddesse said to be their mother. _Rose-cheeckt Adonis with his amber tresses, Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to love her_, Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses, Proud lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her."[28:C]

In a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey, this physician, the noted opponent of Nash, has inserted the following remarks:—"_The younger sort take much delight in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis_; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the wiser sort, 1598."[29:A]

Meres, also, in his "Wit's Treasury," published in the same year with the above date, draws a parallel between Ovid and Shakspeare, resulting from the composition of this piece and his other minor poems. "As the soule of Euphorbus," he observes, "was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare, witnes his _Venus and Adonis_, his Lucrece, his sugred sonnets among his private friends, &c."[29:B]

A third tribute, and of a similar kind, was paid to the early efforts of our author in 1598, by Richard Barnefield, from which it must be inferred that the versification of Shakspeare was considered by his contemporaries as pre-eminently sweet and melodious, a decision for which many stanzas in the _Venus and Adonis_ might furnish sufficient foundation:—

"And Shakspeare thou, whose honey-flowing vein, (Pleasing the world,) thy praises doth contain, Whose _Venus_, and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste, Thy name in fame's immortal book hath plac'd, Live ever you, at least in fame live ever! Well may the body die, but fame die never."[29:C]

That singularly curious old comedy, "_The Returne from Parnassus_," written in 1606, descanting on the poets of the age, introduces Shakspeare solely on account of his miscellaneous poems, a striking proof of their popularity; and, like his predecessors, the author characterises them by the sweetness of their metre:

"Who loves Adonis love, or Lucre's rape, His sweeter verse contaynes hart-robbing life, Could but a graver subject him content, Without love's foolish lazy languishment."[30:A]

It appears, likewise, from this extract, and will further appear from two subsequent quotations, that the meretricious tendency of the _Venus and Adonis_ did not altogether escape the notice or the censure of the period which produced it.

A more ample eulogium on the merits of Shakspeare's first production issued from the press in 1607, in a poem composed by William Barksted, and entitled, _Mirrha the Mother of Adonis; or Lustes Prodigies_, of which the concluding lines thus appreciate the value of his model:—

"But stay, my Muse, in thine own confines keep, And wage not warre with so deere lov'd a neighbour; But having sung thy day-song, rest and sleep; Preserve thy small fame, and his greater favor. His song was worthie merit; Shakspeare, hee Sung the faire blossome, thou the wither'd tree: Laurel is due to him; his art and wit Hath purchas'd it; cyprus thy brows will fit."[30:B]

A pasquinade on the literature of his times was published by John Davies of Hereford in 1611; it first appeared in his "Scourge of Folly," under the title of "A Scourge for Paper-Persecutors," and among other objects of his satire _Paper_, here personified, is represented as complaining of the pruriency of Shakspeare's youthful fancy.

"Another (ah, harde happe) mee vilifies With art of love, and how to subtilize, Making lewd _Venus_ with eternal lines To tie _Adonis_ to her love's designes; Fine wit is shewn therein: but finer 'twere, If not attired in such bawdy geare."[31:A]

The charge of _subtilizing_ which this passage conveys, may certainly be substantiated against the minor poetry of our bard: no small portion of it is visible in the _Venus and Adonis_; but the _Rape of Lucrece_ is extended by its admission to nearly a duplicate of what ought to have been its proper size.

To the quotations now given, as commemorative of Shakspeare's primary effort in poetry, we shall add one, whose note of praise is, that our author was equally excellent in painting lust or continency:—

"Shakspeare, that nimble Mercury thy brain Lulls many-hundred Argus' eyes asleep, So fit for all thou fashionest thy vein, At the horse-foot fountain thou hast drunk full deep. Virtue's or vice's theme to thee all one is; Who loves chaste life, there's _Lucrece_ for a teacher: Who list read lust, there's _Venus_ and _Adonis_ True model of a most lascivious lecher."[31:B]

From the admiration thus warmly expressed by numerous contemporaries, even when connected with slight censure, it will, of course, be inferred that the demand for re-impressions of the _Venus and Adonis_ would be frequent; and this was, indeed, the fact. In the year following the publication of the _editio princeps_, there is reason to conclude that the second impression was printed; for the poem appears again entered in the Stationers' books on the 23d of June, 1594, by —— Harrison, sen.; unless this entry be merely preliminary to the edition of 1596, which was printed in small octavo, by Richard Field, for John Harrison.[32:A] Of the subsequent editions, one was published, in 1600, by John Harrison, in 12mo.; another occurs in 1602, and, in 1607, the _Venus and Adonis_ was reprinted at Edinburgh, "which must be considered," remarks Mr. Beloe, "as an indubitable proof, that at a very early period the Scotch knew and admired the genius of Shakspeare."[32:B] The title-page of this edition has the same motto as in the original impression; beneath it is a Phœnix in the midst of flames, and then follows "Edinburgh. Printed by John Wreittoun, are to bee sold in his shop, a little beneath the Salt Trone. 1607."

It is highly probable, that between the period of the Edinburgh copy, and the year 1617, the date of the next extant edition, an intervening impression may have been issued; _Venus and Adonis_, it should be noticed, is entered in the Stationers' Register, by W. Barrett, Feb. 16. 1616; and the next entry is by John Parker, March 8. 1619, preparatory perhaps to the edition which appeared in 1620. In 1630, another re-print was called for, which was again repeated in 1640, and in the various subsequent editions of our author's poems.

The same favourable reception which accompanied the birth and progress of the _Venus and Adonis_ attended, likewise, the next poem which our author produced, THE RAPE OF LUCRECE. This was printed in quarto, in 1594, by Richard Field, for John Harrison, and has a copious _Argument_ prefixed, which, as Mr. Malone remarks, is a curiosity, being, with the two dedications to the Earl of Southampton, the only prose compositions of our great poet (not in a dramatic form) now remaining.[33:A]

The _Rape of Lucrece_ is written in stanzas of seven lines each; the first four in alternate rhyme; the fifth line corresponding with the second and fourth, and the sixth and seventh lines forming a couplet. To this construction it is probable that Shakspeare was led through the popularity of Daniel's _Complaint of Rosamond_, which was published in 1592, and exhibits the same metrical system.

If we had just reason for condemning the prolixity of _Venus and Adonis_, a still greater motive for similar censure will be found in the _Rape of Lucrece_, which occupies no less than two hundred and sixty-five stanzas, and, of course, includes one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five lines, whilst the tale, as conducted by Ovid, is impressively related in about one hundred and forty verses!

From what source Shakspeare derived his fable, whether through a classic or a Gothic channel is uncertain. The story is of frequent occurrence in ancient writers; for, independent of the narrative in the _Fasti_ of the Roman poet, it has been told by _Dionysius Halicarnassensis_, by _Livy_, by _Dion Cassius_, and _Diodorus Siculus_. "I learn from Coxeter's notes," says Warton, "that the _Fasti_ were translated into English verse before the year 1570. If so, the many little pieces now current on the subject of _Lucretia_, although her legend is in Chaucer, might immediately originate from this source. In 1568, occurs a _Ballett_ called, 'The grevious complaynt of Lucrece.' And afterwards, in the year 1569, is licenced to James Robertes, 'A ballet of the death of Lucryssia.' There is also a ballad of the legend of Lucrece, printed in 1576. These publications might give rise to Shakspeare's _Rape of Lucrece_, which appeared in 1594. At this period of our poetry, we find the same subject occupying the attention of the public for many years, and successively presented in new and various forms by different poets. Lucretia was the grand example of conjugal fidelity throughout the Gothic ages."[34:A]

One material advantage which the _Rape of Lucrece_ possesses over its predecessor, is, that its moral is unexceptionable; and, on this account, we have the authority of Dr. Gabriel Harvey, that it was preferred by the _graver_ readers. In every other respect, no very decided superiority, we are afraid, can be adduced. It is more studied and elaborate, it is true; but the result of this labour has in many instances been only an accumulation of far-fetched imagery and fatiguing circumlocution. Yet, notwithstanding these defects, palpable as they are, the poem has not merited the depreciation to which it has been subjected by some very fastidious critics. It occasionally delights us by a few fervid sketches of imagination and description; and by several passages of a moral and pathetic cast, clothed in language of much energy and beauty; and though the general tone of the versification be more heavy and encumbered than that of the _Venus and Adonis_, it is sometimes distinguished by point, legerity, and grace. The quotations, indeed, which we are about to give from this neglected poem, are not only such as would confer distinction on any work, but, to say more, they are worthy of the poet which produced them.

Of metrical sweetness, of moral reflection, and of splendid and appropriate imagery, we find an exquisite specimen at the very opening of the poem. Collatine, boasting of his felicity "in the possession of his beauteous mate," the bard exclaims—

"O happiness enjoy'd but of a few! And, if possess'd, as soon decayed and done As is the morning's silver melting dew, Against the golden splendour of the sun! A date expir'd, and cancel'd ere begun."[34:B] Stanza iv.

We must not omit also the first clause of the sixteenth stanza, which affords an admirable example of spirited and harmonious rhythm. Tarquin in addressing Lucrece:—

"He stories to her ears her husband's fame, Won in the fields of fruitful Italy; And decks with praises Collatine's high name; Made glorious by his manly chivalry, With bruised arms and wreaths of victory."

One of the peculiar excellences of the _Rape of Lucrece_, is its frequent expression of correct sentiment in pointed language and emphatic verse. Tarquin, soliloquising on the crime which he is about to commit, thus gives vent to the agonies of momentary contrition:—

"Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not To darken her whose light excelleth thine! And die unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot With your uncleanness that which is divine!

O shame to knighthood and to shining arms! O foul dishonour to my houshold's grave! O impious act, including all foul harms! A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!—

What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy! Who buys a minute's mirth, to wail a week? Or sells eternity, to get a toy?"

The same terseness of diction and concinnity of versification appear in the subsequent lines:—

"Then for thy husband's and thy children's sake, Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot The shame that from them no device can take, The blemish that will never be forgot."

It may, likewise, be added, that simplicity and strength in the modulation, together with a forcible plainness of phraseology, characterise a few stanzas, of which one shall be given as an instance:—

"O teach me how to make mine own excuse! Or, at the least, this refuge let me find; Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse, Immaculate and spotless is my mind; That was not forc'd; that never was inclin'd To accessary yieldings—but, still pure, Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure."

To these short examples, which are selected for the purpose of showing, not only the occasional felicity of the poet in the mechanism of his verse, but the uncommon and unapprehended worth of what this mechanism is the vehicle, we shall subjoin three passages of greater length, illustrative of what this early production of our author's Muse can exhibit in the three great departments of the _descriptive_, the _pathetic_, and the _morally sublime_.

Lucrece, in the paroxysms of her grief, is represented as telling her mournful story

"To pencil'd pensiveness and coloured sorrow,"

to a piece

"Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy,"

where

"Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear, Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife;"

and where

"The red blood reek'd to show the painter's strife, And dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights:"

"She throws her eyes about the painting round, And whom she finds forlorn, she doth lament; At last she sees a wretched image bound, That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent; His face, though full of cares, yet show'd content: Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes, So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.

In him the painter labour'd with his skill To hide deceit, and give the harmless show An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still, A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe; Cheeks, neither red nor pale, but mingled so That blushing red no guilty instance gave, Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But like a constant and confirmed devil, He entertain'd a show so seeming just, And therein so ensconc'd his secret evil, That jealousy itself could not mistrust——

The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew For perjur'd Sinon."

This is a picture, of which the colouring, but too often overcharged in every other part of the poem, may be pronounced chaste and correct.

