Transcribed from the 1899 Smith, Elder and Co. edition by Les Bowler.

A LIFE
of
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by
SIDNEY LEE.

WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES

FOURTH EDITION

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1899

Printed November 1898 (First Edition).

Reprinted December 1898 (Second Edition); December 1898
(Third Edition); February 1899 (Fourth Edition).

PREFACE

This work is based on the article on Shakespeare which I contributed last year to the fifty-first volume of the ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’ But the changes and additions which the article has undergone during my revision of it for separate publication are so numerous as to give the book a title to be regarded as an independent venture. In its general aims, however, the present life of Shakespeare endeavours loyally to adhere to the principles that are inherent in the scheme of the ‘Dictionary of National Biography.’ I have endeavoured to set before my readers a plain and practical narrative of the great dramatist’s personal history as concisely as the needs of clearness and completeness would permit. I have sought to provide students of Shakespeare with a full record of the duly attested facts and dates of their master’s career. I have avoided merely æsthetic criticism. My estimates of the value of Shakespeare’s plays and poems are intended solely to fulfil the obligation that lies on the biographer of indicating succinctly the character of the successive labours which were woven into the texture of his hero’s life. Æsthetic studies of Shakespeare abound, and to increase their number is a work of supererogation. But Shakespearean literature, as far as it is known to me, still lacks a book that shall supply within a brief compass an exhaustive and well-arranged statement of the facts of Shakespeare’s career, achievement, and reputation, that shall reduce conjecture to the smallest dimensions consistent with coherence, and shall give verifiable references to all the original sources of information. After studying Elizabethan literature, history, and bibliography for more than eighteen years, I believed that I might, without exposing myself to a charge of presumption, attempt something in the way of filling this gap, and that I might be able to supply, at least tentatively, a guide-book to Shakespeare’s life and work that should be, within its limits, complete and trustworthy. How far my belief was justified the readers of this volume will decide.

I cannot promise my readers any startling revelations. But my researches have enabled me to remove some ambiguities which puzzled my predecessors, and to throw light on one or two topics that have hitherto obscured the course of Shakespeare’s career. Particulars that have not been before incorporated in Shakespeare’s biography will be found in my treatment of the following subjects: the conditions under which ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and the ‘Merchant of Venice’ were written; the references in Shakespeare’s plays to his native town and county; his father’s applications to the Heralds’ College for coat-armour; his relations with Ben Jonson and the boy actors in 1601; the favour extended to his work by James I and his Court; the circumstances which led to the publication of the First Folio, and the history of the dramatist’s portraits. I have somewhat expanded the notices of Shakespeare’s financial affairs which have already appeared in the article in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ and a few new facts will be found in my revised estimate of the poet’s pecuniary position.

In my treatment of the sonnets I have pursued what I believe to be an original line of investigation. The strictly autobiographical interpretation that critics have of late placed on these poems compelled me, as Shakespeare’s biographer, to submit them to a very narrow scrutiny. My conclusion is adverse to the claim of the sonnets to rank as autobiographical documents, but I have felt bound, out of respect to writers from whose views I dissent, to give in detail the evidence on which I base my judgment. Matthew Arnold sagaciously laid down the maxim that ‘the criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and artistic [vii] purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result.’ It is criticism inspired by this liberalising principle that is especially applicable to the vast sonnet-literature which was produced by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It is criticism of the type that Arnold recommended that can alone lead to any accurate and profitable conclusion respecting the intention of the vast sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan era. In accordance with Arnold’s suggestion, I have studied Shakespeare’s sonnets comparatively with those in vogue in England, France, and Italy at the time he wrote. I have endeavoured to learn the view that was taken of such literary endeavours by contemporary critics and readers throughout Europe. My researches have covered a very small portion of the wide field. But I have gone far enough, I think, to justify the conviction that Shakespeare’s collection of sonnets has no reasonable title to be regarded as a personal or autobiographical narrative.

