to march in better equipped ranks can scarcely seem altogether suitable. There is here a remarkable combination of metaphors. But some facts in relation to a work of Marston's furnish a pretty complete explanation. In 1598 Marston published anonymously his Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres. Marston seems to have thought that Pigmalion's Image and the Satyres needed a connecting or harmonising link, lest he should seem to change his "hew like a camelion." He, therefore, interposed some lines said to be "in praise of his Pigmalion," but looking back to some extent to the one poem, and forward to the others. In this interposed poem Marston speaks of his "Stanzaes like odd bands Of voluntaries and mercenarians: There is no great difficulty in perceiving that we have here in all probability the source of Shakespeare's line, "To march in ranks of better equipage." The analogy is too close to be easily explained away. But, it may be said, is it not possible that Marston borrowed from Shakespeare? To this question the answer must be given, that the congruity which, as already observed, is absent in Shakespeare, is clearly seen in Marston. It is entirely suitable that "soldados" or soldiers should "march" richly bedecked with military accoutrements. It may be maintained, therefore, with confidence, that Marston's poem preceded Shakespeare's. Then, as to what Shakespeare says of "the bettering of the time," and of his being in the future "outstripp'd by every pen," it should be observed that, in accordance with the view of Dr. Grosart (Introduction to Marston's Poems, p. xxvi.), the Pigmalion owed its origin to Shakespeare's successful Venus and Adonis. It need not be for a moment supposed that Shakespeare really thought Marston's poem superior to his own; but it is likely enough that there were those who, for reasons of their own, would give it the preference, and would proclaim the advent of a new poet whose "first bloomes of his poesie" showed that he was destined to surpass Shakespeare and the rest. As Dr. Grosart points out, Marston's book seems to have gained immediate popularity. He adduces as evidence the fact that while the Pigmalion was entered in the Stationers' Register on May 27, 1598, so soon after as September 8, is found the entry of Marston's Scourge of Vilany. Possibly, too, Shakespeare's friend, caught by the general popularity, had been eulogising the new poem as of very high promise. On this view the language of the 32nd Sonnet presents no difficulty, while the agreement with the chronology supported by other evidence is complete. According to this chronology, Sonnet 32 would be written in 1598, probably during the summer, when Marston's poem was at the full height of its popularity. § 2. Drayton's "Idea."-With regard to the chronological question, the relations with Shakespeare of another contemporary poet are also of some importance, and therefore they may be suitably referred to here. In 1594 Michael Drayton published a small volume of Sonnets with the title Ideas Mirrour. In these poems he is alleged to have celebrated an early attachment to a lady who lived by the river Ankor or Anker, in North Warwickshire, and whom he designated by the poetical name of "Idea:" "Ardens sweet Ankor, let thy glory be That fayre Idea she doth liue by thee" (Amour 24). This collection of Sonnets, which, in successive editions, underwent very considerable alterations, cannot be said to present in its original form any strong resemblances to Shakespeare's work. Taken altogether, these fifty-one Sonnets must be characterised as un-Shakespearian. But in 1599 Drayton published another edition entitled Idea; and to this edition he appended his England's Heroicall Epistles.1 The number of Sonnets was increased to fiftynine, and there are several which, on account of resemblances in language or thought, will readily arrest the attention of a reader familiar with Shakespeare's Sonnets. In order to form a just conclusion as to whether these resemblances were caused by Drayton's having read some of Shakespeare's Sonnets, it is important to bear in mind not only the fact of the change, to which I have adverted, but also the time at which it occurred. There is an instance of similarity to which more than once attention has been directed. In the 1599 edition of Drayton's Idea, the number of the Sonnet alluded to is 22 (subsequently 20): "An euill spirit your beauty haunts me still, And hastes me on vnto a suddaine death; Now tempting me, to drowne my selfe in teares, Thus am I still prouok'd to euery euill By this good wicked spirit, sweet Angel deuill." A comparison of this Sonnet with Shakespeare's Sonnet 144 can scarcely make it other than probable that the resemblance is not accidental. But as Sonnet 144 was contained in the Passionate Pilgrim (1599), it might seem possible that Drayton had seen it in this collection, and that he imitated it later in the same year in the Sonnet given above. We should not, therefore, have made much 1 I ought perhaps to say that I am not now concerned with Drayton's Idea, The Shepheards Garland, Fashioned in Nine Eglogs, 1593. advance by this comparison with respect to the chronology of the Sonnets. But there are other similarities with regard to which an explanation such as that just given is in no way possible. Take for example lines 7-14 of 33 (as altered in 1599): these must be compared with Shakespeare's 46th and 47th Sonnets, which did not make their appearance in print till 1609. "To Imagination. Sonet 33. "Whilst yet mine eyes doe surfet with delight As couetous the others vse to haue; But finding reason still the same denies, That since each other yet they cannot bee, That eyes could thinke, or that my hart could see." Drayton's Sonnet 29, To the Senses, should be compared with Shakespeare's 141. But to quote only one other Sonnet from Drayton (43 in 1599 edition, afterwards 44), in this may be found resemblances to Shakespeare which are very important:— "Whilst thus my penne striues to eternize thee, Is modeld out the world of my disgrace, Proudly thou scorn'st my world outwearing rimes, We notice, first, that Drayton, though only some thirty-six years of age, speaks of himself, like Shakespeare, as already aged. Age, with its wrinkles, is ruling lines on his facea mode of expression easy to be paralleled from Shakespeare (cf. 2, 19, 62, 73). Drayton, however, speaks somewhat inconsistently of his youth as "untimely perishing." 2 As to "dispight of tyrannising times" and the person celebrated in his verse being "made young again," 19 (Shaks.) may be compared :— "Yet do thy worst, old Time, despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young." Like Shakespeare (55 al.), Drayton in 1599 anticipates eternal renown; and it is worth noting that, in the previous year (1598) he had been placed among the poets for whom this had been predicted by Meres, Drayton's name standing next before Shakespeare's (p. 19). But perhaps most remarkable of all is what Drayton says of his "better part being preserved, "entomb'd” in his verse. The reader of Shakespeare may at once recall what is said in 74 of the poet's friend perusing, after Shakespeare's death, the verses which the poet had dedicated to him :— and 81, "When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee. "When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie, The evidence is not yet exhausted; but enough has been said to show the probability that, before the issue of his 1 A fact to which, if I recollect rightly, my attention was directed by Mr. P. Z. Round. 2 Though the explanation may possibly be given that he felt himself to be "ageing" prematurely. |