ABSTRACT
The book containing the character Dom Diego comprises a sonnet sequence, Diella, and a verse narrative, the Poeme of Dom Diego and Gyneura. 1 Its author being one R.L., Gent., it belongs in this enquiry. This R.L. is the main focus in this chapter; but he draws others in his wake. Questions have been raised as to whether he could be identical with the author of a poem signed R.L. in The Paradyce ofDayntie Devises, 'Being in Love he complaineth';2 or with the Richard Linche who wrote The Fountaine of Ancient Fiction, a translation from an Italian work by Vincenzo Cartari;3 or the Richard Lynche, Gent., of The Historical Treatise of the Travels of Noah into Europe;4 or the 'R.L. Esquire' who praised Michael Drayton's narrative poem Matilda. 5
The current understanding of the relation of the R.L.s mentioned above to each other and to Linche or Lynch is neither deep nor informed by much curiosity. Edward Utterson, editor of an 1841 edition of Diella, notes that the Paradyce poem 'Being in Love' has a 'similar signature' .6 (The signature is identical). W.C. Hazlitt ascribes Diella to 'Linch' or 'Lynch' and connects the author to what he seems to think are two separate sonnets praising Drayton, prefacing the latter's Matilda of 1594 and his Robert Duke of Normandy &c. of 1596 which contains a reprint of Matilda. (In fact, the same sonnet is reprinted).? A.B. Grosart is wary of Hazlitt's identification, but pronounces himself satisfied that Diella is by the same Linche as the author of the The Fountaine and The Treatise. 8 Thereafter, editors tend to agree with Grosart; but little interest has been shown in tying in the authors of the occasional poems.