A simple and unaffected flow of thought, expressed in diction of equal purity and plainness, are essential requisites towards the production of the pathetic, either in poetry or prose; and, unfortunately, in the _Rape of Lucrece_, these excellences, especially in their combined state, are of very rare occurrence. We are not, however, totally destitute of passages which, by their tenderness and simplicity, appeal to the heart. Thus the complete wretchedness of Lucretia is powerfully and simply painted in the following lines:—

"The little birds that tune their morning's joy, Make her moans mad with their sweet melody. For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy; Sad souls are slain in merry company; Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society: True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd, When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd."

She, accordingly, invokes the melancholy nightingale, and invites her, from similarity of fate, to be her companion in distress.—

"And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day, As shaming any eye should thee behold, Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, That knows nor parching heat nor freezing cold, Will we find out; and there we will unfold To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds: Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds."

"Shakspeare has here," says Mr. Malone, in a note on the first of these stanzas, "as in all his writings, shown an intimate acquaintance with the human heart. Every one that has felt the pressure of grief will readily acknowledge that _mirth doth search the bottom of annoy_."[38:A]

The last specimen which we shall select from this poem, would alone preserve it from oblivion, were it necessary to protect from such a fate any work which bears the mighty name of Shakspeare. Indeed, whether we consider this extract in relation to its diction, its metre, its sentiment, or the sublimity of its close, it is alike calculated to excite our admiration:—

"Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring; Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers; The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing; What virtue breeds, iniquity devours: We have no good that we can say is ours, But ill-annexed opportunity Or kills his life, or else his quality.

O, Opportunity! thy guilt is great: 'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason; Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season; 'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason; And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him."

We have already seen, that, in the passages quoted from contemporary writers in favour of _Venus and Adonis_, the _Rape of Lucrece_ has, with the exception of two instances, been honoured with equal notice and equal approbation. Here, therefore, it will only be necessary to add those notices in which the latter production is the exclusive object of praise.

Of these, the earliest[38:B] is to be found in the first edition of _Drayton's_ "Matilda, the faire and chaste Daughter of Lord Robert Fitzwater," published in 1594, a few months, or probably weeks, after the appearance of the _Rape of Lucrece_. In this impression, and _solely_ in this impression, the Heroine thus eulogises the composition of our bard:—

"Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long, Lately reviv'd to live another age, And here arriv'd to tell of Tarquin's wrong, Her chaste denial, and the tyrants rage, Acting her passions on our stately stage, She is remember'd, all forgetting me, Yet I as fair find chaste as ere was she."[39:A]

The year following Drayton's Matilda, a work was printed in quarto, under the title of _Polimanteia_, in the margin of which Shakspeare's _Lucrece_ is thus cursorily mentioned. "All praise-worthy Lucretia, Sweet Shakspeare."[39:B]

The next separate notice of this poem occurs in some verses prefixed to the second edition of "Willobie his Avisa," which appeared in 1596. They are subscribed _Contraria Contrariis Vigilantius Dormitanus_, and open with the allusion to Shakspeare's Lucrece:—

"In lavine land though Livie boast, There hath beene seene a constant dame; Though Rome lament that she have lost The garland of her rarest fame, Yet now ye see that here is found As great a faith in English ground.

Though Collatine have dearly bought To high renowne a lasting life, And found, that most in vaine have sought To have a faire and constant wife, Yet Tarquine pluckt his glistring grape, And Shake-speare paintes poor Lucrece rape."[40:A]

To these contemporary notices, with the view of showing what was thought of the _Rape of Lucrece_ half a century after its production, we shall subjoin the opinion of _S. Sheppard_, who, in "The Times Displayed in Six Sestyads," printed in 1646, 4to., comparing Shakspeare with Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, adds—

"His sweet and his to be admired lay He wrote of lustful Tarquin's rape, shews he Did understand the depth of poesie."[40:B]

The editions of the _Rape of Lucrece_ were as numerous as those of the _Venus and Adonis_. "In thirteen years after their first appearance," remarks Mr. Malone, "six impressions of each of them were printed, while in the same period, his _Romeo and Juliet_, one of his most popular plays, passed only twice through the press."[41:A]

Of the early re-impressions, those which are extant, are in small octavo, of the date 1596, 1598, 1600, 1607, 1616, 1624, 1632, &c. In the title of that which was published in 1616, occur the words _newly revised and corrected_. "When this copy first came to my hands," says Mr. Malone, "it occurred to me, that our author had perhaps an intention of revising and publishing all his works, (which his fellow-comedians, in their preface to his plays, seem to hint he would have done, if he had lived,) and that he began with this early production of his muse, but was prevented by death from completing his scheme; for he died in the same year in which this _corrected_ copy of _Lucrece_ (as it is called) was printed. But on an attentive examination of this edition, I have not the least doubt that the piece was revised by some other hand. It is so far from being correct, that it is certainly the most inaccurate and corrupt of all the ancient copies."[41:B]

To the Rape of Lucrece succeeds, in the order of publication, the PASSIONATE PILGRIM. This imperfect collection of our author's minor pieces was printed by W. Jaggard in 1599, in small octavo, and with the poet's name.

Not only is this little work entitled to notice from the priority of its public appearance, before the larger collection termed "Sonnets;" but there is, we think, sufficient proof that a part of its contents had, as compositions, a prior origin. It opens with a sonnet inserted in _Love's Labour's Lost_[42:A], a play which, according to Mr. Chalmers, was written in 1592, and not later, even in the calculation of Mr. Malone, than 1594. The second sonnet, and the fourth, seventh, and ninth, are founded on the story of _Venus and Adonis_, and, from their similarity in diction, imagery, and sentiment, to "the first heir" of the poet's "invention," appear to have been originally intended, either for insertion in the greater work, or were preludes to its composition: they "seem," remarks Mr. Malone, "to have been essays of the author when he first conceived the idea of writing a poem on the subject of Venus and Adonis, and before the scheme of his poem was adjusted;" and he adds, in a subsequent page, that the eighth sonnet "seems to have been intended for a dirge to be sung by Venus on the death of Adonis."[42:B]

Beside these intimations of very early composition in the _Passionate Pilgrim_, a similar inference may be drawn from our author's allusion, in his sixth sonnet, to Dowland as a celebrated lutenist, and from a notice in the old copy that the ballad commencing "_It was a lording's daughter_," and the five following poems, were set to music, which music, says Oldys, in one of his manuscripts, was the composition of John and Thomas Morley. Now Dowland had obtained celebrity in his art as early as 1590; and in 1597, when Bachelor of Music in both the universities, published his first book of Songs or Airs, in four parts, for the Lute; and Tho. Morley, who, there is reason to believe, was deceased in 1600, had still earlier been in vogue, and continued to publish his compositions until 1597, in which year appeared his Canzonets.

When Meres, therefore, printed his _Wit's Treasury_ in 1598, it is highly probable that the close of the following passage, already quoted for a different purpose, and which has been thought to refer exclusively to the "Sonnets" afterwards published in 1609, particularly alluded also to the sonnets of the _Passionate Pilgrim_, which had been privately circulated and set to music by Dowland and Morley. "As the soul of Euphorbus," says he, "was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare. Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, _his sugred Sonnets_ among his private friends, &c."

It is remarkable that the year following this notice by Meres, appeared Jaggard's first edition of the _Passionate Pilgrim_. May we not conclude, therefore, that this encomium on the manuscript sonnets of Shakspeare, induced Jaggard to collect all the lyric poetry of our author which he could obtain through his own research and that of his friends, and to publish it surreptitiously with a title of his own manufacture? That it was not sent into the world under the direction, or even with the knowledge of Shakspeare, must be evident from the circumstance of Marlowe's madrigal, _Come live with me, &c._ being inserted in the collection; nor is it likely, setting this error aside, that Shakspeare, in his thirty-third year, at a time when he had written several plays including some dramatic songs, and undoubtedly had produced a large portion of the sonnets which were given to the world in 1609, would have published a Collection so scanty and unconnected as the _Passionate Pilgrim_, which, independent of Marlowe's poem, contains but twenty pieces.

Indeed we are warranted in attributing not only the edition of 1599 solely to the officiousness of Jaggard, but likewise two subsequent impressions, of which the last furnishes us with some further curious proofs of this printer's skill in book-making, and also with an interesting anecdote relative to our bard.

The precise period when the second edition issued from the press was unknown to Mr. Malone[43:A], and is not yet ascertained; but the third edition, printed in 1612, in small octavo, and published by W. Jaggard, is connected with the following literary history.

In 1609, Thomas Heywood published a folio volume entitled "Troia Britanica: or, Great Britaine's Troy. A Poem, devided into 17 severall Cantons, intermixed with many pleasant poeticall Tales. Concluding with an Universal Chronicle from the Creation, untill these present Times." This work was printed and published by William Jaggard, and includes two translations from Ovid, namely the epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, "which being so pertinent to our historie," says Heywood, "I thought necessary to translate."

It happened, unfortunately for the honest fame of Jaggard, that when he published the third edition of the _Passionate Pilgrim_ in 1612, he was tempted, with the view of increasing the size of his volume, to insert these versions by Heywood, dropping, however, the translator's name, and, of course, suffering them to be ascribed to Shakspeare, who appears in the title-page as the author of the entire collection.

Shortly after this imposition on the public had gone forth, Heywood produced his "Apology for Actors. Containing three briefe Treatises. 1. Their Antiquity. 2. Their Ancient Dignity. 3. The true use of their quality. London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1612," 4to.; and at the close of this thin treatise, which consists but of sixty pages, the author addresses the following remarkable epistle to his _new_ bookseller:—

"To my approved good friend, Mr. Nicholas Okes.

"The infinite faults escaped in my booke of Britaine's Troy, by the negligence of the printer, as the misquotations, mistaking of sillables, misplacing halfe lines, coining of strange and never heard of words: these being without number, when I would have taken a particular account of the _errata_, the printer answered me, hee would not publish his owne disworkemanship, but rather let his owne fault lye upon the necke of the author: and being fearfull that others of his quality, had beene of the same nature, and condition, and finding you on the contrary, so carefull and industrious, so serious and laborious, to doe the author all the rights of the presse; I could not choose but gratulate your honest endeavours with this short remembrance. Here likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in that worke, by taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lesse volume, under the name of another (_Shakspeare_), which may put the world in opinion _I might steale them from him; and hee, to doe himselfe right, hath since published them in his owne name_: but as I must acknowlege my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath publisht them, SO THE AUTHOR (_Shakspeare_) I KNOW MUCH OFFENDED WITH M. JAGGARD THAT (ALTOGETHER UNKNOWNE TO HIM) PRESUMED TO MAKE SO BOLD WITH HIS NAME. These, and the like dishonesties, I know you to be cleare of; and I could wish but to bee the happy author of so worthy a worke as I could willingly commit to your care and workmanship.

Your's ever, THOMAS HEYWOOD."

Here nothing can be more evident than that Jaggard introduced these translations in the "Passionate Pilgrim," _without the permission, or even the knowledge_ of Shakspeare, and further, that he, Shakspeare, was _much offended with Jaggard for so doing_; a piece of information which completely rescues the memory of Shakspeare from any connivance in the fraud: and yet, strange as it may appear, on this very epistle of Heywood has been founded a charge of imposition against Shakspeare, and the only defence offered for the calumniated poet has been, that, contrary to the public and positive assertion of Heywood, he, and not Heywood, was the translator of the Epistles in question.

This interpretation can only be accounted for on the supposition that both the accuser and defender have alike mistaken the language of Heywood, and have conceived him to have been speaking of himself, when, in fact, he was referring to Shakspeare; for, that the passage "_so the author I know much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name_," can only be applied to our great poet, must be clear from the consideration that Jaggard, so far from _making bold with the name_ of Heywood, dropped it altogether, while he daringly committed the very offence as to Shakspeare, by clandestinely affixing his name to the versions of Heywood.

