Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/102

92 yet it contained, as well, poems by Marlowe, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Carew, Herrick, Milton, and others. The sonnets were not printed in the order in which they appeared in the quarto of 1609. In many cases they were run together as one continuous poem; and there were added to them, singly or in groups, seventy-four titles, some fairly appropriate, others quite unfitting, and nearly all commonplace. Seven sonnets, including No. 18, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,' and the poem in couplets, No. 126, are omitted from this edition. Plainly it is much inferior to the quarto of 1609. In 1710 both the first and second editions were reprinted. Two editions in a century indicate a lack of interest in the sonnets, especially when their fate is contrasted with the numerous editions and great popularity of many of the plays.

There is further evidence in the manner in which the first editors of Shakespeare neglected these poems. To cite Lee, 'Neither Nicholas Rowe, nor Pope, nor Theobald, nor Hanmer, nor Warburton, nor Capell, nor Dr. Johnson included them in their respective collections of Shakespeare's plays. None of these editors, save Capell, showed any signs of acquaintance with them.' The first critical edition of the sonnets was Malone's, 1780, for which George Steevens supplied some material; and it is indicative of the general attitude towards the sonnets that Steevens himself, in 1793, wrote that 'The strongest act of Parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service.'

With the rise of the Romantic School, the sonnets found readers, students, and imitators. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats directed attention to them and on the Continent, where also they had suffered neglect, they became a subject of study and criticism. At the present moment, no part of Shakespeare's work