Percy’s ‘Cœlia,’ 1594.
William Percy, the ‘dearest friend’ of Barnabe Barnes, published in 1594, in emulation of Barnes, a collection of twenty ‘Sonnets to the fairest Cœlia.’ [435b] He explains, in an address to the reader, that out of courtesy he had lent the sonnets to friends, who had secretly committed them to the press. Making a virtue of necessity, he had accepted the situation, but begged the reader to treat them as ‘toys and amorous devices.’
Zepheria, 1594.
A collection of forty sonnets or ‘canzons,’ as the anonymous author calls them, also appeared in 1594 with the title ‘Zepheria.’ [435c] In some prefatory verses addressed ‘Alli veri figlioli delle Muse’ laudatory reference was made to the sonnets of Petrarch, Daniel, and Sidney. Several of the sonnets labour at conceits drawn from the technicalities of the law, and Sir John Davies parodied these efforts in the eighth of his ‘gulling sonnets’ beginning, ‘My case is this, I love Zepheria bright.’
Barnfield’s sonnets to Ganymede, 1595.
Four interesting ventures belong to 1595. In January, appended to Richard Barnfield’s poem of ‘Cynthia,’ a panegyric on Queen Elizabeth, was a series of twenty sonnets extolling the personal charms of a young man in emulation of Virgil’s Eclogue ii., in which the shepherd Corydon addressed the shepherd-boy Alexis. [435d] In Sonnet xx. the author expressed regret that the task of celebrating his young friend’s praises had not fallen to the more capable hand of Spenser (‘great Colin, chief of shepherds all’) or Drayton (‘gentle Rowland, my professed friend’). Barnfield at times imitated Shakespeare.
Spenser’s ‘Amoretti’, 1595.
Almost at the same date as Barnfield’s ‘Cynthia’ made its appearance there was published the more notable collection by Edmund Spenser of eighty-eight sonnets, which in reference to their Italian origin he entitled ‘Amoretti.’ [435e] Spenser had already translated many
sonnets on philosophic topics of Petrarch and Joachim Du Bellay. Some of the ‘Amoretti’ were doubtless addressed by Spenser in 1593 to the lady who became his wife a year later. But the sentiment was largely ideal, and, as he says in Sonnet lxxxvii., he wrote, like Drayton, with his eyes fixed on ‘Idæa.’