Bohn's Lowndes, ed. the Plays. Joiner to Capell's edition VENUS and ADONI S. Vilia miretur vulgus, mihi flavus Apollo Ovid. Amor. l. 1. El. 15. To the Right Honourable HENRY WRIOTHESLY, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield. Right Honourable, I know not how I fhall offend, in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship; nor how the world will cenfure me, for chufing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden: only if your honour feem but pleafed, I account myfelf highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with fome graver labour. But if the firft heir of my invention prove deformed, I fhall be forry it had fo noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me ftill so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable furvey, and your honour to your heart's content; which I wifh may always answer your own wifh, and the world's hopeful expectation. Your Honour's in all duty, Will. Shakespear. VENUS and ADONIS. Even as the fun, with purple-coloured face, Thrice fairer than myfelf! (thus fhe began) Nature, that made thee with herself at ftrife, Vouchsafe, thou wonder! to alight thy fteed, Here come and fit, where ferpent never hiffes, And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed fatiety, A fummer's day will seem an hour but short, A 2 "Remark the hu= - maniging imagery! first tim lives, and the activit of thought in the play funds i the fourth line. The whole How - запрения at once the time the appien sence of the morning and the tes perso distimetty characterized, and in sof simple perses put the reader in possession of the whites argument of the poem." L.I.C. |