It is as follows:
"The Sonnets following are divided into 3 parts, each parte
contayning 3 several arguments and every argument 7 sonets.
"The first parte is of variable affections of love: wherein the
first 7 be of the beginning and byrth of his love; the second 7, of
the prayse of his mistresse; the thyrd 7, of severall accidents
hapning in the tyme of his love.
"The second is the prayse of perticulars: wherein the first 7 be of
the generall honoure of this ile, through the prayses of the heads
thereof, the Q. of England and K. of Scots; the second 7 celebrate
the memory of perticular ladies whoe the author most honoureth: the
thyrd 7 be to the honoure of perticulars, presented upon severall
occasions.
"The thyrd parte is tragicall, conteyning only lamentations:
wherein the first 7 be complaynts onlye of misfortunes in love, the
second 7, funerall sonets of the death of perticulars; the last 7,
of the end and death of his love."
The four sonnets to that distinguished "perticular," the King of
Scotland, seem to have won for the author a great deal of fame, for
Bolton mentions one of them as a witness to his opinion that "noble
Henry Constable was a great master in English tongue, nor had any
gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of
conceit." The King himself the poet is said to have met personally when
on his propagandist tours in Scotland; for Constable was an ardent Roman
Catholic, and spent most of his life in plots for the re-establishment
of that faith in England.
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