The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3484]
My case is this. I love Zepheria bright,
Of her I hold my heart by fealty:
Which I discharge to her perpetually,
Yet she thereof will never me acquit[e].
For, now supposing I withhold her right,
She hath distrained my heart to satisfy
The duty which I never did deny,
And far away impounds it with despite.
I labour therefore justly to repleave [i.e. recover]
My heart which she unjustly doth impound.
But quick conceit which now is Love’s high shreive
Returns it as esloyned [i.e. absconded], not to be found.
Then what the law affords I only crave,
Her heart for mine, in wit her name to have (sic).
Linche’s ‘Diella,’ 1596.
‘R. L., gentleman,’ probably Richard Linche, published in 1596 thirty-nine sonnets under the title ‘Diella.’ The effort is thoroughly conventional. In an obsequious address by the publisher, Henry Olney, to Anne, wife of Sir Henry Glenham, Linche’s sonnets are described as ‘passionate’ and as ‘conceived in the brain of a gallant gentleman.’
Griffin’s ‘Fidessa,’ 1596. Thomas Campion, 1596.
To the same year belongs Bartholomew Griffin’s ‘Fidessa,’ sixty-two sonnets inscribed to ‘William Essex, Esq.’ Griffin designates his sonnets as ‘the first fruits of a young beginner.’ He is a shameless plagiarist. Daniel is his chief model, but he also imitated Sidney, Watson, Constable, and Drayton. Sonnet iii., beginning ‘Venus and young Adonis sitting by her,’ is almost identical with the fourth poem—a sonnet beginning ‘Sweet Cytheræa, sitting by a brook’—in Jaggard’s piratical miscellany, ‘The Passionate Pilgrim,’ which bore Shakespeare’s name on the title-page. Jaggard doubtless stole the poem from Griffin, although it may be in its essentials the property of some other poet. Three beautiful love-sonnets by Thomas Campion, which are found in the Harleian MS. 6910, are there dated 1596.
William Smith’s ‘Chloris,’ 1596.
William Smith was the author of ‘Chloris,’ a third collection of sonnets appearing in 1596. The volume contains forty-eight sonnets of love of the ordinary type, with three adulating Spenser; of these, two open the volume and one concludes it. Smith says that his sonnets were ‘the budding springs of his study.’ In 1600 a license was issued by the Stationers’ Company for the issue of ‘Amours’ by W. S. This no doubt refers to a second collection of sonnets by William Smith. The projected volume is not extant.
Robert Tofte’s ‘Laura,’ 1597.
In 1597 there came out a similar volume by Robert Tofte, entitled ‘Laura, the Joys of a Traveller, or the Feast of Fancy.’ The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of forty ‘sonnets’ in irregular metres. There is a prose dedication to Lucy, sister of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland. Tofte tells his patroness that most of his ‘toys’ ‘were conceived in Italy.’ As its name implies, his work is a pale reflection of Petrarch. A postscript by a friend—‘R. B.’—complains that a publisher had intermingled with Tofte’s genuine efforts ‘more than thirty sonnets not his.’ But the style is throughout so uniformly tame that it is not possible to distinguish the work of a second hand.
Sir William Alexander’s ‘Aurora.’
To the same era belongs Sir William Alexander’s ‘Aurora,’ a collection of a hundred and six sonnets, with a few songs and elegies interspersed on French patterns. Sir William describes the work as ‘the first fancies of his youth,’ and formally inscribes it to Agnes, Countess of Argyle. It was not published till 1604.
Sir Fulke Greville’s ‘Cælica.’
Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, the intimate friend of Sir Philip Sidney, was author of a like collection of sonnets called ‘Cælica.’ The poems number a hundred and nine, but few are in strict sonnet metre. Only a small proportion profess to be addressed to the poet’s fictitious mistress,