he title 'Diella.' {437a} The effort is
thoroughly conventional. In an obsequious address by the publisher,
Henry Olney, to Anne, wife of Sir Henry Glenham, Linche's sonnets are
described as 'passionate' and as 'conceived in the brain of a gallant
gentleman.'

Griffin's 'Fidessa,' 1596. Thomas Campion, 1596.

To the same year belongs Bartholomew Griffin's 'Fidessa,' sixty-two
sonnets inscribed to 'William Essex, Esq.' Griffin designates his
sonnets as 'the first fruits of a young beginner.' He is a shameless
plagiarist. Daniel is his chief model, but he also imitated Sidney,
Watson, Constable, and Drayton. Sonnet iii., beginning 'Venus and young
Adonis sitting by her,' is almost identical with the fourth poem--a
sonnet beginning 'Sweet Cytheraea, sitting by a brook'--in Jaggard's
piratical miscellany, 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' which bore Shakespeare's
name on the title-page. {437b} Jaggard doubtless stole the poem from
Griffin, although it may be in its essentials the property of some other
poet. Three beautiful love-sonnets by Thomas Campion, which are found in
the Harleian MS. 6910, are there dated 1596. {437c}

William Smith's 'Chloris,' 1596.

William Smith was the author of 'Chloris,' a third collection of sonnets
appearing in 1596. {437d} The volume contains forty-eight sonnets of
love of the ordinary type, with three adulating Spenser; of these, two
open the volume and one concludes it. Smith says that his sonnets were
'the budding springs of his study.' In 1600 a license was issued by the
Stationers' Company for the issue of 'Amours' by W. S. This no doubt
refers to a second collection of sonnets by William Smith. The projected
volume is not extant. {438a}

Robert Tofte's 'Laura,' 1597.

In 1597 there came out a similar volume by Robert Tofte, entitled 'Laura,
the Joys of a Traveller, or the Feast of Fancy.' The book is divided
into three parts, each consisting of forty 'sonnets' in irregular metres.
There is a prose dedication to Lucy, sister of Henry, ninth Earl of
Northumberland. Tofte tells his patroness that most of his 'toys' 'were
conceived in Italy.' As its name implies, his work is a pale reflection
of Petrarch. A postscript by a friend--'R. B.'--complains that a
publisher had intermingled with Tofte's genuine efforts 'more than thirty
sonnets not his.' But the style is throughout so uniformly tame that it
is not possible to distinguish the work of a second hand.