It will be right, however, to bring forward the accusation and defence of these gentlemen, as they will sufficiently prove that more errors than one have been committed in their attempts, and that these have been the result of a want of intimacy with the literary history of Shakspeare's age.

In the twenty-sixth volume of the _Monthly Magazine_, a correspondent whose signature is Y. Z., after commenting on Heywood's letter, as quoted by Dr. Farmer, and after transcribing the very passage just given above in Italics, declares "this passage contains an heavy charge against Shakspeare: it accuses him, not only of an attempt to impose on the public, but on his patron, Lord Southampton, to whom he dedicated his 'unpolisht lines[46:A];'" and, in his reply to Mr. Lofft, he again remarks,—"The translations in question were certainly published in Shakspeare's name, _and with his permission_; they were also dedicated by him to his best and kindest friend."[46:B]

Now, that the passage in debate contains no charge against Shakspeare is, we think, perfectly demonstrable from the import of Heywood's epistle, which we have given at full length, and which, we suspect, Y. Z. has only partially seen, through the medium of Dr. Farmer's quotation.

That the poet imposed upon his patron by dedicating to him his "unpolisht lines," meaning these versions from Ovid, is an assertion totally contrary to the fact. Of his poems Shakspeare dedicated only two to Lord Southampton, which were published separately, the _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593, and the _Rape of Lucrece_ in 1594, and the expression "unpolisht lines" alludes exclusively to the first of these productions.

So far from any permission being given by Shakspeare for the insertion of these translations, we find him highly offended with Jaggard for presuming to introduce them under his name; and from the admission of these pieces and Marlowe's poem, we may securely infer that the three editions by Jaggard of the _Passionate Pilgrim_ were surreptitious and void of all authority. Such, indeed, seems to have been the opinion of his contemporaries with regard to the first impression; for the two poems in Jaggard's collection of 1599, commencing "My flocks feed not," and "As it fell upon a day," are inscribed to Shakspeare, while in England's Helicon of 1600 they bear the subscription of _Ignoto_, a pretty plain intimation of all want of reliance on the editorial sagacity of this unprincipled bookseller.

Justice requires of us to state that Y. Z. has not brought forward this accusation from any enmity to the poet, of whom, on the contrary, he professes himself to be an ardent admirer; but with the hope of seeing the transaction cleared up to the honour of his favourite bard, a hope which Mr. Lofft, in a subsequent number of the Magazine, generously comes forward to gratify.

In doing this, however, he has unfortunately taken for granted the _data_ on which Y. Z. has founded his charge, and builds his defence of the poet on the ill-grounded supposition of his being the real translator of the Epistles of Ovid, treating the question as if it were the subject of a trial at law. The consequence has been a somewhat singular series of mistakes. "It appears," observes Mr. Lofft, "that among his undisputed poems, these translations were published by Jaggard, in 1609."[47:A] Here are two assumptions, of which one seems founded on a surmise in the first communication of Y. Z., who says, "if my memory does not deceive me, the Poems of Shakspeare appeared in 1609."[48:A] That an edition of the _Passionate Pilgrim_ was printed between the years 1599 and 1612 is certain, for the copy of 1612 is expressly termed the _third_ edition; but that this impression took place in 1609, is a conclusion without any authority, for, as we have remarked before, no copy of this date has yet been discovered. Granting, however, that it did issue in this year, there is every reason, from the detail already given, to affirm, that it could not contain the translations in question, and was probably nothing more than a re-impression of the edition of 1599.

"In the same year" (that is 1609), proceeds Mr. L., "Heywood makes his claim." Heywood made no claim until 1612; yet, continues Mr. L., "this he does in a book entitled 'Britain's Glory,' published by the very same Jaggard." Now Heywood wrote no book entitled "Britain's Glory," an assertion which seems to be verified by Mr. Lofft himself, who commences the next paragraph but one in the following terms:—"This Britain's _Troy_, in which he advances his claim to these translations, seems to have been the earliest of the many volumes which he published," a sentence which almost compels us to consider the title "Britain's Glory," in the preceding paragraph, as a typographical error; but it is remarkable that neither in Britain's Troy is this claim advanced, nor was it by many instances the earliest of his publications, a reference to the Biographia Dramatica exhibiting not less than five of his productions anterior to 1609.

These inaccuracies in the charge and defence of Shakspeare, the detection of which has proved an unpleasant task, and peculiarly so when we reflect, that to one of the parties and to his family[48:B] the venerable bard owes many obligations, will induce us to rely with greater confidence on the simple truth, as developed in the letter of Heywood,—that Shakspeare, as soon as he was made acquainted with the fraudulent attempt of Jaggard, expressed the warmest indignation at his conduct.

On the poetical merit of the _Passionate Pilgrim_, it will not be necessary to say much; for, as the best and greater part of it consists of pieces in the sonnet form, and these are but few, the skill of the bard in this difficult species of composition will more properly be discussed when we come to consider the value of the large collection which he has bequeathed us under the appellation of _Sonnets_. One, however, of the pieces which form the _Passionate Pilgrim_, we shall extract, not only for its beauty as a sonnet, though this be considerable, but as it makes mention of his great poetical contemporary, Edmund Spenser, for whose genius, as might naturally be expected, he appears to have entertained the most deep-felt admiration:—

"IF music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me, Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; _SPENSER to me, whose deep conceit is such, As passing all conceit, needs no defence_. Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound, That Phœbus' lute, the queen of music, makes; _And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd, Whenas himself to singing he betakes_. One god is god of both, as poets feign; One knight loves both, and both in thee remain."

The expression, _deep conceit_, "seems to allude," remarks Mr. Malone, "to the _Faery Queen_. If so, these sonnets were not written till after 1590, when the first three books of that poem were published[49:A];" a conjecture which is strongly corroborated by two lines from Barnefield's "Remembrance of some English Poets," where the phrase is directly applied to the Fairy Queen:

"Live Spenser! ever, in thy Fairy Queene; Whose like (for _deep conceit_) was never seene."[50:A]

The remaining portion of Shakspeare's Poems includes the SONNETS and A LOVER'S COMPLAINT, which were printed together in 1609.[50:B] At what period they were written, or in what year of the poet's life they were commenced, has been a subject of much controversy. That some of these sonnets were alluded to by Meres in 1598, when he speaks of our author's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends," and that a few of these very sonnets, as many, at least, as Jaggard could obtain, were published by him the following year, in consequence of this notice, appears to be highly probable; but that the entire collection, as published in 1609, had been in private circulation anterior to Meres's pamphlet, is a position not easily to be credited, and contrary, indeed, to the internal evidence of the poems themselves, which bear no trifling testimony of having been written at various and even distant periods; and there is reason to think in the space elapsing between the years 1592 and 1609, between the twenty-eighth and forty-fifth year of the poet's age.

That some of them were early compositions, and produced before the author had acquired any extended reputation, may be inferred from the subsequent passages. In the sixteenth sonnet, with reference to his own poetry, he adopts the expression "_my pupil pen_;" and in the thirty-second he petitions his mistress to "vouchsafe" him "but this loving thought,"

"_Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought To march in ranks of better equipage._"

A small portion of the fame and property which he afterwards enjoyed, could have fallen to his share when he composed the thirty-seventh sonnet, the purport of which is to declare, that though

—— "_made lame by fortune's dearest spite_,"

he is rich in the perfections of his mistress, and having engrafted his love to her abundant store, he adds,

"So then I am not _lame, poor, nor despis'd_."

There is much reason to conclude, however, that by far the greater part of these sonnets was written after the bard had passed the meridian of his life, and during the ten years which preceded their publication; consequently, that with the exception of a few of earlier date, they were the amusement of his leisure from his thirty-fifth to his forty-fifth year. We have been led to this result from the numerous allusions which the author has made, in these poems, to the effects of time on his person; and though these may be, and are without doubt, exaggerated, yet are they fully adequate to prove that the writer could no longer be accounted young. It is remarkable that the hundred and thirty-eighth sonnet, which was originally printed in the _Passionate Pilgrim_ contains a notice of this kind:

"Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows _my days are past the best_;"

an expression which well accords with the poet's _then_ period of life; for when Jaggard surreptitiously published the minor collection, Shakspeare was thirty-five years old.

Among the allusions of this nature in his "Sonnets," the selection of a few will answer our purpose. The first occurs in the twenty-second sonnet:—

"My glass shall not persuade _me I am old_, So long as youth and thou are of one date."

The two next are still more explicit:—

"But when my glass shows me myself indeed, _'Bated and chopp'd with tan'd antiquity_:" Son. 62.

"Against my love shall be, _as I am now, With time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn_:" Son. 63.

and the last that we shall give completes the picture, which, though overcharged in its colouring, must be allowed, we think, to reflect some lineaments of the truth:—

"That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sun-set fadeth in the west—— In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie." Son. 73.

The comparison instituted in these lines between the _bare ruined choir_ of a cathedral, and an avenue at the close of autumn, has given origin to a short but very elegantly written note from the pen of Mr. Steevens. "This image," he remarks, "was probably suggested to Shakspeare by our desolated monasteries. The resemblance between the vaulting of a Gothic isle, and an avenue of trees whose upper branches meet and form an arch over-head, is too striking not to be acknowledged. When the roof of the one is shattered, and the boughs of the other leafless, the comparison becomes yet more solemn and picturesque."[52:A]

On the principal writers of this minor but difficult species of lyric poetry, to which Shakspeare could have recourse in his own language, it will be necessary to enter into some brief criticism, in order to ascertain the progress and merit of his predecessors, and the models on which he may be conceived to have more peculiarly founded his own practice.

The rapid introduction of Italian poetry into our country, during the reign of Henry the Eighth, very early brought with it a taste for the cultivation of the sonnet. Before 1540, _Wyat_ had written all his poems, many of which are sonnets constructed nearly on the strictest form of the Italian model; the _octant_, or major system being perfectly correct, while the _sextant_, or minor system, differs only from the legitimate type by closing with a couplet. The poetical value of these attempts, however, does not, either in versification or imagery, transcend mediocrity, and are greatly inferior to the productions, in the same department, of his accomplished friend, the gallant but unfortunate _Surrey_. The sonnets of this elegantly romantic character, which were published in 1557, deviate still further from the Italian structure, as they uniformly consist of three quatrains in alternate or elegiac verse, and these terminated by a couplet; a secession from the laws of legitimacy which is amply atoned for by virtues of a far superior order, by simplicity, purity, and sweetness of expression, by unaffected tenderness of sentiment, and by vivid powers of description. To this unexaggerated encomium we must add, that the harmony of his metre is often truly astonishing, and even, in some instances, fully equal to the rhythm of the present age. That the assertion wants not sufficient evidence, will be acknowledged by the adduction of a single specimen:—

SONNET.

"SET me whereas the sunne doth parche the grene, Or where his beames do not dissolve the ise: In temperate heate where he is felt and sene: In presence prest of people madde or wise: Set me in hye, or yet in low degree; In longest night, or in the shortest daye: In clearest skie, or where cloudes thickest be; In lusty youth, or when my heeres are graye: Set me in heaven, in earth, or els in hell, In hyll or dale, or in the foming flood, Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell, Sicke or in health, in evill fame or good: Hers will I be, and onely with this thought Content my self, although my chaunce be nought."

Of the sonnets of _Watson_, which were published about 1581, we have given an opinion, at some length, in the preceding chapter, and shall merely add here, that neither in their structure, nor in their diction or imagery, could they be, or were they, models for our author; and are indeed greatly inferior, not only to the sonnets of Shakspeare, but to those of almost every other poet of his day.

The sonnets of _Sidney_, which appeared in 1591 under the title of _Astrophel and Stella_, exhibit a variety of metrical arrangement; a few which rival, and several which nearly approach, the most strict Petrarcan form. The _octant_ in Sidney is often perfectly correct, while the _sextant_ presents us with the structure which, though not very common in Italian, has been, since his time, adopted more frequently than any other by our own poets; that is, where the first line and the third, the second and fourth, the fifth and sixth, rhime together; with this difference, however, that the moderns, in their _division_ of the sextant, have more usually followed the example of Surrey just quoted, in forming their minor system of a quatrain and a couplet, while Sidney more correctly distributes it into _terzette_.

On this arrangement is by far the greater portion of Sidney's sonnets constructed; but the most pleasing of his metrical forms, and which has the merit too of being built after the Italian cast, consists in the _Octant_, of two tetrachords of disjunct alternate rhime, the last line of the first stanza rhiming to the first of the second; and in the _Sextant_, of a structure in which the first and second, the fourth and fifth, and the third and sixth verses rhime. Thus has he formed the following exquisite sonnet, which will afford no inaccurate idea of his powers in this province of the art:—

"O kisse, which doest those ruddie gemmes impart, Or gemmes, or fruits of new-found Paradise, Breathing all blisse and sweetning to the heart, Teaching dumbe lips a nobler exercise.

O kisse, which soules, even soules, together tyes By linkes of Love, and only Nature's art: How faine would I paint thee to all men's eyes, Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part.

But she forbids; with blushing words, she sayes, She builds her fame on higer-seated praise: But my heart burnes, I cannot silent be.

Then since, deare life, you faine would have me peace, And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease, Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me." Son. 81.

In 1592, _Daniel_ produced his _Delia_, including fifty-seven sonnets, of which only two follow the Italian standard; the remainder consisting of three elegiac stanzas and a closing couplet. They display many beauties, and, being a model of easy imitation, have met with numerous copyists.

Of the _Diana_ of _Constable_, a collection of sonnets in eight decades, we have already, if we consider their mediocrity, given a sufficiently copious notice. They were published in 1594, and were soon eclipsed by the _Amoretti_ of _Spenser_, a series of eighty-eight sonnets, printed about the year 1595. These, from the singularity of their construction, which not only deviates from the Italian costume, but has seldom found an imitator, require, independent of their poetic value, peculiar notice. The Spenserian sonnet, then, consists of three tetrachords in alternate rhime; the last line of the first tetrachord rhiming to the first of the second, and the last of the second to the first of the third, and the whole terminated by a couplet. That this system of rhythm often flows sweetly, and that it is often the vehicle of chaste sentiment and beautiful imagery must, in justice, be conceded to this amiable poet; but, at the same time, it is necessary to add, that it is occasionally the medium of quaintness and far-fetched conceit. A specimen, however, shall be subjoined, of which, if the first stanza be slightly tainted with affectation, the remainder will be pronounced, as well in melody and simplicity as in moral beauty, nearly perfect.

"The doubt which ye misdeeme, fayre Love, is vaine, That fondly feare to lose your liberty; When, losing one, two liberties ye gaine, And make him bond that bondage earst did fly. Sweet be the bands, the which true Love doth tye Without constraynt, or dread of any ill: The gentle birde feeles no captivity Within her cage; but sings, and feeds her fill. There Pride dare not approach, nor Discord spill The league twixt them, that loyal Love hath bound: But simple Truth, and mutual Good-will, Seeks, with sweet Peace, to salve each others wound: There Fayth doth fearless dwell in brazen towre, And spotlesse Pleasure builds her sacred bowre." Son. 65.

Between the sonnets of Spenser, and those of Drayton, a period of ten or eleven years, many minor bards, such as _Percy_, _Barnes_, _Barnefielde_, _Griffin_, _Smith_, &c. the titles of whose works will be found in the table of our preceding chapter, were induced to cultivate, and sometimes with tolerable success, this difficult little poem; nor are there wanting, during this period, some elegant examples of the sonnet interspersed through the works of writers of a higher rank, as, for instance, _Googe_, _Gascoigne_, _Raleigh_, _Breton_, and _Lodge_; but we shall close this criticism with a few remarks on the sonnets of the once popular poet whose productions of this kind immediately preceded the collection of Shakspeare in 1609.

The sonnets of _Drayton_ which, in number sixty-three, were published under the title of "Ideas," in 1605, 8vo., are, for the most part, written on the plan of Daniel. Fifty-two exhibit three four-lined stanzas, in alternate rhime, completed by a couplet; and eleven consist of three quatrains with two verses of _immediate_, interposed between two verses of _disjunct_, rhime, and a terminating couplet. The versification of Drayton in these pieces is sufficiently smooth, and the sentiment is sometimes natural and pleasing, though too often injured by an ill-judged display of wit and point. With the exception, also, of two sonnets addressed to the River Anker, they possess little of what can be termed descriptive poetry.

It now remains to ascertain to which of these writers of the sonnet Shakspeare chiefly directed his attention, in choosing a model for his own compositions. Dr. Sewell and Mr. Chalmers contend that, in emulation of Spenser, he took the _Amoretti_ of that poet for his guide[57:A]; but, though we admit that he was an avowed admirer of the Fairy Queen, and that the publication of the Amoretti in 1595 might still further strengthen his attachment to this species of lyric poesy, yet we cannot accede to their position. The structure, indeed, of the Spenserian sonnet is, with the exception of a closing couplet, totally different from Shakspeare's; nor are their style and diction less dissimilar.

If we revert, however, to the sonnets of Daniel, which were published in 1592, we shall there find, as Mr. Malone had previously remarked, the prototype of Shakspeare's amatory verse. Indeed no doubt can arise, when we recollect, that all Daniel's sonnets, save two, are composed of three quatrains in alternate rhime and a couplet, and that all Shakspeare's, one hundred and fifty-four in number, are, if we except a single instance[57:B], of a similar description. There is, also, in Daniel, much of that tissue of abstract thought, and that reiteration of words, which so remarkably distinguish the sonnets of our bard. Of this no greater proof can be adduced than the sonnet we shall now subjoin, and which, in all its features, may be said to be truly Shakspearean:—

"AND whither, poor _forsaken_, wilt thou _go_, To _go_ from _sorrow_, and thine own distress? When every place presents like face of woe, And no remove can make thy _sorrows_ less? Yet _go_, _forsaken_; _leave these_ woods, _these_ plains: _Leave her and all_, and _all for her_, that _leaves_ Thee and thy love forlorn, and _both_ disdains; And of _both_ wrongful deems, and ill conceives. Seek out some _place_; and see if any _place_ Can give the least release unto thy grief: Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace; _Steal from thyself, and be thy care's own thief_. But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain? Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain." Son. 49.

There is reason to suppose that none of Shakspeare's sonnets were written before the appearance of Daniel's "Delia." A few in the _Passionate Pilgrim_ seem, as hath been observed, to have been suggested during the composition of the _Venus and Adonis_, and were probably penned in the interval elapsing between the publication of the Delia in 1592, and of the _Venus and Adonis_ in 1593; for, though the earliest of his sonnets, they are still cast in the very mould which Daniel had constructed.

The difficulties, however, which attend the ascertainment of Shakspeare's model in these compositions, are nothing when compared to those which surround the enquiry as to the person to whom they are addressed. An almost impenetrable darkness rests on the question, and no effort has hitherto, in the smallest degree, tended to disperse the gloom.

When Thomas Thorpe published our author's sonnets in 1609, he accompanied them with the following mysterious dedication:—

"To The Only Begetter Of These Ensuing Sonnets, Mr. W. H. All Happiness And That Eternity Promised By Our Ever-Living Poet Wisheth The Well-Wishing Adventurer In Setting Forth, T. T."

On the first perusal of this address, the import would seem to be, that Mr. W. H. had been the _sole object_ of Shakspeare's poetry, and of the _eternity_ promised by the bard. But a little attention to the language of the times in which it was written, will induce us to correct this conclusion; for as a part of our author's sonnets is most certainly addressed to a female, it is evident that W. H. could not be the _only begetter_ of them in the sense which primarily suggests itself. For the true meaning of the word we are indebted to Mr. Chalmers, who observes, on the authority of Minsheu's Dictionary of 1616, that one sense of the verb _to beget_ is there given to _bring foorth_. "W. H.," he continues, "was the bringer forth of the Sonnets. _Beget_ is derived by Skinner from the A. S. _begettan_, obtinere. Johnson adopts this derivation, and sense: so that _begetter_, in the quaint language of Thorpe, the Bookseller, Pistol, the _ancient_, and such affected persons, signified the _obtainer_; as to _get_, and _getter_, in the present day, means _obtain_, and _obtainer_, or to procure, and the procurer."

We must, infer, therefore, from this explanation of the word, that Mr. W. H. had influence enough to _obtain_ the manuscript from the poet, and that he lodged it in Thorpe's hands for the purpose of publication, a favour which the bookseller returned, by wishing him _all happiness and that eternity_ which had been _promised_ by the bard, in such glowing colours, to another, namely, to one of the immediate subjects of his sonnets.

That this is the only rational meaning which can be annexed to the word "promised," will appear, when we reflect that for Thorpe to have _wished_ W. H. the _eternity_ which had been promised _him_ by an _ever-living_ poet, would have been not only superfluous, but downright nonsense: the _eternity_ of an _ever-living_ poet must _necessarily ensue_, and was a proper subject of _congratulation_, but not of _wishing_ or of _hope_.

It appears also that this dedication was understood in the same light by some of the earlier editors of the sonnets. Cotes, it is true, republished them in 1640 without a commentary; but when Gildon re-printed them in 1710, he gives it as his opinion that they were _all of them in praise of his mistress_; and Dr. Sewell, when he edited them in 1728, had embraced a similar idea, for he tells us, in reference to our author's example, that "A young muse must have _a mistress_, to play off the beginning of fancy; nothing being so apt to elevate the soul to a pitch of poetry, as the passion of love."[59:A]

The conclusion of these editors remained undisputed for more than half a century, when Mr. Malone, in 1780, published his Supplement to the Edition of Shakspeare's Plays of 1778, which includes the Sonnets of the poet, accompanied by his own notes, and those of his friends. Here, beside the opinion which he has himself avowed, he has given the conjectures of Dr. Farmer, and Mr. Tyrwhitt, and the decision of Mr. Steevens.

All these gentlemen concur in believing, that more than one hundred of our author's sonnets are addressed to a _male object_. Dr. Farmer, influenced by the _initials_ in the dedication, supposes that Mr. William Harte, the poet's nephew, was the object in question; but a reference to the Stratford Register completely overturns this hypothesis, for it there appears, that William, eldest son of William Harte, who married Shakspeare's Sister Joan, was baptized August 28th, 1600, and consequently could not be even in existence when the greater part of these compositions were written.

Mr. Tyrwhitt, founding his conjecture on a line in the twentieth sonnet, which is thus printed in the old copy,

"A man in _hew_ all _Hews_ in his controlling,"

conceives that the letters W. H. were intended to imply _William Hughes_. If we recollect, however, our bard's uncontrollable passion for playing upon words; that _hew_ frequently meant, in the usage of his time, _mien_ and _appearance_, as well as _tint_, and that Daniel, who was probably his archetype in these pieces, has spelt it in the same way, and once, if not oftener, for the sake of emphasis, with a capital[60:A], we shall not feel inclined to place such reliance on this supposition.

When Mr. Steevens, in 1766, annexed a reprint of the sonnets to Shakspeare's plays, from the quarto editions, he hazarded no observations on their scope or origin; but in Malone's Supplement, he ventured, in a note on the twentieth sonnet, to declare his conviction that it was addressed to a _male object_.[60:B]

Lastly, Mr. Malone, in the Supplement just mentioned, after specifying his concurrence in the conjecture of Mr. Tyrwhitt, adds—"To this person, whoever he was, one hundred and twenty of the following poems are addressed; the remaining twenty-eight are addressed to a lady."[61:A]

Thus the matter rested on the decision of these four celebrated commentators, who were uniform in assorting their belief, that Shakspeare had addressed the greater part of his sonnets to a man, when Mr. George Chalmers in 1797, in his "Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers," attempted to overturn their conclusion, by endeavouring to prove that the whole of the Sonnets had been addressed by Shakspeare to Queen Elizabeth; a position which he labours to strengthen, by additional research, in his "Supplemental Apology" of 1799!

