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verses prefixed in praise of the book, are some lines by R. Hat'way, whom Mr. Malone conjectures to have been the kinsman of Ann Hathaway, the wife of our immortal bard.

A small contribution of pieces by a few of the chief poets of the age, was in 1601 annexed to a production by Robert Chester, entitled, "Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Complaint, allegorically shadowing the Truth of Love in the constant fate of the Phoenix and Turtle. A poem, enterlaced with much varietie and raritie; now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato Cæliano, by Robert Chester. With the true legend of famous King Arthur, the last of the nine worthies; being the first Essay of a new British poet: collected out of authenticall records. To these are added some new compositions of several modern writers; whose names are subscribed to their severall workes; upon the first subject; viz. the Phoenix and Turtle."

These new compositions have the following second title immediately preceding them: "Hereafter follow diverse poetical essaies on the former subject; viz. the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest of our modern writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes. Never before extant. And now first consecrated by them all generally to the love and merit of the truly noble Knight, Sir John Salisburie."

The only known copy of this collection was in Major Pierson's possession, and it is solely from Mr. Malone, to whom we are indebted for the above titles, that we learn the names of the principal contributors; these are Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Marston, and Chapman. Shakspeare's contribution forms the twentieth poem in "The passionate Pilgrim," commencing

"Let the bird of loudest lay," &c.

A miscellany upon a more extensive scale than the preceding, and of great value for the taste exhibited in its selection, succeeded in 1602, under the appellation of "A Poetical Rapsodie; containing diverse Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, Epigrams, Pastorals, Eglogues, with other Poems, both in Rime and Measured Verse. For varietie and pleasure, the like never yet published. London. 12mo."

The editor and principal contributor was Francis Davison, a poet of no mean talents, and son of that Secretary of State, who experienced in so remarkable a degree the duplicity of Elizabeth, in relation to Mary Queen of Scots. In an Address to the Reader, he thus accounts for the form which the volume assumes:

"Being induced by some private reasons, and by the instant entreaty of speciall friends, to suffer some of my worthlesse poems to be published, I desired to make some written by my deere friends Anonymoi, and my deerer Brother, to beare them company: both, without their consent; the latter being in the low-country warres, and the rest utterly ignorant thereof. My friends names I concealed; mine owne and my brother's I willed the printer to suppresse, as well as I had concealed the other, which he having put in without my privity, we must now undergo a sharper censure perhaps than our namelesse workes should have done; and 1 especially. For if their poems be liked, the praise is due to their invention; if disliked, the blame both by them and all men will be derived upon me, for publishing that which they meant to suppresse."

He then enters upon a defence of poetry, experience proving, he remarks, by examples of many, both dead and living, that divers delighted and excelling herein, being princes or statesmen, have gouerned and counselted as wisely; being souldiers, have commanded armies as fortunately; being lawyers, have pleaded as judicially and eloquently; being divines, have written and taught as profoundly; and being of any other profession, have discharged it as sufficiently, as any other men whatsoever;" and concludes by alleging, as an excuse "for the se poems in particular, that those under the name of Anonymos were written (as appeareth by divers things to Sir Philip Sidney living, ¡and of him dead) almost twenty years since, when poetry was farre from that perfection to which it hath now attained: that my brother is by profession a souldier, and was not eighteen years old when he writ these toys that mine owne were made most of them sixe or seven yeares since, at idle times as I journeyed up and downe during my travails."

The division of the "Rapsodie" more peculiarly occupied by these kindred bards, is that including "Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, and Epigrams, by Francis and Walter Davison, brethren;" and they were assisted in that, and the residue of the work, by Spenser, Sidney, Sir John Davis, Mary Countess of Pembroke, Thomas Campion, Thomas Watson, Charles Best, Thomas Spelman, and by others, whose initials are supposed to indicate Henry Constable, Walter Raleigh, Henry Wotton, Robert Greene, Andrew Willet, and Joshua Sylvester.* The Poetical Rapsodie" is dedicated by Davison in a sonnet, "To the most noble, honorable, and worthy Lord William Earl of Pembroke, Lord Herbert of Cardiffe, Marmion, and St. Quintine," and was successively republished with augmentations in 1608, 1611, and 1621. It may be said to present us, not only with a felicitous choice of topics, but it claims the merit of having preserved several valuable poems not elsewhere to be discovered, and which, owing to the rarity of the book, although four times subjected to the press, have not, until lately, attracted the notice that is due to them.

