[379] Cal. of the Duke of Rutland’s MSS. i. 321. Barnabe Barnes, who was one of Southampton’s poetic admirers, addressed a crude sonnet to ‘the Beautiful Lady, The Lady Bridget Manners,’ in 1593, at the same time as he addressed one to Southampton. Both are appended to Barnes’s collection of sonnets and other poems entitled Parthenophe and Parthenophil (cf. Arber’s Garner, v. 486). Barnes apostrophises Lady Bridget as ‘fairest and sweetest’
Of all those sweet and fair flowers,
The pride of chaste Cynthia’s [i.e. Queen Elizabeth’s] rich crown.
[380] See p. 233, note 2.
[383a] The original letter is at Hatfield. The whole is printed in Historical Manuscripts Commission, 3rd Rep. p. 145.
[383b] The quotation is a confused reminiscence of Falstaff’s remarks in I Henry IV. II. iv. The last nine words are an exact quotation of lines 190-1.
[383c] Sidney Papers, ii. 132.
[383d] See p. 175.
[385a] See Nash’s Works, ed. Grosart, v. 6. The whole passage runs: ‘How wel or ill I haue done in it I am ignorant: (the eye that sees round about it selfe sees not into it selfe): only your Honours applauding encouragement hath power to make me arrogant. Incomprehensible is the height of your spirit both in heroical resolution and matters of conceit. Vnrepriuebly perisheth that booke whatsoeuer to wast paper, which on the diamond rocke of your judgement disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt. A dere louer and cherisher you are, as well of the louers of Poets, as of Poets them selues. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe my selfe, though now and then I speak English: that smal braine I haue, to no further vse I conuert saue to be kinde to my frends, and fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee to canonize your name to posteritie, if in this my first attempt I am not taxed of presumption. Of your gracious fauer I despaire not, for I am not altogether Fames out-cast . . . Your Lordship is the large spreading branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to deriue their whole nourishing.’
[385b] The complimentary title of ‘Amyntas,’ which was naturalised in English literature by Abraham Fraunce’s two renderings of Tasso’s Aminta—one direct from the Italian and the other from the Latin version of Thomas Watson—was apparently bestowed by Spenser on the Earl of Derby in his Colin Clouts come Home againe (1595); and some critics assume that Nash referred in Pierce Pennilesse to that nobleman rather than to Southampton. But Nash’s comparison of his paragon to Ganymede suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592 while Derby was thirty-three. ‘Amyntas’ as a complimentary designation was widely used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively to any one patron of letters. It was bestowed on the poet Watson by Richard Barnfield and by other of Watson’s panegyrists.
[386] Two manuscript copies of the poem, which has not been printed, are extant—one among the Rawlinson poetical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and the other among the manuscripts in the Inner Temple Library (No. 538). Mr. John S. Farmer has kindly sent me transcripts of the opening and concluding dedicatory sonnets. The first, which is inscribed ‘to the right honorable the Lord S[outhampton]’ runs: