The old system of “flashing” was probably the method used in those days at the locks mentioned as dangerous. The chamber-lock is said to have been invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1497, but there is no clear notice of the date of its introduction into English rivers. The beautiful mechanical invention of working the sluices lately placed at Richmond Lock opens a new era in the river navigation, and under the Thames Conservators the dangers of the water are reduced to a minimum. But we must not forget that, but for the outlet of the railway and the high-road, and the relief of the heavy traffic carried thereon, this waterway would present a very different aspect to-day from that which so often soothes the worried, rests the weary, and calms the troubled soul.
“The Field,” 9th February 1895.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] I reproduced the whole of Bishop’s poem at the end of the fourth volume of Harrison’s “England,” edited by Dr. Furnivall.
XV
THE FRIENDS IN SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS
I take it, until proof yields a better date, that Shakespeare came to London in 1587. We know nothing definitely about him, until 1592, when Greene’s address to his fellow actors makes it clear that some time before that date he must have turned to the stage as a profession, and must have achieved some degree of success, for Greene bitterly describes him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a countrie.”[31]
When Shakespeare had come to London he had found theatres built, players performing, and dramatists writing for them, Lyly, Peele, Lodge, Greene, and Marlowe, who, had Shakespeare never come, would have been the greatest of all. But Shakespeare did come, and developed the perfect flower and fruit of the English Romantic Drama.
This remark would have been irrelevant to the subject in hand, but that I hold that the poet bore the same relation to the sonnet that he did to the Drama.
The Sonnet was not, as the Drama was, of native growth; it had been imported from Italy early in the century by the Earl of Surrey and his friend, Sir Thomas Wyat. They did not closely adhere to their Italian models, but varied them somewhat to suit the English language and taste. They had a group of courtly imitators, and various miscellanies appeared of verses, often but loosely called “sonnets,” poems written to be said or sung, which we now would rather call lyrics.
There were “The Court of Venus,”[32] much reprobated by serious writers, no copy of which has come down to us, “The Newe Court of Venus,”[32] which seems to have been an attempt to improve the old songs in tone, while adhering to their form, some of the verses having been written by Sir Thomas Wyat himself; “The Book of Songs and Sonnets,” 1557, or “Tottell’s Miscellany,” a collection chiefly of poems written by Wyat and Surrey, but also including some of the works of their imitators. We know that Shakespeare had read this volume, because he gave a copy to Slender (“Merry Wives,” i, 1).