Independent of the ten miscellanies which we have now enumerated, an immense multitude of Airs, Madrigals, and Songs, set to music, and printed in Parts, were published during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, and during the reign of James the First. These Collections contain a variety of lyric poems not elsewhere to be met with, and which were either written expressly for the Composers, or selected by the latter from manuscripts, or rare and insulated printed copies. Foremost among these Professors of Music, who thus indirectly contributed to enrich the stores of English Poetry, stands William Byrd. This celebrated composer's first printed work in English was licensed in 1587, and has the following title:-"Tenor. Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of sadnes and pietie, made into musicke of five parts: whereof, some of them going a broad among divers, in untrue coppies, are heere truely corrected, and the other being Songs very rare and newly composed, are heere published, for the recreation of all such as delight in Musicke. By William Byrd, one of the Gent. of the Queene's Maiesties Royall Chappell." 4to.

The volume is dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton; and he tells his reader, in an epistle subscribed the most assured friend to all that love or learne musicke, William Byrd,-"heere is offered unto thy courteous acceptation, musicke of sundrie sorts, and to content divers humors. If thou be disposed to pray, heere are psalmes. If to bee merrie, here are sonets. If to lament for thy sins, heere are songs of sadnesse and pietie. If thou delight in musicke of great compasse, here are divers songs, which being originally made for instruments to express the harmony, and one voice to pronounce the dittie, are now framed in all parts for voyces to sing the same. If thou desire songs of smal compasse and fit for the reach of most voyces, heere are most in number of that sort.'

Next to Byrd, whose publications of this kind are numerous, we may mention Thomas Morley, no less remarkable for his skill in music, and for his fertility in the production of madrigals, ballets, and canzonets. How fashionable and universal had become the practice of singing these compositions at every party of amusement, may be drawn from one of the elementary works of this writer:Being at a banquet," he relates, "supper being ended, and music books brought to table, the mistress of the house, according to custom, presented me with a part, earnestly intreating me to sing; when, after many excuses, I protested unfeignedly that I could not, every one began to wonder, yea, some whispered to others demanding how I was brought up."+

66

Of the various collections of lyric poetry adapted to music and published by Morley, who died about the period of the accession of James the First, we shall notice two; one as indicatory of the manners of the age, and the other of the

See Censura Literaria, vol. i. p. 229.

+ Vide Morley's Plaine and casie Introduction to Practical Musick

estimation in which the science was held by our composer, who seems, on this occasion, to have partaken the enthusiasm of Shakspeare; for in a dedication "To the Worshipfull Sir Gervis Clifton, Knight," prefixed to "Madrigals to five voyces. Selected out of the best approved Italian authors. By Thomas Morley, Gentleman of his Maiesties Royall Chapell, 1598," he tells his worthy patron, "I ever held this sentence of the poet, as a canon of my creede; "That whom God loveth not, they love not Musique.' For as the art of Musique is one of the most Heavenly gifts, so the very love of Musique (without art) is one of the best engrafted testimonies of Heavens love towards us."

In 1601, Morley published in quarto, "Cantus Madrigales. The triumphes of Oriana, to 5 and 6 voices: composed by divers severall aucthors,"-a collection remarkable for its object, as it consisted of twenty-five songs, composed by twenty-four several musicians, for the express purpose of commemorating the beauty and virginity of Elizabeth, under the appellation of Oriana, and who was now in the sixty-eighth year of her age, one among innumerable proofs of the extreme vanity of this singular woman.

