nnets, which have the extraordinary
interest that, while preceding the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets by
fourteen years, they are closer to them in manner than are any others of
the Elizabethan age. They celebrate, with extravagant ardour, the charms of
a young man whose initials seem to have been J. U. or J. V., and of whom
nothing else seems known. These sonnets, which preceded even the _Amoretti_
of Spenser, are of unusual merit as poetry, and would rank as high in
quality as in date of publication if their subject-matter were not so
preposterous. They show the influence of Drayton's _Idea_, which had
appeared a few months before; in that collection also, it is to be
observed, there had appeared amatory sonnets addressed to a young man. If
editors would courageously alter the gender of the pronouns, several of
Barnfield's glowing sonnets might take their place at once in our
anthologies. Before the publication of his volume, however, he had repented
of his heresies, and had become enamoured of a "lass" named Eliza (or
Elizabeth), whom he celebrates with effusion in an "Ode." This is probably
the lady whom he presently married, and as we find him a grandfather in
1626 it is unlikely that the wedding was long delayed. In 1598 Barnfield
published his third volume, _The Encomion of Lady Pecunia_, a poem in
praise of money, followed by a sort of continuation, in the same six-line
stanza, called "The Complaint of Poetry for the Death of Liberality." In
this volume there is already a decline in poetic quality. But an appendix
of "Poems in diverse Humours" to this volume of 1598 presents some very
interesting features. Here appears what seems to be the absolutely earliest
praise of Shakespeare in a piece entitled "A Remembrance of some English
Poets," in which the still unrecognized author of _Venus and Adonis_ is
celebrated by the side of Spenser, Daniel and Drayton. Here also are the
sonnet, "If Music and sweet Poetry agree," and the beautiful ode beginning
"As it fell upon a day," which were until recently attributed to
Shakespeare himself. In the next year, 1599, _The Passionate Pilgrim_ was
published, with the words "By W. Shakespeare" on the title-page. It was
long supposed that this attribution was correct, but Barnfield claimed one
of the two pieces just mentioned, not only in 1598, but again in 1605. It
is certain that both are his, and possibly other things in _The Passionate
Pilgrim_ also; Shakespeare's share i