year, and after the Earl of Derby had come into his titles
and estates, through the death of his elder brother, in April 1594.

Referring again to the State Papers, we have on 15th August 1594 the
statement of a Jesuit, named Edmund Yorke, who is reported as saying
"Burghley poisoned the Earl of Derby so as to marry his granddaughter to
his brother." Fernando Stanley, Earl of Derby, died under suspicious
circumstances after a short illness, and it was reported at the time
that he was poisoned. As he had recently been instrumental in bringing
about the execution of a prominent Jesuit, whom he had accused of having
approached him with seditious proposals, it was believed at the time
that an emissary of that society was concerned in his death. While
disregarding Yorke's atrocious imputation against Burghley, we may
safely date the inception of the negotiations leading to Elizabeth
Vere's marriage somewhere after 16th April, the date of the preceding
Earl's death; Burghley did not choose younger sons in marriage for his
daughters or granddaughters. Thus we are fully assured that, at however
earlier a date the prospects for a marriage between Southampton and Lady
Vere were abandoned, they had ceased to be entertained by the early
summer of 1594. Shortly after this, Southampton's infatuation for
Elizabeth Vernon had its inception. The intensity of the young
nobleman's early interest in this latter affair quite precludes the
necessity for Shakespeare's poetical incitements thereto; we may
therefore refer the group of sonnets, in which Shakespeare urges his
friend's marriage, to the more diffident affair of the earlier years and
to a period antedating the publication of _Venus and Adonis_ in May
1593. A comparison of the argument of _Venus and Adonis_ with that of
the first book of Sonnets will indicate a common date of production, and
that Shakespeare wrote both poems with the same purpose in view.

CHAPTER VIII

JOHN FLORIO AS SIR JOHN FALSTAFF'S ORIGINAL

Probably the most remarkable and interesting aesthetic study of a single
Shakespearean character ever produced is Maurice Morgann's _Essay on the
Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff_, which was written in 1774, and
first published in 1777. This excellent piece of criticism deserves a
much wider cognizance than it has ever attained; only three editions
have since been issued.

Morgann's _Essay_ was originally undertaken in jest, in order to
disprove the asse