Pamphlet without beginning is a superfluous Moiety. The warrant
I have of your Honourable disposition, nor the worth of my
untutored Lines makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done
is yours, what I have to doe is yours, being part in all I have,
devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew
greater, meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship; To
whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happinesse.

Your Lordships in all duety.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE."

No more after this does Shakespeare appear in the light of a poet with a
patron. Even the sonnets, some of which evidently celebrate Southampton,
were issued by a piratical publisher without Shakespeare's consent,
while his plays found their way into print at the hands of other pirates
who cribbed them from stage copies.

Such hints as these have been worked up by Browning into a consistent
characterization of a man who regards himself as having foregone his
chances of laureateship or "Next Poet" by devoting himself to a form of
literary art which would not appeal to the powers that be as fitting him
for any such position. Such honors he claims do not go to the dramatic
poet, who has never allowed the world to slip inside his breast, but has
simply portrayed the joy and the sorrow of life as he saw it around him,
and with an art which turns even sorrow into beauty.--"Do I stoop? I
pluck a posy, do I stand and stare? all's blue;"--but to the subjective,
introspective poet, out of tune with himself and with the universe. The
allusions Shakespeare makes to the last "King" are not very definite,
but, on the whole, they fit Edmund Spenser, whose poems from first to
last are dedicated to people of distinction in court circles. His work,
moreover, is full of wailing and woe in various keys, and also full of
self-revelation. He allowed the world to slip inside his breast upon
almost every occasion, and perhaps he may be said to have bought "his
laurel," for it was no doubt extremely gratifying to Queen Elizabeth to
see herself in the guise of the Faerie Queene, and even his dedication
of the "Faerie Queene" to her, used as she was to flattery, must have
been as music in her ears. "To the most high, mightie, and magnificent
Empresse, renouned for piety, vertue, and all gratious government,
Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queene of England, Frahnce, and Ireland
and of Virginia. Defender of the Faith, &c. Her most h