And thou, treble-dated crow, Here the anthem doth commence So ther lored, as lore in twain Hearts remote, yet not asunder; So between them lore did shine, i Can, knows. Property was thus appalled, Reason, in itself confounded, That it cried how true a twain Whereupon it made this threne? THRENOS. Beauty, truth, and rarity, Death is now the phenix' nest; Leaving no posterity: 1 Threne, funereal song. Truth may seem, but cannot be ; To this urn let those repair ILLUSTRATIONS OP A LOVER’S COMPLAINT, THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM, &c. A Lover's COMPLAINT was first printed with the Sonnets in 1609. It was reprinted in 1640, in that collection called Shaks. peare's Poems, in which the original order of the Sonnets was entirely disregarded, some were omitted, and this poem was thrust in amidst translations from Ovid which had been previously claimed by another writer. Of these we shall have presently to speak. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of A Lover's Complaint. It is distinguished by that condensation of thought and outpouring of imagery which are the characteristics of Shakspeare's poems. The effect consequent upon these qualities is, that the language is sometimes obscure, and the metaphors occasionally appear strango and forced. It is very different from any production of Shakspeare's contemporaries. As in the case of the Venus and Adonis, and the Lucrece, we feel that the power of the writer is in perfect subjcction to his art. He is never carried away by the force of his own conceptions. We mention these attributes merely with reference to the undoubted character of the poem as belonging to the Shakspearian system : we shall have occasion to notice it again. The PASSIONATE Pilgrim was originally published in 1599, by William Jaggard, with the name of Shakspeare on the title-page. A reprint, with some additions and alterations of arrangement, appeared in 1612, bearing the following title : “ The Passionate Pilgrime, or certaine amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis, newly corrected and augmented. By W. Shakspeare. The third Edition. Whereunto is newly added two Love-Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's Answere backe again to Paris. Printed by W. Jaggard, 1612.” The second edition was in all probability, a mere reprint of the first edition ; but in the third edition there are, as the title-page implies, important alterations. There is one alteration which is not expressed in the title page. A distinction is established in the character of the poems by classifying six of them under a second title-page, “Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musick.” This distinction we have preserved. There can be no doubt, we apprehend, that the " newly added two Love-Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's Answere backe again to Paris,” were not written by Shakspeare. There is the best evidence that they were written by Thomas Heywood. In 1609 that writer published a folio volume of considerable pretension, entitled " Troia Britanica, or Great Britaine's Troy." In this volume appear the two translations from Ovid which William Jaggard published as Shakspeare's in 1612. Heywood in that year published a treatise entitled “ An Apology for Actors ;” to which is prefixed an epistle to his bookseller, Nicholas Okes. The letter is a curious morsel in literary history : – “ To my approved good friend, Mr. Nicholas Okes. “ The infinite faults escaped in my book of Britain's Troy, by the negligence of the printer, as the misquotations, mistaking of syllables, misplacing half-lines, coining of strange and never-heardof words : these being without number, when I would have taken a particular account of the errata, the printer answered me, he would not publish his own disworkmanship, but rather let his own fault lie upon the neck of the author : and being fearful that others of his quality had been of the same nature and condition, and finding you, on the contrary, so careful and industrious, so serious and la. borious, to do the author all the rights of the press, I could not choose but gratulate your honest endeavors with this short remembrance. Here, likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest injury done me in that work, by taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a less volume. |