a book called Amours by J. D., with certen other sonnettes by W. S." Possibly these are sonnets by Shakspere. No copy of the book is known. WILLOBIE'S AVISA, 1594, AND ITS SUPPOSED CONNECTION "Willobie his Avisa or the true Picture of a modest maid, and of a chast and constant wife" was "imprinted at London by John Windet, 1594." Hadrian Dorrell in an epistle to the reader "from my chamber in Oxford' states that not long since his friend and chamber fellow, M. Henry Willobie, a young man and a scholar of very good hope, being desirous to see the fashions of other countries, departed voluntarily on her Majesty's service. Among Willobie's papers this poem was found by Dorrell, who took upon himself to publish it during Willobie's absence. A second edition appeared in 1596, to which Dorrell prefixed an "Apologie showing the true meaning of Willobie his Avisa." Here, contradicting his first statement, he says that this poetical fiction "was penned by the Author at least for thirty and five years since," and speaks of Willobie as "now of late gone to God." A Henry Willobie, aged sixteen, matriculated in St. John's College, Oxford, 1591. No Hadrian Dorrell is known. Dr. Ingleby (New Shakspere Society's Shakspere Allusion-books, Part I., and General Introduction, pp. xxviii.-xxxi.) supposes that Hadrian Dorrell was the real author, and that in what he tells us of Willobie he is hoaxing us. Dr. Grosart (Introduction to his edition of Willobie's Avisa, printed for the subscribers, 1880) is of opinion that some person unknown, assuming the name of Hadrian Dorrell, wrote the poem, and further to conceal his authorship ascribed it to a real Henry Willobie. "Willobie his Avisa" is a poem of seventy-two cantos in six-line stanzas, celebrating the chastity of Avisa as maid and wife. Whether Avisa was an ideal of the writer's imagination, or, as seems more likely, a living woman, we cannot be certain. Some commendatory verses, signed "Contraria Contrariis, Vigilantius Dormitanus," contain the earliest printed mention of Shakspere by name yet discovered: Yet Tarquyne plucked his glistering grape, The following passage in prose introduces Canto XLIV., and the W. S. of this curious passage has been supposed to mean William Shakspere. "Henrico Willobego. Italo-Hispalensis.1 "H. W. being sodenly affected with the contagion of a fantasticall fit, at the first sight of A. [Avisa] pyneth a while in secret griefe, at length not able any longer to indure the burning heate of so fervent a humour, bewrayeth the secresy of his disease vnto his familiar frend 1 The chastity of Avisa is tried by the assaults of passion as seen in men of various nations, French, German, etc. How Willobie can be "ItaloHispalensis" remains unexplained, unless it has reference to his travels abroad. W. S., who not long before had tryed the curtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered of the like infection; yet finding his frend let blood in the same vaine, he took pleasure for a tyme to see him bleed, and in steed of stopping the issue, he inlargeth the wound, with the sharpe rasor of a willing conceit, persuading him that he thought it a matter very easy to be compassed, and no doubt with payne, diligence, and some cost in tyme to be obtayned. Thus this miserable comforter comforting his frend with an impossibilitie eyther for that he now would secretly laugh at his frends folly, that had given occasion not long before vnto others to laugh at his owne, or because he would see whether an other could play his part better than himselfe and in vewing a far off the course of this louing Comedy, he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for this new actor, then it did for the old player. But at length this Comedy was like to haue growen to a Tragedy, by the weake and feeble estate that H. W. was brought vnto, by a desperate vewe of an impossibility of obtaining his purpose, til Time and Necessity, being his best Phisitions brought him a plaster, if not to heale, yet in part to ease his maladye. In all which discourse is liuely represented the vnrewly rage of vnbrydeled fancy, hauing the raines to roue at liberty, with the dyuers and sundry changes of affections and temptations, which Will, let loose from Reason, can devise," etc. From Canto XLIV. to XLVIII. W. S. addresses H. W. on his love-affair, and H. W. replies. As affording presumptions that W. S. may be William Shakspere, we may notice : 1st.-The fact that Shakspere is mentioned in the com mendatory poem. 2nd. The fact that Shakspere was, by virtue of Venus and Adonis, an authority on love and how to WOO. 3rd. The theatrical phraseology in the passage, "the new actor," "the old player," "Tragedy," and Comedy." 1 4th.—The fact that Canto XLVII. of "Willobie his Avisa," W. S.'s advice to Willobie as to how to compass his desire, strikingly resembles the poem in the same stanza, No. 19 of The Passionate Pilgrim, beginning: When as thine eye hath chose the dame, etc. Dr. Grosart is "inclined to conjecture that Shakespeare may have sent his friend H. W., or Dorrell, this identical poem (19 of Pass. Pilg.), while in Avisa we have recollections of actual conversations between Shakespeare and his love-lorn friend." Assuming that W. S. is William Shakspere, we learn that he had loved and recovered from the infection of his passion before the end of 1594. The chaste Avisa is as unlike as possible the dark woman of the Sonnets; nor does anything appear which can connect Henry Willobie with Shakspere's young friend of the Sonnets, except the fact that the initials of the only begetter's name were W. H., those of Henry Willobie reversed, and that Henry 1 The force of the allusion to tragedy and comedy is weakened by the fact that we find in Alcilia (1595) the course of love spoken of as a tragi-comedy, where no reference to a real actor on the stage is intended: Sic incipit stultorum Tragicomoedia. Willobie assails the chastity of a married woman. however, repulsed by the chaste Avisa. He is, Except in the reference to W. S.'s love, and his recovery from passion, I see no possible point of connection between Willobie's Avisa and Shakspere's Sonnets. The book, even as reprinted by Dr. Grosart, is not accessible to all readers, and the curiosity of some has perhaps been quickened by Mr. Swinburne's reference to it as "the one contemporary book which has ever been supposed to throw any direct or indirect light on the mystic matter [of the Sonnets];" while of Dr. Grosart's promised reprint, Mr. Swinburne spoke as of "the one inestimable boon long hoped for against hoping, and as yet but a vision of a dream' to the most learned and most loving of true Shakespearean students" (A Study of Shakespeare, pp. 62, 63). The literary merits of Willobie's Avisa are few and slight. THE QUARTO EDITION OF 1609, AND REPRINTS OF THE SAME.1 Shakspere's Sonnets are entered on the Stationers' Registers in the following words : "20 maii [1609]. Thomas Thorpe entred for his copie vnder the h]andes of master Wilson and master Lownes warden, a Booke called Shakespeare's Sonnetes." vjd. In that year, 1609, appeared the first edition:Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted. At London. By G. Eld for T. T., and are to be solde by William Apsley, 1609. 1 Partly from Mr. Justin Winsor's Bibliography. |