scribing love,' but is
clearly a rendering of a French poem by Amadis Jamin, entitled 'Amour
Fuitif, du grec de Moschus,' in his 'OEuvres Poetiques,' Paris, 1579.
{432b} At the end of Barnes's volume there also figure six dedicatory
sonnets. In Sonnet xcv. Barnes pays a compliment to Sir Philip Sidney,
'the Arcadian shepherd, Astrophel,' but he did not draw so largely on
Sidney's work as on that of Ronsard, Desportes, De Baif, and Du Bellay.
Legal metaphors abound in Barnes's poems, but amid many crudities, he
reaches a high level of beauty in Sonnet lxvi., which runs:

Ah, sweet Content! where is thy mild abode?
Is it with shepherds, and light-hearted swains,
Which sing upon the downs, and pipe abroad,
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains?
Ah, sweet Content! where dost thou safely rest
In Heaven, with Angels? which the praises sing
Of Him that made, and rules at His behest,
The minds and hearts of every living thing.
Ah, sweet Content! where doth thine harbour hold?
Is it in churches, with religious men,
Which please the gods with prayers manifold;
And in their studies meditate it then?
Whether thou dost in Heaven, or earth appear;
Be where thou wilt! Thou wilt not harbour here! {433a}

Watson's 'Tears of Fancie,' 1593.

In August 1593 there appeared a posthumous collection of sixty-one
sonnets by Thomas Watson, entitled 'The Tears of Fancie, or Love
Disdained.' They are throughout the imitative type of his previously
published 'Centurie of Love.' Many of them sound the same note as
Shakespeare's sonnets to the 'dark lady.'

Fletcher's 'Licia,' 1593.

In September 1593 followed Giles Fletcher's 'Licia, or Poems of Love in
honour of the admirable and singular virtues of his Lady.' This
collection of fifty-three sonnets is dedicated to the wife of Sir Richard
Mollineux. Fletcher makes no concealment that his sonnets are literary
exercises. 'For this kind of poetry,' he tells the reader, 'I did it to
try my humour;' and on the title-page he notes that the work was written
'to the imitation of the best Latin poets and others.' {433b}

Lodge's 'Phillis,' 1593.

The most notable contribution to the sonnet-literature of 1593 was Thomas
Lodge's 'Phillis Honoured with Pastoral Sonnets, Elegies, and Amorous
Delights.' {433c} Besides forty sonnets, some of which exceed fourteen
lines in length and others