ur Lordship is the large spreading
branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to deriue their
whole nourishing.'

{385b} The complimentary title of 'Amyntas,' which was naturalised in
English literature by Abraham Fraunce's two renderings of Tasso's
_Aminta_--one direct from the Italian and the other from the Latin
version of Thomas Watson--was apparently bestowed by Spenser on the Earl
of Derby in his _Colin Clouts come Home againe_ (1595); and some critics
assume that Nash referred in _Pierce Pennilesse_ to that nobleman rather
than to Southampton. But Nash's comparison of his paragon to Ganymede
suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592 while Derby
was thirty-three. 'Amyntas' as a complimentary designation was widely
used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively to any one patron of
letters. It was bestowed on the poet Watson by Richard Barnfield and by
other of Watson's panegyrists.

{386} Two manuscript copies of the poem, which has not been printed, are
extant--one among the Rawlinson poetical manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library, and the other among the manuscripts in the Inner Temple Library
(No. 538). Mr. John S. Farmer has kindly sent me transcripts of the
opening and concluding dedicatory sonnets. The first, which is inscribed
'to the right honorable the Lord S[outhampton]' runs:

Pardon, sweete flower of matchles poetrye,
And fairest bud the red rose euer bare,
Although my muse, devorst from deeper care,
Presents thee with a wanton Elegie.
Ne blame my verse of loose unchastitye
For painting forth the things that hidden are,
Since all men act what I in speeche declare,
Onlie induced with varietie.
Complaints and praises, every one can write,
And passion out their pangs in statlie rimes;
But of loues pleasures none did euer write,
That have succeeded in theis latter times.

Accept of it, deare Lord, in gentle parte,
And better lines, ere long shall honor thee.

The poem follows in about three hundred lines, and the manuscript ends
with a second sonnet addressed by Nash to his patron:

Thus hath my penne presum'd to please my friend.
Oh mightst thou lykewise please Apollo's eye.
No, Honor brookes no such impietie,
Yet Ovid's wanton muse did not offend.
He is the fountaine whence my streames do flowe--
Forgive me if I speak as I was taught;
Alik