Pembroke [q. v.] (cf. Boaden, On the Sonnets of Shakespeare, 1837). Pembroke, who was known from birth until his father's death as ‘Lord Herbert’ exclusively, belonged to the same court circle as The Pembroke theory inadmissible.Southampton. He was a patron of letters; to him and his brother the first collected edition of Shakespeare's works was dedicated seven years after his death in language that suggests that he had shown appreciation of them in the poet's lifetime. But there is no evidence that he was in his youth acquainted with the poet, or at any time closely associated with him. In 1594, when the ‘Sonnets’ seem to have been completed, Pembroke was fourteen years old, and, although his father made an abortive effort to negotiate a marriage for him in 1598, it is unlikely that Shakespeare should have urged him at an earlier age, as he urges the youth of the ‘Sonnets,’ to marry. Late in 1600 Pembroke involved himself in a discreditable intrigue with a lady of the court, Mary Fitton, and the supporters of the Pembroke theory have identified Mary Fitton with the ‘dark’ lady (cf. Sonnets, ed. T. Tyler, 1890, passim). But no historical justification is needed for the creation of the conventional personage, and one of the ‘Sonnets’ in which she figures was surreptitiously published by Jaggard in 1599, before the intrigue between Pembroke and Mary Fitton is known to have begun. The identification of ‘Mr. W. H.’ with Pembroke seems, moreover, confuted by Thorpe's form of address. In 1601 Lord Herbert succeeded his father as Earl of Pembroke; by 1609 he was knight of the Garter and holder of many court offices. Thorpe dedicated several books to him by name, and always gave him the full benefit of his titles. He approached him like all his noble patrons, in terms of subservience. That he should have deserted his practice in the case of Shakespeare's ‘Sonnets,’ and should have dubbed the influential Earl of Pembroke (formerly Lord Herbert) ‘Mr. W. H.,’ is an inadmissible inference.
The story of a lover's supersession by his friend in the favours of his mistress—the burden of those six sonnets that may have a personal significance—may possibly The ‘W.S.’ of ‘Willobie his Avisa.’reflect an affair of gallantry in the poet's own life, to which obscure reference seems extant elsewhere. The adventure, in that case, caused no lasting wound. At the end of 1594 there was published a poem entitled ‘Willobie his Avisa’ (licensed 3 Sept. 1594), in which the writer described the progress of a profound passion [see Willoughby or Willobie, Henry]. Some anonymous prefatory verses commend Shakespeare's ‘Lucrece,’ and by way of argument to canto xliv. the writer relates how, in search of a cure for the disastrous effects of love, he appealed to ‘his familiar friend W.S., who not long before had tried the courtesy of the like passion and was now newly recovered of the like infection.’ But ‘W.S.’ offered a remedy which aggravated the disease, ‘because,’ the narrator suggests, ‘he [i.e. W. S.] would see whether another could play his jest better than himself, and, in viewing afar off the course of this loving comedy, he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for the new actor than it did for the old player.’ In cantos xliv.–xlviii. Willobie engages in dialogue with W. S., who offers him chilling comfort. Although it is hazardous to hang a theory on the identity of initials, Shakespeare's recent experiences may have prompted Willobie's references to W. S., ‘the old player,’ and to the latter's complete recovery from love's ‘infection’ (Willobie, Avisa, ed. Grosart, 1880).
Meanwhile, despite distraction, Shakespeare's dramatic work steadily advanced. To the winter season of 1595 probably belongs ‘Midsummer Night's Dream’ (two editions appeared ‘Midsummer Night's Dream.’ in 1600). It may well have been written to celebrate a marriage—perhaps the marriage of Lucy Harington to Edward Russell, third earl of Bedford, on 12 Dec. 1594; or that of William Stanley, earl of Derby, at Greenwich on 24 Jan. 1594–5. The elaborate compliment to the queen, ‘a fair vestal throned by the west,’ was at once an acknowledgment of past marks of royal favour, and an invitation for their extension to the future. The whole is in the airiest and most graceful vein of comedy. Hints for the story can be traced to a variety of sources (Chaucer's ‘Knight's Tale,’ Plutarch's ‘Life of Theseus,’ Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ bk. iv.), and the influence of John Lyly is noticeable, but the final scheme of the piece is of the author's invention. In the humorous presentation of Pyramus and Thisbe by the village clowns, Shakespeare improved upon a theme which he had already employed in ‘Love's Labour's Lost.’
More sombre topics engaged him in the comedy of ‘All's well that ends well,’ which may be tentatively assigned to 1595. The plot, like that of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ was drawn from Painter's ‘All's Well.’‘Palace of Pleasure’ (No. xxxviii.). The original source is Boccaccio's ‘Decamerone’ (giorn. iii. nov. 9). Shakespeare, after his wont, grafted on the touching story of Helena's love for the unworthy Bertram
