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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 — John Shaqi

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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

"O HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
     By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
     The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
     For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
     The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye,
     As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
     Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
     When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
     But, for their virtue only is their show,
     They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
     Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
     Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
       And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
       When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth."
                                                    Son. 54.

In spirit, however, in elegance, in the skill and texture of its
modulation, and beyond all, in the dignified and highly poetical
close of the third quatrain, no one of our author's sonnets excels
the twenty-ninth. The ascent of the lark was a favourite subject of
contemplation with the poet:—

    "WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
     I all alone beweep my outcast state,
     And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
     And look upon myself, and curse my fate.
     Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
     Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
     Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
     With what I most enjoy contented least;
     Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
     Haply I think on thee,—and then my state,
     Like to the lark at break of day arising
     From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
       For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings,
       That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

It is, time, however, to terminate these transcriptions, which have
been already sufficiently numerous to enable the reader to form an
estimate of the poet's merit in the difficult task of sonnet-writing.
That many more might be brought forward, of equal value with those
which we have selected, will be allowed perhaps when we state, that in
the _specimens_ of Mr. Ellis, the _Petrarca_ of Mr. Henderson, and the
_Laura_ of Mr. Lofft, eleven have been chosen, of which, we find upon
reference, only one among the four just now adduced.

The last production in the _minor_ poems of Shakspeare, is A
LOVER'S COMPLAINT, in which a forlorn damsel, seduced and
deserted, relates the history of her sorrows to

    "A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh."

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