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Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2]: Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his ageDrake, Nathan

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Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2]: Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

Name: Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2]: Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age
Author: Drake, Nathan

Drake, Nathan

Dramatists, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography; England -- Civilization -- 16th century; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Homes and haunts -- England

"NO longer mourn for me when I am dead,
     Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
     Give warning to the world that I am fled
     From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
     Nay, if you read this line, remember not
     The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
     That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
     If thinking on me then should make you woe.
     O if, I say, you look upon this verse,
     When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
     Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
     But let your love even with my life decay:
       Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
       And mock you with me after I am gone."
                                                    Son. 71.

Simplicity of style, and tenderness of sentiment, form the sole
features of this sonnet; but in the next, with an equal chastity of
diction, are combined more energy and dignity, together with the
infusion of some noble and appropriate imagery. It must also be added,
that the flow and structure of the verse are singularly pleasing:—

    "LET me not to the marriage of true minds
     Admit impediments. Love is not love
     Which alters when it alteration finds,
     Or bends with the remover to remove:
     O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
     That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
     It is the star to every wandering bark,
     Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
     Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
     Within his bending sickle's compass come;
     Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
     But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
       If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
       I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."
                                                   Son. 116.

Of a lighter though more glowing cast of poetry, both in expression and
imagination, but with a slight blemish, arising from the pharmaceutical
allusion in the last line, is the sonnet which we are about to quote.
A trifling inaccuracy with respect to the colour of the cynorhodon,
or canker-rose, afforded Mr. Steevens a pretext for the splenetic
interrogation which has been recorded by us with due censure. It is
somewhat strange that the beauties of the poem could not disarm the
prejudices of the critic:

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