That Mr. Chalmers, however, notwithstanding all his industry and ingenuity, has failed in establishing his point, must be the acknowledgment of every one who has perused the sonnets with attention. Indeed the phraseology of Shakspeare so positively indicates a _male object_, that, if it cannot, in this respect, be reposed on, we may venture to assert, that no language, however explicit, is entitled to confidence. Nothing but extreme carelessness could have induced Gildon and Sewell to conceive that the prior part of these sonnets was directed to _a female_, and even Mr. Chalmers himself is compelled to convert his Queen into _a man_, before he can give any plausibility to his hypothesis. That Elizabeth, in _her capacity of a sovereign_, was frequently addressed in language strictly applicable to the _male_ sex, is very true, and such has been the custom to almost every female _sovereign_; but that she should be thus metamorphosed, for the express purpose of wooing her by amatory sonnets, is a position which cannot be expected to obtain credit.

The question then returns upon us, _To whom are these sonnets addressed?_ We agree with Farmer, Tyrwhitt, Steevens, and Malone, in thinking the object of the greater part of the sonnets to have been of the _male_ sex; but, for the reasons already assigned, we cannot concede that either Harte or Hughes was the individual.

If we may be allowed, in our turn, to conjecture, we would fix upon LORD SOUTHAMPTON as the subject of Shakspeare's sonnets, from the first to the hundredth and twenty-sixth, inclusive.

Before we enter, however, on the quotation of such passages as are calculated to give probability to our conclusion, it will be necessary to show that, in the age of Shakspeare, the language of _love_ and _friendship_ was mutually convertible. The terms _lover_ and _love_, indeed, were as often applied to those of the same sex who had an esteem for each other, as they are now exclusively directed to express the love of the male for the female. Thus, for instance, Ben Johnson subscribes himself the _lover_ of Camden, and tells Dr. Donne, at the close of a letter to him, that he is his "ever true _lover_;" and with the same import, Drayton, in a letter to Drummond of Hawthornden, informs him, that Mr. Joseph Davis is in _love_ with him. Shakspeare, in his _Dramas_, frequently adopts the same phraseology in expressing the relations of friendship: Portia, for example, in the _Merchant of Venice_, speaking of Antonio, says,

————————————— "this Antonio, Being the bosom _lover_ of my lord:"

and in _Coriolanus_, Menenius exclaims,

—————— "I tell thee, fellow, Thy general is my _lover_:"[62:A]

but it is to his _Poems_ that we must refer for a complete and extensive proof of this perplexing ambiguity of diction, which will gradually unfold itself as we proceed to quote instances in support of Lord Southampton's being the subject of his muse.

That Shakspeare was, at the same time, attached by _friendship_, and by _love_; that, according to the fashion of his age, he employed the same epithet for both, though, in one instance, at least, he has accurately distinguished the sexes, positively appears from the opening stanza of a sonnet in the _Passionate Pilgrim_ of 1599:—

"_Two loves_ I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still; The _better angel_ is a _man_ right fair, The worser spirit a _woman_, coloured ill."[63:A]

That this _better angel_ was _Lord Southampton_, and that to him was addressed the number of sonnets mentioned above, we shall now endeavour to substantiate.

Perhaps one of the most striking proofs of this position, is the hitherto unnoticed fact, that the language of the _Dedication to the Rape of Lucrece_, and that of part of the _twenty-sixth sonnet_, are almost precisely the same.

The _Dedication_ runs thus:—"The _love_ I dedicate to your Lordship is without end;—The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would shew greater."

The _Sonnet_ is as follows:

"_Lord of my love_, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit. Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it."

Here, in the first place, it may be observed, that in his _prose_, as well as in his _verse_, our author uses the same _amatory_ language; for he opens the dedication to His Lordship with the assurance that _his love for him is without end_. In correspondence with this declaration, the sonnet commences with this remarkable expression,—_Lord of my love_; while the residue tells us, in exact conformity with the prose address, his high sense of His Lordship's merit and his own unworthiness.

That no doubt may remain of the meaning and direction of this peculiar phraseology, we shall bring forward a few lines from the 110th sonnet, which, uniting the language of both the passages just quoted, most incontrovertibly designates the sex, and, at the same time, we think, the individual to whom they are addressed:—

———————————— "My best of love, Now all is done, _save what shall have no end_: Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an _older friend_, _A God in love_, to whom I am confin'd."

Before we proceed any further, however, it may be necessary to obviate an objection to our hypothesis which must immediately suggest itself. It will be said, that the first _seventeen_ sonnets are written for the sole purpose of persuading their object to marry, and how could this exhortation be applicable to Lord Southampton, who, from the year 1594 to the year 1599 was the devoted admirer of _the faire Mrs. Varnon_?

To remove this apparent incongruity, we have only to recollect, that His Lordship's attachment to his mistress met with the most _decided and relentless opposition_ from the Queen; and there is every reason to infer, from the _voluntary_ absences of the Earl in the years 1597 and 1598, and the _extreme distress_ of his mistress _on these occasions_, that the connection had been twice given up, on his part, in deference to the will of his capricious sovereign.

Shakspeare, when his friend at the age of twenty-one was first smitten with the charms of Elizabeth Vernon, was high in His Lordship's confidence and favour, as the dedication of his _Lucrece_, at this period, fully evinces. We also know, that the Earl was very indignant at the interference of the Queen; that he very reluctantly submitted, for some years, to her cruel restrictions in this affair; and if, in conformity with his constitutional irritability of temper, and the natural impulse of passion on such a subject, we merely admit, his having declared what every lover would be tempted to utter on the occasion, _that if he could not marry the object of his choice, he would die single_, a complete key will be given to what has hitherto proved inexplicable.

It immediately, indeed, and most satisfactorily accounts for four circumstances, not to be explained on any other plan. It affords, in the _first_ place, an easy and natural clue to the poet's expostulatory language, who, being ardently attached to his patron, wished, of course, to see him happy either in the possession of his first choice or in the arms of a second, and, therefore, reprobates, in strong terms, such a premature vow of celibacy: it gives in the _second_ place, an adequate solution of the question, why so few as only seventeen sonnets, and these the earliest in the collection, are employed to enforce the argument? for when His Lordship, on his return to London from the continent in 1598, embraced the resolution of marrying his mistress, notwithstanding the continued opposition of the Queen, all ground for further expostulation was instantly withdrawn. These seventeen sonnets, therefore, were written between the years 1594 and 1598, and were consequently among those noticed by Meres in 1598, as in private circulation: in the _third_ place, it assigns a sufficient motive for withholding from public view, until after the death of the Queen, a collection of which part was written to counteract her known wishes, by exciting the Earl to form an early and independent choice: and in the _fourth_ place it furnishes a cogent reason why Jaggard, in his surreptitious edition of the _Passionate Pilgrim_ in 1599, did not dare to publish any of these sonnets, at a time when Southampton and his lady were imprisoned by the enraged Elizabeth, as a punishment for their clandestine union.

Having thus, satisfactorily as we think, not only removed the objection but strikingly corroborated the argument through the medium of our defence, we shall select a few passages from these initiatory sonnets in order still further to show the _masculine_ nature of their object, and to give a specimen of the poet's expostulatory freedom:—

"—— Where is _she so fair_, whose _un-ear'd womb_ Disdains the _tillage of thy husbandry_? Or who is _he_ so fond, will be the tomb Of _his_ self-love, to stop posterity." Sonnet 3.

"—— thou — — — — Unlook'd on diest, unless thou _get a son_." Son. 7.

"The world will be _thy widow_ and still weep— No love toward others in that bosom sits, That on _himself_ such murderous shame commits." Son. 9.

"—— —— —— —— Dear my love, you know, You had a _father_; _let your son say so_." Son. 13.

"Now stand you on the top of happy hours; And many _maiden_ garlands yet unset, With virtuous wish _would bear you living flowers_." Son. 16.

If more instances were wanting to prove that Shakspeare's object was a _male_ friend, a multitude might be quoted from the remaining sonnets; we shall content ourselves, however, with adding a few to those already given from the first seventeen:—

"O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; _Him_ in thy course untainted do allow, For beauty's _pattern to succeeding men_." Son. 19.

"_His_ beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and _he_ in them still green." Son. 63.

The transcription of one entire sonnet will spare further quotation, as it must prove, against all the efforts of sophistry, the sex for which we contend:

"AH! wherefore with infection should HE live And with HIS presence grace impiety. That sin by HIM advantage should atchieve, And lace itself with HIS society. Why should false painting imitate HIS cheek, And steal dead seeing of HIS living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since HIS rose is true? Why should HE live now Nature bankrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? For she hath no exchequer now but HIS, And proud of many, lives upon HIS gains. O, HIM she stores, to show what wealth she had, In days long since, before these last so bad." Son. 67.

The subsequent sonnets, likewise, as far as the hundred and twenty-seventh, which appear to have been written at various periods anterior to 1609, not only bear the strongest additional testimony to the mascularity of the person addressed, but in several instances clearly evince the nature of the affection borne to him, which without any doubt consisted solely of ardent friendship and intellectual adoration. Two entire sonnets, indeed, are dedicated to the expression of these sentiments, in the first of which he tells his noble patron, that he had absorbed in his own person all the friendship which he (Shakspeare) had ever borne to the living or the dead, and he finely terms this attachment "_religious love_." In thy bosom he exclaims—

"—— there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, As interest of the dead, which now appear But things remov'd, that hidden in thee lie! Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers[67:A] gone; Who all their parts of me to thee did give; That due of many now is thine alone:" Son. 31.

and in the second he says, addressing the same friend, that when Death arrests him, his verse

"—— for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review _The very part was consecrate to thee_." Son. 74.

That Shakspeare looked up to his friend not only with admiration and gratitude, but with reverence and homage, and, consequently, that neither William Harte nor William Hughes, nor any person of his own rank in society could be the subject of his verse, must be evident from the passages already adduced, and will be still more so when we weigh the import of the following extracts.

We are told, in the seventy-eighth sonnet, what, indeed, we might have supposed from the Earl's well-known munificence to literary men, that he was the theme of every muse; and it is added, that his patronage gave dignity to learning and majesty to grace:—

"So oft have I invoked thee for my muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse, As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Have added feathers to the learned's wing, And given grace a double majesty. Yet be most proud of that which I compile, Whose influence is thine, and born of thee."

In his ninety-first sonnet the poet informs us, that he values the affection of his friend more than riches, birth, or splendour, finishing his eulogium by asserting that he was not _his peculiar_ boast, but the _pride of all men_:—

"Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garment's cost, Of more delight than hawks or horses be, And having thee, of all men's pride I boast."

But in terms the most emphatic and explicit does he point to his object, in the sonnet which we are about to quote entire, distinctly marking the _sex_, the _dignity_, the _rank_, and _moral virtue_ of his friend:—

"O TRUANT Muse, what shall be thy amends, For thy neglect of TRUTH IN BEAUTY DY'D? BOTH TRUTH AND BEAUTY ON MY LOVE DEPENDS; SO DOST THOU TOO, AND THEREIN DIGNIFY'D. Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say, 'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd, Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay: But best is best, if never intermix'd?—' Because HE needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so; for it lies in thee To make HIM much out-live a GILDED TOMB, And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how To make HIM seem long hence as HE shows now." Son. 101.

