em'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow, I with these did play.[27]

Here are strong marks of Shakespeare's hand and manner. In the next, he
continues his _play_ with the flowers. He chides the _forward_ violet, a
_sweet thief_, for stealing the fragrance of the boy's breath, and for
having died his veins with too rich a purple. The lilly is condemned for
presuming to emulate the whiteness of his hand, and _buds_ of _marjoram_
for stealing the ringlets of his hair. Our lover is then seduced into
some violent fictions of the same kind; and after much ingenious
absurdity concludes more rationally,

More flowres I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet or colour it had stolne from thee.[28]

Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ were published in the year 1599.[29] I remember
to have seen this edition, I think with _Venus and Adonis_ and the _rape
of Lucrece_, a very small book, in the possession of the late Mr Thomson
of Queen's College Oxford, a very curious and intelligent collector of
this kind of literature.[30] But they were circulated in manuscript
before the year 1598. For in that year, they are mentioned by Meres.
"Witness his [Shakespeare's] _Venus and Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, his
sugred _Sonnets_ among his priuate friends, &c."[31] They were reprinted
in the year 1609; one hundred & fifty four in number. They were first
printed under Shakespeares name, among his _Poems_, in the year 1717, by
Sewel, who had no other authority than tradition.[32] But that they were
undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, the frequent intermixture of
thoughts and expressions which now appear in his plays, and, what is
more, the general complexion of their phraseology & sentiment,
abundantly demonstrate, Shakespeare cannot be concealed. Their late
ingenious editor is of opinion, that Daniel was Shakespeare's model.[33]

I have before incidentally mentioned Barnefield's Sonnets,[34] which,
like Shakespeare's, are adressed [sic] to a boy. They are flowery and
easy. Meres recites Barnefelde among the pastoral writers.[35] These
sonnets, twenty in number, are written in the character of a shepherd:
and there are other pieces by Barnefield which have a pastoral turn, in
_Englands Helicon_. Sir Philip Sydney had made every thing Arcadian. I
will cite four of this authors best lines, and such as will be least
offensive.

Some talk of Ganymede th' Idalian boy,
And some of faire Adonis make their boast;
Some t