In the next, he pursues the same argument in the same strain.
From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim, Has put a sprite of youth in euery thing; That heauy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose: They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after thee, thou pattern of all those![26] Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow, I with these did play.[27]
Here are strong marks of Shakespeare's hand and manner. In the next, he continues his _play_ with the flowers. He chides the _forward_ violet, a _sweet thief_, for stealing the fragrance of the boy's breath, and for having died his veins with too rich a purple. The lilly is condemned for presuming to emulate the whiteness of his hand, and _buds_ of _marjoram_ for stealing the ringlets of his hair. Our lover is then seduced into some violent fictions of the same kind; and after much ingenious absurdity concludes more rationally,
More flowres I noted, yet I none could see, But sweet or colour it had stolne from thee.[28]
Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ were published in the year 1599.[29] I remember to have seen this edition, I think with _Venus and Adonis_ and the _rape of Lucrece_, a very small book, in the possession of the late Mr Thomson of Queen's College Oxford, a very curious and intelligent collector of this kind of literature.[30] But they were circulated in manuscript before the year 1598. For in that year, they are mentioned by Meres. "Witness his [Shakespeare's] _Venus and Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, his sugred _Sonnets_ among his priuate friends, &c."[31] They were reprinted in the year 1609; one hundred & fifty four in number. They were first printed under Shakespeares name, among his _Poems_, in the year 1717, by Sewel, who had no other authority than tradition.[32] But that they were undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, the frequent intermixture of thoughts and expressions which now appear in his plays, and, what is more, the general complexion of their phraseology & sentiment, abundantly demonstrate, Shakespeare cannot be concealed. Their late ingenious editor is of opinion, that Daniel was Shakespeare's model.[33]