To whom can this sonnet, or indeed all the passages which we have quoted apply, if not to Lord Southampton, the bosom-friend, the munificent patron of Shakspeare, the noble, the elegant, the brave, the protector of literature and the theme of many a song. And let it be remembered, that if the hundreth and first sonnet be justly ascribed to Lord Southampton, or if any one of the passages which we have adduced, be fairly applicable to him, the whole of the hundred and twenty-six sonnets must necessarily apply to the same individual, for the poet has more than once affirmed this to have been his plan and object:

"Why write I still _all one, ever the same_— That every word doth almost tell my name." Son. 76.

—— "_all alike my songs, and praises be_ To _one_, of _one_, still such and ever so." Son. 105.

It may be objected, that the opening and closing sonnet of the collection which we conceive to be exclusively devoted to Lord Southampton, admit neither of reconcilement with each other, nor with the hypothesis which we wish to establish. This discrepancy, however, will altogether vanish, if we compare the import of these sonnets with that of two others of the same series.

It will be allowed that the expressions, "_the world's fresh ornament_," the "_only herald to the gaudy spring_," and the epithets "_tender churl_," in the first sonnet, may with great propriety be applied to a young nobleman of twenty-one, just entering on a public and splendid career; but, if it be true, that these sonnets were written at various times, between the years 1594 and 1609, how comes it, that in the hundred and twenty-sixth, the last addressed to his patron, he still uses an equally youthful designation, and terms him "_my lovely boy_," an appellation certainly not then adapted to His Lordship, who, in 1609, was in his thirty-sixth year?

That the sonnets _were_ written at different periods, he tells us in an apology to his noble friend for not addressing him so frequently as he used to do at the commencement of their intimacy, assigning as a reason, that as he was now the theme of various other poets, such addresses must have lost their zest:

"Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild musick burdens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song." Son. 102.

The mystery arising from the use of the juvenile epithets, he completely clears up in his hundred and eighth sonnet, where he says, that having exhausted every figure to express his patron's merit and his own affection, he is compelled to say the same things over again; that he is determined to consider him as young as when _he first hallowed his fair name_; that friendship, in fact, weighs not the advance of life, but adheres to its first conception, when youth and beauty clothed the object of its regard. In pursuance of this determination, he calls him, in this very sonnet, "_sweet boy_;" but it will be more satisfactory to copy the entire poem, in order to show, that our interpretation is not, in the smallest degree, strained:—

"WHAT'S in the brain that ink may character, Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? What's new to speak, what new to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, _sweet boy_; but yet, like prayers divine, I must each day say o'er the very same; _Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name. So that eternal love in love's fresh case Weighs not the dust and injury of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity for aye his page; Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Where time and outward form would show it dead._"

In conformity with this resolution of considering his friend as endowed whilst he lives with perpetual youth, he closes his sonnets to him, not only with the repetition of the juvenile epithet "_boy_," but he positively assures him that he has _time in his power_, that _he grows by waning_, and that _nature, as he goes onward, still plucks him back, in order to disgrace time_. The conceit is somewhat puerile, though clearly explanatory of the systematic intention of the poet:

"O thou, _my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold time's fickle glass_, his fickle hour; Who hast _by waning grown_, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st; If _nature_, sovereign mistress over wrack, _As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back_, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill _May time disgrace_, and wretched minutes kill."

He terminates this sonnet, however, and his series of poetical addresses to Lord Southampton, with a powerful corrective of all flattery, in reminding him that although nature "_may detain_," she cannot "_keep her treasure_," and that he must ultimately yield to death.

We must also observe, that the poet has marked the termination of these sonnets to his friend, not only by the solemn nature of the concluding sentiment, but by a striking deviation from the customary form of his composition in these pieces; the closing poem not being constructed with alternate rhimes, but consisting of six couplets!

After thus attempting, at considerable length, and we trust with some success, to solve a mystery hitherto deemed inexplicable, we shall offer but a few observations on the object of the remaining twenty-eight sonnets.

In the first place, it is not true, as Mr. Malone has asserted, that they are _all_ addressed to a female. Two, at least, have not the slightest reference to any individual; the hundred and twenty-ninth sonnet being a general and moral declamation on the misery resulting from sensual love, and the hundred and forty-sixth, an address to his own soul of a somewhat severe and religious cast.

Of the residue, four have no very determinate application, and to whom the twenty-two are dedicated, is not now to be ascertained, and, if it were, not worth the enquiry; for, a more worthless character, or described as such in stronger terms, no poet ever drew. We much wish, indeed, these sonnets had never been published, or that their subject could be proved to have been perfectly ideal. We are the more willing to consider them in this light, since, if we dismiss these confessional sonnets, not the slightest moral stain can rest on the character of Shakspeare; as the frolic in Sir Thomas Lucy's park, from his youth, and the circumstances attending it, must be deemed altogether venial. It is very improbable, also, that any poet should publish such an open confession of his own culpability.

Of the grossly meretricious conduct of his mistress, of whose personal charms and accomplishments we know nothing more than that she had black eyes, black hair, and could play on the virginal, Sonnets 137. 142. and 144. bear the most indubitable evidence. Well, therefore, might the poet term her his "_false plague_," his "_worser spirit_," his "_female evil_," and his "_bad angel_;" well might he tell her, notwithstanding the colour of her eyes and hair,

"Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place; _In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds_." Son. 131.

"For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, _Who art as black as hell, as dark as night_." Son. 147.

Well might he blame his pliability of temper, his insufficiency of judgment and resolution, well might he call himself "_past cure_," and "_frantick-mad_," when, addressing this profligate woman, he exclaims,

"Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, That in the very refuse of thy deeds There is such strength and warrantise of skill, That in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds? Who taught thee how _to make me love thee more, The more I hear and see just cause of hate_? O, _though I love what others do abhor_, With others thou should'st not abhor my state; If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me, More worthy I to be belov'd by thee."[73:A] Son. 150.

Now, weighing, what almost every other personal event in our author's life establishes, the general moral beauty of his character, and reflecting, at the same time, that he was at this period a husband, and the father of a family, we cannot but feel _the most entire conviction_, that these sonnets were never directed to a _real_ object: but that, notwithstanding they appear written in his own person, and two of them, indeed, (Sonnets 135. and 136.) a perpetual pun on his Christian name, they were solely intended to express, aloof from all individual application, the contrarieties, the inconsistencies, and the miseries of illicit love. Credulity itself, we think, cannot suppose otherwise, and, at the same time, believe that the poet was privy to their publication.

To this discussion of a subject clogged with so many difficulties, we shall now subjoin some remarks on the _poetical_ merits and demerits of our author's sonnets; and here, we are irresistibly induced to notice the absurd charge against, and the inadequate defence of, sonnet-writing, brought forward by Messrs. Steevens and Malone, in the Supplement of the latter gentleman.[74:A]

The antipathy of Mr. Steevens to this species of lyric poetry, seems to have amounted to the highest pitch of extravagance. In a note on the fifty-fourth sonnet, he asks, "What has truth or nature to do with sonnets?" as if truth and nature were confined to any particular metre or mode of composition; and, in a subsequent page, he informs us that the sonnet is "a species of composition which has reduced the most exalted poets to a level with the meanest rhimers; has almost cut down Milton and Shakspeare to the standards of Pomfret and——but the name of Pomfret is perhaps the lowest in the scale of English versifiers."[74:B] Nothing can exceed the futility and bad taste of this remark, and yet Mr. Malone has advanced no other defence of the "exalted poets" of Italy than that, "_he is slow to believe that Petrarch is without merit_;" and for Milton he offers this strange apology,—"_that he generally failed when he attempted rhime, whether his verses assumed the shape of a sonnet, or any other form_."[74:C]

When we recollect, that the noblest poets of Italy, from Dante to Alfieri, have employed their talents in the construction of the sonnet, and that many of their most popular and beautiful passages have been derived through this medium; when we recollect, that the first bards of our own country, from Surrey to Southey, have followed their example with an emulation which has conferred immortality on their efforts; when we further call to mind the exquisite specimens of rhimed poetry which Milton has given us in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; and when, above all, we retrace the dignity, the simplicity, the moral sublimity of many of his sonnets, perhaps not surpassed by any other part of his works, we stand amazed at the unqualified censure on the one hand, and at the impotency of the defence on the other.

If such be the fate, then, between these commentators, of the general question, and of the one more peculiarly relative to Milton, it cannot be expected that Shakspeare should meet with milder treatment. In fact, Mr. Steevens has asserted, that his sonnets are "composed in the highest strain of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution, and nonsense[75:A];" a picture which Mr. Malone endeavours to soften, by telling us that "it appears to him overcharged:" that similar defects occur in his dramas, and that the sonnets, "if they have no other merit, are entitled to our attention, as often illustrating obscure passages in his plays."[75:B]

It is true that in the next paragraph he ventures to declare, that he cannot perceive that their versification is less smooth than that of Shakspeare's other compositions, and that he can perceive perspicuity and energy in some of them; but well might Mr. Steevens reply, that "the case of these sonnets is certainly bad, when so little can be advanced in support of them."[75:C]

Let us try, therefore, if _we_ cannot, and that also with great ease, prove that these sonnets have been not only miserably criticised, but unmercifully abused; and that, in point of poetical merit, they are superior to all those which preceded the era of Drummond.

In the first place, then, we altogether deny that either affectation or pedantry can, in the proper sense of the terms, be applied to the sonnets of Shakspeare. Were any modern, indeed, of the nineteenth century to adopt their language and style, he might justly be taxed with both; but in Sidney and Shakspeare it was habit, indissoluble habit, and not affectation; it was the diction in which they had been practised from early youth to clothe their sentiments and feelings; it was identified with all their associations and intellectual operations; it was the language, in fact, the mode of expression, in a greater or less degree, of all their contemporaries; and to have stripped their thoughts of a dress, which to us appears quaint and artificial, would have been to them a painful and more elaborate task. When once, indeed, we can attribute this artificial, though often emphatic style, as we ought to do, to the universally defective taste of the age in which it sprang, and not to individual usage, we shall be prepared to do justice to injured genius, and to confess, that frequently beneath this laboured phraseology are to be found sentiments simple, natural, and touching. We may also very safely affirm of Shakspeare's sonnets, that, if their style be compared with that of his predecessors and contemporaries, in the same department of poetry, a manifest superiority must often be awarded him, on the score of force, dignity, and simplicity of expression; qualities of which we shall very soon afford the reader some striking instances.

To a certain extent, we must admit the charge of _circumlocution_, not as applied to individual sonnets, but to the subject on which the whole series is written. The obscurities of this species of poem have almost uniformly arisen from density and compression of style, nor are the compositions of Shakspeare more than usually free from this source of defect; but when it is considered that our author has written one hundred and twenty-six sonnets for the sole purpose of expressing his attachment to his patron, it must necessarily follow, that a subject so continually reiterated, would display no small share of circumlocution. Great ingenuity has been exhibited by the poet in varying his phraseology and ideas; but no effort could possibly obviate the monotony, as the result of such a task.

We shall not condescend to a refutation of the _fourth_ epithet, which, if at all applicable to any portion of Shakspeare's minor poems, can alone apply to Sonnets 135. and 136., which are a continued pun upon his Christian name, a species of trifling which was the peculiar vice of our author's age.

That an attempt to exhaust the subject of friendship; to say all that could be collected on the topic, would almost certainly lead, in the days of Shakspeare, to abstractions too subtile and metaphysical, and to a cast of diction sometimes too artificial and scholastic for modern taste, no person well acquainted with the progress of our literature can deny; but candour will, at the same time, admit, that the expression and versification of his sonnets are often natural, spirited, and harmonious, and that where the surface has been rendered hard and repulsive by the peculiarities of the period of their production, we have only to search beneath, in order to discover a rich ore of thought, imagery, and sentiment.

