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- SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 51
V
Thorpe’s edition of the *Sonnets* does not seem to have been received by the public with enthusiasm. Edward Alleyn, the actor, purchased a copy of the book for fivepence, in June, 1609, within a month of its publication.¹ Another copy, in the John Rylands Library (No. VI, below), was clearly purchased at the same price for a gift-book, near the same date. Yet a third extant copy (No. VII, below) bears indication that it was acquired in very early days by Milton’s patron, the Earl of Bridgewater. But there is no sign that Shakespeare’s sonnets were widely read. A single edition answered the demand. The copyright proved of no marketable value. Thorpe retained it till he disappeared in 1625, and then no one was found to take it off his hands.
Contemporary references to Shakespeare’s sonnets in the printed literature of the day are rare. The poet, Drummond of Hawthornden, seems to have studied them, though he failed to note the purchase of Thorpe’s volume in the list which he prepared of the English books bought by him up to the year 1614. Many reminiscences of Shakespeare’s sonnets figure in Drummond’s early sonnets and poems, which were first collected in 1616. He borrowed, too, some lines from *A Lover’s Complaint*, which was appended to Thorpe’s edition of the *Sonnets*.²
¹ Warner’s *Dulwich Manuscripts*, p. 92.
² Cf. Drummond’s *Poems*, pt. ii, Sonnet xi, and impression, Edinb. 1616:
deare *Napkin* doe not grieve
That I this Tribute pay thee from mine *Eine*,
And that (these posting Hours I am to live)
I laundre thy faire Figures in this Brine.
*A Lover’s Complaint* (15–18):
Oft did she heave her *Napkin* to her *eyne*,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundring the silken figures in the brine
That season’d woe had pelleted in teares.
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