Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 9
IX. SHAKESPEARE’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SOUTHAMPTON’S PATRONAGE (1594).
Dedication of Lucrece.
To the Right Honorable Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield.
The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honorable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happiness.
Your Lordship’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Note. Lucrece was licensed for printing, May 9, 1594. Southampton’s generous patronage of the poet is the subject of an anecdote in Rowe’s Life of Shakespeare (1709) to the effect that the Earl on one occasion presented Shakespeare with a thousand pounds to enable him to carry through a purchase he had in mind.