It has been stated that Shakspeare's sonnets, consisting of three elegiac quatrains and a couplet, are constructed on the plan of Daniel's; a mode of arrangement which, though bearing no similitude to the elaborate involution of the Petrarchan sonnet, may be praised for the simplicity of its form, and the easy flow of its verse; and that these technical beauties have often been preserved by our bard, and are frequently the medium through which he displays the treasures of a fervent fancy and a feeling heart, we shall now attempt, by a series of extracts, to prove.

The description of the sun in his course, his rising, meridian altitude, and setting, and his influence over the human mind, are enlivened by imagery peculiarly vivid and rich; the seventh and eighth lines especially, contain a picture of a great beauty:—

"Lo in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But when from high-most pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are From his low tract, and look another way: So thou," &c. Son. 7.

The inevitable effects of time over every object in physical nature, reminding the poet of the disastrous changes incident to human life, he exclaims in a style highly figurative and picturesque:—

"When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls, all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard; Then of thy beauty do I question make." Son. 12.

A still more lovely sketch, illustrative of the uneasiness which he felt in consequence of absence from his friend, is given us in the following passage, of which the third and fourth lines are pre-eminent for the poetry of their diction:—

"From you have I been absent in the Spring, When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing; That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew." Son. 98.

To the melody, perspicuity, and spirit of the versification of the next specimen, and to the exquisite turn upon the words, too much praise cannot be given. It is one amongst the numerous evidences of Lord Southampton being the subject of the great bulk of our author's sonnets; for he assures us, that he not only esteemed his lays, but gave argument and skill to his pen:—

"_Where art thou, Muse_, that thou _forget'st_ so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, Dark'ning thy power, to lend base subjects light? _Return, forgetful Muse_, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, And gives thy pen both skill and argument." Son. 100.

From the expressions "old rhyme," and "antique pen," in the extract which we are about to quote, it is highly probable that our bard alluded to Chaucer, certainly before his own appearance the greatest poet that England had produced. The chivalric picture in the first quatrain, is peculiarly interesting, and the cadence of the metre is harmony itself:—

"When, in the chronicle of wasted time, I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhime, In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now." Son. 106.

It is a striking proof of the poetical inferiority of the few sonnets which Shakspeare has addressed to his mistress, that we find it difficult to select more than one passage from them which does honour to his memory. Of this, however, it will be allowed, that the comparison is happy, the rhythm pleasing, and the expression clear:—

"And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face." Son. 132.

In order, however, to judge satisfactorily of the merit of these poems, it will, no doubt, be deemed necessary by the reader, that a few _entire_ sonnets be presented to his notice; for, though the passages just quoted, as well as numerous others which might be given, have a decided claim upon our approbation, yet, the sonnet being a very brief composition, it will, of course, be required, that all its parts be perfect, and of equal value. That this is not always the case with these productions of our author, will be inferred from the short extracts which we have selected; but that it is so in very many instances may truly be affirmed, and will, indeed, be proved by the subsequent specimens.

So far from affectation and pedantry being the general characteristic of these pieces, impartial criticism must declare, that more frequent examples of simple, clear, and nervous diction are to be culled from them, than can be found among the sonnets of any of his contemporaries. The following, indeed, is given, not as a solitary proof, but as the exemplar of a numerous class of Shakspearean sonnets; and with the remark, that neither in this instance, nor in many others, is there, either in versification, language, or thought, the smallest deviation into the regions of affectation or conceit:—

"NO longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O if, I say, you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; But let your love even with my life decay: Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone." Son. 71.

Simplicity of style, and tenderness of sentiment, form the sole features of this sonnet; but in the next, with an equal chastity of diction, are combined more energy and dignity, together with the infusion of some noble and appropriate imagery. It must also be added, that the flow and structure of the verse are singularly pleasing:—

"LET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd." Son. 116.

Of a lighter though more glowing cast of poetry, both in expression and imagination, but with a slight blemish, arising from the pharmaceutical allusion in the last line, is the sonnet which we are about to quote. A trifling inaccuracy with respect to the colour of the cynorhodon, or canker-rose, afforded Mr. Steevens a pretext for the splenetic interrogation which has been recorded by us with due censure. It is somewhat strange that the beauties of the poem could not disarm the prejudices of the critic:

"O HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth." Son. 54.

In spirit, however, in elegance, in the skill and texture of its modulation, and beyond all, in the dignified and highly poetical close of the third quatrain, no one of our author's sonnets excels the twenty-ninth. The ascent of the lark was a favourite subject of contemplation with the poet:—

"WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,—and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

It is, time, however, to terminate these transcriptions, which have been already sufficiently numerous to enable the reader to form an estimate of the poet's merit in the difficult task of sonnet-writing. That many more might be brought forward, of equal value with those which we have selected, will be allowed perhaps when we state, that in the _specimens_ of Mr. Ellis, the _Petrarca_ of Mr. Henderson, and the _Laura_ of Mr. Lofft, eleven have been chosen, of which, we find upon reference, only one among the four just now adduced.

The last production in the _minor_ poems of Shakspeare, is A LOVER'S COMPLAINT, in which a forlorn damsel, seduced and deserted, relates the history of her sorrows to

"A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh."

It is written in stanzas of seven lines; the first and third, and the second, fourth, and fifth, rhiming to each other, while the sixth and seventh form a couplet; an arrangement exactly similar to the stanza of the Rape of Lucrece. Like many of our author's smaller pieces, it is too full of imagery and allusion, but has several passages of great beauty and force. In the description which this forsaken fair one gives of the person and qualities of her lover, the following lines will be acknowledged to possess considerable excellence:—

"His browny locks did hang in crooked curls, And every light occasion of the wind Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.—

His qualities were beauteous as his form, For maiden-tongu'd he was, and therefore free; Yet, if men mov'd him, was he such a storm As oft 'twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.—

His real habitude gave life and grace To appertainings and to ornament."

These, and every other portion of the poem, however, are eclipsed by a subsequent part of the same picture, in which, as Mr. Steevens well remarks, the poet "has accidentally delineated his own character as a dramatist."[83:A] So applicable, indeed, did the passage appear to us, as a forcible though rapid sketch of the more prominent features of the author's own genius, and of his universal influence over the human mind, that we have selected it as a motto for the second volume of this work:—

—— "On the tip of his subduing tongue All kind of arguments and question deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep: To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passions in his craft of will;

That he did in the general bosom reign Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted."

The address which the injured mistress puts into the mouth of her seducer, when "he 'gan besiege her," opens in a strain of such beautiful simplicity, that we cannot avoid an expression of regret, that the defective taste of the age prevented its continuance and completion in a similar style of tenderness and ease:—

————————————— "Gentle maid, Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity, And be not of my holy vows afraid."

After relating, rather too circumstantially, the arts and hypocrisy which had been exercised for her ruin, she bursts into the following exclamation:—

"O father, what a hell of mischief lies In the small orb of one particular tear!"

Various lines, and brief extracts, of no common merit, might be detached from the Lover's Complaint; but enough has now been said on the _Miscellaneous Poetry_ of Shakspeare, to prove that it possesses a value far beyond what has been attributed to it in modern times. The depreciation, indeed, to which it has been lately subjected, a fate so directly opposed to that which accompanied its first reception in the world, must be ascribed, in a great measure, to the unaccountable prejudices of Mr. Steevens, who, in an Advertisement prefixed to the edition of our author's Dramas, in 1793, has made the following curious declaration:—

"We have not reprinted the Sonnets, &c. of Shakspeare, because _the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service_; notwithstanding these miscellaneous poems have derived every possible advantage from the literature and judgment of their only intelligent editor, Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, like the ivory rake and golden spade in Prudentius, _are on this occasion disgraced by the objects of their culture_—had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, his name would have reached us with as little celebrity as time has conferred on that of Thomas Watson, an older _and much more elegant sonnetteer_."[85:A]

That Watson was a _much more elegant sonnetteer than Shakspeare_, is an assertion which wants no other mean for its complete refutation, than a reference to the works of the elder bard. At the period when Mr. Steevens advanced this verdict, such a reference was not within the power of one in a thousand of his readers, but all may now be referred to a very satisfactory article in the _British Bibliographer_, where Sir Egerton Brydges has transcribed seventeen of Watson's sonnets, and declares it to be his conviction, that they "want the moral cast" of Shakspeare's sonnets; "his unsophisticated materials; his pure and natural train of thought."[85:B] It may be added, that a more extended comparison would render the inferiority of Watson still further apparent, and that the Bard of Avon would figure from the juxta-position like "Hyperion to a satyr."

When Mr. Steevens compliments his brother-commentator at the expense of the poet; when he tells us, that _his implements of criticism are on this occasion disgraced by the objects of their culture_, who can avoid feeling a mingled emotion of wonder and disgust? who can, in short, forbear a smile of derision and contempt at the folly of such a declaration?

And lastly, when he assures us, that _the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into the service of our author's Miscellaneous Poetry_, and when, at the same time, we recollect, what gives us pleasure to acknowledge, the wit, the ingenuity, and research of this able editor on almost every other occasion, it will not, we trust, be deemed a work of supererogation, that we have attempted to unfold, at length, the beauties of these calumniated poems, and to refute the sweeping censure which they have so unworthily incurred; nor will the summary inference with which we shall conclude this chapter, be viewed, we hope, as either incorrect, or unauthorised by the previous disquisition, when we state it to consist of the following terms; namely, that _the Poems of Shakspeare, although they are chargeable with the faults peculiar to the age in which they sprung, yet exhibit so much originality, invention, and fidelity to nature, such a rich store of moral and philosophic thought, and often, such a purity, simplicity, and grace of style, as not only deservedly placed them high in the favour of his contemporaries, but will permanently secure to them no inconsiderable share of the admiration and the gratitude of posterity_.[86:A]

FOOTNOTES:

[2:A] Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 132.

[2:B] Venus and Adonis was entered on the Stationers' Books, by Richard Field, April 18, 1593, six days before its author completed the twenty-ninth year of his age.

[3:A] "There is one instance," says Rowe, who first mentioned the anecdote, "so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare's, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William Davenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted; that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 67.

[5:A] Sydney Papers, vol. i. p. 348.

[5:B] "There were present, at this Council, the Earl of Southampton, with whom, in former times, he (Essex) had been at some _emulations_, and _differences_, at Court: But, after, Southampton, having married his Kinswoman, plunged himself wholly into his fortune," &c. Declaration of the Treason of the Earl of Essex, sign. D. quoted by Mr. Chalmers, Supplement. Apology, p. 110.

[5:C] Rowland Whyte informs us, that "Lord Southampton fought with one of the king's great men of war, and sunk her." Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 72; but Sir William Monson calls this man of war "a frigate of the Spanish fleet."

[5:D] Account of the Wars with Spain, p. 38.

[6:A] Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 83.

[7:A] Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 87.

[7:B] Ibid., p. 81.

[7:C] Ibid., p. 88.

[7:D] Ibid., p. 90.

[7:E] In a letter, dated November 2nd, 1598, Rowland Whyte says, that Lord Southampton is about to return to England. Sydney Papers, vol. ii. p. 104.

[8:A] Imperfect Hints towards a New Edition of Shakspeare, 4to. Part II., Advertisement, p. xxi.

[8:B] Birch's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 422.

[8:C] Kennet's History of England, vol. ii. p. 614.

[9:A] Vide Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. p. 33.

[11:A] Bacon's Works, Mallet's edit. vol. iv. p. 412.

[11:B] Vide Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, by Nichols, vol. ii. p. 1.

[11:C] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 311, 312.

[12:A] Wilson tells us, that "the Earl of Southampton, covered long with the _Ashes_ of great Essex his _Ruins_, was sent for from the Tower, and the King lookt upon him with a smiling _countenance_, though displeasing happily to the new Baron _Essingdon_, Sir _Robert Cecil_, yet it was much more to the Lords _Cobham_ and _Grey_, and Sir _Walter Rawleigh_."—History of Great Britain, folio, 1653, p. 4.

