8

survey, and your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world's hopeful expectation.

Your Honour's in all duty,

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

2 - and your HONOUR - This was formerly the usual mode of address to noblemen. So, in a Letter written by Sir Francis Bacon to Robert, lord Cecil, July 3, 1603 : "Lastly, for this divulged and almost prostituted title of knighthood, I could without charge, by your honour's mean, be content to have it-." Birch's Collection, p. 24. MALONE.

3- hopeful expectation.] Lord Southampton was but twenty years old when this poem was dedicated to him by Shakspeare, who was then twenty-seven. MALONE.

For a memoir of this accomplished nobleman, see the end of this volume. BOSWELL.

i

:

VENUS AND ADONIS'.

EVEN as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn:

Our author himself has told us that this poem was his first
composition. It was entered in the Stationers' books by Richard
Field, on the 18th of April, 1593. When I first republished this
poem in 1790 I had seen no earlier edition than that which was
printed for John Harrison, in small octavo, in 1596; but I have
since become possessed of the first edition, printed by Richard
Field in 1593, which I have now followed. This poem is fre-
quently alluded to by our author's contemporaries.
As the
soul of Euphorbus (says Meres in his wit's Treasury, 1598,) was
thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet, witty soul of Ovid
lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare. Witness his
Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece," &c. In the early part of Shak-
speare's life, his poems seem to have gained him more reputation
than his plays;-at least they are oftener mentioned, or alluded
to. Thus the author of an old comedy called The Return from
Parnassus, written about the year 1602, in his review of the poets
of the time, says not a word of his dramatick compositions, but
allots him his portion of fame solely on account of the poems that
he had produced. When the name of William Shakspeare is read,
one of the characters pronounces this eulogium:

"Who loves Adonis' love, or Lucrece' rape ?
" His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life;
"Could but a graver subject him content,
"Without love's foolish lazy languishment."

This subject was probably suggested to Shakspeare either by

Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him.

Thrice fairer than myself, (thus she began,)
The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are;

Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith, that the world hath ending with thy life.

Spenser's description of the hangings in the Lady of Delight's Castle, Faery Queen, b. iii. c. i. st. 34, et seq. 4to, 1590, or by a short piece entitled The Sheepheard's Song of Venus and Adonis, subscribed with the letters H. C. (probably Henry Constable,) which, I believe, was written before Shakspeare's poem; though I have never seen any earlier copy of it than that which we find in England's Helicon, 1600. He had also without doubt read the account of Venus and Adonis in the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Golding, 1567, though he has chosen to deviate from the classical story, which Ovid and Spenser had set before him, following probably the model presented to him by the English poem just mentioned. See the notes at the end.

3

MALONE.

ROSE-CHEEK'D Adonis -) So, in Timon of Athens:

- bring down the rose-cheek'd youth
"To the tub-fast and the diet." STEEVENS.

Our author perhaps remembered Marlowe's Hero and Leander:

"The men of wealthy Sestos every yeare,

"For his sake whom their goddess held so deare,
"Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast," &c.

MALONE.

- the field's CHIEF flower,] So the quarto 1593. Modern editions have-sweet flower. MALONE.

4 NATURE that made thee, with herself at STRIFE,] With this contest between art and nature, &c. I believe every reader will be surfeited before he has gone through the following poems. The lines under the print of Noah Bridges, engraved by Faithorne, have the same thought:

"Faithorne, with nature at a noble strife," &c. It occurs likewise in Timon of Athens. STEEVENS. We have in a subsequent passage a contest between art and nature, but here surely there is none. I must also observe that there is scarcely a book of Shakspcare's age, whether in prose or

Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses:

And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety;
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood',
And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:
Being so enrag'd, desire doth lend her force,
Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

verse, in which this surfeiting comparison (as it has been called,) may not be found. MALONE.

5 Saith, that the world hath ending with thy life.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"And when she dies, with beauty dies her store."

And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,

But rather famish them amid their plenty,] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"other women cloy

"The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry,
"Where most she satisfies." MALONE.

- she seizeth on his SWEATING PALM,

The PRECEDENT OF PITH AND LIVELIHOOD,] So, in Antony

and Cleopatra, Charmian says: "- if an oily palm be not a fruit

ful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear." STEEVENS.

Again, in Othello:

- This hand is moist, my lady;

"This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart ;

"Hot, hot, and moist." MALONE.

Over one arm the lusty courser's rein,
Under her others was the tender boy,
Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;

She red and hot, as coals of glowing fire,
He red for shame, but frosty in desire.

The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens; (O, how quick is love!)
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:

Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust,
And govern'd him in strength, though not in lust.

So soon was she along, as he was down,
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,
And 'gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips :
And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,
If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.

He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears
Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;
Then with her windy sighs, and golden hairs,
To fan and blow them dry again she seekso;

8 Under HER Other-] So the original copy 1693, and 16mo. of 1596. The edition of 1600, and all subsequent, have-under

the other. MALONE.

9- she with her TEARS

Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;
Then with her windy SIGHS, and golden hairs,

To fan and blow them DRY again she seeks :) So, in Marlowe's King Edward II. :

"Wet with my tears, and dried again with sighs." Shakspeare, throughout this poem, takes the same liberty as Spenser has done in his Faery Queen; and, for the sake of rhyme, departs from the usual orthography of his time. Thus here we have in the original copy 1593,-golden heares. And so again, below: