THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM.

INTRODUCTION.

[The Passionate Pilgrime By W. Shakespeare. At London | his own. (See the Reprint of "The Apology for Actors," by Printed for W. Iaggard, and are to be sold by W. Leake, at the Shakespeare Society, pp. 62 and 66.) He seems also to the Greyhound in Paules Churchyard. 1599." 16mo. 30 have taken steps against W. Jaggard; for the latter cancelled leaves.

The title-page first given to the edition of 1612 ran thus: "The Passionate Pilgrime. Or Certaine Amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis, newly corrected and augmented. By W. Shakespere. The third Edition. Wherevnto is newly added two Loue-Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's answere backe againe to Paris. Printed by W. Iaggard. 1612." The title-page substituted for the above differs in no other respect but in the omission of "By W. Shakespere."]

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In the following pages we have reprinted "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599, as it came from the press of W. Jaggard, with the exception only of the orthography. Malone omitted several portions of it; some because they were substantially repetitions of poems contained elsewhere, and others because they appeared to have been improperly assigned to Shakespeare: one piece, the last in the tract, is not inserted at all in Boswell's edition, although Malone reprinted it in 1780, and no reason is assigned for rejecting it. We have given the whole, and in our notes we have stated the particular circumstances belonging to such pieces, as there is reason to believe did not come from the pen of our great dramatist. "The Passionate Pilgrim " was reprinted by W. Jaggard, in 1612, with additions, and the facts attending the publication of the two impressions are peculiar.

the title-page of The Passionate Pilgrim," 1612, which contained the name of Shakespeare, and substituted another without any name, so far discrediting Shakespeare's right to any of the poems the work contained, although some were his beyond all dispute. Malone's copy in the Bodleian Library has both title-pages.

To what extent, therefore, we may accept W. Jaggard's assertion of the authorship of Shakespeare of the poems in "The Passionate Pilgrim," is a question of some difficulty. Two Sonnets, with which the little volume opens, are contained (with variations, on which account we print them again here) in Thorpe's edition of "Shakespeare's Sonnets," 1609: three other pieces (also with changes) are found in "Love's Labour 's Lost," which had been printed the year before "The Passionate Pilgrim" originally came out :another, and its "answer," notoriously belong to Marlowe and Raleigh; a sonnet, with some slight differences, had been printed as his in 1596, by a person of the name of Griffin; while one production appeared in "England's Helicon " in 1600, under the signature of Ignoto. The various circumstances attending each poem, wherever any remark seemed required, are stated in our notes, and it is not necessary therefore to enter farther into the question here.

At

It ought to be mentioned, that although the signatures at the bottom of the pages are continued throughout, after the poem beginning, "Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!" we meet with a new and dateless title-page, which runs thus:-"Sonnets to sundry Notes of Musicke. London Printed for W. Iaggard, and are to be sold by W. Leake, at the Greyhound in Paules Churchyard." Hence we may infer that all the productions inserted after this division had been set by popular composers: that some of them had received this distinction, evidence has descended to our day: we refer particularly to the lyrical poem, "My flocks feed not," (p. 965) and to the well-known lines, "Live with me and be my love," (p. 966) the air to which seems to have been so common, that it was employed by Deloney as a ballad-tune. See his "Strange Histories," 1607, p. 28 of the reprint by the Percy Society.

In 1598, Richard Barnfield put his name to a small collection of productions in verse, entitled "The Encomion of Lady Pecunia," which contained more than one poem attributed to Shakespeare in "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599: the first was printed by John, and the last by William Jaggard. Boswell suggests, that John Jaggard in 1598 might have stolen Shakespeare's verses and attributed them to Barnfield; but the answer to this supposition is two-fold-first, that Barnfield formally, and in his own name, printed them as his in 1598; and next, that he reprinted them under the same circumstances in 1605, notwithstanding they had been in the mean time assigned to Shakespeare2. The truth seems to be that W. Jaggard took them in 1599 from Barnfield's publication, printed by John Jaggard in 1598. In 1612 W. Jaggard went even more boldly to work; for in the impression of One object with W. Jaggard in 1612, when he republished "The Passionate Pilgrim" of that year3, he not only re"The Passionate Pilgrim" with unwarrantable additions, was peated Barnfield's poems of 1598, but included two of Ovid's probably to swell the bulk of it; and so much had he felt this Epistles, which had been translated by Thomas Heywood, want in 1599, that, excepting the three last leaves, all the rest and printed by him with his name in his "Troja Britannica," of the volume is printed on one side of the paper only, a pecu1609. The epistles were made, with some little ambiguity, toliarity we do not recollect to belong to any other work of the appear in "The Passionate Pilgrim " of 1612, to have been time: by the insertion of Heywood's translations from Ovid, also the work of Shakespeare. When, therefore, Heywood this course was rendered unnecessary in 1612, and although published his next work in 1612, he exposed the wrong that the volume is still of small bulk, it was not so insignificant in had been thus done to him, and claimed the performances as its appearance as it had been in 15995. Only a single copy of

1 It professes to be "printed for W. Jaggard," but he was probably | edition is known, although it is very probable that it had been the typographer, and W. Leake the bookseller. Leake published an republished in the interval between 1599 and 1612. edition of Venus and Adonis " in 1602, contrary to what is stated on p. 911.

4 Nicholas Breton seems to have written his "Passionate Shepherd," 1604, in imitation of the title and of the style of some of the poems in the "Passionate Pilgrim." The only known copy of this production is in private hands. It is very possible that a second edition of "The Passionate Pilgrim" (that of 1612, as we have observed, is called "the third impression ") came out about 1604, and that on this account Breton was led to imitate the title, and the form of verse of some of the pieces in it. As "The Passionate Shepherd "is a great curiosity, not being even mentioned by bibliographers, and as it is thus connected with the name and works of Shakespeare, an exact copy of the title-page may be acceptable :

2 This edition of Barnfield's work was unknown to bibliographers until a copy of it was met with in the library of Lord Francis Egerton. See the Bridgewater Catalogue, 1837, p. 21. It was not a mere reprint of the edition of 1598, but it was really "newly corrected and enlarged " by the author, as stated on the title-page; so that Barnfield's attention was particularly directed to the contents of his small volume, and perhaps to the manner in which part of them had been stolen by W. Jaggard in 1599. It is to be remarked also that John Jaggard was not concerned in the second edition of Barnfield's "Encomion," as he had been in the first: it was printed by "The Passionate Shepheard, or The Shepheardes Loue set downe W. I. (probably W. Iaggard, the very person who had committed the in Passions to his Shepheardesse Aglaia. With many excellent theft in 1599) and it was "to be sold by Iohn Hodgets." Both conceited Poems and pleasant Sonnets, fit for young heads to passe editions contain the tribute to Spenser, Daniel Drayton, and Shake-away idle houres. London Imprinted by E. Allde for Iohn Tappe, speare the lines to the latter would hardly have been reprinted in and are to bee solde at his Shop, at the Tower-Hill, neere the Bul1605, if Barnfield had supposed that Shakespeare had in any way warke Gate. 1604." 4to. given his sanction to the transference of two pieces from the "Encomion" to "The Passionate Pilgrim."

5 It is as small a poetical volume as we remember to have seen, excepting a copy of George Peele's "Tale of Troy," which was 9 On the title-page it is called "the third edition," but no second reprinted in 1604, of the size of an inch and a half high by an inch

1 This sonnet is substantially the same as Sonnet cxxxviii. in the quarto published by Thorpe, in 1609. 2 This sonnet is also included in the collection of 1609, (Sonnet cxliv.) but with some verbal variations. 3 This sonnet is found in "Love's Labour 's Lost," but with some slight variations, published in 1598. 4 We may suspect, notwithstanding the concurrence of the two ancient editions in our text, that the true reading was sugar'd, the long s having been, as in other places, mistaken for the letter f. 5 This poem, with variations, is read by Sir Nathaniel, in "Love's Labour's Lost."

1 This poem was published in 1598, in Richard Barnfield's "Encomion of Lady Pecunia." There is little doubt that it is his property, notwithstanding it appeared in the "Passionate Pilgrim," 1599; and it was reprinted as Barnfield's in the new edition of his "Encomion, in 1605. 2 The next line is lost. 3 This sonnet, with considerable variations, is the third in a collection of seventy-two sonnets, published in 1596, under the title of "Fidessa," with the name of B. Griffin, as the author. with the name of B. Griffin, as the author. A syllabic defect in the first line is there remedied by the insertion of "young" before "Adonis." A manuscript of the time, now before us, is without the epithet, and has the initials W. S. at the end. 4 The line so stands in both editions of "The Passionate Pilgrim," and in the contemporaneous manuscript; but in Griffin's "Fidessa," it is: And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.

XVII9.

