"Thus hath my pen presumed to please my friend,
Oh might'st thou likewise please Apollo's eye;
No, honor brooks no such impietie,
Yet Ovids Wanton Muse did not offend,
He is the fountain whence my streams do flow,
Forgive me if I speak as I were taught."
In 1595 Gervase Markham, in a Sonnet prefixed to his poem on Richard Grenville's fight in the Revenge, addresses Southampton as:
"Thou glorious laurel of the Muses' hill,
Whose eyes doth crown the most victorious pen,
Bright lamp of virtue, in whose sacred skill
Lives all the bliss of ear-enchanting men."
The line italicised not only refers to Shakespeare but gives evidence also of the assured standing among poets which he had now attained in unbiased judgments.
In addition to these evidences of Southampton's bounty to Shakespeare at this time, we have the poet's own acknowledgment of the recent receipt of a valuable gift in the Lucrece dedication: "The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance."
In his Hymns to the Shadow of Night (1594) and its dedication, Chapman complains of his lack of patronage and refers to what he designates as Shakespeare's "idol atrous platts for riches."[27] In the body of the poem he writes:
"Wealth fawns on fools; virtues are meat for vices,
Wisdom conforms herself to all earth's guises,
Good gifts are often given to men past good
And noblesse stoops sometimes beneath his blood."
In view of the general knowledge of Southampton's bounty to Shakespeare at this time, and of the anti-Shakespearean intention which I have demonstrated in Chapman's poem, it is apparent that these lines refer to the nobleman's gift as well as to the intimacy between the peer and the player at this period.
In this same year (1594) the scholars devised a plan to disrupt the intimacy between Shakespeare and Southampton by producing and publishing a scandalous poem satirising their relations, entitled Willobie his Avisa, or the true picture of a modest maid and a chaste and constant wife. In this poem Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, is represented as "Henry Willobie a young man and a scholar of very good hope," while Shakespeare is indicated as "W.S.," an "old actor." "W.S." is depicted as aiding and abetting Henry Willobie in a love affair with Avisa, the wife of an Oxford tavern keeper who conducts a tavern described as follows:
"See yonder house where hangs the badge
Of England's saint when captains cry
Victorious land to conquering rage."