Note 1. This is sonnet xv., in Phyllis: Honoured with Pastorall Sonnets, Elegies and Amourous Delights, 1593. I shall quote here Prof. Schelling’s note on this poem, which is full of interest: “This poem has been assigned to Sir Edward Dyer with a steady perversity which is surprising. Ward prints it as Dyer’s (Engl. Poets, I., 378), and Mr. Andrew Lang more recently says: ‘The young English Muse is like Sir Edward Dyer’s Phyllis, the Fair Shepherdess,’ quoting the first four lines of this poem immediately after. (Introduction to Elizabethan Songs in Honour of Love and Beauty, 1893, p. xxx.) The mistake has arisen from the fact that when this poem was reprinted in England’s Helicon, seven years after its appearance in Phyllis Honered with Pastoral Sonnets, the initials “S. E. D.” were ignorantly subscribed to it. The poem is in the best style of Lodge, and it may be suspected that not a little of the reputation of Sir Edward has depended upon this mistake.” (Book of Elizabethan Lyrics, p. 238.) “Dead one: Not an unusual verb in this age; cf. And in my tears doth firm the same” (No. 85), and Chapman, Ody. xviii.: “With many an ill hath numbed and deaded me.” (Schelling.) [back]
