SOURCE: Evans, Willa McClung. “Lawes' Version of Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI.” PMLA 51, no. 1 (March 1936): 120-22.

In the following essay, Evans points out that Lawes set a version of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 to music, which she says establishes that the composer was the only contemporary who collaborated with both Milton and Shakespeare.

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. The manuscript is described in the catalogue of the sale (1877) of Dr. Rimbault's library, as

A collection...