Your's ever,
Thomas Heywood."
Here nothing can be more evident than that Jaggard introduced these translations in the "Passionate Pilgrim," without the permission, or even the knowledge of Shakspeare, and further, that he, Shakspeare, was much offended with Jaggard for so doing; a piece of information which completely rescues the memory of Shakspeare from any connivance in the fraud: and yet, strange as it may appear, on this very epistle of Heywood has been founded a charge of imposition against Shakspeare, and the only defence offered for the calumniated poet has been, that, contrary to the public and positive assertion of Heywood, he, and not Heywood, was the translator of the Epistles in question.
This interpretation can only be accounted for on the supposition that both the accuser and defender have alike mistaken the language of Heywood, and have conceived him to have been speaking of
himself, when, in fact, he was referring to Shakspeare; for, that the passage "so the author I know much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name," can only be applied to our great poet, must be clear from the consideration that Jaggard, so far from making bold with the name of Heywood, dropped it altogether, while he daringly committed the very offence as to Shakspeare, by clandestinely affixing his name to the versions of Heywood.
It will be right, however, to bring forward the accusation and defence of these gentlemen, as they will sufficiently prove that more errors than one have been committed in their attempts, and that these have been the result of a want of intimacy with the literary history of Shakspeare's age.
In the twenty-sixth volume of the Monthly Magazine, a correspondent whose signature is Y. Z., after commenting on Heywood's letter, as quoted by Dr. Farmer, and after transcribing the very passage just given above in Italics, declares "this passage contains an heavy charge against Shakspeare: it accuses him, not only of an attempt to impose on the public, but on his patron, Lord Southampton, to whom he dedicated his 'unpolisht lines[46:A];'" and, in his reply to Mr. Lofft, he again remarks,—"The translations in question were certainly published in Shakspeare's name, and with his permission; they were also dedicated by him to his best and kindest friend."[46:B]
Now, that the passage in debate contains no charge against Shakspeare is, we think, perfectly demonstrable from the import of Heywood's epistle, which we have given at full length, and which, we suspect, Y. Z. has only partially seen, through the medium of Dr. Farmer's quotation.
That the poet imposed upon his patron by dedicating to him his "unpolisht lines," meaning these versions from Ovid, is an assertion totally contrary to the fact. Of his poems Shakspeare dedicated only
two to Lord Southampton, which were published separately, the Venus and Adonis in 1593, and the Rape of Lucrece in 1594, and the expression "unpolisht lines" alludes exclusively to the first of these productions.