pplied to the sentiment subsisting between an
author and his patron. Nash, when dedicating _Jack Wilton_ in 1594 to
Southampton, calls him 'a dear _lover_ . . . of the _lovers_ of poets as
of the poets themselves.'

{128} There is little doubt that this sonnet was parodied by Sir John
Davies in the ninth and last of his 'gulling' sonnets, in which he
ridicules the notion that a man of wit should put his wit in vassalage to
any one.

To love my lord I do knight's service owe,
And therefore now he hath my wit in ward;
But while it [_i.e._ the poet's wit] is in his tuition so
Methinks he doth intreat [_i.e._ treat] it passing hard . . .
But why should love after minority
(When I have passed the one and twentieth year)
Preclude my wit of his sweet liberty,
And make it still the yoke of wardship bear?
I fear he [_i.e._ my lord] hath another title [_i.e._ right to my
wit] got
And holds my wit now for an idiot.

{129} Mr. Tyler assigns this sonnet to the year 1598 or later, on the
fallacious ground that this line was probably imitated from an expression
in Marston's _Pigmalion's Image_, published in 1598, where 'stanzas' are
said to 'march rich bedight in warlike equipage.' The suggestion of
plagiarism is quite gratuitous. The phrase was common in Elizabethan
literature long before Marston employed it. Nash, in his preface to
Green's _Menaphon_, which was published in 1589, wrote that the works of
the poet Watson 'march in equipage of honour with any of your ancient
poets.'

{131a} See Appendix IV. for a full account of Southampton's relations
with Nash and other men of letters.

{131b} See p. 85, note.

{134a} Cf. _Parthenophil_, Madrigal i. line 12; Sonnet xvii. line 9.

{134b} _Parthenophil_, Sonnet xci.

{135} Much irrelevance has been introduced into the discussion of
Chapman's claim to be the rival poet. Prof. Minto in his
_Characteristics of English Poets_, p. 291, argued that Chapman was the
man mainly because Shakespeare declared his competitor to be taught to
write by 'spirits'--'his compeers by night'--as well as by 'an affable
familiar ghost' which gulled him with intelligence at night (lxxxvi. 5
seq.) Professor Minto saw in these phrases allusions to some remarks by
Chapman in his _Shadows of Night_ (1594), a poem on Night. There Chapman
warned authors in one passage that the spirit of literature will often
withhold itself from them unless it h