author's praise, however, is somewhat impaired by the
extravagances in certain sonnets where, for instance, he honours a lady
whose soul, he says, was "endued in her lifetime with infinite
perfections as her divine poems do testify," when she on earth did sing
poet-wise angels in heaven prayed for her company, and when she died,
her "fair and glittering rays increased the light of heaven;" where
again he calls on the Countess of Essex to revenge the death of her
first husband, Sir Philip Sidney, upon the Spanish people by murdering
them _en masse_ with her eyes, and where he calls the Countess of
Shrewsbury "chieftain of Venus's host," and places her crowned in heaven
beside the Virgin Mary. Constable's zealous publisher was not far wrong
when he claimed that in this poet "conceit first claimed his birthright
to enjoy," and since we do not find either in the sonnets to Lady Rich
or in those to Lady Arabella any special tone of sincerity that leads us
to have confidence in our conjecture, we shall be compelled to leave
this puzzle unsolved.

DIANA

UNTO HER MAJESTY'S SACRED HONOURABLE MAIDS

Eternal Twins! that conquer death and time,
Perpetual advocates in heaven and earth!
Fair, chaste, immaculate, and all divine,
Glorious alone, before the first man's birth;
Your twofold charities, celestial lights,
Bow your sun-rising eyes, planets of joy,
Upon these orphan poems; in whose rights
Conceit first claimed his birthright to enjoy.
If, pitiful, you shun the song of death,
Or fear the stain of love's life-dropping blood,
O know then, you are pure; and purer faith
Shall still keep white the flower, the fruit, and bud.
Love moveth all things. You that love, shall move
All things in him, and he in you shall love.

RICHARD SMITH.[A]

[Footnote A: Richard Smith was the publisher of the 1594 edition of the
_Diana_.]

TO HIS MISTRESS

Grace full of grace, though in these verses here
My love complains of others than of thee,
Yet thee alone I loved, and they by me,
Thou yet unknown, only mistaken were.
Like him which feels a heat now here now there,
Blames now this cause now that, until he see
The fire indeed from whence they caused be;
Which fire I now do know is you, my dear,
Thus diverse loves dispersed in my verse
In thee alone for ever I unite,
And fully unto thee more to rehe