On a day (alack the day!)
Love, whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover (sick to death)
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath,
Air (quoth he) thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alas! my hand hath sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack! for youth unmeet:
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiop were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

1 an hour: in old eds. Steevens made the change; moon having the sense of month. 2 This is the first piece in the division of "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599, called "Sonnets to sundry Notes of Music." As the signatures of the pages run on throughout the small volume, we have continued to mark the poems by numerals, in the order in which they were printed. 3 This poem, in a more complete state, and with the addition of two lines only found there, may be seen in "Love's Labour's Lost." The poem is also printed in "England's Helicon," (sign. H.) a miscellany of poetry, first published in 1600, (reprinted in 1812,) where "W. Shakespeare" is appended to it. 4 In "England's Helicon," 1600, this poem immediately follows "On a day (alack the day!)" but it is there entitled, "The unknown Shepherd's Complaint," and it is subscribed Ignoto. Hence, we may suppose that the compiler of that collection knew that it was not by Shakespeare, although it had been attributed to him in "The Passionate Pilgrim," of the year preceding. It had appeared anonymously, with the music, in 1597, in a collection of Madrigals, by Thomas Weelkes. 5 Love's denying in "England's Helicon." 6 Heart's renying in "England's Helicon." 7 Part. 8 Both editions of "The Passionate Pilgrim," have With for My, which last not only is necessary for the sense, but is confirmed as the true reading by Weelkes' Madrigals, 1597.

What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,
Her feeble force will yield at length,
When craft hath taught her thus to say,—.
"Had women been so strong as men,
In faith you had not had it then.”

And to her will frame all thy ways:
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise,
By ringing in thy lady's ear:

The strongest castle, tower, and town,
The golden bullet beats it down.

1 So both editions of "The Passionate Pilgrim," and "England's Helicon." rigals:

Serve always with assured trust,
And in thy suit be humble, true;
Unless thy lady prove unjust,

Seek never thou to choose a new.

When time shall serve, be thou not slack
To proffer, though she put thee back.

The wiles and guiles that women work,
Dissembled with an outward show,
The tricks and toys that in them lurk,
The cock that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft,
A woman's nay doth stand for nought?

Think, women still to strive with men
To sin, and never for to saint:
There is no heaven; be holy then,
When time with age shall them attaint.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

But soft! enough,-too much, I fear;
Lest that my mistress hear my song,
She will not stick to warm my ear,
To teach my tongue to be so long:

Yet will she blush, here be it said,
To hear her secrets so bewray'd.

XX.7

Live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And the craggy mountain yields.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies ;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

"Loud bells ring not
Cheerfully."

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then, live with me and be my love.

LOVE'S ANSWER.

If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee and be thy love.

Malone preferred the passage as it stands in Weelkes' Mad

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2 "The Passionate Pilgrim," and "England's Helicon," both have love for lass, which the rhyme shows to be the true reading, as it stands in Weelkes' Madrigals, 1597. 3 So "England's Helicon" and Weelkes' Madrigals: "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599, has woe for 4 In some modern editions, the stanzas of this poem have been given in an order different to that in which they stand in "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599: to that order we restore them, and that text we follow, excepting where it is evidently corrupt. The line, As well as partial fancy like," we have corrected by a manuscript of the time. The edition of 1599 reads: "As well as fancy party all might," which is decidedly wrong. Malone substituted "As well as fancy, partial tike." The manuscript by which we have corrected the fourth line of the stanza also gives the two last lines of it thus :-.

"Ask counsel of some other head,
Neither unwise nor yet unwed."

But no change from the old printed copy is here necessary. In the manuscript the whole has Shakespeare's initials at the end. manuscript in our possession, and another that Malone used: the old copies read, with obvious corruption,

"And set her person forth to sale.'

وو

5 So the

7 This

6 So the manuscript in our possession: "The Passionate Pilgrim," 1599, has it, "She will not stick to round me on th' ear." poem, here incomplete, and what is called "Love's Answer," still more imperfect, may be seen at length in "Percy's Reliques," Vol. I. They belong to Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh: the first is assigned by name to Marlowe, in "England's Helicon," 1600, (sign A 2) and the last appears in the same collection, under the name of Ignoto, which was a signature sometimes adopted by Sir Walter Raleigh. They are, besides, assigned to both these authors in Walton's "Angler," (p. 149, edit. 1808) under the titles of “The milkmaid's song," and "The Milk-maid's Mother's answer."