Describe Adonis,[37] and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you!—S. 51.
The work on the poem checked the supply of Sonnets. Through the next year it developed, a joy apart from the strains of the miserable time. It was a year quite black enough to colour all poor grumbling Greene’s bitter spite against the “Johannes Factotum,” who could both act and redact plays; a year gloomy enough to tone the picture of the reverse poem which came insistently into Shakespeare’s brain to complete his “Venus” conception. For he began to take two sides to paint his pictures even then, as he always afterwards did.
Another separation had taken place. In the autumn of 1592 Southampton was in the Queen’s train at Oxford, acknowledged by all to be the brightest ornament of her Court. Probably by the end of 1592 Shakespeare sent him the completed manuscript of his poem, with the private dedication of the 26th Sonnet, before he began to arrange about the publication of his “written ambassage,” bidding him keep it
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:—S. 26.
that is by having it printed and bound.[38] By 18th April 1593 the Archbishop of Canterbury had licensed it, and Richard Field had entered it as his copy in the Stationers’ Registers. A more timid prose dedication faced the critical world. The poet would not shame his friend, nor commit him to anything, until he knew how the public would receive him. Then came a surprise doubtless to both of them, and certainly to others. Adonis leaped at once into popularity! I noted that before he had completed his first Essay of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesy, Shakespeare had sketched the outline of the “graver labour,” alluded to in the Preface to his “Venus and Adonis.” Some of the later Sonnets seem to be studies for Tarquin, as some of the earlier had been studies for Adonis. It is worth considering Sonnet 129 in this light.
The Sonnets had been affected by the appearance of “Astrophel and Stella” in 1591, and the author was probably incited by the appearance of Daniel’s “Delia” and Constable’s “Diana” in 1592 to new variations.