142
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. AUG. 22, im.
edition of this work was published at some
time or other of which no copy is extant
and in 1612 a third edition still bearing the
name of Shakespeare wherein, according to
Mr. Sidney Lee, "the incorrigible Jaggard
[one of the sponsors for the First FolioJ
had added two new poems which he silently
filched from Thomas Heywood." Heywood
brought Jaggard and Shakespeare to book
for the offence, and Shakespeare's name was
removed "from the title-page of a few
copies " (S. Lee). There were twenty sonnets
in the volume, only five of them by Shake-
speare, who took credit, however, for the lot
for thirteen years till Heywood protested
against the theft ; so that it may be assumed
that if Heywood had not protested, there
would have been no disclaimer from Shake-
speare, and to this day the volume would
have been acknowledged as solely the work
of Shakespeare.
Is it not possible that the so-called Shake- speare Sonnets should be placed in the same category, as a collection of verses by various hands, especially when we consider- that they do not fit into the life of any single man of the Elizabethan era 1 ? not even Bacon, pace Mr. Begley.
I was recently reading in Arber's 'English Garner' Barnabe Barnes's series of sonnets entitled * Parthenophil and Parthenophe,' re- printed from the unique copy of the work in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, and was struck with the extraordinary re- semblance of many of the sonnets to those ascribed to Shakespeare, both in words and in ideas. Mr. Sidney Lee suggests that Bar- nabe may have been the " rival " poet referred to in the eighty-sixth Sonnet. Nash, Mark- ham, Chapman, and Barnes were all striving for the patronage of Southampton, who was one of the dedicatees of Barnes's ' Partheno- phil ' in 1593, in which appeared the tho- roughly Shakespearean sonnet commencing Ah, sweet content, where is thy mild abode ?
In the same year appeared 'Venus and Adonis,' dedicated to Southampton, to whom was also inscribed in the following year 'Lucrece.' The four poets were fairly cut out, and retired from the field so far as the struggle for Southampton's patronage was concerned. Barnes resented the treatment he had received, and next appeared on the scene with his 'Spiritual Sonnets,' dedicated to Bacon's friend Sir Tobie Matthew, in which he says :
No more lewde laies of lighter loves I sing, Nor teach my lustfull Muse abus'de to Hie With span-owes plumes, and for companion aie
To mortall beauties, which no succour bring.
Barnes's "lewde laies" had not attracted I
Southampton, as Shakespeare's ' Venus and
Adonis ' and ' Lucrece ' apparently had done.
Is it not likely that, in this spirit and with i
this rebuff, Barnes addressed Shakespeare in i
the language of the eighty-sixth Sonnet :
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors, of my silence cannot boast ;
I was not sick of any fear from thence ;
But when your countenance, fill'd up his line,
Then lack'd I matter ; that enfeebled mine.
We have Barnes writing to Southampton : Receive, sweet Lord ! with thy thrice-sacred hand (Which sacred Muses make their instrument) These worthless leaves which I to thee present (Sprung from a rude and unmanured land), That with your countenance graced, they may with- stand Hundred-eyed Envy's rough encounterment.
This reads very like the dedications of ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' Lucrece.' Then we have in Shakespeare's 'Lucrece':
Look as the full-fed hound or gorged haivk, and in Barnes :
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
Then in the Sonnets we read : Distill 'd from limbecks foul as hell within, and in Barnes : From my love's limbeck still distilled tears.
In the Sonnets Shakespeare says that Southampton's 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.
Barnes thus addresses Southampton : Vouchsafe, right virtuous Lord, with gracious eyes, Those heavenly lamps which give the Muses
light,
Which give and take, in course, that holy fire, To view my Muse with your judicial sight; Whom, when time shall have taught by flight
to rise, Shall to thy virtues, of much worth, aspire.
In the Sonnets we read :
My saucy bark inferior far to his
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat. And in Barnes :
My fancy's ship, tossed here and there by these.
Still floats, in danger ranging to and fro.
How fears my thoughts' safe pinnace thine hard rock !
