m honored
recognize thy supreme merit, for daily and hourly are sung to her
the praises of this loveliness until the story is as a tale that is
told and a weariness to the understanding; but thy commendations of
her wisdom will be as fresh and fragrant incense, nor will their
truthfulness be too closely scanned.

Thou knowest that I have taken all knowledge to be my province, and
therefore have I oft and longingly gazed into the flowery fields of
that divine art where to-day in our much-loved England thou art
disporting thyself supremely and alone. But when I consider thy
tragedies, throughout which is diffused the inmost soul of poesy, my
crude yet labored metres seem to me as the body of a maiden, not
indeed devoid of a certain comeliness and grace, yet into whose
waiting bosom hath not yet been breathed the spirit of life.

In thy tragedies thou hast the majestic grace which in the Attic
ages belonged to Sophocles alone; thou hast the stately march and
music of Aeschylus, without in thy themes his ceaseless iteration
of predestined woe which ranks his heroes outside humanity; yet the
sombre hand of fate hath not more inflexibly driven the gentle
Iphigenia to her doom than it hath followed Macbeth to his
foreshadowed crime and end. But in thy canticles it is not an
o'ershadowing, mysterious, and tragic fate, but a gracious and
loving Providence which, as thyself hath phrased it,

"Holds in His hands the shears of destiny,
And has commandment on the pulse of life."

In comedy, Aristophanes is not thy master, yet must I greatly choose
thy tragedies as monuments of thy abiding fame. Funeral dolors
rather than bridal carols inspire even the harp of David, beloved of
the Lord; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost toucheth ever the
shadowed phases of our earthly lives.

I am minded to now advert to another topic from the tale told me by
Southampton that thou wert presently to publish a volume of thy
sugared sonnets. May I pray thee that this collection compass not
the two sonnets written by thee for me in laud of our Queen
Elizabeth, and the one of this morning? As thou knowest, these first
were presented to our gracious Sovereign as mine own, and did so
pleasure her as to chiefly prosper my advancement. Were the true
author now known it might sadly mar my fortunes. In the