APPENDIX A.

CUPID'S BRAND: TWO ODD SONNETS.

THESE two fragments or exercises have no necessary relation to either of the series of sonnets written for the Earl of Southampton and William Herbert. I only include them in my work, for the sake of making my reprint of Shakspeare's Sonnets complete. These essays prove that the Poet had nothing to do with making up the collection for the Press. He would not have published a double treatment of one idea like this; it could have no meaning, save to show his cleverness. They, together with the 'Lover's Lament,' also prove that extraneous things were gathered into Thorpe's Book, by William Herbert.

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground,
Which borrowed from this holy fire of love
A dateless-lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure :
But at my Mistress' eyes Love's brand new-fired,
The Boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help o' the bath desired,
And thither hied a sad distempered guest,

But found no cure: The bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire-my Mistress' eyes.

(153.)

The little Love-God lying once asleep,

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste lives to keep, Came tripping by; but in her maiden-hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the General of hot desire

Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed:
This brand she quenchéd in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased: but I, my Mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove—
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

(154.)

APPENDIX B.

DRAYTON AND SHAKSPEARE.

It is understood that we have no contemporary notice of the sonnets in MS., other than that of Meres. I cannot, however, get rid of the idea that Drayton makes a remarkable allusion to them in some lines of his Epistle on Poets and Poesy.' He has spoken of Shakspeare by name as a Comedian in whom the player predominates; considers him as good a Poet in the smooth comic vein, as any that had trafficked with the stage in his time; reserving his fire for Marlowe and Ben Jonson.

on in the poem are these remarkable lines!

"For such whose poems be they ne'er so rare,
In private chambers that encloistered are,
And by transcription daintily must go
As tho' the world unworthy were to know
Their rich composures, let those men who keep
These wondrous relics in their judgement deep,
And cry them up so let such pieces be

Spoke of by those that shall come after me.'

Later

Questionless Shakspeare's sonnets were not the only poetry then handed about in MS. amongst private friends, and spoken of as being rich as it was rare. Still there is

something very special in this description. It does not apply to any known poetry of the kind, nor hit the exact circumstantial conditions, as it does to the sonnets of

Shakspeare. We have nothing of the sort identified as the sonnets are by the mention of Meres. In truth the lines seem to reply to Meres as consciously as does the title in Thorpe's Book. Here are the 'rare poems' for 'sugred sonnets,' the 'private chambers' for 'private friends,' the friends who keep the sonnets, for the friends among whom Shakspeare's sonnets are, and the men who cry up these relics in their judgement deep! The critic Meres for example. There is a feeling of annoyance expressed, a sneer at the poetry that is too rare for the common light of day, but must go daintily in delicate handwriting, be kept encloistered in a sumptuous privacy, read by the coloured light of friendship, and exalted so to those on the outside who are not permitted to judge if the report be true. All this is far too explicit to be general, and must have had a particular aim. It smacks of a personal pique. And the author of these lines, we infer, had some such feeling towards Shakspeare, or there was a coolness between them, from the fact that Drayton printed an eulogy of Shakspeare, as the Poet of Lucrece, in his Matilda the Fair and Chaste Daughter of Lord Robert Fitzwater,' which complimentary reference to

'Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long,
Lately revived to live another age !'

was allowed to stand in the second edition of the poem (1596), but was omitted from all subsequent editions. What was the cause we know not. It may be that the Poet was piqued at Shakspeare's not reciprocating his praise. Whatever it was, some slight ill-feeling underlay the act of Drayton, and if these lines do apply to Shakspeare's Sonnets the expression is most apposite under the

circumstances.

Mr. Collier states that the Epistle appeared in print for the first time in the year 1627, but that affords no clue to the date at which it was written. Drayton had been pub

DRAYTON'S SUPPOSED REFERENCE TO THEM IN MS. 573

lishing little; he did not print anything betwixt his 'Legend of Great Cromwell' (1607) and his 'Polyolbion (1613-22), as his poetry had no great success. It may be that the publication of the sonnets in 1609 was one cause why these lines were so long kept back. It was a private Epistle, and the great probability is that some lines of it, early written, were afterwards added to when the poem was published. I am unable to persuade myself that the lines quoted do not refer to Shakspeare's Sonnets in MS., or that they were not written during the earlier period of Shakspeare's career. Surely it would have been too absurd on the part of Michael Drayton, who had the Poet's rage but mildly, to have merely praised Shakspeare for his smooth comic vein' if the lines had been composed after 'Othello,' 'Lear,' and 'Macbeth' had been produced! Shakspeare unquestionably borrowed from Drayton's 'Nymphidia' to set forth his Queen Mab,' and enrich his fairy world of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Possibly Drayton resented this.

It has been held difficult to determine which was the borrower in another instance. In his poem of the 'Barons' Wars' (1603), Drayton has these lines

'Such one he was (of him we boldly say)

In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit,

In whom in peace the elements all lay

So mixt as none could sovereignty impute,

As all did govern yet all did obey:

His lively temper was so absolute,

That it seemed, when Heaven his model first began,

In him it showed perfection in a Man!'

Everyone remembers Antony's description of Brutus :—

This was the noblest Roman of them all!
His life was gentle and the elements

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world "This was a Man.”