Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1866 Excerpt: ... relates that about the end of March (1599) Essex set forward for Ireland, and was 'accompanied out of London with a fine appearance of nobility and the most cheerful huzzas of the common people.' And, seeing that Shakspeare in Henry V. makes his allusion to Essex's coming home, I infer that in Henry IV. he pictures Southampton as he saw him at starting, on a similar occasion, dressed in heroic splendours, to his proud loving eyes; the noblest, the fieriest of the troop of young gallants, all noble, all on fire, 'all clinquant, all in gold!' When Eowland White saw Southampton off for Ireland, in 1600, he could not help exclaiming, ' He is a very fine gentleman, and loves you (Sir Eobert Sidney) well.' Also, the troubled history of Southampton's love for Elizabeth Vernon, and the opposition of Fortune, much dwelt upon in the sonnets, could not fail to give a more tragic touch to the play, a more purple bloom to the poetry, when the subject was the sorrow of true but thwarted love. I fancy that Shakspeare was working a good deal from the life and the love of his friends when he wrote his 'Eorneo and Juliet;' the Queen's opposition to their marriage standing in the place of that ancient enmity of the two Houses. There is much of Southampton's character and fate in Eomeo the unlucky, doomed to be crossed in his dearest wishes, whose name was writ in sour Misfortune's book. The Poet must have often preached patience to his friend, like the good Friar Lawrence, and at the same time apprehended with foreboding feeling and presaging fear some tragic issue from the clashing of such a temperament with so trying a fortune. There are expressions pointing to the lady of the early sonnets as being in the Poet's mind when he was thinking of Juliet. A remarkable image in th...
