The two celebrated scenes in which the dead body of the murdered Duke of Gloster is placed before us, with such precision of horror, minutely appalling, and of the raving despair of Cardinal Beaufort so awfully depicted by his death, “making no sign,” are splendours whose igniting sparks flew out of the ashes of old plays, one of King John, and the other of The Contentions of the Two Houses, and of the chronicles. But still these sublime descriptions and these fearful images are the inspirations of Shakespeare; their truth of nature, and the completeness of the purpose of the poet, the bare originals could not impart.
These ascertained evidences may suffice—it would be tedious to proceed with their abundance—of the studiousness and propriety of Shakespeare in his adoptions and adaptations of our earlier drama. Dr. Farmer was the first to discover that these plays were not written originally by Shakespeare; but that able researcher was not then aware of what only the progress of discovery could demonstrate, that hardly a single drama of our national bard can be deemed to have been of his own original invention.
While thus occupied in altering and writing old plays for his own theatre, in 1593 first appeared to the world the name of William Shakespeare in the dedication to the Earl of Southampton of his “Venus and Adonis.” The poet has called this poem, of a few pages, “the first heir of my invention.” For him who had already written much, the expression is singular, and it looks like a tacit acknowledgment that the poet considered that the five or six plays which he had already set forth had really no claim to “his invention.” And the dedication betrays the tremulousness of a virgin effort. “Should this first heir prove deformed,” declared our poet in his own Shakespearian diction, “I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest.” The poet, doubtless, was induced to proceed; for the following year, 1594, produced his “Lucrece.” He described his first poem as “unpolished lines;” and he still calls his second his “untutored lines.” As the former, so likewise is the present dedicated to the same earl. The fervour of the style indicates the influence of the patron, and the singleness of the devotion of the poet, who tells his noble patron “What I have done is yours, and what I have to do is yours.” The humble actor’s intercourse with his noble friend is a remarkable incident, for the poet was not yet famous when he prefixed his name to these poems. This earl, then in his youth, we learn was attached to theatrical amusements; and it has been ingeniously conjectured that the princely donation of a thousand pounds, which the peer presented to the poet, a tradition which Davenant had handed down, may have occurred, if it ever happened, in the interval between the publication of these two poems.
The Ovidian deliciousness of “Venus and Adonis,” and the more solemn narrative of “Tarquin and Lucrece,” early obtained celebrity among the youthful and impassioned generation. Shakespeare was long renowned as the amatory poet of the nation by many who had not learned to distinguish the bard among his dramatic brethren. Numerous editions of these poems confirm their popularity, and the public voice resounded from the lyres of many poets.
No poet more successfully opened his career than Shakespeare by these two popular poems; but it is remarkable that he made no farther essay with a view to permanent fame, which, as it would seem to us, he never imagined he was to derive from his dramas.
Meres, a critic of the day, has informed us that, in 1598, some sonnets by Shakespeare were in circulation among his friends. These were effusions of the hour; and, possibly, some may have been descriptive of his own condition. In 1599, a poetical collection called “The Passionate Pilgrim,” appeared under the name of Shakespeare; and ten years afterwards another, entitled “Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” was given to the world; but as poetical miscellanies were formed in those days by publishers who were not nice in the means they used to procure manuscripts, it is quite uncertain what are genuine and what may be the composition of other writers in these collections.
In “The Passionate Pilgrim,” some critics find difficulty in tracing the hand of the poet; and we accidentally discover by the complaint of Heywood, a congenial dramatist, that there were two of his poems in one edition of this collection; and we know that there were also other poems by Marlowe, and Barnefield, and others. Heywood tells us that Shakespeare was greatly offended at this licentious use of his name;[7] but he must have been imperturbably careless on such matters, otherwise he would not have suffered three editions of this spurious miscellany.
The fate of “The Sonnets” is remarkable. Steevens boldly ejected them from the poet’s works, declaring that the strongest Act of Parliament that could be framed could not compel their perusal. Shall we ascribe to this caustic wit a singular deficiency in his judicial decisions, or look to some other cause for the ejection of these sonnets which have become of late the subject of so much curious inquiry? An ingenious attempt has been recently made to form what is called an autobiography of the poet by stringing together the sonnets in six distinct poems; this would be sufficient evidence that they had never passed under the eye of the author, and that he could have had no concern in a publication which has thus mutilated his living members. This bookseller’s collection remains for more than one cause an ambiguous volume.