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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
That Henry Lawes set to music a version of Shakespeare's Sonnet cxvi “Let me not to the marriage of true mindes/Admit impediments,” has apparently never been mentioned in print. Lawes' version, which retains seven lines intact, alters seven, and adds two couplets to form three six-line stanzas, is found in John Gamble's commonplace book of songs. This volume was formerly the property of Dr. Edward F. Rimbault, but is now in the Drexel Collection of the New York City Public Library.
1 In this transcription I am indebted to Professor Carleton Brown for several important observations.
2 A fleur-de-lis, used in Fuller's Holy State, 1652, and Petavius, 1659; see Edward Heawood's article, “Papers used in England after 1600,” The Library, Fourth Series, xi (1929), p. 263.
3 For a discussion of Henry Lawes' life and works in relation to the poets, see author's work on this subject, in progress.
