AN " ANCIENT MARKET-TOWNE " 177 



third Earl, and of Elizabeth Vernon his wife the true 

 " begetters/' as some think, of the earlier sonnets of 

 Shakespeare, and in some sense the originals of Romeo 

 and Juliet. Moreover, it is well within the range of 

 probability that Shakespeare may have visited his 

 friend at "Tytchfylde," and wandered in the old 

 garden "circummered with brick," and across the 

 ancient bridge, and down the stately avenue of elms 

 which led to the village church, where he may have 

 gazed upon the reclining effigy of the Lord Chancellor 

 upon the lordly tomb. 



Now to enter fully into the vexed question of the 

 sonnets would be a task far beyond the scope of the 

 present paper ; but the theory advanced by Mr. Gerald 

 Massey some forty years ago, that the interpretation 

 of the earlier series is to be found in the story of the 

 courtship of Henry Wriothesley and Elizabeth Vernon, 

 has perhaps as much to recommend it as any other ; 

 and indications are not wanting that the same lovers 

 were in Shakespeare's mind when he wrote the tragedy 

 of Romeo and Juliet. For that Shakespeare was on 

 terms of the warmest intimacy with Southampton is 

 a fact resting on the poet's own testimony. "To 

 the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley, Earl of 

 Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield," Shakespeare 

 dedicates "the first heir of his invention" Venus 

 and Adonis. This was in the year 1593, when the 

 poet was twenty-nine, and the earl about twenty. In 

 the following year he again dedicates to the " Baron 

 of Tichfield," with "love without end," The Rape 

 of Lucrece in a short and graceful letter which is 

 among the few personal relics of Shakespeare that we 

 possess. 



It may have been about this time, when the earlier 



M 



