LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 319 



Secretary tliat the young nobleman should marry a grand-daughter 

 of his, the Lady Yere. But Southampton finally preferred the Lady 

 Elizabeth Vernon, cousin of the Earl of Essex — a match which, for 

 some reason, greatly offended Elizabeth, and brought trouble on 

 Southampton. It is Shakspeare's familiarity with Southampton, and 

 his perfect knowledge of the young Earl's likes and dislikes, and the 

 entanglements into which these had brought him, that explain some 

 of the otherwise enigmatical sonnets, as Gerald Massey has convinc- 

 ingly shown. The cue was probably taken from Southampton when 

 Shakspeare ventured to bring Burleigh in some sort on the stage, in 

 the person of Polonius. Buileigh probably was not wont to treat 

 playwrights with much considei-ation. We know that his insensi- 

 bility to poetry occasioned loss in the pocket to Spenser. A latent 

 feeling against Burleigh would be very apt to spring up among men 

 of literary tastes. 



The Robert Cecil who signs above was afterwards Secretary of 

 State to Queen Elizabeth, and it was he who carried post-haste the 

 news of her death to James, her successor. 



Sir Thomas Mildmay was the immediate blood-relation of the 

 founder of Emmanuel College, in Cambridge. In the document 

 above given, short as it is, the orthography of the proper names that 

 recur therein is not constant. The name Burleigh reads Burghley 

 and Burghleigh. The name Cecil is written Cecyll, Cicill, Ceycill. 

 (Another form, and the earliest, as Lower informs us, was Seysell.) 

 Mildmay is Mildemaye and Myldmaye and Mildmay. Waldegrave 

 is Waldgi'ave as well. I am hence moved to observe : What folly it 

 is, on the strength of a chance-variation which may be discovered, 

 to meddle with the orthography of an historical name, when it has 

 become fi:xed in the language and literature of a people ! What folly 

 it is, for example, to attempt the ti'ansformation of the noble word 

 Shakspeare, or Shakespeare, into another which the eye scarcely 

 recognizes ! We see this done now and then, to this day, by virtue, 

 as it is asserted, of a stray signature or two, by no means distinctly 

 written. Several publications on the poet's life and writings, and 

 several editions of his whole works, are considerably lowered in com- 

 mercial value by the exhibition of this very useless caprice ; on the 

 further propagation of which, nevertheless, a new society lately insti- 

 tuted in London has set its mind. • Is it expected that the new 

 rendering of the name will really supersede the old one 1 I remember 