In the Appendix (Sections III. and IV.) I have supplied a memoir of Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton, and an account of the Earl’s relations with the contemporary world of letters. Apart from Southampton’s association with the sonnets, he promoted Shakespeare’s welfare at an early stage of the dramatist’s career, and I can quote the authority of Malone, who appended a sketch of Southampton’s history to his biography of Shakespeare (in the ‘Variorum’ edition of 1821), for treating a knowledge of Southampton’s life as essential to a full knowledge of Shakespeare’s. I have also printed in the Appendix a detailed statement of the precise circumstances under which Shakespeare’s sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 (Section V.), and a review of the facts that seem to me to confute the popular theory that Shakespeare was a friend and protégé of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who has been put forward quite unwarrantably as the hero of the sonnets (Sections VI., VII., VIII.) [ix] I have also included in the Appendix (Sections IX. and X.) a survey of the voluminous sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan poets between 1591 and 1597, with which Shakespeare’s sonnetteering efforts were very closely allied, as well as a bibliographical note on a corresponding feature of French and Italian literature between 1550 and 1600.

Since the publication of the article on Shakespeare in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ I have received from correspondents many criticisms and suggestions which have enabled me to correct some errors. But a few of my correspondents have exhibited so ingenuous a faith in those forged documents relating to Shakespeare and forged references to his works, which were promulgated chiefly by John Payne Collier more than half a century ago, that I have attached a list of the misleading records to my chapter on ‘The Sources of Biographical Information’ in the Appendix (Section I.) I believe the list to be fuller than any to be met with elsewhere.

The six illustrations which appear in this volume have been chosen on grounds of practical utility rather than of artistic merit. My reasons for selecting as the frontispiece the newly discovered ‘Droeshout’ painting of Shakespeare (now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon) can be gathered from the history of the painting and of its discovery which I give on pages 288-90. I have to thank Mr. Edgar Flower and the other members of the Council of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford for permission to reproduce the picture. The portrait of Southampton in early life is now at Welbeck Abbey, and the Duke of Portland not only permitted the portrait to be engraved for this volume, but lent me the negative from which the plate has been prepared. The Committee of the Garrick Club gave permission to photograph the interesting bust of Shakespeare in their possession, [x] but, owing to the fact that it is moulded in black terra-cotta no satisfactory negative could be obtained; the engraving I have used is from a photograph of a white plaster cast of the original bust, now in the Memorial Gallery at Stratford. The five autographs of Shakespeare’s signature—all that exist of unquestioned authenticity—appear in the three remaining plates. The three signatures on the will have been photographed from the original document at Somerset House, by permission of Sir Francis Jenne, President of the Probate Court; the autograph on the deed of purchase by Shakespeare in 1613 of the house in Blackfriars has been photographed from the original document in the Guildhall Library, by permission of the Library Committee of the City of London; and the autograph on the deed of mortgage relating to the same property, also dated in 1613, has been photographed from the original document in the British Museum, by permission of the Trustees. Shakespeare’s coat-of-arms and motto, which are stamped on the cover of this volume, are copied from the trickings in the margin of the draft-grants of arms now in the Heralds’ College.

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts has kindly given me ample opportunities of examining the two peculiarly interesting and valuable copies of the First Folio [xi] in her possession. Mr. Richard Savage, of Stratford-on-Avon, the Secretary of the Birthplace Trustees, and Mr. W. Salt Brassington, the Librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford, have courteously replied to the many inquiries that I have addressed to them verbally or by letter. Mr. Lionel Cust, the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has helped me to estimate the authenticity of Shakespeare’s portraits. I have also benefited, while the work has been passing through the press, by the valuable suggestions of my friends the Rev. H. C. Beeching and Mr. W. J. Craig, and I have to thank Mr. Thomas Seccombe for the zealous aid he has rendered me while correcting the final proofs.

October 12, 1898.

