gs.

There was nothing exceptional in the words of greeting which Thorpe
addressed to his patron 'Mr. W. H.' They followed a widely adopted
formula. Dedications of the time usually consisted of two distinct
parts. There was a dedicatory epistle, which might touch at any length,
in either verse or prose, on the subject of the book and the writer's
relations with his patron. But there was usually, in addition, a
preliminary salutation confined to such a single sentence as Thorpe
displayed on the first page of his edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. In
that preliminary sentence the dedicator habitually 'wisheth' his patron
one or more of such blessings as health, long life, happiness, and
eternity. 'Al perseverance with soules happiness' Thomas Powell
'wisheth' the Countess of Kildare on the first page of his 'Passionate
Poet' in 1601. 'All happines' is the greeting of Thomas Watson, the
sonnetteer, to his patron, the Earl of Oxford, on the threshold of
Watson's 'Passionate Century of Love.' There is hardly a book published
by Robert Greene between 1580 and 1592 that does not open with an
adjuration before the dedicatory epistle in the form: 'To --- --- Robert
Greene wisheth increase of honour with the full fruition of perfect
felicity.'

Thorpe in Shakespeare's sonnets left the salutation to stand alone, and
omitted the supplement of a dedicatory epistle; but this, too, was not
unusual. There exists an abundance of contemporary examples of the
dedicatory salutation without the sequel of the dedicatory epistle.
Edmund Spenser's dedication of the 'Faerie Queene' to Elizabeth consists
solely of the salutation in the form of an assurance that the writer
'consecrates these his labours to live with the eternitie of her fame.'
Michael Drayton both in his 'Idea, The Shepheard's Garland' (1593), and
in his 'Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall' (1609), confined his address to his
patron to a single sentence of salutation. {398} Richard Brathwaite in
1611 exclusively saluted the patron of his 'Golden Fleece' with 'the
continuance of God's temporall blessings in this life, with the crowne of
immortalitie in the world to come;' while in like manner he greeted the
patron of his 'Sonnets and Madrigals' in the same year with 'the
prosperitie of times successe in this life, with the reward of eternitie
in the world to come.' It is 'happiness' and 'eternity,' or an
equivalent paraphrase, that had the widest vogue among the good wishes