works his
'sugar'd sonnets among his private friends.' None of Shakespeare's
sonnets are known to have been in print when Meres wrote, but they were
doubtless in circulation in manuscript. In 1599 two of them were printed
for the first time by the piratical publisher, William Jaggard, in the
opening pages of the first edition of 'The Passionate Pilgrim.' On
January 3, 1599-1600, Eleazar Edgar, a publisher of small account,
obtained a license for the publication of a work bearing the title, 'A
Booke called Amours by J. D., with certein other Sonnetes by W. S.' No
book answering this description is extant. In any case it is doubtful if
Edgar's venture concerned Shakespeare's 'Sonnets.' It is more probable
that his 'W. S.' was William Smith, who had published a collection of
sonnets entitled 'Chloris' in 1596. {390} On May 20, 1609, a license for
the publication of Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' was granted by the Stationers'
Company to a publisher named Thomas Thorpe, and shortly afterwards the
complete collection as they have reached us was published by Thorpe for
the first time. To the volume Thorpe prefixed a dedication in the
following terms:

TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF
THESE INSUING SONNETS
MR. W. H., ALL HAPPINESSE
AND THAT ETERNITIE
PROMISED
BY
OUR EVER-LIVING POET
WISHETH
THE WELL-WISHING
ADVENTURER IN
SETTING
FORTH

T. T.

The words are fantastically arranged. In ordinary grammatical order they
would run: 'The well-wishing adventurer in setting forth [_i.e._ the
publisher] T[homas] T[horpe] wisheth Mr. W. H., the only begetter of
these ensuing sonnets, all happiness and that eternity promised by our
ever-living poet.'

Publishers' dedication.

Few books of the sixteenth or seventeenth century were ushered into the
world without a dedication. In most cases it was the work of the author,
but numerous volumes, besides Shakespeare's 'Sonnets,' are extant in
which the publisher (and not the author) fills the role of dedicator.
The cause of the substitution is no