	I—PARENTAGE AND BIRTH
	Distribution of the name of Shakespeare	1
	The poet’s ancestry	2
	The poet’s father	4
	His settlement at Stratford	5
	The poet’s mother	6
1564, April	The poet’s birth and baptism	8
	Alleged birthplace	8
	II—CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE
	The father in municipal office	10
	Brothers and sisters	11
	The father’s financial difficulties	12
1571-7	Shakespeare’s education	13
	His classical equipment	15
	Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Bible	16
1575	Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth	17
1577	Withdrawal from school	18
1582, Dec.	The poet’s marriage	18
	Richard Hathaway of Shottery	19
	Anne Hathaway	19
	Anne Hathaway’s cottage	19
	The bond against impediments	20
1583, May	Birth of the poet’s daughter Susanna	22
	Formal betrothal probably dispensed with	23
	III—THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD
	Early married life	25
	Poaching at Charlecote	27
	Unwarranted doubts of the tradition	28
	Justice Shallow	29
1585	The flight from Stratford	29
	IV—ON THE LONDON STAGE
1586	The journey to London	31
	Richard Field, Shakespeare townsman	32
	Theatrical employment	32
	A playhouse servitor	32
	The acting companies	34
	The Lord Chamberlain’s company	35
	Shakespeare, a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company	36
	The London theatres	36
	Place of residence in London	38
	Actors’ provincial tours	39
	Shakespeare’s alleged travels	40
	In Scotland	41
	In Italy	42
	Shakespeare’s rôles	43
	His alleged scorn of an actor’s calling	45
	V—EARLY DRAMATIC WORK
	The period of his dramatic work, 1591-1611	46
	His borrowed plots	47
	The revision of plays	47
	Chronology of the plays	48
	Metrical tests	49
1591	Love’s Labour’s Lost	50
1591	Two Gentlemen of Verona	52
1592	Comedy of Errors	53
1592	Romeo and Juliet	55
1592, March	Henry VI	56
1592, Sept.	Greene’s attack on Shakespeare	57
	Chettle’s apology	58
	Divided authorship of Henry VI	59
	Shakespeare’s coadjutors	60
	Shakespeare’s assimilative power	61
	Lyly’s influence in comedy	61
	Marlowe’s influence in tragedy	63
1593	Richard III	63
1593	Richard II	64
	Shakespeare’s acknowledgments to Marlowe	64
1593	Titus Andronicus	65
1594, August	The Merchant of Venice	66
	Shylock and Roderigo Lopez	68
1594	King John	69
1594, Dec.	Comedy of Errors in Gray’s Inn Hall	70
	Early plays doubtfully assigned to Shakespeare	71
	Arden of Feversham (1592)	71
	Edward III	72
	Mucedorus	72
	Faire Em (1592)	73
	VI—THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC
1593, April	Publication of Venus and Adonis	74
1594, May	Publication of Lucrece	76
	Enthusiastic reception of the poems	78
	Shakespeare and Spenser	79
	Patrons at Court	81
	VII—THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY
	The vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet	83
	Shakespeare’s first experiments	84
1594	Majority of his Shakespeare’s composed	85
	Their literary value	87
	Circulation in manuscript	88
	Their piratical publication in 1609	89
	A Lover’s Complaint	91
	Thomas Thorpe and ‘Mr. W. H.’	91
	The form of Shakespeare’s sonnets	95
	Their want of continuity	96
	The two ‘groups’	96
	Main topics of the first ‘group’	98
	Main topics of the second ‘group’	99
	The order of the sonnets in the edition of 1640	100
	Lack of genuine sentiment in Elizabethan sonnets	100
	Their dependence on French and Italian models	101
	Sonnetteers’ admissions of insincerity	105
	Contemporary censure of sonnetteers’ false sentiment	106
	Shakespeare’s scornful allusions to sonnets in his plays	108
	VIII—THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS
	Slender autobiographical element in Shakespeare’s sonnets	109
	The imitative element	109
	Shakespeare’s claims of immortality for his sonnets a borrowed conceit	113
	Conceits in sonnets addressed to a woman	117
	The praise of ‘blackness’	118
	The sonnets of vituperation	120
	Gabriel Harvey’s Amorous Odious sonnet	121
	Jodelle’s Contr’ Amours	122