[12:B] Lodge's Illustrations of British History, vol. iii. p. 270.

[13:A] Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 54.

[13:B] Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 331.

[13:C] Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 154.

[15:A] "This Spring," relates Wilson, "gave birth to four brave Regiments of foot (a new apparition in the English horizon) fifteen hundred in a regiment, which were raised, and transported into Holland, under four gallant Collonells; the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Essex, and the Lord Willoughby, since Earl of Lindsey."—History of Great Britain, p. 280.

[16:A] History of Great Britain, p. 284.

[16:B] Cabala, p. 299.

[17:A] When Richard Brathwaite dedicated his "Survey of History, or a Nursery for Gentry," to Lord Southampton, he terms him "Learning's select Favourite." Vide Restituta, vol. iii. p. 340.—Nash, dedicating his "Life of Jacke Wilton," 1594, to the same nobleman, calls him "a dere lover and cherisher, as well of the Lovers of Poets, as of Poets themselves;" and he emphatically adds,—"Incomprehensible is the height of your spirit, both in heroical resolution and matters of conceit. Unrepriveably perished that booke whatsoever to wast paper, which on the diamond rocke of your judgement disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt." Jarvis Markham also addresses our English Mecænas in a similar style, commencing a Sonnet prefixed to his "Most honorable Tragedie of Richard Grenvile, Knt." in the following manner:—

"Thou glorious Laurell of the Muses' hill; Whose eyes doth crowne the most victorious pen: Bright Lampe of Vertue, in whose sacred skill Lives all the blisse of eares-inchaunting men:"

and closes it with declaring, that if His Lordship would vouchsafe to approve his Muse, immortality would be the result:—

"So shall my tragick layes be blest by thee, And from thy lips suck their eternitie." Restituta, vol. iii. pp. 410, 414.

[19:A] Beaumont's Poems. Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 42.

[19:B] Several other tributes to the memory and virtues of Southampton are on record. Daniel has one, commemorating his fortitude, when under sentence of death, and the Rev. William Jones published, in 1625, a Sermon on his decease, preached before the Countess; to which he added, "The Teares of the Isle of Wight, shed on the tombe of their most noble, valorous, and loving Captaine and Governour, the right Honourable Henrie, Earle of Southampton," containing an Elegy on the father and son written by himself; "an Episode upon the death" of Lord Southampton, by Fra. Beale Esqr.; fifteen short pieces of poetry, called "certain touches upon the life and death of the Right Honourable Henrie, Earle of Southampton," by W. Pettie, and another poem on the same subject by Ar. Price.

[19:C] Imperfect Hints towards a New Edition of Shakspeare, Part II. p. 6. 4to. 1788.

[20:A] A similar impression seems to have arisen in the mind of the ingenious author of the "Imperfect Hints," who, after selecting the parting scene between Bassanio and Anthonio in the _Merchant of Venice_, as the subject of a picture, remarks, that "this noble spirit of friendship _might_ have been realized, when my lord Southampton (the dear and generous friend of Shakspeare) embarked for the seige of Rees in the Dutchy of Cleve."—Imperfect Hints, Part I. p. 35.

[20:B] See Part II. chap. ii.

[20:C] "Mr. Malone," relates Mr. Beloe, "had long been in search of this edition, and when he was about to give up all hope of possessing it, he obtained a copy from a provincial catalogue. But he still did not procure it till after a long and tedious negotiation, and a most enormous price."—Anecdotes of Literature, vol. i. p. 363.

[27:A] These, and the following extracts, are taken from Mr. Malone's edition of the Poems of Shakspeare.

[28:A] Malone's Supplement to Shakspeare, 1780, vol. i. p. 463.

[28:B] "Epigrammes in the oldest Cut and newest Fashion. A twice seven Houres (in so many Weekes) Studie. No longer (like the Fashion) not unlike to continue. The first seven, John Weever.

Sit voluisse sit valuisse.

At London: printed by V. S. for Thomas Bushell, and are to be sold at his shop, at the great North doore of Paules. 1599. 12mo."—Vide Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 156.

[28:C] Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 159.

[29:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 2. note by Steevens.

[29:B] Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 45, 46.

[29:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 197.

[30:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 49. col. 2.

[30:B] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 463.

[31:A] Censura Literaria, vol. vi. p. 276. A second edition of this satire was published separately, in 4to. 1625.

[31:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 197, 198.—Many passages, I believe, might be added to those given in the text, which point out the great popularity of our author's earliest effort in poetry. Thus, in the _Merrie Conceited Jests_ of George Peele, an author who died in or before 1598, the Tapster of an Inn in Pye-corner is represented as "much given to poetry: for he had ingrossed the Knight of the Sunne, _Venus and Adonis_, and other pamphlets."—Reprint, p. 28.

Again in the _Dumb Knight_, an Historical Comedy, by Lewis Machin, printed in 1608, one of the characters, after quoting several lines from Venus and Adonis, concludes by saying,—

"Go thy way, thou best book in the world.

"_Veloups._ I pray you, sir, what book do you read?

"_President._ A book that never an orator's clerk in this kingdom but is beholden unto; it is called, Maid's Philosophy, or _Venus and Adonis_." Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 146.

[32:A] It is the more probable that the entry of 1594 indicates a separate edition, as an entry of the impression of 1596 appears in the Stationers' Register, by W. Leake, dated June 23. 1596.—Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 121.

[32:B] Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 363. This copy is in the possession of Mr. Chalmers.

[33:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 469. note.

[34:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 415, 416.—"It is remarkable," says the historian, in a note on this passage, "that the sign of Berthelette, the king's printer in Fleet-street, who flourished about 1540, was the Lucretia, or as he writes it, _Lucretia Romana_."

[34:B] The last line of this extract is taken from the 12mo. edit. of 1616.

[38:A] Supplement, vol. i. p. 537. note.

[38:B] Perhaps the opening stanza of the following scarce poem, entitled "Epicedium. A funerall Song, upon the vertuous life and godly death of the right worshipfull the Lady Helen Branch;

Virtus sola manet, cætera cuncta ruunt.

London, printed by Thomas Creed, 1594;" may allude to our author's Rape of Lucrece:—

"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_: Or pen'd the praise of sad Cornelia, Whose blamelesse name hath made her fame so rife, As noble Pompey's most renoumed wife: Hither unto your home direct your eies, Whereas, unthought on, much more matter lies." Vide Brydges's Restituta, vol. iii. p. 297-299.

[39:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 575.

[39:B] "Polimanteia, or The meanes lawfull and unlawfull, to judge of the fall of a Common-wealth, against the frivolous and foolish conjectures of this age. Whereunto is added, A letter from England to her three daughters, Cambridge, Oxford, Innes of Court, and to all the rest of her inhabitants, &c. &c. Printed by John Legate, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge, 1595."

"This work," remarks Mr. Haslewood, "is divided into three parts; the first, Polimanteia, is on the subtleties and unlawfulness of Divination, the second, an address from England to her three Daughters; and the third, England to her Inhabitants, concluding with the speeches of Religion and Loyalty to her children. Some researches have been made by a friend to ascertain the author's name, but without success. He was evidently a man of learning, and well acquainted with the works of contemporary writers, both foreign and domestic. The second part of his work is too interesting, from the names enumerated in the margin, not to be given entire. The mention of Shakspeare is two years earlier than Meres's _Palladis Tamia_, a circumstance that has escaped the research of all the Commentators; although a copy of the _Polimanteia_ was possessed by Dr. Farmer, and the work is repeatedly mentioned by Oldys, in his manuscript notes on Langbaine."—British Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 274.

[40:A] British Bibliographer, No. XIV. p. 247.

[40:B] Ibid. No. V. p. 533.

[41:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 575.

[41:B] Supplement, vol. i. p. 471.—An edition of the Rape of Lucrece, with a supplement by John Quarles, was published about 1676; for at the end of a copy of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, in my possession, printed in 1676, and the eighth edition, is a catalogue of books sold by Peter Parker, the proprietor of the above impression, among which occurs the following article:—

"The Rape of _Lucrece_ committed by _Tarquin_ the sixth, and remarkable judgements that befell him for it, by that incomparable Master of our English Poetry _William Shakespeare_ Gentleman. Whereunto is annexed the Banishment of _Tarquin_ or the reward of Lust, by _John Quarles_, 8vo."

It is remarkable, that, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, our author's _Venus and Adonis_, and _The Rape of Lucrece_, were re-published as _State Poems_, though it would puzzle the most acute critic to discover, in either of them, the smallest allusion to the politics of their age. The work in which they are thus enrolled, and which betrays also the most complete ignorance of the era of their production, is entitled "STATE POEMS.—Poems on affairs of State from 1620 to 1707." London, 1703-7. 8vo. 4 vols.

[42:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 105. Act iv. sc. 3.—We have found reason, as will be seen hereafter, to ascribe this play to the year 1591.

[42:B] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. pp. 710. 715.

[43:A] "I know not," says this gentleman, "when the second edition was printed."—Reed's Shakspeare, 1803, vol. ii. p. 153.

[46:A] Vol. xxvi. p. 120, 121.

[46:B] Ibid. vol. xxvi. p. 523.

[47:A] Monthly Magazine, vol. xxvi. p. 312.

[48:A] Monthly Magazine, vol. xxvi. p. 121.

[48:B] Of the ill-requited Capel, whose text of Shakspeare, notwithstanding all which has been achieved since his decease, is, perhaps, one of the purest extant, we shall probably have occasion to speak hereafter. Of the talents of his nephew, and of the glowing attachment which he bears to Shakspeare, and of the taste and judgment which he has shown in appreciating his writings and character, we possess an interesting memorial in the _Introduction_ to his late publication, entitled "Aphorisms from Shakspeare."

[49:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 714.

[50:A] Printed at the end of his "Lady Pecunia, 4to. London, 1605." This very sonnet, however, has been attributed to Barnefield himself, and is, in all probability, another evidence of the incorrectness or the fraud of Jaggard.

[50:B] "Shakspeare's Sonnets, never before imprinted, quarto, 1609, G. Eld, for T. T."

[52:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 640.

[57:A] Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, pp. 40-43.

[57:B] Sonnet 126. It should be observed, however, that Sonnet 145, though in alternate verse, and terminated by a couplet, is in the octo-syllabic measure.

[59:A] Preface to his revised and corrected edition of Shakspeare's Works, p. 7.

[60:A] See his "Queen's Arcadia."

[60:B] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 596.

[61:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 579.

[62:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 331, and vol. xii. p. 219.

[63:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 698.

[67:A] If we consult the context of this sonnet, and recollect that Shakspeare addresses in his own person, it will be sufficiently evident that _my lovers_ here can only mean _my friends_.

[73:A] That this series of sonnets, as well as the preceding, should be considered by Mr. Chalmers as addressed to Queen Elizabeth, is, indeed, of all conjectures, the most extraordinary!

[74:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 682.

[74:B] Ibid. p. 684.

[74:C] Ibid.

[75:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 684.

[75:B] Ibid. p. 685.

[75:C] Ibid.

[83:A] Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 748. note.

[85:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 30.

[85:B] British Bibliographer, No. XII. p. 16.

[86:A] That Shakspeare himself entertained a confident hope of the immortality of his minor poems, the following, out of many instances, will sufficiently prove:—

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Son. 18.

"Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young." Son. 19.

"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall out-live this powerful rhime." Son. 54.

"Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand." Son. 60.

——— "Confounding age ——— ——— shall never cut from memory My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green." Son. 63.

"When all the breathers of this world are dead; You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen), Where breath most breathes,—even in the mouths of men." Son. 81.