SHAKESPEARE'S SONGS.

73. Shakespeare was born in 1564; came up to London to seek his fortune about 1587; began to write for the stage about 1588-90; ended his career about 1612-13, and died in 1616. The greater part of his energy was given to the stage,as actor, as part-owner of a theatre, and as playwright; but apart from his dramas he wrote two narrative poems and a series of sonnets. The songs scattered through his plays, while introduced for a dramatic purpose, and often intimately and artistically interwoven with the action, would alone give him an assured place among the poets of his time. Had he written nothing but these songs he would have survived as one of the leading lyric poets of a great song-writing age. No words of comment are needed on the songs here given. As Prof. Dowden says: "Of the exquisite songs scattered through Shakespeare's plays it is almost an impertinence to speak. If they do not make their own way, like the notes in the wildwood, no words will open the dull ear to take them in."

HARK, HARK, THE LARK.

75.-5. Mary-bud = marigold.

ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

(See "Elizabethan Songs and Lyrics," p. 590 supra.)

SIDNEY.

77. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586), the pattern of noble knighthood, whose name is forever linked with an act of self-sacrifice and compassion, was not only the courtier, the soldier, the gallant gentleman, loved by his nation as few men have been loved, and mourned as few men have been mourned; he was also a true poet and an accomplished man of letters. Although he died at thirty-two, he was a leading spirit in England's literary advance when the nation was feeling its way towards the period of its greatest triumphs. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (1591), the first great sonnetsequence in the literature (see p. 590 supra), marks an epoch in the growth of the sonnet in England. The series, which

consists of 110 sonnets, records the poet's hopeless passion (whether real or assumed for poetic purposes is a matter of dispute) for Penelope Devereux, who was sister to the Earl of Essex and who became Lady Rich.

SONNET XXXI.

This is probably the best known of Sidney's sonnets. Wordsworth admired it sufficiently to use the two opening lines for the beginning of a sonnet written in 1806.

DANIEL.

78. SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619), who gained the title of "the well-languaged Daniel," while lacking in some of the qualities which make a popular poet, yet shows an elevation of feeling, depth of thought, and a scholarly taste. His sonnets to Delia, which appeared in his first known book of poems, contain some of his most familiar if not his finest work.

DRAYTON.

79. (For Drayton, see p. 601, n. on Agincourt.)

DRUMMOND.

79. WILLIAM DRUMMOND (1558-1613), often spoken of as “Drummond of Hawthornden," was a Scottish poet of noble birth, who passed a meditative and studious life at bis secluded and beautiful home near Edinburgh. His life was saddened by the death of the lady to whom he was engaged to be married, and his poetry is tinged by a gentle mielancholy. He is numbered with the followers of Spenser, but he shows-as in his sonnets-such a sympathy with the Italian models that he has been styled "the Scottish Petrarch.”

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.

80. The sounets of Shakespeare were first published in 1609. The exact date of their composition is not known, but they were probably composed at intervals (as was Tennyson's In Memoriam) during a number of years. The earliest mention of them is found in the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres (1678), who speaks of Shakespeare's “sugred sonnets among his private friends." Two of the series (sonnets 138 and 144) appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), a poetical miscellany. Dowden believes them all to have been written somewhere between 1595 and 1605." The entire series consists of 154 sonnets. Critics are still divided concerning the interpretation of the series as a whole, but fortunately all theories of interpretation are powerless to mar our enjoyment of the sonnets as single poems. (See Dowden's Shakespeare Primer and his edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets.)

83. MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631) was one of the most voluminous poets of a time distinguished by the extraordinary productiveness of its writers. His huge descriptive and his

torical poems, the Baron's Wars, the Polyolbion, and the rest, are now but little read, but one of his sonnets (see p. 79), rauks with the finest in the language, while his ballad on Agincourt and his Nymphidia are not only famous, but are still comparatively familiar. Mr. Saintsbury says of the former: "The Agincourt ballad is quite at the head of its own class of verse in England-Campbell's two masterpieces (given here on pp. 376, 379) and the present poet laureate's direct imitation in the Six Hundred,' falling, the first some what, and the last considerably, short of it. The sweep of the metre, the martial glow of the sentiment, and the skill with which the names are wrought into the verse, are altogether beyond praise." (Hist. Eliz. Lit. 141.) The impetuous metrical rush of the poem, one of its chief merits, has also been imitated by Longfellow in The Skeleton in Armour.

AGINCOURT.

84.-Camber-Britans. Cambria was the Roman name for Wales; hence by Camber- (or Cambro-) Britans is meant the Britons who were in Wales, as distinguished from those of the same race in Cornwall or elsewhere. The Cambro-Britans appear to have been especially noted for their skill in chanting poems to the harp, while the poetic genius of the British in Cornwall was shown more particularly in the dramatic form. The concluding part of the dedication has consequently an especial appropriateness.

25. And turning to his men, etc. Henry is said to have exclaimed before the battle that he "did not wish a single man more." (See Green's Hist. Eng. People, I. 542.) Shakespeare makes effective use of this incident. Hen. V. IV. 3: "God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more, etc.

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85.-49. The Duke of York, i.e. Edward, second Duke of York, and grandson of King Edward III. The account in the text is here substantially accurate. York commanded the right wing, and was a little in advance of the line, Henry the centre, and Lord Camoys the left. (See Shakespeare's Henry V. IV. 3, when York asks and receives the right of "leading "the "vaward."-52. Henchmen: followers. (See Skeat's Etymol. Dict.)-65. Noble Erpingham, i.e. Sir Thomas Erpingham, "who threw up his truncheon as a signal to the English forces, who lay in ambush, to advance." 86.-82. Bilbows swords. From Bilboa, a Spanish town famous for its blades. The word also means fetters, an especial kind of fetter being also manufactured at Bilboa. The word is used in both senses by Shakespeare.-89. When now that noble king, etc. Here again the poet keeps pretty

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close to historic fact. Henry was actually forced to his knees, by a stroke from the Duke d'Alençon, "so violent that it dented his helmet." (See Church's Henry V., p. 81.)— 97. Gloster, i.e. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of the king. Thomas, Duke of Clarence, alluded to here as Clarence, was also the king's brother.

87.-113. Crispin day is on the 25th of October. Cf. Shakespeare's Henry V. IV. 3. This day is called the feast

of Crispian," etc.

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