368 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 262. 



Can it be possible that the host of commenta- 

 tors, editors, and critics, from Shakspeare's own 

 times down to the present day, from Spenser to 

 J. M. G. exclusive, should all have given this 

 sonnet to Shakspeare and ignored the claim of 

 Griffin? 



It is true Fidessa is excessively rare, and the 

 reprint scarcely less so, only 100 copies having 

 been struck off; but it was known to Ritson in 

 1802, and to Singer in 1815 ; and although J. M. G. 

 and myself are the fortunate possessors of two 

 copies, it is more than probable that Mr. Halli- 

 wELii or Mr. Collier may have one or more of 

 the other ninty-eight, and it is quite possible that 

 Johnson, Warburton, Malone, Stevens, &c., &c., 

 may have seen the original when it was not so 

 scarce as it now appears to be. 



I do not deny the importance of dates in con- 

 sidering a question like this, but without some 

 corroborative evidence they are not conclusive. 



It is suggested in the advertisement to the reprint 

 of Fidessa, that there may be an edition of The 

 Passionate Pilgrim earlier than 1699. But if it 

 was the first, and (as J. M. G. is convinced) was 

 a bookseller's job, and published surreptitiously, 

 long live the memory of W. Jaggard for it ! 



It is by no means improbable that the trades- 

 manlike thrift and good plain sense of Jaggard 

 induced him to pick up, whenever he could, the 

 MS. effusions' of the poets with whom he was 

 probably in the habit of associating on terms of 

 intimacy ; and in this way three, five, or ten years 

 might elapse before he obtained a fasciculus, as 

 collections of poems were then often called, suit- 

 able for publication. In the mean time the gre- 

 garious and convivial habits of the poets and wits 

 of those days might have brought half-a-dozen 

 versions of such a sonnet into circulation, and 

 Lownes, as well as Jaggard, have ^each possessed 

 a copy of it. 



We learn from the Bibliographia Poetica that 

 the Venus and Adonis printed by Harrison in 1596 

 was nevertheless assigned to him by Field in 

 1593 ; and upon the authority of the editor of 

 the Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica it appears that the 

 sonnets, which were not entered on the stationers' 

 book till 20th May, 1609, were written many 

 years before, being mentioned by Meres in his 

 Wits Treasury, 1598, in these words : 



"As the soul of Eupborbus was thought to live in 

 Pythagoras ; so the sweete wittie soul of Ovid lives in 

 mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakspeare; witnes his 

 Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his Sugred Sonnets 

 among his private friends," &c. 



And the editor adds : 



" It may be concluded from this that Meres was one of 

 those friends to whom the sonnets were privately recited 

 before publication." 



The carelessness of Shakspeare himself, as to 

 the publication of his works, is very remarkable. 



They might have been appropriated and printed 

 by any needy poetaster who had the audacity to 

 do so, and Shakspeare have known or cared 

 nothing about it. 



Mr. Collier says, in his Notes and Emendations 

 to the text of Shakspeare's Plays : 



" About half the productions of Shakspeare remained in 

 MS. until seven years after his death ; not a few of those 

 which were printed in his lifetime were shamefully dis- 

 figured, and not one can be pointed out to the publication 

 of which he in any way contributed." 



It is, however, rather upon internal than ex- 

 ternal evidence that I demur to J. M. G.'s conclu- 

 sions. 



Any one who has read Fidessa will see at once 

 that the sonnets under this title are the sincere 

 effusion of a mind distracted with a passionate 

 but hopeless and unrequited affection. A purity 

 of thought and delicacy of language pervades 

 them, which is pleasing to the most refined modern 

 ear, and which singularly distinguishes them from 

 the free and sensual style in which the poets of 

 the period generally gave expression to their 

 amorous ideas. 



There is also an unity in these sonnets evincing 

 a reality of sentiment which dwelt upon the mind 

 of the enslaved poet, and tinctured his complainis 

 with a constancy of purpose and a reality of love, 

 which neither beget an irrelevant thought nor en- 

 dure a gross expression. 



The last, which is rather an alliterative conceit 

 than a sonnet, sums up the pleadings of the lover's 

 case, and condenses his woe. 



Now, in the absence of all facts — nay, more, in 

 the face of all facts, I will venture to assert, as a 

 matter of literary criticism, that anything more 

 inconsistent, more inharmonious, or more intru- 

 sive could not have been thrust into the pages of 

 Fidessa than the disputed sonnet No. 3. 



Under this consideration, I care not whether it 

 belongs to Shakspeare or Griffin ; but I emphati- 

 cally deny that it belongs to Fidessa. This is a 

 bookseller's job if you will ! I feel satisfied that 

 Griffin's beautiful collection of sonnets, feelingly 

 written, carefully arranged, modestly dedicated to 

 a private gentleman, under a sense of high and 

 virtuous feeling, more modestly commended to a 

 society of the author's probable associates, handed 

 over to his publisher with all the completeness^ of 

 a finished production, apparently a worthy offering 

 to the Muses rather than a provision for bread, or 

 worse, a contribution to immorality, was abused by 

 Lownes, and made a vehicle for the publication 

 of Shakspeare's indecent sonnet, of which he was 

 then possessed in MS., and which seemed to him 

 to be similar in version and homogeneous in 

 subject. 



In a word, I think Fidessa was complete m 

 sixty sonnets; that No. 3. and No. 37. were neither 

 written by Griffin nor intended by him to be 