That a great portion of these musical miscellanies consisted of translations from the Italian, is evident from the publications of Byrd and Morley, and from the "Musica Transalpina" of Nicholas Yonge, printed in two parts, in the year 1588 and 1597, where, however, equal industry appears to have been exerted in collecting English songs; the dedication, indeed, points out very distinctly the sources whence these popular works were derived. "I endeavoured," says Yonge, "to get into my hands all such English songes as were praise worthie, aud amongst others I had the hap to find in the hands of some of my good friends certain Italian Madrigales translated most of them five years ago by a gentleman for his private delight." The two parts of Musica Transalpina contain eighty-one

songs.

It seems probable, indeed, from Orlando Gibbons's dedication of his "First set of Madrigals and Mottets" to Sir Christopher Hatton, dated 1612, that the courtiers of that period sometimes employed themselves in writing lyrics for their domestic Lutenists; for Orlando tells his lord,-"They were most of them composed in your own house, and do therefore properly belong unto you as lord of the soil; the language they speak you provided them; I only furnished them with tongues to utter the same." It may be, however, that Sir Christopher was only a selector of poetry for the lyre of Gibbons.

To enumerate the multitude of music-stricken individuals, who, during this period, were occupied in procuring and collecting lyric poetry for professional purposes, would fill a volume. Among the most indefatigable, may be mentioned John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, John Dowland and Robert Jones; "The Musicall Dream," 1609, and "The Muse's Gardin of Delights," 1610, by the last of these gentlemen, were held in great esteem.

We cannot close this subject, indeed, without acknowledging our obligations. to this numerous class for the preservation of many most beautiful specimens of lyric poetry, which, it is highly probable, without their care and accompaniments, would either not have existed, or would have perished prematurely.*

As a further elucidation of the Poetical Literature of this period, and with the view of condensing its retrospect, by an arrangement under general heads, it may prove satisfactory, if we briefly throw into classes the names of those poets who may be considered as having given ornament or extension to their art. The following divisions, it is expected, will include all that, in this place, it can now be necessary to notice.

⚫ For specimens of these interestiag collections. I refer my reader to Censura Literaria, vol. ix. p. 1. et seq.; vol. x. p. 179, 294; and to the British Bibliographer, No. IV. p. 343; No. V. p. 563; No. VI. p. 59; No. IX p. 427; No. XI. p. 652; No. XII. p. 48; and No. XV. p. 386.

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We have thus, in as short a compass as the nature of the subject would admit, given, we trust, a more accurate view of the Shakspearean era, as it existed independent of the Drama, than has hitherto been attempted.

That Shakspeare was an assiduous reader of English Poetry; that he studied with peculiar interest and attention his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, there is abundant reason to conclude from a careful perusal of his volume of miscellaneous poetry, which is modelled on a strict adherence to the taste which prevailed at the opening of his career. The collection, indeed, may, with no impropriety, be classed under the two divisions of Historic and Lyric poetry; the former concluding "Venus and Adonis," and the "Rape of Lucrece," and the latter the "Sonets," the "Passionate Pilgrim," and the "Lover's Complaint."

The great models of Historic poetry, during the prior portion of Shakspeare's life, were the Mirrour for Magistrates" and "Warner's Albion's England;" but for the mythological story of Venus and Adonis, though deviating in several important circumstances from its prototype, we are probably indebted to Golding's Ovid; and for the Rape of Lucrece and the structure of the stanza in which it is composed, to the reputation and the metre of the "Rosamond" of Daniel, printed in 1592. For the Sonnets, he had numerous examples in the productions of Spenser, Sidney, Watson, and Constable; and, through the wide field of amatory lyric composition, excellence of almost every kind, in the form of ode, madrigal, and song, might be traced in the varied effusions of Gascoigne, Greene and Raleigh, Breton and Lodge.

How far our great bard exceeded, or fell beneath, the models which he possessed; in what degree he was independent of their influence, and to what portion of estimation his miscellaneous poetry is justly entitled, will be the subjects of the next chapter, in which we shall venture to assign to these efforts of his early days a higher rank in the scale of excellence than it has hitherto been their fate to obtain.

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 assu→ rance 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."

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,* dedicated his Venus and Adonis, "the first heire of his invention."

The language of his 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,

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* 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.

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