the other, he that offendes being forst, is more excusable than the wilfull faultie, though both be guilty, there is difference in the guilt. To obserue custome, and auoid as I may cauill, opposing your fauors against my feare, Ile shew reason for my present writing, and after proceed to sue for pardon. About three moneths since died M. Robert Greene, leauing many papers in sundry Booke sellers hands, among other his Groats-worth of wit, in which a letter written to diuers play-makers, is offensiuely by one or two of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be auenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a liuing Author: and after tossing it two and fro, no remedy, but it must light on me. How I haue all the time of my conuersing in printing hindred the bitter inueying against schollers, it hath been very well knowne, and how in that I dealt I can sufficiently prooue. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I neuer be: The other, whome at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that as I haue moderated the heate of liuing writers, and might haue vsde my owne discretion (especially in such a case) the Author beeing dead, that I did not, I am as sory, as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because my selfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill than he exelent in the qualitie he professes: Besides, diuers of worship haue reported, his vprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting, that aprooues his Art. For the first, whose learning I reuerence, and at the perusing of Greenes Booke, stroke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ: or had it beene true, yet to publish it, was intollerable: him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue. I had onely in the copy this share, it was il written, as sometime Greenes hand was none of the best, licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed which could neuer be if it might not be read. To be breife I writ it ouer, and as neare as I could, followed the copy, onely in that letter I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in, for I protest it was all Greenes , not mine nor Maister Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed. Neither was he the writer of an Epistle to the second part of Gerileon, though by the workemans error T. N. were set to the end: that I confesse to be mine, and repent it not.
(Original Images)
Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published in their entirety in 1609. Two of this collection having been printed in a piratical volume of poetry, dated 1599, attributed to Shakespeare, although he was only responsible for five numbers out of the twenty published. The great question which divides Shakesperean critics into two camps is whether the sonnets are autobiographical or poems of the imagination. A discussion on this point, and others connected with the dedication and order of sequence, would fill volumes. If they are to be accepted as episodes in the life of Shakespeare, sonnet 111 clearly has reference to his own life as an actor:
“O! for my sake do you with fortune chide
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds
That did not better for my life provide