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"A Lover's Complaint." This "Complaint " was first printed in 1609, at the end of the volume of " Sonnets."

In all probability the poem belongs to about the same period as "The Rape of Lucrece"; it is written in the same metre. Francis Meres may possibly have included it in his suggestive “et cetera," when he enumerated the poems of "mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." The framework of "A Lover's Complaint," its picturesqueness, versification, diction, repression, tenderness, and beauty, give to it a thoroughly Spenserian character, and convey the impression that we have here an early exercise in the Spenserian style; as such the poem links itself ultimately to the exquisite "Complaints" of Spenser's great master, Geoffrey Chaucer, with their ruthful burden :-" Pitë is dede and buried in gentil herte.” *

The Phoenix and the Turtle. This poem first appeared in a collection published by Robert Chester in 1601, under the following descriptive title :

void of merit. In 1595 the following words are found in the margin of a curious volume, entitled Polimanteia, published at Cambridge:-"All praise worthy Lucrecia Sweet Shakspeare."

Sir John Suckling's "supplement of an imperfect Copy of Verses of Mr. Wil. Shakespears appears at first sight to commence with two six-line stanzas, representing a different and perhaps earlier recension of Lucrece, but this is doubtful, and in all probability the alterations were Sir John Suckling's, the verses being derived from one of the books of Elegant Extracts, e.g. 'England's Parnassus.”

"

* Spenser's volume entitled "Complaints: containing Sundry Small Poems of the World's Vanity," was published in 1591:cp. the following opening lines of "The Ruins of Time" with "A Lover's Complaint" :—

"A woman sitting sorrowfully wailing,

Rending her yellow locks like wiry gold,

About her shoulders carelessly down trailing,

And streams of tears from her fair eyes forth railing;

In her right hand a broken rod she held,

Which towards heaven she seemed on high to weld."

"Love's Martyr; or, Rosalin's Complaint. Allegorically shadowing the truth of Love in the constant Fate of the Phoenix and Turtle. A Poem enterlaced with much varietie and raritie; now first translated out of the venerable Italian Torquato Caliano, by Robert Chester. With the true legend of famous King Arthur, the last of the nine Worthies, being the first essay of a new British poet; collected out of diverse authentical Records. To these are added some new compositions, of several modern writers whose names are subscribed to their several works, upon the first subject: viz., the Phoenix and Turtle."

The following title prefaces these new compositions :"HEREAFTER | FOLLOW DIVERSE | Poeticall Essaies on the former sub- ject; viz. the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest of our moderne writers with their names sub- | scribed to their particular works: | never before extant: | And (now first) consecrated by them all generally, to the love and merit of the truenoble Knight, | Sir John Salisburie. | Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori, MDCI."

The genuineness of the contribution with Shakespeare's name subscribed is now generally admitted, though no successful attempt has yet been made to explain the allegory, nor is any light thrown upon it by the other poems in the collection; among the contributors, in addition to Shakespeare, were Jonson, Chapman, and Marston. In all probability the occasion and subject of the whole collection, which has so long baffled patient research, will some day be discovered, and Shakespeare's meaning will be clear. It would seem from the title-page that the private family history of Sir John Salisbury ought to yield the necessary clue to the events. There is not much to be said in favour of the view that the Phoenix shadows forth Queen Elizabeth, and the Turtle-dove typifies "the brilliant but impetuous, the greatly dowered but rash, the illustrious but unhappy Robert Devereux, second Earl of

Essex." * On the other hand, the problem is not settled by describing the allegory as "the delineation of spiritual union," and refusing to recognize the personal allegory.t

Emerson's words, uttered some twenty years ago, may well bear repetition:-" I should like to have the Academy of Letters propose a prize for an essay on Shakespeare's poem, Let the bird of loudest lay, and the Threnos with which it closes, the aim of the essay being to explain, by a historical research into the poetic myths and tendencies of the age in which it was written, the frame and allusions of the poem."

"Now pield pour aids,

light my weaker epe, That whilst of this same Metaphysical,

God, man, nor woman, but elix'd of all,

My labouring thoughts with stramed ardour sing,
My muse may mount with an uncommon wing.”

*Cp. Dr. Grosart's edition of Love's Martyr (New Shak. Soc. 1878); vide also the same scholar's remarks in his privately printed scarce Elizabethan books, Manchester, 1880, etc.; cp. Transactions of New Shak. Soc.

+ Cp. Halliwell-Phillipps' Outlines, vol. i. 191. Preface to Parnassus, 1875.

To the

RIGHT HONOURABLE, HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, Earle of Southhampton, and Baron of Titchfield.

HE loue I dedicate to your Lordship is without

THE

end: whereof this Pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous Moity. The warrant I baue of your Honourable disposition, not the worth of my vntutord Lines makes it assured of acceptance. What I haue done is yours, what I haue to doe is yours, being part in all I haue, deuoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew greater, meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship ; To whom I wish long life still lengthned with all bappinesse.

Your Lordships in all duety.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE ARGUMENT.

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius

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