	IX—THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
	Biographic fact in the ‘dedicatory’ sonnets	125
	The Earl of Southampton the poet’s sole patron	126
	Rivals in Southampton’s favour	130
	Shakespeare’s fear of another poet	132
	Barnabe Barnes probably the chief rival	133
	Other theories as to the chief rival’s identity	134
	Sonnets of friendship	136
	Extravagances of literary compliment	138
	Patrons habitually addressed in affectionate terms	139
	Direct references to Southampton in the sonnets of friendship	142
	His youthfulness	143
	The evidence of portraits	144
	Sonnet cvii. the last of the series	147
	Allusions to Queen Elizabeth’s death	147
	Allusions to Southampton’s release from prison	149
	X—THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS
	Sonnets of melancholy and self-reproach	151
	The youth’s relations with the poet’s mistress	153
	Willobie his Avisa (1594)	155
	Summary of conclusions respecting the sonnets	158
	XI—THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER
1594-95	Midsummer Night’s Dream	161
1595	All’s Well that Ends Well	162
1595	The Taming of The Shrew	163
	Stratford allusions in the Induction	164
	Wincot	165
1597	Henry IV	167
	Falstaff	199
1597	The Merry Wives of Windsor	171
1598	Henry V	173
	Essex and the rebellion of 1601	174
	Shakespeare’s popularity and influence	176
	Shakespeare’s friendship with Ben Jonson	176
	The Mermaid meetings	177
1598	Meres’s eulogy	178
	Value of his name to publishers	179
1599	The Passionate Pilgrim	182
1601	The Phœnix and the Turtle	183
	XII—THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE
	Shakespeare’s practical temperament	185
	His father’s difficulties	186
	His wife’s debt	187
1596-9	The coat of arms	188
1597, May 4.	The purchase of New Place	193
1598	Fellow-townsmen appear to Shakespeare for aid	195
	Shakespeare’s financial position before 1599	196
	Shakespeare’s financial position after 1599	200
	His later income	202
	Incomes of fellow actors	203
1601-1610	Shakespeare’s formation of his estate at Stratford	204
1605	The Stratford tithes	205
1600-1609	Recovery of small debts	206
	XIII—MATURITY OF GENIUS
	Literary work in 1599	207
1599	Much Ado about Nothing	208
1599	As You Like It	209
1600	Twelfth Night	209
1601	Julius Cæsar	211
	The strife between adult actors and boy actors	213
	Shakespeare’s references to the struggle	216
1601	Ben Jonson’s Poetaster	217
	Shakespeare’s alleged partisanship in the theatrical warfare	219
1602	Hamlet	221
	The problem of its publication	222
	The First Quarto, 1603	222
	The Second Quarto, 1604	223
	The Folio version, 1623	223
	Popularity of Hamlet	224
1603	Troilus and Cressida	225
	Treatment of the theme	227
1603, March 26	Queen Elizabeth’s death	229
	James I’s patronage	230
	XIV—THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY
1604, Nov.	Othello	235
1604, Dec.	Measure for Measure	237
1606	Macbeth	239
1607	King Lear	241
1608	Timon of Athens	242
1608	Pericles	243
1608	Antony and Cleopatra	245
1609	Coriolanus	247
	XV—THE LATEST PLAYS
	The placid temper of the latest plays	248
1610	Cymbeline	249
1611	A Winter’s Tale	251
1611	The Tempest	252
	Fanciful interpretations of The Tempest	256
	Unfinished plays	258
	The lost play of Cardenio	258
	The Two Noble Kinsmen	259
	Henry VIII	261
	The burning of the Globe Theatre	262
	XVI—THE CLOSE OF LIFE
	Plays at Court in 1613	264
	Actor-friends	264
1611	Final settlement at Stratford	266
	Domestic affairs	266
1613, March	Purchase of a house in Blackfriars	267
1614, Oct.	Attempt to enclose the Stratford common fields	269
1616, April 23rd.	Shakespeare’s death	272
1616, April 25th.	Shakespeare’s burial	272
	The will	273
	Shakespeare’s bequest to his wife	273
	Shakespeare’s heiress	275
	Legacies to friends	276
	The tomb in Stratford Church	276
	Shakespeare’s personal character	277
	XVII—SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS
	Mrs. Judith Quiney, (1585-1662)	280
	Mrs. Susanna Hall (1583-1649)	281
	The last descendant	282
