In a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey, this physician, the noted opponent of Nash, has inserted the following remarks:—"_The younger sort take much delight in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis_; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the wiser sort, 1598."[29:A] Meres, also, in his "Wit's Treasury," published in the same year with the above date, draws a parallel between Ovid and Shakspeare, resulting from the composition of this piece and his other minor poems. "As the soule of Euphorbus," he observes, "was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspeare, witnes his _Venus and Adonis_, his Lucrece, his sugred sonnets among his private friends, &c."[29:B] A third tribute, and of a similar kind, was paid to the early efforts of our author in 1598, by Richard Barnefield, from which it must be inferred that the versification of Shakspeare was considered by his contemporaries as pre-eminently sweet and melodious, a decision for which many stanzas in the _Venus and Adonis_ might furnish sufficient foundation:— "And Shakspeare thou, whose honey-flowing vein, (Pleasing the world,) thy praises doth contain, Whose _Venus_, and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste, Thy name in fame's immortal book hath plac'd, Live ever you, at least in fame live ever! Well may the body die, but fame die never."[29:C] That singularly curious old comedy, "_The Returne from Parnassus_," written in 1606, descanting on the poets of the age, introduces Shakspeare solely on account of his miscellaneous poems, a striking proof of their popularity; and, like his predecessors, the author characterises them by the sweetness of their metre: "Who loves Adonis love, or Lucre's rape, His sweeter verse contaynes hart-robbing life, Could but a graver subject him content, Without love's foolish lazy languishment."[30:A] It appears, likewise, from this extract, and will further appear from two subsequent quotations, that the meretricious tendency of the _Venus and Adonis_ did not altogether escape the notice or the censure of the period which produced it. A more ample eulogium on the merits of Shakspeare's first production issued from the press in 1607, in a poem composed by William Barksted, and entitled, _Mirrha the Mother of Adonis; or Lustes Prodigies_, of which the concluding lines thus appreciate the value of his model:— "But stay, my Muse, in thine own confines keep, And wage not warre with so deere lov'd a neighbour; But having sung thy day-song, rest and sleep; Preserve thy small fame, and his greater favor. His song was worthie merit; Shakspeare, hee Sung the faire blossome, thou the wither'd tree: Laurel is due to him; his art and wit Hath purchas'd it; cyprus thy brows will fit."[30:B]