	Shakespeare’s brothers, Edmund, Richard, and Gilbert	283
	XVIII—AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS
	Spelling of the poet’s name	284
	Autograph signatures	284
	Shakespeare’s portraits	286
	The Stratford bust	286
	The ‘Stratford portrait’	287
	Droeshout’s engraving	287
	The ‘Droeshout’ painting	288
	Later portraits	291
	The Chandos portrait	292
	The ‘Jansen’ portrait	294
	The ‘Felton’ portrait	294
	The ‘Soest’ portrait	294
	Miniatures	295
	The Garrick Club bust	295
	Alleged death-mask	296
	Memorials in sculpture	297
	Memorials at Stratford	297
	XIX—BIBLIOGRAPHY
	Quartos of the poems in the poet’s lifetime	299
	Posthumous quartos of the poems	300
	The ‘Poems’ of 1640	300
	Quartos of the plays in the poet’s lifetime	300
	Posthumous quartos of the plays	300
1623	The First Folio	303
	The publishing syndicate	303
	The prefatory matter	306
	The value of the text	307
	The order of the plays	307
	The typography	308
	Unique copies	308
	The Sheldon copy	309
	Estimated number of extant copies	310
	Reprints of the First Folio	311
1632	The Second Folio	312
1663-4	The Third Folio	312
1685	The Fourth Folio	313
	Eighteenth-century editions	313
	Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718)	314
	Alexander Pope (1688-1744)	315
	Lewis Theobald (1688-1744)	317
	Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746)	317
	Bishop Warburton (1698-1779)	318
	Dr. Johnson (1709-1783)	319
	Edward Capell (1713-1781)	319
	George Steevens (1736-1800)	320
	Edmund Malone (1741-1812)	322
	Variorum editions	322
	Nineteenth-century editors	323
	Alexander Dyce (1798-1869)	323
	Howard Staunton (1810-1874)	324
	Nikolaus Delius (1813-1888)	324
	The Cambridge edition (1863-6)	324
	Other nineteenth-century editions	324
	XX—POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION
	Views of Shakespeare’s contemporaries	326
	Ben Jonson tribute	327
	English opinion between 1660 and 1702	329
	Dryden’s view	330
	Restoration adaptations	331
	English opinion from 1702 onwards	332
	Stratford festivals	334
	Shakespeare on the English stage	334
	The first appearance of actresses in Shakespearean parts	334
	David Garrick (1717-1779)	336
	John Philip Kemble (1757-1823)	337
	Mrs. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831)	337
	Edmund Kean (1787-1833)	338
	William Charles Macready (1793-1873)	339
	Recent revivals	339
	Shakespeare in English music and art	340
	Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery	341
	Shakespeare in America	341
	Translations	342
	Shakespeare in Germany	342
	German translations	343
	Modern German critics	345
	Shakespeare on the German stage	345
	Shakespeare in France	347
	Voltaire’s strictures	348
	French critics’ gradual emancipation from Voltairean influence	349
	Shakespeare on the French stage	350
	Shakespeare in Italy	352
	In Holland	354
	In Russia	353
	In Poland	353
	In Hungary	353
	In other countries	354
	XXI—GENERAL ESTIMATES
	General estimate	355
	Shakespeare’s defects	355
	Character of Shakespeare’s achievement	356
	Its universal recognition	357
	APPENDIX
	I—THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
	Contemporary records abundant	361
	First efforts in biography	361
	Biographers of the nineteenth century	362
	Stratford topography	363
	Specialised studies in biography	363
	Epitomes	364
	Aids to study of plots and text	364
	Concordances	364
	Bibliographies	365
	Critical studies	365
	Shakespearean forgeries	365
	John Jordan (1746-1809)	366
	The Ireland forgeries (1796)	366
	List of forgeries promulgated by Collier and others (1835-1849)	367
	II—THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY
	Its source	370
	Toby Matthew’s letter of 1621	371
	Chief exponents of the theory	371
	Its vogue in America	372
	Extent of the literature	372
	Absurdity of the theory	373
	III—THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
	Shakespeare and Southampton	374
	Southampton’s parentage	374
1573, Oct. 6	Southampton’s birth	375
	His education	375
	Recognition of Southampton’s beauty in youth	377
	His reluctance to marry	378
	Intrigue with Elizabeth Vernon	379
1598	Southampton’s marriage	379
1601-3	Southampton’s imprisonment	380
	Later career	380
1624, Nov. 10	His death	381
	IV—THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON
	Southampton’s collection of books	382
	References in his letters to poems and plays	382
	His love of the theatre	383
	Poetic adulation	384
1593	Barnabe Barnes’s sonnet	384
	Tom Nash’s addresses	385
1595	Gervase Markham’s sonnet	387
1598	Florio’s address	387
	The congratulations of the poets in 1603	387
	Elegies on Southampton	389
	V—THE TRUE HISTORY OF THOMAS THORPE AND ‘MR. W. H.’
	The publication of the ‘Sonnets’ in 1609	390
	The text of the dedication	391
	Publishers’ dedications	392
	Thorpe’s early life	393
	His ownership of the manuscript of Marlowe’s Lucan	393
	His dedicatory address to Edward Blount in 1600	394
	Character of his business	395
	Shakespeare’s sufferings at publishers hands	396
	The use of initials in dedications of Elizabethan and Jacobean books	397
	Frequency of wishes for ‘happiness’ and ‘eternity’ in dedicatory greetings	398
	Five dedications by Thorpe	399
	‘W. H.’ signs dedication of Southwell’s ‘Poems’	400
	‘W. H.’ and Mr. William Hall	402
	The ‘onlie begetter’ means ‘only procurer’	403
	VI—‘MR. WILLIAM HERBERT’
	Origin of the notion that ‘Mr. W. H.’ stands for William Herbert	406
	The Earl of Pembroke known only as Lord Herbert in youth	407
	Thorpe’s mode of addressing the Earl of Pembroke	408
	VII—SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE
	Shakespeare with the acting company at Wilton in 1603	411
	The dedication of the First Folio in 1623	412
	No suggestion in the sonnets of the youth’s identity with Pembroke	413
	Aubrey’s ignorance of any relation between Shakespeare and Pembroke	414
	VIII—THE ‘WILL’ SONNETS
	Elizabethan meanings of ‘will’	416
	Shakespeare’s uses of the word	417
	Shakespeare’s puns on the word	418
	Arbitrary and irregular use of italics by Elizabethan and Jacobean printers	419
	The conceits of Sonnets cxxxv.-vi. interpreted	420
	Sonnet cxxxv	421
	Sonnet cxxxvi	422
	Sonnet cxxxiv	425
	Sonnet cxliii	426
	IX—THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET, 1591-1597
1557	Wyatt’s and Surrey’s Sonnets published	427
1582	Watson’s Centurie of Love	428
1591	Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella	428
I.	Collected sonnets of feigned love	429
1592	Daniel’s Delia	430
	Fame of Daniel’s sonnets	431
1592	Constable’s Diana	431
1593	Barnabe Barne’s sonnets	432
1593	Watson’s Tears of Fancie	433
1593	Giles Fletcher’s Licia	433
1593	Lodge’s Phillis	433
1594	Drayton’s Idea	434
1594	Percy’s Cœlia	435
1594	Zepheria	435
1595	Barnfield’s sonnets to Ganymede	435
1595	Spenser’s Amoretti	435
1595	Emaricdulfe	436
1595	Sir John Davies’s Gullinge Sonnets	436
1596	Linche’s Diella	437
1596	Griffin Fidessa	437
1596	Thomas Campion’s sonnets	437
1596	William Smith’s Chloris	437
1597	Robert Tofte’s Laura	438
	Sir William Alexander’s Aurora	438
	Sir Fulke Greville’s Cœlica	438
	Estimate of number of love-sonnets issued between 1591 and 1597	439
II.	Sonnets to patrons, 1591-1597	440
III.	Sonnets on philosophy and religion	440
	X—BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE, 1550-1600
	Ronsard (1524-1585) and ‘La Pléiade’	442
	The Italian sonnetteers of the sixteenth century	442n.
	Philippe Desportes (1546-1606)	443
	Chief collections of French sonnets published between 1550 and 1584	444
	Minor collections of French sonnets published between 1553 and 1605	444
	INDEX

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Life of William Shakespeare

A LIFE
of
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PREFACE

CONTENTS

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Life of William Shakespeare

A LIFE of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PREFACE

CONTENTS

A LIFE
of
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE