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 '>--n 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.
 
 tONDOS 
 
 PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODB AND CO, 
 
 NEW-STKEET SQUARE
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 NEVER BEFORE INTERPRETED: 
 
 HIS PRIVATE FRIENDS IDENTIFIED 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 ^ Sctdkrt^ f ikiuss of finistlf. 
 
 BY 
 
 GERALD MASSEY. 
 
 'With THTR key Shak$pearc unlocked his heart.' 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 186fi. 
 
 The right of translation is rtserved.
 
 pp. 
 
 M3% 
 
 TO 
 
 THE EIGHT HON. LORD BEOWNLOW 
 
 m POOR ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF PRINCELY KINDNESS 
 
 f ^S §00k 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 
 GERALD MASSEY.
 
 COiNTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Sonnets : — 
 
 Notices and Comments ..... 1 
 
 Of the Personal Theory as interpreted by Charles 
 
 Armitage Brown . . . . . 19 
 
 Of the period at which the Earlier Sonnets were Written 
 
 and the Person to whom they are Addressed . . 28 
 
 Life and Character of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of 
 
 Southampton ..... 50 
 
 Poet and Patron : — 
 
 Their Personal Friendship .... 94 
 
 Peksonal Sonnets : — 
 
 Shakspeare to the Earl, wishing him to Marry . . 108 
 
 Shakspcare to the Earl, in praise of his Personal Beauty 117 
 
 Shakspeare to the Earl, promising Immortality . . 123 
 
 Shakspeare to the Earl, chiefly concerning a Rival Poet, 
 
 adjudged to be Marlowe . . . 127 
 
 Shakspeare is about to write on the Courtsliip of his 
 
 Friend Southampton, according to the Earl's suggestion 162 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : — 
 
 Southampton in love with Elizabeth Vernon . . 160 
 
 PEiisoNAL Sonnets : — 
 
 Shakspcare to the Earl, when he has kno^^^l him some 
 
 three years . . . . . . Ill 9 
 
 Shakspeare proposes to write of the Earl in his absence 
 
 abroad . . . . . . 171
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : — 
 
 The Earl to Misti'css Vernon on and in his absence 
 
 abroad ...... 173 
 
 Personal Sonnets : — 
 
 Shakspeare of the Earl in his absence . . . 185 
 
 The Dark Story of the Sonnets .... 188 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets: — 
 
 Elizabeth Vernon's Jealousy of her Lover, Lord South- 
 ampton, and her Friend, Lady Rich . . . 205 
 
 A Personal Sonnet : — 
 
 Shakspeare on the Slander .... 225 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : — 
 
 The Earl to Elizabeth Vernon after the Jealoufsy . 228 
 
 Elizabeth Vernon repays the Earl by a Flirtation of her 
 
 OAvn : His Reproach . . . . .231 
 
 Personal Sonnets : — 
 
 Shakspeare is sad for the Earl's ' Harmful Deeds ' . 237 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : — 
 
 A Farewell of the Earl's to Elizabeth Vernon . . 243 
 
 The Earl to Elizabeth Vernon after his Absence . 247 
 
 Personal Sonnets : — 
 
 Shakspeare to the Earl after some Time of Silence . 251 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : 
 
 The Earl to Elizabeth Vernon — Their Final Reconcilia- 
 tion : with Shakspeare's Sonnet on their Marriage . 256 
 
 Personal Sonnets: — 
 
 Shakspeare to the Earl, chiefly on his o\vn Death . 289 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets : — 
 
 Southampton, in the Tower, to his Countess, also Shak- 
 speare to the Earl in Prison, and upon his Release . 296 
 
 The MSS. Book of the Southampton Sonnets . . 317 
 
 Dramatic Sonnets: — 
 
 The ' Dark ' Lady of the Latter Sonnets . . 323 
 
 William Herbert's Passion for Lady Rich . . 367
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Life of Lady Ilicii ...... 
 
 Thomas Thokpe, and his ' Onlie Begetter ' of tue Sonnets 
 Of the New Reading and Arrangement . 
 ' His Sugred Sonnets among his Private Friends.' 
 The Man Shakspeake: A Ke-touched Portrait . 
 
 PAGB 
 
 380 
 416 
 436 
 460 
 491 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Appendix A : — 
 
 
 Cupid's Brand : Two Odd Sonnets 
 
 569 
 
 Appendix B : — 
 
 
 Drayton and Shakspeare 
 
 571 
 
 Appendix C : — 
 
 
 Queen Elizabeth's Favourites . 
 
 575 
 
 Appendix D : — 
 
 
 Titus Audronicus .... 
 
 580 
 
 Appendix E : — 
 
 
 'EyseU' ..... 
 
 586 
 
 Appendix F : — 
 
 
 Sonnet 132, and the Taming of the Shrew 
 
 589 
 
 Appendix G : — 
 
 
 Wilham Herbert and Shakspeare's Minor Pieces 
 
 591 
 
 Appendix 11 : — 
 
 
 The Silent Lover .... 
 
 594 
 
 Appendix I : — 
 
 
 Notes on Disputed Readings. 
 
 
 King John ..... 
 
 598 
 
 Macbeth ..... 
 
 599 
 
 Cyinbeline ..... 
 
 600 
 
 Romeo and Juliet 
 
 601
 
 AN 
 
 INDEX OF THE SONNETS 
 
 ACCOEDING TO 
 
 THORPE'S ARRANGEMENT. 
 
 Sonnet 1 
 
 
 o 
 
 >> 
 
 *' 
 
 }> 
 
 3 
 
 }} 
 
 4 
 
 1» 
 
 5 
 
 » 
 
 6 
 
 }) 
 
 7 
 
 7} 
 
 8 
 
 V 
 
 9 
 
 JJ 
 
 10 
 
 >» 
 
 11 
 
 V 
 
 12 
 
 >? 
 
 13 
 
 » 
 
 14 
 
 »> 
 
 15 
 
 )} 
 
 16 
 
 i) 
 
 17 
 
 » 
 
 18 
 
 » 
 
 19 
 
 » 
 
 20 
 
 J> 
 
 21 
 
 » 
 
 22 
 
 » 
 
 23 
 
 jj 
 
 24 
 
 » 
 
 25 
 
 jf 
 
 20 
 
 )) 
 
 27 
 
 f} 
 
 28 
 
 »t 
 
 29 
 
 ») 
 
 30 
 
 *) 
 
 81 
 
 » 
 
 32 
 
 PAGE 
 
 110 
 
 no 
 no 
 111 
 111 
 111 
 
 112 
 112 
 113 
 113 
 113 
 114 
 114 
 114 
 115 
 115 
 116 
 120 
 124 
 119 
 132 
 121 
 124 
 186 
 118 
 109 
 170 
 180 
 166 
 167 
 168 
 133 
 
 f 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sonnet 33 . 
 
 206 
 
 Sonnet 65 , 
 
 . 125 
 
 „ 34 . 
 
 . 2(X) 
 
 „ 60 . 
 
 . 239 
 
 „ 35 , 
 
 . 207 
 
 „ Q7 . 
 
 239 
 
 „ 36 . 
 
 . 177 
 
 „ 68 . 
 
 240 
 
 „ 37 . 
 
 168 
 
 „ 69 . 
 
 241 
 
 „ 38 . 
 
 157 
 
 „ 70 . 
 
 226 
 
 ,, 39 . 
 
 171 
 
 „ 71 . 
 
 292 
 
 „ 40 . 
 
 210 
 
 „ 72 . 
 
 292 
 
 „ 41 . 
 
 207 
 
 „ 73 , 
 
 292 
 
 ,; 42 . 
 
 208 
 
 „ 74 . 
 
 293 
 
 „ 43 . 
 
 181 
 
 „ 75 . 
 
 229 
 
 „ 44 . 
 
 182 
 
 „ 76 . 
 
 254 
 
 „ 45 . 
 
 183 
 
 „ 77 . 
 
 241 
 
 „ 46 . 
 
 186 
 
 „ 78 . 
 
 130 
 
 ;; 47 . 
 
 187 
 
 „ 79 . 
 
 130 
 
 „ 48 . 
 
 182 
 
 „ 80 . 
 
 130 
 
 „ 49 . 
 
 233 
 
 „ 81 . 
 
 294 
 
 „ 60 . 
 
 177 
 
 „ 82 . 
 
 133 
 
 „ 51 . 
 
 178 
 
 „ 83 . 
 
 132 
 
 
 183 
 
 „ 84 . 
 
 132 
 
 „ 53 . 
 
 121 
 
 „ 85 . . 
 
 131 
 
 „ 54 . . 
 
 121 
 
 „ 86 . . 
 
 131 
 
 „ 55 . 
 
 126 
 
 „ 87 . . 
 
 245 
 
 „ 56 . 
 
 229 
 
 „ 88 . . 
 
 233 
 
 ,; 57 . . 
 
 373 
 
 „ 89 . . 
 
 245 
 
 „ 58 . 
 
 373 
 
 ., 90 . 
 
 246 
 
 „ 59 . . 
 
 119 
 
 „ 91 . . 
 
 2:34 
 
 „ 60 . . 
 
 125 
 
 „ 92 . . 
 
 235 
 
 ;; 61 . 
 
 181 
 
 „ 93 . 
 
 235 
 
 „ 62 . 
 
 120 
 
 „ 94 . . 
 
 241 
 
 ,i 63 . 
 
 293 
 
 „ 95 . . 
 
 236 
 
 „ 04 . 
 
 125 
 
 „ 96 . . 
 
 370
 
 Xll 
 
 INDEX OF THE SONNETS. 
 
 Sonnet 97 
 
 
 98 
 
 99 
 
 100 
 
 n 
 
 101 
 
 » 
 
 102 
 
 
 103 
 104 
 
 » 
 
 105 
 
 5J 
 
 106 
 
 
 107 
 108 
 109 
 
 >J 
 
 110 
 
 
 111 
 112 
 113 
 114 
 
 
 1J5 
 110 
 
 PAGE 
 
 248 
 249 
 249 
 252 
 253 
 253 
 253 
 169 
 255 
 129 
 312 
 254 
 269 
 270 
 270 
 271 
 178 
 179 
 308 
 285 
 
 Sonnet 117 
 
 >; 
 
 118 
 
 J) 
 
 119 
 
 » 
 
 120 
 
 >> 
 
 121 
 
 yi 
 
 122 
 
 }} 
 
 123 
 
 jj 
 
 124 
 
 jj 
 
 125 
 
 jj 
 
 126 
 
 )> 
 
 127 
 
 jj 
 
 128 
 
 }^ 
 
 129 
 
 }> 
 
 130 
 
 >> 
 
 131 
 
 >> 
 
 132 
 
 ;> 
 
 133 
 
 » 
 
 134 
 
 )> 
 
 135 
 
 » 
 
 136 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 272 
 
 Sonnet 137 . 
 
 . 375 
 
 272 
 
 )) 
 
 138 . 
 
 . 368 
 
 273 
 
 )) 
 
 139 , 
 
 . 374 
 
 274 
 
 )) 
 
 140 . 
 
 . 374 
 
 271 
 
 }> 
 
 141 • 
 
 . 376 
 
 321 
 
 }) 
 
 142 . 
 
 . 372 
 
 303 
 
 jj 
 
 143 . 
 
 . 372 
 
 303 
 
 }} 
 
 144 . 
 
 . 205 
 
 304 
 
 )} 
 
 145 . 
 
 . 342 
 
 170 
 
 )f 
 
 146 . 
 
 . 379 
 
 367 
 
 )f 
 
 147 . 
 
 . 379 
 
 368 
 
 )) 
 
 148 . 
 
 . 376 
 
 378 
 
 }) 
 
 149 , 
 
 . 375 
 
 369 
 
 }f 
 
 150 . 
 
 . 377 
 
 370 
 
 ;j 
 
 151 . 
 
 . 378 
 
 368 
 
 » 
 
 152 . 
 
 . 377 
 
 209 
 
 )f 
 
 153 . 
 
 . 569 
 
 209 
 
 )j 
 
 154 . 
 
 . 570 
 
 371 
 
 
 
 
 371 
 
 

 
 THE SONNETS: 
 
 NOTICES AND COMMENTS. 
 
 ' As the soiile of Euphorhiis was tliouglit to live in Py- 
 thagoras : so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in inel- 
 lifluons & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Vejius and 
 Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among liis private 
 friends.' Thus wrote Francis Meres, Master of Arts of 
 both Universities, in his work entitled 'Palladis Taniia, 
 Wits Treasury, being tlie Second Part of Wits Comnion- 
 Avealth,' pubhshed in tlie year 1598. 
 
 This is the carhest notice we liave of Shakspeare's 
 Sonnets, and it supplies us witli an important startincr- 
 point. From the information gi\en by Mercs, we learn 
 that in the year 1598, the sonnets of Shakspeare "were 
 sufficiently known and sufficiently numerous to warrant 
 public recognition on the part of a writer, who is remark- 
 able for his compressed brevity ; well known enough in 
 certain circles for the critic to class them with Shaks- 
 peare's publislied poems. That the sonnets spoken of by 
 Meres are to a large extent those which have come down 
 to us, cannot be doubted, save, in desperation, by tlie 
 supporters of an unsound theory. Thus, according to 
 FrancisMercs, in 1598, Shakspeare had made the 'private 
 friends' for wliom he was composing his sonnets, and if 
 the sonnets be tlio same, the private friendsliip pubhcly 
 
 2,^ B
 
 2 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 recognised, must include that which is so warmly cele- 
 brated in the earliest numbers. 
 
 Further, the title to Tliorpe's Collection, printed in 
 1609, reads with an echo to the words of Meres — 
 ' Shaks])eare's Sonnets, never before Imprinted,'^ though 
 so often spoken of, and so long known to exist in MS. 
 
 An understanding on the subject is implied in the 
 familiarity of phrase. The inscriber appears to say, 'You 
 have heard a great deal about the " Sugred Sonnets," 
 mentioned by the critic, as circulating amongst the poet's 
 private friends ; I have the honour to set tliem forth for 
 the public' 
 
 The sonnets were published in IGOO,'-^ with this in- 
 scription : — 
 
 TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF . 
 
 THESE . INSVINa . SONNETS . 
 
 M^' . W . H . ALL . HArriNESSE . 
 
 AISD . THAT . ETERNITIE . 
 
 PROMISED . 
 
 BY . 
 
 OVR . EVER-LIVINa . POET . 
 
 WISHETH . 
 
 THE . WELL-WISHING . 
 
 ADVENTVRER . IN . 
 
 SETTING . 
 
 FORTH . T. T. 
 
 The book is inscribed by Thomas Thorpe, a well-known 
 publisher of the time, who was himself a dabbler in 
 
 ^ Hence the title to the present work. 
 
 ^ According to tlie following technical account, ' SnAKE-srEAEES sonnets. 
 Xeuer hefore Imprinted. At London by G. Eld for T. T. and are to be 
 solde by AVilliam Aspley. 1609.' 4°. Collation. Title, one leaf; Inscription, 
 one leaf; the Sonnets, etc. B to K in fours, and L 2 leaTes=40 leaves. In 
 some copies, for WiUicnn Anpley we have lohn Writ/Id, dwcdling- at Christ- 
 church gate. 1009. The sonnets commence on B 1 recto and end on K 1 
 recto, with finis. Then comes, without any advertisement, A Loners com- 
 plaint hj William Shahc-spcare. It extends from K 1 verso to L 2 verso, 
 with a second finis. The sonnets are numbered 1 — 154, but have neither 
 addresses nor any indication of the subjects. The Loners complaint is a poem 
 in 47 seven-line stanzas.
 
 VATUOUS EDITIONS. .-J 
 
 literature. lie edited a ]:)osthumous work of ]\Tarlowe's, 
 and was the publisher of plays, by Marston, Jonsou, 
 Chapman, and others. Shakspeare makes no sign of 
 assent to the publication ; whereas he prefaced his 
 'Venus and Adonis' with dedication and motto; the 
 'Lucrece' with dedication and argument. 
 
 We shall see and say more of Thoq:)e and his In- 
 scription, by-and-by ; for the time being I am only giving 
 a brief account of the sonnets, and the opinions respecting 
 them, up to the present day. After they were printed by 
 Thorpe in 1609, we hear no more of them for thirty-one 
 years. In 1640 appeared a new edition, with an arrange- 
 ment totally different from the original one. This was 
 published as ' Poems written by Wil. Shakspeare, Gent. 
 Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold 
 by John Benson.' In this arrangement, we find many of 
 the pieces printed in tlie ' Passionate Pilgrim,' mixed up 
 with the sonnets, and the whole of them have titles which 
 are chiefly given to little groups. Sonnets 18, 19, 43, 56, 
 75, 76, 96, 126, are missing from the second edition. 
 This publication of the sonnets as poems on distinct 
 subjects shows, to some extent, how they were looked 
 upon by the readers of the time. The arranger, in sup- 
 plying his titles, would be following a feeling and answer- 
 ing a want. Any personal application of them was 
 very far from his thoughts. Sonnets 88, 89, 90, and 
 91, are entitled 'A Picquest to his Scornful Love.' 109 
 and 110, are called 'A Lover's excuse for his long 
 Absence.' Sonnet 122, 'Upon the Eeceipt of a Table 
 Book from his Mistress;' and 125, 'An Entreaty for 
 her Acceptance.' The greater part of the titles how- 
 ever are general, and only attempt to characterise the 
 sentiment. 
 
 In the editions that followed the two first, sometimes 
 the one order prevailed, sometimes the other. Lintot's, 
 published in 1709, adhered to the arrangement of 
 
 n 2
 
 4 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Thorpe's Collection. Curll's, in 1710, follows that of 
 Cotes. Gildon gave it as his opinion, that the sonnets were 
 all of tliem wj-itten in praise of Shakspeare's mistress. 
 Dr. Sewell edited them in 1728, and lie tells us, by way 
 of illustrating Gildon's idea, that ' a young Muse must 
 have a Mistress to play off the beginnings of fancy; nothing 
 being so apt to elevate the soul to a pitch of poetry, as 
 the passion of love.' This opinion, that the sonnets were 
 addressed to a mistress, appears to have obtained, until 
 disputed by Steevens and Malone. In 1780, the last- 
 named critic published his ' Supplement to the Edition of 
 Sliakspeare's Plays,' (1778) and the notes to the sonnets 
 include his own conjectures and conclusions, together 
 Avith those of Dr. Farmer, Tyrwhitt, and Steevens. These 
 four generally concur in the belief that 128 of the sonnets 
 are addressed to a man ; the remaining 28 to a lady. 
 Malone considered the sonnets to be those spoken of by 
 Meres. Dr. Farmer thought tliat William Harte, Shak- 
 speare's nephew, might be the person addressed under 
 the initials 'W. H.' However, the Stratford Piegister 
 soon put a stop to William Harte's candidature, for it 
 showed that he was not baptised imtil August 28, 1600. 
 Tyrwhitt was struck with the peculiar lettering of a line 
 in the 20tli sonnet, — 
 
 A man in Hew all Hews in his control! insr, 
 
 and fancied that the poet had written it on the colorable 
 pretext of hinting at the ' only begetter's ' name, which 
 the critic conjectured might be William Hughes. 
 
 The sonnets were Steevens' pet abhorrence. At first he 
 did not reprint them. He says, ' We have not reprinted the 
 sonnets, &c. of Shakspeare because the strongest Act of 
 Parhament that coidd l)e framed would fail to compel 
 readers into their service, notwithstanding these miscel- 
 laneous poems have derived every possible advantage 
 from the literature and judgment of tlieir only intellioent
 
 STEEVENS' CENSURE. r, 
 
 editor, Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, like 
 the ivory rake and golden spade in Pi'udentius, are, on 
 this occasion, disgraced by the objects of their culture. 
 Had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, liis 
 name would have reached us with as little celebrity as 
 time has conferred on that of Thomas Watson, an older 
 and much more elegant sonnetteer.' Afterwards he 
 broke out continually in abuse of them. The eruption 
 of his ill humour occurs in foot-notes, and disfigures the 
 pages of Malone's edition of Shakspeare's poems. He 
 held that they were composed in the 'highest strain 
 of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution, and nonsense.' 
 ' Such laboured perplexities of language,' he says, ' and 
 such studied deformities of style prevail throughout these 
 soimets, that the reader (after our best endeavours at 
 explanati(jn !) will frequently find reason to exclaim with 
 Iniofren — 
 
 'O" 
 
 I see before me, man, uor here, nor there, 
 Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them 
 That I cannot look through.' 
 
 o 
 
 ' This purblind and obscure stulT,' he calls their poetry. 
 And in a note to sonnet 54 he asks with a sneer, ' but 
 what has truth or nature to do with sonnets ? ' Here he 
 has taken the poet to task for his bad botany. Shak- 
 speare has written — 
 
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses. 
 
 Steevens remarks that Shakspeare had ' not yet begun 
 to observe the productions of nature with accuracy, 
 or liis eyes w^ould have convinced him that the cynorhodon 
 is by no means of as deep a colour as the rose ! ' What 
 rose ? The poet does not say a damask rose, nor a rose 
 of any red. The pink hedge rose may be of as deep a 
 dye as the maiden-blush, and other garden roses. The
 
 6 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 comparison in colour is only relative, the remark on that 
 side merely general, it is the fragrance of the rose in 
 which the positive part of the comparison will be found. 
 The meaning is this ; tlie hedge-roses may be of as deep 
 a dye or lovely a colour as their garden fellows in hue, 
 but even then they are not so precious in perfume, and 
 are not used for the purpose of distilling. Shakspeare 
 knew a dog-rose from the damask-rose ; ' no flower more 
 familiar to him in his rambles along the Warwickshire 
 lanes. He has carried into his illustrations drawn from it 
 all the aversion which children have to the ' cankers ' 
 that infect this w^ayside flower.^ But Steevens had no 
 patience with these poems ; he wrote some sad stuff 
 about the sonnets, and scoffed at them in the most 
 profane and graceless way. He never read them, never 
 penetrated to the depths of feeling that underhe the 
 sparkhng surface. The conceits, that play of fancy, 
 which is a sort of more serious wit, came on him too 
 suddenly Avith their surprises. He was too slow for them, 
 and they fooled him and laughed in his face. And when 
 he did catch the sense of the (to him) nonsense, he took 
 his revenge by decrying the impertinent jingle of sense 
 and sound that had so playfully tried to tickle his obtuse 
 spirit, and only succeeded in making him savage. 
 Wordsworth, in his essay supplementary to the celebrated 
 
 ^ I had rather be a canker in a hedge. 
 Than a rose in his grace. — Mtich Ado about Nothing. 
 
 2 This rucalls another peevish and petulant remark of Steevens, in making 
 which, he snapped too soon for his limited amount of perception. Shak- 
 speare, in the ' Passionate Pilgrim,' number 10, vs^rites — 
 
 ' As faded gloss no rubbing wll refresh.' 
 
 Steevens catches at this, and replies: 'Every one knows that the. gloss 
 or polish on all works of art may he reslorecl, and that ruhhinff is the means 
 of restoring it.' Indeed ! Did the critic ever test his theory on an old hat ? 
 It would not be advisable even to try it in burnishing the faded gilding 
 of picture-frames and mirrors. Shakspeare used ' gloss ' in the sense of 
 fiilding.
 
 WORDSWORTH — COLERIDGE — CHALMERS. 7 
 
 preface, printed with the Lyrical Ballads, has administered 
 a just rebuke to Steevens, and reprehended liis flippant 
 impertinence. He says, ' There is extant a small vulume 
 of miscellaneous poems, in which Shakspeare expresses 
 his own feelings in his own person. It is not difficult to 
 conceive that the editor, George Steevens, should have 
 been insensible to the beauties of one portion of that 
 volume, the sonnets ; though in no part of the writings of 
 this poet is found in an equal compass a greater number 
 of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed. But from a 
 regard to the critic's own credit he would not have 
 ventured to talk of an Act of Parhament not being strong 
 enough to compel the perusal of these little pieces, if he 
 had not known that the people of England were ignorant 
 of the treasures contained in them ; and if he had not, more- 
 over, shared the too common propensity of human nature 
 to exult over a supposed fall into the mire of a genius 
 whom he had been compelled to regard wnth admiration, 
 as an inmate of the celestial regions, ' there sitting where 
 he durst not soar.' 
 
 This was written by Wordsworth iu 1815; he had 
 read the sonnets for their poetry, independently of their 
 object, and had thus got a httle nearer to the spirit of 
 Shakspeare, behind its veil of mystery, and attained to 
 a truer appreciation of his sonnets. About the same 
 time Coleridge lectured on Shakspeare at the Eoyal 
 Institution, and publicly rebuked the obtuse sense and 
 shallow expressions of Steevens. 
 
 In 1797 Chalmers had endeavoured to show that the 
 sonnets Avere addressed to Queen Elizabeth, although 
 Her Majesty must have been close upon sixty years of 
 age when the sonnets were first commenced. He ar2;ues 
 that Shakspeare, knowing the voracity of Elizabeth for 
 praise, thought he would fool her to the top of her bent ; 
 aware of her patience when hstening to panegyric, he 
 determined, with the resolution of his own Dogberry, to
 
 8 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 bestow his whole tedioiisness upon her. It may be men- 
 tioned by way of explanation that this preposterous 
 suggestion was hazarded in support of a very desperate 
 ease — the Ii-eland forgeries. Coleridge also held, though 
 on a far sounder basis, that the person addressed by 
 Shakspeare was a woman. He fancied the 20th sonnet 
 midit have been introduced as a blind. He felt that in 
 so many of the sonnets the spirit was essentially feminine 
 whatever the outward figure might be, sufficiently so to 
 warrant our thinking that where the address is to a man 
 it Avas only a disguise ; for, whilst the expression would 
 indicate one sex, the feehng altogether belied it, and 
 secretly wooed or worshipped the other. Poet-like, he 
 perceived that there were such fragrant gusts of passion 
 in them, such ' subtle-shining secresies ' of meaning in 
 their darkness, as only a woman could have called forth ; 
 and so many of the sonnets have the suggestive sweetness 
 of the lover's whispered words, the ecstatic sparlde of a 
 lover's eyes, the tender, ineffable touch of a lover's hands, 
 that in them it must be a man speaking to a woman. 
 Mr. Knight believes that such sonnets as 56, 57, and 58, 
 and also the perfect love-poem contained in sonnets 97, 
 98, and 99 were addressed to a female, because the com- 
 parisons are so clearly, so exquisitely the symbol of 
 womanly l)eauty, so exclusively the poetic representatives 
 of feminine graces in the world of flowers, and because, 
 in the sonnets where Shakspeare directly addresses his 
 male friend, it is manly beauty which he extols. He 
 says nothing to lead us to think that he would seek to 
 compliment his friend on the delicate whiteness of his 
 hand, the surpassing sweetness of his breath. Mr. Knight 
 has found the perplexities of the personal theory so insur- 
 mountable, that he has not followed in the steps of those 
 who have jauntily overleaped the difficulties that meet 
 us everywhere, and which ought, until fairly conquered, 
 to have surrounded and protected the poet's personal
 
 KNIGHT — BOSWEIJ. — DKAKE. 9 
 
 character as with a chevaux-de-frise. He has wisely 
 hesitated rather than rashly joined in making a wanton 
 charge of immorality and egregious folly against Sliak- 
 speare. He likewise thinks it impossible that "VYil^^i^i 
 Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, could have been 
 the 'only begetter' of the sonnets. Seeing the difficulties 
 of the subject in all their density, he makes an attempt 
 to cut a way through, at least for himself, but the success 
 is not equal to the labour. 
 
 Boswell, second son of Dr. Johnson's biographer, in 
 editinfy a later edition of the work in which Steevens' 
 notes are printed, had the good sense to defend the 
 sonnets against that censor's bitterness of contempt, and 
 the good taste to perceive that they are all a-glow with 
 the ' orient hues ' of Shakspeare's youthful imagination. 
 He ventures to assert that Steevens has not ' made a con- 
 vert of a single reader who had any pretensions to 
 poetical taste in the course of forty years,' which had 
 then gone by since the splenetic critic first described the 
 sonnets as worthless. Boswell also remarks anent the 
 personal interpretation that the fondling expressions 
 which perpetually occur Avould have been better suited 
 to a ' cockered silken wanton ' than to ' one of the most 
 srallant noblemen that adorned the cliivalrous ag:e in 
 which he lived.' 
 
 Dr. Drake, in his ' Shakspeare and his Times' (1817), 
 was the first to conjecture that Henry Wriothesley Earl 
 of Southampton, was the friend of Shakspeare who was 
 addressed so afiectionately in the sonnets, as well as 
 inscribed to so lovingly in the dedications to his poems. 
 He thought the unity of feeling in both identified the 
 same person, and maintained that a httle attention to the 
 language of the times in which Thorpe's inscription was 
 written, would lead us to infer that Mr. W. H. had suffi- 
 cient influence to ' obtain the manuscript fi-oni the poet, 
 and that he lodged it in Thorpe's hands for the purpose
 
 10 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 of publication, a favour which the bookseller returned by 
 wishing him all hapjnness and that eternity which had been 
 promised by the bard in such glowing colours to another, 
 namely, to one of the immediate subjects of his sonnets.' 
 Drake contended that as a number of the sonnets were 
 most certainly addressed to a female, it must be evident 
 that ' W. H.' could not be the ' only begetter ' of them in 
 the sense which is primarily suggested. He therefore 
 agreed with Chalmers and Bos well that Mr. W. H. was the 
 ohtainer of the sonnets for Thorpe, and he remarks that 
 the dedication w^as read in that light by some of the 
 earher editors. Having fixed on Southampton as the 
 subject of the first 126 sonnets, Drake is at a loss to 
 prove it. He never goes deep enough, and only snatches 
 a waif or two of evidence floating on the surface. When 
 he comes to the latter sonnets he expresses the most 
 entire conviction that they Avere never directed to a real 
 object. ' Credulity itself, w^e think, cannot suppose other- 
 wise, and at the same time, believe that the j)oet was 
 priAy to their pubhcation.' 
 
 About the year 1818 Mr. Bright was the first to con- 
 ceive the idea that the ' Mr. W. H.' of Thorpe's inscrip- 
 tion was William Hei'bert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke. 
 It is said he laboured for many years in collecting evi- 
 dence, brooded over his cherished idea secretly, talked 
 of it publicly, and was then anticipated in announcing 
 it by Mr. Boaden in 1832. Poor Mr. Bright ! He was 
 not in time, but I think he will rejoice in eternity that 
 he escaped the infamy of persistently trpng to tarnish 
 the character of Shakspeare for the sake of a pet theory ; 
 that is, if his discovery included the personal interpreta- 
 tion. Mr. Boaden argued shallowly that the Earl of 
 Southampton could not ])e the man addressed by Shak- 
 speare, and assumed desperately that William Herbert 
 was ! He held him to be the ' only begetter.' 
 
 These modern discoveries reached their climax in
 
 MR. BROWN'S THEORY. 11 
 
 ' Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poeins, being bis sonnets 
 clearly developed, with his character drawn chiefly from 
 his works by Cliarles Armitage Brown' (1838.) Mr. 
 Brown adopts tlie hypothesis of Mr. Bright, that Mr. 
 W. H. is the Earl of Pembroke ; he also accepts the sug- 
 gestion first made by Coleridge, i that the sonnets are not 
 sonnets proper, but a series of poems in the sonnet stanza ; 
 these he divides as follows : — 
 
 First Poem. Stanzas 1 to 26. — To his friend, persuading him 
 
 to marry. 
 Second Poem. Stanzas 27 to 55. — To his friend, who had 
 
 robbed the poet of his mistress, forgiving him. 
 Third Poem. Stanzas 56 to 71. To his friend, complaining 
 
 of -his coldness, and warning him of hfe's decay. 
 Fourth Poem. Stanzas 78 to 101. — To his friend, complaining 
 
 that he prefers another poet's praises, and reproving him 
 
 for faults that may injure his character. 
 Fifth Poem. Stanzas 102 to 126. — To his friend, excusing 
 
 himself for havinsr been some time silent and disclaimino- 
 
 the charge of inconstancy. 
 Sixth Poem. Stanzas 127 to 152. To his mistress, on her 
 
 infidehtv. 
 
 The two last sonnets he leaves out, and would also 
 reject the 145th stanza on account of its measure, and 
 the 146th because of its solemn nature ; and he considers 
 the sonnets containing the puns on the name of ' Will ' 
 to be quite out of keeping with the rest, on account of 
 their playful character. Without adducing one atom of 
 proof, Mr. Brown is much satisfied in assuming that 
 Shakspearc was a self-debaser and self-defiimer of a 
 species that has no previous tyi^e — no after-copy. 
 
 Mr. Hunter thinks the discovery made by Mr. Bright 
 settles the whole matter. He considers the claims of the 
 Earl of Soutliampton as ' too improbable to deserve 
 examination, and the sooner they are dismissed from 
 
 ^ I'ablc Talk; \\ 231.
 
 12 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the public recollection, the better for the reputation of 
 those who proposed them.'^ 
 
 Mr. Hallam inchnes to the personal theory of the 
 sonnets, and evidently thinks we may safely conclude 
 that William Herbert Avas the youth of high rank as well 
 as personal beauty and accomplishment and licentious 
 life, whom Shakspeare so often addressed as his dear 
 friend. He remarks that, ' There is a weakness and folly 
 in all excessive and misplaced affection, which is not 
 redeemed by the touches of nobler sentiments that abound 
 in this long series of sonnets,' 'No one,' he says, 'ever 
 entered more fully than Shakspeare into the character of 
 this species of poetry, which admits of no expletive 
 imagery — no merely ornamental line.' But, so strange, 
 so powerful is the poet's humiliation in addressing this 
 youth as ' a being before whose feet he crouched, whose 
 frown he feared, whose injuries — and those of the most 
 insultino; kind — the seduction of the mistress to whom we 
 have alluded, he felt and bewailed without resenting ; ' 
 that on the whole, ' it is impossible not to wish the sonnets 
 of Shakspeare had never been written.' 
 
 ]\Ii\ Hyce, in 1864, rests in the conclusions which he 
 had reached thirty years before. ' For my own part, 
 repeated perusals of the sonnets have well nigh convinced 
 me that most of them Avere composed in an assumed 
 character, on different subjects, and at different times, for 
 the amusement — if not at the suggestion — of the author's 
 intimate associates (hence described by Meres as "his 
 sugred sonnets among his private friends ") ; and though 
 I would not deny that one or two of them reflect his 
 genuine feelings, I contend that allusions scattered through 
 the whole series are not to be hastily referred to the 
 personal circumstances of Shakspeare.' 
 
 Mrs. Jameson has suggested, not only that Southampton 
 
 ' Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 2'j6-7.
 
 MRS. JAMESON — MK. COIINEY— M. CriASLES. 13 
 
 was the male friend addressed by Shakspcare, but tliat 
 some of the sonnets may liave been written for tlie Earl 
 to send to EUzabeth Veruun, who afterwards became 
 Countess of Southampton.' 
 
 Mr. ]]oU,on Corney, in a pamplilet printed for private 
 circulation, has recorded his conviction that the Earl of 
 Southampton was the ' Begetter ' of the sonnets ; that 
 they were written in fulfilment of a promise made to the 
 earl in 1594 ; that the sonnets mentioned by Meres in 
 1598 formed the work which was promised in 1594 and 
 reached the press in 1609, but that they are, with shght 
 exceptions, mere poetical exercises. He protests against 
 the theory that they relate to transactions between the 
 poet and his patron : — 1. Because as an abstract question 
 the promise to write a poem cannot imply any such ob- 
 ject. 2. Because in the instance of ' Lucrece ' no such 
 object could have been designed. 3. Because, in the 
 absence of evidence, it is incredible that the man of 
 whom divers of worsliip had reported his uprightness of 
 dealing should have lavished so much wit in order to 
 proclaim the grievous errors of his patron — and of himself. 
 He denounces the vaunted discovery of Mr. Brown as an 
 inijustifiable theory, a mischievous fallacy. He accepts 
 M. Chasles' reading of Mr. Thorpe's inscription, and thinks 
 a Frenchman has solved the Shakspeare problem Avhicli 
 has resisted all the efforts of our ' homely wits.' Believing 
 that the Earl of Southampton was really the ' only be- 
 getter ' of the sonnets, and that the inscription addresses 
 the ' only begetter ' as the objective creator of them, lsli\ 
 Corney feels compelled to accept M. Chasles' interpreta- 
 tion ; he thinks that Wilhani Herbert dedicates the 
 soimets to the Earl of Southampton, and that Thorpe 
 merely adds his wishes for the success of the publication. 
 He assumes that the initials ' W. H.' denote William Lord 
 
 ' I Avas not awrtro of this fact wliou my article on ' Shakspeare and his 
 Sonnets ' appeared in the Quarterhj Eevieic, April, 18G4.
 
 14 SHAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke ; but he follows 
 the discoverer of tliis undoubted fact, Mr. Bright, no 
 further. As to the way in which the sonnets reached 
 the press, Mr. Corney submits a new theory. 'Be it 
 assumed tliat the volume of sonnets was a transcript 
 made by order of William Herbert ; that it was then 
 inscribed by him to the Earl of Southampton as a gift- 
 book, and that it afterwards came into the possession of 
 the publisher in a manner which required concealment. 
 With this theory, which the inscription and other pecu- 
 liarities of the volume seem to justify, the perplexities of 
 the question vanish. I anticipate one objection. As 
 copies of tlie sonnets were in the hands of the private 
 friends of the poet, a copy was surely in the hands of his 
 patron. How then could ' W. H.' offer the earl so super- 
 fluous a gift ? It might have been a substitute for a lost 
 copy, or a revised text, or a specimen of penmanship, as 
 it was a common enough thing for specimens of the 
 caligraphic art to be offered as gift-books.' Thus, he 
 holds that the sense of the inscription is : — To the 
 only begetter (the Earl of Southampton) of these en- 
 suing sonnets, Mr. W. H. (William Herbert) wislies all 
 happiness, and that eternity promised (to liim) by our 
 ever-living poet. This was the private inscription, in 
 imitation of the lapidary style, w^ritten on the private 
 copy which had been executed for the purpose of pre- 
 senting to the Earl ; and Thorpe, in making the sonnets 
 public, let this dedication stand, merely adding that the 
 ' well-wishing adventurer in setting forth ' was ' T. T.' 
 
 There have been various minor and incidental notices 
 of the sonnets, which show that the tendency in our 
 time is to look on them as autobiograi)]iic. Mr. Henry 
 Taylor, in his ' Notes from Books,' speaks of tliose sonnets 
 in which Shakspeare ' reproaches Fortune and himself, in a 
 strain, which shows how painfully conscious he was that 
 lie had lived unworthily of liis doubly immortal spirit.'
 
 MR. MASSOX — ULRICI. 16 
 
 Mr. Masson ' states resolutoly, that the sonnets are, and 
 can possibly be, nothing else than a record of the Poet's 
 own feelings and experience dnring a certain period 
 of his London life ; that they are distinctly, intensely, 
 painfully autobiographic. lie thinks they express our 
 poet in his most intimate and private relations to man 
 and nature as having been 'William the Melancholy,' 
 rather than ' William the Calm,' or ' William the Cheer- 
 ful.' 
 
 The sonnets seem to have placed Ulrici in that difficult 
 position which the Americans describe as ' facing North by 
 South.' To him the fact that Shakspeare passed his hfe in 
 so modest a way and left so little report, is evidence of 
 the calmness with which the majestic stream of his 
 mental development flowed on, and of the clear pure at- 
 mosphere which breathed about his soul. Yet, we may 
 see in the sonnets many traces of the painful struggles it 
 cost him to maintain his moral empire. His mind was a 
 fountain of free fresh energy, yet the sonnets show how 
 he fell into the deeps of painful despondency, and felt 
 utterly wretched. They tell us that he had a calm con- 
 sciousness of his own greatness, and also that he held 
 fame and applause to be empty, mean, and worthless. 
 This is Ulrici's cross-eyed view. He reads the sonnets 
 as personal confessions, and he concludes that Shakspeare 
 must have been so sincere a Christian, that being also 
 a mortal man, and open to temptation, he, having Mien 
 and risen up a conqueror over himself, to prove that he 
 is not ashamed of anything, set the matter forth as a 
 warning to the world, and offered hims(Jf up as a sacri- 
 fice for the good of others, most especially for the behoof 
 of the young Earl of Pembroke, for, according to Ulrici 
 he alone can be the person addressed. 
 
 Gervinus, in his Commentaries on Shakspeare, holds 
 
 ' EssaySy chiejlij on Eiuilish Poets.
 
 16 SILiKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 that the sonnets were not originally intended for publica- 
 tion, and that 126 of them are addressed to a friend ; the 
 last 28 bespeaking a relation with some light-minded 
 woman. It is quite clear to him that they are addressed 
 to one and the same youth, as even the last 28, from 
 their purport, relate to the one connection between 
 Shakspeare and his young friend, and with his fellow- 
 countryman, Eegis, who translated the sonnets into 
 German, Gervinus considers that these should pro- 
 perly be arranged with sonnets 40 — 42. He maintains 
 that the real name of the ' only begetter ' was not 
 designated by the publisher, the initials W. H. were 
 only meant to mislead. That this ' Begetter ' is the 
 same man Avhom the 38th sonnet calls in a similar sense 
 the ' Tenth Muse,' and whom the 78th sonnet enjoins to 
 be 'most proud' of the poet's works, because their 
 influence is his, and born of him. He does not believe 
 that the Earl of Pembroke could be tlie person ad- 
 dressed, the age of the earl and the period at which the 
 sonnets were written, making it an impossibility. He 
 thinks the Earl of Southampton is the person, he being 
 early a patron of the drama, and a nobleman so much 
 looked up to by the poets and writers of the time, that 
 they vied with each other in dedicating their works to 
 him. Gervinus is of opinion that a portion of sonnet 
 53 directly alludes to the poems which the poet had 
 inscribed to the earl, and that he points out how much 
 his friend's English beauty transcends that old Greek 
 beauty of person, which the poet had attempted to 
 describe, and set forth newly attired in his 'Venus and 
 Adonis.' This foreign critic wonders why in England 
 the identity of the object of these sonnets with the 
 Earl of Southampton should have been so much op- 
 posed. To him it is simply incomprehensible, for, if 
 ever a supposition bordered on certainty, he holds it to 
 be this.
 
 THE LATEST THEORY. 17 
 
 A strenuous endeavour not to read the sonnets has 
 recently been made by a German, named Bernstorflj and 
 it is out of sight more successful than any attempt yet 
 made to lead them. It is so immeasurably fiu^-reach- 
 ing, so unfathomably profound, that we may call it 
 perfectly successful This author has discovered that 
 the sonnets are a vast Allegory, in which Shakspeare has 
 masked his own face ; he has here kept a diary of his 
 inner self, not in a plain autobiographic way, but by 
 addressing and playing a kind of bo-peep with his dopple- 
 gamjer. Yov the sonnets do not speak to beings of flesh 
 and blood, no Earls of Southampton or Pembroke, no 
 Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth Vernon, no corpoi^eal being, 
 in short, no body whatever, but Shakspeare's own soul or 
 his genius or his art. 
 
 It is Shakspeare who in the 1st sonnet is the ' only 
 herald to the blooming spring ' of modern literature, and 
 the world's fresh ornament. The 'beast that bears 'the 
 speaker in sonnet 51 is the poet's animal nature. The 
 ' sweet roses that do not fade ' in sonnet 54 are his dramas. 
 The praises so often repeated are but the poet's enthu- 
 siasm for his inner self. All this is proved by the 
 dedication, which inscribes the sonnets to their ' only 
 begetter,' W. H. — William Himself. The critic has 
 freed the Shakspeariun Psyche from her sonnet film, and 
 finds that she has shaken off every particle of the con- 
 crete to soar on beautiful wings, with all her inborn love- 
 liness unfolded, into the emj)yrean of pure abstraction ! 
 There sits the poet sublimely 'pinnacled, dim in the 
 intense inane,' at the highest altitude of self-consciousness, 
 singing his song of self-worship ; contemplating the 
 heights, and depths, and proportions of the great vast of 
 himself, and as he looks over centuries on centuries of 
 years he sees and projihesies that the time will yet come 
 when the world will gaze on his genius with as much awe 
 as he feels for it now, ' Is this vanity and self-conceit ? ' 
 
 c
 
 18 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the critic asks, and he answers, ' iSTot a whit, simple 
 trutliful self-perception ! ' Into this region has he fol- 
 lowed Shakspeare, where 'human mortals' could not 
 possibly breathe. He keeps up pretty well, self-inflated, 
 for some time, but at length, before the flight is quite 
 finished, our critic gives one gasp, showing that he is 
 mortal after all, and down he drops dead-beaten in the 
 middle of the latter sonnets. 
 
 The mind of Shakspeare is a vast ocean teeming witli 
 life, and his works, critically considered, afford an oceanic 
 space and range for every sort of creature and mental 
 species that come to sport or make sport in this great 
 deep. Also, the sonnets have caused much perplexity 
 and bewilderment, as is sufficiently reflected in the pre- 
 sent account, but of all the strange thinirs that have 
 taken advantage of the largeness and the liberty, this 
 author is surely the oddest. His theory is a creation 
 worthy of Shakspeare's own humour, sincere past all per- 
 ception of foolishness. What w^e require is the secret 
 cue to his profundity, at which we can but dimly guess. 
 It may be that he has explored the Shakspearian ocean 
 so determinedly and dived so desperately, that he has 
 found the very place w^here, as is popularly supposed of 
 the sea, there is no bottom, and he has gone right 
 through headloncj !
 
 OF THE 
 
 PERSONAL THEOM 
 
 T 
 
 AS IXTERPRETED BY 
 
 CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN. 
 
 Now this ill-vrrestin<,' world is gi-owu so bad, 
 
 Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. — Sonnet 140, 
 
 There has never yet been any genuine, honest attempt to 
 grapple with, and truly interpret, the sonnets. A theory 
 lias sprung up in the mind of a reader here and there, and 
 straightway all the effort and the energy have been de- 
 voted to the theory ; the sonnets being left to shift for 
 tliemselves. There has been no prolonged endeavour to 
 grasp the reality. No one has yet wrought at the sonnets 
 Avith the amorous diligence and sharpened insight and pain- 
 ful patience of an Owen at his work ; sought out the scat- 
 tered and embedded bones of fact, and put them together 
 ngain and again, imtilthey should lit with such nicety that 
 the departed s|)irit which once breathed and had its being 
 in these remains, should stir with the breath of life, and 
 clothe itself in flesh once more, and take its original 
 shape. Tliere has been nothing done, except a little sur- 
 face work. Thorpe's Inscription has afforded a dcligiitful 
 bone of contention, most savoury and satisfactory to tlie 
 
 C 'i
 
 20 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 critical wranglers who love to worry each other most over 
 the point that is of least importance, and who, when they 
 have even got a good bone, will eagerly drop the reality, 
 like the fabulist's dog, and spend all their might in trying 
 to grasp its shadow. Give them such a question for de- 
 bate as this : ' Did Shakspeare call Cleopatra a gipsy 
 because she was an Egyptian ? ' or was an Elizabethan 
 necessarily a cripple because he spoke of being 'lamed 
 by Fortune?' and there will forthwith be a vast display 
 of learned folly ; the most shallow device will serve to 
 show their deepest profundity. So that the subject of all 
 Shakspearian subjects, being of such vital interest and so 
 personal to the poet of whom the world is anxious to 
 hear the least whisper of authentic fact, has been left 
 almost untouched, and there is no opposition theory to 
 take five minutes' labour in demolishing ; no opponent 
 worthy of steel ; no antagonist that calls foilli the respect- 
 ful sword-salute. TJie most considerable attempt hitherto 
 made — that of Messrs. Boaden and Brown — is about equal 
 in value to the work of those painters, whose art consists 
 solely in the knack they have of disguising all the diffi- 
 culties of a subject, not of their skill in conquering them. 
 In dealing with the sonnets they both adopted a policy 
 old as that of the hunted ostrich. 
 
 And yet it is of great importance to have this question 
 of the sonnets settled. We must be ignorant hypocrites 
 to continue talking as we do on the subject of our great 
 poet's character, and believe what we do of his virtues 
 and moral qualities, if these sonnets are personal confes- 
 sions. And if they be not, then all lovers of Shakspeare 
 will be glad to get rid of the uncomfortable suspicions, 
 see the 'skeleton' taken to pieces, and have the ghost 
 of the poet's guilt laid at once and for ever ; so that 
 wise heads need no longer ])q sluiken at ' those sonnets,' 
 and fools may not wag the finger with comforting reflec- 
 tions upon the littleness of great men. The poet's bio-
 
 Ml;. I'.iiowx's siioirrsKiiiTEDXESs. l>i 
 
 grapliy cannot be satisfactorily built, with this shifting 
 sand of the sonnets at the foundations. 
 
 To illustrate and enforce his theory of the sonnets, 
 Mr. Brown has api)ended a prose version of their con- 
 tents. And it is interesting to compare the two ; for, in 
 order to make ends meet, he has been compelled to slur 
 over or leave out all the most important matters ; all the 
 literalities and italicised meanings of the poetry. These 
 did not concern him, apparently, because not necessary to 
 his theory. Nor does he appear to have suspected that, 
 whilst marching forward in such easy triumph to his con-- 
 clusions, he was leaving in his rear many a masked bat- 
 tery, any one of which would be able to sweep his forces 
 from the field. He could not have seen the drift of what 
 he was leaving out, or he would surely have attempted to 
 paraphrase it in some specious way. 
 
 His reading is rendered utterly worthless, and the 
 theory is invalidated, by the suppressed evidence. He 
 has not noticed that the youth addressed is fatherless, and 
 that in consequence of this the roof of his house is going 
 to decay, and the poet urges him to marry on purpose to 
 repair this roof, and uphold his house by ' husbandry in 
 honour.' He has left out the personal allusion to the 
 poet's ' pupil' pen, and the promise to 'show his head' hi 
 public print, when he had written something tliat should 
 worthily prove his great respect, and enable him to 
 ' boast,' as he afterwards did in his dedications, how 
 much he loved the earl. All these thinirs have been 
 overlooked and omitted, because they are opposed to the 
 Herbert theory in every particular. Then the tender 
 history of lost friends, who were so near and dear, and 
 whose love was of the most sacred kinil, with all tlni 
 special revelation of sonnets 30, 31, is passed over. Mr. 
 Brown dare not touch it. Yet these precious friends who 
 are buried were most intimately related to the speaker ; 
 the memorv of them moves him intenselv. and the music
 
 2-2 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 gi'ows grave and slow with the burden of feehng, the 
 weio"ht of o-athered tears ; it sounds lilve a dead-march 
 lieard in the distance. If these losses had been Shak- 
 speare's, such facts should have had some interpretation. 
 Mr. Brown thus summarises the two sonnets : 
 
 30. When I grieve at past misfortunes, the thinking of you 
 restores my losses and ends my sorrows. 
 
 31. All those friends whom I have supposed dead, lie hidden 
 in you. All that they had of me is yours, and I view their 
 beloved images in you. 
 
 A theory which requires this sort of support must be in 
 a perilous way ! Again, in the Sonnets on Absence, Mr. 
 Brown does not suspect that tliere are and must be two 
 speakers : one who is a traveller abroad on a distant 
 shore, at ' limits far remote,' and who speaks most of 
 these sonnets when he is from home and away from his 
 love; whilst the other, in sonnet 39, speaks of the absence 
 of tliis speaker, and says what a torment his absence 
 would be, but that the ' sour leisure gives sweet leave ' 
 to write about him, and make one person twain by 
 ' praising him here who doth hence remain.' Thus, 
 we have the writer who speaks at home, and another 
 person who speaks abroad from over sea. 
 
 Again, this is Mr. Brown's rendering of sonnet 70 : 
 
 The slander of others shall not harm you. On the contrary, 
 while you remain good, it will but prove your worth the more. 
 Your having hjng escaped censure is no security for the future ; 
 and your power in the world might be too great, were you 
 beheved faultless. 
 
 Which reading has not the least likeness to wliat Shak- 
 speare wrote. This sonnet is one of the most valuable 
 of the whole series. The anchorage of personality in 
 it is assured. And it gives the lie point-blank to the 
 supposition that the earl had robbed the poet of his 
 mistress. If this had been so, he could not have been
 
 Mir T5i;<)\vx's srppKESSioxs. 23 
 
 the 'Victor, being charged.' And as Shakspeare is able 
 to congratulate the earl in this "way, that fully disproves 
 Mr. Brown's reading of the story ; something had oc- 
 cun-ed ; the earl had been blamed for his conduct ; slan- 
 der liad been at work. Shakspeare takes part with his 
 friend, and says, the blame of others is not necessarily 
 a defect in him. The mark of slander has always been 
 'the fair,' just as the cankers love the sweetest buds. 
 Suspicion attaches to beauty, and sets it off; — it is the 
 black crow iiying against the sweet blue heaven. It is in 
 the natural order of things, that one in the position of the 
 earl and having his gifts and graces, shcjuld be slandered. 
 But, ' so thou be good,' he says, ' Slander only proves thy 
 worth the greater, being wooed of Time' What does that 
 mean ? but that the earl has met with opposition in his 
 love ; has had to wait for its full fruition ; and Slander, in 
 talking of him without warrant, will but serve to call 
 attention to his patient suffering and heroic bearing under 
 this trial and tyranny of Time. So Shakspeare did think 
 the earl was slandered, and he accounts for it on grounds 
 the most natural. 
 
 He then offers his testimony as to character — 
 
 And thou present'st a pure unstained prime ! 
 Thou bast past by the ambush of young days, 
 Either not assailed, or victor being- charged. 
 
 A singular thing to say, if Mr. Brown's version of the 
 earlier sonnets were true. Very singular, and so Mr. 
 Brown has omitted it ! Further, the sonnet is a striking 
 illustration of the mutual relationship of poet and peer — a 
 most remarkable thing that Shakspeare should congratu- 
 late the earl for his Joseph-like conduct, and call him a 
 'victor.' Very few young noblemen of the time, we think, 
 would have considered that a victory, or cared to have 
 had it celebrated. Yet this fiict, which Shakspeare says 
 is to the earl's praise, will not be sullicient to tie u[)
 
 24 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONXETS. 
 
 Envy, which is always on the loose, seeking for some 
 reputation to devour. 
 
 This, again, is Mr. Brown's rendering of the world of 
 meaning to be found in sonnet 107 — 
 
 Xo consideration can controul my true friendship. In spite 
 of death itself, I shall live in this verse, and it shall be your 
 enduring monument. 
 
 Xow let the reader turn to the sonnet thus paraphrased. 
 The historic circumstances and all tlie most precious par- 
 ticulars are lost with such a theory, the believers in which 
 are blind to the jewelly sparkle that indicates the lode of 
 the meaning in certain hnes, rich in hidden treasure. So 
 of sonnet 124 ; at Mr. Brown's touch the spirit passes out 
 of it, the history of the time fades away, the dates grow 
 dim, Shakspeare's meaning is dead, and Mr. Brown wraps 
 it in a winding-sheet of witless words. In his account of 
 sonnet 117, he takes no notice of four lines, which of 
 themselves are sufficient to differentiate the characters and 
 lives of Shakspeare and SouthamptoiL — 
 
 That I have frequent been with unknown minds. 
 And given to Time your own dear-purchased right ; 
 That I have hoisted sail to all the winds 
 That should transport me farthest from, your sight. 
 
 Here was matter of great ' pith and moment,' but Mr. 
 Brown knew not what to make of it. In sonnet 36, Mr. 
 Brown professes to find this : ' Perhaps I must not openly 
 acknowledge you, lest the resentment I showed, which I 
 bitterly lament, should be remembered to your shame ! ' 
 
 And he conjectures — harping on liis favourite string 
 
 that the poet's resentment had been made public. Shak- 
 speare wrote nothing of the sort. The speaker in that 
 sonnet is the guilty person, whatsoever the guilt may be ; 
 his are the blots ; so guilty is he, that for the other to 
 take notice of him ])ub]icly, will be to court dishonour.
 
 rnr: person. \i, kkadinc oi- .'^oxxirr .•',<;. 25 
 
 ' My bewailed guilt,' is the guilt which 1 do bewail — am 
 sorry for — not which I did bewail and give expression to 
 in public. 
 
 Boaden, who is here followed by Gcr\inus, was dri\en 
 to think that in this 3Gth sonnet, the poet must lament 
 the difference of rank that existed betwixt them, and was 
 fearful lest politic reasons might pull them apart. But 
 this will not do any way. It is sufficient answer to know 
 that this difference in rank had been no barrier to their 
 intercourse ; and if the patron had made no obstacle of the 
 disparity in station, it would be a gratuitous insult for 
 Shakspeare to set it up as one. Nor could he, after the 
 secure self-congratulation on this very point in sonnet 25, 
 have spoken of the difference of rank as the separating 
 spite of Fortune ; for he had expressly sung of the friend- 
 ship as a gift beyond all the prizes of Fortune. Xor 
 could the poet's lot in life be his ' bewailed guilt.' Also, 
 the ' blots' are altogether of a personal character. And 
 if the poet had done something so bad as is here implied, 
 he would not have the right to say on behalf of both, that 
 there was still but one respect, and the love on both sides 
 yet remained the same. The sonnet cannot be read by 
 such a theory. 
 
 Then Mr. Brown has altogether ignored the discrepan- 
 cies betwixt what is recorded of Shakspeare's personal 
 character by those who knew him and what has been 
 surmised of it by some who have read but never under- 
 stood the sonnets. Nor has he hesitated to charge the 
 greatest dramatic poet that ever lived with the grossest 
 violation of dramatic proprieties poet ever made. He 
 has assumed that Shakspeare was capable of mixing 
 truth and falsehood in the wildest, most wanton way — as 
 thoush he were a moimtebank whose foce was like one 
 of those elastic playthings for children that may be 
 squeezed or stretched into any shape, on purpose to mock 
 us with a myriad transformations of appearances. Here
 
 •2Q SHAKSrEAEE'S SO]SNETS. 
 
 are a few expressions thus assumed, without question, to 
 have been addressed to a man by the most natural of all 
 poets : 
 
 I tell the day to please him, thou art bright. 
 
 And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven ; 
 
 So flatter I the swart-complexioned night. 
 
 Sonnet 28. 
 
 Lascivious Grace, in whom all ill well shows, 
 Kill me with spites ; yet, we must not be foes. 
 
 Sonnet 40. 
 
 Being* your slave, what should I do but tend 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire ? 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 Nor services to do, till you require : 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, 
 Whilst I, my Sovereign, watch the clock for you,' 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour. 
 When you have bid your Servant once adieu. 
 
 Sonnet 57. 
 Now proud as an enjo3'er, and anon 
 Doubting i\\e filckiru) age will steal his treasure. 
 
 Sonnet 75. 
 
 And prove thee viriwous though thou art forsworn. 
 
 Sonnet 88. 
 
 But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot ? 
 Thou nuiy^st be false, and yet I know it not. 
 
 Sonnet 92. 
 
 How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow. 
 
 If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show. — Sonnet 93. 
 
 As on the finger of a throned Queen 
 
 The basest Jewel will he well esteemed. 
 
 So are those errors that in thee are seen. 
 
 To truths translated. Sonnet 96. 
 
 For nothing this wide universe I call. 
 Save thou, my Rose ! in it thou art ray all. 
 
 Sonnet 109.
 
 ]IIS SUPPOSED UNTRUTHFULNESS T( > NATURE, 2 
 
 -/ 
 
 Mine appetite I never more will grind 
 
 On newer proof to try an older friend. — Sonnet 110. 
 
 Such Cherubins as your sweet self. — Sonnet 114. 
 
 For why should others' false adulterate eyes 
 
 Give salutation to my sportive Llood ? — Sonnet 121. 
 
 Thus, it is assumed that Shakspeare, the peerless 
 Psychologist, the poet whose observance of natural law 
 was infallible, whose writings contain tlie ultimate of all 
 that is natural in poetry, should have sinned grossly 
 against nature, in a matter so primal as the illustration of 
 sex ! 
 
 Lastly, Mr. Brown remarks of the rival poet in sonnet 
 86, 'who this rival poet was is beyond my conjecture ; nor 
 does it matter!' But it matters much; for if this poet 
 should prove to be Marlowe, that one fact alone would be 
 of sufficient force to deal the death-blow to the vaunted 
 theory" that William Herbert was the ' only" begetter' of 
 Shakspeare's sonnets ; because Marlowe died in the year 
 1593, when Herbert was exactly thirteen years and four 
 montlis of age. And linalh", the upholders of this Herbert 
 Hypothesis have, in their helpless desperation, been driven 
 to assert tliat tlie well-known 'sugred sonnets' of Shak- 
 speare, spoken of so pointedly by Meres, as among the 
 poet's 'private friends,' in the year 1598, must have been 
 lostl The theory did indeed require to be supported 
 with an audacity that would stick at nothing ; but what a 
 ' lame and impotent conclusion ! ' 
 
 Mr. Brown's book leaves the subject just where he 
 found it ; dark and dubious as ever. His theory has 
 only served to trouble deep waters, and make them so 
 nuiddy that it was impossible to see to the bottom.
 
 OF 
 
 THE PERIOD AT WHICH THE EAELIEE 
 SOXNETS VimE WRITTEN, 
 
 ') 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PEESON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED. 
 
 That the greater portion of Shakspeare's " sonnets was 
 written at too early a period for William Herbert to have 
 been the ' begetter,' is capable of positive, absolute, and 
 overwhelming proof First, we have the poet's ' sugred 
 sonnets among his private friends,' known to Meres in 
 1598, Then we find ample internal evidence to prove 
 that the mass of these sonnets are the poet's early work, 
 and possess the characteristics of his early composition. 
 As Coleridge has remarked, and he did not enter into the 
 controversy concerning tlie ' only begetter,' they have, 
 like the ' Venus and Adonis,' and the ' Lucrece,' ' bound- 
 less fertility and laboured condensation of thought, with 
 perfection of sweetness in rhythm and metre. These are 
 the essentials in the budding of a great poet. Afterwards 
 habit and consciousness of power teach more ease, prceci- 
 pitandum liherum spiritum.' The abundant use of anti- 
 thesis also shows that his fancy had more to do with, their 
 making, than his mature imagination. Besides which, he 
 tells us plainly enough that the early sonnets were written
 
 THE MKAN[X(J OF SONNET 20. 29 
 
 with his ' })upil pen.' Sonnet lU is explicit on this head, 
 it is also supported by the way in which he speaks of his 
 Muse in sonnet 32. And nothing can be more obvious 
 than that sonnet 26 was composed and sent to his friend 
 and patron in written embassage,, before the poet had 
 appeared in print. It is equally evident that this was 
 at a time when Shakspeare did not know where his 
 success was to be won, or how his ' moving ' on his 
 course w^ould be guided. Meanwhile, he asks his 
 patron to accept these sonnets in manuscript to 'wit- 
 ness duty ' privately, not to ' show his wit ' in public. 
 Before daring to addi-ess him in a public dedication, 
 he will wait until his star shall smile on him gra- 
 ciously, and his love shall be able to clothe itself in fit 
 apparel, that is, when he is ready to put forth a poem 
 such as he sliall not shrink from offering to his patron in 
 ])ublic ; the present sonnets being exclusively private ; 
 then will he hope to show himself worthy of the friend's 
 ' sweet respect,' but till then he will not dare to dress out 
 his love for the critical eye of the world, will not lift up 
 his head to boast publicly in print of that love in his 
 heart which he now expresses in writing. Here are 
 three indisputable facts recorded by Shakspeare himself. 
 He writes these earlier sonnets Avith his ' pupil pen ; ' he 
 sends them as ])rivate exercises before he appears in 
 print, and he is looking forward hopefully to the time 
 when he may be ready with a work which shall be more 
 worthy of his love than are these sonnets — prehminary 
 ambassadors that announce his purpose — which work he 
 intends to dedicate publicly to the earl, his patron and 
 friend, and appear in person; that is, by name; where the 
 merits of his poetry may be tested, that is, in j)rint. 
 
 Whosoever we may hold to have been the Lord of 
 Shakspeare's love here addressed, he would know, 
 however much mav be hidden from us, whether or 
 not the poet was telling the truth ; and there can be no
 
 30 8HAKSPEARES SONNETS. 
 
 Other conclusion for us but tliat this 26th sonnet, together 
 Avitli those "to which it is L'Envoy, was presented to the 
 patron before tlie ' Venus and Adonis ' was pubHcly dedi- 
 cated to tlie Earl of Southampton, and the poet ventured 
 to ascertain how the world would censure him for ' choos- 
 ing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden.' 
 
 Mr. Knight, in proof that the earlier series of these 
 sonnets must have been "written before William Herbert 
 was old enough to be the ' begetter,' has instanced a line, 
 first pointed out by Steevens, which was printed in a play 
 attributed, "svith poetic warrant, to Shakspeare, entitled 
 ' The lieion of King Edward IIL' The same line occurs 
 in sonnet 94 : — 
 
 Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds. 
 
 This drama w^as published in 1596, after it had been 
 sundry times played. It is presumable that the line was 
 first used in the sonnet privately, before it appeared in the 
 play, as the poetic notions of the sonnet, as well as the 
 personal and private friendship, would demand the more 
 fastidious taste. If so, this w^as one of the sonnets in wdiich 
 William Herbert could not have been addressed. But I 
 do not care to press the argument, nor is it necessary 
 to emphasise a single illustration. There are so many in- 
 stances of likeness in thought and image betwixt these son- 
 nets and certain of the plays as to almost make it a matter 
 of indifference whether the lines were used first in the play 
 or the sonnet, although I have no doubt that as a point 
 of literary etiquette the sonnet would have first choice. 
 My examination of both shows that these resemblances 
 and repetitions occur most palpably and numerously in 
 dramas and soimets, which I take to liave been written 
 from 1592 to 1597 ; they most strongly suggest, if they 
 do not prove, both sonnets and plays to have been writ- 
 ten about the same period, having the same dress of his 
 mind, the com]:)osition perhaps running parallel at times.
 
 SIGNS OF KAin.v wnrvK:\r.\xsii 1 1'. 31 
 
 These plays are the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ' Love's 
 Labour Lost,' a ' Midrsununer Night's Dream,' and ' Komeo 
 and Juliet.' First, we have an indehnable likeness in 
 tone and mental tint, which is yet recognisable as are the 
 flowers of the same season. In Shakspeare so great is the 
 unity of feeling as it is seen pervading a whole play, that 
 whatsoever was going on below would give visible signs 
 on the surface whether he was working at a drama or a 
 sonnet. Especially if, as I shall have reason to show, the 
 same persons were aimed at in both, and in play and 
 sonnet he was at tunes working from one and the same 
 life-model. Colerido-e has said of ' Eomeo and Juliet ' that 
 all is youth and spring; it is 'youth with its follies, its 
 virtues, its precipitancies ; it is spring with its odours, 
 flowers, and transciency ; the same feeling commences, 
 goes through and ends the play. The old men, the 
 Capulets and Montagues are not common old men ; they 
 have an eagerness and hastiness, a precipitancy — the effect 
 of spring. Witli Eomeo, his precipitate change of pas- 
 sion, his hasty marriage, and his rash death, are all the 
 effects of youth. With Juliet, love has all that is tender 
 and melancholy in the niglitingale, all that is voluptuous 
 in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of 
 spring ; but it ends with a long deep sigh, like the breeze 
 of evenincj.' 
 
 This unity of character and oneness of feeling is so 
 perfect in Shakspeare that it not only colours the persons 
 in the same play, but I contend that it tinges his w(n-k. of 
 the same period, and that it is most identifiable in the 
 spring-time of his powers, when the warmth of May was 
 stirring the budding forces, and the music was at its 
 sweetest, the imagery most abundantly used, even to re- 
 petition. In the earlier sonnets, and in the above-named 
 plays certain ideas and figures continually appear an^l re- 
 appear. We might call them by name, as the sliadow- 
 idoa or conceit, the war of roses in the red and white of
 
 32 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. 
 
 a lady's clieek, the pattern or map-idea, the idea of the 
 antique world in oj)position to tlie tender transciency of 
 3'outh, the images of spring used as emblems of mor- 
 tality, the idea of engraving on a tablet of steel, the 
 canker in the bud, the distilling of roses to preserve 
 tlieir sweets, the cloud-kissing hill, and the hill-kissing 
 sun with golden face — and many others which were the 
 poet's early stock of imagery, the frequent use of which 
 shows that it Avas yet the time of fondhng, the honey- 
 moon of fancy, the sj^ring of his creative powers. 
 But to pass from this indefiniteness to the actual like- 
 ness, here are a few passages compared : — 
 
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine 
 With all-triumphant splentloiir on my brow. 
 But, out, alack ! he was but one hour mine. 
 The region cloud hath masked him from me now. 
 
 Sonnet 33. 
 
 how this spring of love resembleth 
 The uncertain glory of an April day. 
 Which now shows all the beauty of the Sun, 
 And by-and-by a cloud takes all away ! 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, act i., scene 1. 
 
 Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate^ 
 Which to repair should be thy chief desire. 
 
 Sonnet 10. 
 
 thou, that dost inhabit in my breast, 
 Leave not the mansion so long tenantless, 
 Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall. 
 And leave no memory of what it was. 
 Repair me with thy presence Silvia. 
 
 Tivo Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 For canker Vice the sweetest buds doth love. 
 
 Sonnet 70. 
 
 As in the sweetest buds the eating canker dwells. 
 
 Tivo Gentlemen of Verona,
 
 THE LIKENESS TO EARLY PLAYS. 33 
 
 Let them say more that like of hear-say well, 
 
 I will not praise that purpose not to sell. — Sonnet 21. 
 
 Fie painted Rhetoric I she needs it not : 
 To things of sale a seller's praise belongs, — 
 She passes praise. 
 
 Love's Labour^s Lost, act iv. scene 3. 
 
 But from thine eyes this knowledge I derive. 
 
 Sonnet 14. 
 
 From women's eyes this doctrine I derive. 
 
 Love's Labour^s Lost. 
 
 As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie. 
 
 Sonnet 109. 
 
 Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost. 
 
 I do forgive thy robbery, gentle Thief, 
 
 Altho' thou steal thee all my poverty. — Sonnet 40. 
 
 That sweet Thief which sourly robs from me. 
 
 Sonnet 35. 
 
 me : you Juggler : you canker-worm ! 
 
 You Thief of Love ! What, have you come by night 
 
 And stolen my Love's heart from him ? 
 
 Hei^iia to Helena ; Midsummer Night's 
 
 Dream, act iii. scene 2. 
 
 Sweet Koses do not so ; 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made. 
 
 Sonnet 54. 
 
 Earthlier happy is the Eose distilled, 
 
 Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn. 
 
 Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. 
 
 Midsummer Xight's Dream. 
 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged. 
 
 Like him that travels, I return again. — Sonnet 109. 
 
 My heart witli her but as guest-^vise sojourned. 
 And now to Helen it is home returned. 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 D
 
 34 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward. 
 
 Sonnet 133. 
 
 That thro' thy bosom makes me see my heart. 
 
 Midsummer Nighfs Dream, act ii. scene 2, 
 
 Truth and Beauty shall together thrive, 
 
 If from thyself to store thou would'st convert : 
 
 Or else of thee this I prognosticate, 
 
 Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date. 
 
 Sonnet 14. 
 
 And tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding. 
 
 Sonnet 1. 
 
 Oh she is rich in beauty, only poor 
 
 That when she dies with beauty dies her store. ' 
 
 Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste ? 
 
 She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste. 
 
 For Beauty starved with her severity. 
 
 Cuts beauty off from all posterity. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, act i. scene 1. 
 
 Presents thy shadow to my sightless view. 
 
 Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, 
 
 Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. 
 
 Sonnet 27. 
 
 It seems she hangs upon the cheek of Night 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear. 
 
 Roineo and Juliet, act i. scene 5. 
 
 WTien sparkling stars tire' not thou gild'st the even. 
 
 Sonnet 28. 
 
 Fair Helena who more engilds the night 
 Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light. 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. scene 2. 
 
 Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven 
 Having some business, do entreat her eyes 
 To twinkle in their spheres till they return. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, act i. scene 5. 
 
 * See note to the Sonnet.
 
 EESULT OF THE COMPARISON. 35 
 
 Whilst tliat this shadow doth such sul^stance give. 
 
 Sonnet 37. 
 
 Ah nie ! how sweet is love itself possessed. 
 When but Love's shadows are so rich in joy I 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, act v. scene 1. 
 
 Oh what a mansion have those Vices got 
 Which for their habitation chose out thee. 
 
 Sonnet 95. 
 
 Oh, that Deceit should dwell in such a Palace ! 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 2. 
 
 As the result of this comparison, my reading of the 
 Sonnets shows that in one or two instances the expression 
 must have first appeared in the play. This apphes to the 
 extracts from sonnet 109. But there the Ukeness is one 
 of a personal character. In most instances my reading 
 shows the thought or illustration to have been first 
 employed in the sonnets, or that the plays and sonnets 
 were being written at the same time. And as four 
 of these plays were in all probability produced by the 
 year 1596 \ the sonnets which I have instanced, together 
 with others that belong to the respective stories told, must 
 have been written before that date, except in those cases 
 where there is a still more particular determining cause 
 for the same image or expression being used in both 
 sonnet and drama ; that is, ichen, in each, they appli/ to 
 the same person. This, which is at the root of the mattei', 
 I shall illustrate in another part of my book. I have 
 quoted and said enough to demonstrate that many of the 
 sonnets were composed at too early a period for William 
 Herbert to have been the inspirer, and the friend of 
 Shakspeare who was addressed in them. 
 
 There is strong reason to suppose that the poet began to 
 
 ' These I should date — ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 1593 ; ' T.ove's 
 Labour's Lost,' L594 ; ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' 1595 ; ' Eomeo and 
 Juliet; 1590. 
 
 n -2
 
 36 SriAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 write the sonnets in which he urges his young friend to 
 marry very soon after he had read the ' Arcadia ' of Sid- 
 ney. I shall give evidence of this never before adduced, 
 and in point of fact it amounts to poetic proof. In Book 
 iii. pp. 431, 432, of that work, will be found these argu- 
 ments in favour of marriage and children : — 
 
 No, no, my dear niece (said Cecropia), Nature, when you 
 were first born, vowed you a woman, and as she made you 
 child of a mother, so to do your best to be mother of a child. 
 She gave you beauty to move love ; she gave you ivit to know 
 love ; she gave you an excellent body to reward love ; which 
 kind of liberal reiuarding is crowned with an unspeakable 
 felicity. For this, as it bindeth the receiver, so it makes happy 
 the bestoiver. This doth not impoverish, but enrich the giver. 
 the comfort of comforts, to see your children grow up, in 
 tvhom you are, as it luere eternised ! If you could conceive 
 what a heart-tickling joy it is to see your own little ones, with 
 awful love come running to your lap, and like little models of 
 yourself still carry you about them, you would think un- 
 kindness in your own thoughts, that ever they did rebel against 
 the measure to it. Perchance I set this blessedness before your 
 eyes, as captains do victory before their soldiers, to which they 
 must come thro' many pains, griefs, and dangers ? No, I am 
 content you shrink from this my counsel, if the way to come 
 unto it be not most of all pleasant. 
 
 I know not (answered the sweet Philocleaj what contentment 
 you speak of, but I am sure the best you can make of it (which 
 is marriage) is a burdenous yoke. 
 
 Ah, dear niece (said Cecropia), how much you are deceived. 
 A yoke, indeed, we all bear, laid upon us in creation, which by 
 marriage is not increased, but thus far eased that you have a 
 yoke-fellow to help draw through the cloddy cumbers of this 
 world. widow-nights, bear witness with me of the difference ! 
 How often alas, do I embrace the orphan side of my bed, which 
 was wont to be imprinted by the body of my dear husband ! 
 Believe me, niece, man's experience is woman's best eye-sight. 
 Have you ever seen a pure rose-water kept in a crystal glass ? 
 How fine it looks! how siveet it smells tvhile the beautiful 
 glass imprisons it ! Break the prison, and let the water take
 
 SUGGESTIONS FROM SIDNEY'S 'ARCADIA.' 37 
 
 his own course, doth it not embrace the dust, and lose all his 
 former sweetness and fairness? Truly so are we, if we have 
 not the stay rather than the restraint of crystalline marriage. 
 My heart melts to think of the sweet comfort I, in that happy 
 time, received, when I had never cause to care but the care was 
 doubled ; when I never rejoiced, but that I saw my joy shine 
 in another's eyes. And is a solitary life as good as this ? Then, 
 can one string make as good music as a consort ? Then, can 
 one colour set forth a beauty ? 
 
 Here we discover, crowded into a brief passage, half 
 the very arguments, illustrated by several of the very 
 same images which Shakspeare has used in his earliest 
 group of sonnets. Here, in the lines italicised, is the 
 suofcrestion of sonnet 1 3 : — 
 
 Co 
 
 Dear, my Love, you know, 
 
 You bad a Father : let your son say so I 
 
 The argument of sonnet 11. — 
 
 Which bounteous gift thou should'st in bounty cherish. 
 
 The suggestion of sonnet 6, — 
 
 Which happies those that pay the willing loan. 
 
 Also of the children — same sonnet — which are to ' eter- 
 nise,' so that death shall leave him ' living in posterity,' — 
 
 When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 
 
 Sonnet 13. 
 
 The plea, ' cliange thy thought,' because it is un- 
 kindly, sonnet 10 ; the image of the widow with her 
 children who keep her husband's form in mind, sonnet 9 ; 
 the ' liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,' sonnet 5, and 
 the foUowins: out of the illustration in the next sonnet, 
 ' Make sweet some vial ; ' and the argument of the ' single 
 string ' in sonnet 8, reversely applied : all these are m 
 that brief passage of Sidney's prose, and all are used for 
 the same purpose, the main difference being that in tlie 
 ' Arcadia ' it is a woman speaking to a woman. Various
 
 38 SHAKSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 other illustrations might be cited, to show that Shakspeare 
 has literally adopted sentiment, idea, and image, one after 
 the other, from the ' Arcadia.' His starting-point in the 
 first sonnet will be found in these words of Sidney's ; 
 ' Beauty is a gift which those on whomsoever the heavens 
 have bestowed it are without question bound to use it 
 for the noble purpose for which it was created ;' — that is, 
 of ' increase.' Headers of the sonnets will see how large 
 a space that sentiment occupies in the first series. Again, 
 in the ' Arcadia,' the question is asked, ' Will you suffer 
 your beauty to be hidden in the wrinkles ? ' &c. And 
 the second sonnet says : — 
 
 When forty Winters shall besiege thy brow, 
 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, 
 Thy Youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, 
 Will be a tattered weed of small worth held ; 
 Then, being askt where all thy beauty lies ; 
 Where all the treasure of thy lusty days. 
 To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes, 
 Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. 
 
 Here also is a further illustration of sonnet 6 : — 
 
 That indeed is the right happiness which is not only in itself 
 happy, but can also derive the happiness to another. 
 
 The object which Shakspeare had in writing these 
 early sonnets is so appositely worded in a passage of the 
 'Arcadia,' (Book iii. p. 462) as to suggest that the reading 
 of that work was one of the immediate incentives to the 
 writing of the sonnets. ' The earnest desire I have to see 
 these virtues of yours knit fast with such zeal of devotion 
 (indeed the best bond) which the most politic wits have 
 found to hold man's wit in well-doing.' Sliakspeare was 
 undouljtedly an adapter of other men's ideas for dramatic 
 purposes, but it would be difficult to identify the source 
 of so much sequent thought and sentiment as is to be 
 found in the present instance. It is essentially the result
 
 THE TIME AT WHICH THEY WEIIE BEGUN. 39 
 
 of great admiration, such as belongs to a somewhat youtli- 
 ful time of hfe. In borrowing from Sidney he was not 
 taking from a poet unknown or unnoticed, but from a 
 work that was among the choicest favourites of the age, 
 and one of the most widely read. The ' Arcadia ' was 
 first pubhshed in 1590, and a copy of it would soon be 
 in our poet's hands ; we may assume that he would at 
 once seize the cue there given, and expand the hints on 
 marriage in his first sonnets. It is a kind of unconscious 
 plagiarism only possible to the young and immature mind ; 
 the effect of a first acquaintanceship, and the warm affec- 
 tion felt for a new work. A careful study of the 'Arcadia' 
 will reveal how greatly Shakspeare must have loved the 
 book, and how deeply its influence dyed his mind 
 during those years, from 1590 to 1596, in which a large 
 portion of the sonnets was written. Sir Walter Scott just 
 reversed the facts, when he fancied that Shakspeare's 
 Sonnets had been in the hands of Sidney. 
 
 Thus the sonnets themselves supply proof in various 
 kinds of evidence, that a large number of them were 
 written too early for William Herbert to have been their 
 ' begetter,' or the friend who is the object of Shakspeare's 
 affection. Many of them were written by the poet's 
 ' pupil pen ' before he had ventured to appear in public : 
 therefore, before he printed in 1593. On other grounds 
 I shall show, from internal evidence, that another group 
 was written before the death of Marlowe, in the same 
 year. Consequently, these must belong to the ' Sonnets 
 among his private friends,' which were known to Meres 
 in 1598 ; and, as William Herbert did not come to live 
 in London till the year 1598,' and was then only eighteen 
 years of age, he cannot bo the person addressed in these 
 Sonnets during a number of years previously ! 
 
 At the outset of our inquiry, and on the very face 
 of things, it is patent that William Herbert cannot 
 
 ' Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 4.3.
 
 40 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 be the man whom Shakspeare so anxiously urged to 
 marry, to whom he dedicated eternal love ; and to all 
 who can fairly weigh the facts, it must be just as evident 
 that the Earl of Southampton is the patron and friend 
 whom our poet loved, and by whom he was so much be- 
 loved. Amongst the few precious personal rehcs of 
 Shakspeare are the short prose epistles in which he in- 
 scribes his two poems to the Earl of Southampton. Tliese 
 are remarkable revelations of his feeling towards the 
 Earl. The first is shaded with a delicate reserve, and 
 addressed to the patron ; the second, printed one year 
 afterwards, glows out full-hearted in a dedication of per- 
 sonal love for the friend. The difference is so great, and 
 the growth of the friendship so rapid, as to indicate that 
 the ' Venus and Adonis ' was sent to the Earl some time 
 before it was printed. 
 
 The dedication runs thus : — 
 
 Eight Honourable, — I know not how I shall offend in de- 
 dicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the 
 world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support 
 so weak a burthen : only, if your honour seem but pleased, I 
 account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all 
 idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. 
 But, if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be 
 sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren 
 a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to 
 your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart's con- 
 tent ; which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the 
 world's hopeful expectation. 
 
 Your Honour's in all duty, 
 
 William Shakspeare. 
 
 Now, as our poet had distinctly promised in sonnet 26, 
 that w^hen he was ready to appear in print and put 
 w^orthy apparel on his love, he would then dare to boast 
 how much he loved his patron and friend, and show his 
 head, where he might be proved, we cannot but conclude 
 that the dedication to the 'Venus and Adonis' is in part
 
 HIS PROMISES TO SOUTIIAMFrON. II 
 
 fulfilment of the intentions expressed in that sonnet. I 
 take the sonnet to be as much a private dedication of the 
 poet's first poem, as this epistle was afterwards the public 
 one, and hold that in it he as much promised the first 
 poem, as in the prose inscription he promises the future 
 ' Lucrece,' when he vows to take advantage of all idle 
 hours till he has honoured the earl with some graver 
 labour, and tliat the 'Venus and Adonis' followed the 
 promise of the sonnet, just as one year later the 'Lucrece' 
 followed the dedication of the first printed poem to the 
 Earl of Southampton. Therefore, the person who was 
 privately addressed in 'written embassage' as the lord 
 of Shakspeare's love, must be one with him whom the 
 poet afterwards publicly ventured to address as such, in 
 fulfilment of intentions abeady recorded. The feeling of 
 the earhest sonnets is exactly that of this first public 
 inscription ; it is reticent and noticeably modest, whilst 
 in each there is an expression that gives the same per- 
 sonal image. In the first sonnet, this lord of Shak- 
 speare's love is ' the world's fresh ornament ; ' and in the 
 first dedication, the poet hopes his young patron may 
 answer to the 'world's hopeful expectation.' In both we 
 have Hope a-tiptoe at gaze on this new wonder of youth 
 and beauty, this freshest blossom of the young nobility. 
 
 In the next year, 1594, Shakspeare dedicated his poem 
 of 'Lucrece ' to the Earl of Southampton as foUows: — 
 
 The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end, whereof 
 this pamphlet, A\dthout beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. 
 The 'Warrant I have of your honourable disposition not the 
 worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. 
 What I have done is yours ; ichat I have to do is yours ; being 
 part in all I have devoted yours.^ Were my worth greater my 
 
 ^ In the ^lalone and Grenville copies this reads ' beinpr part in all I have, 
 devoted yours,' which punctuation has been preserved. But it is so obviously 
 an error of the press as not even to demand a passing remark. It is ob- 
 structive to the sense, and severs what Shakspeare meant to clench by his 
 last repetition of * yours.
 
 42 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 diity would shoiu greater ; meantime, as it is, it is bound to 
 your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with 
 happiness. 
 
 Your Lordship's in all duty. 
 
 William Shakspeare. 
 
 Again the dedication echoes the 26th sonnet. 'The 
 warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the 
 worth of my untutored lines,' and 'were my worth 
 greater, my duty would show greater,' are the prose of 
 the previous ' to witness duty, not to show my wit.' 
 Then we have the 'lord of our poet's love,' to whom his 
 service was vowed, his duty bound in '■vassailage,'' iden- 
 tified in the person of Lord Southampton, to whom 
 Shakspeare is in duty bound, as in the sonnet where 
 ' thy merit hath my duty strongly knit ; ' and to this lord 
 the poet has dedicated all that he has done, and all that 
 he has to do. Thus we have it recorded in 1594, by 
 Shakspeare himself, that the relationship of poet and 
 patron was so close, the friendship had so far ripened, 
 that Shakspeare could dedicate 'love without end,' and 
 he uses these never-to-be-forgotten words : — ' What 1 have 
 done is yours ; what I have to do is yours ; being part in 
 all I have devoted yours.'' That is, the Earl of South- 
 ampton is proclaimed to be the lord of our poet's love, 
 ' love without end,' — the man to whom he is bound, and 
 the patron for whom he has hitherto written, and for 
 whom, as is understood betwixt them, he has yet to write. 
 'Wliat I have to do is yours' — so there is work in hand 
 — ' being part as you are in all that my duty and love 
 have devoted to your service.' What work in hand 
 devoted to Southampton can this be, save the sonnets 
 which he was then composing ? Here is a promise made, 
 which was never fulfilled in any other shape. But Shak- 
 speare was not a man to make light of his word. He 
 would not give a pledge privately or publicly, and leave 
 it unredeemed. He made a promise in the 26t]i sonnet,
 
 HIS PUBLIC ALLUSION TO THEM, 43 
 
 wliich he fulfilled in 1593 with the 'Venus and Adonis.' 
 In his inscription to that poem, he makes a further pro- 
 mise, this he carries out in dedicating the ' Lucrece ' to 
 the Earl of Southampton. In the second public inscrip- 
 tion, he speaks still more emphatically of work that he 
 has to do for the earl, not like a poet addressing a patron, 
 but as a familiar friend alluding to something only known 
 amongst friends. It is a public promise respecting work 
 that has a private history ; its precise speciality has never 
 yet been fathomed, although something marked in the 
 meaning has been felt ; it could only have had fulfilment 
 in the sonnets, and that in a very particular way. 
 
 As the 'Venus and Adonis' was printed in 1593, we 
 may safely assume that the first sonnets, inclusive of the 
 26th, were not written later than the year 1592. Shak- 
 speare might have met Southampton as early as 1589, for 
 in the June of that year the earl came to London, and 
 entered himself as member of Gray's Inn. The young 
 earl's fondness for plays is well know^n, and his step-father. 
 Sir Thomas HeneaQ;e, beins; Treasurer of the Chamber and 
 Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, as well as 
 Captain of the Guard to the Queen, his immediate access 
 to players and playwrights would be easy; his good word 
 in their favour w^ould be eagerly sought. 
 
 But this was not an ordinary case of a poet in search of 
 a patron. Shakspeare must have kept his poem by him 
 some years after it was written before he printed it. He 
 calls it the ' first heir of his invention,' at a time when he 
 was known to have written some plays, and had a hand 
 in others. This does not look as though he had been an 
 eager seeker of a patron ; and I hold that sonnet 25 tells 
 us how the earl had sought out the poet who ' unlooked 
 for joys ' in that he ' honours most ' — the acquaintanceship 
 and friendship of one so much unlike the ordinary patrons 
 of literature in those days. 
 
 Taking the year 1592, then, as the date of the first
 
 44 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 group of sonnets, we shall find the young earl of South- 
 ampton's age precisely reckoned up in sonnet 16, — 
 
 Now stand you on the top of happy hours, 
 
 which shows us that the youth has sprung lightly up the 
 ladder of his life, and now stands on the last golden round 
 of boyhood ; he is at the top of his ' teens,' The Earl of 
 Southampton was born October 6th, 1573, consequently 
 in 1592 he was nineteen years of age. 
 
 The very first sonnet addresses one Avho is the ' world's 
 fresh ornament,' — that is, the budding favourite at Court, 
 the fresh grace of its circle, the latest representative there 
 of youthful spring ; ' the expectancy and rose of the fair 
 State!' Southampton was, in truth, the ' child of State,' 
 under the special protection of the Court. He was recom- 
 mended to Her Majesty's notice by the loss of his father 
 at so early an age, and by the quiet service of his step- 
 father, who was an old servant of the Queen's, as well as 
 favoured with the best word of his guardian, Burleigh, 
 who at one time hoped to bring about a marriage betwixt 
 Southampton and his own granddaughter. We shall see 
 further, that such was his place in Her Majesty's regards, 
 that an endeavour was made by Sir Fulke GreviUe and 
 otliers, to get the Earl of Southampton installed as royal 
 favourite in the stead of Essex. ' There was a time,' says Sir 
 Henry Wotton,^ sometime secretary to the Earl of Essex, 
 ' when Sir Eulke Greville (Lord Brook), a man intrinsically 
 Avith him (Essex), or at the least, admitted to his melan- 
 choly hours, either belike espying some weariness in the 
 Queen, or perhaps (with little change of the word, though 
 more in the danger), some wariness towards him, and 
 working upon the present matter (as he was dexterous 
 and close), had almost superinduced into favour the Earl 
 of Southampton, which yet being timely discovered, my 
 
 ' Reliquice Wottoniancp, p. 1G3.
 
 SOUTItAMPTOX AS FAVOL'RITE 45 
 
 Lord of Essex chose to evaporate his thoughts in a sonnet 
 (being his common way), to be sung before the Queen 
 (as it was) by one Hales, in wliose voice she took some 
 pleasure ; whereof the couplet, melhinks, had as much of 
 the Hermit as of the Poet.' I suspect that Wotton has not 
 gone quite to the root of the affair, and that the real 
 ground on which the motion of Sir Fulke Greville was 
 made, was a strong feeling of personal favour on the part 
 of Her Majesty towards the yoimg Earl of Southampton ; 
 this to some extent is implied in the fact recorded, 
 but tliere was more in it than Wotton had seen from the 
 one side. It is difficult to define what this royal favour 
 meant, or what was the nature of Her Majesty's affec- 
 tion, but it most assuredly existed, and was shown, and 
 Essex manifested his jealousy of it, as in the cases of 
 Southampton and Mountjoy. Perhaps it was an old 
 maid's passion for her puppies ! In judging of Ehzabeth's 
 character, we must remember tliat some of her richest, 
 most vital feelings had no proper sphere of action, though 
 their motion was not necessarily improper. She did 
 not live the married life, and Nature sometimes plays 
 tricks when the vestal fires are fed by the animal passions, 
 that are thus covered up, but all aglow ; these will give 
 an added warmth to the imagination, a sparkle to the eye, 
 and a youth to the affections in the later years of life, 
 such as may easily be misinterpreted. I am not raising 
 any scandal against Elizabeth, when, supported by the 
 suggestive hint of Wotton, I conjecture that the persistent 
 opposition of the Queen to Southampton's marriage may 
 have had in it a personal feeling which, under the circum- 
 stances, could have no other expression than in thwarting 
 the wedded ha})piness of others. 
 
 It is in this sense of the new favourite at Court, that I 
 read — 
 
 The World's fresh ornament 
 And only herald of the gaudy spring.
 
 46 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and find in it another feature whereby we can identify 
 the Earl of Southampton as the person addressed. 
 
 Next — and here we feel an endearing touch of Shak- 
 speare's nature — the youth is so evideiitlj fathei^less, that 
 it seems strange it should have been hitherto overlooked. 
 The plea all through the first sonnets is to one who is the 
 sole prop of his house, and the only bearer of the family 
 name ; hence the importance of marrying, on which the 
 poet lays such stress. It seems to me that the first 
 sonnet opens with an allusion to the earli/ death of the 
 earl's father : — 
 
 From fairest creatures we desire increase, 
 That thereby Beauty's rose might never die. 
 But as the riper should by time decease. 
 His tender heir might bear his memory ! 
 
 In sonnet 10 he is charged with not inclining his ear 
 to the advice given to him that he should marry. 
 Thus :— 
 
 Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate, 
 Which to repair should be thy chief desire. 
 
 We find the same use made of the verb to ruinate in 
 Ilenry VI., part iii. act 5 : — 
 
 I will not ruinate my father's house. 
 
 And in the abseiice of Pericles one of the lords says — 
 
 This kingdom is without a head. 
 Like goodly buildings left without a roof. 
 
 Of course the roof would not need repairing if it were 
 not going to decay. Accordingly we find that Southamp- 
 ton's father — head of the house — died in 1581, ere the 
 young earl was quite eight years old, and within four 
 years of that time his elder brother died. Again in 
 sonnet 13 the poet urges — 
 
 Who lets so fair a house fall to decay. 
 Which husbandry in honour might uphold "i
 
 THE PERSON ADDRESSED IS FATHERLESS. 47 
 
 And, although aware that the hnes may not be con- 
 fined to the Hteral reading, I cannot avoid thinking that 
 the underlying fact was in the poet's mind when in the 
 same sonnet he wrote — 
 
 Dear my love, you know 
 You had a father ; let your son say so. 
 
 Also in sonnet 3 he tells the earl — 
 
 Thou art thy JNIother's glass, and she, in thee. 
 Calls back the lovely April of her prime. 
 
 There is no mention of his having a father ; there is an 
 allusion to his having had one, and the mother is referred 
 to as though she were the only hving parent. Shakspeare 
 could not speak of the earl's likeness to his father, who 
 had died before the poet came to London ; he is forced to 
 make use of the ' mother's glass,' when the father, had 
 there been one in existence, is demanded by the heredi- 
 tary nature of the argument. Also, it makes greatly in 
 favour of my reading that some of the arguments taken 
 from Sidney's prose have been altered precisely to suit the 
 case as put by me. The speaker in the ' Arcadia ' says, 
 ' Nature made you child of a mother ' (Philoclea's mother 
 ' Lettice Knollys ' was then living), but Shakspeare says, 
 ' you had a father ' (the Earl of Southampton's father 
 being dead). The description is also differentiated by the 
 ' tender heir,' who, ' as the riper should by time decease,' 
 might ' bear his memory,' and by the house-roof going to 
 decay, ' which to repair ' by ' husbandry in honour,' 
 should be the chief desire of the person addressed. 
 Thus, we have the Earl of Southampton identified as the 
 lord of Shakspeare's love, and the object of these early 
 sonnets by his exact age at the time when Shakspeare 
 speaks of appearing soon in print, by his position as the 
 ■• fresh ornament ' of the Court world and Court societ}^ 
 and by the fatherless condition which gave a weightier
 
 48 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 empliasis to the poet's argument for marriage, a more 
 paternal tone of anxions interest to liis personal affection. 
 To revert for a moment to the words of Meres, it is 
 obvious that the ' private friends ' of Sliakspeare alluded 
 to must have had as much to do with the critic's mention 
 as the poet had ; it would be made on their account as 
 much as on Shakspeare's. Who else could prove the 
 opinion recorded ? And certainly there was no living 
 patron of literature at the time more likely to elicit the 
 public reference of Meres than Henry Wriothesley, Earl 
 of Southampton. 
 
 On going a little further afield we may glean yet more 
 evidence that the Earl of Southampton is the object of 
 these sonnets. ' Thy poet,' Sliakspeare calls himself in 
 sonnet 79, and one of the earl's two poets in sonnet 83. 
 Whose poet could he have been but Southampton's either 
 before or after the dedication of his two poems ? Of 
 whom, save Southampton, should he say — 
 
 Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, 
 
 Sonnet 100. 
 
 when it was that earl who had so esteemed the poefs lays? 
 To whom, except this noble fellow and personal friend, 
 could he speak of his sonnets as the poor returns^ 
 
 The barren tender of a jpoefs debt ? 
 
 Sonnet 83. 
 
 which is a most palpable acknowledgement of the earl's 
 munificence — good, even for a thousand pounds. More- 
 over, we have in sonnet 78, the recognition of the earl 
 after publishing, just as we have him pointed out in 
 sonnet 26, before the poet had printed. ' Thine eyes 
 that taught the dumb on high to sing ! ' These must 
 have belonged to the man who caused the poet to speak 
 aloud for the first time in public. In sonnet 108 he says 
 his love is great, ' even as when first I hallowed thy fair
 
 SOUTHAMPTON THE LORD OF SIIAKSPEARE'S LOVE. 49 
 
 iianic' Whose name did he liallow or honour save that 
 of Southampton ? Again in sonnet 102 : — 
 
 Our love was new and then bnt in the spring. 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays. 
 
 "Wliat love but that betwixt this earl and Shakspeare did 
 tlie poet ever greet with his lays? And sonnet 105 tells 
 us that up to the time at wliicli it was written, the afifec- 
 tion must have been undivided ; and the patron of both 
 sonnets and poems must have been one and the same 
 person. For — 
 
 All alike my songs and praises be, 
 
 To one, of one, still such and ever so. 
 
 But I shall not only show that the Earl of Southampton 
 was the lord of Shakspeare's love, and the ' dear friend ' 
 of these sonnets, the budding favourite at court, the 
 fatherless youth of nineteen, the patron to whom Shak- 
 speare sent ' what silent love had writ ' before he pubhcly 
 dedicated his ' love without end ; ' those sonnets that were 
 the dumb presagers of his speaking breast^ and as such 
 preceded and heralded the spoken thought and feeling of 
 his public inscriptions. I shall also show how Southamp- 
 ton alone could have been spoken of as becoming tlie 
 ' tenth Muse ' of sonnet 38, not in the be^innino- of the 
 sonnets, but after many of them had l^een begotten, and 
 prove how he only could be a part in what Shakspeare had 
 devoted to him. And lastly, I shall show that wliether the 
 sonnets be addressed to the object of tliem by Shakspeare 
 himself, or spo"ken dramatically, it is the character of 
 Southampton and that alone, wdtli its love of change, its 
 shifting hues, its passionate impetuosity, its spirit restless as 
 flame, its tossings to and fro, its hiu'iying here and there 
 to seek in strife abroad the satisfaction denied to him in 
 peace at home, that we shall find reflected all througli the 
 larger number of them, and Southampton only Avho is 
 congratulated in sonnet 107 on having escaped his doom 
 of imprisonment for hfe, through the deatli of the Queen. 
 
 E
 
 LIFE AND CHAEACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 HENKY WKIOTHESLEY, 
 
 EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 
 
 The name of Soiitliampton was once well known on a 
 past page of our rough island story ; his swaling plume was 
 looked to in the battle's front, and recognised as worn by 
 a natural leader of fighting men. He was of the flower 
 of England's chivalry and a close follower of Sir Philip 
 Sidney in heading the onset and breaking hardily on the 
 enemy with a noble few, without pausing to count 
 numbers or weigh odds. 
 
 With a most natural aptitude for war, he never had 
 sufficient scope : one of the jewels of Elizabeth's realm 
 did not meet with a fit setting at her hand ; a bright 
 particular star of her constellation was dimmed and 
 diminished through a l^aleful conjunction. But he has 
 a rich reprisal in being the friend of Shakspeare, be- 
 loved by him in life, embalmed by him in memory ; 
 once a sharer in his own personal affection, and for ever 
 the partaker of his earthly immortality. 
 
 Henry Wriothesley was the second of the two sons of 
 Henry, the second earl of the name. His mother was the 
 daughter of Anthony Brown, first Viscount Montague. 
 The founder of the family was Thomas Wriothesley, 
 our earl's grandfather, a favourite servant of Henry VIH.,
 
 'HONOUR IN ms perfection.' r>i 
 
 who granted to ]iim the Promonstratensian abbey of 
 Tichfiekl, Hants, endowed witli about 280/. per year in 
 1538, creating him Baron Tichfield about the same time, 
 and Earl of Southampton in 154G. He died July 30, 
 1550. A rare work entitled ' Honour in his Perfection,' 
 by G. M., 4to, 1G24,' contains the following notice of 
 our Southampton's ancestors : — ' Next (0 Bntain !) read 
 imto thy softer nobility the story of the noble house 
 of Southampton ; that sliall bring new fire to their 
 bloods, and make of the little sparks of honour great 
 flames of excellency. Show them the life of Thomas 
 Wriothcsley, Earl of Southampton, who was l^otli an 
 excellent soldier and an admirable scholar ; who not 
 only served the great king, his master, Heniy VHI. 
 in his wars, but m his council chamber ; ^ not only in the 
 field but on the bench, within his courts of civil justice. 
 This man, for his excellent parts, was made Lord 
 Chancellor of England, where he governed with tliat 
 integrity of heart, and true mixture of conscience and 
 justice, that he won tlie hearts of both king and people. 
 
 'After tliis noble prince succeeded his son, Henry, Earl 
 of Southampton, a man of no less vii^tue, prowess, and 
 wisdom, ever beloved and favoured of his prince, highly 
 reverenced and favoured of all that were in his own rank, 
 and bravely attended and served by the best gentlemen of 
 those countries wherein he lived. His muster-roll never 
 consisted of four lacqueys and a coachman, but of a 
 whole troop of at least a hundred well-mounted gentle- 
 
 * * Honour in his Perfection ' supposed by Malone to have been written by 
 Gervase Markliam. But Gervase was accustomed to write his name Jarvis 
 or larvis. He signs his sonnets dedicatory to his tragedy of Sir Richard 
 Grenville, hjs dedication to the * Poem of Poems or Sinn's Muse ' and his 
 contributions to ' England's Helicon ' with the initials J. M. not G. M. I 
 rather think that ' Honour in his Perfection ' was written by Griffith or 
 Griffin Mai-khain, the brother of Gervase. He served undor the Earl of 
 Southampton in L-eland, as Colonel of Horse, and was an intimate personal 
 friend. 
 
 - As Secretary of State. 
 
 K 2
 
 52 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 men and yeomen. He was not known in the streets by 
 guarded liveries but by gold chains ; not by painted 
 butterflies, ever running as if some monster pursued 
 them, but by tall goodly fellows that kept a constant 
 pace both to guard his person and to admit any man to 
 their lord which had serious business. This prince could 
 not steal or drop into an ignoble place, neither might do 
 anytliing unworthy of his great calhng ; for he ever had 
 a world of testimonies about him.' Tliis earl was attached 
 to Popery, and a zealous adherent to the cause of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots ; which led to his imprisonment in the 
 Tower in 1572. He died October 4, 1581, at the early age 
 of thirty-five, bequeathing his body to be buried in the 
 chapel of Tichfield Church, where his mother had been 
 interred, his father having been buried in the choir of 
 St. Andrew's Church, Holborn ; and appointing that 200/. 
 should be distributed amongst the poor within his several 
 lordships, to pray for his soul and the souls of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 'Wlien it pleased the divine goodness to take to his 
 mercy this great earl, he left behind to succeed him 
 Henry, Earl of Southampton, his son (now living), being 
 then a child. But here methinks, Cinthius aurem vellet, 
 something pulls me by the elbow and bids me forbear, for 
 flattery is a deadly sin, and will damn reputation. But, shall 
 1 that ever loved and admired this earl, that lived many 
 years'where I daily saw this earl, that knew him before 
 the wars, in the wars, and since the wars — shall I that 
 have seen him endure the worst mahce or venQ;eance that 
 sea, tempests, or thunder could utter, that have seen him 
 undergo all the extremities of war ; that have seen him 
 serve in person on tlic enemy — shall I tliat have seen 
 him receive the reward of a soldier (before the face of 
 an enemy) for the best act of a soldier (done upon the 
 enemy) — shall I be scared with shadows? No; truth 
 is my mistress, and though I can write nothing which
 
 SOUTHAMPTON'S EARLY YEARS. 53 
 
 can equal tlie least spark of lire witliin him, yet for her 
 sake will I speak something which may inflame those that 
 are heavy and dull, and of mine own temper. This earl 
 (as I said before) came to his father's dignity in cliild- 
 hood, spending that and his other younger times in the 
 study of good letters (to which the University of Cam- 
 bridge is a witness), and after confirmed that study with 
 travel and foreign observation.' He was born October G, 
 1573. His father and elder brother both died before he 
 had reached the age of twelve years. On December 11, 
 1585, he was admitted of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 with the denomination of Hemy, Earl of Southampton, 
 as appears by the books of that house ; on June 6, 1589, 
 he took liis degree of Master of Arts, and after a resi- 
 dence of nearly five years, he finally left the University for 
 London. He is said to have won the hvj\\ eulo»]jies of his 
 contemporaries for his uncommon proficiency, and to 
 have been admitted about three years later to the same 
 degree, by incorporation, at Oxford. 
 
 The Inns of Court, says Aulicus Coquinariie, w^ere al- 
 ways the place of esteem with the Queen, who considered 
 that they fitted youth for the futm^e, and were the best 
 antechambers to her Court. And it was customary for 
 the nobilit}^, as well as the most considerable gentry of 
 England, to spend some time in one of the Inns of Coiu't, 
 on purpose to complete their course of studies. Soon 
 after leaving the University, the young earl entered him- 
 self a member of Gray's Inn, and on the authority of a 
 roll preserved in the library of Lord Hardwicke, he is said 
 to have been a member so late as the year IGll. Malone 
 was inclined to believe that he rallier was admitted a 
 member of Lincoln's Inn, to the chapel of which society 
 the earl gave one of the admirably pahited windows, in 
 which his arms may be yet seen. 
 
 One of the earliest notices of tlie earl in the calendar of
 
 54 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 State Papers,' gives us the note of preparation for the 
 memorable year of the 'Armada,' in which the encroaching 
 tide of Spanish power was dashed back broken, from the 
 Avooden walls of England, ' June 14th,' we read, ' the Earl 
 of Southampton's armour is to be scoured and dressed up 
 by his executors ! ' In consequence of his father's death, 
 the young earl became the ward of Lord Burghley. He 
 was, as he said on his trial, brought up under the Queen. 
 Sir Thomas Heneage, his stepfather, had been a favourite 
 servant of the Queen from his youth ; made by her. 
 Treasurer first, of her Chamber, and then Vice-Cham- 
 berlain ; appointed in 1588 to be Treasurer at War of the 
 armies to be levied to withstand any foreign invasion of 
 the realm of England; and successor to Walsingham in 
 the office of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
 in 1590. 
 
 October 14th, 1590, Mary, Countess of Southampton, 
 writes to Burghley, and thanks him for the long time he 
 had entrusted her son with her. She now returns the 
 earl, and hopes that Burgliley will so dispose of him, that 
 his exercises be such as may and must grace persons of 
 his quality. He only is able to work her son's future 
 happiness.'^ 
 
 It appears that Burghley had contemplated the marriage 
 of the earl with his granddaughter, for, on the 15th July, 
 1590, Sir Thomas Stanhope writes to Lord Burghley and 
 assures him that he had never sought to procure the 
 young Earl of Southampton in marriage for his daughter, 
 as he knew Burghley intended a marriage between him 
 and the Lady Vere. And on the 19th September, same 
 year, Anthony Viscount Montague writes to Lord Burghley 
 to the efiect that he has had a conversation with the Earl 
 of Southampton as to his engagement of marriage with 
 Burghley 's granddaughter. The C(Hmtess of Southampton 
 
 ^ Domestic Series of the Rdyn of Elizahtth, 1581-1590, p. 417. 
 * Calendar of State Papers, lb, p. BOo.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON'S CC^XTEMPLATED [MARRIAGE. 55 
 
 the earl's mother, and Montague's daughter, is not aware 
 of any alteration in her son's mind.' The son's mind was 
 changed, however; the lady was destined only to play the 
 part of Eosaline until JuUet appeared ; the impression in 
 wax was doomed to be melted when once the real fire of 
 love was kindled. 
 
 About this time the frankness of the earl's nature and 
 the ardour of liis friendship flashed out in a character- 
 istic act of reckless generosity. Two of his young friends 
 had got into trouble ; the provocation is not known, 
 but they had broken into the house of one Henry 
 Long, at Draycot in Wiltshire, and, in a struggle. Long 
 was killed. These were the two brothers, Sir Charles 
 and Sir Henry Danvers. They informed the earl that a 
 life had been unfortunately lost in an aflray, and threw 
 themselves under his protection. He concealed them for 
 some time in his house at Tichlield, and afterwards con- 
 veyed them to France, where Sir Charles Danvers became 
 highly distinguished as a soldier under Henry IV. 
 He returned to Ensland in 1598, havinsf with o;reat diili- 
 culty obtained the Queen's pardon, and his personal at- 
 tachment to tlie Earl of Southampton caused him to lose 
 his head on Tower Hill, in March, 1001. Sir Henry lived 
 for many years after his brother's death ; he was created 
 Baron Danvers by King James L, in the first year of his 
 reign, and by King Charles L,Earl of Derby. 
 
 The young Earl of Southampton became so great a 
 favourite at Court and was noticed so graciously by Her 
 Majesty, as to excite the displeasure and jealousy of the 
 Earl of Essex. As in the case of Sir Charles Blount, 
 Essex appears to have personally resented the favour 
 shown by the Queen to Southampton, and, we are told 
 that emulations and differences arose betwixt tlie two 
 earls, who were rivals for Her Majesty's affection. Of 
 this we get a glimpse in the story told by Wootton. Also 
 
 ' Calendar of State Paper-'^, p. 6'^.
 
 r)0 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 tlie favours, the rivaliy, and the consequent personal 
 dilTerences, are imphed in the following note of Eowland 
 White's, in the 'Sydney Memoirs,'i dated Oct. 1st, 1595 : — 
 'My Lord of Essex kept his bed all yesterday; his Favour 
 continues quam diu se bene gesserit. Yet, my Lord of 
 Southampto7i is a careful waiter here, and, sede vacante, 
 doth receive favours at her Majesty's hands; all this 
 without breach of amity between them' — (i.e. the two earls). 
 But a new influence was now at work to make the 
 rivals friends. The Earl of Southampton had met the 
 ' faire IMistress Vernon,' and fallen deeply in love with her. 
 This afi'ection for the Earl of Essex's cousin, joined the 
 hands of the two earls in the closest grasp of friendship, 
 which was only relaxed by death. Love for the cousin was 
 the incentive for Southampton to cast in his lot with the 
 fortmies of Essex, and become the other self of his friend. 
 There were reasons why there should be no further breach 
 of amity between the two earls. Eight days before the 
 date of White's letter just quoted, he had written thus, — 
 'My Lord of Southampton doth with too much familiarity 
 court the fair Mistress Vernon, while his friends, observing 
 the Queen's humours towards my Lord of Essex, do what 
 they can to bring her to favour him, but it is yet in vain.'^ 
 This lady, who afterwards became Countess of South- 
 ampton, was a maid of honour, and a beauty of Elizabeth's 
 Court ; she was cousin to the Earl of Essex, and daughter 
 of Sir John Vernon of Hodnet, by Elizabeth Devereux, 
 Essex's aunt. Shakspeare's acquaintance with Lord and 
 Lady Southampton, and consequent knowledge of her 
 family belonging to Shropshii-e, may have led him to 
 introduce a Sir John Vernon in ' The First Part of Henry 
 IV,' Hodnet is thirteen miles from Shrewsbury, and the 
 high road leading to the latter place passes over the plain 
 where the battle was fought in which Falstaff performed 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 61. 
 
 ^ Sydney Memoirs, vol. i. ji. 348.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON IN LOVE WITH ELIZAlil^TII VERNON. 57 
 
 liis prodigies of valoiir for 'a long hour by Shrewsbuiy 
 clock.' 
 
 Eowlancl White's statement contains matter of great 
 moment to our subject. The Earl of Southampton's love 
 for Ehzabeth Vernon cost him the favour of the Queen. 
 Her Majesty was not to be wrought on, even througli 'lier 
 humours towards my Lord of Essex,' to restore the fallen 
 favourite to his lost place in her regards. As the breach 
 of amity betwixt the two earls had closed, that between 
 her Majesty and Southampton continually widened. She 
 forbade his marriage, and opposed it in a most implacable 
 spirit. Whatsoever may have been the Queen's motive, 
 she certainly did not forgive, first the falling in love, and 
 next the marriage of the Earl of Southampton with 
 Ehzabeth Vernon. 
 
 Birch quotes a letter of Antonio Perez, written in Latin, 
 dated May 20tli, 1595, which contains a reference to the 
 Earl of Essex and his ill situation at the time at court, 
 and he suggests that the cause probably arose from the 
 Queen's displeasure at the share taken by Essex in the 
 marriage of his cousin to the Earl of Southampton ^vithout 
 her Majesty's permission or knowledge. 
 
 But as the marriage did not take place until late 
 in 1598, we must look a little further for the mean- 
 injx of ]\Ir. Standen's letter to Mr. Bacon, same date, in 
 Avhich he relates what he had learned the night before 
 among the court ladies, to the effect that the Lady Eich, 
 Elizabeth Vernon's cousin, having visited the lady of Sir 
 Ixobert Cecil at her house, understood that Elizabeth 
 Vernon and her ill good man had waited on Sunday two 
 hours to have spoken with the Queen, but could not. At 
 last Mistress Vernon sent in word that she desired her 
 Majesty's resolution. To which the Queen replied that 
 she was sufficiently resolved, but that the next day she 
 would talk with her farther.^ Whatsoever the precise 
 
 1 Birch's Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 238.
 
 58 SITAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 occurrence may have been, it is doubtless the one referred 
 to by Eowland White. The earl had been courting Mis- 
 tress Vernon too warmly for the cloistral coolness of 
 Elizabeth's court ; this had reached her Majesty's ears. 
 I surmise that the affair was similar in kind to that of 
 Kaleigh and Mrs. Throckmorton two or three years be- 
 fore, and that the earl and Mistress Vernon were most 
 anxious to get married, as their prototypes had done. 
 But Elizabeth, either for reasons or motives of her own, 
 ' resolved ' they should not. We may consider this to 
 have been one of the various occasions on which South- 
 ampton was ordered to absent himself from court. We 
 shall hear more of the subject from the sonnets. Nearly 
 two years later the familiarity became still more apparent, 
 in spite of the Queen's attempt to keep the persecuted 
 pair apart. The earl was again ordered to keep away 
 from the court. The gossips, who had seen the coming 
 events casting their shadows before, were at length justi- 
 fied. But I am anticipating. 
 
 The exact period of ' travel and foreign observation,' 
 alluded to by the author of ' Honour in his Perfection,' is 
 unidentifiable, but I conjecture that 'leave of absence' 
 and a journey followed the explosion of 1595, when the 
 earl had been courting the fair Mistress Vernon ' with too 
 much familiarity.' Her Majesty's ' resolve,' expressed in 
 reply to the message of Elizabeth Vernon, is sufficiently 
 ominous, although not put into words for us. It has been 
 stated that the earl was with Essex, as an unattached 
 volunteer, at the attack on Cadiz, in the summer of 1596. 
 This, Malone asserted on grounds apparently strong. In 
 the Catalogue of the MSS. in the library of the Earl of Den- 
 bigli — ' Catalogi Librarum Manuscriptorum Anglice,' &c., 
 vol. ii. p. 30, where the following notice is found : ' Diana 
 of Montemayor (the first part), done out of Si)anish by 
 Thomas Wilson, Esq., in the year 1596, and dedicated to 
 the Earl of Southampton, ivlio was then upon the Spanisli
 
 THE QUEEN'S OPPOSITION. 59 
 
 voijaye with my Lord of Essex.' ^ lie could not, however, 
 have left England in company with Essex, as on the 1st 
 of July, 1500, the earl executed at London a power of 
 attorney to llichard Kounching to receive a thousand 
 pounds of George, Earl of Cumberland, and John Taylor 
 his servant. Also it may be calculated that if the earl 
 had been in action on that occasion, we should have heard 
 of his part in the fight. 13ut it is quite probable that he 
 followed in the wake of the expedition, and the legal 
 transaction has the look of an arrangement or agreement 
 such as might have been made on leaving England in haste. 
 Being too late to share in the storming of Cadiz, which 
 was taken before Southampton could have left London, 
 he may have joined his friend Eoger Manners, Earl of 
 Eutland, who was then making a tour of France, Italy 
 and Switzerland.^ From the time that the Queen for- 
 bade his marriage with Ehzabetli Vernon, and ordered 
 him to absent himself from the com't, up to the death of 
 Essex, it was a period of great trial and vexation for a 
 proud, impetuous spirit like his. Thwarted in his dearest 
 wish to wed the woman he loved, and constantly checked 
 in his pubHc career, he became more and more impatient 
 wlien struck by the stings and arrows of his cruel and 
 outrageous fortune, that so pitilessly pursued him. Out- 
 breaks of his fiery blood, and ' tills ' with his mistress 
 were frequent. He appears to have got away from Lon- 
 don as often as he could ; though most anxious to do 
 England service he 'hoisted sail to every wind' that would 
 blow him the farthest from her. He was most unlike his 
 
 ' It bas been a subject of wonder bow Sbakspeare got at tbe Diana of 
 Montemayor, to take so uiucb of bis 'Two Gentleuieu of Verona' from it. 
 But as both be and Wilson were under tbe patronage of Southampton, there 
 can be nothing more likely than that Shakspearo bad a look at Wilson's 
 translation long before it was printed. Attention bad been drawn to tbe 
 drama by Sidney's translations from it made for Lady Kieb. 
 
 ■-* It was on tbe occasion of tbe Earl of Kutland's journey in 1595 that 
 Essex addressed to him the long letter of advice which may be found in tbe 
 llarleiim MSS (4bb8. 1(>.)
 
 GO SIIAKSPEAHE'S SONNETS. 
 
 stepfather, Sir Thomas Heneage, who had been for so 
 many years a docile creature of the court, and who, as 
 Camden tells us, was of so spruce and polite address, that 
 he seemed purely calculated for a court. Southampton 
 had not the spirit that bows as the wind blows. He 
 was more at home in mail than in silken suit. Like 
 the ' brave Lord Willoughby,' he could not belong to the 
 Eeptilice of court life. He had a will of his own, a spirit 
 til at stood erect and panted for free air, and that trick of 
 the frank tongue that so often attends the full heart of 
 youthful honesty. The words of Mr. Eobert Markham, 
 written to John Harington, Esq., somewhat apply to the 
 Earl of Southampton : ' I doubt not your valour, nor 
 your labour, but that damnable uncovered Honesty will 
 mar your fortunes.' And the Queen's persistent opposi- 
 tion to his love, her determination to punish him for 
 disobedience and wilfnhiess, kept him on the continual 
 fret, and tended to turn his restlessness into reckless- 
 ness, his hardihood into fool-hardihood, his daring into 
 dare-devilry, the honey of his love into the very gall of 
 bitterness. 
 
 Eowland White, writing to Sir Eobert Sidney at Flush- 
 ing, March 2, 1597, says,^ ' My lord of Southampton hath 
 leave for one year to travel, and purposes to be with you 
 before Easter. He told my lady that he would see you 
 before she should.' The earl was for leaving England 
 again in his discontent and weariness. But the famous 
 Island Voyage was now talked of, and Southampton was 
 not the man to lose a chance if there were fio;htinej to be 
 done. He had some difficulty in obtaining a command, 
 but was at length appointed to the ' Garland.' Eowland 
 White, in his letter of April 9, says, ' My lord of South- 
 ampton, by 200 means, hath gotten leave to go with them' 
 (Essex and Ealeigh). The influence here exerted in 
 
 * Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 24.
 
 THE ISLAND VOYAGE. 61 
 
 favour of the earl was Cecil's. Whatsoever the feeling 
 of Cecil toward Essex, he proved himself on various 
 occasions to have been the true good friend of the Earl 
 of Southampton. ' The Earl was made commander of 
 the " Garland," ' to quote once more from ' Honour in his 
 Perfection,' and was ' Vice-admiral of the first squadron. 
 In his first putting out to sea (July, 1597) he saw all the 
 terrors and evils whicli the sea had power to show to 
 mortality, insomuch that the general and the whole fleet 
 (except some few ships of which this earl's was one) were 
 di'iven back into Plymouth, but this earl, in spite of 
 storms, held out his course, made the coast of Spain, and 
 after, upon an adviso, returned. The fleet, new reinforced, 
 made forth to sea again with better prosperity, came to 
 the islands of the Azores, and there first took the island 
 of Fiall, sacked and burnt the great town, took the high 
 fort which was held impregnable, and made the rest of 
 the islands, as Pike, Saint George's, and Gratiosa, obe- 
 dient to the general's service. Then the fleet returnino- 
 from Fiall, it pleased the general to divide it, and lie went 
 himself on the one side of Gratiosa, and the Earl of South- 
 ampton, with some three more of the Queen's ships and a 
 few small merchant ships sailed on the other; when early 
 on a morning by spring of day, this brave Southampton 
 lit upon the King of Spain's Indian fleet, laden with trea- 
 sure, being about four or five and thirty sail, and most of 
 them great warlike galleons. They had all the advantage 
 that sea, wind, number of ships, or strength of men could 
 give them ; yet, hke a fearfid herd they fled from the fury 
 of our earl, who, notwithstanding, gave them chase witli 
 all his canvas. Cue he took, and sunk her ; divers he 
 dispersed, which were taken after, and the rest he drove 
 into the island of Tercera, which was then unassailable.' 
 Camden continues the story. ' When the enemy's ships 
 had got off safely to Tercera, Southampton and Vere at- 
 tempted to crowd into the haven witli great boats at mid-
 
 62 SIIAKSPEAIIE'S SONNETS. 
 
 night, and to cut the cables of the nearest ships, that they 
 might be forced to sea by the gusts whicli blew from shore. 
 But the Spaniards kept too strict a watch, and the project 
 miscarried.'^ After the English had taken and 'looted' 
 the town of Villa Franca, the Spaniards finding that most 
 of them had returned to their ships, made an attack in 
 g:reat force upon the remaining few. The Earls of South- 
 ampton and Essex stood almost alone, with a few friends, 
 but these received the attack with such spirit that many 
 of the Spaniards were slain, and the rest forced to re- 
 treat. On this occasion Southampton fought with such 
 gallantry, that Essex in a burst of enthusiasm knighted 
 his friend on the field, ' ere he could dry the sweat from 
 his brows, or put his sword up in his scabbard.' 
 
 Sir William Monson, one of the admirals of the ex- 
 pedition, took a different view to that of Essex of what 
 Southampton had done on this voyage. He considered 
 that time had been lost in the chace, which might have 
 been better employed. On his return to England South- 
 ampton found the Queen had adopted the opinion of 
 Monson rather than that of Essex, and he had the morti- 
 fication of being met with a frown of displeasure for 
 having presumed to pursue and sink a ship without direct 
 orders from his commander, instead of being welcomed 
 with a smile for having done tlie only bit of warm work 
 that was performed on the 'Island Voyage.' This was 
 just like the earl's luck all through, after his fatal falling 
 in love with Elizabeth Vernon.^ His intimacy with Essex 
 was a secondary cause of his misfortunes. 
 
 The Queen often acted toward Essex in the spirit of 
 that partial mother instanced by Fuller, who when her 
 neglected son complained that his brother, her favourite, 
 had hit and hurt him with a stone, whipped him for 
 standing in the way of the stone which the brother 
 had cast ! 
 
 » Camden's Elizaheth, p. 598.
 
 A BROIL IN COURT. G3 
 
 On this occasion the quarrels of Essex and Kalcigli 
 were visited on the liead of Southampton. Fortune ap- 
 peared to liave an unappeasable spite against liim ; the 
 world seemed bent upon thwarting his desires and cross- 
 ing his deeds. Do what he might it was impossible for 
 him to be in the right. There is little marvel that he 
 grew of a turbulent spirit, or that his hot temper broke 
 out in frequent quarrels ; that he should wax more and 
 more unsteady, much to the sorrow and chagrin of his 
 mistress, who wept over the iU reports that she heard of 
 his doings, and waited, hoping for the better days to 
 come when he should pluck his rose ^ from the midst of 
 the thorns, and wear it on his breast in peaceful joy. 
 
 In Januar}%1598, a disgraceful affair occurred in court 
 w^hicli became the subject of common scandal. On the 
 19th of that month Rowland White Avrites : — ' I hard of 
 some unlindness should be between 3000 (the No. in his 
 cypher for Southampton) and his Mistress, occasioned by 
 some report of Mr. Ambrose Willoughby. 3000 called 
 hym to an account for yt, but the matter was made 
 knowen to my Lord of Essex, and my Lord Chamberlain, 
 who had them in Examinacion ; what the cause is I could 
 not learne, for yt was but new ; but / see SOOO fidl of dis- 
 contentments.'^ And on the 21st of January he says : — 
 * The quarrel of my Lord Soutliampton to Ambrose Wil- 
 loughby grew upon this : that he with Sir Walter Raleigh 
 and ^Ii\ Parker being at primero (a game of cards), in the 
 Presence Chamber ; the Queen was gone to bed, and he 
 being there as Squire for the Body, desired them to give 
 over. Soon after he spoke to them again, that if they 
 w^ould not leave he would call in the guard to pull down 
 the board, w^hich. Sir Walter Raleigh seeing, put up his 
 
 ' For notliiug this -wide universe 1 call, 
 Save Thou, my Rose, in it thou art my alL 
 
 Sonnet 100. 
 * Sydnoii ^fn)lo^'rs, vol. ii. pp. 82-.S.
 
 G4 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 money and went his ways. But my Lord Southampton 
 took exceptions at him, and told him he would remember 
 it ; and so finding him between the Tennis Court wall 
 and the garden shook him, and Willoughby pulled out 
 some of his locks. The Queen gave Willoughby thanks 
 for what he did in the Presence, and told him he had 
 done better if he had sent him to the Porter's Lodge to 
 see who durst have fetched him out.'' 
 
 The Earl also had a quarrel with Percy, Earl of 
 Northumberland, which produced a challenge, and nearly 
 ended in a duel. Percy sent copies of the papers to Mr. 
 Bacon with a letter, in which he gives an account of the 
 affair. The sole point of interest in this quarrel Hes in 
 the hkehhood that Touchstone, in 'As you hke it,' is 
 aiming at it when he says : — ' 0, Sir ; we quarrel in print 
 by the book ; as you have books for good manners. I 
 will name you the degrees : the first, the retort courteous ; 
 the second, the quip modest ; the third, the reply churl- 
 ish ; the fourth, the reproof valiant ; the fifth, the counter- 
 beck quarrelsome ; the sixth, the lie with circumstance ; 
 the seventh, the lie direct. All these you may avoid but 
 the lie direct ; and you may avoid that too with an " If." 
 I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel ; 
 but when the parties were met themselves, one of them 
 thought but of an " If" as " 7/'" you said so, then I said 
 so ; and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your if 
 is the only peace-maker ; much virtue in an if 
 
 We may find an illustration of ' the Percy's ' temper in 
 a letter of Mr. Chamberlain's to Mr. Winwood in 1613, 
 which relates that Percy has, while in the Tower, beaten 
 Ituthven, the Earl of Cowrie's brother, for daring to 
 cross his path in the garden. So that when we read of 
 Southampton's quarrels, it will only be fair to remember 
 who are his fellows in fieryness. The Percy appears to 
 have had his match, however, in his own wife, Dorothy 
 
 ^ Hxjdney Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 82-3.
 
 THE EARL OFFERS IILS SWORD TO IIEXRY IV. OF FRANCE. 05 
 
 Devereux, the sister of Lady Eich and Eobert Earl of 
 Essex. In one of their domestic quarrels the Earl of 
 Northumberland had said he would rather the King of 
 Scots were buried tlian crowned, and that both he and 
 all his friends would end their lives before her brother's 
 great God should reign in his element. To which the 
 lady spiritedly replied, that rather than any other save 
 James should reign king of England she would eat their 
 hearts in salt, though she were brought to the gallows 
 immediately. ^ 
 
 In spite of his quarrels, the scuffle with Willoughby 
 and the consequent scandals, the earl attended to his 
 duty as a senator from October 24, 1597, till the end of 
 the session, February 8, 1598. He also entered upon an 
 engagement to accompany Mr. Secretary Cecil on an 
 embassy to Paris. A few extracts from Eowland White's 
 letters will continue the story. 
 
 Januaiy 14, 1598. — ' I hear my Lord Southampton 
 goes with Mr. Secretary to France, and so onward on his 
 travels, which course of his doth extremely grieve his 
 mistress, that passes her time in weeping and lamenting.' 
 
 January 28, 1598. — 'My Lord Southampton is now 
 at Court, w]\o, for awhile, by her Majesty's command, 
 did absent himself.' 
 
 January 30. — ' My Lord Compton, my Lord Cobham, 
 Sir Walter Ealeigli, my Lord Southampton, do severally 
 feast Mr. Secretary before he depart, and have plaj^s and 
 banquets.' 
 
 February 1. — 'My Lord of Southampton is much 
 troubled at lier Majesty's strangest usage of him. Some- 
 body ■ hath played unfriendly parts with him. Mr. 
 Secretary hath procured him licence to travel. His fair 
 mistress doth icash her fairest face v'ith too many tears. 
 
 * Birch's Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 514. Perhaps Shakspeai-e liad heard of 
 this when he made Beatrice exclaim, ' O God, that I were a man ! I would 
 eat his heart in the market-place.' 
 
 F
 
 66 SILIKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 I l^ray God his going away bring her to no such infirmity 
 which is as it were hereditary to her tiame.' 
 
 February 2, 1598. — 'It is secretly said that my Lord 
 Southampton shall be married to his fair mistress.' 
 
 February 12. — ' My Lord of Southampton is gone and 
 hath left behind him a very desolate gentlewoman that 
 hath almost wept out her fairest eyes. He w^as at Essex 
 House with 1000 (Earl of Essex), and there had much 
 private talk with him for two hours in the court below.' 
 
 On March 17, Cecil introduced his friend, at Angers, to 
 Henry IV., telling that illustrious monarch that Lord 
 Southampton 'was come with deliberation to do him 
 service.' His Majesty received the earl with warm 
 expressions of regard. Here again Southampton met 
 with the customaiy frustration of his hopes ; he had 
 come for the express purpose of serving under so famous a 
 commander, and was eager for the campaign, which was 
 suddenly stopped by the peace of Vervins. There was 
 nothing to be done except to have a look at Paris, and 
 there he stayed some months. 
 
 July 15, 1598, Thomas Edmondes to Sir Eobert Sidney 
 writes : — ' I send your lordship certain songs,^ which were 
 delivered me by my Lord Southampton to convey to your 
 lordship from Cavelas. His lordship commendeth himself 
 most kindly to you, and would have written to you if it 
 had not been for a httle slothfulness.' 
 
 The same w^riter fixes the time of the earl's return. 
 He writes, November 2, 1598 : — 'My Lord of Southamp- 
 ton that now goeth over can inform your lordship at 
 large of the state of all things here.' ^ 
 
 But, according to Mr. Chamberlain's letter of August 
 30, 1598, the Earl of Southampton must have made a 
 
 ^ Very possibly some of the sonnets sent by Shakspeare to tbe earl in 
 Paris. There were two familiar visitors at Sir Robert Sidney's house who 
 were much interested in tlie sonnets of Sbaltspeare, viz., William Herbert 
 and Lady Rich. 
 
 2 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 102-4.
 
 SOUTIIAMITON'S SECRET MARKIAGE, G7 
 
 special journey from Paris for tlie purpose of effecting 
 his marriage, and been on his way back when accom- 
 panied to Margate by Sir Tliomas Germaine. EHzabeth 
 Vernon had been compelled to retire from the Court. 
 Chamberlain writes : — ' Mistress Vernon is from tlie Court 
 and lies at Essex House (at Wanstead, where the Earl of 
 Essex was the fair Elizabeth's companion in disfavour). 
 Some say she hath taken a venue ^ under her girdle, and 
 swells \\])o\\ it ; yet she complains not of foul play, but 
 says my Lord of Southampton will justify it, and it is 
 bruited underhand that he was lately here four days in 
 great secret of purjiose to marry her, and effected it 
 accordingly.' A week later the same writer says : — 
 ' Yesterday the Queen was informed of the new Lady of 
 Southampton and her adventures, whereat her patience 
 was so much moved that she came not to chapel. She 
 threateneth them all to the Tower, not only the parties, 
 but all that are partakers of the practice. It is confessed 
 the earl was here, and solemnised the act himself, and 
 Sir Thomas Germaine accompanied him on his return to 
 Margate.' Li his next letter Mr. Chamberlain says : — ' I 
 now understand that the Queen hath commanded the 
 novizia countess the sweetest and best appointed lodging 
 in the Fleet ; her lord is by commandment to return upon 
 his allegiance with all speed. These are but the begin- 
 nings of evil ; well may he hope for that merry day on 
 his deathbed, which I think he shall not find on his 
 wedding couch.' ^ That the earl was also thrust into prison 
 on his return we may infer from the words of Essex in 
 
 ^ Venue or venew. Steevens and Malone differed respecting this word, 
 •which occurs in ' Love's Labour's Lost.' 
 
 Armado. ' A sweet touch ! a quick veneto of wit ! ' 
 Steevens argued that it was the technical term for a bcwt or set-to at the 
 fencing school. ^lalone held that it meant simply a /lif. Douce maintained 
 that venew and bout equally denote a hit in fencing. Mr. Chamberlain uses 
 the word to signify a hit ; the allusion is to being hit below the belt, which 
 was, and is, reckoned a blow imfairly given. 
 
 ^ 5. P. O. 
 
 f2
 
 68 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Lis letter of July 11, 1599 : — ' Was it treason in mj^Lord 
 of Southampton to many my poor kinswoman, that 
 neither long imprisonment nor any punishment besides 
 that hatli been usual in like cases can satisfy or appease ? 
 Or will no kind of punishment be fit for him but that 
 which punisheth not him but me, this army, and this poor 
 country Ireland ? ' When a young man marries, says an 
 Arab adage, the demon utters a fearful cry. And Eliza- 
 beth seems to have been almost as profoundly affected on 
 such occasions. 
 
 This fact of Southampton's love for Elizabeth Yernon, 
 and the Queen's opposition to their marriage, is the chief 
 point of interest in the earl's life, because it is one of the 
 main facts in relation to the sonnets of Shakspeare. It is 
 my conclusion that this pair of ill-starred lovers was 
 badly treated by her Majesty. She not only rejected 
 everything proposed by Essex for the advancement of his 
 friend, but continued, as we shall see, the same spiteful 
 policy wlien Lord Mountjoy wished to advance the 
 fortunes of the earl in a wider sphere of action. 
 
 Southampton, Elizabeth Vernon, and their mutual 
 friends, tried long and hard to obtain the Queen's consent 
 to their marriage, but as she would not give it, and 
 showed no signs of relenting, they did the very natural 
 thing of getting married without it. This being done, 
 what more is there to be said ? It is unfair to talk of the 
 earl being licentiously in love with Mistress Vernon when 
 the Queen would not grant them the licence. The mar- 
 riage certainly took place in one of the later months of 
 1598, and the bitterness of the Queen towards Southamp- 
 ton was thereby much increased. The Queen was jealous 
 and enraged to find any of her favourites loving else- 
 wliere, or sufficiently unloyal to her personal beauty 
 to get married. It was so when Hatton, Leicester, and 
 Essex married ; but no one of them all was so wuleutly
 
 SOUTHAMPTON IN IRELAND. (59 
 
 pursued as the Earl of Soutliamptoii. Towards no one else 
 was tlie fire of her anirer kei)t so lon<f a^low. It makes 
 one fancy there must have been some feeling of animosity 
 betwixt the two Elizabeths, which has not come to the 
 surface. 
 
 In 1599 Essex was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
 and Southampton accompanied him thither. On their 
 arrival Essex made his friend General of Horse. By her 
 Majesty's letter to Essex, July 19,^ we learn that this was 
 ' expressly forbidden ' by the Queen, and ' it is therefore 
 strange to us that you will dare thus to value your own 
 pleasing, and think by your own private arguments to 
 carry fur your own glory a matter wherein our |?/(?a6'ifre 
 to the contrary is made notorious.'' The Queen did not 
 intend Southampton to be employed, and after some 
 defensive pleadings Essex had to give him up. Before 
 resigning his command he had done some little service. 
 Sir J. Harington ^ gives us a glimpse of the earl's darino- 
 and dash in action. June 30, about three miles from 
 Arklow, the army had to pass a ford. The enemy was 
 ready to dispute or trouble the army in its passage. The 
 Earl of Essex ordered Southampton to charge, the enemy 
 having retired himself into his strength, a part of them 
 casting away their arms for lightness. ' Then the Earl of 
 Southampton tried to draw them on to firm ground, out 
 of the bog and woodland, and at length he gathered up 
 his troop, and seeing it lost time to endeavour to draw 
 the vermin from their streno;th, resolved to charixe them 
 at all disadvantage, which was performed with that 
 suddenness and resolution that the enemy wliicli was 
 before dispersed in skirmish had not time to put himself 
 in order ; so that by the opportunity of occasion taken 
 by the earl, and virtue of them that were with liini 
 
 ' S. P. O. 2 Xui/ce Antiipue, vol. i. p. 287.
 
 70 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 (which were almost all noble), there was made a notable 
 slaiigliter of the rebels.' Here, too, we find fighting by 
 Soutliampton's side a brother of Elizabeth Vernon, who 
 managed to kill his man previous to his own horse going 
 down in the bog and rolling a-top of him. The Earl of 
 Southampton was such a leader of horse as could inspire 
 the rebels with a salutary respect, and cause them to 
 watch warily all his motions. It was in one of these 
 skirmishes that the Lord Grey pursued a small body of 
 the enemy in opposition to Southampton's orders. He 
 was punished with a night's imprisonment, or rather, as 
 Mr. Secretary Cecil explained in a letter to Sir H. Neville, 
 'the confiuement w^as merely for order sake. Grey being 
 a colonel, and Southampton a general.' But my Lord 
 Grey took it as a personal affront, and brooded over it 
 bitterly, seeking to make it a cause of quarrel. 
 
 The earl remained by the side of Essex some time 
 after his command had been taken from him. He was 
 present at a council of war held at the Castle of Dublin 
 August 21, and was one of the chief men that accom- 
 panied Essex at his conference with Tyrone early in 
 September, 1599, when a truce was concluded. We 
 next hear of him in London by White's letter of 
 October 1 1 : — ' My Lord Southampton and Lord Eutland 
 came not to Court ; the one doth but very seldom, they 
 pass away the time in London merely in going to plays 
 every day.^ Southampton's sword had been struck from 
 his hand, the Earl of Eutland had been recalled, as if the 
 policy at Court was to lame Essex through his personal 
 friends. Lord Grey, too, we find, is observed to be much 
 discontented. His ill-feeling towards Southampton is 
 smouldering, soon to break out in a desperate attack 
 upon Southampton with drawn sword in open day and 
 public street. He also challenged Southampton. Eow- 
 
 ' Sydney Memoirs, vohii. p. 132.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON'S QUARRELS. 71 
 
 land Wliite, January 2-i, IGOO, tells his correspondent 
 that Lord Grey hath sent the Earl of Southampton a 
 challenge which ' I hear he answered thus — that he 
 accepted it ; but for the weapons and the place being by 
 the laws of honour to be chosen by him, he would not 
 prefer the combat in England, knowing the danger of the 
 laws, and the little grace and mercy he was to expect if 
 he ran into the daniicr of them. He therefore Avould let 
 liim know, ere it were long, what time, what weapon, and 
 what place he would choose for it.' The violent temper 
 and quarrelsome disposition of Southampton have been 
 much dwelt upon. I repeat, it is only just that we should 
 note the spirit of his personal oj^ponents ; and here we 
 may recall the last words of Sir Charles Danvers on the 
 scaflbld. x\mongst others present was the Lord Grey. 
 Sir Charles asked pardon of him, and acknowledged he 
 had been 'ill affected to him purely on the Earl of 
 Southampton's account, towards wlioni the Lord Grey 
 professed absolute enmity.^ 
 
 In 1600 the Queen had neither forii^otten nor forgiven 
 the marriage of Southampton. Mountjoy was now made 
 Lord-Deputy of Ireland, and Southampton hoped to ac- 
 company him in his first campaign. Again we have 
 recourse to our agreeable court gossip, Eowland White : — 
 
 Jan. 24, IGOO.— ' My Lord of Southampton goes over 
 to Ireland, having only the charge of 200 foot and 100 
 horse.' He was not permitted to accompany the Lord- 
 Deputy to Ireland, and on February 9, we find that, ' My 
 Lord of Southampton's going is uncertain, for it is thought 
 that her Majesty allows it not.' Lord Mountjoy landed 
 in L-eland February 26, and on March 15, White says : — 
 ' My Lord of Southampton is in very good hope to kiss 
 the Queen's hand before his going into Ireland. Mr. 
 Secretary is his good friend and he attends it ; liis horses 
 and stuff are gone before.' March 22 : — ' My Lord of. 
 Southampton hath not yet kissed the Queen's hands, but
 
 '2 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 attends it still.' March 29 : — ' My Lord of Southampton 
 attends to-morrow to kiss the Queen's hands ; if he miss 
 it, it is not like he shall obtain it in any reasonable time. 
 I hear he will go to Ireland, and hopes by doing of some 
 notable service to merit it at his return.' April 19 : — 
 ' My Lord of Southamj^ton deferred his departure for one 
 week longer, hoping to have access to her Majesty's pre- 
 sence, but it cannot be obtained ; yet she very graciously 
 wished him a safe going and returning.' April 26 : — 
 ' My Lord of Southampton went away on Monday last. 
 Sir Charles Danvers brought him as far as Coventry.' 
 May 3 : — ' My Lord Southampton upon his going away 
 sent my Lord Grey word that what in his first letter he 
 promised, he was now ready in Ireland to perform.' 
 
 On June 8, the Lord-Deputy wrote to Master Secretary 
 concerning the state of Connaught, wherein nothing was 
 surely the Queen's but Athlone by a provident guard, 
 and Galway by their own good disposition, wishing that 
 the government of that province might be conferred on 
 the Earl of Southampton (to whom the Lord of Dunkellin 
 would more willingly resign, and might do it with greater 
 reputation to himself, in respect of the earl's greatness) 
 rather tlian upon Sir Arthur Savage (who, notwithstanding, 
 upon the Queen's pleasure again signified, was shortly 
 after made governor of that province). His lordship 
 protested that it was such a place as he knew the earl 
 would not seek, but only himself desired this, because he 
 knew the earl's aptness and willingness to do the Queen 
 service, if he might receive such a token of her favour ; 
 justly commending his valour and wisdom, as well in 
 general as in the late particular service in the Moyry, 
 when the rear being left naked, he by a resolute charge 
 with six horse upon Tyrone at the head of 220 horse, 
 drove him back a musket shot, and so assuring the rear, 
 eaved the honour of the Queen's army.' It was as useless, 
 
 ^ Monjsmi's History of Ireland^ book i. chap. 2, p. 173.
 
 INTIMACY OF SOUTH A^IPTON AND ESSEX. 73 
 
 however, for Moiintjoy to plead on behalf of Southampton 
 as it had been for Essex in the previous year. Her 
 Majesty was unrelenting. And in August, about the 25t]i, 
 Southampton left the Irish war and sailed into England. 
 There was some rumour of his going into the Low Coun- 
 tries in search of my Lord Grey ; if so, nothing came of 
 it. He is said to have been summoned home by Essex. 
 
 White tells us, September 2G, 1600:— 'The Earl of 
 Southampton arrived upon Monday night, and upon 
 Wednesday went to his lady who lies at Lees, my Lord 
 Riches; he hath been extreme sick but is now recovered.' 
 
 Such treatment as Southampton had received from tlie 
 Queen Avas materially calculated to drive him closer to the 
 side of his friend Essex, who was then under the Queen's 
 sore displeasure, brooding over liis discontent. So far 
 had her Majesty's ])etty tyranny been carried, that in the 
 March of tliis year Lord and Lady Southampton, together 
 with others of Essex's friends, had been all removed from 
 Essex House ; whilst great offence had been taken at 
 Southampton and others having entered a house that 
 overlooked York Garden, on purpose to salute Essex 
 from the window. 
 
 The two earls were drawn together by many ties, by some 
 likeness of nature, by strong bonds of personal friendship, 
 and Iniks of household love. Southampton was the near- 
 est and dearest personal friend that Essex had ; first in all 
 matters of vital import and secret service. When Essex 
 was consigned to the custody of the Lord Keeper in the 
 autumn of 1599, his two most intimate and trusted friends 
 were Southampton and Mountjoy ; to these he committed 
 the care of his interests. When Southam})ton,in April, IGOO, 
 went to join Lord Mountjoy in L'cland, Essex sent letters 
 to Mountjoy saying he relied on him and Southampton as 
 his best friends and would take their advice in all things. 
 It was upon the intercession of Southampton, says Sir 
 Henry Wotton, that the fatal tempter, Cuffe, was restored
 
 74 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 to his place after Essex had dismissed liim ; and he ' so 
 working upon his disgraces and upon the vain foundations 
 of vulgar breath, which hurts many good men, spun out the 
 final destruction of his master and himself, and almost of 
 his restorer, if his pardon had not been won by inches.' 
 
 It was at Southampton's residence, Drury House — on the 
 site of which now stands the Olympic Theatre — that the 
 chief partisans of Essex held their meetings in January, 
 1601. And Southampton in his youthful zeal and fervent 
 friendship seems to have felt that come what might it was 
 his place to dwell with Essex in disgrace, and if need be, 
 fall by his side in death. Though what the Essex con- 
 spiracy was formed for or amounted to it is very difficult 
 to determine. Essex and his sister. Lady Eich, we know 
 intrigued for the purpose of bringing James to the throne, 
 but that was never put forward on this occasion. 
 
 Lord Mountjoy being under the influence of Lady Eich 
 and held captive in her strong toils of grace, was to some 
 extent bound up with the cause of Essex. His secretary 
 tells us that he was privately professed and privy to the 
 earl's intentions, though as these were so vague and full 
 of change, the acquiescence of Mountjoy may have been 
 very general. According to Sir Charles Danvers, Mount- 
 joy had promised that if tlie King of Scots woidd head 
 the revolution and strike for the throne of England, he 
 would leave Ireland defensively guarded and come over 
 with 5,000 or 6,000 men, ' which, with the party that my 
 Lord of Essex should make head withal, were thought 
 sufficient to luring to pass that which was intended.' He 
 had afterwards advised the Earl of Essex to have j)atience 
 and wait. Southampton had opposed this march on Lon- 
 don. He held it altogetlier unfit as well in respect of his 
 friend's conscience to God and his love to his country, as 
 his duty to his sovereign, of which he, of all men, ought 
 to have greatest regard, seeing her Majesty's favours to
 
 ESSEX'S REBELLION. 75 
 
 him (Essex) had been so extraordiuaiy, wherefore he, 
 Southampton, could never give his consent to it.' 
 
 To me the attempt of Essex looks like a too audacious 
 endeavour to a]i[)ly, in a more public Avay, the rights of 
 personal familiarity which he had in some sort acquired 
 and so often relied on in private with the Queen. But 
 the force and freedom of the personal were on the wane. 
 Essex had shown disloyalty to her Majesty's person, which 
 was more than disloyalty to her throne. He had said 
 the ' Queen was cankered, and her mind had become as 
 crooked as her carcase.' ' These words,' quoth Ealeigh, 
 ' cost the earl his head.' Also, there were statesmen 
 round the throne who represented the public element, 
 which was now rising in power as the life and vigour of 
 the royal lioness were ebbing, and they were anxious that 
 the personal fooling should cease, and the State pohcy 
 be shaped less by whims and more by fixed principles. 
 Else, according to Camden, the so-called conspirators 
 were surprised to hear of a trial for treason. They had 
 thought the matter would have been let sleep, and that 
 the Queen's affection for Essex would cause it to be pri- 
 vately settled or kept in the dark.''^ No doubt there were 
 some who stood about the earl and urged him on with 
 desperate advice, that secretly nursed tlie wildest hopes 
 of what a success might bring forth for them, who also 
 calculated that the earl's infiuence with the Queen would 
 tide them over a defeat. 
 
 Southampton had his jx'rsoual complaint with regard 
 to the attack made upon him in the street by Lord Grey, 
 and to this he alluded in the course of the parleyings at 
 Essex House before the surrender; but of course he knew 
 this was no warrant for his being in arms against his sove- 
 reign. With hiui it was essentially a matter of personal 
 friendship ; he acted according to his sense of personal 
 
 * Examination of Sonthampton after his arraignment. 
 * C(J})i(lc?i's Elizahi'th. p. 022.
 
 70 SHAKSPEAIIE'S SONNETS. 
 
 honour, whicli blinded him to all else. He had told Sir 
 Charles Danvers tliat he would cast m his lot with my 
 Lord of Essex, and venture his life to save him. He had 
 done all that he possibly could on behalf of a man who 
 had lost his head lonfj before it fell from the block. He 
 was one of those Avho in 1599 dissuaded Essex from one 
 of his projected attempts, in which he purposed reducing 
 his adversaries by force of arms. He opposed the con- 
 templated march upon London. He advised the earl's 
 escape into France, and offered to accompany him into 
 exile and share his fortunes there. He, with Sir Charles 
 Danvers, had, as Essex admitted, persuaded the rash 
 earl to 'parley with my Lord General.' Evidently he 
 had seen all the peril, but thought his place was with 
 his friend, no matter what mieht be their fate. As he 
 pleaded on his trial, the first cause of his part in the 
 matter was that affinity betwixt him and Essex, 'being 
 of his blood, and having married his kinswoman,' so that 
 for his sake he would have hazarded his life. He had the 
 good sense to see that the ' rising,' as it was called, the 
 going into the city, was a foolish thing, and he said so, 
 but he continued, ' My sword was not drawn all day.' ' 
 
 He urged in his defence, ' What I have by my forward- 
 ness offended in act, I am altogether ignorant, but in 
 thought I am assured never. If through my ignorance of 
 law I have offended, I humbly submit myself to her Ma- 
 jesty, and from the bottom of my heart do beg her gra- 
 cious pardon. For, if any foolish speeches have passed, I 
 protest, as I shall be saved, that they were never purposed 
 by me, nor understood to be so purposed, to the hurt of 
 
 * It was indeed foolish, for such a cause, and sucli a cry of revolution as 
 * For the Queen I For the Queen I My life is in damjei- ! ' were never set up in 
 this world before or since. Stowe informs us that the wondering citizens, 
 not knowing what to make of the cry, fancied that it might be one of joy 
 because Essex and the Queen had become friends again, and that Her 
 Majesty had appointed him to ride through London in that triumphant 
 manner.
 
 TUIAL OF SOUTIIA.MPTOX. 77 
 
 her Majesty's person. I deny that I did ever mean or 
 intend any treason, rebellion, or other action against my 
 sovereign or the state ; what I did was to assist my Lord 
 of Essex in his private quarrel ; and therefore, Mr. 
 Attorney, you have urged the matter very far ; my blood 
 be upon your head, I submit myself to her Majesty's 
 mercy. 1 know I have offended her, yet, if it please her 
 to be merciful unto me I may live, and by my service de- 
 serve my life. I have been brought up under her Majesty. 
 I have spent the best part of my patrimony in her Majes- 
 ty's service, with danger of my life, as your lordships 
 know.' Southampton was in his twenty-eighth year 
 when he was tried for treason. He had espoused the 
 Earl of Essex's cause unwarily, and followed him upon his 
 fatal course imprudently. But there was something chi- 
 valrous in his self-sacrificing friendship ; a spirit akin to 
 that of the Scottish chieftain, who, when the Pretender 
 made his personal appeal, saw all the danger, and said, 
 ' You have determined, and we shall die for you ;' and to 
 death they went, proudly open-eyed. 
 
 The historian notes that when my Lord Grey was called 
 at the trial, ' the Earl of Essex laughed upon the Earl of 
 Southampton, and jogged him by the sleeve,' to call his 
 attention to his old ' sweet enemy.' 
 
 Perhaps we shall get at the Earl of Soutlianipton's view 
 of the matter, in a letter written by Sir Dudley Carlton 
 to Sir Thomas Parry, dated July 3, 1603 ; the remarkable 
 words being spoken when and where there was no need 
 for the speaker to ' hedge ' on the subject : 
 
 ' The Lords of Southampton and Grey, the first night 
 the Queen came hither, renewed their old quarrels, and 
 fell flatly out in her presence. She was in discourse with 
 Lord Southampton touching the Lord of Essex' action, 
 and wondered, as she said, so many great men did so 
 little for themselves. To wliich Lord Soutliampton an- 
 swered, that the Queen being made a party ayainst them.
 
 78 - SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 they were forced to yields hut if that course had not been 
 taken, there was none of their private enemies, with whom 
 their only quarrel was, that durst have opposed themselves. 
 This being overheard by the Lord Grey, he would main- 
 tain the contrary party durst have done more than they. 
 Upon which he had the he hurled at him. The Queen 
 bad them remember where thev were.'^ This was in vain. 
 The bickering continued, and they had to be sent to their 
 lodgings to which they were committed, with a guard 
 placed over them. The King had to settle the quarrel, 
 and make peace between them. 
 
 Southampton was condemned to die, and lay in the 
 ToAver at point of death ; he was long doubtful whether 
 his life would be spared. His friends outside hoped for 
 the best, but sadly feared the worst. In a letter to Sir 
 George Carew, dated March 4, 1601, Secretary Cecil 
 professes to be pleading all he dare, for the ' poor young 
 Earl of Southampton, who, merely for the love of Essex, 
 hath been drawn into this action.' He says that he hardly 
 finds cause to hope. It is ' so much against the earl that 
 the meetings were held at Drury House, where he was the 
 chief, that those who deal for him are much disadvantaged 
 of arguments to save him.' Yet ' the Queen is so merci- 
 ful, and the earl so penitent, and he never in thought 
 or deed offended save in this conspiracy,' that the Secre- 
 tary will not despair. At length the sentence was com- 
 muted to perpetual imprisonment. 
 
 At the deatli of the Queen the earl was much visited, 
 says Bacon, who was one of the first to greet him, and 
 who wrote to assure his lordship that, how^ little soever 
 it might seem credible to him at first (he having been 
 counsel against Southampton and Essex on their trial), 
 yet it was as true as a thing that God knoweth, that 
 this great change of the Queen's death, and the King's 
 accession, had wrouglit in himself no other change to- 
 
 1 Nicholas Progresses of James I.
 
 SOUTHAMPTON'S RELEASE. 79 
 
 wards his lordship than this, that he might safely be that 
 to him now, which he was truly before.^ We may rest 
 assured that Shakspeare was one of the first to greet 
 his ' dear boy,' over whose errors he had grieved, and 
 upon whose imprudent unselfishness he had looked with 
 tears, half of sorrow, and half of pride. He had loved 
 him as a father loves a son ; he had warned hhn, and 
 prayed for him, and fought in soul against ' Fortune ' on 
 his behalf, and he now welcomed him from the gloom of 
 a prison on his way to a palace and the smile of a mon- 
 arcli. This was the poet's written gratulation : 
 
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. 
 Can yet the lease of my true love control ; 
 Supposed as forfeit to a Confined Doom ! 
 The Mortal Moon hath her Eclipse endured, 
 And the sad Augurs mock their own presage. 
 Uncertainties now crown themselves assured. 
 And Peace proclaims Olives of endless age. 
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
 ]My love looks fresh ; and Death to me subscribes. 
 Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, 
 "VVhile he insidts o'er dull and speechless tribes. 
 And thou in this shalt find thy Monument 
 When Tp-ants' crests and Tombs of Brass are spent. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain, writing to Dudley Carleton, April 
 1603, says, ' The lOtli of tliis month the Earl of South- 
 ampton was delivered out of the Tower by warrant 
 from the King,' sent by Lord Kinloss — 'These bountiful 
 beginnings raise all men's spirits, and put them in great 
 hopes.' Wilson says," 'The Earl of Southampton, covered 
 long with the ashes of great Essex his ruins, was sent 
 for from the Tower, and the King looked upon him with 
 a smihng countenance, though displeasing happily to the 
 
 » Birch's Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 500. 
 • Histori/ of Emihvul, vol. ii. p. 003.
 
 80 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 new Baron Essingdon, Sir Eobert Cecil, yet it was much 
 more to the Lords Cobham and Grey, and Sir WaUer 
 Ealeigh.' 
 
 Shakspeare's was not the only poetic greeting received 
 by the earl as he emerged from the Tower. Samuel 
 Daniel hastened to salute him, and give voice to the 
 general joy : 
 
 The world had never taken so full note 
 
 Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone ; 
 
 And only thy affliction hath begot 
 
 More fame, than thy best fortunes could have won : 
 
 For, ever by Adversity are wrought 
 The greatest works of Admiration ; 
 
 And all the fair examples of Eenown 
 
 Out of distress and misery are grown. 
 
 How could we know that thou wouldst have endured 
 With a reposed cheer, wrong and disgrace ; 
 
 And, with a heart and countenance assured, 
 
 Have looked stern Death and Horror in the face I 
 
 How should we know thy soul had been secured 
 In honest counsels, and in way unbase ; 
 
 Hadst thou not stood to show us what thou wert 
 
 By thy affliction that descryed thy heart. 
 
 John Davies of Hereford also addressed the earl on his 
 liberation, and grew jubilant over the rising dawn of the 
 new reign, opening on the land with such a smiling pro- 
 spect : 
 
 The time for mirth is now, even now, begun ; 
 Now wisest men with mirth do seem stark mad. 
 And cannot choose — their hearts are all so glad. 
 Then let's be merry in our God and King, 
 That made us merry, being ill bestadd : 
 Southampton, up thy Cap to Heaven fling. 
 And on the Viol there sweet praises sing ; 
 For he is come that grace to all doth bring. 
 
 Southampton was invited to meet the King on his way
 
 SOUTH AM Pl'OX'S RESTOKATIOX. 81 
 
 to London. In Nicholls's 'Progresses of James I.'' we 
 read, that ' Witliiu luilf a mile of Master Oliver Crom- 
 well's {our Oliver's uncle), the Bailiff of Iluntiiig-don met 
 the King, and there delivered the sword, which his High- 
 ness gave to the new-released Earl of Southampton, to bear 
 before him. O admirable wx^rk of mercy, confirming the 
 hearts of all true subjects in the good opinion of his 
 ]\Iajesty's royal compassion ; not alone to deliver from 
 captivity such high nobility, but to use vulgarly with great 
 favour, not only him, but also the children of his late 
 honourable fellows in distress. His Majesty passed on in 
 state, the earl bearing the sword before him, as I before 
 said he was appointed, to Master Oliver Cromwell's house.' 
 His lands and other rights, which had been forfeited 
 by the earl's attainder, were now restored, with added 
 honours and increase of wealth. He was appointed 
 Master of the Game to the Queen, and a pension of 600/. 
 per annum was conferred u[X)n his countess. He was 
 also installed a Knight of the Garter, and made Captain of 
 the Isle of Wight. By a new patent, dated July 21, he 
 was again created earl by his former titles. And the first 
 bill after the recognition of the King, which was read in 
 the parliament that met on the 19th of March, 1604, was 
 for restitution of Henry, Earl of Southampton. On the 
 4th of this month, Eowland White writes, 'My Lady South- 
 ampton was brought to bed of a young lord upon St. 
 David's day (March 1), in the morning ; a saint to be 
 nuich honoured by that house for so great a blessing, by 
 wearing a leek for ever upon that day.'- On the 27th of 
 the same month the child was christened at Court, 'the 
 King and Lord Cranboui-n with the Countess of Suffolk 
 being gossips.' March 30 the earl was appointed Lord 
 Lieutenant of Hampshire, together with liis friend the 
 Earl of Devonshire. These marks of fa\our were fol- 
 
 ' \o\. i. p. 98. 2 Sijchicij Memoirs. 
 
 G
 
 82 SHAIvSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 lowed, ill June, 1 606, by the appointment of his lordship 
 to be Warden of the New Forest (on the death of the 
 Earl of Devonshire), and Keeper of the Park of Lindhurst. 
 In November, 1607, the earl lost his mother, who had 
 been the wife successively of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of 
 Southampton, Sir Thomas Heneage, and Sir William 
 Hervey. We are told that she 'left the best of her stuff 
 to her son, and the greater part to her husband.' The 
 'stuff' consisted of jewellery, pictures, hangings, &c., 
 chiefly collected by Sir Thomas Heneage, for the pos- 
 session of which the Earl of Arundel ranked him among 
 the damned. 
 
 The Earl of Southampton was a very intimate fiiend of 
 the Earl of Pembroke, and both, like the sage Eoger 
 Ascham, were sadly addicted to cock-fighting. Eowland 
 White records, on the 19th of April, 1605, that 'Pem- 
 broke hath made a cock-match with Suffolk and South- 
 ampton, for 50^. a battle ;' and May 13 he says, or rather 
 sings : — 
 
 The Herberts, every cockpit day, 
 
 Do carry away 
 
 The gold and glory of the day. 
 
 This fellowship in sport led to the quarrel with Lord 
 Montgomery, recorded in Winwood's Memorials.'- South- 
 ampton and the wild brother of the Earl of Pembroke 
 fell out, as they were playing at tennis, in April, 1610, 
 when and ' where the rackets flew about their ears, but 
 the matter was compounded by the King without further 
 bloodshed.' 
 
 The two earls, Southampton and Pembroke, were 
 yoked in a nobler fellowship than that of sport. They 
 fought side by side in the uphill struggle wliich colonisa- 
 tion had to make against Spanish influence. They carried 
 on the work of Ealeigh when his adventurous spirit beat 
 its wings in vain behind the prison bars, and continued it 
 
 * Vol. iii. p. lo4.
 
 THE COLONISATION OF VIRGINLV. 83 
 
 after his grey head had fallen on Tower Hill. They both 
 belonged to the Company of Adventurers and Planters of 
 the City of London for the first colony of Virginia (May 23, 
 1G09): Southampton being appointed one of the council. 
 He became a most active promoter of voyages of disco- 
 veiy, and a vigilant watcher over the interests of the 
 colonists. December 15, 1G09, the earl writes to Lord 
 Salisbury, that he has told the King about the Virginian 
 squirrels brought into England, which are said to fly. 
 The King very earnestly asked if none were provided for 
 him, and whether Sahsbury had none for him, and said he 
 was sure Salisbury would get him one. The earl says he 
 would not have troubled Lord Salisbury on the subject, 
 ' hut that you know so well how he is affected to these toys' 
 A squirrel that could fly being of infinitely more interest 
 to James than a colony that could hardly stand alone. 
 
 In 1607 Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges had 
 sent out two ships, under the command of Harlie and 
 Xicolas. They sailed along the coast of New England, 
 and were sometimes v/ell but oftener ill received by the 
 natives. They returned to England in the same year, 
 brino-inf? five savaires back with them. One wonders 
 whether Shakspeare's rich appreciation of such a ' find' 
 had not something to do Avith Lis discovery of Caliban, 
 the man-monster. 
 
 It is pretty certain that the earl's adventures as a 
 colonizer had a considerable influence on the creation of 
 Shakspeare's 'Tempest.' The marvellous stories told of 
 'Somers' Island,' called the Wonderful Island, for the 
 plantation of which a charter was granted to Southampton, 
 Herbert, and others, may have fired the poet's imagination 
 and tickled his humour. 
 
 Au<nist, 1612, the English merchants sent home some 
 ambergris and seed pearls, ' which the devils of the Ber- 
 mudas love not better to retain than the angels of Castile 
 do to recover.' 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 October 27, 1613, a piece of ambergris was found, 
 ' big as the body of a giaut, the head and one arm want- 
 ing ; but so foohshly handled that it brake in pieces, so 
 that the hirgest piece brought home was not more than 
 68 ounces in weight.' Again, we read that the Spaniards, 
 dismayed at the frequency of hurricanes, durst not adven- 
 ture there, but called it Dcemoniorum insidam. 
 
 On the 12th of May, 1614, the Earl of Southampton 
 supported the cause of his young plantation in Parliament, 
 on which occasion Dick Martin, in upholding the Virginian 
 colony, so attacked and abused the House that he was had 
 up to the bar to make submission. Sir Thomas Gates had 
 just come from Virginia, and reported that the plantation 
 must fall to the ground, if it were not presently helped. 
 
 The earl lived to see the colony founded and flourish- 
 ing. In 1616 Virginia was reported by Sir Thomas Dale 
 to be ' one of the goodliest and richest kingdoms in the 
 world, which being inhabited by the King's subjects, will 
 put such a bit into our ancient enemy's mouth as will curb 
 his haughtiness of monarchy.' And in 1624, the year of 
 the earl's death, the colony was so far thriving that it had 
 ' worn out the scars of the last massacre,' and was only 
 pleading for a fresh supply of powder. The good work 
 was crowned. ' The noble and glorious work of Virginia,' 
 as it was called by Captain Bargrave, whose estate had 
 been ruined in its support, and his life afterwards dedicated 
 to the ' seeing of it effected.' 
 
 The earl of Southampton has left his mark on the 
 American map ; his name will be found in various 
 parts of Virginia. Southampton Hundred is so called 
 after his title ; and the Hampton Eoads, where Presi- 
 dent Lincoln met the envoys from the South, to broach 
 terms of reconciliation and peace, were so named after 
 the friend and patron of Shakspeare. 
 
 Our American friends were oblivious of much that was 
 stirring in the mother's memory, when the heart of
 
 SULTlIA.MrTON'.S NAME IN AMERICA, 85 
 
 England tlirilled to the deeds done by Virginians in tlie 
 late civil wars. In spite of her face being set sternly 
 against slavery, she could not stifle the cry of race, and 
 the instinct of nature, — could not but remember that 
 these were the descendants of her heroic adventurers, the 
 hardy pioneers of her march round the globe, who laid 
 down their weary bones when their work was done, and 
 slept in the valleys of old Virginia, to leave a living voice 
 that cries from the mountains and the waters with the voice 
 of her own blood, and in the words of her own tongue. 
 
 As the friend of Essex, whom King James delighted to 
 lionour, the Earl of Southampton received many marks of 
 royal favour, although he was not one who was naturally 
 at home in such a court. On June 4, 1610, he acted as 
 carver at the splendid festival which was given in honour 
 of young Henry's assumption of the title of Prince of 
 Wales. In 1G13 he entertained the King at his house in 
 the New Forest. A letter written by him to Sir Ealph 
 Winwood,^ August 6, 1613, gives us a glimpse of his 
 feelings at the time. He was one of the friends chosen 
 to act on the part of Essex' son Eobert, in the matter of 
 devising the means of a divorce. And he writes with 
 evident disgust at the conduct of affairs : ' Of the Nullity 
 I see you have lieard as much as I can write ; by which 
 you may discern the power of a King with Judges, for of 
 those which are now for it, I knew some of them, when I 
 was in England, were vehemently against it. I stay here 
 only for a wind, and purpose (God willing) to take the 
 first for England ; though, till things be otherwise settled, 
 I coidd be as well pleased to be an3^vhere else ; but the 
 King's coming to my House imposeth a necessity at this 
 time upon me of returning.' In 1614, he made a visit to 
 the Low Countries, and was with Lord Herbert of Cher- 
 bury at the siege of Eees, in the duchy of Cloves. In 
 1617, Southampton accompanied James on his visit to 
 
 ' Wiiiicoocl Memorials, vol. iii. p. 475.
 
 86 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Scotland. And, from a letter of the earl's to Carleton, 
 April 13, 1619, Ave learn that he has been chosen a privy 
 councillor. He remarks, that he will rather observe his 
 oath by keeping counsel than giving it ; much is not to 
 be expected from one ' vulgar councillor,' but he will 
 strive to do no hurt. It is said that he had long 
 coveted this honour. June 30, 1613, the Eev. Thos. 
 Larkin, writing to Sir Thos. Puckering, had said : — 
 ' My Lord of Southampton hath lately got licence to 
 make a voyage over the Spa, whither he is either already 
 gone, or means to go very shortly. He pretends to 
 take remedy against I know not what malady ; but his 
 greatest sickness is supposed to be a discontentment con- 
 ceived that he cannot compass to be made one of the 
 Privy Council ; which not able to brook here well at 
 home, he Avill try if he can better digest it abroad.' 
 
 If he had looked up to this as the consummation of his 
 wishes, he could have found but little satisfaction, and no 
 benefit, from it when realised. He was unable from prin- 
 ciple to acquiesce in the measures of the Cou]'t. Those 
 who had kept the Council Chamber closed against him for 
 so long had by far the truer instinct. He is spoken of by 
 Wilson as one of the few gallant spirits, that aimed at 
 the public liberty more than their own personal interests 
 or the smiles of Court favour. This writer says^ : — 
 ' Southampton, tho' he were one of the King's Privy 
 Council, yet was he no great Courtier. Salisbury kept 
 him at a bay, and pinched him so, by reason of his 
 relation to old Essex, that he never flourished much 
 in his time ; nor was his spirit (after him) so smooth shod 
 as to go always at the Court pace, but that now and then 
 he would make a carrier that was not very acceptable to 
 them, for he carried his business closely and slily, and was 
 rather an adviser than an actor.' 
 
 ' Life and lieign of Kiny James /., p. 736.
 
 SOUTIIAMPTON'S OPPOSITION TO THE COURT. 87 
 
 He now joined the small party that was in opposition to 
 the Court, his ardent temperament often kindling into 
 words, which were as scattered sparks of fire in inflaming 
 the little band that thwarted the meaner and baser wishes 
 of the Kmg and his ministers. Contrary to the desire of 
 Government, he was chosen Treasurer of the Virginia 
 Company. Also, in parliament, he stood forward to with- 
 stand the unconstitutional views of ministers and fa- 
 vourites. Early in the year 1G21 he made a successful 
 motion against illegal i)atents ; and Camden mentions 
 that durinor the sittim,^ of the 14th of March ' there was 
 some quarrelHng between the Marquis of Buckingham, 
 and Southampton and Sheffield, who had interrupted him, 
 for repeating the same thing over and over again, and 
 that contrary to received approved order in parliament.' 
 The Prince of Wales tried to reconcile them. Buck- 
 ingham, however, was not the man to forget or forgive an 
 affront. And those on whom he fixed his eye in enmity 
 sooner or later felt the arm of his power, although the 
 blow was at times very secretly dealt. Twelve days after 
 the parliament had adjourned, Southampton was com- 
 mitted to the custody of the Dean of We>tminster, to be 
 allowed no intercourse with any other than his keeper 
 (Sir Eichard Weston). June 23, Sir Eichard Weston 
 declined to be the earl's keei)er, and Sir W. Parkhurst 
 w^as appointed. 
 
 The Eev. Joseph Mead writes to Sir Martin Stutville, 
 June 30 of this year : — ' It is said that this week the 
 Countess of Southampton, assisted by some two more 
 countesses, put up a petition to the King, that her lord 
 might answer before himself ; which, they say, his Majesty 
 granted.'^ 
 
 Various others were imprisoned, about the same time, for 
 speaking idle words. Among the rest, John Selden was 
 committed to the keeping of the Sheriff of London; he 
 
 ' Court and Times of James, vol, ii. p. 263.
 
 88 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 was also set at liberty, on the same day as the Earl of 
 Southampton, July 18, 1G21. In a letter of proud sub- 
 mission sent to the Lord Keeper Williams, Southampton 
 promises to ' speak as little as he can,' and ' meddle as 
 little as he can,' according to ' that part of my Lord 
 Buckingham's advice ! ' Li these stormy discussions and 
 early grapplings with irresponsible power, we hear the 
 first mutterings of the coming storm that was to sweep 
 thro' England, and feel that, in men like Southampton, the 
 spirit was stirring which was yet to spring up, fuU-statured 
 and armed, for the overthrow of weak prince and fatal 
 parasites, to stand at last as a dread avenger flushed with 
 triumph, smiling a stern smile by the block at White- 
 hall. His imprisonment did not repress Southampton's 
 energies or lessen his acti\dty. In the new parliament, 
 which assembled on the 9th of February, 1624, he was on 
 the committee for considering of the defence of Ireland ; 
 the committee for stopping the exportation of money ; 
 the committee for the making of arms more serviceable. 
 He was a true exponent of the waking nation, in its 
 feeling of animosity against Spain, and of disgust at the 
 pusillanimous conduct of James, who would have tamely 
 submitted to see his son-in-law deprived of the Palatinate. 
 The aroused spirit of the nation having compelled the 
 King to enter into a treaty with the States General, 
 granting them permission to raise four regiments in this 
 country, Southampton obtained the command of one of 
 them. ' This spring,' says Wilson, ' gave birth to four 
 brave Eegiments of Foot (a new apparition in the English 
 liorizon), fifteen hundred in a Regiment, which were 
 raised and transported into Holland (to join the army 
 under Prince Maurice) under four gallant colonels : the 
 Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of 
 Essex, and the Lord Willoughby.' This was a fatal 
 journey for the Earl, the last of his wanderings, that 
 was to bring him tlie 'so long impossible Eest.' 'The
 
 DEATH OF SOUTHAMPTON. 80 
 
 winter quarter at Rosendale,' Wilson writes, 'was also fatal 
 to the Earl of Soutliampton, and the Lord Wriothesley 
 liis son. Being both sick there togetlier of burning fevers, 
 tlie violence of whicli distemper wrouglit most vigorously 
 upon the heat of youth, overcoming tlie son first ; and the 
 drooping father, having overcome the fever, departed from 
 Ivosendale with an intention to bring his son's body into 
 England, but at Berghen-op-Zoom he died of a lethargy^ 
 in the view and presence of the relator.' The dead son 
 and father were both brought in a small bark to England, 
 and landed at Southampton ; both Avere buried at Titch- 
 field, on Innocents' day, 1624. 
 
 ' They were both poisoned by the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham,' says Sir Edward Peyton, in his ' Catastrophe of 
 the House of the Stuarts ' (p. SCO), as plainly appears, 
 he adds, ' by the relation of Doctor Eglisham.' This 
 relation of Ejzhsham's will be found in the ' Forerunner 
 of Eevenofe.'^ The doctor was one of Kino; James's 
 ph^'sicians for ten years. His statement amounts to this- - 
 that tlie Earl of Southampton's name was one of those 
 which were on a roll that was found in King Street, 
 Westminster, containing a list of those who were to be 
 removed out of Buckingham's way. Also, that when the 
 physicians were standing round the awfully disfigured 
 body of the dead Marquis of Hamilton (another supposed 
 victim of Buckingham's), one of them remarked, that ' my 
 Lord Southampton was blistered all within the breast, as 
 my Lord Marquis was.' 
 
 This statement made me curious enough to examine 
 Francis Glisson's report of the post mortem examination 
 of the Earl of Southampton's body : it is in the British 
 Museum;- and I found it to be so suspiciously reticent, that 
 the silence is far more suggestive than what is said. It 
 contains no mention whatever of the condition of the blood 
 
 ' Harleian Miscellany, vol. ii. pp. 72-7. 
 ^ Vide Avscougb's catalogue of MS.
 
 90 SHAKSPEARE-S SONNETS. 
 
 or the brain, the spleen or bowels, the heart or liver, 
 the stomach or lungs. The bladder and kidneys are the 
 only parts described. An altogether unsatisfactory report, 
 that looks as though it were a case of suppressed evidence. 
 This, coupled with the lethargy noticed by Wilson, and 
 the known implacable enmity of Buckingham, does at least 
 give colour to the statements of Sir Edward Peyton, and 
 Dr. Eglisham. But for us it will remain one of the many 
 secrets — for wdiich John Felton, ' with a wild flash in the 
 dark heart of him,' probed swiftly and deeply with his 
 avemjinc^ knife, — to be known hereafter. 
 
 CO ' 
 
 One cannot but feel that the Earl of Southampton did 
 not get adequate scope for his energies under James any 
 more than in the previous reign, and that he should have 
 lived a few years later, for his orb to have come full circle. 
 He might have been the Eupert of Cromwell's horsemen. 
 He was not a great man, nor remarkably wise, but he was 
 brave, frank, magnanimous, thoroughly honourable, a true 
 lover of his country, and the possessor of such natural 
 qualities as won the love of Shakspeare. A comely noble 
 of nature, wdth highly finished manners ; a soldier, whose 
 personal valour was proverbial ; a lover of letters, and a 
 munificent patron of hterary men. 
 
 Chapman, in one of his dedicatory sonnets prefaced to 
 the lUad, calls the Earl ' learned,' and proclaims him to 
 be the ' choice of all our country's noble spirits.' Eichard 
 Braithwaite inscribes his ' Survey of History, or a Nursery 
 for Gentry,' to Southampton, and terms him ' Learning's 
 select Favourite.' Nash calls him ' a dear lover and che- 
 risher, as well of the lovers of poets as of poets themselves.' 
 Florio tells us that he lived for many years in the earl's 
 pay, and terms him the 'pearl of peers.' He relieved 
 the distress of Minshew, author of the ' Guide to 
 Tongues.' Barnaby Barnes addressed a sonnet to him, 
 in 1593, in which he expressed a hope that his verses 
 'if graced by that heavenly countenance w^hich gives
 
 THE EARL'S PATROXAGE OF LITERATURE. 01 
 
 liglit to the Muses, may be shielded from the poisoned shafts 
 of envy.' Jervais Markham, in a sonnet attached to his 
 poem on the death of Sir Eicliard Grenville, addresses 
 Southampton thus : — 
 
 Thou, the laurel of the Muses hill, 
 
 Whose eyes doth crown the most victorious pen.' 
 
 Wither appears to have had some intention of cele- 
 brating the earl's marked virtues and nobiUty of character 
 as exceptionally estimable in his time, for, in presenting 
 him with a copy of his ' Abuses stript and whipt,' he tells 
 
 him, — 
 
 I ought to be no stranger to thy worth, 
 Nor let thy virtues in oblivion sleep : 
 Nor will I, if my fortunes give me time. 
 
 In the year 1621, the earl had not ceased his patronage 
 of literary men, as is shown by the dedication to him of 
 Thomas Wright's ' Passions of the mind in general.' 
 
 Many elegies were sung over the death of Southampton, 
 of which the following, by Sir John Beaumont, is the 
 best : — 
 
 I will be bold my trembling voice to try. 
 That his dear name in silence may not die ; 
 The world must pardon if my song be weak, 
 In such a cause it is enough to speak. 
 Who knew not brave Southampton, in whose sight 
 Most placed their day, and in his absence night ? 
 When he was yoimg, no ornament of youth 
 Was wanting in him, acting that in truth 
 Which Cyrus did in shadow ; and to men 
 Appeared like Peleus' son from Chiron's den : 
 While through this island Fame his praise reports. 
 As best in martial deeds and courtly sports. 
 When riper age with winged feet repairs, 
 Grave care adorns his head with silver hairs ; 
 His valiant fervour was not then decayed. 
 But joined with counsel as a further aid. 
 
 ' It has been suggested that Markham here alludes to the Eai-l's patronage 
 of Shakspeare.
 
 92 - SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Behold his constant and undaunted eye, 
 In greatest danger, when condemned to die ! 
 He scorns the insulting adversary's breath, 
 And will admit no fear, though near to death. 
 When shall we in this realm a feather find 
 So truly sweet, or Husband half so kind ? 
 Thus he enjoyed the best contents of life. 
 Obedient children, and a loving wife. 
 These were his parts in peace ; but, 0, how far 
 This noble soul excelled itself in war. 
 He was directed by a natural vein. 
 True honour by this painful way to gain. 
 I keep that glory last which is the best. 
 The love of learning, which he oft expressed 
 In conversation, and respect to those 
 Who had a name in arts, in verse, or prose. 
 
 His countess survived the earl for many years, and died 
 in 1640. 
 
 AValpole, in his Anecdot-es of Painting, mentions a por- 
 trait, half-length, of Elizabeth Vernon, as being at Sher- 
 burn Castle, Dorsetshire. It is by Cornelius Jansen, who 
 was patronized by the Earl of Southampton,^ and may 
 thus have drawn the portrait of Shakspeare. This picture, 
 says Walpole, is equal to anything the master executed. 
 The clothes are magnificent, and the attire of her head is 
 singular, a veil turned quite back. The face and hands 
 are coloured with incomparable lustre. There is also an 
 authentic portrait of this lady, in good preservation, at 
 Hodnet Hall, which represents her as a type of a beauty 
 in the time of Elizabeth. Her dress is a brocade in brown 
 and gold, her ribbons are scarlet and gold, her ruff and 
 
 ^ Peacliiim, in his 'Grapliico, or the most Ancient and Excclh^nt Art of 
 Drawing and Limning,' says, the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke were 
 amongst the chief patrons of painting in England. 
 
 N.B. — In the footnote p. 220 of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in Eng- 
 land, Mr. Dallaway speaks wrongly of this work as being first published in 
 1G.34. The first edition, a copy of which is in the British Museum, was 
 published in 1612.
 
 ELIZ.VBETII VERNON AND LADY RUSSELL. 93 
 
 deep sleeve cuffs are of point lace, her ornaments of coral ; 
 her hair is light, and her complexion fresh, vivid, auroral, 
 having clearly that war of the red rose and the white 
 described by Shakspeare in his 99th sonnet. The hair is 
 suggestive, too, of the singular comparison used in that 
 sonnet of ' buds of marjoram,' not in colour, but in shape. 
 Supposing the lady was accustomed at times to leave a por- 
 tion of it rather short, to be worn in front of the head-dress, 
 or veil that swept backward, the ends would crisp and 
 bunch themselves into a likeness of the Uttle clusters of 
 marjoram buds. Indeed, the shape of the head of hair, 
 dressed superbly as it is, is not unlike a bush of marjo- 
 ram in the spread of it ! 
 
 An engraving by Thompson, from a portrait by Van- 
 dyke, a copy of which is in the British Museum, shows 
 Lady Southampton to have been tall and graceful, with a 
 fine head and thoughtful face ; the long hair is softly 
 waved with light and shadow, and the look has a touch 
 of languor, different to the Hodnet Hall picture, but this 
 last may be only a Vandyke grace. 
 
 It is pleasant to remember that from this much-tried 
 pair, in whom Shakspeare took so affectionate an interest, 
 sprang one of the most glorious of Englishwomen, one 
 of the pure white lilies of all womanhood ! This was the 
 Lady Kussell, whose spirit rose so heroically to breast the 
 waves of calamity ; whose face was as an angel's shining 
 through the gathering shadows of death, with a look of 
 lofty cheer, to hearten her husband on his way to the scaf- 
 fold ; ahnost personifying, in her great love, the good Pro- 
 vidence that had given to him so precious a spirit for a 
 companion, so exalted a woman to be his wife ! This lady 
 was the £jrand-dau<:?hter of the Earl and Countess of South- 
 ampton. She was daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, who 
 was called the Virtuous Lord Treasurer of Charles II., 
 by his first wife, daughter of Henry de Massey, Baron de 
 Kouvii]ciii, a French Protestant noble.
 
 94 SIIAKSPEARFS SONNETS. 
 
 POET AND PATRON: 
 
 THEIK PEESONAL FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 The Earl of Southampton cannot be to us what he was 
 to Shakspeare, and time has almost effaced him from the 
 national memory ; he has nearly passed out of sight in 
 that cloud of dust created by the fall of Essex. Yet, for 
 our great poet's sake, no one can help taking an interest 
 in his story, or in his friendship, of which the Sonnets 
 are the fruit ; and the more we draw near to read his 
 character aright, the greater reason we shall find to love 
 liini for what he once was to Shakspeare. There was a time 
 in our poet's life when the patronage of Southampton, 
 as it was described by Barnes, shone like a splendid 
 shield in the eyes of envious rivals, and such a dazzling 
 defence must have tended to lessen the yelpings of the 
 pack that was at him in full cry about the year 1592. 
 In all likelihood the earl was one, and the chief one, of 
 those ' divers of worship,' who, according to Chettle, had 
 reported so favourably of the poet's private character and 
 dramatic abihty. And, although not intended as an 
 autobiograpliic record, the Sonnets sufficiently sliow that 
 the friendship of the earl was the source of many com- 
 forting and loving thoughts, which cherished and illumed 
 his inner life, when the outer day may have been some- 
 what desolate and drear. The 25th sonnet tells us how
 
 \ALirE OF THE EARL'S FRIENDSHIP. 95 
 
 Sliakspeare congratulated himself on having secured such 
 a friend, whose heart was larger than his fortunes, whose 
 hand was liberal as his thought was generous, and whose 
 kindly regard placed the poet far above the ' favourites 
 of great princes.' What trutli there may be in the tra- 
 dition that the earl gave Shakspeare a thousand pounds 
 at one time we cannot know ; it may have resulted from 
 the fact that he had given the poet as much at various 
 times. There can be no question, however, that he did 
 him sundry good turns, and gave help of many kinds ; if 
 required, money would be included ; this too, when the 
 poet most needed help, to hearten him in his life-struggle, 
 wdiile he was workinsi; at the basis of his character and the 
 foundations of his fortune and his fame. It would be a kind 
 of breakwater influence, when the poet was fighting wntli 
 wind and wave for every bit of foothold on firm ground. 
 
 Shakspeare would likewise be indebted to his noble 
 friend for many a glimpse of Court hfe and Court man- 
 ners, many an insight into personal character, through 
 this chance of seeing the personal characteristics that 
 would otherwise have been veiled from him. His friend 
 the earl would lift the curtain for him, and let him peep 
 behind the scenes which Avere draped to the vulgar. 
 
 It was a wonderful time for such a dramatist. Men 
 and women played more personal parts, exerted more 
 personal influence, and revealed more of their personal 
 nature. The inner man got more direct manifestation. 
 Shakspeare saw the spirits of men and women, as it were, 
 in habitations of glass, sensitive to every fight and shadowy 
 and showing how the changes passed over them, by the 
 glow or the gloom that followed. Now-a-days, we are 
 shut up in houses of stone, iron-fenced by manners and 
 customs and the growths of time, that have accumulated 
 between man and man, putting them farther and farther 
 apart, until a good deal of the Elizabethian nearness of 
 life is gone for public men. We have lost mucli of that
 
 06 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. 
 
 element, which has been described as the real source of 
 genius, the spirit of boyhood carried into manhood, which 
 the Elizabethans had, and showed it in their friendships 
 and their fighting, their passions and their play. We are 
 more shut up, and only peep at one another, we reveal 
 the smallest possible part of ourselves. The EUzabethans 
 had more naked nature for Shakspeare to draw ; he was 
 as fortunate in the habits of his time as the Greek 
 sculptors were in the freedom of the Greek dress. He 
 would not have made nearly so much out of us, had he 
 lived in our day, because so much would not have been 
 revealed in public. He would not be able to see the most 
 characteristic things, the best and the worst saying out 
 their utmost, known by name, and visible at their work. 
 The personality which Shakspeare saw and seized, would 
 now be lessened till almost invisible, in the increasing 
 crowd of hfe, and conflict of circumstances, and change of 
 things. He would only be able to read about such as 
 those whom he saw and knew in daily hfe. He would 
 now see no sight like that of Drake at bowls on Plymouth 
 Hoe ; or Ealeigh smoking his pipe with his peasants, and 
 making their eyes glitter with the mirage of a land of 
 gold ; a Lord Grey rushing at Southami)ton in the street, 
 with his sword drawn ; noble grey heads going to the 
 block after a life of service for their country ; Essex and 
 her Majesty exhibiting in public the pets and passions of 
 the nursery ; or the Queen showing her leg to an am- 
 bassador and boxing the ears of a favourite ; or a player 
 who, like Tarleton, dared to abuse the favourite Leicester, 
 present with tlie Queen, and who ' played the God Luz, 
 witli a flitch of bacon at his back ; and the Queen bade them 
 take away the knave for making her to laugh so excessivel}^ 
 as he fought against her little dog Perrico de Faldas, with 
 his sword and longstalT, and bade the Queen take oflf her 
 mastiff.'^ That was a time in which character was 
 
 ' Scrap of paper in the State Paper Office, 1588. Calendar of State 
 Papers, EUzabeth, 1581-1500, p. 541.
 
 HIS PlllNATK FUIEND.S. , 97 
 
 brought closer home to the dramatist. And tlie Earl of 
 Soutliamptoii's friendship was a means of introducing our 
 poet to cliaracters that must otherwise have remained out 
 of reacli. In this way he was enabled to make a close 
 study of Southampton's friends, including persons like 
 Essex and Montjoy, and one of the most remarkable 
 characters of that time, one of tlie most unique samples 
 of human nature, the Lady Eich, in whose person I think 
 the poet saw several of his creations in outline, and whose 
 influence warmed his imagination and jrave colour to the 
 complexion of his earlier women. Many a hint of foreign 
 scenes would he catch from those who had travelled, and 
 could describe ; men who in our time would perhaps put 
 their experience into books, and many a heroic trait from 
 tlie silent lighting men, who had done what they could not 
 put into words. Looking over the shoidder of his noble 
 friend, Shakspeare could thus see some of the best things 
 that the life of his time had to show, and take his mental 
 pictures with his instantaneous quickness of impression, 
 for he had the chameleon-like spirit that could catch its 
 colour from the air he breathed, and in the Earl of South- 
 ampton's company he must often have breathed an air 
 that ' sweetly crept ' into the study of his imagination, 
 brightening and enriching his mind, and making its im- 
 ages of life come to him ' apparelled in more precious 
 habit,' more ' moving dehcate,' especially in the shape of 
 the exquisite fragrant-natured English ladies who became 
 his Mirandas, Perditas, Imogenes, and Hermiones. 
 
 It has been assumed that these sonnets of Shakspeare 
 do but represent a form of sonneteering adulation 
 common to the time. As though they were the poetic 
 coin wherewith the poet sought to repay the patron for 
 his nuuiificent gifts. Nothing could be farther from the 
 fact. They contain no flattery whatever. So far as they 
 are personal to Shakspeare they come warm from liis 
 own sincere heart, and are vital with his own aflectionate 
 
 11
 
 98 , SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 feeling for the brave and bounteous peer to whom he 
 publicly dedicated ' love without end,' and for whom he 
 meant to make a wreath of immortal flower Avhich had its 
 mortal rootage in the poet's own life. Such a celebration 
 of personal friendship as occurs in these sonnets was not 
 common as some writers have supposed. In fact it has 
 no parallel in the Elizabethan time. And such a friend- 
 ship was as rare as is this celebration of it. 
 
 Looking backward over the two centuries and a half, 
 and seeing the halo of glory on the brow of the dead Past, 
 it seems that the personal friendship of man and man was 
 a more possible and noble thing with the Elizabethan men. 
 Perhaps it is partly owing to the natural touch of Time in 
 the composition of his historic pictures ; to the softened 
 outline and mellowing tint. But those Elizabethans 
 have a way of coming home to us with more of the 
 nearness of brotherhood ; they are like a band of brothers 
 with a touch of noble boyhood about their ways, and on 
 their faces a light of the golden age. They make it 
 possible to our hard national nature that the love of man 
 to man may be at times ' passing the love of woman.' 
 But such an example of personal friendship as that of 
 Shakspeare the player and Southampton the peer stands 
 absolutely alone ; there is nothing like it. 
 
 We are apt to think of Shakspeare as the great master- 
 spirit, who was fit to be the friend of the noblest by birth, 
 and the kinglicst by nature. Those who knew him, we 
 fancy, would be more likely to think of the Scripture text, 
 that reminds us not to be forgetful of entertaining stran- 
 gers, for they may be the angels of God in disguise, rather 
 than to be troubled with thoughts and suggestions of his 
 being only a poor player. But the age in which he lived, 
 and in which this friendship was engendered, was a time 
 when the distinctions of rank and the boundary lines of 
 classes were so precisely observed that even the particular 
 style and quality of dress were imposed according to the
 
 THE FIRST MEETING OF POET AND PATRON. W 
 
 wearer's position in life. Tlierefore the feeling of personal 
 friendship must have been very strong in these two men, 
 to have so far obliterated the social landmarks, and made 
 their remarkable intimacy possible. 
 
 I think the 25th somiet tells us })lainly enough, that the 
 young earl first sought out tlie poet, and conferred on him 
 an unexpected honour ; a joy unlooked-for. This view is 
 most in keeping with the two personal characters. Then 
 the frank-hearted, free-handed young noble soon found that 
 his advances were amply repaid. And he had the insight 
 to see that here was a noble of nature, with something in 
 him which towered over all social distinctions. On his side, 
 the poet would warmly appreciate the open generous dis- 
 position of the earl, who, whatever else he lacked, had the 
 genius to make himself beloved. Shakspeare Avas that natu- 
 ral gentleman, who could preserve exactly the distance at 
 which the attraction is magnetically perfect, and most 
 powerfidly felt ; thus the acquaintanceship soon grew into 
 a friendship of the nearest and dearest possible between 
 Shakspeare, the man of large and sweet affections, and the 
 comely good-natured youth, who had the intuition to dis- 
 cover the poet, and was drawn lovingly towards the man. 
 Of the depth of the personal affection, and the inward 
 nature of the friendship, there is the most abundant proof. 
 The dedicatory epistle to liis poem of ' Lucrece' breathes 
 the most cheery assurance, and publicly alludes to a pri- 
 vate history that has never before been understood, but 
 which will noAv serve to show how close were the person- 
 ahties, how secret the relationship of Southampton and 
 Shakspeare. Then we have the letter of Lord Southamp- 
 ton, which I, for one, feel to be a genuine document; 
 and, as regards tlie internal evidence, the present reading 
 of the sonnets will make that speak more eloquently than 
 ever in favour of our accepting it as the utterance of South- 
 ampton. The letter has a t(nich of nature, a familiarity 
 in the tone, beyond the dream or the daring of a forger 
 
 H 2
 
 100 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. ? 
 
 to assume, for the facts of the intimate personal friendship 
 revealed for the first time by the present reading of the 
 sonnets, which accord so perfectly with the tone of the 
 letter, could not be sufficiently known, to warrant the 
 statements, or support the design, had it been a forgery. 
 In tliis letter, the earl pleads with his powerful friend the 
 Lord Ellesmere, on behalf of the ' poor players of the 
 Blaekfriars,' and asks him to ' be good ' to them ' in this the 
 time of their trouble,' for they are threatened by the Lord 
 Mayor and aldermen of London with tlie destruction of 
 their means of liveliliood ' by the pulling down of their 
 playhouse.' The chief point for us is, that the Earl of 
 Southampton introduces one of the bearers, ' William 
 Shakspeare,' to the Lord High Chancellor's notice, as ' his 
 especial friend,' a man who is 'right famous ' in his quality 
 as a w^riter of plays, and a husband of ' good reputation.' 
 Now, to my thinking, that phrase 'my especial friend' 
 would not have been ventured by a forger ; he would not 
 have hazarded the lordly largeness, if the fact had been 
 visible, which is more than doubtful ; for, although Sliaks- 
 peare dedicated to the earl his ' love without end,' yet, 
 apart from this letter, it could not be known that the earl 
 proclaimed the especial friendship to be reciprocal, and the 
 forger would not have had authentic warrant. Therefore I 
 do not see how any other than Southampton could have so 
 })erfectly hit the very fact, which is now unveiled for the 
 first time, in my reading of the sonnets. The present in- 
 terpretation of these must help to prove the genuineness of 
 the letter.^ The sonnets themselves abound with proofs that 
 
 ' The matter of this 'H. S.' letter is, in my humble opinion, most authentic ; 
 both openly and secretly so. There is a witness within it of more infallible 
 authority than that of the Palajographists, wlio, in the case of a copj' like 
 this, can hardly know what it is they are called upon to disprove. Supposing 
 a forger to have hit upon the personal friendship of the Earl for Shakspeare 
 and dared to proclaim it, and made tliat the motive of the Earl's plea, he 
 would not have ventured on the perilous attempt to mark the exact period 
 of Shakspeare's retirement from the stage as an actor, and thus lamed his
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF INTIMACY. 101 
 
 the personal intimacy of Shak.speare and Soutliampton was 
 verv inward, the friendsliip most uncommon. So near are 
 they, that in sonnet 39, the poet says the two are but one ; 
 and, that when he praises his friend, it is as though lie were 
 praising himself. Therefore, he proposes to take advantage 
 of a separation, wliich is to divide tliem, and make their 
 ' dear love ' lose the name and look of singleness, by 
 throwing into perspective that half which alone deserves to 
 be praised. Absence and distance are necessary to show 
 even in appearance that the two are not one ! In sonnet 
 23, his love is so great that he cannot speak it, when they 
 meet in person : the strength of his feehng is such as to 
 tie his tongue, and make him like an unpractised actor on 
 the stage, overcome by his emotion, so he tries to express 
 it in his sonnets, pleading that they may be more eloquent 
 with their silent love than the tongue, that might have said 
 more. The plea also of sonnet 22 is most expressive of 
 tender intimacy. ' Oh, my friend,' he says, ' be of your- 
 self as wary as I will be of myself; not for myself, but on 
 your account. I will bear your heart as cautiously, and 
 keep it from all ill, as protcctingly as a nurse carries her 
 babe.' His spirit hovers about the earl. lie warns him 
 that youth is short, and beauty a fleeting glow. He defends 
 hhn when he has been falsely accused and slandered by 
 the gossips about the Court ; is sad, when the earl is reck- 
 less and does break out in wild courses, or dwells in infec- 
 tious society ; wishes himself dead, rather than that he 
 should have seen such sorrowful things ; tries, as I read, 
 to set the earl writing (in sonnet 77), by way of diver- 
 case by selecting the wrong point in illustrating the friendsliip ! Then, the 
 reconiniendation of Shakspeare on account of liis good reputation as n marrivd 
 man, is so utterly opposed to the idea of a forgerj'. It was nut one of the 
 outlines of the poet's life pencilled ready for tilling in ! For it has always 
 been assumed that his reputation as a married man was 7iot good, and latterly 
 it has been taken for granted that the Earl of Southampton had very private 
 reasons for knowing so. Nevertheless, tlie letter, a:i I believe, statos the real 
 fact of the case in this, as in the other particulars, with a sureness beyond 
 the happiest divination of a forger, and the life is not yet trodden out of it !
 
 102 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 sion, for his moral behoof and mental benefit. He will 
 write of liim and his love in his absence abroad, and when 
 he returns to England how lovingly (in sonnet 100) he 
 liolds him to look into the sun-browned face, with a 
 peering jealousy of affection, to see what change has been 
 wrought by the wear of war, and waste of time, — 
 
 Rise, restive Muse, my Love's sweet face survey ; 
 If Time have any wrinkle graven there. 
 
 ' If any, be ready with the colour of immortal tint to retouch 
 his beauty and make it live for ever in immortal youth.' 
 Then we see that the poet's love grows warmer, as the 
 world looks colder on the earl ; it rises witli the tide of 
 calamitv, that threatened to overwhelm him ; it exults and 
 ' looks fresh with the drops of that most balmy time,' 
 when the poet welcomed his friend at the opened door of 
 his prison, in 1603 (sonnet 107), and made the free light 
 of day richer with his cordial smile. 
 
 ' If the Earl of Soutliampton,' says Boaden, ' had been 
 the person addressed by Shakspeare, we should expect the 
 poet to have told the earl that but for his calamity and 
 diss3;race, mankind would never have known the resources 
 of his mighty mind.' So might we if the poet had been a 
 common flatterer, who had stood afar off and talked flam- 
 boyant nonsense tliat was never meant to be tested for 
 tlie truth, never brought to bear upon the real facts 
 because of the personal distance at which it was spoken. 
 But this was not Shakspeare's position. The earl had not 
 a mighty mind, and Shakspeare w^as not driven by stress 
 of circumstances to laud the mental gifts which his friend 
 did not possess. In only a single instance has he men- 
 tioned the intellect of the earl.^ In this fact we may find 
 one more illustration of the inwardness of their personal 
 intimacy. They were too intimate, and knew each other 
 
 ' Sonnet 82, ' Thou art as fair in knoioledyc as in hue.'
 
 NEARNESS OF THE TWO FRIENDS. 10:{ 
 
 too well, for any ' bosh ' to be tolerated on either side. 
 When Shakspeare spoke of his friend Southampton it was 
 from the quiet depths of genuine feeling, not fi-oni the 
 noisy shallows of flattery; and such was the nature of their 
 intercourse, the freedom of their friend.ship, that lie was 
 permitted to do so, and could afford it. What Shakspeare 
 found in Southampton was not great gifts of mind to 
 admire, but a fuie generosity and hearty frankness of 
 nature to love. He was one of those who grasp a friend 
 with both hands to hold him fast, and wear him in their 
 heart of hearts. Shakspeare loved him too truly to speak 
 falsely of him. He was the only great poet in his time who 
 never stood cap in hand, or dealt in ' lozengerie.'' His 
 tone is like the voice of good breedhig, gentle and low, 
 wdth no straining for effect. Any exaggerative expression 
 was unnecessary, and would have been most unnatural, 
 which with Shakspeare means impossible. Tliis mode of 
 treatment proves the personal privacy. Shakspeare did 
 not address his friend as a public man at a distance — had 
 no need of the speaking trumpet — but was thus secret and 
 familiar with him as a bosom friend. 
 
 Upon any theory of interpretation the personal intimacy 
 must have been of the closest, most famihar kind. Those 
 wdio have so basely imagined that Shakspeare and his 
 young friend both shared one mistress must assume that 
 the intimacy was one of great nearness. Also those who 
 accept the coarsest reading of the 20th sonnet must admit 
 that the poet was on very familiar terms with the earl to 
 address him in the low loose language which they have 
 attributed to him by their modern rather than Ehzabethian 
 reading. My interpretation supposes a nearness equally 
 great, a personal intimacy ecjually secret, but as pure as 
 theirs is gross, as noble as theirs is ignoble, as natural as 
 theirs is unnatural. An intimacy which does not strain 
 all probabihty in assuming it to have been close enougli for 
 Shakspeare to write dramatic sonnets on his friend's love
 
 104 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and courtship, as it does to suppose the poet wrote sonnets 
 to proclaim their mutual disgrace, and perpetuate his 
 own sin and shame. In truth it is the sense of that 
 nearness, which I advocate, which, working blindly, has 
 given some show of likelihood to the vulgar interpreta- 
 tion ; the tender feehng passing the love of woman which, 
 carried into the interpretation of the impersonal sonnets 
 by prurient minds, has made the intimacy look one of 
 which any extravagance might be believed. 
 
 The personal sonnets all tend to show and illustrate 
 this nearness of the two friends, only they prove it to have 
 been on Shakspeare's part of the purest, loftiest, most manly 
 kind. There is not one of those wherein Shakspeare is 
 the speaker for certain, that can possibly be pressed into 
 showing that the friendship had the vile aspect into which 
 it has been distorted. 
 
 Southampton being identified as the person addressed, 
 and the object of Shakspeare's personal affection, the inti- 
 macy must have been one that was perfectly compatible 
 with the earl's love for a woman. For it is certain that he 
 was in love, and passionately wT)oing Elizabeth Vernon, 
 during some years of the time over which the sonnets 
 extend. And it would be witlessly weak to suppose that 
 Shakspeare wrote sonnets upon .a disgraceful intimacy to 
 amuse a man who was purely in love ; out of all nature 
 to imagine that he pursued Southampton in the wooing 
 amorous way more fondly and tenderly than ever, after 
 the earl had become passionately enamoured of Elizabeth 
 Yernon. He would neither thrust himself forward as the 
 lady's rival for the earl's love, nor appear in her presence- 
 chamber covered with moral mire to I'cmind them both 
 of the fact that he and the earl had rolled in the dirt 
 together ; and the intimacy must have been such as to 
 recommend Shakspeare to Elizabeth Vernon as a ftiend 
 of the earl, not brand him as an enemy to herself. Again, 
 Boaden is of opinion that the sonnets do not at all apply
 
 ELDER BROTIIEltllUOD. 105 
 
 to Lord Southampton, eitlier as to age, character, or the 
 bustle and activity of a life distinguished by distant and 
 hazardous service, to something of which they must have 
 alluded had he been their object. lie argues that there 
 was not sufficient difference in their ages for Shakspeare 
 to have called the earl ' sweet boy.' The difference was 
 9 years and G months. Our poet was born Ai)ril, 15G4, 
 and his friend October, 1573. Now if the two men had 
 been of like mental constitution that difference in years 
 would have made considerable disparity in character 
 when the one was thirty and the other but twenty years 
 of age. But one man is not as old as another at the same 
 age, nor are men constituted alike. Shakspeare's mental 
 life, and ten years' experience in such a hfe, were very 
 diHerent things to the life and experience of his young 
 friend. He may have been quite warranted by this 
 difference in age in calling the earl ' sweet boy,' but 
 his expression did not depend on age alone. When a 
 priest says ' my cliild,' he does not first stop to consider 
 whether the person so addressed is some twenty years 
 younger tlian himself. He is presumed to be speaking 
 from a feeling that is not exactly governed or guided 
 chronologically. So with Shakspeare. He is taking the 
 hberty and latitude of affection. He uses the language of 
 a love that delights to dally Avith the wee words and 
 dainty diminutives of speech, and tries as it were to ex- 
 press the largeness of its feeling in the smallest shape, on 
 piH'pose to get all the nearer to nature, it being tlie way 
 of all fond love to express itself in miniature. It is one 
 of Shakspeare's ways of expressing the fulness and 
 familiarity of his affection rather than any difference in 
 age. He speaks by virtue of that protecting tenderness of 
 spirit which he feels for the youth — the })rerogative of 
 very near friendship — an authority which no age could 
 necessarily confer. And it is also 1 1 is way of expressing 
 the difference of rank and position, as the world would
 
 106 SHAKSPKIRE'S SONNETS, 
 
 have it, that existed betwixt them ; the distance at which 
 he is supposed to stand is turned to account in the shape 
 of an elder brotherhood. It is of set purpose that 
 Shakspeare paints himself older than he was, as most 
 obviously he has done ; it is intended as a framework for 
 his picture. He deepens the contrast and gives to his own 
 years a sort of golden gloom, and mellow background, 
 with the view of setting forth in more vernal liues the 
 fresh ruddy youth of his friend. He puts on an autumnal 
 tint and exaggerates his riper years on purpose to place 
 in relief that image of youth which he has determined to 
 perpetuate in all its spring-tide beauty, and the ' yellow 
 leaf throws out the ratlieness of the green. This does 
 not show that there were not sufficient years betwixt them, 
 but that the intimacy of friendship was such as to permit 
 the poet to obey a natural law which has served to finish 
 his picture with a more artistic touch, and to further 
 illustrate the familiarity of his affection. 
 
 It may be that to the dear and generous friendship of 
 the earl, the world is to a large extent indebted for those 
 beautiful delineations of loving friendship betwixt man and 
 man which Shakspeare has given us, excelhng all other 
 dramatists here as elsewhere. There is a sacred sweetness 
 in his manly friendship ; fine and fragrant in its kind, as 
 is the delicate aroma breathed by his most natural and ex- 
 quisite women. No one, like him, in secular literature, has 
 so tenderly shown the souls of two men in the pleasant 
 wedlock of a delightful friendship. The rarest touch being 
 reserved for the picture in which one friend is considerably 
 older than the other. Then the effect is gravely-gladsome 
 indeed ; tlie touch is one of the nearest to nature. This 
 we may fairly connect with his own affectionate feeling 
 for the young earl, and see how that which was subjective 
 in the soiinets has become objective in the plays. Thus, 
 behind Bassanio and Antonio we may identify Southamp- 
 ton and Shakspeare. How much Shakspeare may have
 
 SIIAKSPEARES KING KICIIARl) II. 107 
 
 adventured for his young friend who was bound up in tlie 
 Essex bond, — how fur he lent himself, in spite of his better 
 judgment, we shall probably never know, but we maybe 
 sure that his love, like that of Antonio, was strong enough 
 to surmount all selfish considerations. And so, at tlie 
 pressing solicitations of Southamjiton, the drama of King 
 Eichard II. was altered by Shakspeare on purpose to be 
 played seditiously, with the deposition scene newly added ! 
 This patent fact is my concluding proof of the personal 
 intimacy of peer and poet, and of the force and familiarity 
 of their friendship.' 
 
 ' For a fact I hold it to be in spite of the squeamish assertion made by- 
 Mr. Collier to the contrary. The known friendship of Southampton for the 
 poet is better evidence than anything in the recollections of Forman. The 
 reply of Coke to Southampton's question as to what he thought they would 
 have done with the Queen had they gained the Court points directly to 
 Shakspeare's play. !Mr. Attorney said the 'pretence was alike for removing 
 certain councillors, but it shortly after cost the King his life.' Then, if it were 
 not Shakspeare's drama, which was some years old at the time, revived, with 
 additions for Essex' purpose, what is the meaning of the advertisement pre- 
 fixed to the edition of 1608 ' The Trayedy of King Richard the 2nd, xvith new 
 additions of the Parliament scene and tlie deposing of King Richard. As it 
 hath been lately acted hy the Kinges Majesties servants, at the Globe ' ? Plainly 
 enough it is the play altered for the puqiose which excited curiosity, and had 
 a long run in consequence. The same advertisement is printed in the edition 
 of 1015, and it is perfectly absurd to suppose that any other ' King Richard 
 the K^econd' Wivs being played at Shakspeare's Theatre in the year 1011. 
 This is going against the tide, and seeking to catch at a straw (Forman's 
 Jack Straw !) most vainly.
 
 1C8 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 PEKSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1592. 
 
 -<>o>*ic 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EAEL, WISHING HIM TO 
 
 MAERY. 
 
 We may now look upon the dear friend of Shakspeare as 
 sufficiently identified, and the nearness of the friendship 
 as sufficiently established. In the first group of his sonnets 
 the poet advises and persuades his young friend the Earl 
 of Southampton to get married. A very practical object 
 in writing the sonnets! This of itself shows that he 
 did not set out to write after the fashion of Drayton and 
 Daniel, and dally with 'Idea' as they did. Here is 
 a young noble of nature's own making ; a youth of quick 
 and kindling blood, apt to take fire at a touch, whether of 
 pleasure or of pain ; likely enough to be enticed into the 
 garden of Armida and the palace of sin. He is left with- 
 out the guidance of a father, and the poet feels for him an 
 affection all the more protecting and paternal. We may 
 easily perceive that underneath the pretty conceits sparkhng 
 on the surface of these earlier sonnets there lies a grave 
 purpose, a profound deptli of wisdom. This urgency on 
 the score of marriage is no mere sonneteering trick, or 
 playing with the shadows of things. The writer knows 
 well that there is nothing like true marriage, a worthy 
 wife, the love of children, and a happy liome, to bring 
 the exuberant life into the keeping of the highest, holiest 
 law. Notliing like the wifely influence, and the clinging
 
 DEDICATION OF EAKLY SONNETS. 109 
 
 of cliilclren's wee fingers, for twining winningly about the 
 lusty energies of youth, and reahzing the antique image of 
 Love riding on a lion ; the laughing mite triumphantly lead- 
 ing captive the fettered miglit, having taken liim ' pri- 
 soner, in a red rose chuin ! ' Seeing his young friend sur- 
 rounded with temptations, his personal beauty of mien and 
 manner being so prominent a mark for the darts of the 
 enemy, he would fain have him safely shielded by the 
 sacred shelter of marriage. Accordingly he assails him 
 with suggestion and argument in many forms of natural 
 appeal ; and whilst harping much on the main object for 
 Avhich marriage was designed, the harmony of the life 
 truly wedded rises like a strain of exquisite music, as it 
 were, wooing the youth from within the doors of the 
 marriage sanctuary. 
 
 These sonnets the poet sends to Kis friend in ' written 
 embassage ' of love, hoping tliat lie may yet have some- 
 tliing worthy of print, so that he can dare to boast pub- 
 licly of that affection for his friend, which he only ventures 
 for the present to show privately. 
 
 DEDICATOKV. 
 
 Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 
 
 Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit. 
 
 To thee I send this written embassage. 
 
 To witness duty, not to show my wit : 
 
 Duty so great which wit so poor as mine 
 
 May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it ; 
 
 But that I hope some good conceit of tliine 
 
 In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it : 
 
 Till whatsoever star that guides my moviu^j 
 
 Points on me graciously with fair aspect, 
 
 And puts apparel on my tattered loving, 
 
 To show me worthy of thy sweet respect : 
 
 Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee ; 
 
 Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me. 
 
 (••^6.)
 
 no SHiVKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 From fairest creatures we desire increase, 
 That thereby Beauty's rose might never die, 
 But as the riper should by time decease, 
 His tender heir might bear his memory : 
 But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, 
 Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, 
 Making a famine where abundance lies, 
 Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel : 
 Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, 
 And only herald to the gaudy spring. 
 Within thine own bud buriest thy content 
 And, tender churl I mak'st waste in niggarding : 
 Pity the world, or else this glutton be. 
 To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. 
 
 0.) 
 
 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow. 
 And dig deep trenches. in thy beauty's field. 
 Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now. 
 Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held : 
 Then being asked where all thy beauty lies, 
 \STiere all the treasure of thy lusty days. 
 To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes. 
 Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise : 
 How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use. 
 If thou could'st answer, " tlds fair child of mine 
 Shall sum m.y county and make m^y old excuse,^^ 
 Proving his beauty by succession thine ! 
 
 This were to be new-made when thou art old, 
 And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. 
 
 (2.) 
 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest, 
 Now is the time that face should form another, 
 Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, 
 Thou dost beguile the world — unbless some mother : 
 For where is she so fair, whose uneared womb 
 Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? 
 Or who is he so fond, will be the tomb 
 Of his self-love to stop posterity? 
 Thou art thy Mother's glass, and she in thee 
 Calls back the lovely April of her prime ;
 
 YOUNG MEX SHOULD MARRY. Ill 
 
 So thou, through windows of thine age, shalt see. 
 Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time : 
 
 But if thou live — remeujbered not to be-- 
 
 Die single, and thine image dies with thee. 
 
 (3.) 
 
 Unthrifty loveliness I why dost thou spend 
 Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy ? 
 Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, 
 And, being frank, she lends to those are free : 
 Tiien, beauteous niggard I why dost thou abuse 
 The bounteous largess given thee to give ? 
 Profitless usurer I why dost thou use 
 So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live ? 
 For, having traffic with thyself alone. 
 Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceave : 
 Then how, when Nature calls thee to be gone. 
 What acceptable audit canst thou leave ? 
 
 Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee. 
 
 Which, used, lives thy executor to be. 
 
 Those hours, that with gentle work did frame 
 
 The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, 
 
 Will play the tyrants to the very same, 
 
 And that unfair, which fairly doth excell : 
 
 For never-resting Time leads summer on 
 
 To hideous winter, and confounds him there; 
 
 Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone. 
 
 Beauty o'er-snovved, and bareness everywhere : 
 
 Then, were not Summer's distillation left, 
 
 A liquid prisoner pent in Avails of glass. 
 
 Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft. 
 
 Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was ! 
 
 But flowers distilled, tho' they witli winter meet, 
 Leese but their show ; their substance still lives sweet. 
 
 (5.) 
 
 Then let not Winter's rugged hand deface 
 In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled : 
 Make sweet some phial ; treasure thou some place 
 With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-killed : 
 Thatuse is not forbidden luxury.
 
 112 SIIAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Which happies those that pay the willing loan : 
 
 That's for thyself to breed another thee. 
 
 Or, ten times happier ! be it ten for one : 
 
 Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, 
 
 If ten of thine ten times retisrured thee : 
 
 Then what could Death do if thou shouldst depart. 
 
 Leaving thee living in posterity ? 
 
 Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair 
 
 To be Death's conquest, and make worms thine heir. 
 
 (6.) 
 
 Lo, in the Orient when the gracious light 
 
 Lifts up his burning head, each iinder-e3^e 
 
 Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, 
 
 Serving with looks his sacred majesty : 
 
 And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill. 
 
 Resembling strong Youth in his middle age. 
 
 Yet mortal looks adore his beauty, still 
 
 Attending on his golden pilgrimage : 
 
 But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, 
 
 Like feeble Age, he reeleth from the day. 
 
 The eyes— 'fore duteous — now converted are 
 
 From his low tract, and look another way : 
 So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, 
 Unlooked on diest, unless thou get a son. 
 
 Music to hear ! why bear'st thou music sadly ? 
 Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy : 
 Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly. 
 Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy ? 
 If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 
 By unions married, do offend thine ear. 
 They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds 
 In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear : 
 Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, 
 Strikes each in each by mutual ordering ; 
 Resembling Sire, and Child, and happy Mother, 
 Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing : 
 
 Whose speechless song being many, seeming one. 
 Sings this to thee — " Thou single ivilt prove none.^^ 
 
 (8.)
 
 WORDS OF WARNING. 113 
 
 Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, 
 
 That tliou consum'st thyself in single life ? 
 
 Ah I if thou issueless shalt hap to die, 
 
 The world %\dll wail thee like a makeless wife ; 
 
 The world will be thy widow ! and still weep 
 
 That thou no form of thee hast left behind, 
 
 When every private widow well may keep. 
 
 By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind : 
 
 Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend 
 
 Shifts but its place, for still the world enjoys it ; 
 
 But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, 
 
 And kept unused, the user so destroys it : 
 
 No love towards others in that bosom sits 
 
 That on himself such murderous shame commits. 
 
 (9.) 
 
 For shame I deny that thou bear'st love to any. 
 
 Who for thyself art so unprovideut : 
 
 Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many. 
 
 But that thou none lov'st is most evident ; 
 
 For thou art so possessed with murderous hate 
 
 That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire ; 
 
 Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate 
 
 Which to repair should be thy chief desire : 
 
 0, change thy thought, that I may change my mind ! 
 
 Shall Hate be freer lodged than gentle Love ? 
 
 Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind. 
 
 Or to thyself, at least, kind-hearted prove ; 
 
 Make thee another self, for love of me. 
 
 That beauty still may live in thine or thee. 
 
 (10.) 
 
 As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest 
 In one of thine, from that which thou departest ; 
 And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest 
 Thou niay'st call thine, when thou from youth con^i^rtest : 
 Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase ; 
 Without this, folly, age, and cold decay : 
 If all were minded so, the times should cease. 
 And threescore years would make the world away : 
 Let those whom Nature hath not made for store. 
 Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish : 
 
 I
 
 114 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Look, whom she best endowed she gave the more ; 
 
 Which bounteous gift thou should'st in bounty cherish ; 
 She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby 
 Thou should'st print more, nor let that copy die. 
 
 (11.) 
 
 When I do count the clock that tells the time, 
 And see the brave day sunk in hideous night ; 
 When I behold the violet past prime. 
 And sable curls are silvered o'er with white ; 
 Wlien lofty trees I see barren of leaves. 
 Which erst from heat did canopy the herd. 
 And Summer's green all girded up in sheaves, 
 Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard ; — 
 Then of thy beauty do I question make, 
 That thou amongst the wastes of time must go, 
 Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake 
 And die as fast as they see others grow ; 
 
 And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence, 
 Save breed, to brave him when he takes thet hence. 
 
 (12.) 
 
 0, that you were yourself! but Love, you are 
 No longer yours, than you yourself here live 
 Against this coming end you should prepare. 
 And your sweet semblance to some other give : 
 So should that beauty which you hold in lease. 
 Find no determination ; then you were 
 Yourself again after yourself 's decease. 
 When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear : 
 Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, 
 Which husbandry in honour might uphold 
 Against the stormy gusts of winter's day. 
 And barren rage of Death's eternal cold ? 
 
 none but unthrifts ! Dear, my Love, you know 
 You had a Father ; let your Son say so. 
 
 (13.) 
 
 Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck, 
 
 And yet methinks I have astronomy ; 
 
 But not to tell of good or evil luck, 
 
 Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality : 
 
 Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell.
 
 THE TRUE WAY TO WAR WITH TIME. 115 
 
 'Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind ; 
 
 Or say with Princes if it shall go well. 
 
 By oft predict that I in Heaven find : 
 
 But from thine ej^es my knowledge 1 derive, 
 
 And, — constant stars, — in them I read such art, 
 
 As truth and beauty shall together thrive. 
 
 If from thyself to store thou would'st convert ; 
 Or else of thee this I prognosticate, 
 Thy end is Truth's and Beauty's doom and date. 
 
 When I consider everything that grows 
 Holds in perfection but a little moment ; 
 That this huge stage presentetli nought but shows 
 Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; 
 When I perceive that men as plants increase. 
 Cheered and check'd even by the self-same sky ; 
 Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 
 And wear their brave state out of memory ; 
 Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
 Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
 Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, 
 To change yoiur day of youth to sullied night ; 
 
 And all in war with Time for love of vou, 
 
 As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 
 
 (15.) 
 
 But wherefore do not you a mightier way 
 
 Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time ? 
 
 And fortify yourself in your decay 
 
 With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? 
 
 Now stand you on the top of happy hours ! 
 
 And many maiden gardens, yet unset, 
 
 With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, 
 
 Mucli liker than 3-our painted counterfeit : 
 
 So should the lines of life that life repair. 
 
 Which this time's Pencil, or my pupil Pen,' 
 
 * This line has never yet been read, nor could it be whilst priiittHl as 
 heretofore : — 
 
 'Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen.' 
 
 It was impossible to see what this meant. What Shakspeare says is, that 
 the best painter, the master-pencil of the time, or his own pen of a learner, 
 
 I 2
 
 116 SILVKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Neither in inward worth, nor outward fair, 
 
 Can make you live yourself in eyes of men : 
 
 To give away yourself keeps yourself still, 
 
 And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill. 
 
 (16.) 
 
 WTio will believe my verse in time to come, 
 
 If it were filled with your most high deserts ? 
 
 Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb 
 
 Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts ! 
 
 If I could write the beauty of your eyes. 
 
 And in fresh numbers number all your graces, 
 
 The age to come would say ' this Poet lies, 
 
 Such heavenly touches ne^er touched earthly faces : ' 
 
 So should my papers, yellowed with their age. 
 
 Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue : 
 
 And your true rights be termed a Poet's rage. 
 
 And stretched metre of an antique song : 
 
 But were some child of yours alive that time. 
 You should live twice ; in it, and in my rhyme. 
 
 (17.) 
 
 will alike fail to draw the Earl's lines of life as lie himself can do it, by his 
 *own sweet skill.' This pencil of the time may have been Mirevelt'sj he 
 painted the Earl's portrait in early manhood.
 
 117 
 
 PEKSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1592-3. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, IN PRAISE OF HIS 
 
 PERSONAL BEAUTY. 
 
 In the next two groups of Sonnets there are two ideas 
 which touch in one or more places. Tliese are the praise 
 of his friend's beauty and the promise of immortahty. 
 Yet, they are wrought out with a sufficient distinctness to 
 warrant my keeping tliem apart. I group tliem accord- 
 incf to their unity of feeling rather than follow their 
 numbers, for the confusion has now commenced which 
 runs all through the remainder of the Sonnets. The 
 subject of this present gathering is tlie Earl's beauty of 
 person, which the Poet pourtrays with a moralising touch. 
 Manly comeliness was of greater account with the Poets in 
 Shakspeare's time than it is in ours. We consider such 
 taste too feminine. Our Poet thought his friend's graces 
 of person worthy of commendation. He searches amongst 
 old paintings and the ancient chronicles to see if pen 
 or picture has expressed such an image of youth and 
 beauty. He looks at his own elder face in the glass, and 
 tries to paint it with his friend's boy-bloom, and thinks it 
 very gracious when seen beneath the crown of his friend's 
 affection. He points out what is the loftiest beauty. 
 
 But Shakspeare may have had another motive for sing- 
 ing of the Earl's personal good looks. It is noticeable that
 
 lis SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the Poet's urgency oii the score of his friend's marriage 
 ceases witli the first seventeen sonnets. So that it is 
 reasonable to suppose Southampton had met and fallen in 
 love with ' the fair Mistress Vernon,' and that he being 
 desirous of marrying her, there was no further call for 
 Shakspeare's advice on the subject. This being so, the 
 sonnets in praise of the Earl would sooner or later be 
 written with a consciousness that they would come under 
 the eyes of Elizabeth Vernon, and the Poet's laudation be 
 likewise for her ears, his portrait of the Earl coloured for 
 her eyes ! ISTot for himself alone nor for the Earl merely 
 did he utter all the praise of his friend's beauty of person 
 and constancy in love, but for another interested and 
 loving listener. These sonnets I have supposed the Poet 
 to send with a sort of dedicatory strain in which he con- 
 gratidates himself on having so dear a friend. 
 
 DEDICATORY. 
 
 Let tliose who are in favour with their stars 
 Of public honour and proud titles boast. 
 Whilst I, whom Fortune of such triumph bars, 
 Unlooked-for joy in that I honour most : 
 Great Princes' favourites their fair leaves spread. 
 But as the marygold at the sun's eye ; 
 And in themselves their pride lies buried. 
 For at a frown they in their glory die : 
 The painful warrior famoused for worth^ 
 After a thousaiid victories once foiled, 
 Is from tlie book of honour ras^d forth, 
 And all the rest forfjot for which he toiled : 
 
 Then happy I, that love and am beloved 
 
 Where I may not remove, nor be removed. 
 
 (25.) 
 
 ^ The Quarto reads 'famoused for worth,' which only needs the rhyme 
 of ' forth ' to make out both sense and sound. Why ' worth ' should have 
 been changed for ' fight ' by Theobald, it is difficult to perceive. The Poet 
 never could have written 'famoused for fight.' Steevens says : 'the stanza 
 is not worth the labour that has been bestowed on it,' but as commentators
 
 THE EARL'S PORTRAIT. 110 
 
 A Woman's face, with Nature's own hand painted, 
 
 Hast thou the master-mistress of my passion ; 
 
 A Woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted 
 
 With shifting change, as is false women's fashion ; 
 
 An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, 
 
 Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; 
 
 A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, 
 
 \Miich steal Men's eyes and Women's souls amazeth : 
 
 And for a Woman wert thou first created. 
 
 Till Nature, as she wrouglit thee, fell a-doting. 
 
 And by addition me of thee defeated, 
 
 By adding one thing to my purpose nothing : 
 
 But since she marked thee out for women's pleasure, 
 Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treanxre. 
 
 (20.) 
 
 If there be nothing new, but that which is 
 
 Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled. 
 
 Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss 
 
 The second burthen of a former child I 
 
 0, that record could with a backward look. 
 
 Even of five hundred courses of the sun. 
 
 Show me your image in some antique book. 
 
 Since mind at first in character was done ! 
 
 That I might see what the old world could say 
 
 To this composed wonder of your frame ; 
 
 Whether we are mended, or where better they. 
 
 Or whether revolution be the same : 
 
 ! sure I am the wits of former days 
 
 To subjects worse have given admiring praise. 
 
 (59.) 
 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time 
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights. 
 And Beauty making beautiful old rhyme 
 In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights, 
 
 must make unnecessary alterations by way of improving Shakspeare, he tries 
 his hand at a transposition thus: — 
 
 * The painful warrior for worth fa mom^d^ 
 After a thousand victories once foiled, 
 la from the book of honour quite razbd.' 
 
 And he xmostentatiously remarks that the rhyme may be recovered in tJMt 
 
 way ' without further change.
 
 120 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Then in the blazon of sweet Beauty's best, 
 
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 
 
 I see their antique Pen would have expressed 
 
 Even such a beauty as you master now ! 
 
 So all their praises are but prophecies 
 
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 
 
 And, for they looked not with divining eyes, 
 
 They had not skill eaough your worth to sing : 
 
 For we, which now behold these present days. 
 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 
 
 (l06.) 
 
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? 
 
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate : 
 
 Eough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
 
 And Summer's lease hath all too short a date : 
 
 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines. 
 
 And often is his gold complexion dimmed ; 
 
 And every fair from fair sometime declines. 
 
 By chance, or Nature's changing course untriramed ; 
 
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 
 
 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ; 
 
 Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, 
 
 When in eternal lines to time thou growest : 
 
 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see. 
 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
 
 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye 
 And all my soul and all my every part ; 
 And for this sin there is no remedy, 
 It is so grounded inward in my heart : 
 Methinks no face so gracious is as mine. 
 No shape so true, no truth of such account ; 
 And for myself mine own worth do define. 
 As I all others in all worths surmount : 
 But when my glass shows me myself indeed, 
 Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity, 
 Mine own self-love quite contrary I read ; 
 Self so self-loving were iniquity : 
 
 'Tis thee — myself — that for myself I praise. 
 Painting my age with beauty of thy days. 
 
 (,8.) 
 
 (62.)
 
 THE TIIGTTEST BEAUTY. 
 
 My glass sluiU not persuade me I am old, 
 
 So long as youth and thou are of one date : 
 
 But when in thee Time's furrows I behold. 
 
 Then look I death my days should expiate : 
 
 For all that beauty that doth cover thee, 
 
 Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, 
 
 Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me; 
 
 How can I then be elder than thou art? 
 
 0, therefore, Love, be of thyself so wary, 
 
 As I, not for myself, but for thee will ; 
 
 Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary 
 
 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill : 
 
 Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain, 
 Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again. 
 
 (22.) 
 
 What is your substance ? whereof are you made, 
 
 That millions of strange shadows on you tend ? 
 
 Since every one hath, every one, one shade. 
 
 And you, but one, can every shadow lend ! 
 
 Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit 
 
 Is poorly imitated after you ; 
 
 On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, 
 
 And you in Grecian tires are painted new : 
 
 Speak of the spring and foison of the year : 
 
 The one doth shadow of your beauty show, 
 
 The other as your bounty doth appear, 
 
 And you in every blessed shape we know : 
 In all external grace you have some part. 
 But you like none, none you, for constant heart. 
 
 (53.) 
 
 how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, 
 
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! 
 
 The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
 
 For that sweet odour which doth in it live : 
 
 The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dye. 
 
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses. 
 
 Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly 
 
 When Summer's breath their masked buds discloses : 
 
 But for their virtue only is their show.
 
 122 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 They live unwooed, and unrespected fade ; 
 
 Die to themselves : Sweet Roses do not so ; 
 
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : 
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely Youth, 
 When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth. 
 
 (54.)
 
 123 
 
 PEKSONAL SONNETS, 
 
 1592-3. 
 
 SHAKSPEAEE TO THE EARL, PROMISING 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Shakspeare's two dominant ideas in the sonnets written 
 for the Earl of Southampton are, first, to get the Earl 
 married, and next to make him immortal. In these pre- 
 sent he has grown bolder in his tone, and apparently more 
 conscious of his power. It is quite likely that the Earl's 
 fight with fortune had begun when most of these were 
 written, and the Poet grows defiant of time and fate on 
 his friend's behalf. In the sonnet which I have placed as 
 Dedicatory to the group, the poet unwittingly tells us how 
 great was his own personal modesty. When he is with 
 the Earl he is unable to say how much he loves him ; 
 cannot do any justice in expression to his own feehngs, 
 and so he asks that his books, his writings, may speak for 
 him, silently eloquent.
 
 124 SIL\KSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 DEDICATORY. 
 
 As an imperfect Actor on the stage 
 WTio with his fear is put beside his part, 
 Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, 
 Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart ; 
 So I, for fear of trust, forget to say 
 The perfect ceremony of love's rite, 
 And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, 
 O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might : 
 0, let my books be then the eloquence ' 
 And dumb presagers of my speaking breast ; 
 Who plead for love and look for recompence. 
 More than that tongue that more hath more expressed : 
 ' learn to read what silent love hath writ ; 
 To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. 
 
 (23.) 
 
 Devouring Time, blunt thou the Lion's paws. 
 And make the Earth devour her own sweet brood ; 
 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce Tiger's jaws, 
 And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her blood ; 
 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, 
 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, 
 To the wide world, and all her fading sweets ; 
 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime : 
 0, carve not with thy hours my Love's fair brow. 
 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen ; 
 Him in thy course untainted do allow. 
 For Beauty's pattern to succeeding men ! 
 
 Yet, do thy worst, old Time ; despite thy wrong. 
 My Love shall in my verse live ever young. 
 
 (19.) 
 * • 0, let my hooks be then the eloquence.' 
 
 Steevens gives a decided preference to ' looks ' instead of hooks, because 
 * the eloquence of looks would be more in unison with Love's fine wit, and 
 much more poetical.' As if Shakspeare could have said that his looks 
 looked for recompence ! The right expression tends to show that the Poet 
 was here addressing the person to whom he did dedicate his hooks — i.e. the 
 Earl of Southampton.
 
 LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER TIME. 125 
 
 Like as the waves make towards tlie pebbled shore, 
 
 So do our minutes hasten to tlieir end, 
 
 Each changing place with that which goes before 
 
 In sequent toil all forwards do contend : 
 
 Nativity, once in the main of light, 
 
 Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, 
 
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst bis glory fight. 
 
 And Time that gave doth now his gift confound : 
 
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth. 
 
 And delves the parallels on Beaut3''s brow ; 
 
 Feeds on the rarities of Nature's truth, 
 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow : 
 
 And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand. 
 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 
 
 (CO.) 
 
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced 
 The rich, proud cost of outworn buried age : 
 When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed, 
 And brass eternal slave to mortal rage ; 
 When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
 Advantage on the kingdom of the shore. 
 And the firm soil win of the watery main, 
 Increasing store with loss, and loss with store ; 
 When I have seen such interchange of state, 
 Or state itself confounded to decay ; 
 Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, 
 That time will come, and take my Love away : 
 
 This thought is as a death, which cannot choose 
 But weep to have that wltich it fears to lose. 
 
 (6..) 
 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea. 
 But sad mortality o'ersways their power. 
 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? 
 0, how shall Summer's honey breath hold out 
 Against the wreckful siege of battering days. 
 When rocks impregnable are not so stout. 
 Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays ?
 
 126 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 fearful meditation ! where, alack ! 
 
 Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? 
 
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back ? 
 
 Or who his spoil of beaut)'^ can forbid ? 
 
 none, unless this miracle have might, 
 
 That in black ink my Love may still shine bright. 
 
 (65.) 
 
 Not marble, nor the gilded monmnents 
 Of Princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents 
 Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time : 
 When wasteful wars shall statues overturn. 
 And broils root out the work of masonry. 
 Nor Mars his sword nor War's quick fire shall burn 
 The living record of your memory ! 
 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity 
 Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room 
 Even in the eyes of all posterity, 
 That wear this world out to the ending doom : 
 So, till the judgment that yourself arise. 
 You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 
 
 (55.)
 
 127 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1592-3. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, CHIEFLY COXCERNINa 
 A RIVAL POET, ADJUDGED TO BE MARLOWE. 
 
 I HAVE grouped tliese sonnets as naturally as I can, 
 according to my interpretation of the Poet's feeling. I 
 do not say this series was written or sent exactly as it 
 now stands. These may not have been all composed at 
 the same time, but they are all on the same subject, and 
 my arrangement gives them a probable beginning, pro- 
 gress, and a fit conclusion ; the very thought, indeed, that 
 Shakspeare loved to dwell on, and wished his friend to 
 rest in ! He pleads here, in the last sonnet, as he sings 
 so often, for personal love. He did not care for admira- 
 tion as the writer of sonnets, and the Earl might read 
 others for their style if he would only look at his when 
 he was gone, ' for his love.' The subject is those other 
 poets and writers who have followed the example of 
 Shakspeare in celebrating the praise of the Earl his friend, 
 or in seeking to publish under the protection of his name. 
 It is not one poet only of whom the speaker is jealous, 
 but, he says he has so often called on the Eaid's name, 
 and received so much inspiration for his verse, that every 
 ' alien pen ' and outsider have followed suit, and sought to 
 set forth their poesy under his patronage. His eyes have
 
 128 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 not only tauglit the dumb to sing, but have made Igno- 
 rance to soar, and added feathers to the wing of learning ; 
 made majesty itself doubly majestic. 
 
 But he pleads : — ' Be most proud of what I write, be- 
 cause it is so purely your own. In the work of others 
 you only mend the style, but you are all my art, and you 
 set my rude ignorance as high as the art of the most 
 learned. Whilst I alone sang of you my verse had all 
 your grace, but now my Muse gives place to another, and 
 my numbers are decayed. I know well enough that 
 your virtue and kindness deserve the labour of a worthier 
 pen, the praise of a better Poet ; yet what can the best of 
 poets do ? He can only repay back to you that which he 
 borrows from you.' In sonnet 3 of this group the poet 
 smgles out his great rival amongst those who are singing 
 and dedicating to the Earl. ' I feel diffident,' he says, ' in 
 writing of you when I know that a far better Poet is 
 spending his strength in your praise, and singing at his 
 best to make me silent. But since you are so gracious, 
 there is room on the broad ocean of your worth for my 
 small bark as weU as for his of proud sail and lofty build. 
 And if he ride in safety whilst I am wrecked, the worst 
 is this, it was my love that made me venture and caused 
 my destruction.' He then questions himself as to the 
 cause of his recent silence, and he attributes it to the fact 
 of the Earl having ' filed up the lines ' of his rival's poetry! 
 Then comes another reason for his keeping quiet. His 
 Muse is mannerly, and holds her tongue whilst better 
 poets are singing. He thinks good thoughts whilst they 
 speak good words. He is like the unlettered clerk, who 
 by rote cries ' Amen ' to what his superior says. ' Eespect 
 others then,' he urges, ' for what words are worth, but me 
 for my dumb thoughts, too full for utterance! I cannot 
 lavish words easily, as those who do not feel what they 
 say, and who only write from the fancy, and can thus 
 cull the choicest flowers to deck their subject. As I am
 
 CAUSE OF rilS RECENT SILENCE. 129 
 
 true in love I can but write truthfully. Let them say 
 more in praise of you who are expecting to hear their 
 words reechoed in praise of themselves. I am not writing 
 with an eye to the sale of my sonnets. I never saw that 
 you needed flattery, and therefore did not think of 
 painting nature. I found that you exceeded the utmost 
 a poet could say. Therefore have I been silent, and you 
 have imputed this silence for my sin, which shall be most 
 my glory, because I have let beauty speak for itself; 
 there hves more life in one of your eyes alone than 
 both your poets could put into any number of their 
 verses. Who is it that says most? Which of us can 
 say more than that you are you, and that you stand 
 alone ? It is a poor pen that can lend nothing to its 
 subject ; but in writing of you, it will do well if it can 
 fairly copy wdiat is already writ in you by Nature's 
 own hand. The worst of it is, you are not satisfied with 
 the simple truth thus told, you are fond of being written 
 about, and this makes it hard for those who can only say 
 the same old thing of you over and over again. I admit 
 you were not married to my Muse, and that you have 
 perfect freedom to accept as many dedications as you 
 please. Your worth is beyond the reach of my words, 
 and so no doubt you are forced to seek for something 
 more novel. And do so, my dear friend ; yet when they 
 have painted your portrait in flaunting colours, I shall say 
 your truth was best mirrored in my unaffected truthful- 
 ness. Let them practise their gross painting where cheeks 
 are in need of blood. If you live after I am dead and gone, 
 and should once more happen to look over these poor 
 lines of mine, and compare them with the newer poetry 
 of the day, to find them far outstripped by later pens, 
 keep them for the w\arm love in them, not for their lite- 
 rary merit, and vouchsafe me l)ut tliis one loving thought, 
 ' Had my friend lived he would have brouoht me something 
 better than this ; something to compare with the best. 
 
 K
 
 130 . SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 But since he died, and we have better poets, I will read 
 their poetry for its style, and keep his for his love.' 
 
 So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, 
 
 And found such fair assistance in my verse, 
 
 As every alien pen hath got my use. 
 
 And under thee their poesy disperse ! 
 
 Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing. 
 
 And heavy Ignorance aloft to flee, 
 
 Have added feathers to the Learned's wing, 
 
 And given grace a double majesty: 
 
 Yet be most proud of that which I compile. 
 
 Whose influence is thine, and born of thee : 
 
 In others' works thou dost but mend the style. 
 
 And Arts with thy sweet graces graced be : 
 
 But thou art all my Art, and dost advance 
 As high as learning my rude ignorance. 
 
 (78.) 
 
 Whilst I alone did call npon thy aid, 
 
 My verse alone had all thy gentle grace ; 
 
 But now my gracious numbers are deca3^ed, 
 
 And my sick Muse doth give another place ! 
 
 I grant, sweet Love, thy lovely argument 
 
 Deserves the travail of a worthier pen ; 
 
 Yet what of thee thy Poet doth invent. 
 
 He robs thee of, and pays it thee again : 
 
 He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word 
 
 From thy behaviour ; beauty doth he give, 
 
 And foimd it in thy cheek ; he can afford 
 
 No praise to thee but what in thee doth live : 
 
 Then thank him not for that which he doth say, 
 Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. 
 
 (7<..) 
 
 0, how I faint when I of you do write. 
 Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, 
 And in the praise thereof spends all his might, 
 To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame ! 
 But since your worth — wide as the ocean is — 
 The humble as tlie proudest sail doth bear,
 
 TII8 GREAT RIVAL. ]:5l 
 
 My saucy Bark, inferior far to his. 
 Oil your broad main doth wilfully appear I 
 Your shallowest help will hold me up alloat, 
 Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride ; 
 Or, Leing wrecked, I am a worthless boat. 
 He of tall building, and of goodly pride : 
 Then if he thrive, and I be cast away. 
 The worst was this ; my love was my decay. 
 
 (80.) 
 
 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse. 
 Bound for tlie prize of all-too-precious you. 
 That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, 
 Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ? 
 Was it his spirit by Spirits taught to write 
 Above a mortal pitch that struck me dead ? 
 No, neither he, nor his compeers by night 
 Giving him aid, my verse astonished ! 
 l-[e, nor that affable-familiar Ghost 
 Which nightly gulls him with intelligence. 
 As victors of my silence cannot boast; 
 I was not sick of any fear from thence : 
 
 But when your countenance filed up his line. 
 Then lacked I matter : tltat enfeebled mine ! 
 
 (86.) 
 
 INIy tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still. 
 While comments of your praise, richly compiled. 
 Reserve their character with golden quill. 
 And precious phrase by all the Muses filed ! 
 I think good thoughts, while others write good words. 
 And, like unlettered clerk, still cry ' Amen ' 
 To every line ' that able spirit affords 
 In polished form of well-refined pen : 
 Hearing you praised, I say, ' His so, His true,'' 
 And to the most of praise add something more ; 
 But that is in my thought, whose love to you, 
 Tho' words come hindmost, holds his rank before : 
 
 ^ ' Every line.' The Quarto reads 'every hiiiine,' but Shali.-ponre know 
 that the most unlettered clerk would not cry 'Amen ' after tlio hymn. Al.^o, 
 * lino ' is more consonant with the march of the ver.'=e and the emphatiis on 
 ' every ' ; therefore I venture to think that ' himne ' was a nii.^print. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Then others for the breath of words respect. 
 Me for ray dumb thoughts speaking in effect. 
 
 (85.) 
 
 So is it not with me as with that INIuse 
 
 Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse ; 
 
 Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, 
 
 And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; 
 
 INIaking a conplement of proud compare 
 
 With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, 
 
 With April's firstborn flowers, and all things rare. 
 
 That Heaven's air in this huge rondure hems : 
 
 0, let me, true in love, but truly write, 
 
 And then believe me, my Love is as fair 
 
 As any mother's child, tho' not so bright 
 
 As those gold candles fix'd in Heaven's air : 
 
 Let them say more that like of hear-say well, 
 I will not praise that purpose not to sell. 
 
 (21.) 
 I never saw that you did painting need. 
 And therefore to your fair no painting set ! 
 I found, or thought I found, you did exceed 
 The barren tender of a Poet's debt ! 
 And therefore have I slept in your report. 
 That you yourself, being extant, well might show 
 How far a modern quill doth come too sliort, 
 Speaking of worth, what^ worth in you doth grow : 
 This silence for my sin you did impute, 
 Which shall be most my glory, being dumb : 
 For I impair not beauty being mute, 
 When others would give life and bring a tomb: 
 There lives more life in one of your fair eyes 
 Than both your Poets can in praise devise. 
 
 (83.) 
 
 Who is it that says most ? which can say more 
 Than this rich praise — that you alone are you? 
 In whose confine immured is the store 
 Which should example where your equal grew ! 
 
 ^ ' Tfltrd worth,' meaning- 7v7wh worth. I should liave tlioiiglit the word 
 ' what ' might have been a misprint for ' which,' but was checl^cd iu changing 
 it by the sound of the first word in the next line but one.
 
 OTHER COMPETITORS. 133 
 
 Lean penury within that Peu d»jtL dwell, 
 
 That to his subject lends not some small glory ; 
 
 But he that writes of you, if he can tell 
 
 That you are you, so dignifies his story ; 
 
 Let him but copy what in you is writ. 
 
 Not making worse what Nature made so clear. 
 
 And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, 
 
 Making his style admired everywhere ! 
 
 You to your beauteous blessings add a curse. 
 
 Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. 
 
 (84.) 
 
 I grant thou wert not married to ray Muse, 
 
 And therefore may'st without attaint o'erlook 
 
 The dedicated words which writers use 
 
 Of their fair subject, blessing every Book : 
 
 Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue. 
 
 Finding thy worth a limit past my praise, 
 
 And therefore art enforced to seek anew 
 
 Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days ! 
 
 And do so, Love I yet when they have devised 
 
 What strained touches rhetoric can lend. 
 
 Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathised 
 
 In true-plain words, by thy true-telling friend ; 
 And their gross painting might be better used 
 Where cheeks need blood ; in thee it is abused. 
 
 (82.) 
 
 If thou survive my well-contented day, 
 
 When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, 
 
 And shalt by fortune once more re-survey 
 
 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, 
 
 Compare them with the bettering of the time ; 
 
 And tho' they be outstripped by every pen. 
 
 Reserve • them for my love, not for their rhyme. 
 
 Exceeded by the height of happier men : 
 
 0, then vouchsafe me but this loving thouglit ! 
 
 Had iny frieiiiVs Muse grown icitk this growing age, 
 
 * 'Reserve,' i.e. 'preserve.'
 
 134 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought, 
 
 To march in ranks of better equipage: 
 
 But since he died, and Poets better prove. 
 Theirs for their style Pll read ; Ids for his love. 
 
 (32.) 
 
 To get at the life witliin life of these sonnets we must 
 look a little closer into this group, with a full belief that 
 when our ])oet used particular words he freighted tliem 
 with a particular meaning ; definiteness of purpose and 
 trutli of detail being the first recommendation and the 
 last perfection of these sonnets. The pen with which he 
 wrote for his patron was as pointed as that with which he 
 wrote for his Theatre. 
 
 In the first sonnet of this group Shakspeare is passing 
 in review those writers who are under the patronage of 
 the Earl, and he specifies two or three of these by person- 
 ifying ceitain of their well-known qualities ; he is telling 
 the Earl what his influence has wrought in divers ways : — 
 
 ' Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing. 
 And heavy Ignorance aloft to flee, 
 Have added feathers to the Learned's wing, 
 And given grace a double majesty.' 
 
 Now, I think it possible to identify who these four 
 personifications represent. 
 
 In the first line Shakspeare speaks of himself as having 
 been dumb until the Earl turned his eyes — which are the 
 light of the countenance — on him to make him break 
 silence and soar and sing, by his encouragement of the 
 poet to appear in public, and dedicate his first poem to 
 his Patron. And the Earl not only did this, but he has 
 made ' Heavy Ignorance ' take wings and fly aloft. This 
 ' Heavy Ignorance ' on whom the Earl has worked nothing 
 short of a miracle in lifting him from his native position 
 as a plodder on the earth I surmise to be Florio, the trans- 
 lator of Montaigne's Essays. ' Eesolute John Elorio ! ' as
 
 FLORIO V. .SIIAK.Sl'EAIiK 1:35 
 
 lie signed liis name ; Thrasonical Julm Floiio, as he was 
 by nature. Florio dedicated works to tlie Earl of Soutli- 
 ampton, and was, on his own showing, greatly indebted 
 to the Earl. In 1598 he inscribed his ' World of Words ' 
 to that brave and bounteous peer, with this frank con- 
 fession of the suj)port he had received : — ' In truth I 
 acknowledge an entire debt, not only of my best know- 
 ledge, but of all ; yea, of more than I kno\\" or can, to 
 your bounteous Lordsliip. in whose pay and patronage I 
 liave lived some years, to whom I owe and vowe the years 
 I liave to hve. But, as to me and many more, the glorious 
 and gracious sunshine of your Honour hath infused light 
 and life.' 
 
 Warburton conjectured that there was a literary set-to 
 betwixt Florio and Shakspeare. Farmer also took this 
 view : he tells us that Florio gave the first affront by 
 saying, in his work entitled ' Second Fruits,' published in 
 1591, 'The plays tliat tliey play in England are neither 
 right comedies nor right tragedies, but representations of 
 Histories without decorum.' Shakspeare's Chronicle Plays 
 correspond perfectly to these 'representations of Histories ; ' 
 they were amongst the first in the field, and altogether the 
 most successful ; and it is supposed, with great probability, 
 that these are the works aimed at. The Poet took note 
 of this gird, as is surmised, and quietly waited his oppor- 
 tunity. In composing ' Love's Labour's Lost,' a year or 
 two afterwards, he copied his character of Holofernes 
 from the lav-figure of John Florio. Here the author of 
 the ' World of Words,' a small dictionary of the Italian 
 and English tongues, is represented as the pedant who 
 had ' lived long on the alms-basket of words^' and the 
 ' teacher of Italian,' which Florio was, and collector of 
 proverbs and choice sayings, has been at a great feast 
 of languages and stolen the scraps.' Warburton imagines 
 tliat Florio gives the retort, not courteous, to Shakspeare's 
 having made fun of him, l)y getting furious in a passage
 
 13G SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 of his prefoce to the new edition of his ' World of Words,' 
 ] 598, in Avhich he says : — ' There is another sort of leering 
 curs that rather snarle than bite, whereof I could instance 
 in one who, lighting on a good sonnet of a gentleman's, 
 a friend of mine, that loved better to be a Poet than to be 
 counted so, called the Author a Ehymer. Let Aristophanes 
 and his comedians make plais, and scowre their mouths 
 on Socrates, those very mouths they make to vilifie shall 
 be the means to amplifie his virtue.' Warburton main- 
 tained, as is quite warranted by the tone of the defence, 
 that the sonnet was Florio's own. He further says, that 
 Shakspeare paraded it in the ' extemporal epitaph on the 
 Death of the Deer,' which begins : — 
 
 * The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing 
 pricket.' Love's Lahour^s Lost, act iv. sc. 2. 
 
 This conjecture is not merely ingenious, but it is of ex- 
 ceeding likehhood, and my reading of sonnet 78 may throw 
 some light on the subject, from a far different point of 
 view. If Shakspeare in pubhc spoke slightingly of the 
 Pdiymer, we see him in this sonnet privately laughing in 
 his sleeve at ' heavy Ignorance ' tr}ang to take wings. I 
 have not the least doubt that the sonnet was Florio's, nor 
 that it was addressed to the Earl of Southampton, in 
 whose pay and patronage he had then (1598) lived some 
 years. It would be the Earl who told Elorio that Shak- 
 speare did not think much of his poetry, which nettled 
 him wrathfuUy, much to the amusement of the two friends. 
 We have, in Florio, almost on his own confession — al- 
 though he tries a little to disguise himself — a most fitting 
 candidate for identification as the ' heavy Ignorance,' 
 Avhich the Earl had taught to soar aloft. And if he did 
 aspire to mount on the wings of rhyme in aj^proaching 
 his patron, there is no other competitor amongst those 
 who dedicated to the Earl that comes near him in per-
 
 TOM XASII. 137 
 
 sonal ai)propriuteness. It is curious to think, in connec- 
 tion \vitJi this subject, that Shakspeare's own copy of 
 Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays — now in the 
 British Museum — sliould be the sole book in all the 
 world known to have been in our Poet's possession, and 
 the only one which has preserved his autograph for us.^ 
 
 Having spoken of himself and heavy Florio, Shakspeare 
 comes to another pen which made him use the epithet of 
 * Alien.' The Earl has not only made the dumb to sing 
 and Ignorance to fly, in spite of its weight, but he has 
 ' added feathers to the Learned's Aving.' I repeat, the Poet 
 is enumerating some who have written under the Earl's 
 patronage, and this he does by personifying their chief 
 characteristics. And here we have a sly hit at Master 
 Tom Nash. He wielded an ' alien ' pen with the spirit of 
 an Ishmaelite. His hand was against every man, in- 
 cluding Shakspeare. He it was who set up so conspicu- 
 ously for ' Learning ; ' he was one of the learned sort ; and 
 he was hitting continually at tliose who had not received a 
 scholastic nurture, from which, however, he himself had 
 been weaned before his time. In his ' Pierce Penilesse ' 
 p. 42, he exclaims, ' Alas, poor Latinless Authors ! ' In his 
 epistle to the ' Astrophel and Stella ' of Sidney, he says, 
 speaking of the works of Sextus Empedocles, ' they have 
 been lately translated mto English for the benejit of un- 
 learned icriters ' (not readers). The Nash and Greene 
 clique had been the first to attack Shakspeare on the score 
 of his little country grammar ; his education at a country 
 grammar-school ; and charged him "svith plucldng the 
 
 1 Florio dedicated his first work to the Earl of Leicester in 1578, aa 
 the * maidenhead of his industry.' The man who did that might well 
 think the ^posteriors of the day^ for what the vulgar call the afternoon was 
 * coiKjriient and measurable ; a 7Vord xrell-cuUed. choice, sweet, and apt : picked, 
 spruce, and peref/rinate.'' In lOll he -^Nnthdrew his dedication to Suutliaiup- 
 ton, and inscribed his * World of Words ' to the ' Imperial Majesty of the 
 highest-born Princess Anna of Denmark, crowned Queen of England, Scot- 
 land, France, and Ireland.'
 
 138 SHAIvSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 feathers from the wing of Learning for the purpose of 
 beautifying himself — the upstart Crow ! And Nash is here 
 personified in his own chosen image. The Poet makes au 
 alhision which the Earl and his friends would appreciate, 
 and he ccvertly returns the borrowed plumes. He says, in 
 effect, that the Earl has, in patronising Nash, returned 
 those feathers to the wing of Learning, which he, Sliak- 
 speare, had been publicly charged with purloining. In a 
 second allusion he says the Earl's favour has set the rude 
 ' ignorance ' at which his rivals laughed as high as the 
 learning of which they boasted. 
 
 In ' Pierce Penilesse, his supplication to the Devil,' we 
 shall find that towards the end of 1592, Nash had not 
 only found a Patron to praise, but had been in some per- 
 sonal companionship with ' my Lord ' — had been staying 
 with him in the country for 'fear of infection.' This 
 was at Croydon, where his play of ' Will Summers' last 
 Will and Testament ' was privately produced in the 
 autumn of 1592, to all appearance, under the patronage 
 of Southampton. The good luck has somewhat soft- 
 ened his ' Alien pen ' of the earlier pages of that work, 
 Avhich is bitter in its abuse of patrons. At page 42, 
 Nash writes, ' If any Mecasnas bind me to him by his 
 bounty, or extend some round liberality to me worth 
 the speaking of, I will do him as much honour as 
 any poet of my beardless years shall in England.' He 
 made his supplication to the Devil because he had not 
 then found his Patron Saint. At page 90, he has found 
 his man. He calls him ' one of the bright stars of 
 nobility, and glistering attendants on the true Diana.' He 
 is also ' the matchless image of honour, and magnificent 
 rewarder of virtue ; Jove's eagle-born Ganymede ; thrice 
 noble Amyntas ; most courteous Amyntas ! ' Todd sup- 
 poses that Ferdinando, Earl of Derby, was meant ; because 
 Spenser, in his ' Collin Clout's come home again,' calls liim 
 by the common pastoral name of 'Amyntas.' But there
 
 SOUTIIAMrTON'S TATRONAGE OF NASH, 130 
 
 is notliin'f known to connect Nash with this Eiirl, as there 
 is with Shakspeare's patron and friend. The description 
 fits no one so perfectly as it does the young Earl of South- 
 ampton. It sets before us the very image of youth 
 which Shakspeare calls more lovely than Adonis ; Gany- 
 mede having been the most beautiful of mortal youths,^ 
 Jove's boy-beloved ; the Court's ' fresh ornament ' of 
 Shakspeare's first sonnet is here one of the ' glistering at- 
 tendants on the true Diana.' The ' matchless image of 
 Honour ' corresponds exactly to Southampton, tlu^ ana- 
 gram made out of whose name was the ' Stamp of B[onom\' 
 Also, he is supposed not to have been heard of as yet out 
 of the echo of the Court. We know that Nash was under 
 the patronage of Shakspeare's friend. In the year 1594, 
 he dedicated his ' Life of Jack Wilton ' to the Earl of 
 Southampton, with a reference to the difference betwixt 
 it and earlier w^ritings, and this work, though not pub- 
 lished until 1594, was dated 1593. So that I cim have no 
 doubt of ' Pierce Penilesse ' being really inscribed to the 
 Earl of Southampton in person if not by name, or that 
 Nash's was the ' Alien pen ' that had followed Shakspeare 
 in writing privately to the Earl. What other ' poesy ' 
 Nash may have sought to 'disperse' under the Earl's pa- 
 tronage I know not. He must have written much that 
 lias not come down to us. He informs us, in his ' Pierce 
 Penilesse,' that his Muse was despised and neglected, his 
 pains not regarded, or but shghtly rewarded. Meres 
 places him with the poets of the time, as one of the best 
 for comedy. Harvey calls him a Poet, and Drayton ac- 
 cords him a leaf of the Laurel. But I hold that the son- 
 net at the end of ' Pierce Penilesse ' is addressed to the 
 Eaii of Southampton,'- and that this method of passing 
 
 1 Here, then, is one answer to Boaden's assertion that the Earl of South- 
 ampton coukl not have been the youthful noble who was beloved by Sliak- 
 ypoave — because he was not snjpcivitfly lta)i(Uome ! 
 
 '^ * Pursuing yesternight, with idle eyes, 
 
 The Fairy Singer's stately-tunjd verse,
 
 140 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 off his poetry gives tlie aptness to Shakspeare's use of the 
 word ' disperse.' It may be the ' dedicated words that 
 writers use,' likewise contains a hit at Nash's eulogistic 
 hyperbole. The ' Life of Jack Wilton ' was inscribed with 
 a most high-flown dedication to the Earl, whom he called 
 ' a dear lover and cherisher, as well of the lovers of poets 
 as of poets themselves ; ' and he adds, ' Incomprehensible is 
 the height of your spirit, both in heroical resolution and 
 matters of conceit. Unrepriveably perished that book, what- 
 soever to waste paper, which on the diamond rock of your 
 judgment disastrously chanceth to be shipwrecked.' 
 
 The fourth of this group I hold to be Marlowe. The 
 Earl has 'given grace a double majesty.' His 'eyes' 
 have made the dumb to sing, heavy Ignorance to mount, 
 added feathers to the wing of ' Learning ' itself, and given 
 to grace a double majesty. It is a somewhat singular ex- 
 pression. The ' double majesty ' is very weighty to apply 
 to such a word as ' grace ! ' It would not be used without 
 an intended stress. A poet is here praised for the grace 
 of his manner and majesty of his music. The chief cha- 
 racteristic of his poetry is that it is majestic. The 
 very quality of aU others that we, following the Ehza- 
 bethans, associate with the march of Marlowe's ' mighty 
 line ! ' But the patron, Shakspeare says, has exalted 
 
 And viewing', after chapmen's wonted guise, 
 "VVbat strange contents the title did rehearse ; 
 1 straight leapt over to the latter end, 
 Where, like the quaint comedians of our time 
 That when their play is done do fall to rhyme, 
 I found short lines to sundry Nobles penned, 
 Whom he as special mirrors singled forth 
 To be the patrons of his poetry. 
 I read them all, and reverenced their worth, 
 Yet wondered he left out thy memoiy ! 
 But therefore guessed I he suppressed thy name, 
 Because few words might not comprise thy fame.' 
 
 A delightful confession and an interesting picture of Nash on the look-out for 
 some one to flatter, and huiTying eagerly over the list of Spenser's patrons !
 
 MARLOWE, THE Iii\ AL POET. 141 
 
 the poet, and made his poetry douhly mnjestic, or twice 
 Aviiat it was before. If Marlowe be the rival poet of 
 these sonnets — one of the two spoken of by Shakspeare 
 as 'botli your poets '— it follows that he is the poet of 
 these four lines, the sense of which I should read thus : — . 
 
 * Thine eyes that taught the dumb {myself ) on high to sing, 
 And heavy Ignorance {Flor'w) aloft to flee, 
 Have added feathers to the Learned's {Xaslcs) wing, 
 And given INIarlowe double majesty.' 
 
 It will be seen that the first two are of the past, the Earl 
 has at the present moment patronised the latter two ; 
 these are new writers for him. These facts will sum up 
 the time, standpoint, and motive of these sonnets. Time, 
 just after the publication of 'Pierce Penilesse,' in 1592, 
 and before Marlowe's death in 1593. Motive, jealousy 
 because the ' aliens ' in feeling had invaded the sanctuary 
 of his friendship. But there is one amongst those whom 
 the Earl patronises that Shakspeare acknowledges to be 
 a great poet, a better poet than himself, an able spirit, 
 whose simrino; has sufficed to silence our Poet, or rather, 
 the marked interest which the patron has taken in his 
 poetry has touched him to the quick. 
 
 Boaden, with his jaunt}'- presumption and high-handed 
 way, assures us that the ' better spirit ' and great rival 
 poet here spoken of was poor Samuel Daniel ; because he 
 was brought up at AVilton House, and inscribed his ' De- 
 fence of lihyme ' to William Herbert, in 1 003, and because^ 
 in the 82nd sonnet, Shakspeare ' hints at the actual groimd 
 of his jealousy.' But if tliese sonnets should be those 
 which Meres mentioned in 1598, Shakspeare could not 
 have been disturbed by Daniel's ' dedicated words ' in 
 1G03. Besides which, the 'Defence of Ehyme' was a 
 prose work, and the dedication of a prose work cannot, in 
 this rival's case, be the actual ground of jealousy. It is 
 the proud full sail of his great verse bound for tlie prize 
 of liis i^atron, and the fact tliat the patron has touched up
 
 142 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 tlie rival's lines with his silver file, which stuck in Shak- 
 speare's throat, and kept him silent. Again, Steevens had 
 remarked that perhaps sonnet 86 might refer to the cele- 
 brated Dr. Dee's pretended intercourse with an angel, 
 and other familiar spirits, and Boaden says : — ' There can 
 be no doubt about it, the fact is upon record. Queen 
 Elizabeth and the Pembroke family were Dr. Dee's chief 
 patrons ; whose exalted minds were not exempt from the 
 mania of the times, which the sounder philosophy of 
 Shakspeare led him to denounce.' But there is every 
 doubt about it. It is utterly and absolutely opposed to 
 the spirit of Shakspeare, as revealed in the personal son- 
 nets, that he should sneer at his patron, or denounce his 
 practices, even if he had been a believer in Dr. Dee ; and, 
 secondly, it is the poet whose tastes are wizardly, and 
 whose w^ork ranges above a mortal pitch, by aid of the 
 spirits that visit him nightly. Nothing is said of the 
 patron in the matter ; nothing implied. Also, it is a sup- 
 position perfectly improbable that Shakspeare should have 
 pomted out the ' proud full sail ' of Daniel's (of all others) 
 ' great verse,' or characterise it as written ' above a mortal 
 pitch,' except ironically, which cannot be, or else the 
 ' all-too-precious you ' would lie open to suspicion likewise. 
 The whole sonnet is seriously in earnest. Boaden does 
 not take it to be sarcastic ; he has no doubt that Shak- 
 speare actually vailed his bonnet, not only to Spenser, but 
 to Daniel and Chapman, to Harington and Fairfax ! 
 Lastly, to all appearance, Daniel did not seek to ' dis- 
 perse ' his ' poesy ' imder the Earl of Pembroke's patro- 
 nage, if he inscribed a prose work to tliat nobleman ; or, 
 if he did seek, the young Earl must have grown shy of 
 ]iim ; possibly because Daniel had been brought up in the 
 family. 
 
 In a letter of this poet's, addressed to the Earl of 
 Devonshire (1G04), he is sorry for having offended his 
 patron Ijy pleading before the Council, wlien called in
 
 CIIAl.'.vnTElUSTirS OF MAliLOWi:. U.i 
 
 question for the Trngedy of rhilotas, tliut lie liad read 
 })iirt of it to the Earl (of Devonshire), and says he has 
 no other friend in power to help him I If this had been 
 the great poet of whom Shakspeare and Wilham Herl^ert 
 are supposed to have thouglit so higlily, and whose rela- 
 tion had been so intimate, how then should poor 
 Daniel have had no other friend in power to help him, 
 Avhen the friendship of Herbert had been sufficiently great 
 to make Shakspeare jealous? Nothing, save the blindest 
 belief in the Herbert hypothesis, which of necessity shifts 
 the date at which most of the sonnets were written, could 
 possibly obscure so plain a fact as that this group of 
 sonnets must have been composed by Shakspeare's ' pupil 
 pen ' before he had taken his place amongst the poets of 
 liis time, and that Marlowe is the rival poet of these 
 lines. 
 
 That ]\Iarlowe is the other poet of sonnets 80 and 8G 
 is shown by the most circumstantial evidence in every 
 hne and touch of our poet's description. Marlowe was 
 a dramatic celebrity before Shakspeare ; he had about 
 him something of that glow of Giorgione's dawn, the pro- 
 mise of which was only fulfilled in the perfect day of 
 Titian ; and there can be no doubt that Shakspeare 
 looked up to him, and was somewhat led captive by 
 his lofty stj'le. He would in those younger years fully 
 appreciate the delicious bodily beauty of many of I\Iar- 
 lowe's lines, hke those in which Faustus describes his 
 visionary Helen. He has, in ' As you hke it,' a kindly 
 thought for the dead poet, and quotes a line from IMar- 
 lowe's unfinished poem, ' Hero and Leander,' with which 
 he may have been acquainted in MSS., because it was 
 composed for the Earl of Southampton. He would be 
 the first to give him all praise for having, in his use of 
 blank verse, struck out a new spring of the national 
 Helicon with the impatient pawing-hoof of his fiery war- 
 horse of a Pegasus; but for which Shakspeare himself
 
 144 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 miglit possibly liave remained more of a rhymer, and not 
 attained his full dramatic stature. Nothincj could better 
 give us our poet''s view of himself and the rival, than the 
 image drawn from Drake and the Spanish Dons ; after- 
 wards used by Fuller in his description of Shakspeare and 
 Ben Jonson. Marlowe is here represented as the great 
 portly Spanish galleon, of tall build and full sail, and 
 goodly pride, and Shakspeare is the small trim bark — the 
 ' saucy bark ' that can float with the ' shallowest help ; ' 
 venture daringly on the broad ocean, and skip lightly round 
 the vast bulk of his rival. The comparison is full of our 
 poet's modesty and lurking humour. He considers his 
 rival as far superior to himself, and speaks of him as 
 the ' better spirit,' or the greater poet of assured fame. 
 Shakspeare, it appears, has been silent for some time, and 
 the Earl has reproached him for it. 'Meanwhile, others 
 have been singing and dedicating to the patron ; and this 
 ' better spirit ' has been spending all his might 'with the 
 intention of praising or honouring the patron in whose 
 name he is ^vriting. He has not only flourished in the 
 Earl's favoiir, but the Earl himself has lent his hand to 
 polish up, or give the finishing touch to, something of the 
 rival poet's. 
 
 Shakspeare asks : — 
 
 ' Was it the proud fall sail of Ids great verse, 
 Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you. 
 That did ray ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse ? 
 Was it his spirit, by Spirits taught to write 
 Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ? 
 No : neitlier he, nor his compeers by night 
 Giving him aid, my verse astonished, — 
 He, nor that affable -familiar Ghost 
 WJiich nightly gulls him with intelligence. 
 As victors of my silence cannot boast ; 
 I was not sick of any fear from thence ! 
 But when your countenance filed up his line, 
 Then lacked I matter ; that enfeebled mine.'
 
 MEPIIISTOnilLES THE 'AFFABLE FAMILIAR' SPIRIT. 14o 
 
 If we believe that Shakspeare liad any power of com- 
 pelling spirits to appear dramatically — any mastery of 
 stroke in rendering human likeness — any exact and cun- 
 ning use of epithet — how can we doubt that the name to 
 be written under that portrait is Christopher Marlowe ? 
 Or, that his is the poetry whose extravagant tone Shak- 
 speare accounted ' above a mortal pitch ? ' 
 
 Those lines give us the very viva effigies, not only of 
 the Poet (' he of tall building and of goodly pride ' — 
 sonnet 80), but of the man whose reputation was so 
 marked, the author who had eaten of the forbidden fruit 
 of knowledge, the poetry characterised in the precise lan- 
 guage used by the poets of that time. It is a triple 
 account, that only unites in one man, and that man is 
 Marlowe — far and away beyond all possible competition. 
 In his lust after power, and with his unhallowed glow 
 of imagination, Marlowe became a student of the Black 
 Arts, and a practiser of necromancy — he was reputed to 
 have dealings with the Devil. No doubt his Dr. Faustus 
 gave a darker colour to such report, and. in the eyes of 
 many as well as in their conversation, the man and his 
 creation became one. They would commonly call him 
 'Faustus,' just as they called him ' Tambuiiaine.' And 
 this is exactly how Shakspeare lias treated the subject. In 
 his dramatic way, he has identified Marlowe with Faustus, 
 and he presents him upon the stage where, in vision, if 
 it be not an actual fact, the Play is running at the rival 
 Theatre, whilst the Poet is composing his sonnet. The 
 conditions on which Faustus sells his soul are, that Mephis- 
 tophiles shall be his familiar spirit, who shall do all his 
 behests, execute all his commands, bring all that he re- 
 quires, be in his house or chamber invisible until wanted, 
 and then he is to appear in whatsoever shape Faustus 
 pleases. And Mephistophiles promises to be the slave of 
 Faustus, and give him more than he has wit to ask. A 
 YCYj plausible familiar ghost or attendant spirit ! Tluis our 
 
 L
 
 146 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Poet sees tlie Doctor, or Mariowe, and his familiar ' gulling 
 him nightly ' with his promises, and such pleasant intelli- 
 gence as that in Hell is all manner of deliyht! And the 
 drama is once more played, so to speak, in the sonnet. 
 We have Marlowe identified as the poet who talked of 
 deriving help from spirits, by spirits taught to write above 
 a mortal pitch — the poet of ' Faustus,' with his ' aflable 
 famihar gliost ' and ' execrable art ' — Mephistophiles, his 
 visitant that gulled him nightly — and the poet of tliat 
 ' proud full sail ' or resounding march of his great verse, 
 which is here rendered according to the tenor of all con- 
 temporary description, and identified by the characteristic 
 that is uppermost in the minds of all who are acquainted 
 with the King Cambyses vein of Marlowe. 
 
 It may be objected that, although we can identify 
 Florio, Nash, and others, as having dedicated to the Earl 
 of Southampton, there is no external evidence to prove 
 that Marlowe ever did. It may be that his early death 
 caused much to be hidden from our sight that was known 
 to Shakspeare when he wrote these sonnets. Marlowe 
 may have Englished the Elegies of Ovid for the Earl at 
 his own particular request, and died before they were 
 printed. He may also have written the love-song ' Come 
 live with me,' for Southampton, and that be the very 
 reason why Shakspeare wrote the answer to it — for he 
 most assuredly did write the answer containing the line 
 ' In reason ripe, in folly rotton,' in spite of the daring of 
 those adventurers in search of Ealeigh's poetry, who are 
 as bold as was that ' Shepherd of the ocean ' himself in 
 gathering up treasure of another kind. Further, the de- 
 scription of this poet in his relationship to the patron does 
 not so much dwell on what he has done for the Earl as 
 what he is at present doing. He is at work in the Earl's 
 name when the poet writes sonnet 80, and Shakspeare is 
 aware that the rival is then spending all his might domg 
 his utmost to honour the Earl and make our Poet ' tongue-
 
 MART.OWK'S 'TTErtO AND LEAXDER.' 147 
 
 tied ' in speaking of liis pntron's fame. lie alludes chiefly 
 to work in progress, not to work done. There is rivalry 
 in a race then being run, and Shakspeare says if the rival 
 should be victor over him he will know and be able to 
 say:— 
 
 The worst was this, my love was my decay. 
 
 In sonnet 86, likewise, thePoet speaks of the rival bark as 
 being ' bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,' not as 
 having touched the shore, or reached haven. In both these 
 sonnets the rival poet is working for the Earl, and there 
 is nothing improbable in supposing that Marlowe's ' Hero 
 and Leander ' was intended to be dedicated to Southamp- 
 ton ; that he was Avriting it when death cut short the poet's 
 Hfe, and the poem was left unfinished, and that Shakspeare 
 was acquainted with the fragment in MS. and so quoted 
 from it the line ' who ever loved that loved not at first 
 sight,' with an acknowledgement to the ' Dead Shepherd ' 
 in ' As you Like it.' 
 
 There are further reasons why Marlowe should be this 
 rival poet. 
 
 Shakspeare tells the Earl that his silence was not owhig 
 to the fact of the rival's being reputed to write by the help 
 of spirits and ' metaphysical aid,' nor that he was the 
 great Dramatist, and author of ' Faustus,' nor yet that he 
 knew the ' proud full sail ' of the rival's ' great verse ' was 
 bound for the Earl as his intended prize ; it was none of 
 these things that did his ' ripe thoughts ' in his ' brain 
 inhearse,' or cause them to be still-born. 
 
 This seeking of a ' fresher stamp of the time-bettering 
 days ' — this accepted ' travail of a worthier pen ; ' these 
 lofty passionate braggart words of dedication ; the 'strained 
 touches ' and the ' gross painting ' make the true love of 
 Shakspeare's heart feel a little hurt ; but these things have 
 not stirred his jealousy. There is a deeper cause for that. 
 The Earl's countenance has ' filed up ' the rival's poetry ;
 
 148 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 wliicli must mean more than that he has received it and 
 smiled graciously upon it. He says exphcitly that it was 
 not the rival's being bound for the Earl, nor the dedication, 
 intended or accepted, that made him fearful ; but when 
 the Earl undertook to ' file up ' his rival's line, that was 
 indeed a different matter. 
 
 This it was, Shakspeare confesses, that probed his in- 
 firmity — made him feel jealous, and keep silence. That 
 there is a touch of jealousy and a good deal of rivalry in 
 these sonnets relating to the ' other poet,' is apparent and 
 must be admitted. And in this aspect there is no poet 
 who could make such an appeal so justly to Shakspeare's 
 feehngs as Marlowe. Marlowe was the rival poet at the 
 opposition theatre. He was then the Shakspeare of the 
 English drama, in the full flush and high tide of his brief 
 and brilliant success. ' Tamburlaine the Great,' ' Faustus,* 
 the 'Jew of Malta,' ' Edward H.,' had come crowding on 
 the stage one after the other, with Alleyn playing his best 
 in the principal characters. Heywood, writing forty years 
 afterwards, celebrates Marlowe as the best of poets, and 
 Alleyn as the best of players. Shakspeare was far more 
 likely to be jealous for his Theatre than for himself, and, 
 if the Earl had looked over one of his rival's works and 
 suggested amendments, this would touch the player as 
 well as the natural man in Shakspeare, and cause him to 
 keep that silence which has been imputed to him as his sin, 
 and to show this feeling of jealousy when he next ad- 
 dressed the Earl. My conclusion respecting these three 
 personifications is, that Florio's is possible, Nash's pro- 
 Ijaljle, Marlowe's certain. Florio's is a guess ; Nash's an 
 inference ; Marlowe's a demonstration. 
 
 In this group of sonnets we may learn one or two things 
 by word of mouth, so to say, from Shakspeare himself, 
 which readers will do wisely to remember. There can 
 be no doubt that the Poet is here speaking personally of 
 his own feelings, and of his own writings. His whole ar-
 
 THE POET'S PLEA FOR TRUTH TO XATUP.E. 149 
 
 gumcnt is for truth to nature. And he most emphatically 
 rebukes those who liave assumed tiiat lie perpetrated all 
 kinds of sonneteerinsjf nonsense, and exceeded all others 
 in his fantastic exaggeration ; that he transcended all the 
 amorous wooers of the Ideal, and lavished his love in 
 ardent language upon airy nothings. In these sonnets he 
 tells us that he writes of and from reality. It is not with 
 him, he says, as with that Muse ' stirred by a painted 
 beauty to his verse,' by which he means that he celebrates 
 no mere visionary image or fiction of the fancy, as 
 Drayton for example did, in his sonnets to ' Idea,' * and 
 likewise the author of ' Licia, or Poems of Love,' printed 
 in 1593, which work consists of 52 sonnets in honour of 
 the admirable and singular virtues of the A\Titer's lady, 
 full of fervent affection and passionate praise. In his 
 address to the reader the author says, ' If thou muse what 
 my Licia is, take her to be some Diana, at the least chaste ; 
 or some Minerva, no Venus, fairer far. It may be she is 
 Learning's image, or some heavenly wonder, which the 
 precisest may not dislike ; perhaps, under that name, I 
 have shadowed Discipline.'^ So is it not with me, 
 Shakspeare replies, and, therefore, I do not imitate those 
 who use heaven itself for ornament, and couple all the 
 glories of earth with their imaginary Mistress, for the 
 sake of making proud comparisons in her favour. I 
 am only rich in reality, and being truly in love can only 
 
 ^ Published, says Ritson, with the ' Shepherd's Garland,' and ' Roland's 
 Sacrifice to the Nine Muses,' in a volume printed for T. Woodcocke, 1593 : 
 4to. Drayton was amusingly anxious to show that he icag ' stiiTed bv a 
 painti'd beauty to his verse,' and that his love was only an ' Idea.' Shak- 
 speare is as earnest in asserting that he writes from reality. The greatest 
 master of Reality is here the advocate of Realism in Art ; the soul of sin- 
 cerity himself, he cannot tolerate tliat which is insincere in others. 
 
 " Thomas AVatson — he who, according to the taste of Steevens, was ' a 
 more elegant sonnetteer than Shakspeare.' also published in 1593 the 'Tears 
 of Fancy, or Love disdained,' in sixty sonnets. Our Poet may have had 
 this work in view, as well as the * Licia,' when protesting tliat his sonnets 
 were not mere fancy-work, but the outcome of real feeling.
 
 150 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 write trutlifully. Tliis sonnet contains an answer to those 
 who hold that the flowery tenderness and exquisite spring- 
 tints of sonnets 98 and 99 were devoted to a man as the 
 object of them. The Poet here says he does not compare 
 his friend ' with April's Jirst-borii jiowers and all things 
 rare, that Heaven's air in this huge rondure henis.^ He 
 protests as plainly as any living author could, who might 
 write to the ' Times,' or ' Atliena3um,' of to-day, that he 
 does not use the ' gross painting ' the ' strained touches 
 Ehetoric can lend.' It is the very opposite of his nature 
 and art to write in the extravagant style and ' high- 
 astounding terms,' the ' huffing, braggart, puft language ' 
 that Marlowe so often used, whose verses, as Greene had 
 said in 1588: — 'jet on the stage in tragical buskins; 
 every word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bow- 
 Bells.' May we not also here read a potent protest against 
 such a work as ' Titus Androuicus ' being ascribed to 
 Shakspeare ? 
 
 This group of sonnets was written before the death of 
 Marlowe, in June 1593. I am of opinion that sonnet 
 80 marks the moment when Shakspeare was about to 
 embark with his first literary venture, the ' Venus and 
 Adonis.' If he be wrecked, if he sinks whilst Marlowe 
 swims, he says, the cause will have been his love for the 
 Earl ; not literary vanity.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 I think there is proof in both sonnets ajid pltiys that Shakspeare had read 
 Marlowe's two sestiads of ' Hero and Leauder ' in AISS. For example, 
 compare sonnets 4 and 6 with these lines : 
 
 ' Treasure is abused 
 When misers keep it : being put to loan, 
 In time it will return us two for one.' 
 
 * But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, 
 
 When j'ou fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none.' 
 
 Sonnets 20 and 53 with these lines : 
 
 * Some swore he was a maid in man's attire, 
 For in his looks were all that men desire.' 
 
 And sonnet 80 with these : 
 
 ' A stately-biiilded ship, well-riggod and tall, 
 The ocean maketh more majestical.' 
 
 Also, readers of ' Eomeo and Juliet ' will recognise Marlowe's * gallop 
 amain' and 'dark night is Cupid's day.' I cannot doubt that Shakspeare 
 was acquainted Avith this poem years before it was printed, nor that he 
 characterises its sensuous grace, and refers to it as having been written for 
 the Earl of Southampton. In dedicating the published book to Sir Thomas 
 Walsingham, Edward Blunt hints that the poem has had ' other foster 
 countenance,' but that his name is likely to prove more ' (ujreeahle and 
 thrinng ' to the work, which was the view of a sensible publisher, for the 
 other fostering countenance — Southampton's — might not have shed so 
 favourable an influence in 1598, the year in which the fragment was first 
 printed. 
 
 Having omitted to express the thought in the text, I would here note my 
 conjecture, that the miserable death of Marlowe is referred to in '-4 Mid- 
 summer Niffht's Dream,' where we meet with — 
 
 * The THRICE-XHREE ^lusES mouruing for the death 
 Of Leamiug, late deceased in beggary ! ' 
 
 That disreputable end of one who ought to have taken a nobler leave of 
 the world, was indeed a subject for a 'satire keen and critical.' And surely 
 this was the Poet who, in sonnet 85 (p. 131), is said to ■wTite with 'golden 
 quill and precious phrase by all the nrsES filed ?'
 
 152 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 A PERSONAL SONNET. 
 
 1593-4. 
 
 »0>«^00 
 
 SHAKSPEARE IS ABOUT TO WRITE ON THE COURT- 
 SHIP OF HIS FRIEND SOUTHAMPTON, ACCORDINO 
 TO THE EARL'S SUGGESTION. 
 
 ^ And now I will unclasp a secret book.^ 
 
 Turning to tlie Book of Sonnets, the reader will see 
 that we can read them straiglit on as Personal Sonnets up 
 to the 2Gt]i, but with the 27th we are all adrift ; the 
 spirit changes so obviously as to necessitate a change of 
 speaker. Till now the feeling was one of repose in the 
 affection which the Poet celebrated. Here the feeling has 
 all a lover's restlessness. In tlie previous sonnets we have 
 not been left in doubt as to the sex of the person ad- 
 dressed ; there were many allusions to its being a Man. 
 We now meet with sonnet after sonnet, and series after 
 series, in which there is no mention of sex. The feeling 
 expressed is more passionate, and the phrase has become 
 more movingly tender ; far closer relationship is sung, and 
 yet the object to whom these sonnets are Avritten never 
 appears in person. There is neither ' man ' nor ' boy,' 
 ' him ' nor ' liis.' How is this ? Surely it is not the wont 
 of a stronger feeling and greater warmth of affection to 
 fuse down all individuality and lose sight of sex. That 
 is not the way of Nature's or of Shakspeare's working. 
 Here is negative evidence that the speaker is not ad- 
 dressing a man. The internal evidence and poetic proof 
 are in favour of its being a Woman. There is a spirit too
 
 THE AVITNESS WTTTTTX. 15». 
 
 delicate for the grosser ear of a man. The imagery is 
 essentially feminine. There is a fondness in the feeling, 
 and a preciousness in the phrase that tell of ' Love's coy 
 touch.' Also there are secret stirrings of nature whicli 
 influence us as they might if we were in the presence of 
 a beautiful woman disguised : little tell-tales of conscious- 
 ness and whisperings in the air. Many of the sonnets 
 addressed by Shakspeare to the Earl are as glowing in 
 affection, as tender in phrase as could well be written 
 from man to man, but there is a subtle difference be- 
 twixt these and others that, as I shall show, are addresssd 
 to a woman. The conditions under which the Poet 
 created did not permit of his branding them with the 
 outward signs of sex ; but the difference exists in the 
 secret spirit of them. We continually catch a breath of 
 fragrance, as though we were treading upon invisible 
 violets, and are conscious of a pcrfusive feminine grace ; 
 whilst a long and loving acquaintanceship brings out the 
 touches and tendernesses of difference, distinct as those 
 notes of the nightingale that make her song so peerless 
 amongst those of other birds. There is a music here 
 such as could only have found its perfect cliord in a 
 woman's heart. Once we shut our eyes to the supposi- 
 tion that all these sonnets were meant for a man, we 
 shall soon feel that in numbers of them the heart of a 
 lover is going forth with thrilHngs ineffable towards a 
 woman, and, in the unraistakeable ciy, we shall hear the 
 voice of that love which has no like— the absorbing, 
 absolute, all-containing Love that woman alone engen- 
 ders in the heart of a man. Not that Shakspeare is here 
 wooing a woman iu person. lie would not have done 
 that and left out the sex. They are written on South- 
 ampton's courtship. It is not Shakspeare who speaks, 
 but Soutliampton to his lady. This will account for the 
 impassioned tenderness, and, at the same time, for the 
 absence of all mention of the sex of the person addressed,
 
 154 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 ■svliich would naturally result from the poet's delicacy of 
 feeling^ or, from a reticence agreed upon. 
 
 There will be nothing very startling in the proposition 
 that our Poet devoted sonnets to his friend's love for Eliza- 
 beth Vernon, if we think for a moment of his words 
 addressed in public to Southampton, in the year 1594. 
 ' What / have to do is yours ; being part in all I have 
 devoted yours.' Now, if he alluded to his sonnets in that 
 dedication of ' Lucrece,' as I maintain he did, there is but 
 one way in which the allusion could apply. He would 
 not have promised to write a book, or a series of sonnets, 
 and speak of them as a part of what he had to do for 
 the Earl if they were to be mere poetical exercises or 
 personal to himself. Such must have been altogether 
 fugitive — the subjects unknown beforehand. Wliereas he 
 speaks of the work as devoted to the Earl, something that 
 is fixed, and fixed, too, by, or with the knowledge of the 
 person addressed. This I take to refer to the fact that, 
 at the Earl's suggestion, he had then agreed to write 
 dramatic sonnets on the subject of Southampton's court- 
 ship. And as they were in hand when he dedicated his 
 second poem to Southampton, I infer that they were com- 
 menced in 1593. 
 
 If my theory of the sonnets be true, the sonnets them- 
 selves ought to yield the most convincing proof that it is 
 so. They should tell their own tale, however marvellous 
 it may be ; nay, they should speak with a more certain 
 sound because of the mystery. The voice should be all 
 the clearer if it comes from the cloud. This they wiU do. 
 Only we must have the courage to believe that Shakspeare 
 knew what he was writing about, and that he was accus- 
 . tomed to use the English language in its plainest sense, 
 except where words would flower double on account of 
 the fulness of his wit. We must not lose sight of the 
 literal truth and substance of his meaninsr in following the 
 figurative shadow, or we shall quite miss the palpable
 
 A CHANGE IN THE POET'S MODE OF WRITING. lo5 
 
 facts, and find ourselves in the position of others wlio liave 
 had to make all sorts of excuses for Shakspeare's indefi- 
 niteness. Let us only remember that these sonnets are 
 by the writer who got nearest to nature through the close- 
 ness of his grasp of reality ; and a false interpretation has 
 hitherto hindered our seeing that his grij) was as close, 
 his feehng as true, his language as hteral here as in 
 his dramas. Then we shall find that they do in very 
 truth tell their own story according to the theory now 
 j^roposed and set forth. Not merely in the underlying 
 evidence — the inner facts which can only be paralleled in 
 the outer hfe of the different speakers, the distinct indi- 
 viduality of the characters pourtrayed — but it actually 
 stares us in the face on the surface, so close to us that we 
 have overlooked it by being too far-sighted. 
 
 I purpose showing that after our Poet had written a 
 certain number of personal sonnets to the Earl, his dear 
 friend, advising him to marry, and the Earl had met and 
 fallen in love with the ' faire Mistress Vernon,' Shak- 
 speare then began, at the Earl's own request, to write 
 sonnets dramatically on the subject of the Earl's passion, 
 and the trials, ' tills,' and misadventures of a pair of star- 
 crossed lovers, with the view of enhancing their pleasures 
 and enriching their pains by his poetic treatment of tlieir 
 love's tender and troublous history. The intimacy, as we 
 have seen from the sonnets which are personal, was of 
 the nearest and dearest kind that can exist between man 
 and man. Were there no proof to be cited it would 
 not be so great a straining of probability to imagine the 
 intimacy close and secret enougli for Shakspeare to write 
 sonnets on Southampton's love, in this impersonal in- 
 direct way, as it is to suppose it was close enough for 
 them to share one mistress, and for Shakspeare to write 
 sonnets for the purpose of proclaiming the mutual dis- 
 grace and perpetuating the sin and shame. It might 
 fairly be argued also that the intimacy being of this secret
 
 156 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and sacred sort, would naturally take a greater delight in 
 being illustrated in the unseen way of a dramatic treat- 
 ment. It woidd be sweeter to the Earl's affection ; more 
 perfectly befitting the Poet's genius ; the celebration of 
 the marriage of two souls in the most inner sanctuary of 
 friendship. 
 
 But there is proof. 
 
 For all who have eyes to see, the 38th sonnet tells us 
 most explicitly that the writer has done with the subject 
 of the earlier sonnets. There is no further need of ad- 
 vising the Earl to marry when he is doing all he can 
 to get man'ied. But, says the Poet, he cannot be at 
 a loss for a subject so long as the Earl lives to pour 
 into his verse his own argument. The force of the 
 expression ^pourst into my verse,' shows that this is in 
 no indirect suggestive way, but that the Earl has now 
 begun to supply his own argument for Shakspeare's son- 
 nets. This argument is too ' excellent,' too choice, in 
 its nature fox ''every vulgar paper to rehearse.' Here is 
 something ' secret, sweet and precious,' not to be dealt 
 with ill the ordinary way of personal sonnets. This 
 excelling argument calls for the most private treatment, 
 and to carry out this a new leaf is turned over in the 
 Book of Sonnets. If the residt be in any way worthy 
 the Earl is to take all credit, for it is he who has sug- 
 gested the new theme, supplied the fresh argument, and 
 struck out a new light of invention ; he has ^ given Inven- 
 tion ZzV/A/,' lighted the Poet on his novel path. Thus, ac- 
 cepting the Earl's suggestion of writing dramatically on 
 the subject given, the Poet calls upon him to be, to become 
 the tenth Muse to him. Obviously he had not so con- 
 sidered him whilst writing to the Earl ; but as he is about 
 to Avrite of liim dramatically, he exclaims ' be thou the 
 tenth Muse ! ' And if his new sonnets should please the 
 Earl and his friends, who are curious in sucli matters, his 
 be the pain, the labour ; the Earl's shall be the praise.
 
 THE NEW THEME. lo7 
 
 The reader will see how consistently the thought of 
 this sonnet follows the series in which the Poet has ex- 
 pressed his jealousy of the adulation of insincere rivals. He 
 has now stepped into the inner circle of the Earl's private 
 friendship, where they cannot pass. Tliey may stand 
 on the outside and address him, but the Earl has taken 
 our poet into the inmost place of his private confidence, 
 and w^hispered into his ear and breathed into his verse 
 the argument of his love for Elizabeth Vernon, too ex- 
 cellent for every common paper or ordinary method to 
 rehearse. The other sonnets contain a lover's querulous- 
 ness, this has the secret satisfaction of the chosen one 
 who has been favoured above all others. 
 
 SIIAKSPEARE IS ABOU-T TO WRITE SONXETS UPOX THE EARL's 
 LOVE FOR ELIZABETH VERNOX. 
 
 How can my ]Muse want subject to invent. 
 Whilst thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse 
 Thine own sweet argument, too excellent 
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse ? 
 0, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me 
 Worthy perusal stand against thy sight ; 
 For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee. 
 When thou thyself dost give invention hght ? 
 Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth 
 Than those old Nine which rhymers invocate, 
 And he that calls on thee, let him brinir forth 
 Eternal numbers to outlive long^ date : 
 
 If my slight ^Muse do please these curious days. 
 The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. 
 
 (3S.) 
 
 It has been said tluit sucli ani()n)us wooine:s as these 
 of Shakspeare's sonnets, when personally interpreted, 
 were common betwixt man and man with the Elizabethan 
 sonneteers. But where is the record of them ? In whose
 
 158 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 sonnets shall we find the illustration ? Not in Spenser's, 
 nor Sidney's, Drayton's, nor Daniel's, Constable's nor 
 Drummond's. Warton instanced the ' Affectionate Shep- 
 herd ' ; but Barnefield, in his address ' To the cnrteous 
 Gentlemen Readers ' prefixed to his ' Cynthia,' &c., ex- 
 pressly forbids such an interpretation of his ' conceit,' 
 and states that it was nothing else than ' an imitation 
 of Virgil in the 2nd EcWue of Alexis.' There is no 
 precedent whatever, only an assumption, a false excuse 
 for a foolish theory. The precedent that we find is for 
 such sonnets being written dramatically. It was by no 
 means uncommon for a Poet to write in character on 
 behalf of a Patron, and act as a sort of secretary in 
 his love affairs, the letters being put into the shape of 
 sonnets. In Shakspeare's plays we meet with various 
 allusions to courting by means of ' W^ilfid sonnets whose 
 composed rhymes should be full-fraught with service- 
 able vows.' Thurio, in the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,* 
 goes into the city to seek a gentleman Avho shall set 
 a sonnet to music for the purpose of wooing Sylvia. 
 Gascoigne, who died 1577, tells us, many years before 
 Shakspeare wrote in this way for his young friend, he 
 had been engaged to write for others in the same fashion. 
 The author of the 'Forest of Fancy,' 1579, informs us 
 tliat many of the poems were written for '•persons who 
 had occasion to crave his help in that behalf.'' Mars- 
 ton in his ' Satyres,' 1598, accuses Eoscio (Burbage), the 
 tragedian, of having written verses for Mutio, and he tells 
 us that ' absolute Castillo had furnished himself in like 
 manner in order that he might pay court to his Mistress. 
 And as he is glancing at the Globe Theatre, may not he 
 have had Shakspeare and Southampton in his eye? 
 ' Absolute Castilio ' is characteristic of the Earl, especially 
 in the mouth of an envious poet whom he did not 
 patronise. 
 
 Drayton also tells us in his 21st sonnet that he knew
 
 OTHER SONNETS DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN. 159 
 
 a gallant who wooed a young girl, but <•« )u](,l not win her. 
 He entreated the poet to try and move her Avith his per- 
 suasive rhymes. And such was the force of Poesy, whether 
 heaven-bred or not, that he won the Mistress for his 
 friend with the very first sonnet he wrote ; that was suffi- 
 cient to make her dote on the youth beyond measure. So 
 that in showing Shakspeare to have written dramatic 
 sonnets for the Earl of Southampton, to express liis pas- 
 sion for Mistress Vernon, we are not compelled to go far 
 in search of a precedent for the doing of such a thing ; it 
 was a common custom when he undertook to honour it 
 by his observance. In the sonnet just quoted, Shakspeare 
 accepts the Earl's suggestion that he should write dramatic 
 sonnets upon subjects supplied by Southampton, who has 
 thus ' GIVEN Invention light.'
 
 60 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 DKAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1593-4. 
 
 -o-o>afic 
 
 SOUTHAMPTON IN LOVE WITH ELIZABETH VEENON. 
 
 These four sonnets are among the most beautiful that 
 Shakspeare wrote ; a greater depth of feehng is sounded : 
 a new and most natural stop is drawn, which has the 
 power to ' mitigate and swage with solemn touches 
 troubled thoughts ' and make the measure dilate into its 
 stateliest music ; the poetry grows graver and more sagely 
 fine. Point by point, note by note, the most special par- 
 ticulars are touched, and facts fresh from hfe and of the 
 deepest significance are presented to us, yet we are unable 
 to identify one of them as belonging to the life and cha- 
 racter of Shakspeare. The music is full of meaning — the 
 slower movement being necessary because of the burden 
 it bears — but we do not know what it means. If we sup- 
 pose Shakspeare to be speaking, the more pointed the 
 verity, the greater the vagueness. Simply we cannot tell 
 what he is talking about in so sad a tone. It is possible 
 that he may have lost dear friends, although, so far as we 
 know, when these sonnets were written he had not even 
 lost a child. Also, it is probable that, full of winning 
 cheerfulness and sunny pleasantness, and ' smiling govern- 
 ment ' of himself as he was, he had his niiJ-ht-seasons of 
 sadness and depression ; that he experienced reverses of 
 fortune at his theatre, and sat at home in the ni^ht- 
 
 o
 
 IT IS NOT SHAKSPEAKE SrEAKINd. KU 
 
 time wliilst his fellows were making merry after work, 
 and nursed liis hope and streiifrth with cordial loving 
 thoughts of his good friend. But we cannot picture 
 Shakspeare turned malcontent and miserable ; looking 
 upcm himself as a lonely outcast, bewailing his wretched 
 condition ; nursing his cankering thoughts prepensely, and 
 rocking himself, as it were, over them persistently. This 
 cannot be the man of proverbial sweetness and smoothness 
 of disposition, the incarnation of all kindliness, the very 
 spirit of profound and perennial cheerfulness who, in 
 sonnet 32, calls his life a ' well-contented day ! ' If 
 Shakspeare had at tunes felt depressed and despondent 
 for want of sympathy, it was surely most unlike him to 
 make such dolorous complaints to this dear friend whom 
 he had just addressed as being more to him than all the 
 world beside, and whose love had crowned him with a 
 crown such as Fortune could not confer. In making the 
 Poet his friend, he had honoured Shakspeare (his own 
 words) beyond the power of the world's proudest titles ; 
 enriched him with a gift of good that Fortune could not 
 paragon. How then, into wdiatsoever 'disgrace' he had 
 fallen, could he pour forth his selfish sorrow to this friend 
 who was so supremely his source of joy ? How could he 
 talk of being friendless and envying those who had friends 
 when he was in possession of so peerless a friend ? How 
 should he speak of ' troubling c?(?a/ Heaven with his hoot- 
 less cries,' when Heaven had heard him and sent him such 
 a friend, and his was the nature to straightway apprehend 
 the Giver in the gift ? How could he ' curse his fate,' 
 which he held to be so blessed in havincj this friend? 
 How should he speak of being ' contented least ' with what 
 he enjoyed most when he had said this friend was the 
 great spring of his joy? How should he exclaim against 
 Fortune when he had received and warmly acknowledged 
 the best gift she had to bestow ? Moreover, these ci-ies 
 of self would sooner or later have seemed bitterly sellish 
 
 M
 
 162 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 for they would be addressed to a man who had a fair 
 cause of complaint against Fortune, and a real right to 
 utter every word tliat has been ascribed to Shakspeare 
 himself in these exclamatory sonnets, with their wistful 
 looks, and dolorous ejaculations, and tinge of lover's me- 
 lancholy. We may rest assured tliat Shakspeare was the 
 last man to have made any such mistake in Nature and in 
 Art. If he had his sorrows he would have kept them out 
 of sight whilst his friend was suffering ; he who lias nearly 
 kept himself out of sight altogether, and who comes the 
 closest to us just for the sake of smiling up into the face 
 of this friend, and of showing us that this was the man 
 whom he once loved, as he told us, the only times he 
 ever spoke in prose, and proclaimed that his love for him 
 Avas without end. The personal reading is altogether 
 wrong ; it does not touch these sonnets at any one point, 
 much less fathom the depth of their full meaning. The 
 character expressed is in heart and essence, as well as in 
 every word, that of a youthful spirit who feels in ' disgrace 
 witli Fortune,' and the unnoticing eyes of men, and whose 
 tune is ' Fortune, my Foe, why dost thou frown,' because 
 for the present he is condemned to sit apart inactive. 
 
 Tliis talk about ' Fortune ' was to some extent a trick 
 of the time, and a favourite strain with Essex. Perez, the 
 flashing foreign friend of this Earl, also indulged much in 
 it, calhng liimself ' Fortune's Monster,' which was the 
 motto he inscribed on his portrait. It is the young man 
 of Action doomed to be a mere spectator. He has seen 
 his fellow-nobles, the ' choicest buds of all our English 
 1)1 ood,' go by to battle with dancing pennons and nodding 
 plumes (as Marston describes them), floating in feather on 
 the land as ships float on the sea, or, as Shakspeare may 
 have described them — 
 
 'All fiiniLshed, all in arms. 
 All plumed like estridges that wing the wind.
 
 Till': EARL OUT OF LUCK. 103 
 
 I^ated like eagles having lately bathed ; 
 (i littering in golden coats, like Images; 
 As full of spirit as the month of May, 
 And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer.' 
 
 Some of them are off with Ealeigli, going to do good work 
 for England, and strike at the Spaniard a memorable 
 stroke. The land has rung from end to end with the 
 fame of Grenville's great deed and glorious death. A few 
 ycare before Cavendish had come sailing up the river 
 Tliames with his merry mariners clad in silk ; his sails of 
 damask, and his top-masts cloth of gold ; thus symbolling 
 outwardly the lichness of the prize they had^wrested from 
 the enemy. The spirit of adventure is everywhere in 
 motion, sending 
 
 * Some to the wars, to try their fortune there ; 
 Some to discover islands far away.' 
 
 The hearts of the young burn within them at the recital 
 of their fathers' deeds, the men who conquered Spain in 
 1588, when all her proud embattled powers were broken. 
 The after- swell of that hi^li heavin<f of the national 
 heart catches them up and sets them yearning to do some 
 such work of noble note. 
 
 He, too, is anxious for service, wearying to mount 
 horse and away. The stir of the time is within him, 
 and here he is compelled to sit still. He shares the 
 feelinir of his friend Charles Blount, afterwards Lord 
 Mountjoy, who, twice or thrice, stole away from Court, 
 without the Queen's leave, to join Sir John Xorris in 
 Bretagne, and was reproached by Her Majesty for trying 
 to eret knocked on the head as ' that inconsiderate fellow 
 Sidney had done.' He hears the sounds of the strife, 
 the trumpet's ' golden cry,' tlie clash and clangour of the 
 conflict, and his spirit longs to be gone and in amidst the 
 din and dust of the arena — he who is left by the wayside, 
 out of harness and out of heart. He feels it as a disgrace 
 
 M 2
 
 KU SlIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 put Oil him by Fortune, and looks upon himself as a lonely 
 outcast. He is inclined to curse his fate ; wishes he was 
 of a more hopeful temperament, so that he could look on 
 the bright side of things ; see the silver lining to his cloud. 
 If he had only friends like this one at Court to get 
 the ear of the Queen ; or if he had but the art of that 
 one who seems to obtain all he asks for; or if he shared 
 but the other's scope and free-play for his sword to 
 clear a space for himself and win a prouder name for 
 his beloved to wear. For he is deeply in love, which 
 makes his spirit more than ever restless, and increases 
 his sadness with its delicious pain. The thought of her 
 is a spur to his eager spirit ; for her sake he would be 
 earning name and fame, and here he is compelled to wait 
 wearily, watch wistfully, wish vainly, and weep over this 
 ' dear waste ' of his best time. Yet he almost despises 
 himself for having such thoughts, when he thinks of her 
 whose love he has won. However poor his prospect, he 
 has the love of her rich within his soul, and is really 
 richer than the whole world's wealth could make him. 
 She is a prize precious above all those that glitter in ima- 
 gination, and, however out of luck, self- tormented, and 
 inclined to read ' his own fortune in his misery ' of the 
 moment, he sits in her heart ; that is his throne, and he 
 would scorn to change condition with kings. 
 
 It is the time, too, of the lover's life when sweet thoughts 
 bring a feeling of sadness, and he is apt to water his wine 
 of love a little with tears, and find it none the less sweet. 
 The heart, being so tender to this new present of love, 
 grows more tender in thinking of the past, and seems to 
 feel its old sorrows truly for the first time. The trans- 
 figuring touch of this fresh spring of love puts a new green 
 on the old graves of the heart ; this precious gain of the 
 lover's enriches also his sense of loss, and to the silent 
 sessions of sweet thought it calls up the remembrance of 
 tilings past, the old forms of the loved and the lost rise from
 
 A FILIAL AFFECTION, 1G5 
 
 their grave of years in ' soft attire,' and lie can weep who 
 is unaccustomed to shed tears. All his troubles come 
 gathering on him together, and he grieves over ' griev- 
 ances forgone ; ' wails over the old long-since cancelled 
 woes anew, and pays once more the sad account of 
 by-gone sorrows. The speaker is one who has been 
 bereaved of his dearest and most precious friends, friends 
 in the closest kinship. Their loss is the sorrow of a 
 life-time, the relationship the nearest to nature, and the 
 deaths occurred years ago. They are friends whom the 
 speaker has greatly lacked and needed in his life. His 
 love for them is ' dear religious love,' the tenderness and 
 tears are reverential, the affection is high and holy. We 
 cannot attach these friends or this feeling to Shakspeare 
 himself by any known facts of his life. And had there 
 been any such facts in his experience, to sing of which 
 would interest his patron, we also are concerned to know 
 them. In Southampton's life alone can we identify the 
 lixcts and find the counterpart to these sonnets. In that 
 we have the fullest and most particular confirmation ; it 
 matches the sonnets perfectly, point by point, through all 
 the comparisons ; it accoiuits for the feeling, and sets the 
 story sombrely aglow, as if written in illuminated letters 
 on a ground of black ; gives it the real look of hfe and 
 death. The Earl's father had died October 4th, 1581, 
 when Henry Wriothesley was two days short of eight 
 years old ; and about four years afterwards his elder 
 brother died. Here are the precious friends whom he 
 lacked so much ; here is the ' dear religious love ' that 
 made him weep such ' holy ' and funereal tears ; here is 
 the precise lapse of time. And in this new love of the 
 Earl for Elizabeth Vernon, in the year 1593-4, he finds his 
 solace. She comes to restore the old, to replace wliat he 
 has lost, to reveal all that Death had hidden away in his 
 endless night. She is the heaven of his departed ' loves ; * 
 in her they shine down on him starrily through a mist of
 
 166 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 tears. She gathers up in one endearing image of love 
 liis lost friends who have bequeathed to her all their 
 share in his love, and she thus possesses the whole of him, 
 and is the all-in-all of love to him. In her he takes his 
 delight, just as a crippled father may rejoice to see his 
 active child do youthful deeds, so he, being disabled or 
 made lame by Fortune, sits apart and sees her in lier pride 
 of place wearing the rose of youth and sinning grace of 
 her beauty, and he finds all his comfort in her worth and 
 truth. For however beautiful, virtuous, wealthy, or 
 witty she may be, he has engrafted his love to her stock, 
 and shares in her natural abundance of goodness, is a part 
 in all her glory, so that he feels neitlier poor nor disabled 
 nor despised. Whatever in the world is absolutely best 
 lie wishes for her, his wishes for himself are only relative. 
 He has his wish, for she is and doth contain all that is 
 supremely best ; and this makes him feel ten times hap- 
 pier than if his own selfish wishes had been granted. 
 
 In these sonnets we may perceive a touch of Shak- 
 speare's art, which peeps out in his anxiety to see his friend 
 married. How steadily he keeps in view of the Earl, this 
 star of his love that tops the summit and gilds the darkest 
 night ; this calm influence that is to clear his cloudy 
 thoughts ; this balm of healing for his troubled heart ; 
 this crown and comfort of his life. Also in these, the 
 first sonnets spoken by the Earl, the poet gives us a sug- 
 gestive hint of his friend's character, and reveals a pre- 
 saging fear that fortune has a spite against him, of which 
 we shall hear more yet, and which was amply illustrated 
 in his after life. A proof that tlie love of Shakspeare for 
 his friend was tender enough to be tremulous with a 
 divining force. 
 
 When in disgrace with Fortune, and men's eyes, 
 I all alone heweep my outcast state 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries 
 And look upon myself and curse my fate,
 
 THE EARL'S OLD LOSSES AND HIS NEW LOVE. 167 
 
 Wishing" nie like to one more rich in hope, 
 
 P^eatured like him,' like him with friends possessed. 
 
 Desiring this man's art and tluit man's scope, 
 
 With what I most enjoy contented least; 
 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 
 Haply I think on Thee, — and then my state 
 
 Like to the Lark at break of day arising 
 
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate. 
 
 For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings. 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 
 
 (29.) 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. 
 
 And with old woes new-wail my dear time's waste :^ 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow. 
 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless night. 
 
 And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe,' 
 
 And moan the expense of many a vanished sight : 
 
 ' Eosaliud, in ' As You Like It,' when making fun of the fantastical 
 sadness of the mehincholy Jacques, tells him to be ' out of love witli his 
 nativity,' and almost quarrel -with God for * making him of that counte- 
 nance ; ' meaning his national face ! !Mr. Masson, who is a believer in the 
 autobiogTaphic theory of tlie sonnets, finds here exactly the same form of 
 * self-dissatisfaction ' as in the above sonnet. How, I do not comprehend, as 
 it is Ilosalind who says it to Jacques. Instead of its helping to prove that 
 Shakspeare speaks personally in the above sonnet, and shows his own like- 
 ness to the melancholy-sucking philosopher, it does just the contrary ; for 
 it is most certain that, so far from sympathising with this pensive pretender, 
 Shakspeare looks on him, through the eyes of the other characters, as an 
 amusing sentimental coxcomb who conceits himself upon liis sadness. Our 
 poet had too deep a sense of the real soitow of life to seriously countenance 
 this alVectation of melancholy — this playing at being sad. Jacques' melan- 
 choly is ' right painted cloth ; ' there is no heai-t in it ; the other characters 
 know this ; but he has the trick of making assumption entertaining, and 
 so they tolerate him. The blithe natures of the play, Ilosalind, Orhmdo, 
 Celia, and the banished Duke, these are the Poet's true comates in spirit. 
 
 * Shakspeare could not have wasted his precious time after he had ouco 
 got to work in I^ondon. 
 
 3 Southampton's father had been dead some twelve years ; his brutlier 
 eight years.
 
 168 STL\KSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Then can I grieve at grievances forgone. 
 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan. 
 
 Which I new-pay as if not paid before : 
 
 But if the while I think on thee, dear friend. 
 All losses are restored, and sorrows end. 
 
 (30.) 
 
 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts. 
 Which I, by lacking, have supposed dead ; 
 And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts. 
 And all those friends which I thought buried : 
 How many a holy and obsequious tear 
 Hath dear- religious love stolen from mine eye 
 As interest of the dead, which now appear 
 But things removed, that hidden in thee lie ! 
 Thou art the grave where buried love doth live. 
 Hung with the trophies' of my lovers gone, 
 Who all their parts of me to thee did give. 
 That due of many now is thine alone : 
 Their images I loved I view in thee. 
 And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. 
 
 (31.) 
 
 As a decrepit father takes delight 
 
 To see his active child do deeds of youth. 
 
 So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite, 
 
 Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth: 
 
 For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, 
 
 Or any of these all, or all, or more 
 
 Intitled in thy parts, do crowned sit, 
 
 I make my love ingrafted to this store : 
 
 So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised. 
 
 Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give. 
 
 That I in thy abundance am sufficed. 
 
 And by a part of all thy glory live : 
 
 Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee : 
 This wish I have, then ten times happy me. 
 
 (37.) 
 
 I 'Hung with the trophies.' An allusion to the ancient custom of hano-- 
 ing wreaths upon monumental statues. Ilt-re the dead have bequeathed 
 J-heir crowns to adoni this present image of past love.
 
 10f> 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1594. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, WHEN HE HAS KNOWX 
 HIM SOME THREE YEARS. 
 
 These two sonnets will come in here appropriately enough, 
 because there is a date in the one which is written when 
 the Poet has known his friend three years, and because 
 the fragment is on the same subject. As the second was 
 unfinislied, we may suppose it was never sent, but that it 
 remained among the loose papers given by the Poet to 
 Herbert, who put it in at the end of the Southampton 
 sonnets, and thus divided them from the latter series. 
 Time and subject determine its present place. 
 
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, 
 
 For as you were when first your eye I eyed, 
 
 Such seems your beauty still : three winters' cold 
 
 Have from the forests shook three summers' pride ; 
 
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned 
 
 In process of the seasons have I seen, 
 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned. 
 
 Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green : 
 
 Ah I yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, 
 
 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived ; 
 
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, 
 
 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived ; 
 
 For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred ; 
 
 Ere you were born wa.s Beauty's sunuiier dead. 
 
 (104.)
 
 170 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 thou, my lovely Boy, who in thy power 
 Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle-hour ; 
 Who hast by waning grown, and tlierein showest 
 Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self growest ! 
 If Nature, sov'reign mistress over wrack, 
 As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back. 
 She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill 
 May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill : 
 Yet fear her, thou minion of her pleasure ; 
 She may detain, but not still keep her treasure : 
 Her audit, tho' delayed, answered must be. 
 And her quietus is to render thee ! 
 
 (126.)
 
 171 
 
 A PERSONAL SONNET. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE PEOPOSES TO WRITE OF THE EARL 
 IN HIS ABSENCE ABROAD. 
 
 In this sonnet an absence is contemplated. Not an ab- 
 sence of the Poet, but of the Earl. And the Poet pro- 
 posed to take advantage of this separation to sing of his 
 friend, and thus try to do his subject justice. To praise 
 liis friend whilst they are together is somewhat absurd, 
 because they are so much one that it is hke praising him- 
 self. Even for this, for his modesty's sake, he says, let us 
 be divided by distance, if by nothing else, so that he can, 
 as it were, hold his friend, the better part of himself, at 
 arm's length, to look on his virtues and praise his worth, 
 and give that due to him which is the friend's alone. 
 This sonnet establishes the fact that the Earl is about to 
 go abroad or to leave home, and that Shakspeare intends 
 to sing of him, to write about him, in his absence. He 
 stops at home — ' here ' — to sing of him who ' doth hence 
 remain.' It is a somewhat fontastic excuse for a parting, 
 and veiy different to the real parting that has to come. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, WHO IS LEAVIXG ENGLAND. 
 
 0, how thy worth with manners may I sing. 
 When thou art all the better part of me? 
 \Miat can mine own praise to mine own self bring ? 
 And what is't but mine own when I praise tliee ?
 
 172 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Even for this let us divided live, 
 And our dear love lose name of single one. 
 That by this separation I may give 
 That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone ! 
 Oh, Absence,' what a torment would'st thou prove, 
 "Were it not thy sour image gave sweet leave 
 To entertain the time with thoughts of love, 
 "Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive. 
 And that thou teachest how to make one twain. 
 By praising him here, who doth hence remain. 
 
 (3..) 
 
 ^ The Earl's absence ; Shakspeare would not speak thus of his own, and 
 of its proving a tonnent to his friend ! This absence of the Earl also teaches 
 the Poet how to wi-ite of his friend when he is away ; gives him his cue for 
 the following sonnets.
 
 17;5 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1595. 
 
 THE EARL TO MISTRESS VERNON ON AND IN HIS 
 
 ABSENCE ABROAD. 
 
 Tt was in May 1595 that, according to Mr. Standen, the 
 Earl of Southampton had got into disgrace at Court, and 
 tliat EHzabeth Vernon and her ill good man waited upon 
 her irate Majesty to know her resolution in the matter, 
 and her Majesty sent out word to say firmly that she was 
 sufficiently resolved. In September of the same year, \Miite 
 tells us that the Earl of Southampton has been courting 
 the fair Mistress Vernon with, too much familiarity ; the 
 meaning of which is too plain for comment. The Queen's 
 resolve was, without doubt, that Southampton should 
 leave the Court in consequence. The following sonnets 
 tell the story of his parting, liis absence, and the cause of 
 botli. The cause is something he has done, for which he 
 holds himself solely guilty. He admits that they must be 
 twain, although they are one in love. The parting is im- 
 posed on them by a separating spite. This parting will 
 not change their feeling toward each other, though it will 
 steal sweet hours from their deliglit by the compulsory 
 absence. He may not call lier liis any more, lest tlie 
 guilt which he bewails should shame her, nor must she 
 notice him for others to see, else it will be to her own
 
 17i SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 dishonour. He loves her so tliat her good report is his, 
 and rather than endanger it further, he accepts tlie en- 
 forced parting as necessary for her sake. In this way 
 those blots that remain with him shall be borne by him 
 alone, without her having to share the burden of his 
 blame. The rest of these sonnets are so arranged as to 
 tell the progress and incidents of the journey that followed 
 the partmg. Leaving his beloved, he journeys heavily on 
 his way ; the horse bears him slowly, as if it were con- 
 scious that his rider was in no haste, and it felt the weight 
 of his woe. Thus thinking of his grief that lies before 
 and his joy behind, he can excuse the slow pace of his 
 steed. But, if he were returning to his beloved, what 
 excuse could his horse then find ? 
 
 * Then should I spur tho' mounted on the wind ; 
 In winged speed no motion shall I know.' 
 
 He would come back on wings of desire ; no horse could 
 keep pace with him. His desire should neigh, that is, 
 salute, no dull flesh — as his horse is in the habit of doing 
 — in his fiery race. Since he left her, his eyes are in his 
 mind, and she so occupies his mind that the eyes lose 
 their proper functions, and see everything in the likeness 
 of that mental imasie. His mind beino; ' crowned with 
 her ' is monarch of the eyes, and rules them at its pleasure. 
 His most true mind thus makes the eyes see outward 
 things untruly. Weary with the daily march, he hastens 
 to bed at niglit ; but not to sleep. The mental journey 
 now begins; his mind travels back to her 'from far,' 
 where he is staying : — . , 
 
 * Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, 
 For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.' 
 
 How can he then return in ' happy plight ' to renew his 
 travel, who has no benefit of rest.? Night shows her to 
 him ill vision ; the day takes him farther and farther away
 
 A I.OVKr.'S TTTOrCIlT."^ HY TFfK WAV. 17o 
 
 from lier. lie tells them stories of liis love and of her 
 beauty, to wile away the time. It is all in vain. For 
 the day still draws out the distance longer and longer, and 
 the night doth nightly make stronger that length of grief 
 spun out by day. Sonnet 7 borders in idea upon sonnets 
 3 and 4 of the group. lie sees best when he shuts liis 
 eyes. Her image in his mind shines with such splendour 
 that it makes the night luminous and the day dark. Is it 
 her will, he asks, to keep his eyes open, his mind awake, 
 to mock him with shadows of herself? Or does she send 
 her spirit so far from home to pry into his deeds : — 
 
 ' To find out shames and idle hours in me, 
 The scope and tenor of thy jealousy ? ' 
 
 Oil, no! he says, it is not her love nor her jealousy, but 
 his own, that keep him awake and on the fret : — 
 
 ' For thee watcli I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, 
 From me far off, ivit/i others all too near.'' 
 
 This brings the very natural tliought of his care, on leaving 
 home, in securing his jewels and locking up his trifles ; 
 and he has left this precious jewel of his love exposed as 
 the unprotected prey of every common thief Her he 
 could not lock up, except in his heart. If he could be all 
 spirit now, and move swift as thought, then the great and 
 perilous distance that hes between them should not stop 
 him. In spite of space, he would come from the distant 
 shores, ' limits far remote,' to the place where his beloved 
 stays ! But, as he cannot come himself, he sends his 
 thought and his yearnings in tender embassy of love to 
 her, and these swift messengers, on returning, tell him of 
 her ' fair health.' These go to and fro continually. Then 
 he tries to mve an ingenious turn to the enforced absence. 
 He makes it look as though he had a choice in the matter, 
 and the separation was only to put a liner point upon the 
 pleasure of meeting. He is rich in a locked-up possession,, 
 of which he keeps the key ; but he will not look in upon
 
 170 SIIAKSPEAKE'S SO^'NETS. 
 
 his treasure too often, lest it should dull his sense of the 
 preciousness, make the privilege too common. The ' time 
 that keeps ' the beloved is his ' chest,' or jewel-casket ; or 
 rather it is the wardrobe that hides the robe which is to 
 make blest some special moment by a fresh unfolding of 
 the shut-up richness : — 
 
 ' Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope, 
 Being had — to Triumph ; being lacked — to Hope I ' 
 
 The reader cannot fail to feel how these sonnets dilate 
 Avith life when spoken by a lover to his absent mistress. 
 Thus interpreted, they are unfathomably beautiful ; the 
 beauty reaching its best in sonnets 48 and 52. How much 
 nearer to nature they nestle when we know the yearnings 
 are womanward ! This gives to them the true bitter- 
 sweet. How tender and true and naively winsome is the 
 expression ! How deep-hearted the love ! The dramatic 
 mood shows the Poet to us likest himself; the poetry 
 kindles w^ith a new dawn, and breathes the aroma of 
 Shakspeare's sweetest love-lines ; it takes us into a presence 
 akin to that of Perdita and Viola, Helena and Imogen, and 
 the rest of those fragrant-natured women whom he ' loved 
 into being ; ' this veiled presence which has so perplexed 
 us when told that all these tender perfections of poetry, 
 caresses of feeling, and daintinesses of expression were 
 lavished on a man, and the natural instinct fought against 
 the seeming fact, is the presence of Elizabeth Vernon. It 
 is she who has been so long buried alive in the sonnets ; 
 smothered up in their sweets. ' See how she 'gins to 
 blow into Life's flower ag;ain ; ' as we let in a breath of 
 fresh air ! 
 
 THE LOVERS' PARTING. 
 
 Let me confess that we two must be twain,' 
 Altho' our undivided loves are one : 
 
 • ^ So Pandarus to Helen, spoaking of Cressid and Pai-is, says, ' She'll none 
 of him ; they two are twain.'
 
 SOUTIIAMraON LEAVES ENGLAND. 177 
 
 So shall those blots that do with me remain 
 
 Without thy help by me be borne alone : 
 
 In our two loves there is but one respect, 
 
 Tho' in our lives a separable spite. 
 
 Which tho' it alter not love's sole effect, 
 
 Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight : 
 
 I may not evermore acknowledge thee, 
 
 Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, 
 
 Nor thou with public kindness honour me. 
 
 Unless thou take that honour from thy name : 
 But do not so, I love thee in such sort. 
 As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. 
 
 (36.) 
 THE earl's journey. 
 
 How heavy do I journey on the way, 
 
 WTien what I seek — my weary travel's end — 
 
 Doth teach that ease and that repose to say 
 
 ' Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend ! ' ' 
 
 The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, 
 
 Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me. 
 
 As if by some instinct the wretch did know 
 
 His rider loved not speed being made from thee : 
 
 The bloody spur cannot provoke him on 
 
 That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide 
 
 \\Tiich hea\aly he answers with a groan 
 
 More sharp to me than spurring to his side : 
 
 For that same groan doth put this in my mind ; 
 
 My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.^ 
 
 (50.) 
 ^ So Bolingbroke, when goinjr into banishment, says — 
 ' Eveiy tedious stride I make 
 Will but remember me what a deal of world 
 I wander from the jewels that I love.' — Richard II., act i. sc. 3. 
 
 ' ' My (irief lies onward and my joy behind.' 
 
 Had Shakspeai'o been on his way to visit his wife and fliniily at Stratford, 
 which has been supposed, he must have been in a most dolorous condition. 
 Ills return home was not a pleasant prospect, (and why, then, should he 
 have gone?) if he felt thus that he was going to grief! But it is difficult 
 to imagine tliat Southampton would care for such an equivocal compliment 
 at the expense of Shakspeare's wife and little ones, to say nothing of the 
 Poet's want of manliness which a personal reading would imply. 
 
 N
 
 178 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Thus can my love excuse the slow offence 
 Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed ; 
 From Avhere thou art why should I haste me thence? 
 Till I return, of posting is no need : 
 0, what excuse will my poor beast then find. 
 When swift extremity can seem but slow? 
 Then should I spur tho' mounted on the wind ; 
 In winged speed no motion shall I know : 
 Then can no horse with my desire keep pace ; 
 Therefore Desire, of perfect'st love being made. 
 Shall neigh no dull flesh in his fiery race,^ 
 But love, for love, shall thus excuse my jade — 
 Since from thee going he went wilful slow. 
 Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go. 
 
 (51.) 
 
 Since I left you mine eye is in my mind, 
 
 And that which governs me to go about 
 
 Doth part his function, and is partly blind. 
 
 Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; 
 
 For it no form delivers to the heart. 
 
 Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch ; 
 
 1 ' Shall neiffh no dull flesh m his fiery race.' 
 
 Malone thought the expression of this line so uncouth that he laboured to 
 alter it. lie printed the line thus — 
 
 ' Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race ; ' 
 
 in which shape it has generally been printed since. He still suspected the 
 line to be corrupt, and thought perhaps it should read — 
 
 ' Shall neigh to dull flesh in his fiery race ; ' 
 
 meaning that ' Desire, in the ardour of impatience, should call to the slug- 
 gish aninial (the horse) to proceed with swifter motion.' Steevens opines 
 ' the sense may be this — therefore desire, being no dull 2}iece of horseflesh, 
 but composed of the most perfect love, shall neigh as he proceeds in his hot 
 career.' Yet the Quarto was perfectly right, and the meaning quite plain. 
 The image is used by one who rides a horse among horses, and horses are in 
 the habit of neighing when they salute each other ; they will do this, too, 
 if speed be ever so important. And the wiiter says, his desire being made 
 of perfectest love, having nothing animal about it, shall not salute any dull 
 flesh in his fiery race ; only he continues the use of the image by means of 
 the word ' neif/h.' Perhaps the Poet was thinking of the words of the 
 prophet .Jeremiah — ' They were as fed horses in the morning : every one 
 neighed after his neighbour's wife.'
 
 TRANSFORMATION. 179 
 
 Of his quick objects hath the mind no part. 
 Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch ; 
 F'or if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight. 
 The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, 
 The mountain or the sea, the day or night, 
 The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature : 
 Incapable of more, replete with you. 
 My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.' 
 
 ('13.) 
 
 Or whether doth my mind, l)eing crown'd with you. 
 
 Drink up the Monarch's plague, this flattery ? 
 
 Or whether sliall I say mine eye saith true. 
 
 And that your love taught it this alchemy. 
 
 To make of monsters and things indigest 
 
 Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, 
 
 Creating every bad a perfect best. 
 
 As fast as objects to his beams assemble? 
 
 Oh, 'tis the first ; 'tis flattery in my seeing, 
 
 And my great mind most kingly drinks it up ; 
 
 Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, 
 
 And to his palate doth prepare the cup : 
 If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin 
 That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.^ 
 
 (114.) 
 
 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed. 
 The dear repose for limbs with travel tired ; 
 But then begins a journey in my head 
 To work my mind when body's work's expired : 
 For then my thoughts (from far, w^here I abide) 
 Intend a zealous pilgi-image to thee, 
 And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, 
 liookins: on darkness which the blind do see : 
 
 ■"o 
 
 * The Quarto reads — 
 
 ' My must trite mind thus makcth mine vntnte.' 
 
 But an opposition is intended betwixt the mental and the visual sight ; 
 * mind ' and * eye ' ai"e repeated thrice in this sense in the next sonnet. 
 
 "^ It is possible that this and the preceding sonnet refer to a later journey, 
 but they will tiud a tit place with the other sonnets spoken by the Earl iu 
 his absence. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Save that my soul's imaginary sight 
 Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, 
 Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night. 
 Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new : ' 
 Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind 
 For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. 
 
 (27.) 
 
 How can I then return in happy plight. 
 That am debarred the benefit of rest ? 
 When Day's oppression is not eased by Night, 
 But Day by Night and Night by Day oppressed ; 
 And each, tho' enemies to either's reign, 
 Do in consent shake hands to torture me, 
 The one by toil, the other to complain 
 How far I toil ; still farther off from thee : 
 I tell the Day, to please him, thou art bright, 
 And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven : 
 So flatter I the swart-complexioned Night, 
 WTien sparkling stars tire^ not, thou gild'st the Even :^ 
 But Day doth daily draw my sorrows longer. 
 And Night doth nightly make grief's length seem 
 stronger. (28.) 
 
 * * It seems she hangs upon the cheek of Night 
 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.' 
 
 This is spoken of a woman by her lover in 'Romeo and Juliet.' 
 
 2 ' When sparkling stars tire not.' 
 
 The (Juarto reads, 'T\Tien sparkling stars tioire not/ and the word 'twire' 
 has much puzzled the commentators. Steevens thinks ' twire ' may have 
 the same signification as quire, or it is a corruption. He guesses that 
 ' twink ' may be meant, for twinkle. Malone suggests that we should read 
 ' when sparkling stars " tv:irl " not.' The word ' twire ' means motion of a 
 peculiar kind. In Chaucer it is applied to the intermitted soimds of a bird. 
 Twyreth (says Skirmer), is intei-preted singeth. Drayton has the word. 
 He says 'the sun with fervent eye looks thro' the tivyring glades ; ' by which 
 I take it he means tlie blades of grass thrilling in the wind. A very charac- 
 teristic motion of short glade-grass ! In Beaumont and Fletcher we find, 
 ■ ' I saw the wench that twired and twinkled at thee.' Ben Jonson has it, 
 ' Which maids will twire at 'tween their fingers thus ! ' Hence Gifford's 
 explanation of the word is * to leer affectedly.' Fancy a star leering 
 afiectedly! In Mar-ston's ' Antonio and Mellida' (act iv. first part), one of 
 the characters is in search of another who is hiding, and he says, ' I saw a 
 thing stir under a hedge, and I peeped and I spied a thing, and I peered, 
 and I ticeered mideraeath.' By which we see that it is not used either for
 
 LOVE-DREAMS. 181 
 
 When most I wink then do mine eyes best see. 
 For all the day they view things unrespected : 
 But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, 
 And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed ! 
 Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright. 
 How would thy shadow's form form happy show 
 To the clear day mth thy much clearer light, 
 WTien to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so ? 
 How would — I say — mine eyes be blessed made 
 By looking on thee in the living day, 
 WTien in dead night thy fair, imperfect shade 
 Thro' heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay ? 
 All days are nights to see till I see thee : 
 And nights bright days when dreams do shew thee me. 
 
 (43.) 
 
 Is it thy will thine image should keep open 
 My heavy eyelids to the weary night ? 
 Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken. 
 Whilst shadows like to thee do mock my sight ? 
 
 peeping or peering, but for the motion made in doing both. Again, Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher apply it to the braying of an ass : — ' Ye are an ass, a 
 ^jtvVf-pipe ! ' So that, whether of sound or bodily motion, it signifies an 
 intermittent movement. No word coidd more admirably express the motion 
 of a snipe, but it is nowhere used to describe the twinkling of a star ; such an 
 application is the result of our feeling back for the meaning of the word 
 ' twire,' through our sense of the word twitter. To twire, so to say, 
 describes a larger zig-zag of motion than to twitter, and is imdoubtedly the 
 a. s. * thwyriim,' to wrest, to twist, to put out of a straight course, to 
 swerve from a straight line. Therefore I conclude that Shakspeare did not 
 write when ' sparkling stars twire not,' which, so far as ' t-^re ' means mo- 
 tion, would be saying 'when sparkling stars do not sparkle.' The word he 
 used would be sure to add to the line in another sense. And he does not 
 need a word to express movement at all, but a stiU splendour. * Thou 
 gikrd the even ! ' So I doubt not that he wrote ' when sparkling stars fire 
 not ;' i.e. when they adorn not. The tire-man and tire-voom made the phnise 
 familiar, and the act of tirinf/ or dressing for the night gave to it a natural 
 touch. He uses the same word in the same sense in ' Venus and Adonis,' 
 stanza 30 — * And Titan tired in the mid-day heat.' 
 3 ' Thou gild'st the Even, 
 
 Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
 Having some business, do entreat her eyes 
 To twinkle in their spheres tiU they return.' 
 
 This is spoken of a wotnati bxj a lover in the * Midsummer Night's Dream.'
 
 182 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. "! 
 
 Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee 
 
 So far from home into my deeds to pry. 
 
 To find out shames and idle hours in me, 
 
 The scope and tenor of thy jealousy? 
 
 Oh, no, thy love, tho' much, is not so great, 
 
 It is my love that keeps mine eye awake : 
 
 Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat. 
 
 To play the watchman ever for thy sake : 
 
 For thee watch I whilst thou dost watch elsewhere, 
 From me far off, with others all too near ! 
 
 (61.) 
 
 How careful was I, when I took my way, 
 Each trifle under truest bars to thrust. 
 That to my use it might unused stay 
 From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust : 
 But thou, to whom my jewels^ trifles are. 
 Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief. 
 Thou best of dearest, and mine only care, 
 Art left the prey of every vulgar thief! 
 Thee have I not locked up in any chest, 
 Save where thou art not, tho' I feel thou art, 
 Within the gentle closure of my breast. 
 From whence at pleasure thou may'st come and part ; 
 And even thence thou wilt be stolen, I fear. 
 For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear. 
 
 (48.) 
 
 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, 
 Injurious distance should not stop my way. 
 For then, despite of space, I would be brought 
 From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,^ 
 No matter then altho' my foot did stand 
 Upon the farthest earth removed from thee, 
 
 » ' My jewels.' So Bertram, in ' All's Well lliat Ends Well,' when 
 preparing for a journey, says — 
 
 ' I have writ my letters, casketed my trecmtre.' 
 
 It may be assumed that Sbakspeare's own jewels at the period of writing 
 were hardly worth mentioning to a nobleman. 
 
 2 i.e. I would be brought from 'limits far remote' where I am, on 
 distant shores, to where thou dost stay, at home.
 
 MIND AND MATTER. 188 
 
 For nimble thought can jump both sea and land. 
 As soon as think the place where he would be : 
 But, ah ! thought kills me that I am not thought, 
 To leap large length of miles ^ when thou art gone. 
 But that so much of earth and water wrought 
 I must attend Time's leisure with my moan ; 
 Eeceiving nought by elements so slow 
 But heavy tears, badges of cither's woe. 
 
 2 
 
 (44.) 
 
 The other two, slight Air and purging Fire, 
 Are both with thee, wherever I abide ; 
 The first my thought, the other my desire. 
 These present, absent with swift motion slide : ^ 
 For when these quicker elements are gone 
 In tender embassy of love to thee. 
 My life being made of four, with two alone 
 Sinks dowTi to death oppressed with melancholy. 
 Until life's composition be recured 
 By those swift messengers returned from thee,^ 
 \Mio even but now come back again, assured 
 Of thy fair health, recounting it to me I 
 
 This told I joy, but then no longer glad, 
 
 I send them back again, and straight grow sad. 
 
 (45.) 
 
 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key 
 
 Can bring him to his sweet, uplocked treasure, 
 
 ^ * To leap lai'ge lengths of miles.' 
 
 So in ' King Jolin ' — 
 
 * Large lengths of seas and shores 
 Between my father and my mother lay,' 
 
 2 < When thou sxt gone.' When her image, seen in vision, has vanished. 
 
 3 This line is usually and absui'dly printed — 
 
 ' These present-absent with swift motion slide.' 
 
 Shakspeare never devised such a condition as ^present-absent ' ; what he 
 says is, ' These, when present, become instantly absent.' 
 
 * The tvrin-likeness of these lines may be found in Valentine's letter to 
 Sylvia {' Two Gentlemen of Verona '), beginning — 
 
 * My thoughts do harbour -with my Silvia nightly ' ; 
 
 which similiir strain is, of course, addressed from man to woman !
 
 184 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 The which he will not every hour survey, 
 For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure : 
 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, 
 Since, seldom coming, in the long year set 
 Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 
 Or captain jewels in the carcanet : 
 So is the time that keeps you as my chest. 
 Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide. 
 To make some special instant special blest. 
 By new unfolding his imprisoned pride : 
 
 Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope, 
 Being had — to triumph ; being lacked — to hope ! 
 
 (52.) 
 
 We have no grounds for supposing that Shakspeare ever 
 undertook a ' journey ' like this ; no conclusive reason to 
 believe that he was ever out of England. Here is a man 
 on his travels, performing a long and wearying journey 
 day by day on horseback. Day after day he toils on 
 farther and farther away from the person addressed. In 
 sonnet 27, he is so far distant as to speak of his thoughts 
 making a pilgrimage home again. In sonnet 44 he is at 
 limits far remote^ which must mean distant shores ; also 
 the sonnet suggests that both sea and land lie between the 
 two persons who are this perilous distance apart. It was 
 a journey, too, for wliich considerable preparation had to 
 be made ; long time of absence was contemplated, and 
 the speaker's property placed in ' sure wards of trust.' 
 There is a hint of banishment, of an enforced absence in : — 
 
 * I must attend Timers leisure with my moan.' 
 
 This cannot be Shakspeare on his way to Stratford. And 
 if it were possible for it to be him on his travels abroad, 
 then the person addressed, the stay-at-home, could not be 
 Southampton.
 
 185 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1595. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE OF THE EARL IN HIS ABSENCE. 
 
 These three sonnets are spoken by Sliakspeare to the 
 Earl, during his absence from England. At first sight 
 they may appear to belong to those spoken by the Earl to 
 his mistress. They have the look of a lover fondhng the 
 miniature of his beloved, and rejoicing that in her absence 
 he has at least her portrait to dote on and dally with. 
 But lines 10 and 11 of the third sonnet, show that it is 
 the person addressed who is away, and on the move ; not 
 the speaker. He says Ms thoughts will follow his friend, 
 no matter how far. Also, with a closer look we may see 
 that the picture is not a real portrait. The poet says his 
 eye has played the painter and engraved the image in his 
 heart. The picture that can be seen in sleep must be 
 mental. It is this visionary portrait of the Earl for the 
 possession of which the eyes and heart contend. A picture 
 that hangs in his ' bosom's shop,' not at the print-seller's. 
 It is the banquet that {^painted, not the picture. All is air- 
 drawn and impalpable, or it would lack sufficient scope for 
 the play of fancy, the contention of heart and eye wdiich 
 ends in such a loving league of amity. The three sonnets 
 are obviously suggested by the 23rd of Drayton's Sonnets.' 
 
 1 ' Whilst yet mine eyo3 do sm-feit with delight, 
 
 My woful heart imprisoned in my hreast 
 Wigheth to be transformt^d to my sight, 
 That it, like those, by looking, might be blost ;
 
 186 SHAIvSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath stell'd' 
 Thy beauty's form in table of my heart ; 
 My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, 
 And perspective it is best painter's art : 
 For thro' the painter must you see his skill. 
 To find where your true image pictured lies, 
 AVhich in my bosom's shop is hanging still. 
 That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes : 
 Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done ! 
 Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me 
 Are windows to my breast, wherethro' the sun 
 Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee ; 
 
 Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art — 
 They draw but what they see, know not the heart. 
 
 (24.) 
 
 Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, 
 How to decide the conquest of thy sight ; 
 Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, 
 My heart mine eye the freedom of that right 
 My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie, 
 (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes) 
 But the defendant doth that plea deny. 
 And says, in him thy fair appearance lies ; 
 To 'cide this title is impanelled 
 A 'quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart. 
 And by their verdict is determined 
 The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part : 
 As thus, — mine eye's due is thine outward part : 
 And my heart's right thine inward love of heart. 
 
 ' . . . ^"'-^ 
 
 But, wliiJst mine eyes thus greedily do gaze, 
 
 Fiuding their objects evermore depart, 
 
 These now the other's happiness do praise, 
 
 Wishing themselves that they had been my heart : 
 
 That eyes were heart, or that the heart were eyes, 
 
 As covetous the others' use to have ; 
 
 But, finding Nature their request denies, 
 
 This to each other mutually they crave, 
 That since the one cannot the other be, 
 That eyes could think of that my heai-t coidd see.' 
 
 1 ' Stelled.' Probably hxed. In ' K^ing Lear ' the stars are called the 
 'stelled Ures.'
 
 THE pr)irrRAiT seen in vision. 18/ 
 
 Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, 
 And each doth good turns now unto the other ; 
 When that mine eye is famished for a look. 
 Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, 
 With my love's picture then mine eye doth feast, 
 And to the painted banquet bids my heart : 
 Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, 
 And in his thoughts of love doth share a part ; 
 So, either by thy picture or my love. 
 Thyself away art present still with me, 
 For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, 
 And I am still with them, and they with thee : 
 Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight 
 Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight. 
 
 (47.)
 
 188 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 XHE 
 
 DARK STORY OF THE SONNETS. 
 
 One of tlie decisive battles of the sonnets has to be 
 fouglit around the next gronp which I have entitled, 
 ' Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy of the Earl and her friend 
 Lady Rich' It is here the personal theorists feel them- 
 selves most safely entrenched, and altogether unassailable. 
 It is here they so triumphantly lift the vulturine nose and 
 snuff the carrion that infects the air. They have no mis- 
 givings that the scent may be carried in their own nostrils. 
 And when one ventures to doubt whether the vulturine 
 nose be the best of all possible guides in a matter which 
 demands the most dehcate discrimination, the nicest 
 intuition, the vulturine nose is forthwith elevated in 
 disgust and scorn. Wliy, the facts are as plain, to them, 
 as the nose in their face. If there be one fact patent in 
 the sonnets, it is that Shakspeare was a scamp and a 
 blackguard, and that he told all the world so, only the 
 world has been too bigoted to beheve him. If you hint 
 that there may be another reading possible ; one that is 
 compatible with the poet's purity, they think you very 
 good to say so; very good indeed, excessively amiable; 
 but you are too youthful, too simple, and unripe. ' Such 
 a view is perfectly untenable to us who know the sonnets,' 
 By knowing the sonnets, they mean accepting aU the 
 squinting constructions which show the moral obliquity 
 of Shakspeare. The devil's own smile of paternal
 
 SURMISES OF THE PERSONAL THEORISTS. 189 
 
 pity could not exceed tlieir look of kindly commiseration, 
 and superb patronage with wliicli they treat your want 
 of worldly wit:dom. 'Ah, you do not allow for human 
 nature's frailties. Prove or assume what you i)lease 
 of the other sonnets ; of one thing we are certain, and 
 whosoever does not see that Shakspeare, invisible as he 
 was on all other sides, has here given us a full view of his 
 baser part, knows nothing whatever about the subject.' 
 And so Shakspeare is to be made appear to the w^orld as 
 an unconscionable debauchee in his Ufe, a hypocrite in his 
 protestations of affection, and a stark fool in his confessions, 
 in order that these keen-eyed and keener-scented critics 
 may look wondrous wise. But, was our poet such a fool ? 
 Are these critics so wise ? They have no doubts on either 
 point ; I have more than misgivings on both. But to the 
 story. 
 
 It has been assumed, and unhesitatingly put forth, that 
 Shakspeare, having a wife at Stratford, kept a mistress in 
 London. The chief advocate of this theory gives a 
 finishing smack of satisfaction to his reading by remarkmg 
 thus : — ' May no person be incHued on this account to 
 condemn him with a bitterness equal to their own virtue. 
 For myself, I confess I have not the heart to blame him 
 at all — purely because he so keenly reproaches himself for 
 his own sin and folly.' This lady held the Poet captive 
 wdth all the fierce tjT^anny of Circe of old. It has even 
 been conjectured that she was an Italian, possibly the 
 wife of some merchant-prince of Venice, if not the wife 
 of the Venetian Ambassador. It is further supposed that 
 the Poet obtained his release from her inlkience when his 
 young friend Southampton or ' Mr. W. H.' became her 
 prey, and then the lady passed away into the realm of the 
 Poet's imagination, to become the ideal of his bolder 
 black-eyed beauties. For there is no doubt that tlie lady 
 was black-eyed and had black hair, with a most swarthy 
 complexion. The Poet, however, did not give her up to
 
 190 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 liis friend without a fierce struo;ole for her, during which 
 he flung about him such wiklfire words as scarred the 
 guilty couple and his own fair fame for ever. Now, if 
 there were any sure grounds for such a story, I should 
 feel bound to face it. We ought not to lie about Shak- 
 speare because we love him. We should have no right to 
 alter any known fact of his life. And so anxious are we 
 to lay hold on him to look into his mortal face, that we 
 could almost gladly clutch any part of his human skirts, 
 even if the hem had trailed somewhat in the mire. It 
 might have been pleasant too could we have proved that 
 he had such failings and errors as afforded a satisfactory 
 set-off to his splendom^ — the foil which should render his 
 gloiy less dazzhng to weak eyes. There are tastes that 
 would have appreciated his fame all the more for a taint 
 in it ! Besides we all know what mad things Love has 
 done in this world ; that while he can see so clearly on 
 behalf of others, he is so often blind for self. We know 
 how this passion has coloured some lump of common earth 
 like the human clay fresh from Eden, bright with God's 
 latest touch ; how it has clothed spiritual deformity with 
 splendour and grace ; how it has discrowned the kingly 
 men and made fools of the wise ones ; covered a David 
 with shame ; snatched the empire of a world from 
 Anthony ; made great heroes lay down their heads and 
 leave their laurels in a wanton's lap ; set the wits of many 
 a poor poet dancing like those of a lunatic. Shakspeare 
 with his ripe physical nature, fine animal spirits, and mag- 
 nificent pulse of rich hfe, might have been one victim 
 more. He might have been ! But, was he ? And has 
 he written sonnets to record the mutual shame of himself 
 and that friend whom he professed to love with a love 
 ' passing the love of woman,' and strove to image forth 
 for endless honour ? 
 
 There is pretty good proof that these sonnets and their 
 story were not personal to Shakspeare ; that they do not
 
 CIIArvACTER OF OUR TOET. 101 
 
 relate to anything deeply and desperately guilty, or we 
 should hardly find one of them in print so early as 1599. 
 There could be no great reason why it should not have 
 gone out of our prudent Poet's hands, or he would not 
 have let it go. That we do fuid it in print shows it was 
 written for a purpose, having to do with the ' sonnets 
 among his private friends,' and that the secret was of no 
 great moment even to them, or they would have kept it 
 better. And once the sonnet was in print, if it had told 
 anything, as in a glass darkly, against the fair fame of 
 Sliakspeare — if there had been such a story as modern 
 ingenuity has discovered, we may be sure there were eyes 
 sharp enough amongst the Poet's contemporaries to have 
 spied it out, and made the most of it. His friendship 
 with Southampton was known. His sonnets were read 
 with interest. Yet there is not a whisper against him. 
 And why but because it was imderstood that they icere 
 somiets, not j^ersonal confessions, but sonnets on subjects 
 chosen or given? It was not strange in 1599 that a 
 great dramatic poet should write dramatically in his 
 sonnets. And there was nothing suspicious in the Poet's 
 life or personal bearing to cause the lynx-eyed to pry, 
 no summons issued for a feast of the vidtures ; neither 
 when this sonnet or the book of sonnets was printed, nor 
 when the writer himself was dead and his grave had be- 
 come the fair mark for a foul bird. No one rakes there 
 for rottenness ; no one ventures to deposit dirt there. No 
 doubt the Elizabethans had as keen a scent for a scandal 
 as the Victorians may have, and liked their game to be 
 as high ; such things as our Poet has been supposed to 
 charge himself with coidd not have escaped, unnoticed 
 and luiknowu. In this world it is easy enough at any 
 period of history, and in any station of life, for some of 
 the personal vu'tues to be overlooked by whole ' troops of 
 unrecording friends.' These may nestle and make sweet 
 some small breathing-space of life, and pass away without
 
 192 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 being remembered in gilt letters. But the Vices ! That 
 is quite a different matter. And such vices too in such a 
 man as Shakspeare, who was watched by so many jealous 
 looks on the part of those who used the pen and could 
 prick sharply with it. His vices could not have nestled 
 out of sight quite so cleverly if he himself had taken 
 pams to endorse them publicly. But there is not an 
 ill-breatli breathed against the moral reputation of our 
 Poet, either from rival dramatist or chronicler of scandal, 
 in all the letters of the time. Now character is evidence 
 in any properly constituted court of justice. Not as 
 against facts, but as an element in the right interpretation 
 of them. Here, however, there are no facts to array 
 against the character, only inferences, whereas the cha- 
 racter stands irremoveably fixed, with all the facts for 
 buttresses around it. 
 
 But for the sake of argument, let us suppose the sonnets 
 to tell such a story : that the story was founded on a 
 reality in our Poet's life, and that his young friend did 
 really rob him of his Mistress. How are we to reconcile 
 the fact of Shakspeare having written sonnets on pm-pose 
 to proclaim the grievous errors of himself and his friend, 
 and given an eternal tarnish to that fair affection of theirs, 
 with the feeling that runs through all the personal son- 
 nets, the desire to paint this friend in the loveliest colours, 
 and set up an image of him that should win the world's 
 love and admiration for all time ? 
 
 Shakspeare's great object in composing the Southamp- 
 ton Sonnets, was to do honour to the Earl, to show him 
 gratitude, respect, love, and to embalm his beauty, moral 
 and physical, for posterity. Not to drag him in the dirt 
 and hold him up to infamy — himself to execration. In 
 every personal ghmpse we get, we see a man who feels a 
 most fatherly affection for his young friend. He counsels 
 like a father. He respects the marriage ties, and is 
 anxious to see his ' dear hoy ' throned in the purest seat
 
 Till': POETS OBJECT IN WHITING. 193 
 
 of honour, the sanctity of a Home that is blessed with a 
 wife and cliildren. His spirit hovers about his ' dear 
 boy ' as on wings of love, in the most protecting way ; he 
 warns, he comforts, he cheers him. He begs that he will 
 be as wary for himself as he will be for him. The supreme 
 object of his writing is to win honour for the Earl. He 
 fondly hopes by-and-by to puhlichj show himself worthy 
 of the Earl's sweet respect. In his dedication to the first 
 poem he promises to honour him with some graver 
 labour. His verse is to exalt him in life, and in death it 
 shall be his ' gentle monument,' the ' living record ' of his 
 memory. It is meant to distill the sweetness of the 
 friend's life, worth, truth, and beauty ; not to surround hun 
 with an ill odour. 
 
 * To no other pass my verses tend 
 Than of your graces and your gifts to telV 
 
 In these his monument shall ' shine more bright than 
 unswept stone,' and ' gainst death and all-oblivious enmity 
 shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,' as 
 the noble of nature's own crowning ; the man whom 
 Shakspeare deliglited to love and respect. These sonnets 
 are to stand to future times for the primal purpose of 
 showing the Earl's worth. And if his dear friend ever 
 looks at them after the Poet is gone, he is to fmd there 
 the very part, the ' better part,' of Shakspeare that was 
 consecrated to him. The object, I repeat, is to set the 
 Earl forth unparagoned, to consecrate not to desecrate 
 their affection, and the spirit of the writer is one of the 
 utmost purity and loving regard. To him the Earl is the 
 subject of kind thoughts, pure thoughts, high thoughts, a 
 hundred times proclaimed. And in sonnet 71 he says, 
 ' I love you so that when I am gone I would have you 
 forget me altogether, rather than my death should cause 
 you a pang of sorrow.' Xot anything he had done or 
 said in his life I 
 

 
 194 SlIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 And, in the last of the personal sonnets addressed to 
 Southampton on his release from prison, there is no change 
 in his regards, except that the affection has increased and 
 ripened with time. Moreover, we see, right through the 
 sonnets, from the first to this latter one, that Shakspeare 
 has most absolutely kept the loftiest moral altitude. He 
 has preserved his own purity and integrity of soul to have 
 the right of speaking to the Earl as he does at times. For 
 example, in sonnet TO, where he defends the youth against 
 some slander, and bears testimony that his life presents a 
 ' pm^e unstained prime.' He has kept sacred his right of 
 affection to express his sadness when the Earl does associate 
 witli evil companions, and allow ' sin to lace itself with his 
 society,' and he bewails most touchingly that his fame should 
 grow common, that evil tongues should be permitted to 
 wag at his name. Now, these sonnets which we speak of 
 are personal ; we know and can prove them to be so, 
 becaus-^ he who speaks in them can be identified as the 
 man who writes them. On this personal stand-point we 
 may take our ground, and we shall find that through all 
 tlie personal sonnets the character is one and self-con- 
 sistent, and the likest possible to that of the Shakspeare 
 whom we know by all other report of his contemporaries, 
 and through his works. Here we are able to identify the 
 Man Shakspeare by his own voice, and we can prove that 
 in these sonnets, which are personal, there is no hint, not 
 one word of suggestion that Shakspeare was, or could be, 
 guilty of any such sins as have been laid to his charge. 
 Not one self-reproach for being in any way the cause of 
 his friend's errors, or loss of reputation. He speaks of 
 his own death, but there is no regret for aught that he 
 has done in companionship with the Earl. When he is 
 dead he asks the Earl to forget him, and why ? Because 
 he is shamed by his writings, not by his life. If, he pleads, 
 the Earl should desert him for the rival poet, and he is 
 cast away, the worst is this, ' My love was my decay ' —
 
 INCONGIU'ITIP^S OF THE DAIIK STOIiV. K)5 
 
 his love foi' the Earl, not for a bad woman. And it is 
 useless for any one to reply that tlie disreputable affair 
 may have occurred after some of tlie sonnets were written, 
 for this pure and lofty tone is the domhiant one up to the 
 sonnet of 1603. Whereas, if there had been any such 
 grievous error sliared in common by poet and peer, it 
 must have been in the earliest stage of their acquaintance- 
 ship, wlien, as the Poet would be made to say, his friend 
 had only been his for otie hour. In fact, the Poet -must 
 have been keeping a mistress at the very time he was 
 writing those beautiful sonnets in praise of marriage. 
 Yet we find there is not one word of contrition or self- 
 reproach ; no single reference to his own breach of the 
 moral law, or marriage tie, in all the sage and solemn 
 personal sonnets which show us Shakspeare's own soul. 
 IIow could our Poet, who had so warmly advocated ' hus- 
 bandry in honour ' for the Earl, have written sonnets for 
 the purpose of picturing tlie married man and his boy- 
 friend as rivals for the embrace of a mistress ; and thus 
 publicly proclaimed his own dishonour ? How could he 
 have been sensitive to the least whisper of ill-fame that 
 was breathed against the Earl, and bewail the pity of his 
 growing common in the mouths of men, if lie himself had 
 been in the stews with liim, and done his best to per- 
 petuate the fact by recording the most danuiing testi- 
 mony ? How could he have charged his young friend 
 Avith deception, baseness, and ill-deeds, when, if such 
 things had been true, he Avould have been first in doing 
 these very offences — ten-fold worse in doing them, and a 
 thousand-fold worse in writing of them? How could lie 
 remonstrate with the Earl on his evil courses, warn Juin 
 about his liealth, and charge him with gracing impiety 
 with his presence, if he had been the guilty partner in lu.s 
 fall? How could he think his beloved would show 'like 
 an Idol,' if lie had laboured so sedulously to flaw the 
 image he had set up, and so befouled it witli dirt? Hmv 
 
 o -J.
 
 196 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 should he Hve in the eyes of posterity as the express image 
 of beauty, truth, and natural nobleness, if he had de- 
 nounced his moral deformity, reproached him bitterly for 
 his falsehood, and devoted passionate sonnets to register 
 his degradation ? Such a view of Shakspeare's character 
 is insanely absurd. It is not possible that he should have 
 shown his love, or sought to honour the Earl in any such 
 way. It would indeed have been embalming the life, in- 
 scribing the monument, and 'showing his head' worthily, 
 so as to prove his love, with a vengeance ! And from all 
 we know and hear of the man — gather from the aim and 
 object of the sonnets — see of his knowledge of human 
 nature, his instinct for law, his sincerity and fidehty to his 
 friends — we are compelled to indignantly spurn a theoiy 
 that demands such a sacrifice of truth and probability. 
 We would rather believe what Shakspeare himself has 
 said than what any of his commentators have surmised. 
 Any one who can think that our Poet would be guilty of 
 such a sacrilege to that sacred sweetness of friendship 
 which he had felt so intimately and brooded over so 
 lovingly, can never have drawn near to the spirit of Shak- 
 speare, and apprehended its uprightness and sincereness — 
 its lofty chivalry and sense of honour — the largeness and 
 clearness of his nature — the smiling serenity, as of the 
 fixed stars — the capacious calm that broods over the pro- 
 found depths of his soul — the abiding strength of his cha- 
 racter, which' embodies the idea of power in complaisant 
 plenitude — the infinite sweetness and peaceful self-posses- 
 sion — which are the express qualities of this man, whom 
 Nature bare with so great a love, and endowed with so 
 goodly a heritage. Such a reading would imply chaos 
 where all was order, stark madness in the sanest of men, 
 fearful folly in the wisest, worthlessness in the worthiest, 
 unnaturalness in the most natural, and be altogether truer 
 to Nat Lee at his maddest than to Shakspeare. It is the 
 very opposite of him in every respect. And not only is
 
 PROOFS OF PUlilTY. 197 
 
 it opposed to all we believe, and all the testimony we may 
 call on the snbject, but the sonnets themselves will disprove 
 it. As we have said, if such an affair as has been imagined 
 had ever occurred, it would have been when their friend- 
 ship was in its budding-time. It is imaged in sonnet 33 
 as taking place in the dawn, when the Earl would have 
 been his friend but for ' one hour,' just when he had pro- 
 mised a ' beauteous day ! ' And, at least years afterwards, 
 the Poet is able to say, when speaking in his own proper 
 person, that — 
 
 ' To no other pass my verses tend 
 Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.'' 
 
 How could this be so if he and the Earl had been 
 actors in the dark drama conjectured, and the Poet had 
 written for the purpose of exposure ? And he can still 
 greet his friend with this remarkable sonnet — 
 
 ' Let not my love be called Idolatry, 
 Nor my beloved as an Idol show ; 
 Since cdl cdike my songs and praises be 
 To one, of one, still such, and ever so ! 
 Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, 
 Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; 
 Therefore my verse, to constancy confined. 
 One thing expressing leaves out difference: 
 Fair, kind and true, is cdl my argument, 
 P'air, kind and true, varying to other words ; 
 And in this change is my invention spent. 
 Three themes in one which wondrous scope affords: 
 Fair, kind and true, have often hved alone, 
 Which three till now never kept seat in one.* 
 
 Now if the sad story as against Shakspeare had been 
 true, this statement would be absolutely false in eveiy 
 particular. It would have been the grimmest mockery 
 for him to have pleaded against his Beloved looking like 
 an Idol if he had previously chronicled his fall into the
 
 198 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 moral gutter where Shakspeare is supposed to have lain 
 wallowing. His songs could not have been ' all alike ' 
 devoted to the praise of his unchangeable truth and won- 
 derful constancy, if he had denounced his deception and 
 raged in rhyme against his falsehood. It could not have 
 been ' all alike ' on either side if there had been so marked 
 a change in word and deed. The Earl could not have 
 been constant in his kindness if the reproaches had been 
 aimed at him by the Poet; nor would the verse have 
 been confined to expressing the constancy ; nor could 
 ' fair, kind, and true ' be all his argument if he had pas- 
 sionately proclaimed the Earl as being foul, unkind, and 
 false. Tlie sonnet would contain a lie in each line, known 
 to the Earl as such, and be an astounding specimen of 
 stupendous effrontery. Again, if the dark story were true, 
 what are we to make of sonnet 70 ? If the Earl had 
 robbed the Poet of his Mistress and stung him to the 
 quick, causing him to denounce his friend's treachery in 
 a fury of ungovernable resentment, he could not have 
 told the Earl, that he presented a ' pure unstained 
 prime ' — 
 
 * Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days, 
 Either not assailed^ or Victor being charged,^ 
 
 when both of them would know so well that he had 
 been assailed, and that he was a Victor in a far different 
 sense. Which are we to believe, Shakspeare himself, or 
 those who have interpreted his sonnets witli such a wan- 
 ton profanity? One of two things — Either the story 
 Avas true, or it was not. If true, he could not directly 
 after have extolled this false friend for his truth (soimet 
 54), or given him the character which he has drawn in 
 sonnet 70. But to step in for a closer grapple. We will 
 once more suppose the story to be true. How then could 
 Shakspeare be the first to attack when he had been the 
 foremost to err ? How should he blame his young friend
 
 THE AllGUMENT TERSONALLY IMPOSSIBLE. 199 
 
 for permitting the ' base clouds ' and ' rottoii smoke ' to 
 hide his morning briglitness, taunt liiiii with sneaking to 
 westward witli ' this disgrace,' hold liini responsible for 
 the ' base clouds,' overtaking himself and tell him that 
 tears of repentance would be of no avail, that his shame 
 could not 'give physic' to Shakspeare's grief, for no one 
 could speak well of such a ' salve ' as tliat which might 
 heal the wound l3ut could never ' cure the disgrace ? ' 
 How could he thus throw such puerile and petulant ex- 
 clamations at the Earl, his young friend, had he been the 
 older sinner ? But for his own connexion with the woman, 
 the Earl would not have been brought witliiu reach of her 
 snares. It would be his own baseness that made the 
 Earl's deception possible. It was he who had let the base 
 clouds overtake both. The youth could only have loosely 
 ' strayed ' where the man of years had first deliberately 
 gone. The Earl would see what a pretty comment it was 
 on the ' husbandry in honour,' which the Poet had urged 
 so eloquently, if he thus admitted that he was hving in 
 such dishonour. The falsehood of falsehoods was Shaks- 
 peare's own, his was the baseness, black beyond compari- 
 son, the disgrace that was past all cure. 
 
 After the deatli of Tybalt, Eomeo, fearing the effect 
 on Juliet, asks — 
 
 ' Does sLe not thiuk me an old murderer. 
 Now I have stained the childhood of our joy? ' 
 
 feeling that this blot of blood on the newly-turned leaf 
 of his life, lias soaked backwards through the whole book. 
 So must the Poet have felt if the Earl had discovered any 
 such black blot in his character ; if he liad found tliat all 
 the professions of love, sole and eternal, whispered in pri- 
 vate and proclaimed in public, were totally false ; if he 
 had proved his vaunted singleness in love to be a most 
 repulsive specimen of double-dealing. With wliat con- 
 science could the Poet turn round wlien cauglit by tlie
 
 200 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 friend, who had only followed his footsteps, and upbraid 
 him for the disgrace to himself, the treachery to their 
 friendship ? If he had not had a mistress he would not 
 have lost a friend. Or how could he reproach his friend 
 with breaking a ' twofold-truth ? ' — 
 
 * Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee ; 
 Thine, by thy beauty being false to me,' 
 
 whilst ignoring his own breach of the moral law and the 
 marriage tie? The Earl would know what a double- 
 dyed sinner he was ; he would see through the moral 
 blasphemy of his solemn twaddle. He would appreciate 
 the value of his arguments for marriage, and his conse- 
 cration of their friendship, when thus illustrated. He 
 would see how apposite was the exclamation ' ah me, but 
 yet thou mightst, my Sweet, forbear,' and chide him for 
 the ' pretty Avrongs ' committed when he was ' sometime 
 absent ' from the Earl's heart, if this absence was for a 
 purpose so vile. If the story had been true, then the 
 position taken by the Poet would be utterly fatal, and the 
 arguments foolishly false. It would be the hardened 
 sinner obviously playing the part of the injured innocent; 
 every charge he makes against liis friend cuts double- 
 edged against himself. How could he dare to speak of 
 the Earl's ' sensual fault,' and talk of bringing in sense, to 
 look on this weakness of his friend's nature in a sensible 
 way, if he himself had been doing secret wrong to his 
 own reputation, his dear friendship, his wife, his little 
 ones? How could he thus patronise his frail friend who 
 knew that the speaker was far frailer ? How should he 
 say, ' no more be grieved at that which tliou hast done,' 
 and try to make excuses for Jiim, if he himself had done 
 that which was infinitely worse ? The Earl might Aveep, 
 and the Poet might speak of the tears as rich enough to 
 ransom all his ill-deeds ; but they would not redeem the 
 character of Shakspeare ; the friend, with all his repent-
 
 THE DARK STORY IS FALSE. 201 
 
 ance, could never have cured the married man's disgrace. 
 He might affect to speak of the Earl's doings as ' pretty 
 wrongs ' that befitted his years, but his own sins could 
 not be looked on as ' pretty ; ' these could not in any 
 sense befit his own years. 
 
 How should Shakspeare ask — 
 
 ' Why didst tliou promise such a beaiiteous day, 
 And make me travel forth without my cloaks 
 
 It is not possible for any man to ask such a question 
 imder the circumstances supposed. It would be too bare- 
 faced a bit of hypocrisy ! His cloak ! Why, he would 
 have been travelling forth in the cloak of a most hideous 
 and discrustinu; disguise. He would be a base lecher 
 cloaking himself in a demure morality. Shakspeare, were 
 he the speaker, could not have travelled forth without his 
 cloak, it would have clung only too near to nature. Such 
 a method of treating the whole matter would be a blun- 
 der worse than the crime. And to imagine for an instant 
 that Shakspeare, the man who was all eye, could be blind 
 to so patent a fact is as foolish as the story is false. It 
 cannot be the Poet speaking, because the speaker must 
 be 2?ersonally blameless to have any warrant or justiji- 
 cation dramaticalbj or morally for awarding the blame. 
 Shakspeare could not say of his love for his friend, that 
 it was a love that might indeed be called true. It could 
 not be true if so false and full of lies. Shakspeare could 
 not say, and ' yet thou might'st my seat ' foi'bear,' and 
 still assume to have his sole seat only in the heart of his 
 friend^ and allude to the pretty wrongs connnitted when 
 absent from his heart. Nor could he sav ' If I lose thee 
 my loss is my love's gain,' when he had sworn a hundred 
 times that this friend was his only love. Furtlier, the 
 speaker is not a married man. If he had been, he could 
 
 * So road by the upholders of the Personal Theory.
 
 202 SHAKSPEARE'S SOXXETS. 
 
 not but have blamed himself when Hinging reproaches 
 so recklessly at his friend, or in the lull tliat followed, 
 when he tried to find excuses for him. Had he been a 
 married man, there would have been no need of charging 
 himself with that one least fault in the world, an overmuch 
 charity in construing ; ' himself corrupting ' by his large 
 liberality towards his friend. He need not have sought 
 for so far-fetched a fault as that of straining a point in 
 excusing his friend's sins more ' than they are,' because 
 ' all men make faults,' and ' even I in this,' that is in being 
 so very charitable ; the only fault of which the speaker 
 is conscious ! A married man could not charge the single 
 one with his shame for what he had done being inadequate 
 to give physic to his grief. Xor could he make that 
 appeal to the public, ' for 7io man well of such a salve can 
 speak,' if he were known to be a married man who had 
 been found out in keeping a Mistress. It would not be 
 the salve of which men would speak ; but the moral sore ! 
 Lastly, the speaker is not a man at all. There is no men- 
 tion of the speaker's sex — the allusion to ' him ' in sonnet 
 34 being merely proverbial and perfectly general. This 
 suppression cannot be without meaning ; it makes greatly 
 for my reading, and I shall show that the speaker is a 
 woman addressing her lover and the woman-rival who 
 has drawn her lover away from her side ; a woman 
 whose love is pure and who being free from personal 
 blame has a right to reproach both the Earl and the 
 lady who had professed to be the friend of both, and 
 whom she suspects of having taken advantage of their 
 friendship to ensnare the Earl and keep him in the strong 
 toils of her wanton grace. The attitude, the arguments, 
 the personal consciousness, are all wrong when applied 
 to a guilty man ; they are only possible to an innocent 
 woman. Nowhere do we meet the blinking glance of 
 conscious guilt ; but at every turn of the subject the clear- 
 straight-forward look of honest love. The love and pos-
 
 THE SrEAKER IS A WOMAN. 203 
 
 session are of that absolute kind wliicli only the woman 
 can claim. The ' loss in love ' would touch her inlinitely 
 more nearly than it could a man. Sucli a connexion as 
 is supposed need not, would not, take man from man in 
 any such way as is here spoken of. If the woman were 
 of such a character that both men could llnd her, there 
 need be no loss whatever. And if Southampton had 
 stolen Shakspeare's ISIistress and afterwards repented, 
 Shakspeare would not have had the loss (' Tlw' thou repe?it, 
 yet 1 have still the loss,' son. 34) — he might have had the 
 woman again. In the personal interpretation of the first 
 sonnet of this series we are positively asked to suppose 
 Shakspeare to be of such a character as, in the midst of 
 debauchery, to require his good saint and better angel 
 tlie Earl of Southampton, or the Earl of Pembroke (' a 
 more exquisite song than the other '), to keep him from 
 hell — toward which in the absence of this guardian-spirit 
 he inevitably tends. Yet he would maunder on the 
 subject hke one of his own characters, half-drunk, halt- 
 imbecile. For the speaker has no misgiving lest he may 
 be going to hell on his own account, or because of his 
 connexion with the bad angel — the worser spirit. Oh, no ; 
 the way, it seems, for this female Evil to draw him soon to 
 hell is not by drawing him to her, but to tempt his friend 
 to her side. One mioht have thought that would have 
 been one way of saving Shakspeare, but not the way to 
 win him soonest to hell. And if the woman would ' cor- 
 rupt his saint to be a devil,' had she not corrupted him to 
 be a devil ] And if so, could they not all three continue 
 in tlicir devilhood comfortably corrupt P And where 
 would have been the need of all this maudlin fuss ? For, 
 there is no hint that it would be the best course for 
 Shakspeare to ' clear out ' as quickly as possible : his sole 
 concern is lest his friend should be taken in. Is it not a 
 likely story ? 
 
 Then the personal reading docs not, cannot anywliore
 
 204 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 touch the bottom and gauge the meaning of sonnets 133 
 and 134. 'Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his 
 guard.' Against what, if a man were the speaker ? And 
 how could a man use the expression ' for I being pent 
 in thee,' or ' thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,' when 
 the least sense of humour would suggest that his friend 
 had been all too free, if these complaints and charges had 
 been made by a man. And, what would be the ' bond ' 
 alluded to, when sonnet 144, the darkest of all, shows the 
 case to be one of suspicion only, a jealousy on account 
 of the lady's character, not one of certainty, and the 
 most passionate sonnet of the whole series expresses no- 
 thing more than a doubt after all ? The most searching 
 investigation yet made will prove that there is not the 
 least foundation for the dark story as told against our 
 Poet, save that which has been laid in the prurient imagi- 
 nation of those who have so wantonly sought to defile the 
 memory of Shakspeare. And for the rest of our lives we 
 may safely and unreservedly hold of him, what Anthony 
 Bacon said of his brother Francis, that he was ' too ivise 
 to be abused ; too ho7iest to abuse.''
 
 20o 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 ELIZABETH VERNON'S JEALOUSY OF HER LOVER, 
 LORD SOUTHAMPTON, AND HER FRIEND, LADY 
 RICH. 
 
 ELIZABETU VERNON S SOLILOQUY. 
 
 Two loves I have of comfort and despair. 
 
 Which like two spirits do suggest me still ; 
 
 The better angel is a man right fair ; 
 
 The worser spirit a woman coloured ill : 
 
 To win me soon to hell, ray female evil 
 
 Tempteth my better angel from my side, ' 
 
 And would corrupt my saint to be a devil ; 
 
 "Wooing his purity with her fouP pride: 
 
 And whether that my angel be turned fiend. 
 
 Suspect I may, yet not directly tell ; 
 
 But being both from me, both to each friend,' 
 
 I guess one angel in another's hell I 
 
 Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt. 
 Till my bad angel fire my good one out."* 
 
 (144.) 
 
 * * Tempteth »))/ better Angel from my side.^ 
 
 So in Otliello, ' Yea, curse his better Angel from his side.' 
 
 ^ * With hor foul pride.' 
 
 The copy of this sonnet in the ' Passionate Pilgrim ' reads ' M-ith her 
 fau- pride.' 
 
 3 ' Both to each friend.' Here is proof tliat the absent twain were 
 friends before this affair. 
 
 * * Till my bad Angel iire my good one out.' 
 
 We may perliaps get at the root idea of this line by aid of an expres.<i(in of 
 tragic intensity in ' King Lear' — * He that parts us shall bring a brand from 
 Heaven and fire us hence like foxes.' In the present inefanrp. I presume,
 
 20C5 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 ELIZABETH VEflXOX TO THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain -tops with sovereign eye. 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green. 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; 
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
 With ugly rack on his celestial face, 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide. 
 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 
 Even so my Sun one early morn did shine 
 With all-triuiuphant splendour on my brow, 
 But out, alack ! he was but one hour mine ; 
 The retjion-cloud hath masked him from me now : 
 
 Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ; 
 
 Suns of the world may stain when Heaven's sun 
 
 staineth. (33.) 
 
 Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day 
 And make me travel forth without my cloak. 
 To let base clouds o'ertake me on my way. 
 Hiding thy bravery in their rotton smoke ? 
 'Tis not enough that thro' the cloud thou break 
 To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, 
 For no man well of such a salve can speak 
 That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace : 
 Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief; 
 Tho' thou repent, yet I have still the loss ; 
 The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief 
 To him' that bears the strong offence's cross: 
 
 Ah I but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, 
 And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds. 
 
 (34.) 
 
 the fox who is in hiding,— the Earl who is foxing it — will have to be fired 
 out with a brand from the other place. The allusion — here humorously- 
 used — is to the bui-ning out of the fox with fire-brands, at which Shak- 
 epeare must have assisted when he was a country lad. 
 
 1 This ' him ' has misled readers into thinidng it characterised the 
 speaker's sex, but it is merely and obviously a general allusion to a well- 
 known proverbial truth. The speaker's sex is suppressed through the whole 
 of these sonnets. We have only the feeling, which in poetry is the greatest 
 fact of all, to guide us, and that indicates a woman, and proves the passion 
 to be one of winnowed purity.
 
 THE LADY'S EXCUSE FOR IIEIl LOVER'S FAULTS. 207 
 
 No more be grieved at that which thou hast done : 
 
 Koses have thorns, aud silver fouutains mud ; 
 
 Clouds and eclipses stain both ^Nloon and Sun, 
 
 And loathsome cankers live in sweetest bud: 
 
 All men make faults, and even I in this. 
 
 Authorising thy trespass with compare. 
 
 Myself corrupting,' salving thy amiss ; 
 
 Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are ; 
 
 For to thv sensual fault I brincj in sense,^ 
 
 Thy adverse party is thy Advocate, — 
 
 And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence ; 
 
 Such civil war is in my love and hate 
 That I an accessary needs must be'' 
 To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. 
 
 (35.) 
 
 Those pretty* wrongs that libert}^ commits 
 When I am sometime absent from thy heart. 
 Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, 
 For still temptation follows where thou art : 
 Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won, 
 Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed ; 
 
 ' ' Myself coi-rnpting.^ It has been supposed that the speaker of this 
 sonnet, being a man, finds a precedent for the fault of his friend by com- 
 paring it with his ojcn. A fair sample of the way in which these sonnets 
 have been unfairly read ! The sonnet contains nothing of the sort. The 
 speaker says, * All men make faults,' and on that account she has tried to 
 excuse him ; has excused him even more tlian his sins called for. Her fault 
 is that she has authorised his fault by inakiiH/ this comparison in his favour ; 
 corrupted herself in excusing him and ' salving' his misbehaviour. ^ Even I in 
 this am to blame, but such is my love I cannot help it.' Here is absolute 
 proof that the speaker is not and cannot be that corrupt married man sup- 
 posed. If he had been so corrupt it did not remain for liini to corrupt him- 
 self by being so charitable when salving the misbehaviour of his young friend. 
 
 " * To thy sensual fault I bring in sense.' 
 
 Something very like this in thought and expression is reversed in ' Measure 
 for Measure ' : Angelo says of Isabel — 
 
 ' She speaks such sense that my sense breeds with it.' 
 * ' Needs must be.' That is an allusion to the powerful bond of sonnet 134. 
 4 < Pretty ' in the sense of ' little.' 
 
 ' There is a saying old, but not so witty, 
 That when a thing is little it is pretty.'— rr/j/Zor, the Water Poet. 
 Also see the subject illustrated by ' Moth ' for the edification of Don .Armado.
 
 208 SHAKSPEAPvE'S SONNETS. 
 
 And when a woman woos,' what woman's son 
 
 Will sourly leave her till she^ have prevailed ? 
 
 Ay me ! but yet thou might'st, my Sweet 1^ forbear, 
 
 And chide tliy beauty and thy straying youth, 
 
 Who lead thee in their riot even there 
 
 Where thou art forced to break a two-fold truth, — 
 
 Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee ; 
 
 Thine, by thv beauty being false to me ! 
 
 (41.) 
 
 That thou hast her, it is not all my grief ; 
 
 And yet it may be said I loved her dearly ; 
 
 That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, 
 
 A loss in love that touches me more nearly : 
 
 Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye ! 
 
 Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;"* 
 
 And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, 
 
 Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her : ^ 
 
 1 ' "SVheu a woman woos.' 
 
 * For wliy should others' false adulterate eyes 
 Give salutation to my sportive blood ? ' 
 
 The Earl to Eliz. Vernon, Sonnet 121. 
 
 2 ' Till she have prevailed.' The Quarto reads, ' Till he have prevailed.' 
 An obvious misprint, corrected by Tyrwhitt. 
 
 3 My siveet, forbear.^ The Quarto reads, ' my scat, forbear,'' which has 
 been made the most of by the advocates of the Personal Theory. Malone held 
 that the context showed it to be a corruption ; this my reading proves ' My 
 Sweet ' micht fairly be accepted as the true text, if only on accoimt of the 
 ' sourlv ' of the preceding line, — these are two of the poet's favourite twin- 
 terms, almost inseparable : e. g. 
 
 ' That siocd thief which sorirly robs from mQ.'' — So^met 35. 
 
 ' Were it not thy sour leisure gave stoeet leave.' — Sonnet 39. 
 
 sour offence.' 
 Troilus and Cressida, act iii. sc. 1. 
 
 ' To make a siceet lady sad is a sour offence.' 
 
 ' Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sotir.^ 
 
 * ' Thou dost love her because thou knowest I love her ' is not an argu- 
 ment for a man to use. A man in such a case would not love the mistress 
 because he knew that she was his friend's. The philosophy is altogether 
 womanly and innocent, not impure and pimpish. 
 
 5 'To approve her.' To ' approve ' in Shakspeare's age signified to 7??flA:e 
 good, to establish, and is so defined in ' Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of Hard 
 Euo-lish Words ' (lG04j. Thus the meaning here is, that the absent lady has
 
 ELIZABETH VEKXOX'S REPROACH OF HER COUSIX. 200 
 
 If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, 
 And losing her, my friend hath found that loss ; 
 ]ioth find each other, and I lose both twain. 
 And both, for my sake, lay on me this cross ; 
 
 But here's the joy ; my friend and I are one. 
 Sweet flattery I then she loves but me alone. 
 
 (42.) 
 
 ELIZABETH VERNON TO LADY RICH. 
 
 Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan 
 
 For that deep woimd it gives my friend and me ! 
 
 Is't not enough to torture me alone, 
 
 But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be ? 
 
 Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, 
 
 And my next self thou, harder, hast engrossed ; 
 
 Of hira, myself, and thee, I am forsaken ; 
 
 A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed ! 
 
 Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward. 
 
 But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail ; 
 
 Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard ;' 
 
 Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail : 
 
 And yet thou wilt ; for T, being pent in thee,^ 
 Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. 
 
 So, now I have confessed that he is thine. 
 And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, 
 Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine 
 Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still : 
 But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free. 
 For thou art covetous and he is kind ; 
 He learned but surety-like to write for me 
 Under that bond that him as fast doth bind : 
 
 permitted the speaker's Lover to make good, or establi.-<li, or test her affec- 
 tion for the speaker's self. The thought is quite honest and innocent. In 
 no guilty sense could the trial be spoken of as imposed for the speaker's sake. 
 
 ' So in the ' Arcadia,' book iii., Philoclea, a woman, prays on her lover's 
 behali" — 'Whatever becomes of me, preserve the virtuous Slusidorus." 
 
 - ' Being ^wjj; from liberty, as I am uo\y.'—JiicJiard III. act i. sc. 4. 
 
 P 
 
 (133.)
 
 210 SUAESPEAPvE'S SONNETS, 
 
 The statute of tlay beauty thou wilt take. 
 Thou usurer that putt'st forth all to use. 
 And sue a friend came debtor for my sake ; 
 So him I lose thro' my uukiud abuse ! 
 
 Him have I lost ; thou hast both him aud me ; 
 
 He pays the whole, and yet I am not free. 
 
 (134.) 
 
 Take all my loves, my Love, yea, take them all, 
 What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? 
 No Love ! my love, that thou may'st true love call. 
 All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more : 
 Then if for my love thou my Love receivest, 
 I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest ; 
 But, yet, be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest 
 By wilful taste of what thyself refusest : 
 I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,' 
 Altho' thou steal thee all my poverty ! 
 And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief 
 To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury : 
 Lascivious Grrace, in whom all ill well shows, "^ 
 Kill me with spites ! yet we must not be foes. 
 
 (40.) 
 
 Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy of her lover the Earl of 
 Southampton and her friend and cousin Lady Eich, is told 
 in these nine sonnets, which are now for the first time put 
 together : they go to Autolycus's tune of ' Two Maids woo- 
 ing a Man.' The first sonnet contains a soliloquy on the 
 subject, a form employed more than once in the dramatic 
 sonnets. Then we have five sonnets addressed to the 
 Earl, and three to the lady of whom Elizabeth Vernon 
 
 1 ' Gentle thief — 
 
 ' You thief of love ! what, have you come by night, 
 And stolen my love's heart from him ? ' 
 This is spoken hy a woman to a woman in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 
 ^ So in ' sonnet loO,' which is addressed to a woman, 
 
 ' "NVhenr-e hast thou this hecotniinj of thinrjs ill? ' 
 Also Cleopatra is called the 
 
 ' Wrangling queen, whom cvcrytkmg becomes ! the vilest things become them- 
 selves in her.^
 
 A CLOSER READING DEMANDED. 211 
 
 is jealous. The first, as we liave seen, has been held 
 to tell a tale most dark and damning to our poet's moral 
 character. But such an interpretation could only result 
 from the shallowest possible reading. The sound of the 
 sonnet has frightened readers from the sense. It is only- 
 tragic in terms. If the state of the case had been such 
 as some readers have accepted, the story dark as they 
 feared, it could scarcely have been so undecided. How- 
 ever positive they may have felt that Shakspeare had 
 lost his mistress and made a fool of himself, the speaker 
 in this sonnet is by no means so certain, but lives in 
 doubt how the matter may stand. The imagery, the 
 good and bad angel, is necessarily chosen on purpose to 
 indicate the uncertainty, the undetermined fate. Thus 
 the most desperate sonnet of the series is positively incon- 
 clusive of anything. Let us take it up for a much closer 
 look at it. 
 
 It must be borne in mind tliat we are endeuvourini; 
 to decipher a secret history of an imexampled kind. 
 We can get little help except from the written words 
 themselves. We must not be too confident of walkinsc 
 by our own light ; we must rely more implicitly on that 
 inner light of the sonnets, left like a lamp in a tomb of 
 old, which will lead us with the greater certainty to the 
 precise spot wdiere we shall touch the secret spring and 
 make clear the mystery. We must ponder any the 
 least minutias of thought, feeling, or expression, and not 
 pass over one mote of meaning because we do not easily 
 see its significance. Some little thing that we cannot 
 make fit with the old reading may be the key to the 
 right interpretation. 
 
 Elizabeth Vernon, I maintain, is the speaker of these 
 nine sonnets. She has two 'loves,' one that brin<i;s 
 comfort, the other causes a feeling of despair. The 
 words 'love' and 'friend' are terms mutually con- 
 vertible both to a woman speaker as well as to ii
 
 212 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 man.' These ' loves' of hers are Hke two spnits which she 
 personifies as a good angel and a bad angel, and these 
 keep tempting or instigating her with their conflicting 
 snggestions of good and evil. The one, Southampton, 
 is a ' man right foir.' The ' worser spirit ' is a woman 
 ' coloured ill.' This is her cousin, Lady Eich. Tlie 
 ' coloured ill ' applies to that public report of her reputa- 
 tion, which in her later years grew worse and worse, until 
 with darkened fame she Avent down in a preternatural 
 night. This 'female evil' is trying, as Elizabeth Vernon 
 suspects, to tempt the Earl from her side. They are both 
 absent from her, and they are both friends to each other, 
 the intimacy being of tlie closest all round, for the sus- 
 pected lady is still a personal friend of Elizabeth Vernon's 
 — still one of her ' loves,' and still an angel, or the other 
 could not be the better angel — and she fears the worst ; 
 uncertainty always fearing the worst. She fears that the 
 lady will ' corrupt her saint to be a devil,' ' wooing his 
 purity with her foul pride,' that is, with her pride in the 
 power of her charms to do so foul a thing, and play so 
 uncousinly a part. But — and here comes an allusion of 
 the utmost importance, though seeming so casual, so care- 
 lessly made — this being the state of the case, her two 
 friends so thick with each other, she cannot help fearing 
 lest the present affair may turn out like one that has pre- 
 viously occurred. ' I guess one angel in another's hell ! ' 
 Mark this. She does not guess one angel in the other's 
 hell, which would be the Earl in Lady Eich's hell — what- 
 ever that might mean- — but another s hell, which impUes 
 
 ^ The motluT of Essex, in writing to her 'sweet TJohin,' habitually speaks 
 of Christopher liloimt, her third husband, as ' uiy friend.' So the Psalmist 
 — 'My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my soul.' — Psalm xxxviii. v. 11. 
 An original love-letter of Sir George Hay ward, written in 1650, begins 'My 
 dearest Friend.'' — Howards Colledhn, p. 521. 
 
 ^ ' Hell ' is generally supposed to mean a place or state of punishment, 
 and it is used by this speaker in linej= 5 and G of the first sonnet to ex- 
 press great suffering.
 
 another's sin and snO'ering. Tliis other's ' liell,' I take it, 
 is a thoufrht of another ladv, wlio was a friend of theirs, 
 and who caused and sufiered ' IwlV in a former transac- 
 tion. Lady Eich is the ' angel ' of this Hne, not the Earl. 
 She is one of the two angels of the whole soiniet, as afore- 
 said. Here she becomes the angel for the sake of an 
 allusion to another angel whom she seems likely to re- 
 semble in character. Elizabeth Vernon loves Lady Eicli 
 at first too much to believe her false ; therefore, so far, 
 she is one of her angels. And, even under the cir- 
 cumstances, black as they look, she only guesses one 
 (this) angel may be in the ' hell ' created by ' anotlier 
 angel,' one whom they botli knew, had faitli in, and 
 were deceived in ; one with wliom the Earl had given 
 cause for Elizabeth Vernon to speak-of him in this way. 
 
 If this were so, if this angel were to prove false as an- 
 other angel — satirically so called — had done, it would be a 
 ' hell ; ' ^ hell to the speaker as well as to the fallen angel ; 
 
 * ' Hell.' It has been suggested that Shakspeare's frequent and peculiar 
 use of the word ' hell ' in his earlier writings may have arisen from the fact 
 that the lower part of the stage was called ' hell.' In the game of ' Barley- 
 break,' also, a player may get into ' hell.' But the hell of lovers was a com- 
 mon theme with the Elizabethan poets. One of Spenser's missing poems 
 bore that title. And in his ' Hymn in honour of Love," printed in 159<), 
 although not all new, but re-formed, the same writer has thus painted the 
 lover's hell : — 
 
 * The gnawing envy, the heart-fretting fear, 
 The vain sui-mises, the distrustful shows, 
 The false reports that flying talt^s do bear, 
 The doubts, the dangers, tliu delays, the woes, 
 The feined friends, the unassured foes, 
 With thousands more than any tongue may tell 
 Do make a lover's life a wretched hell.' 
 
 Shakspeare may luive had this sonnet in mind when he wrote his. There 
 is also something exceedingly suggestive of his sonnet in the idea and ex- 
 pression of one of Drayton's, the 20th: — 
 
 ' An evil spirit, your beauty haimts me still, 
 "Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill ; 
 Thus am I still provoked to every evil 
 By this good-wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.'
 
 214 SHAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and slie feels that this drawing away of her saint from 
 lier side is just the way to win her ' soon to hell ' — the 
 hell created by tlie false friend. But she is not sure, she 
 only lives in doubt — 
 
 * Till my bad angel fire my good one out.' 
 
 And the Earl, her lover and ' good angel,' shall come 
 back to her and smile away all uncertainty. She can 
 only guess that the present drawing away of the Earl 
 from her side may in effect be the same as occurred once 
 before ; she will not know until the bad angel shall start 
 her lover home again, as we say, with a ' flea in his ear,' or 
 as Garibaldi proposed serving the French Emperor. It 
 Avill be seen that the coming back does not imply an occa- 
 sional \nsit, but an absolute passing into another's posses- 
 sion, and the real state of matters is only to be fathomed 
 by his coming back to her once for all or never coming back 
 at all, not by his returning to say where he has been. 
 
 With reiiard to the otlier ' affair ' and another anijel 
 which this sonnet alludes to, that is corroborated in the 
 Earl's own confessions. Farther on, we shall find that he 
 does admit having been the victim of a woman's ' syren 
 tears,' the subject of a wretched delusion. He pleads 
 guilty to that ' sensual fault ' of his nature which he is 
 charged with in these sonnets, but not in this instance. 
 He emphatically denies that he was guilty in this sad 
 case. He says the lady wronged him by her unkindness. 
 He suffered in ' her crime.' And there is proof that she 
 had done so in the fact of her being first to ask forgive- 
 ness and tender the ' humble salve,' tlie healing balm 
 offered in a penitent attitude, which was most suited to 
 the heart she had so wounded. The humble salve shows 
 that the lady, on finding herself mistaken, her suspicions 
 wrongful, had eaten ' humble pie,' and eaten it with a 
 good grace. 
 
 In the next sonnet the lady reproaches the Earl for
 
 TTTE fHY OF A WO.MAX. 210 
 
 liis having been led away lioni lier side wlien it was 
 yet the early dawn of their love. Her sun had l)ut shone 
 for ' one liour ' with ' all triumphant splendour ' on her 
 brow, when the ' region-cloud ' came over him, and hid 
 him from her. Still, she will think the best in his eclipse. 
 Her love shall not turn from liini. J'A'cu though darkly 
 hidden from her, she will have faith that he will shine 
 a<^ain w^itli all the early briii:htness. She will believe that 
 the sun in heaven will be sullied by the clouds that pass 
 over it soon as that her earthly sim can be stained by 
 the clouds which mask him from her now. But the fear 
 increases and the feeling deepens in the next sonnet, and 
 we hear the tremulous voice of virgin love, the low cry of 
 a shy loving nature, conscious that it has publicly let fall 
 a veil of maidenly reserve. She pleads, ' why didst thou 
 promise such a beauteous day, and make me travel forth 
 icithout my cloak. ? ' Trustingly, confidingly, she has left her 
 wonted place of shelter ; she has ventured all on this new 
 affection. The morning was so bright, the sun shone with 
 such promise of a glorious day, she has come forth unfit 
 to meet the storm wdiich the gathering clouds portend. 
 Her unprotected condition is pourtrayed most exquisitely 
 w^itli that natural touch and image, solely feminine, of 
 her having travelled forth ' icithout her cloak.' ^\liy did 
 her lover make her do this, and let ' base clouds ' over- 
 take her on her way ? It will not be enough for him to 
 break throuirh that ' rotten smoke ' of cloud to kiss the 
 tears off her storm-beaten face, because others have seen 
 how ho has treated her. Her maiden fame has been 
 injured, her maiden dignity wounded. Xo one can speak 
 well of such a ' salve ' as heals the personal wound and 
 cures not the public disgrace ; others are witnesses that 
 she has been mocked. Tliough he may repent, yet she 
 lias lost that which he cannot restore. The offender may 
 be sorry, yet, as every one knows, that lends but a weak re- 
 lief to the victim who has to bear the ' cross ' of a weighty
 
 216 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 offence. There is an injury done which cannot so easily 
 be undone. Tlie sentiment is essentially womanly, purely 
 maidenly. It shows a sense of honour that has the 
 tremulous delicacy of a Perdita. Then comes the re- 
 vulsion of feeling, the relief of thought ; she pictures his 
 repentance — 
 
 ' Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, 
 And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds ! ' 
 
 Do not grieve any more, she continues in the next sonnet, 
 and in a most loving spirit, she will make all the excuses 
 she can for him. Sun and moon have their clouds and 
 eclipses, the sweetest buds their cankers, the roses their 
 thorns. All men have their faults, and even she will make 
 a fault in this, that she is authorising his fault or trans- 
 gression by comparison with the faults of others, corrupt- 
 ing herself, or herself sinning, in ' salving ' over his 
 misbehaviour, and in the largeness of her charity, excusing 
 his sins even more than they are, magnifying them for 
 more excuse. She will not only look on this fault of his 
 nature sensibly, but will also try and take part against 
 herself in favour of the 'sweet thief who has robbed her 
 of her lover's presence ; such ' civil war is in her love and 
 hate ' that she must needs be accessory to the theft. We 
 shall soon see the meanini2; of the line italicised. The ex- 
 cuses are still carried on in the fourth of the sonnets 
 spoken to the Earl. It is perfectly natural that he should 
 have this tendency to commit tliese pretty wrong>3 when 
 she is sometimes absent from his thoughts. It is a little 
 ' out of sight, out of mind.' He is young and handsome, 
 and pursued by temptation. He is beautiful, therefore 
 sure to be assailed. He is kind and yielding, therefore 
 he may be won, especially, as in the present instance, when 
 a woman woos, and a woman like tliis cousin of hers, 
 who has such power in bearing men off their feet, once 
 she has fixed her fatal floating eyes upon them. In whose
 
 A WOMAN'S SPECIAL PLEADING. 217 
 
 every (jvacc tliere ' lurks a still and duinb-discoursiiif^ 
 devil that tempts most cunningly.' 
 
 * Ay me, but yet thou rtiighf st, my Siveet, forbear. 
 And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth. 
 Who lead thee in their riot even there 
 Where thou art forced to break a two-fold truth ; 
 Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee ; 
 Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.' 
 
 Then follows a bit of special pleading, partly very natural 
 and partly sopliistical. With all the playfulness, however, 
 the earnestness is unmistakeable. Naturally enouo;h she 
 is sorry if she has lost her female friend, for she loved 
 her dearly ; but still more naturally she confesses that the 
 loss in love which would touch her most nearly would be 
 the loss of her lover. The rest of the sonnet is insrenious 
 for love and charity's sake. Surely her lover only loves 
 the lady because he knows she loves her, and the lady 
 loves him just for the speaker's sake. Both have com- 
 bined to lay this cross upon her ; they are just trying her ; 
 but — 
 
 ' Here's the joy, my friend and I are one. 
 Sweet flattery I then she loves but me alone.' 
 
 This is the tone in which a woman laughs when her heart 
 wants to cry. In the next three sonnets the address is 
 direct from woman to woman, face to face, and the feel- 
 ing it.. more passionate, the language of more vital import. 
 Here are matters that have never been fathomed ; ex- 
 pressions that have no meaning if a man were speaking 
 to a man. These I interpret thus : — 
 
 Before the Earl of Southampton met with Mistress Ver- 
 non, and became enamoured of. her, he was somewhat at 
 variance with the Earl of Essex. In the declaration of the 
 treason of the Earl, signed D., and quoted by Chalmers in 
 his ' Suplimental Apology,' we are told that emulations (en-
 
 218 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 vious rivalries) and differences at Court liad risen betwixt 
 Essex and Southampton, but the latter Earl's love for the 
 cousin of Essex came to heal all, and it bound the two up 
 in a bond, strong and long as life, which was only loosened 
 by death. Also, at the time of Southampton's marriage, 
 the Earl of Essex fell under her Majesty's displeasure for 
 furthering, and, as we learn by Mr. Standen, for '■gendering'' 
 the matter. So that from the hour when Southampton and 
 Elizabeth Vernon became one in love, years before they 
 w^ere one in law, the Earl was committed in feeling, and, as 
 we now see, in fact to the fortunes of the Earl of Essex. 
 
 He followed him through good and evil report. He 
 held to him althousrh he had to share the frowns of Her 
 Majesty without sharing the smiles which fell on the 
 favourite. The influence of Essex was often more fatal 
 to friends than to foes, and in this respect the Earl of 
 Southampton was far more justly entitled to the epithet 
 ' unfortunate ' than was Essex himself. He was most un- 
 fortunate in this friendship, for it seemed perfectly natural 
 when Essex got in the wrong, for all eyes to turn and 
 look at his friends to see wlio was the cause. Her Majesty 
 often offered up a scapegoat from amongst his friends in 
 this way. The worst of it being that these had to stand 
 in the shadow even when he v/as visited with a burst of 
 sunshine. In fact, liis friends were always in the shadow 
 which he cast. In these sonnets, Elizabeth Vernon feels 
 that she is responsible for bringing Southampton under 
 this 'bond' of friendship which binds him so fast through 
 her. She is bound to the ' slavery ' of the Essex cause by 
 family relationship, and through his love for her, South- 
 ampton has been brought under the influence of Lady 
 Eich's fascinating eyes, through which there looks alter- 
 nately an angel of darkness and an angel of light, accord- 
 ing to her mood of mind ; that fatal voice, made low and 
 soft to imitate modesty and draw the fluttering heart into 
 her snare, just as the fowler, with a low warble, tries to
 
 THE ESSEX BOND. 219 
 
 lure the bird into his net ; tliat wanton l)caiity, wliirli can 
 make all ill look lovely, and whose every gesture is a 
 dumb-show that has but one interpretation for those who 
 are caught by her amorous arts and luring lapwing-wiles, 
 and also for those that watch and fear for tliem. Eliza- 
 beth Vernon feels that she is the innocent cause of bring- 
 ino- her dear friend the Earl into this double dantrer ; the 
 danger of too familiar an acquaintanceship with Lady 
 Eich, and the danger of a too-familiar friendship with 
 Essex, whose perturbed spirit and secret machinations 
 are known to her. She blames herself for her ' unkind 
 abuse ' in having brought them together. ' Evil befal 
 that lieart,' she exclaims to her lady cousin, ' for the deep 
 wound it gives to me and my friend. Is it not enough 
 for you to torture me alone in this way, I who am full of 
 timid fears, but you must also make my sweetest friend a 
 slave to this slavery which I suffer, and was content to 
 suffer whilst it only tormented me ? You held me in your 
 power by right of the strongest ; your proud cruel eye 
 could do w^th me almost as you pleased. I was your 
 prisoner whom you kept in confmement close pent. You 
 hold me by force, and I w^ill not complain of that if I can 
 only shield my lover from all danger ; let my heart be his 
 guard. I plead with you ; but, alas ! I know it is in 
 vain ; you will use rigour in our gaol, and torture your 
 poor prisoners. I confess he is yours, and I myself am 
 mortgaged to do your bidding. Now let me forfeit my- 
 self, and do you restore my lover to be my comfort. All, 
 you will not, and he will not be free. You are covetous 
 and he is kind. Poor fellow, he did but sign his name, 
 surety-like, for me under tliat bond that binds him as fast 
 as it binds me, and you will sue liiin. a friend, wlio has 
 only come to you as a debtor for my sake, and take tlie 
 statute of your beauty, the right of might, yt)u ' usurer 
 that put forth all to use ;' that is, she who takes advantage 
 of her lovehness to turn friends into lovers and lovers
 
 220 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 into politiccal adherents to the Essex cause ; ' take all you 
 can, in virtue of your beauty and our bond. Ilini have I 
 lost ; you have us both. He pays all, yet I am not, can- 
 not be free.' The speaker acknowledges a power which 
 compels her submission. Then she tries a little coaxing. 
 ' Take all my loves, my Love,' what then ? You have only 
 what you had before. All mine was yours in one sense, 
 but ' be blamed ' if you deceive yourself and take it in 
 another sense. If you would eat of the fruit of my love, 
 come to it fiiirly by the right gate ; do not climb over the 
 wall, as a thief and a hireling, to steal. Still, for his sake 
 I will forgive even robbery, although love knows it is 
 far harder to bear this wrong done secretly in the name 
 of love than it would be to suffer the injury of hatred 
 that was openly known.' And now we have the summing 
 up of the whole matter, the moral of the story. The 
 speaker makes her submission almost abject, in obedience 
 to a hidden cause, though the words are almost spitten 
 out by the force of suppressed feeling — 
 
 ' Lascivious Grace, in whom all ill well shows, 
 Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.'' 
 
 Admitting the speaker to be a woman, tliere must be 
 more than a story of rivalry in love implied in those 
 lines. Because if one woman be too friendly with an- 
 other woman's lover, the sufferer would arejue that the 
 sooner she and the one who robbed her mind of its peace 
 were foes the better for all parties. Eather than continue 
 to suffer and bear until quite 'killed with spites,' she 
 would say we must be foes, for I cannot, need not, will 
 not bear any longer. All the more that it is the woman 
 wdio pursues, an ordinary case would be simple enough. 
 But there is a secret and sufficiently potent cause why 
 these two should not become foes. The lady knows the 
 fierce vindictive nature of her cousin ; she fears lest the 
 black eyes should grow baleful, and would almost rather
 
 THE DAKK STORY TOLD FOIl VJIE LAST TLML. Ji'l 
 
 they should be turned on tlie Earl in wanton love than in 
 bitter enmity. So deep is her dread of the one, so great 
 her aflfection for the other. For his sake she resolves to 
 bear all the ' spites ' which hci- cousin's conduct can in- 
 flict upon her. For his sake, she and this cousin must 
 not be foes. Such is the binding nature of their relation- 
 ship, tliat the speaker feels compelled t(^ be an accessory 
 to the 'sweet thief that 'sourly robs' from her. She 
 will be the slave of her higli imperious will, and bear the 
 tyranny that tortures her, rather than quarrel. She will 
 likewise be subtly politic with her love's profoundest cun- 
 ning. And this is why there is such ' civil war ' in her 
 ' love and hate ; ' herein lies the covert meaning that has 
 for so long dwelt darkly in these Unes. 
 
 I think no one accustomed to judge of evidence in 
 poetry can fail to see that the old story of a man speaker 
 — a man who is married and keeps his mistress too — and 
 that man Shakspeare, has been told for the last time, so 
 soon as we have discovered a woman speaker, who is 
 thus identified by inner character and outward circum- 
 stances. The breath of pure love that breathes fresh as 
 one of those summer airs which are the messenirers of 
 morn, is enough to sweeten the imagination that has been 
 tainted by the vulgar story, whilst the look of injured in- 
 nocence and the absence of self-reproach, the chiding that 
 melts into forgiveness and which was only intended to 
 bring the truant back ; the feeling of being left uncovered 
 to the public gaze and cloakless to the threatening storm ; 
 the face in tears, the rain on the cheek, those 'women's 
 weapons, water-drops ; ' ^ the natural womanliness of the 
 expression, ' Wlioe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,' 
 the lines — 
 
 * Myself I'll forfeit so that other mine 
 Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still I ' 
 
 * * Let uot women's weapons, water-drops, 
 
 Stain my man's cheeks.' — Lear, act ii. so. 4.
 
 222 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 — the wrong done to love, which, though unknown, is 
 Avorse than the known injury of open hatred ; the motive, 
 feeling, and excusing words — all are exquisitely femi- 
 nine ; whilst the imagery and symbols correspond in the 
 thorough est way to the womanly nature of it all. 
 
 The expression " Lascivious Grace ^ in whom all ill well 
 shoics^ kill me with spites" as spoken from a woman to 
 a rival, and applied, according to the story now for the first 
 time told, is just one of those flashes of revelation by which 
 we see nature caught in the fact ! And by the same sudden 
 illumination w^e catch sight of that Elizabethan Helen, 
 the Lady Eich, seen and known in a moment, never to 
 be forgotten. 
 
 There is a letter written by Lord Eich to the Earl of 
 Essex, dated April 16th, 1597, which has been held to 
 be so dark in meaning, so enigmatical in expression, that 
 nothing has hitherto been made of its contents. Lady 
 Eich had just got out of danger from the small-pox. In 
 a letter dated three days later, Eowland White says, ' My 
 Lady Eich is recovered of her small-pox, without any 
 blemish to her beautiful face.' Lord Eich's letter refers 
 to this illness of his wife, and the consequent danger to 
 her fair face, but it also contained an enclosure touching 
 certain love-matters tlierein written of, to the perplexity 
 of his lordship, and relating to a ' fair Maid ' in whom the 
 Lady Eich was interested, of whose beauty she was so 
 careful as not to send the writing direct for fear of in- 
 fection : — ' My Lord, your Sister, being loth to send you 
 any of her infection, hath made me an instrument to send 
 you this enclosed epistle of Dutch true or false love ; 
 wherein, if I be not in the right, I may be judged more 
 infected than fitteth my profession, and to deserve worse 
 than the pox of the smallest size. If it fall out so, I dis- 
 burden myself, and am free from such treason, by my 
 disclosing it to a Councillor, who, as your Lordship well 
 knows, cannot be guilty of any such offence. Your Lord-
 
 LORD RICH'S MYSTIPICATIOX. 223 
 
 ship sees, by tliis care of a fair maid's beauty, she doth 
 not altogether despair of recovery of her own again ; 
 which, if slie did, assured by envy of others' fairness, 
 would make her wilhngiy to send infection among them. 
 This banishment makes me that I cannot attend on you ; 
 and this wicked disease will cause your sister this next 
 week to be at more charge to buy a masker's visor to 
 meet you dancing in the fields than she would on [once ?] 
 hoped ever to have done. If you dare meet her, I beseech 
 you preach patience unto her, which is my only theme of 
 exhortation. Thus, over saucy to trouble your Lordship's 
 Aveightier aftairs, I take my leave, and ever remain your 
 Lordship's poor brother to command, Eo. liiCH,' Now, 
 to my thinking, there is no more natural explanation of 
 this mysterious letter than that the ' fair Maid ' of whose 
 beauty Lady Eich is so thoughtful a guardian, and to 
 whom the ' epistle of Dutch true or simulated love ' evi- 
 dently belongs, is Elizabeth Vernon, cousin both to Lady 
 Eich and to the Earl of Essex, and that we here catch a 
 glimpse of this very group of sonnets, or a part of them, 
 as they pass fi^om hand to hand. The ' Epistle ' over 
 which Lord Eich tries to shake his wise head jocosely, is 
 not sealed up from him. He lias read it, and linds it only 
 sealed in the sense ; it is, as the unlearned say, all Greek 
 to him, or, as he says, it is " Dutch." The subject, too, 
 is amatory, so much he perceives ; but whether it pertains 
 to real life or to fiction is beyond his reach ; he merely 
 hopes the brother, who is a Councillor of State, will dis- 
 cover no treason in it. If this love-epistle, the puiport of 
 which his Lordship failed to fathom, should have consisted 
 of the sonnets that Elizabeth Vernon speaks to Lady Eich 
 in her jealousy, it would fit the circumstances of th'e case 
 as nothing else could, and perfectly account for Lord 
 Eich's perplexity. We may imagine how little he would 
 make of them when their meaning has kept concealed 
 from so many other prying eyes for two centuries and a
 
 224 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 half. If my suggestion be right, this letter gives us a 
 most interesting glimpse of the persons concerned, and 
 of the light in which they viewed the sonnets ; here con- 
 tributing to the private amusement of Lady Eich, her 
 brother Essex, and Elizabeth Vernon, whilst Lord Eich 
 is not in the secret. 
 
 This jealousy of Mistress Vernon does not appear to 
 have gone very deep or left any permanent impression. 
 It certainly did not part the fair cousins, for their intimacy 
 continued to be of the closest, at least up to the time of 
 Essex's death, as is shown by Eowland White's letters ; 
 and we find that the Earl of Southampton was one of the 
 chief mourners at the funeral of Mountjoy. Also it was 
 to Lady Eich's house that EUzabeth Vernon retired in 
 August, 1598, and there her babe was born, which she 
 named Penelope, after her cousin, Lady Eich. There 
 was only matter enough in it to supply one of the subjects 
 for Shakspeare's poetry ' among his private friends.' 
 
 I have not been able to date these sonnets ; they be- 
 long to the time at which the ' Midsummer Night's Dream' 
 was written, but that is not fixed with certainty. The 
 'jealousy ' may possibly have occurred before the 'jour- 
 ney,' but it suits best with my plan to print this group in 
 connexion with the lovers' bickerings and flirtations that 
 follow.
 
 225 
 
 A PERSONAL SONNET. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE OX THE SLANDEK. 
 
 Tjiis sonnet I read as the Poet's comment on tlie fore- 
 going subject. It is written upon an occasion when the 
 luirl lias been suspected and shmdered, and Shakspeare 
 does not consider liim to bhmie. We shall see that the 
 Jvdil himself held that he was wronged by his lady in 
 some particular passage of their love affairs, which I take 
 to be her jealousy of Lady Eich. Shakspeare's treatment 
 of the matter in tliis sonnet goes far to identify it with the 
 story just told. Suspicion has been at work, and the 
 Poet tells his friend that for one like him to be suspected 
 and slandered is no marvel whatever. Suspicion is the 
 ornament of beauty, and is sure to be found in its near 
 neighbourhood : it is tlie crow that ilies in the upper air. 
 A handsome young fellow like the Earl is sure to be the 
 object of suspicion and envy. The Ivul has been sus- 
 pected, and the suspicion has given rise to a slander. 
 Therefore the Poet treats the charge of the jealousy son- 
 nets as a slander. If it had been true, it would not have 
 rested on suspicion. The lady herself was not sure if Ikt 
 suspicions were true — did not know if the absent ones 
 were triumphing in their treachery — and Shakspeare in 
 person implies that they were not. He speaks also to
 
 226 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the Earl's general character on the subject ; says his young 
 friend ' presents a pure unstained prime ' of life ; alludes 
 to his having been assailed by a woman, and come off a 
 ' victor being charged.' In the previous sonnets, as we 
 saw, it was a woman who had wooed and tried to tempt 
 the Earl from his mistress. But, pure and good as he 
 may be, and blameless as his life has been, this is not 
 enough to tie up envy. This sonnet, then, illustrates the 
 story of Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy. It gives us the 
 Poet's own view of the affair, together with his personal 
 conclusions. Eead on any theory, and looked at in any 
 and every aspect, this must refute the scandalous interpre- 
 tation of the preceding sonnets, which have been made to 
 show that the Poet kept a mistress, and was robbed of 
 her by liis friend. 
 
 With the following sonnet we may take our leave of 
 the author of so follacious a discovery, so wanton a slander, 
 and sav, in the words of Count Gismond's innocent and 
 avenged lady : — 
 
 ' North, South, 
 East, West, I looked. The Lie was dead 
 And damned, and Truth stood up instead ! ' 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL. 
 
 That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, 
 For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,' 
 The ornament of beauty is suspect, 
 A Crow that flies in Heaven's sweetest air ! 
 So thou be good, slander doth but approve 
 Thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time ; ^ 
 For canker Vice the sweetest buds doth love. 
 And thou present'st a pure unstained prime : 
 
 ^ In sonnet 112, it is the speaker who is this mark of slander. 
 
 2 Steeyens, in a note to this sonnet, says he has shown, on the authority 
 of Ben Jonson, that ' of time ' means of the then present one. Examples of 
 this occur in these sonnets, hut generally ' time ' is the old personification ; 
 him of the scythe and hour-glass. It is so in sonnets 12, 15, 19, 65, 100, 116, 
 123, 124, 126, and there is every reason to believe that it is in the present 
 instance.
 
 THE SLANDER ON SOUTHAMPTON. 227 
 
 Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days. 
 
 Either not assailed, or victor Ijeing charged ; 
 
 Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise. 
 
 To tie up Envy evermore enhirged : 
 
 If some suspect of ill masked not thy show 
 Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts should'st owe. 
 
 ('to.;
 
 228 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 THE EARL TO ELIZABETH VERNON AFTER THE 
 
 JEALOUSY. 
 
 In" the first of these two sonnets there is evidence of a 
 lovers' quarrel. Something has come between them and 
 put them apart for awhile. There has been a period of 
 suffering, a ' sad interim.' It is but reasonable to presume 
 that the coolness was caused by the jealousy of the Earl's 
 mistress ; and that this is the lover's plea for a full and 
 frank making up. The sonnet last quoted was a plea of 
 Shakspeare's on liis friend's behalf In tlie present in- 
 stance, the Earl pleads for liimself ; he seeks for a return 
 to the old pleasant intimacy ; he asks that the spirit of 
 love may not be killed with a '■ perjjetual dulness' Let 
 this ' sad interim, ' be like the ocean that n\ay roll its 
 world of waters between two lovers, newly affianced, who 
 stand watching on opposite shores for the return of love. 
 Or call it the long dreary time of winter, which makes 
 summer all the more wished for and all the more wel- 
 come. We shall see later on that the Earl, in sonnet 120, 
 speaks of a ' night of woe ' like this, occasioned by the 
 unkindness of his mistress. I doubt not tliat the ' sad 
 interim ' and the ' night of woe ' both meet in Elizabeth 
 Vernon's jealousy, and tliat Shakspeare wrote of the one 
 cause of trouble on both occasions. In the second of these 
 two sonnets the Earl goes on to protest his love and care
 
 A LOVER '.^ AXXTETY. 220 
 
 for tlie lady. For hur peace lie is at .such .sliife with his 
 thoughts and feelings as may be found betwixt the miser 
 and his wealth. One moment he is ricli beyond every- 
 thing; as he looks at his treasure, and the next minute he 
 is doubting whether a '■jilching age ' may not steal it, 
 whilst he is not near enough for her protection. The 
 sonnet felicitously expresses the alternations of the lover's 
 feelings, the sudden change from glow to gloom, the tender 
 trouble that continually ripples over the smiling surface of 
 his inner life : — 
 
 Sweet love,' renew thy force ; be it not said. 
 Thy edge should blunter be than appetite. 
 Which but to-day by feeding is allayed. 
 To-morrow sliarpen'd in his former might : 
 So, love, be thou ; although to-day thou fill 
 Thy hungry eyes e'en till they wink with fulness. 
 To-morrow see again, and do not kill 
 The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness : 
 Let this sad interim,- hke the ocean be 
 Which parts the shore, where two contracted new 
 Come daily to the banks, that, when they see 
 Return of love, more bless'd may be the view : 
 Or call it winter, which, being full of care. 
 Makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more 
 rare. 
 
 (.56.; 
 
 So are you to my thoughts as food to life, 
 
 Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground ; 
 
 And for the peace of you I hold such strife 
 
 As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found : 
 
 Now proud as an enjoyer and anon 
 
 Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;' 
 
 Now counting best to be with you alone, 
 
 Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure : 
 
 ' The ' love ' liere addressed is not a person, but a passion ; and it is dis- 
 tinctly enough stated to be the love that precedes marriage. 
 * This ' sad interim ' is marked in the original copy by italics, 
 ^ * Doubting iho jUchiuy aye ■svill stval his treasure.'' The age of Elizabeth
 
 230 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, 
 And by and by clean-starved for a look ; 
 Possessing or pursuing no delight 
 Save what is had or must be from you took : 
 Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, 
 Or gluttoning on all, or all away. 
 
 (75.) 
 
 ■was not a man-stealing age, so far as histoiy records. Of necessity it must 
 be a woman here spoken of, and the jealous lover is fearful lest the * filch- 
 ing age ' should rob him of his mistress by that seduction which is only too 
 
 D 
 
 common.
 
 231 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 o>»;c 
 
 ELIZABETH VERNON EEPAYS THE EARL BY A 
 FLIRTATION OF HER OWN: HIS REPROACH. 
 
 In these sonnets the Earl still pleads, but his mistress is 
 determined to vex him with her wilful humours and signs 
 of inconstancy. They continue the love-quarrel which, 
 as I suppose, followed the Earl's flirtation with Lady Eich. 
 The lady is bent on punishing her lover, apparently, by a 
 flirtation of her own. The speaker stands on the know- 
 ledge of his own desert, in spite of appearances that gave 
 rise to scandal. He says that if his lady shall frown on 
 the defects and faults of his character, if her love shall 
 have been tried to the uttermost — ' cast its utmost sum ' 
 — and is called to a reckoning by wiser reflections and 
 warier considerations to find nothing further in liis favour, 
 and she shall strangely pass him by, and hardly give him 
 greeting, and love shall be converted from the thing it 
 once was, for reasons sulhciently grave — against that 
 time he will fortify himself with the knowledge that lie 
 does not deserve such treatment. He admits her right to 
 leave liim, for he can allege no cause why she should love 
 him. Aiid if she be really disposed to make light of his 
 love, and scorn his merit, he will light on her side against 
 himself, for he is best acquainted with liis own weaknesses 
 and the injuries wliich he does to himself. Such is liis
 
 232 SfL\KSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 love, and so much does he belong to her, that for her 
 right he will bear all wrong. Some glory in tlieir birth, 
 others in their skill, their wealth, their rich raiment. But 
 all such particulars of possession he betters in ' one general 
 best.' Her love is better tlian high birth, wealth, or 
 treasures. Having her, he has the sum total of all that 
 men are proud of. He is only wretched in the thought 
 that she may take all this away if she takes away herself 
 from him. But she may do her worst to steal herself 
 away from him : she is his for life. His life is bound up 
 with her love, and both will end together. Therefore he 
 need not trouble himself about other wrongs when, if he 
 loses her love, there is an end of all. On this fact he will 
 plant himself firmly, and not let her wilful humours and 
 signs of inconstancy vex him further. He is happy to 
 have her love, and will be happy to die should he lose her. 
 Tliat is the position he takes. Still, his philosophy does 
 not supply him with armour of proof. The darts of a 
 lover's jealousy will pierce. He cannot rest in his con- 
 clusions, however final. With a lover it is not only 
 Heaven or Hell ; there is the intermediate Purgatorial 
 state. After the magnanimity of feeling will intrude this 
 mean tliouglit ! — 
 
 ' But what's so blessed fair that fears no Llot ? 
 Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not.' 
 
 If she were false to him he could not know it, he should 
 live on like a deceived husband ; her looks might be with 
 him, her heart elsewhere. For Nature has so moulded 
 her, and given her such sweetness and grace that, whether 
 loving him or not, she must always look lovely, and her 
 looks would not show her thoughts, or set the secret of 
 her heart at gaze, even if both were false to him. Pray 
 God it be not so, liis feeling cries ! ' How like is thy 
 beauty to that Apple of Eve, smiling so ripely on the out- 
 side, and so rotten within, if thy sweet virtue correspond
 
 SELF-ABNEGATION. 233 
 
 not to the promise of that fair face ! ' Ilis tlioughts have 
 the yellow tinge of a lover's jealousy. Apparently, he is 
 not yet ' paid out ' according to tlie lady's thinking. In 
 the last of these sonnets she has not ceased to punish liim. 
 And, just as apparently, her artifice is so far successful. 
 Tlie lover grows more earnest, more anxious than ever. 
 She has flirted enough to set the gossips gadding on the 
 subject. The story has been told to liim with ample ad- 
 ditions and coarse connnents. He concludes his reproach 
 to her with a heart-felt warning : — 
 
 Against that time — if ever that time come — 
 When I shall see thee frown on my defects, 
 ' When as thy love hath cast its utmost sum. 
 Called to that audit by advised respects ; ' 
 Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass. 
 And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye, 
 When love, converted from the thing it was. 
 Shall reasons find of settled gravity — 
 Asrainst that time do I esconce me here 
 Within the knosvledge of mine own desert, 
 And this my hand against myself uprear, 
 To guard the lawful reasons on thy part : 
 
 To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, 
 Since why to love I can allege no cause. 
 
 (49.) 
 
 WTien thou shalt feel disposed to set me light, 
 And place my merit in the eye of scorn. 
 Upon tliy side against myself I'll fight 
 And prove thee virtuous, tho' thou art forsworn : ^ 
 
 1 ' Advised respects ;' ' advised respect' occurs in ' King John/ act iv. sc. 2. 
 * 'And prove thee virtuous tho' thou art/orstror/t.' 
 
 Having broken her oath or troth-plight to be true to him. Thus in ' Venus 
 
 and Adonis': — 
 
 ' So do thy lips 
 Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn, 
 Lest she should steal a kiss, and die /orsJtWM.' 
 Having broken her oath of virginity. With Shakspeare, forsiccaniiff is 
 odth-brcakimj. But ^vhat oath could Southampton have taken to be true to
 
 234 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 With mine own weakness being best acquainted. 
 Upon thy part I can set down a story 
 Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted,' 
 That thou in losing me shalt win much glory : 
 And I by this will be a gainer too : 
 For binding all my loving thoughts on thee, 
 The injuries that to myself I do,^ 
 Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me — 
 Such is my love, to tliee I so belong 
 That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. 
 
 (88.) 
 
 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill. 
 Some in their wealth, some in their body'? force. 
 Some in their garments, tho' new-fangled ill. 
 Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse : 
 And every Humour hath his adjunct pleasure 
 Wherein it finds a joy above the rest, 
 But these particulars are not my measure, 
 All these I better in one general best : 
 Thy love is better than high birth to me,^ 
 Eicher than wealth, prouder than garments' cost ; 
 Of more delight than hawks or horses be ; 
 And having thee, of all men's pride I boast ; 
 
 Wretched in this alone, that thou may'st take 
 All this away, and me most wretched make. 
 
 (91.) 
 
 him? The antithesis of the line is only possible when spoken to a woman. 
 In a previous sonnet we have two lovers newly affianced, which I take to be 
 a literal fact, not a mere image. 
 
 ^ * I can set down a story,' &c. So Hamlet says, ' I could accuse me of 
 such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.' 
 
 ' * The injuries that to myself I do.' 
 
 So in ' King Lear ' : — 
 
 ' O, Sir, to wilful men, 
 The injuries that they themselves procure 
 Must be their schoolmasters.' 
 
 ' Had Shakspeare been speaking, he would not have looked down upon 
 high birth whilst addressing a peer of the realm. The speaker is of 
 high birth, and possesses the ' particulars ' enumerated ; but they do not fill 
 the measure of his joy ; all these he betters in the best of all, his lady's love.
 
 A LOVEir.S JKALOL'SY. 285 
 
 But do thy worst to steal thyself away, 
 
 For term of life thou art assured mine ; 
 
 And life no longer than thy love will stay, 
 
 For it depends upon that love of thine ! 
 
 Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, 
 
 When in the lecost of them my life hath end ; 
 
 I see a better state to me belongs 
 
 Than that which on thy humour doth depend : 
 ' Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind. 
 
 Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie ; 
 
 0, what a happy title do I find, 
 
 Happy to have thy love, happy to die ! 
 
 But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot ? — 
 Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not ! 
 
 (92) 
 
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true. 
 Like a deceived husband : so love's face 
 May still seem love to me, though altered new ; 
 Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place : 
 For there can live no hatred in thine eye. 
 Therefore in that I cannot know thy change : 
 In many's looks the false heart's history 
 Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange. 
 But Heaven in thy creation did decree 
 That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell ; 
 Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be, 
 Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell : 
 How like Eve's Apple doth thy beauty grow, 
 If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show I ' 
 
 («J3.) 
 
 * So in the ' Merchant of Venice,' act i. so. 3 : — 
 
 * A goodly apph> rotten at the heart : 
 O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.' 
 
 In a note on this sonnet, Malone wTites, ' Mr. Oldys observes, in one of his 
 manuscripts, that this and the preceding sonnet seem to have been addressed 
 by Shakspeare to his beautiful wife on some suspicion of her infidelity ! ' 
 Poor Mi-s. Shakspeare 1 The Personal Theory has not even spared her !
 
 23G SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 How sweet and lovely dost tlioii make the shame 
 Which, like a canker in the fragrant Rose, 
 Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name ! 
 0, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose ! 
 That tongue that tells the story of thy days, 
 jMaking lascivious comments on thy sport, 
 Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise : 
 Naming thy name blesses an ill report : 
 0, what a mansion have those vices got, 
 Which for their habitation chose out thee ! 
 ^Yhere Beauty's veil doth cover every blot, 
 And all tilings turn to fair that eyes can see ! 
 
 Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege ; 
 
 The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge. 
 
 (95.)
 
 237 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 — -f 
 
 shakspeare is sad for the earl's 'harmful 
 
 deeds: 
 
 Although Sliakspeare had, in a sonnet already quoted, 
 re})lied to a slander on the Earl, made tlie best of some 
 cause of quarrel betwixt the lover and his mistress, and 
 spoken handsomely of his young friend's cliaracter in 
 general, yet there came a time when tlie opposition to the 
 marriage, the bickerings with Elizabeth Vernon, and the 
 kindling temperament of the lieadstrong youth led to his 
 livinjT a somewhat loose life for a while. This we shall 
 find most penitently confessed in some later sonnets when 
 he comes to sue for pardon. In the present group of Per- 
 sonal Sonnets, Shakspeare mourns for the wild courses 
 of his friend. He would i-ather die than see it witli liis 
 eyes, only his heart is so nuich witli the Earl that he could 
 not leave him in such a world alone. The first sonnet is 
 somewhat general, but the others will point the meaning 
 :uid expound the feeling. He is sad for many things that 
 he sees, but most of all on account of his friend. Ah ! 
 why should he live Avith persons who are morally infec- 
 tious, he asks, and with his presence grace the society of 
 the impious? Why dwell with sinners, and give them 
 the advantage of his company by allowing them to deco- 
 rate their foulness with his fairness? Why should he, as 
 it were, give colour to their faded complexion, freshness 
 to their pallor, and himself lose more in reality than he
 
 238 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 can impart to others in appearance ? Every one is willing 
 to give his outward beauty its meed of praise, but they 
 are quick to judge of his mental gifts by these wild doings 
 of his, and though their eyes look kindly on him, yet they 
 smell the rankness of the weed, whilst seeing the fairness 
 of the flower. The odour does not match the show, be- 
 cause he has grown common ; the flower has been vul- 
 garly handled. In the next sonnet, the Earl is reminded 
 that the rotting lily smells far worse than the withering 
 weed ; the higher the organisation the deeper the degra- 
 dation. And if the beautiful flower meet with infection^ 
 the basest weed is at once a worthier thing. The sonnet 
 implies that the Earl is not one of those who rightly in- 
 herit the graces of Heaven, husband Nature's gifts, and 
 are careful stewards of their ten talents, being slow to 
 temptation, and ' lords and owners of their faces ; ' on the 
 contrary, he is a prodigal spendthrift, and will do great 
 harm to himself because he has great power. Then, as it 
 seems to me, the Poet suggests that his friend should try 
 his hand at writing. Why not exercise his mind in that 
 way ? It would profit him and much enrich his book : — 
 
 * And of this book tltis learning may'st thou taste.' 
 
 That is, he will find in it many reflections and moralisings 
 on the subject of youth's transiency and Time's fleetness. 
 Readers who are troubled with any lingering misgivings 
 tliat the Poet had lived a loose life in the companionship 
 of his patron and friend should pause over these sonnets 
 imtil the mental mist passes away. The fifth, which sets 
 before the young lavish nature such a sensible sober ideal 
 of the wisely-ordered life and disciplined manhood, is a 
 remarkable study. It has been called ' the life without 
 passion,' and supposed to contain an ironical comment on 
 those whose blood is ' very snow-broth ' for coldness ! But 
 it is the simple earnest of a serious man, who offers the 
 laithfid admonition of an elder friend. A genuine man,
 
 THE YOUNG EARL'S LAPSES. 239 
 
 sajzacious and sincere, and he who wrote these hnes must 
 have been known by the person addressed to liave kept 
 his own hfe sweet, his afTections higli and pure, for his 
 words to have had either weii^ht or warrant of authority. 
 As one of the hnes had appeared in a play in the year 
 150G, the sonnet to which it belongs, together with the 
 rest of the group, would not be written later, I think, than 
 1595, or early in the year following; but it is of course 
 impossible to date every one of the sonnets : — 
 
 Tired witli all these, for restful death I cry, — 
 
 As, to beliold desert a beggar born, 
 
 And needy nothing trinnn'd in jolHt}^ 
 
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn. 
 
 And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, 
 
 And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, 
 
 And right perfection wrongfully disgraced. 
 
 And strength by limping sway disabled, 
 
 And Art made tongue-tied by Authority, 
 
 And Folly, doctor-like, controlling Skill, 
 
 And simple truth, miscalled simplicity, 
 
 And captive Good attending captain 111 : 
 
 Tired with all these, from these I would be gone. 
 Save that to die, I leave my Love alone I 
 
 (66.) 
 
 Ah I wherefore with infection should he live,' 
 And with liis presence grace impiety, 
 That Sin by him advantage should achieve. 
 And lace itself witli his society ? 
 Why should false painting imitate his cheek, 
 And steal dead seeming of his living hue ? 
 Why should poor beauty indirectly seek 
 Roses of sliadow, since his rose is true? 
 Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, 
 Beggared of blood to blush thro' lively veins ? 
 
 ' ' All, wlierefore with wfecfiou should he live? ' 
 
 In sonnet 1 1 1 , it is the speaker who oflers to drink ' potions of Kv.sill ' 
 because of his ' stromj infection.^
 
 240 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 For she hath no exchequer now but his, 
 
 And, proud of many, lives upon his gains : 
 
 I him she stores, to show what wealth she had 
 In days long since, before these last so bad. 
 
 (67.) 
 
 Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn, 
 
 "WTien Beauty lived and died as flowers do now. 
 
 Before these bastard signs of fair were borne, 
 
 Or durst inhabit on a living brow ; 
 
 Before the golden tresses of the dead. 
 
 The right of sepulchres, were shorn away 
 
 To live a second life on second head, 
 
 E'er Beauty's dead fleece made another gay : 
 
 In him those holy antique hours are seen. 
 
 Without all ornament, itself and true, 
 
 JNIakiog no summer of another's green, 
 
 Robbing no old to dress his beauty new ; 
 
 And him as for a map doth Nature store, 
 To show false Art what beauty was of yore ! 
 
 (68.) 
 
 1 ' "VVithrmt all ornament itself and true.' Surely we ought to read 
 ' /limsclf auii true,' says Malone. Surely not : If the eye be lifted one half 
 inch beyond the nose, it will perceive that the *]5eauty ' of the 2nd and Sth 
 lines governs the itticlf of the 10th. The Poet means Beauty, 'swqile, of itself,' 
 as W9,s Falstaft''s sack ! 
 
 N.B. — A like case occurs in the ' Tempest,' and, if I do not greatly err, a 
 similar look backward will tend to simplify a perplexing passage : — 
 
 ' My sweet mistress 
 Weeps when she sees me toork, and says such baseness 
 Had ne'er like executor ! I forget — 
 But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours — 
 Most busiless when I do it.' 
 Here the labours are referred to parenthetically: the previous ' icork ' is the 
 ' it ' of the last line. Ferdinand says, for his part he forgets, not only the 
 baseness of his Avork, but the work altogether ; is only reminded of it by 
 these sweet thoughts that ?6i7/ come and perforce refresh his labours. He 
 is least occupied with the work, least engaged in it as a matter of business, 
 most unbusied by it, or most hvdlens whilst doing it, because his thoughts 
 are with her who thus turns his consciousness into comlbrting. The subtle, 
 dreamy lover-like beauty of his ' I forget ' — he only thinking parenthetically, 
 and by reflex from his mistress even of how^ the labour is lost in the love ! — 
 is one of the poet's rarest effects. So rare and fine is it that the meaning — 
 bke the smitten harp-string— is almost rapt from sight to pass awa}- in sound.
 
 'NOBLESSE or,] age: 241 
 
 Those parts of tJiee thcat the world's eye doth view 
 ^^'.•^nt nothiuo; that the thought of hearts can mend : 
 All tongues — the voice of souls— give thee that due. 
 Uttering hare truth, even so as foes commend : 
 Thine outward thus with outward praise is crown'd ; 
 But those same tongues that give thee so thine own, 
 In other accents do this praise confound, 
 By seeing farther than the eye hath shown : 
 They look into the beauty of thy mind, 
 And that in guess they measure by thy deeds ; ' 
 Then (churls) their thoughts, altho' their eyes were kind. 
 To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds ! 
 But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, 
 The solve is this — that thou dost common grow.^ 
 
 (69.) 
 
 They that have power to hurt and will do none, 
 That do not do the thing they most do show. 
 Who moving others are themselves as stone. 
 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow ; 
 They riglitly do inherit Heaven's graces 
 And husband Nature's riches from expense ; 
 They are the lords and owners of their faces. 
 Others but stewards of their excellence : 
 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet. 
 Though to itself it only live and die; 
 But if that flower with base infection meet. 
 The basest weed outbraves his diirnitv ! 
 
 For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds ; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 
 
 (94.) 
 
 Thy Ghiss will show thee how thy beauties wear. 
 Thy Dial how the precious minutes waste; 
 The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, 
 And of this Book this learning may'st thou taste ! 
 
 1 ' TJiy (hcds: In Sonnet 11], it is the speaker who lewails his ' haiuiful 
 deeds: 
 
 • ' Thou doff commvn (jrcn-: In Sonnet 112, the speahcr hiis been the 
 mai'k of common scandal. 
 
 R
 
 242 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 The wrinkles which thy Glass will truly show 
 Of mouthed graves will give thee memory ; 
 Thou by thy Dial's shady stealth may'st know 
 Time's thievish progress to eternity : 
 Look, what thy memory cannot contain 
 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find 
 Those children nursed — delivered from thy brain — 
 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind : 
 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look. 
 Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy Book. 
 
 (77/)
 
 243 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1597—8. 
 
 A FAREWELL OF THE EARL'S TO ELIZABETH 
 
 VERNON. 
 
 It lias now come to a parting in downright earnest witli 
 Suuthanipton and Elizabeth Vernon. The lover speaks as 
 one who has an ' honourable grief lodged here, that burns 
 worse than tears can drown.' She is too dear for him to 
 possess. He has called her his for awhile, because she 
 o-ave herself to him, either not knowino; her wortli or his 
 imworthiness. She gave herself away upon a mistake, a 
 misconception, his patent having been granted in error; 
 and her better judgment recalls the gift. Farewell ! What- 
 soever reason she may assign for this course, he will sup- 
 ])ort it, and make no defence on his own behalf. She 
 cannot disgrace him half so badly, whatever excuse she 
 may put forth for this ' desired change,' as he will disgrace 
 himself. Knowing her will, he will not claim her ac- 
 quaintance, but walk no more in the old accustomed 
 meeting-places ; and should they meet by chance, he will 
 look stran<:cc, see her as thouoh lie saw her not. He will 
 not name her name lest he — ' too much profane ' — should 
 soil it, and very possibly tell of their acquaintanceship. 
 He will fight against himself in every way for her ; he 
 must never love him whom she hates. ' Then hate me 
 
 R 2
 
 244 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 when thou wilt ; let the worst come, if ever, noA\^, whilst 
 the world is bent upon crossing my deeds. Join with the 
 spite of Fortune, make me bow all at once. Do not wait 
 till I have surmounted my present sorrow. Give not a 
 night of sighs, a morrow of weeping, to lengthen out that 
 which you purpose doing. Do not come with the greater 
 trial wlien other petty griefs have wreaked their worst 
 upon me, but in the onset come and let me taste the worst 
 of Fortune's miciht at one blow. Then — 
 
 ' Other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
 Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.' 
 
 This parting I conjecture to have occurred, or been thus 
 spoken of, after the disgraceful affair in Court, which is 
 chronicled by Eowland White. On the 19th of January, 
 1598 — to repeat the old gossip's words — he writes to Sir 
 Eobert Sidney : ' I hard of some unMndness should be 
 between 3000 (the No. in his cypher for Southampton) 
 and his Mistress, occasiojied by some i^eport of Mr. Ambrose 
 Willougliby. 3000 called hym to an account for yt, but 
 the matter was made knowen to my Lord of Essex, and my 
 Lord Chamberlain, who had them in Examinacion ; what 
 the cause is I could not learne, for yt was but new ; but 
 / see 3000 full of discofitentments.^ Two days later he 
 records that Southampton was playing a game of cards 
 called Primero with Ealeigh and some other courtiers in 
 the presence-chamber. They continued their game after 
 the Queen had retired to rest. Ambrose Willougliby, the 
 officer in waiting, warned them that it was time to depart. 
 Ealeigh obeyed ; l)iit when Willougliby threatened to call 
 in the guard and ])ull down the board, Southampton took 
 offence and would not go. Words ensued, and a scuflle 
 followed ; blows were exchanged, and Willoughby tore 
 out some of Southampton's hair. When the Queen heard 
 of the affair next morning, she thanked Willoughby for his 
 part in it, and said, probably with a fierce glance at one
 
 ' UXKIXDNESS ' BETWEEN THE EARL AND fflS MISTRESS. 245 
 
 of Soutlimnpton's friends, ' he should have sent tlie Earl 
 to the porter's lodge to see icJio durst have fetched him out.'' 
 The Queen ordered Soutlianipton to absent himself from 
 the Court. He was again in disgrace, with Mistress Vernon 
 as a grieved looker-on. Other circumstances tend to cor- 
 roborate my view, that this was the occasion on which tlie 
 foUowinir sonnets were written. Tlie mental condition of 
 Elizabeth Vernon, as described in White's letters, affords 
 good evidence. The Earl proposed leaving England for 
 Paris, to oflfer his sword to Henry IV. of France. And 
 ' his fair Mistress doth wash her fairest face with too many 
 tears.' Also the allusions in the third sonnet identify the 
 time as beinij after the Earl's return from the ' Island 
 Voyage' in October 1597, when he received frowns in- 
 stead of thanks for what he had done, and found the world 
 bent upon crossing his deeds ; the ' spite of Fortune ' more 
 bitter than ever, because he had dared to pursue and sink 
 one of the enemy's vessels without Monson's orders : — 
 
 Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possessing, 
 
 And like enough thou know'st thy estimate ; 
 
 The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ; 
 
 My bonds in thee are all determinate : 
 
 For how do I hold thee, but by thy granting ? 
 
 And for that riches where is my deserving? 
 
 The cause of this fair gift to me is wanting, 
 
 And so my patent back again is swerving : 
 
 Thyself tliou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, 
 
 Or me, to w^hom thou gav'st it, else mistaking ; 
 
 So thy great gift, upon misprision growing. 
 
 Comes home again, on better judgment making: 
 
 Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter; 
 
 In sleep a king, but waking, no such matter. 
 
 (87.) 
 
 Say that thou did'st forsake me for some fault. 
 And I will comment upon that offence : 
 Speak of my lameness and I straight will halt, 
 Against thy reasons making no defence :
 
 246 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Thou canst not, Love, disgrace me half so ill, 
 To set a form upon desired change,' 
 As I'll myself disgrace ; knowing thy will, 
 I will acquaintance strangle and look strange ; 
 Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue, 
 Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, 
 Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong 
 And haply of our old acquaintance tell : 
 
 For thee against myself I'll vow debate, 
 
 For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. 
 
 (89.) 
 
 Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ; 
 
 Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, 
 
 Join with the spite of Fortune, make me bow. 
 
 And do not drop in for an after-loss : 
 
 Ah I do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow. 
 
 Come in the rearward of a conquered woe : 
 
 Grive not a windy night a rainy morrow. 
 
 To linger out a purposed overthrow ! 
 
 If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last 
 
 When other petty grief:^ have done their spite. 
 
 But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 
 
 At first the very worst of Fortune's might ; 
 
 And other strains of woe which now seem woe. 
 Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. 
 
 (90.) 
 
 1 
 
 * To set a form upon desired change.' So in ' King Jolin 
 ' To set a form upon that indigest 
 Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.'
 
 247 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1598. 
 
 THE EARL TO ELIZABETH VERNON AFTER HIS 
 
 ABSENCE. 
 
 The last group has in it the pain of parting ; the present, 
 the rapture of return. Both are essentially amatory, and 
 this is full of the flowery tenderness of the grand passion. 
 How could any one think that the greatest of all drama- 
 tists would have lavished such imagery on the feehng 
 of man for man, devoted this dalliance with all the choice 
 beauties of external nature as the beloved's shadow and 
 looked upon the frailest flowers as the ' figures of delight,' 
 drawn after the pattern of a man ? As though our Poet 
 did not know the diflerence betwixt courting; a man and 
 wooino; a woman ! As thoui^^h he would have charged 
 the Violet, his own darling, witli stealing its sweetness 
 from a man's breatli, and its purple pride from the blood 
 of a man's veins ! Why, he had, in sonnet 21 (p. 132) pro- 
 tested most strenuously against any such interpretation. 
 He says it is not with him as witli those who make a 
 
 * couplement of proud compare. 
 With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,' 
 
 wdien writing to his friend in person. It is Shakspearian 
 sacrilege to suppose that the Poet ever condemned the 
 lily for daring to emulate the wliiteness of a warrior's
 
 248 SriAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 hand. It is an insult ofFered to the ^ ichite wonder of 
 dear Juliet's hand,' that Eomeo adored; the ' snow- 
 u'hite hand of the most beauteous Lady Eosaline,' that 
 my Lord Biron addressed ; the 'princess oi pure white' 
 saluted by Demetrius; the 'ivhite hand of Eosalind,' 
 by which Orlando swore ; the ' white hand of a lady ' 
 that Thyreus was soundly whipped for kissing ; the 2vhite 
 hand of Perdita that Florizel took, 'as soft as dove's 
 down and as ivhite as it,' and Cressid's hand, ' in whose 
 comparison all tvhites are ink.' This was a grace most 
 jealously preserved for the dainty hands of his women, 
 not thrown away on his fighting men ! 
 
 The present return of the Earl I conjecture to be from 
 the journey which followed the parting in the last group. 
 The speaker says how like a winter has his absence been, 
 and yet it was the time of flowers and of fruit, summer 
 and autumn all the ^vdiile. Southampton left England 
 late in February of the year, and came home for good in 
 November. He paid a hasty secret visit in August to 
 marry Elizabeth Vernon, but the absence altogether cor- 
 responds to the one herein described. The third sonnet 
 contains fifteen lines. A variation which suggests that 
 some of the sonnets ran on as stanzas in a poem, and 
 that in the present instance this continuity was marked by 
 an extra hne. 
 
 How like a winter hath my absence been 
 From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! 
 What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, 
 What old December's bareness everywhere I 
 And yet this time removed ^ was summer's time ; 
 The teeming autumn big with rich increase. 
 Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime. 
 Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease : 
 
 ^ ' TLis time removed/ i.e., the time while I was remote from you. So in 
 sonnet 116, Shakspcare calls the Earl the 'llemover' who lias -wandered far 
 away from his Mistress.
 
 THE FLOWER OF FLOWEItS. 249 
 
 Yet this abundant issue seemed to me 
 But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit : 
 For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, 
 And, thou away, the very birds are mute — 
 Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer 
 That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. 
 
 (97.) 
 
 From you I have been absent in the spring, 
 
 When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim. 
 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, 
 
 That heavy Saturn laught and leapt with him : 
 
 Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 
 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 
 
 Could make me any summer's story tell, 
 
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew : 
 
 Nor did I wonder at the lily's white. 
 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; 
 
 They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 
 
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those ! 
 
 Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away. 
 As with your shadow I with these did play. 
 
 (9S.)- 
 
 The forward Violet thus did I chide : — 
 
 ' Svjeet thief! luhence didst thou steed thy svjeet that 
 
 smells 
 If not from my Love's breath? the purple pride 
 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion divells. 
 In my Love's veins thou, hast too grossly dyed /' 
 The lily I condemned for thy hand, 
 And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair; ' 
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand. 
 One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
 
 1 Tbe likeness indicated by tliis comparison must be one of shape, not of 
 colour. The poet does not say the flower of tlie marjoram, which is purple 
 and white. Readers may seek in vain for any resemblance of the hair to 
 marjoram, shape or colour, in the portraits of Southampton and Herbert.
 
 250 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both 
 And to his robbery had annexed thy breath ; 
 But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth, 
 A vengeful canker ate him up to death ! 
 
 More flowers I noted, yet I none could see. 
 But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. 
 
 (99.)
 
 251 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1598—9. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL AFTER SOME TIME 
 
 OF SILENCE. 
 
 In the hundredth sonnet, which, in Thorpe's collection, 
 follows the group on absence, there is curious proof of an 
 absence of the person addressed, and a silence on the part 
 of the speaker. Yet, the person who has been away 
 cannot have been Shakspeare, or tlie absence would be the 
 cause of the silence ! The speaker in the previous sonnets 
 says nothing coidd make him ' any summer's story tell,' 
 whereas the speaker in this sonnet has been telhng stories ; 
 has been at work on some worthless old story or other, 
 turning it into a play, during the absence of the previous 
 speaker. Hard work, in his friend's absence, is the cause 
 why he has forgotten so long to write of the Earl, and not 
 his own absence from England. The length of the absence 
 also is opposed to the idea of it being Shakspeare who was 
 away from his theatre all through the spring, summer and 
 autmnn ! These sonnets show [)lainly that the Earl, who 
 was the speaker in the preceding three sonnets, has now 
 returned from abroad, and the Poet stirs up his muse on 
 the subject of the Earl's sonnets. Eetiu-n, forgetfid nuise, 
 he says, and redeem the time that has been spent so idly
 
 252 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 in darkening tliy power to lend base subjects light. Sing 
 to the ear that does esteem thy lays^ and gives thy pen 
 both skill and argument. Kise and see if, during his 
 absence, Time has engraven any wrinkle in his face. If so 
 be thou the satirist of Time's power, and make his spoils 
 despised, by retouching with tints of immortal youth this 
 portrait that shall be hung up beyond the reach of decay. 
 It will be seen that Shakspeare speaks of his friend with 
 a lighter heart, and once more exalts his virtues, truth and 
 constancy. The meaning of this may be found in the 
 fact that the Earl has now publicly crowned the secret 
 sovereign of his heart ; he has at last married Elizabeth 
 Vernon. This celebration of the Earl's constancy and truth 
 is not in relation to the Poet, but to the Earl's Mistress and 
 his marriage. He is ' constant in a wondrous excellence,' 
 and therefore Shakspeare's verse is still confined to the 
 praise of that constancy. These sonnets tell us that the 
 Earl and his love were yet the Poet's only argument. Up 
 to the present time he was writing to him and of him. 
 
 WTiere art thou, 31iise, that thou forget'st so long 
 
 To speak of that which gives thee all thy might ? 
 
 Spend'st tliou thy fury on some worthless song 
 
 Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? 
 
 Eeturn, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem 
 
 In gentle numbers time so idly spent ; ^ 
 
 Sing to the ear tliat doth thy lays esteem 
 
 And gives thy pen both skill and argument ! 
 
 Rise, restive Muse, my Love's sweet face survey, 
 
 If Time have any wrinkle graven there ; 
 
 If any, be a satire to decay, 
 
 And make Time's spoils despised everywhere ! 
 
 Give my Love fame faster than Time wastes life : 
 So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. 
 
 (100.) 
 
 ^ This lost time was redeemed not only by the writing of this group of 
 personal sonnets, hut also the dramatic series that follows them.
 
 THE POET'S WELCOME HOME TO HIS FRIEND. -jr.fi 
 
 truant jMuse, what sLall be thy amends 
 For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed ? 
 Both truth and beauty on my Love depends ; 
 So dost thou too, and therein dignified : 
 Make answer. Muse ! wilt thou not haply say, 
 ' Truth needs no colour wltli Ids colour fixed ; 
 Beauty no pencil, beauti/s truth to lay : 
 
 But best is best if never inteimixedf ' 
 
 Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb ? 
 
 Excuse not silence so ; for it lies in thee 
 
 To make him much outlive a gilded tomb. 
 
 And to be praised of ages yet to be ! 
 
 Theji do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how 
 To make him seem long hence as he is now. 
 
 (101.) 
 
 My love is strengthened, tho' more weak in seeming ; 
 
 1 love not less, tho' less the show appear; 
 That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming 
 The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere I 
 Our love was new and then but in the spring 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays. 
 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing 
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days : 
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night. 
 But that wild music burthens every bough 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight I 
 Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue, 
 Because I would not dull you with my song. 
 
 (102.) 
 
 Alack ! what poverty my Muse brings forth, 
 That having such a scope to show her pride. 
 The argument, all bare, is of more worth 
 Than when it hath my added praise beside : 
 blame me not if I no more can write ! 
 Look in your glass, and there appears a face 
 That over-goes my blunt invention quite. 
 Dulling m}^ lines and doing me disgrace!
 
 254 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, 
 
 To mar the subject that before was well ? 
 
 For to no other pass my verses tend 
 
 Than of your graces and your gifts to tell ; 
 
 And more, much more, than in my verse can sit 
 Your own glass shows you when you look in it. 
 
 (103.) 
 
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride, 
 
 So far from variation, or quick change ? 
 
 Why, with the time, do I not glance aside 
 
 To new-foimd methods and to compounds strange ? 
 
 Why write I still all one, ever the same, 
 
 And keep invention in a noted weed. 
 
 That every word doth almost tell my name. 
 
 Showing their birth, and whence they did proceed ? 
 
 know, sweet Love, I always write of you. 
 
 And you and love are still my argument ; 
 
 So all my best is dressing old words new. 
 
 Spending again what is already spent : 
 
 For as the sun is daily new and old. 
 
 So is my love still telling what is told. 
 
 (76.) 
 
 What's in the brain that ink may character 
 
 Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit ? 
 
 What's new to speak, what new to register,^ 
 
 That may express my love, or thy dear merit ? 
 
 Nothing, sweet boy ! but yet like prayers divine, 
 
 I must each day say o'er the very same ; 
 
 Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 
 
 Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name ! 
 
 So that eternal love in love's fresh case 
 
 Weighs not the dust and injury of age. 
 
 Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, 
 
 But makes antiquity for aye his page, 
 
 Finding the first conceit of love there bred. 
 Where time and outward form would show it dead. 
 
 (108.) 
 
 1 < Wliat new to register.' The Quarto reads, ' What noio to register,' 
 hut the opposition intended is, I thinlf, hetween speaking and writing, and 
 ' new ' is tlie more immediately applicable to rnjisUriiuj. Malone first made 
 the change.
 
 THE EARL'S CONSTANCY IN L()\ E. 255 
 
 Let not my love be called idoLatry, 
 
 Nor my beloved as an idol show. 
 
 Since all alike my songs and praises be 
 
 To one, of one, still such and ever so : 
 
 Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind. 
 
 Still constant in a wondrous excellence ; 
 
 Therefore my verse to constancy confined. 
 
 One thing expressing, leaves out difference : 
 
 Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, 
 
 Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ; 
 
 And in this change is my invention spent. 
 
 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords ! 
 Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone. 
 Which three, till now, never kept seat in one. 
 
 (105.)
 
 256 • SHAIiSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1598—9. 
 
 THE EARL TO ELIZABETH VERNON— TlfEIR FINAL 
 RECONCILIATION: WITH SHAKSPEARE'S SONNET 
 ON THEIR MARRIAGE. 
 
 Whatsoever Shakspeare intended to put into tlie sonnets 
 is there, and may be found in them. Whatsoever cha- 
 racter he meant to pourtray will be there depicted. Such 
 was the constitution of his mind that his work is sure to 
 be dramatically true ; no matter what the subject may be. 
 In the sonnets that are personal, there will be found 
 nothing opposed to what we know, and have reason to 
 beheve, of the Poet's character. Nothing but wdiat is 
 perfectly compatible with that wise prudence, careful 
 forethought, uprightness of dealing, stability of spirit, 
 contentedness with his own lot, proverbial sweetness and 
 loveableness of disposition which we know, not by con- 
 jecture, but because his possession of these virtues is the 
 most amply attested fact of his life. Moreover, the per- 
 sonal sonnets always illustrate that modesty of his nature 
 which was great as was his genius. But, in this group of 
 sonnets, the character delineated is the exact opposite in 
 every respect to that of Shakspeare ; separated from his 
 by a difference the most profound. This is a youth speak- 
 ing — as in sonnet the 2nd — wdiereas Shakspeare continually 
 harps on his riper age, or, as we have read it, his elder 
 brotherhood to the youth who is his friend. And this
 
 SOUTIIAMITONS CIIAKACTEIIISTICS. 2r,7 
 
 youtli, who is the speaker here, has been headstrong and 
 wilful, imprudent and thoughtless ; unstable as wind and 
 wave, and easily made the sport of both ; he is choleric 
 and quickly stirred to breaking out and ilying off at 
 random. Again and again has he given pain to those 
 that loved him most, who have had to turn from his 
 doings witli averted eyes. Again and again has he left 
 the beloved, and gone away as far as wind and wave 
 would carry him. He has heedlessly done things which 
 have made him the mark of scandal — 
 
 ' A fixed figure of the time,' for Scorn 
 To point his slow unmoving finger at ;' 
 
 made a fool of himself, as we say, and as he also says, 
 publicly, to the view ; ' gored his own thoughts ' and made 
 the heart of others bleed for him. He has been forgetful 
 of that ' dearest love ' to which ' all bonds' draw him closer 
 and tie him tighter day by day ; he has been wanting in 
 those grateful offices of affection wherein he ought to have 
 repaid the ' great deserts ' of the person addressed. 
 
 These sonnets are very dramatic ; intensely personal to 
 the speaker ; the feeling goes deep enough to carry the 
 writer most near to nature, therefore they are certain to be 
 representatively true. They are pathetic with a passionate 
 pleading; filled with real confessions ; self-criminating, and 
 quick with repentance. But they are not true to the nature 
 of our Poet, they have no touch of kinship, no feature 
 of likeness to him. They are, I repeat, in all respects the 
 precise opposite to what we know of Shakspeare, and to all 
 that he says of himself, or others say of him. If ever there 
 was a soul of ripe serenity and capacious calm, of sweet 
 and large affections, wise orderliness of life, and an imac^ina- 
 tion that had the deep stillness of brooding love, it was the 
 soul of Shakspeare. His was not a mind to be troubled 
 
 > Surely this is the true reaflinfT of the above two lines— the ' of ' and 
 '■ for ' having changed places ? Othello cannot mean that he is made into a 
 clock or a dial, but the laughing-stock of the time ? 
 
 S
 
 258 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and tossed by every breeze that blew, and billow that 
 broke ; not a temperament to be ever in restless eddy and 
 ebb and flow ; not a nature that was fussy or fretful, but 
 steady and deep ; of massive mould, majestic motion and 
 smiHng spaciousness. He was a man who could possess 
 his soul in patience, and silently bide his time ; who did 
 not babble of his discontents with either tongue or pen. 
 
 Then, if Southampton be the friend who is addressed 
 when Shakspeare speaks personally, his character should 
 be to some extent reflected from Shakspeare's words ; we 
 should at least see his features, although in miniature, in 
 Shakspeare's eyes. We know his character. It can be traced 
 quite distinctly on the historic page. He was a brave and 
 bounteous peer. A noble of nature's own making, munifi- 
 cent, chivalrous, full of warlike and other fire. But he was 
 one of those who will have the flash and outbreak of the 
 passionate mind ; and when stirred, the quick fire was apt 
 to leap out into a world of dancing sparks. He w^as quick 
 and sudden in quarrel ; his hand flew as swiftly to his 
 swordhilt as the hot blood to his face ; lacking in prudence 
 and patience, and unstable in all things but his ardent 
 friendships. Even these he must have tried sorely. His 
 mounting valour was of the restless irrepressive kind 
 which, if it cannot find vent in battles abroad, is likely to 
 break out in broils at home. He was easily swayed, and 
 frequently swerved aside by the continual cross-currents 
 of his wilful wanton blood ; one of the chosen friends 
 and kindred spirits of the madcap and feather-triumph 
 Earl of Essex ! But he was also one of those generous, 
 self-forgetting foolish souls whose vices are often more 
 amiable than some people's virtues. All this we may read 
 in the records of the time. All this we may gather from 
 the sonnets which are addressed to him. And all this is 
 fif^ured in the liveliest form and colour in those sonnets 
 which I say are spoken by the Earl of Southampton. 
 These paint the past history of the speaker, and they
 
 THE TERSON ADDRESSED IS A J.ADV. 2o9 
 
 render the Earl's character, actions, quarrels, wanderings, 
 to the life. But this is not the character of the person 
 here addressed, whoever the speaker may be, therefore 
 the person here addressed cannot be the Earl of South- 
 ani[)ton. This person is the quiet centre of the cyclone 
 of emotions, exclamations, pleadings, protestations. This 
 person is the stay-at-home — the ' home of love ' from 
 which the other has so often ranged. This person sits 
 enthroned God-like in love, ' enskied and sainted,' high 
 over the region of storm and strife, the wild whirl of re- 
 pentant words, having the prerogative to look down with 
 sad calm eyes ; the regal right to forgive ! The person 
 here addressed is of such purity and goodness that the 
 speaker feels he needs to be disinfected before he can come 
 near. This cannot be Southampton, as we know, by his 
 character and conduct. And if Southampton hz not the 
 person addressed then it follows that Shakspeare is not 
 the speaker ; this we know likewise from his character and 
 conduct. lie was a man too wise and prudent to have 
 done the foolish things that are here confessed. His 
 
 was : — 
 
 ' The soul that gathers wealth ia still repose, 
 Not losing all that floats in overflows,' 
 
 but resting with a large content in the quiet brimfulness 
 of its force. His mind Avas too steadftistly anchored in the 
 firm ground of a stable character, for him to be con- 
 tinually going to and fro. He was not the wanderer over 
 the world, ranging time after time from his ' home of love ' 
 far as fortune would let him ; hoisthig sail to every wind 
 that blew ; turning and tossing as it were iu the distrac- 
 tion of a * madding fever ' ; listening to the song of the 
 syrens ; not -bound on board w^itli ears safely stopped, 
 but landing to be flattered and fooled by their treacherous 
 tears. This speaker is a traveller who has often been 
 amonofst foreigners (' unknown minds ') which Shakspeare 
 certainly was not — even if he ever went out of England 
 
 d 2
 
 260 SIL^KSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 at all — any more than he could have been the man who 
 had so blamefuUy looked ' on truth askance and strangely ' 
 to wilfully roam about the world, and make acquaintance 
 with all the error he could meet. And if the supposed 
 facts had been true ; if his had been the nature to have 
 these many mournful breakings-out and flyings-off at 
 random ; if his errors and mlfulness had been so grievous 
 to his friends ; if his hght love had been this plaything, 
 this weather-cock of change ; if he had so shamefully, 
 so disgracefully trampled his acknowledged sacred obliga- 
 tions under foot, and proved so faithless to his professed 
 friendship ; if he had committed these ' wretched errors ' 
 of the heart ; why, then, the arguments would be all 
 fatally false. For it is not possible that Shakspeare should 
 confess all these sins and shames on his part, and afterwards 
 urge that all these ' worse essays ' were merely made to 
 try the Earl's affection, and prove him to be the ' best of 
 love;' that all the 'blenches' and ungratefulness and 
 w^anton inconstancy were only meant to test the virtue 
 and constancy of the Earl's friendship. He could not 
 urge that he had turned to vicious and immoral courses 
 on purpose to purge his stomach of the Earl's ' sweetness,' 
 on which he had overfed, and urge that the true way of 
 growing healthier was to become diseased. He could not 
 wilfully wander away from this dear friend — leave ' for 
 nothing ' all his ' sum of good ' and then ask him to 
 quarrel with Fortune as the cause of his i^oving on account 
 of his beimj a player or manager of a theatre^ whose 
 place and duty were to keep quietly at home and work 
 steadily ; as we know Shakspeare did. He could not 
 plead that these sad experiences had given his heart 
 another youth, for the one that had been let run to waste ; 
 he who was nearly ten years older than the Earl, and 
 always gives him the utmost benefit of the difference in 
 their years and personal appearance. All such excuses 
 from such a man who liad been such a sinner would be
 
 REASONS TVIIY THE POET IS NOT THE SPEAKER. 201 
 
 insultingly absurd. And it is most grossly improbable 
 that Sliakspeare should have spoken to his noble friend, as 
 in sonnet 120, and had to regret that he had not been as 
 generous or quick in forgiveness as that friend had been 
 to him on a previous occasion, when we remember the 
 modesty of the man. Still more gross is the idea that 
 Shakspeare should offer to his patron and dear friend the 
 worn-out remnant of his affections, like the broken-down 
 rake in Burns's poem, who, having foundered his horse 
 among harlot:*, ' gave the auld nag to the Lord.' Telling 
 him that he w^ould 'never more grind his appetite on 
 newer proof, to try an older friend.' For, if Shakspeare 
 were speaking according to the personal interpretation, 
 that word could have but one meaning. And it is im- 
 possible to suppose that our Poet, who was so ahve to all 
 natural proprieties, could use it in addressing a male 
 friend. Equally impossible is it to think of Shakspeare, 
 the man of staid hal3it and grave mascuhne morahty ; the 
 husband of good repute and the father of a family ; the 
 shrewd man of the world, conversant wdth men and affairs ; 
 the man who speaks of himself not only as ripe in years, 
 but somewhat aged before his time ; who, when he catches 
 a glimpse of his own face, does so with an arch gravity or 
 a jocose remark on the signs of age and the wear and 
 tear of life ; who is w^eather-beaten, chapped and tan- 
 ned ; in sonnet 73, — it is impossible that this man, of 
 sober soul and grave wise speech, should afterwards be 
 found pleading with his boy-friend that the cause of his 
 lapses and frailties is that sportive wild blood of his which 
 will have its fi-isky leaps and lavoltos, and asking, with an 
 almost infantile innocence, ' why should false adulterate 
 eyes ' give it salutation ? Why should they shoot their 
 wicked lightnings to melt the sword of his naturally 
 virtuous soul in its sheath, leaving him so unarmed and 
 helpless to the wicked one who wants to take advantage 
 of his tender youth ? This is ineffably fooHsh to any
 
 262 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 one M-ho is at all grounded in the qualities of Shaks- 
 peare's character, or acquainted with such of the son- 
 nets as are explicitly pei'sonal. Bad as they have tried 
 to make him, Shakspeare did not think adultery good, nor 
 lust altogether admirable — if we may trust the 129th 
 sonnet, which is somewhat empliatic on the point and very 
 much to our purpose. Yet such a theory, so blindly 
 misleading and perniciously false, has been accepted, or 
 allowed to pass almost unchallenged, by men who profess 
 to believe in Shakspeare ! 
 
 One of these sonnets has been held to indicate Shak- 
 speare's disgust at his player's life. The image being 
 drawn from the stage gives some countenance to this view. 
 But it is not fitted to the relationship of poet and patron, 
 and it is quite opposed to all that we learn of Shakspeare's 
 character. It is not true that he had gone here and there 
 and everywliere to make a fool of himself, when he Avas 
 quietly getting a living for his wife and family in an up- 
 right, honest, prudent way. Nor could he with any the 
 least propriety speak of making a fool of himself on the 
 stage, which was the meeting-place of himself and the 
 Earl ; the fount of Shakspeare's honour, the spring of 
 his good fortune ; the known delight of Southampton, 
 who often spent his time in doing nothing but going 
 to plays. Nor have we ever heard of any ' harmfid 
 deeds,' or doings of Shakspeare, occasioned in conse- 
 quence of his connexion with the stage. Nor do we see 
 how his name could be branded, or ' receive a brand,' from 
 his connexion with the tlieatre, or from his acts in con- 
 sequence of his being a ])layer. What name ? He liad 
 no name apart from the theatre, and the friendships it had 
 brouglit liim. His name was created there. He had 
 no higher standard of appeal. He had not stooped to 
 authorship, or the player's life. His living depended on 
 the theatre ; he met and made his friends at the theatre ; 
 he was making his fortune by the theatre; how then
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S ' WKLL-CO.XTKN'J'KlJ DAY.' 203 
 
 should he exclaim against the theatre? IIow could he 
 receive a brand on his name/rom the theatre ? Supposing 
 him to have had a great dislike to the life and work, it 
 would have been jierfectly out of place, unnatural, and 
 inartistic, to have thus expressed it point-blank to the 
 generous friend who had exalted the ' poor player ' and 
 overleaped the player's life and lot and character, to shake 
 him by the hand, and make him his bosom friend, however 
 much the world might have looked down upon him ! But 
 I altogether doubt that he had any such dishke to his lot. 
 I believe he neither pined in private nor complained in 
 public, but that his thrift and prosperity were in great 
 measure the result of content. John Davies might and 
 did regret that Fortune had not dealt better by Shakspeare 
 than in making him a player and playwright : but even 
 he held that the stage only stained ' pure and gentle blood,' 
 of which our Poet was not, althouf^h ' ij^enerous in mind 
 and mood,' and one that ' sowed honestly for others to 
 reap.' ^ Ben Jonson might kick against the ' loathed 
 stage,' and Marston complain, but Shakspeare's was a 
 career of triumph ; he was borne from the beginning on 
 a full tide of prosperity ; the stage gave him that which 
 he so obviously valued, worldly good fortune. He could 
 not have been querulously decrying that success which his 
 contemporaries were envying so much. Moreover, he was 
 at heart a player, and enjoyed the pastime; this is ap- 
 parent in his woi'ks, and according to evidence in sonnet 
 32 (p. 133), he lived a ' well-contented day.' Therefore he 
 could not despise the art in which he delighted, and which 
 was bringing him name, friends, and fortune. We have no 
 proof whatever that he felt degraded by treading the stage, 
 and we have proof that he did not forget or overlook his 
 old theatre friends. lie considered himself their ' fellow' in 
 1616, when he remembered them in his will. A kindlv 
 thought, and just like him, but quite opposed to the personal 
 
 ' Scourge of Folli/,
 
 264 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 interpretation of the sonnet. Besides which, if he had 
 looked upon himself as the victim of Fortune, if she were 
 responsible for his being a player, what motive would lie 
 have for self-reproach ? Why should he cry ' Alas ! ' and 
 ask to be pitied, and call for some moral disinfecting fluid, 
 no matter how bitter, and seek to do ' double penance ' 
 when he was honestly getting his living according to the 
 lot which had befallen him ? He could not be the help- 
 less victim of Fortune, and the headstrong cause of his 
 own misfortune ; and that is the mixture of character im- 
 plied ! There is a strong sense of personal wilfulness in 
 doing ' harmful deeds.' Do you ' o'ergreen my bad,' and 
 pity me, and ' wish I were renewed,' not merely my means 
 of living ! 
 
 I have no doubt that Shakspeare had been far more 
 intent on getting his theatre renewed, and if the Earl, as 
 has been suggested, gave our Poet assistance towards the 
 building of the ' Globe ' on Bankside, the personal interpre- 
 tation of this sonnet would afford a singular comment on 
 the Earl's generosity and Shakspeare's gratitude. Our 
 Poet, in all likelihood, was thinking how tolerably well 
 Fortune had so far provided for his life. And we may 
 consider it pretty certain that his name never did ' receive 
 a brand ' on account of his ' public manners ' bred in him 
 through being a player. His brow never was branded by 
 jjuhlic scandal. And so evidently public are the person, 
 the acts, the scandal of these sonnets, that we must have 
 heard of them had they been Shakspeare's, just as we 
 hear of the loose doings of Marlowe, Green, and the lesser 
 men. It is no answer to my argument for any one to urge 
 that Shakspeare may have done this or the other privately, 
 and we not have heard of it. These are not private mat- 
 ters. It is no secret confession of hidden frailty. The 
 subject is notorious ; the scandal is public ; and if 
 Shakspeare were speaking, he would have done something 
 for all the world to see branded on his brow. If his
 
 THE rOET NOT A ' PIT.ETC ' MAX. 205 
 
 manners had been such as to warrant the tone of tliese 
 sonnets, his contemporaries must have seen them, and we 
 should have heard of them. 
 
 There is one expression in this sonnet which has been 
 identified as positively personal, because the speaker says 
 that Fortune did not better for his life provide than public 
 means. But that is the result of a preconceived hypo- 
 thesis. It never seems to have been questioned wlietlier 
 a player of Elizabeth's time would speak of living by 
 ' public means,' when the highest thing aimed at by the 
 players was private patronage ! except where they hoped 
 to become the sworn servants of Eoyalty. If the Lord 
 Chamberlain's servants were accounted public, it would 
 be in a special sense, not merely because they were 
 players ; and certainly scandalous ^blic manners were 
 not likely to be any recommendation for such a position, 
 or necessary result of it ! ^ In our time the [)hrase would 
 apply, but the sense of the words, coupled with the theatre, 
 is a comparatively modern growth. Even if it had applied, 
 it was an impossible connnent for our Poet to make on 
 what he had been striving to do, and on what Southamp- 
 ton had in all probability lielped him to accomplish. For 
 the truth is, the ' Globe ' was built in order that the 
 players might reach a wider pubhc, and Shakspeare was 
 one of the first to create Avluit we call the play-going 
 public! The ' Blackfriars ' was a private theatre, chiefly 
 dependent on private patronage ; the nobility preferred 
 the private theatres ; the ' Globe ' was meant to appeal to 
 the lower orders — or, as we say, the general public. With 
 what conscience, then, could the successful imiovator in 
 search of the ' public ' complain of having to five by 
 ' public means ' ? Here, however, the meaning, as illus- 
 trated in the context, is that the speaker has to live in the 
 public eye in a way that is apt to beget public manners. 
 
 ' Tlie title of ' the Kinjr's Servants ' -was only conferred on Sliakspeare'a 
 company of players by the Privy Seal of 1(303.
 
 266 . SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 He lives the public life which attracts public notice. The 
 opposition is between public and private life/ rather than 
 between riches and poverty, or modes of payment — the 
 public means of living his life, rather than the public 
 means of srettino- a living; — that he wishes ' renewed.' His 
 public is the only public of Shakspeare's time ; the Court 
 circle and public members of the state. And the person 
 of whom Shakspeare wrote thus must have been a public 
 character in such sense. He must have moved in that 
 circle, and been of far greater importance than a player 
 could possibly be, either in his own estim.ation or that of the 
 world at large. Such an one, for example, as is spoken 
 of in sonnet 9 (p. 113), whom, should he die single, the 
 ' world will be his widow,' and bewail him ' like a make- 
 less wife.' That is t)ur poet's view of the ' public ' man. 
 And sonnet 25 will tell us exactly what Shakspeare did not 
 consider ' public,' for he therein expressly says that For- 
 tune has debarred him from '•public'' honours, and, as he 
 was a player then, the same fortune must have debarred him 
 from ' pubHc ' shame, resulting from living a player's life. 
 The innermost sense in which the Poet spoke of the 
 public man in sonnet 111 I take to be this. Shak- 
 speare's great anxiety was to get his dear friend married. 
 That is the Alpha and Omega of the Southampton sonnets. 
 He looked to the wedded life as a means of saving his 
 friend from many sad doings and fretful fooleries. But 
 he was a public person, whom a monarch could and did 
 forbid to marry ; who could not wed the wife of his heart 
 without a sort of public permission ; who had to get mar- 
 ried by pul^lic means.'"^ Shakspeare looked to this fact as 
 the cause of the Earl's public manners ; his broils in Court, 
 his breakings-out of temper, his getting into such bad 
 courses and lamentable scrapes, as made Mistress Vernon 
 
 ^ In a letter written by the Earl of Southampton to Sir Thomas Roe, 
 December 24th, 1028, he expresses himself to be in love with a country life. 
 
 2 The affair with Willoughby would not have given rise io public scandal 
 but for its having occurred at Court,
 
 Ills TERSOXAT. MANNERS. 207 
 
 and otlier friends of tlic Earl mourn. The l*oet considered 
 that his friend had been irritated and made reckless by 
 the obstinacy of Ehzabeth the Queen in opposing his mar- 
 riacre with Ehzabeth his love. And he holds Fortune to 
 be in a great measure responsible for the Earl's harmful 
 doino-s. This view is corroborated in sonnet 124, where 
 the Earl is made to speak of his love as having been the 
 ' Child of State.' Shakspeare did not consider himself a 
 public man living by public means, nor fancy himself of 
 pubhc importance. Of this there is the most convincing 
 proof in many personal expressions. In these personal 
 sonnets, he does not propose to speak of himself as one of 
 the public performers on the stage of life, but like Eomeo 
 going to the feast at Capulet's house, he will be a torch- 
 bearer, and shed a lii>ht on the manv-coloured movinnj 
 scene rather than join in the dance. He'll be a 'candle- 
 holder and look on.' He will conceal himself as much as 
 possible under the light which he carries, and hold it so 
 that the lustre shall fall chiefly on the face of his friend 
 who is in public, and whom he seeks to illumine with his 
 love from the place where he stands in his privacy apart. 
 As for Shakspeare's ' manners,' we know httle of them in 
 2iwy public sense, but, from all printed report, we learn 
 that his manners were those of a natural gentleman of 
 divine descent, whose moral dignity and brave bearing 
 ennobled a lowly lot, and made a despised profession 
 honourable for ever. It was his manners quite as much 
 as his mental superiority that silenced his envious 
 rivals. It was liis ' manners ' especially that elicited the 
 apology from Chettle. It was his manners that inspired 
 Jonson with his full-hearted exclamation, ' He was 
 indeed honest, and of an open and free nature.' It 
 was his ' manners ' — his good reputation — that gave the 
 greatest emphasis to the pleading on behalf of the ' poor 
 players' in the letter ascribed to the Earl of Southampton. 
 And so far as the word public can be applied to Shak-
 
 268 SHAKSPKVEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 speare und his ' manners,' so far J ohn Davies, in his ' Hu- 
 mour's Heaven on Earth ' (p. 215), speaks of him precisely 
 in that sense, for he speaks of Shakspeare as he saw him 
 before his own pubhc in the tlieatrical Avorld, and the 
 theatre, says Dekker's ' Gull's Horn-Book,' is ' your Poet's 
 Boyal Exchange.'' Davies compliments him, in the year 
 1605, as not being one of those who act badly ' by custom 
 of their manners^' not one of those whose ill-actions in life 
 make them ill- actors on the stage. He speaks of Shak- 
 speare as one who is of good wit, of good courage, of good 
 shape, of good parts, and good altogether ; consequently 
 his manners., public and private., must have been good. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that Shakspeare did not speak 
 of himself as a public man living by pubhc means, nor 
 bewail his public manners ; that he did not draw the 
 image from the stage, and thus mark the platform on 
 which he stood — the place where he was making his for- 
 tune — for the purpose of saying how degraded he felt 
 there, and of flinging his defiance at public opinion and 
 private malice ; scattering his scorn over critics and flat- 
 terers, and insulting his patron in the most reckless way ; 
 that he did not lower and abase his brow to receive the 
 brand of vulgar scandal, and then coolly ask his insulted 
 friend to efface the impression — the stamp of scandal and 
 dirt of degradation — with a kiss of loving pity ; that a 
 man who felt degraded by his calling, and branded on 
 the brow because of his being a player, could not have 
 occasion to stop his ears and be deaf as an adder to flat- 
 tery ; that the personal interpretation derived from the 
 expression ' public means ' is at war with the whole feeling 
 of these sonnets, and the feeling here, as elsewhere, is the 
 greatest fact of all ; that, in short, it is not Shakspeare who 
 is speaking ; and the personal theory puts everything into 
 confusion ; it is sufficient warrant for all that Steevens said 
 of the sonnets ; it leads people to think Shakspeare wrote 
 nonsense at times, and exaggerated continually. He did
 
 THE LOVER CONFESSES HIS SINS, 2U0 
 
 nothing of the kind. I shall prove that he wrote these 
 sonnets with a perfect adherence to literal facts, and that 
 his art in doing so is exquisite, as in his plays. Also, the 
 personal rendering deepens and darkens the impression of 
 things which, when applied to the Earl and his Mistress, 
 do not mean much, and are merely matter for a sonnet, 
 not for the saddest of all Shakspearian tragedies : — 
 
 THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON TO ELIZABETH VERNON. 
 
 0, never say that I was false of heart, 
 Though absence seemed my flame to qualify : 
 As easy might I from myself depart 
 As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie : 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged. 
 Like him that travels ' I return again, 
 Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, 
 So that myself bring water for my stain : 
 Never believe, tho' in my nature reigned 
 All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 
 That it could so preposterously be stained, 
 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good : 
 F'or nothing this wide universe I call. 
 Save thou, my Rose ! ^ in it thou art my All. 
 
 (l09.) 
 
 Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there 
 
 And made myself a motley to the view : 
 
 Gored ^ mine own thoughts ; sold cheap what is most dear ; 
 
 Made old offences of affections new : 
 
 Most true it is that I have look'd on truth 
 
 Askance and strangely ; but, by all above. 
 
 These blenches gave my heart another youth. 
 
 And worse essays proved thee my best of love ! 
 
 * 'Like him that travels' — ho has ranged as a traveller. 
 
 2 * My rose.' ' O, Kuse of May ' — Laertes speaking of his sister Ophelia, 
 ' Hamlet,' act iv. sc. 5. 
 
 ' 'Gored mine own thoiiprhts.' So Achilles, in ' Troilus and Cressida,' 
 ' My fame is shn^wdly gored ! '
 
 270 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Now all is done, have what shall have no end : ^ 
 
 Mine appetite I never more will grind 
 
 On newer proof to try an older friend — 
 
 A Grod in love,^ to whom I am confined I 
 
 Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, 
 Even to thy pure and most, most loving breast. 
 
 (110.) 
 
 0, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
 The guilty Goddess of my harmful deeds,^ 
 That did not better for my life provide 
 Than public means which public manners breeds : 
 
 1 * Now all is doue, have wliat shall Lave no end.' 
 
 Tbis Malone altered to — 
 
 ' Now all is done, save what shall have no end,' 
 showing that he had altogether missed the meaning. The wanderings here 
 spoken of are not metaphorical, but the literal facts of the speaker's life. 
 He has been a great traveller. As a traveller he left the lady, as a traveller 
 he returns, and as a traveller he asks for his welcome home. His ranging 
 about tlie world has been more from necessity than choice, on account of 
 his being a public man, a servant of the State, a soldier — that is why Fortune 
 is held responsible. Now, all is done : the wanderings that were but tem- 
 porary are over ; accept the love, he pleads, whicli is eternal. In short, he 
 returns this time to marry his lady, and renew his life : 
 
 ' Pity me, then, and %vish I were reneweiV 
 ^ ' A God in love.' An expression beyond sex, indicating the strength of 
 feeling that needs the most masculine utterance, akin to that which made 
 Elizabeth a prince and a governor, and hailed Maria Theresa as a king in 
 the Magyar Assembly. So in the Bible, Man is used to express the sum 
 total of sex. A ' God in love ' is really only warranted by its being addressed 
 to a woman. Also, a ' Goddess in love ' would not have suited, because it is 
 the greatness, the divinity of the love, rather than of the person, that is 
 meant to be conveyed. The expression, applied to a woman, is suggestively 
 illustrated in the ' Comedj' of Errors.' Antipholus of Syracuse replies to 
 Luciana, ' Sweet mistress — what your name is else I know not,' and he asks — 
 
 * Are you a God? would you create me new? 
 Transform me then, and to your power Til yield.' 
 
 This is not the only instance of Shakspeare's audacity producing something 
 extraordinary by reversing the ordinary — a perilous process in lesser hands ! 
 In ' Julius Caesar ' he thus intensifies the feeling of scorn : — 
 
 ' His coward lips did/rowi their colours Jly.' 
 
 "Which dash of soldierly daring Warburton called a 'poor quibble ! ' • 
 
 ^ In sonnet 69 fp. 241 j it was the ^;e/-sort addressed whose deeds had been 
 80 harmful ; whose name had grown so common.
 
 THE LOVER PLEADS FOR PARDOX. 271 
 
 Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 
 
 And ahnost thence my nature is subdued 
 
 To what it works in, like the Dyer's hand; 
 
 Pity me then and wish I were renewed : 
 
 Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
 
 Potions of eysell 'gainst my strong, infection : 
 
 No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
 
 Nor double-penance, to correct correction : 
 
 Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye. 
 Even that your pity is enough to cure me. 
 
 (111.) 
 
 Your love and pity doth the impression fill 
 Which vulgar scandal stampt upon my brow;' 
 For what care I who calls me well or ill, 
 So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow : 
 You are my all-the-world, and I must strive 
 To know my shames and praises from your tongue ; 
 None else to me, nor I to none alive, 
 That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong — 
 In so profound abysm I throw all care 
 Of others' voices, that my adder's sense 
 To critic and to flatterer stopped are : 
 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense — 
 You are so strongly in my purpose bred 
 That all the world besides methinks are dead. 
 
 (112.) 
 
 'Tis better to be vile than vile-esteemed, 
 
 "VVhen not to be receives reproach of being, 
 
 And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed. 
 
 Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing : 
 
 For why should others' false adulterate eyes 
 
 Give salutation to my sportive blood ? 
 
 Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, 
 
 Which in their wills count bad what I think good ? 
 
 No, I am that I am, and they that level 
 
 At my abuses reckon up their own : 
 
 In sonnet 70 (p. 22G) it was the peison addressed who had been tlie mark 
 
 of slander and subject of public scandal.
 
 272 SIL\KSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 I may be straight tho' they themselves be bevel ; 
 
 By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown : 
 Unless this general evil they maintain 
 All men are bad and in their badness reign. 
 
 (121.) 
 
 Accuse me thus — that I have scanted all 
 
 Wherein I should your great deserts repay ; 
 
 Forgot upon your dearest love to call. 
 
 Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; ' 
 
 That I have frequent been with unknown minds 
 
 And given to Time your own dear-purchased right ;^ 
 
 That I have hoisted sail to all the winds 
 
 Which should transport me farthest from your sight : 
 
 Book both my wilfulness and errors down, 
 
 And on just proof surmise accumulate ; 
 
 Bring me within the level of your frown. 
 
 But shoot not at me in your wakened hate ; 
 
 Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove 
 The constancy and virtue of your love. 
 
 (117.) 
 Like as, to make oar appetites more keen, 
 With eager compounds we our palate urge, 
 As, to prevent our maladies unseen. 
 We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge ; 
 Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, 
 To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding 
 And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness 
 To be diseased ere that there was true needing ; 
 Thus policy in love, to anticipate 
 The ills that were not, grew to faults assured ; 
 And brought to medicine a healthful state 
 Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured: 
 But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, 
 Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. 
 
 (118.) 
 
 ^ See the extract from Mr. Chamberlain's letter for a very natural gloss 
 on this line. 
 
 2 What dearly-purcha.sed right to Shakspeare's companionship could the 
 Earl of Southampton have had which the poet had ' given to Time ? ' The 
 speaker here is the person addressed by Shakspeare himself in sonnet 70 
 (p. 226), as "being wooed of Time.'
 
 THE (iOOT) IX TfllXriS V.VU.. 273 
 
 What potions have I (Inink of Siren tears, 
 Distilled from lymbecks foul as hell within ; ' 
 Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears. 
 Still loosing when I saw myself to win ! 
 What wretched errors hath my heart committed, 
 Whilst it liath thought itself so blessed never ! 
 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been flitted "^ 
 In the distraction of this madding fever ! 
 benefit of ill ! now I find true 
 That better is by evil made still better : 
 And ruined love, when it is built anew, 
 Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater : 
 So I return rebuked to my content, 
 And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. 
 
 (119.) 
 
 ^ In Sonnet 67 (p. 239) it was the person addressed who was dwelling 
 in infV'ctious society, and gracing irnpiety with his presence ! 
 
 * ' I'litted.' The Quarto reads ' iitted,' but I cannot think that Shak- 
 speare's omnipresent vision and wakeful humour would allow him to say 
 the eyes had heen Jitted out of their spheres, when, if tliey had heen Jifted at 
 all, it would have been in their spheres. It must, I apprehend, be a mis- 
 print for ' Hitted,' the word that, above all others, signifies a ' moiiiuf ' or re- 
 moved to the Scotch mind. Spenser makes use of the word ' flit ' : — 
 
 ' For on a sandy hill that still did^^V/, 
 And fall away, it mounted was full hie.' 
 
 Fairfax's ' Tasso ' (5, 58) has it— 
 
 * Alas, that cannot be, for he isjiit 
 Out of this camp.' 
 
 In Psalm 50 we find, ' Thou tellest my 'Jliitini/s.'' And Puttenham calls 
 the figure Metasfmis the ' Flitting Figure,' or the ' Remove.' The meaning 
 of the line is, hoiv have mine eyes been moved out of their spheres. It is sus- 
 ceptible of a double interpretation. Figuratively, how have mine eyes 
 wandered like those of Solomon's fool, that ' rounded about in the darkness,' 
 instead of wisely keeping watch in my head. But Shakspeare takes his 
 stand so firmly on the physical fact (want of faith in this characteristic of 
 his mind has prevented our understanding the sonnets, made it impossible 
 for us to follow, because we did not trust the element \), that 1 rather con- 
 clude he meant literally hoio have mine eyes been draicn imvard by the pain 
 I have suffered, until they are sunken in their sockets; they have been * flitted ' 
 in the distraction of this maddening fever. A motion the exact opposite to 
 that of the eyes starii/if/ from their spheres, in ' Hamlet," under the influence 
 of gi'eat terror.
 
 274 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 That 3-011 were once unkind ^ befriends me now. 
 And for that sorrow which I then did feel 
 Needs must I under m}'^ transgression bow, 
 Urfless my nerves were brass or hammered steel 
 For if you were by my unkindness shaken 
 As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time, 
 And I, a Tyrant, have no leisure taken 
 To weigh how once I suffered in your crime ; 
 0, that our night of woe might have remembered 
 INIy deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits, 
 And soon to you as you to me then tendered 
 The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits ! 
 But let ^ your trespass now become a fee : 
 Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. 
 
 (120.) 
 
 The speaker of these sonnets is one in character and 
 circnmstance with him who has left his Mistress for the 
 journey in the earlier pages, and whom we find on distant 
 shores (' limits far remote '), with ' injurious distance ' of 
 earth and sea between him and his beloved, to whom his 
 thoughts are sent in tender embassy of love. The same 
 speaker as hira of sonnet 97 (p. 248), who has again been 
 absent through the spring, summer, and autumn of the 
 3"ear. And here he speaks of those absences ; says Avhat a 
 traveller he has been ; acknowledges having hoisted sail 
 to every wind that would blow him farthest from her sight ; 
 been frequently with ^ unknown minds,' or in foreign coun- 
 tries, when he ought to have stayed with her at home. It 
 is the same person whom Shakspeare addresses in sonnet 
 70 (p. 226), as being the mark of slander and envy, one of 
 those who attract the breath of slander and scandal natu- 
 rally as flames draw air. In these sonnets he speaks of 
 being slandered, and of vulgar scandal as branding his 
 
 1 ' Once unlvind.' In the lady's jealousy of her cousin, Penelope Eich. 
 
 2 The Quarto reads, 'but that your trespass, which somewhat obscures 
 the meaning ; let is far more in accordance with the pleading tone of the 
 sonnet.
 
 PREVIOUS CHARGES ADMITTED TO I'.E TRUE. 275 
 
 Ijruw. It is tlie same as him of wliom Shakspeare said — 
 'All, wliert'fore with infection should he hve (sonnet G7). 
 Also in sonnet 94 (p. 241) : — 
 
 ' But if that flower with base infection meet, 
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity.' 
 
 And here, in pleading with his Mistress, this ranging 
 sinning Lover is willing to drink ' potions of Eysell 'gainst 
 his " strong infection ! " ' The same as him of sonnet 
 69 (p. 241), whose mind the Poet said the world mea- 
 sured by his ill deeds, and who had grown common 
 in the mouths of men. Here he bewails those harmful 
 deeds of his which have made him grow common, or 
 the subject of \'u]gar scandal. This is the same victim 
 of his late as we have before met, who was in disgrace 
 Avith Fortune, sonnet 29 (p. 166); made lame by For- 
 tune's dearest spite, in sonnet 37 (p. 168) ; had suflfered 
 the spite of Fortune once more, in sonnet 90 (p. 246) ; 
 and he now pleads in mitigation- of his offences that 
 Fortune is the guilty goddess of his harmful doings ; she 
 who has so driven him about the world. He confesses 
 to all that Shakspeare had mourned in the personal son- 
 nets ; acknowledges that ' sensual fault ' of his nature 
 which Elizabeth Vernon had before spoken of (at p 207) ; 
 makes what excuses he can, and begs that all errors and 
 failings may be blotted from the book of her remembrance. 
 It is the plea of a penitent Lover prapng his Mistress to 
 forgive his sins against true love ; his full confession of all 
 that he has done, and his reply to what others have said 
 on the subject of his doings. He asks her not to say that 
 he was false at heart because of his absences from her, 
 thougli these may have made him seem indifferent, and 
 ai)[)eared to diminish his love. He could just as easily 
 part from himself as from his soul, whicli dwells in her 
 breast ; so deeply rooted in reality is his love, in despite 
 of surface appearances. Her bosom is his home of love,
 
 27(; SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 to wliicli he returns like a traveller ; tliat is the port of 
 his pleasure and soft rest of all his pain. He comes back, 
 too, true to the time appointed, and not changed with the 
 time. Moreover, he brings water for his stain ; comes 
 back to her in tears. But though he is stained or dis- 
 figured by many frailties, she must not believe that he 
 could be so stained, so disfigured from the shape she first 
 knew and loved, as to leave for notliing the sum of good 
 and summit of glory which he attains in her, for he counts 
 as nothing the whole w^de imiverse compared with her 
 Avho is creation's crown, his Eose ! his All ! Alas ! he 
 admits it is quite true what she says of his wanderings, 
 liis fl3nngs-ofi" at random, his making such a fool of himself 
 in public. He has gone here and there — a motley to the 
 view — made light of his love, and been an old ofiender to 
 his new affection. It is most true that he has shied at the 
 truth, flinched from it, looked at it coyly, reservedly, as 
 though it were a stranger, and has not made tlie beloved 
 his wife as he ought to have done ; but these starts and 
 far-flights from the path of right have given his heart 
 another youth, his affection a fresh beginning, and his 
 worse attempts have proved her to be his best of love. 
 Now all is done ; his wanderings and voyagings are over ; 
 lie begs her to accept what shall have no end, his de- 
 voted undivided love, which shall be henceforth lived in 
 lier presence. He has come home, as we say, for good 
 and all, and if she will but forgive him this one little last 
 time, he will never do so any more. He will not again 
 sharpen his old appetite for arms and adventure on any 
 newer further proof to try this dear friend, who was his 
 before his war-career and wanderings began — this ' God in 
 love ' to whom he is so bounden. ' Then give me welcome 
 to the best place next heaven, tliy pure and most, most 
 loving breast.' And ' do not think the worst of me ; quarrel 
 a httle with Fortune. She is guilty of mucli tliat I have 
 done. She placed me in a public position, in the power
 
 THE TorCII OF TlilTil IS THE TOUCH OF LH-'E. i'77 
 
 ofa Queen \vli() so long tried to liinder me from making 
 you mine own ; made me live so much in the pubhc eye, 
 and drove me to do thinus which have been so talked 
 about by the public tongue.' Thence it arises tliat his 
 name has been made the mark of scandal, and liis nature 
 has- been almost subdued to ichat it ivorks in, like the 
 dyer's hand. And here we come upon a striking example 
 of the way in whicli the ' pith and puissance ' of the son- 
 nets have been unappreciated and unperceived. They have 
 been read as imagery alone, images painted on air and 
 not founded on facts, without any grasp of the meaning 
 which the images were only intended to convey and 
 heighten, whereas the value of Shakspeare's images lies 
 in their second self, and this has so often been invisible to 
 the reader. The image of the dyer's hand is well-known, 
 and considered to be fine, yet that which it symbols ha.s 
 never been seen. The perfection of its use, the very 
 clasp of the comparison, the touch which makes the image 
 absolutely alive, lie in tlie fact that the speaker is a man 
 of arms, a soldier, a fightei', apt to carry his public pro- 
 fession into the practice of his private life ; and thus he 
 speaks of his nature as subdued to what it works in, and 
 his hand as wearing the colour of blood — dyed in blood ! 
 Therein lies the likeness to the dyer's hand! (In ' King 
 John ' we have the soldiers' 
 
 * Purpled bauds 
 Dyed in the dyeing sh^ughter of their foes.') 
 
 'Pity me then on this account, and wish me better 
 — my life renewed. I. would willingly drink "potions 
 of Eysell " for wliat I luiw wilfully done. I should 
 think no bitterness bitter that would disinfect me, no 
 penance too htird for my correction. But j^ity mi', 
 dear friend, and voui- iiity will be enouah to cure me. 
 Your love and pity sufHce to eflace the mark which 
 common talk stamped on my brow. What do I care
 
 278 SIIAKSPEAllE'S SONNETS. 
 
 liow their tongues Avag, or reck what tliey say of me, 
 so that your tenderness folds up my faults as the green 
 grass hides the grave, or the ivy's embrace conceals the 
 scars of time. You are my all- the- world, the only voice 
 I listen to. To all others I turn a deaf ear, and in fact 
 all the rest of the world are dead to me.' 
 
 Then follows a bit of special pleading, only pardonable 
 to one who, in regard to the report of others, feels more 
 sinned against than sinning. Some ' carry-tale,' some 
 ' putter-on,' some ' please-man,' has been busy with his 
 name and his amusements, or some babbling gossip of a 
 woman has falsely interpreted his doings. Against such 
 he can make a better defence. The spies on his frailties 
 are themselves frailer than he is. The Court lady who 
 has spoken of his loose conduct has herself looked on him 
 with wanton wooing eyes. The persons aimed at in this 
 sonnet may be Lady Eicli and Ambrose Willoughby. 
 Whoever they are, he scorns to be measured by their rule. 
 They desire to think bad and speak ill of that which he 
 thinks good. In speaking of him, they do but reckon up 
 their own abuses. He may be straight, though they be 
 crooked — that may be why the estimate is wrong ; the 
 measurement untrue — and his doings must not be judged 
 by their foul thoughts. The summing-up of his reply 
 says that he is not so bad as they would have him seem, 
 and no worse in a general way than others are. He goes 
 on to show her how she can put the case against him more 
 justly: 'Accuse me thus: that I have come short in all 
 I owe to your love and worth ; forgot to call upon your 
 most active *love, in the name of husband, to which all 
 bonds — especially that nearer tie of life-in-life — do bind 
 me closer daily ; that I have given to Time your rights, 
 which were purchased by you so dearly at the cost of 
 long-suffering and sore heart-ache and many tears ; that 
 I have hoisted sail to every wind that blew, which would 
 ^vaft me tlie farthest away from you ; been abroad fre-
 
 now ]!LIM) LOVE HAS 15EEN BEFOOLED. 270 
 
 qiiently, and spent my time amongst foreigners instead of 
 l3eing with you at liome ; book both my wilfulness and 
 errors down, all that you know and can suspect, and bring 
 me within sight of my doom ; take aim, but do not shoot 
 at me in your awakened hatred. My appeal says I only 
 did these things to prove your constancy, and test the 
 virtue of your love. As we whet the appetite and urge 
 the palate with " eager compounds," and " sicken to shun 
 sickness " when we purge, so did I turn to bitter things 
 because I was so filled with your sweetness. I was so well 
 that there was a sort of satisfaction in being ill.' The 
 lover finds a kind of fitness in ' behiu!; diseased ere that 
 there was true needing.' But this policy of his love, which 
 anticipated by inoculation the ills that were not, grew to 
 ' faults assured.' There was something wrong in the vini.s 
 that he had not bargained for. And he suffered much 
 in recovering the healthy state, which ' rank of goodness ' 
 nuist needs be cured by ill. His experience has taught 
 him that his medical course was not altoerether a success : 
 he finds the drugs poison him who had fallen sick of her. 
 But what doses he has swallowed in his circuitous course 
 in search of health ! He has sailed the seas, and listened 
 to the songs of the sirens, and been flattered and fooled 
 b}'' their tears ; he has drunk potions distilled from lyni- 
 becks foul as hell within ; set fears against hopes and 
 hopes against fears. He has played the game in which 
 the winner loses most. He has committed the most 
 wretched errors of the heart whilst he was thinkino: 
 himself never so blessed. What a blind fool he has 
 been! How his eves have l)een llittcd out of their 
 proper spheres in the distraction of this maddening 
 fever, engendered of war and wandering. lUit there is 
 this benefit in evil, that it serves to show the oood in a 
 clearer li<;ht ; makes the best thinij-s better. And love 
 that lias been rent asunder may be joined anew, like other 
 fractured articles, the newly soldered part becoming the
 
 280 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 strontrest, even firmer than at first. So he returns from 
 his evil courses, his erratic wanderings, liis visionary pur- 
 suit of pleasure, his futile imitation of the boy and but- 
 terfly — humbled and sobered, to the home of his heart 
 and the seat of his content, a sadder and a wiser man ; 
 sufficiently so to gain by his experience three-fold more 
 llian he has spent in his folly, and to discover how sweet 
 are the uses of adversity. 
 
 The last argument urged for the making up of this love- 
 quarrel contains a reference to an old falling-out, in which 
 the lady had accused her lover wrongfully. ' That you 
 were once unkind to me is fortunate for me now ! When 
 I think of what I suffered on that occasion, it makes me 
 feel doubly what I have caused you to bear ; for if you 
 have been as much pained by my unkindness as I was by 
 youi's, then you have suffered a hell indeed ; and I, a 
 tyrant, did not for a moment think how you were suffer- 
 ing, even in remembering how I myself once suffered by 
 the wrong you did to me. I wish now that our dark niglit 
 of sadness had reminded me how hard ti'ue sorrow hits ; 
 what cruel blows the hand of love can give ; and that I 
 liad come to you as quickly and tendered to you as 
 frankly the balm that befits a wounded lieart, as you tlien 
 came to me with healing, reconcihation, and peace ! But 
 let } our fault of the Past now become a fee ; my wrong 
 ransoms your's ; your wrong must ransom me ! ' 
 
 We shall see by referring to the life of Southampton 
 that lie went abroad three years running after meeting 
 with Mistress Vernon. In the year 1596, he hurriedly 
 left England to follow the Earl of Essex, who was gone 
 on the expedition to Cadiz, Being too late for the 
 lighting in that year, I conjecture that he joined his friend 
 lloger Manners, Eai-1 of liutlaiul, wlio was then making 
 a tour of France, Italy and Switzerland. In the year 
 1597 he was with Essex on the Island Voyage, in com- 
 mand of the ' Garland.' And in the following year he
 
 THE ICARL HAS MADE A PUBLIC FOOL OF IILMSELF. 281 
 
 k'tt Eugiaud to uilbr his sword to Henry IV. of France, 
 and was main absent for some months. Ue liad thus been 
 in foreign countries, mixed witli 'unknown minds' — people 
 wlio do not speak our language — and to do this he had 
 taken advantage of every breeze that would fill his sail 
 wliich had flapped idly whilst his vessel lay lazily in har- 
 bour, and he eagerly waited the tide and whistled for a 
 wind. This he had done in a reckless mood, and ' given 
 to Time ; ' he had spent the time away from his mistress, 
 which was her's by right, and dearly purchased too. 
 
 It will be seen that the speaker of the second of these 
 sonnets has made himself a Motley to the view. If he 
 had been speaking of wearing the Fool's coat of many 
 colours, he would not have been necessarily making a fool 
 of himself. The ima2:e is not used in that sense. If he 
 had been playing the Fool's part on the stage, it would 
 be Fortune that had made him a Motley to the view ; not 
 himself. Here, however, the speaker has made a fool of 
 himself, not by wearing the player's motley. He does not 
 mean that he has played the Fool in jest, but that he has 
 been a fool in sad earnest, by his wanderings about the 
 Avorld, his absence from the dear bosom on wliich he yearns 
 to pillow his head at last, his manifold offences to this 
 affection ; his starts from rectitude ; his looking on truth 
 with a sidelong glance ; and, most of all, his quarrels in 
 public, in the camp, in the Court, in the street, whereby 
 he has made himself a Motley in public to the view, and 
 become the subject of a public scandal. He has been the 
 fool who had not the })rivilege of bearing the Clown's 
 bauble and wearing the many-coloured coat. ' I wear 
 not Motley in my brain,' says the Fool in ' Twelfth Night ;' 
 this was exactly how the young Earl had worn it. All the 
 literalness is in the fact, not in the image ; it is Southampton 
 to the life, not Shakspeare following his profession. 
 
 Then the confession of sonnet 110 can only have been 
 made to a woman. It would have no meaninuj from u
 
 282 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 man to a man. It is a confession to a woman that the 
 speaker lias been beguiled by tlie siren tears of other 
 women, who were false and foul. He is penitent for those 
 wretched errors which he has thus committed, still losing 
 when he fancied he was the winner. He asks forgive- 
 ness for this among his other wanderings. He makes a 
 comparison, and appeals from the false love to the true, 
 which he now sees in the truer light, and vows to be 
 eternally true. It is out of nature for Shakspeare to 
 plead in this way. He could not have left the Earl, nor 
 come back to him ; could not protest the truth of his love 
 in any such sense as is here implied. Besides which, if 
 the dark story had been well-founded, he would not then 
 have left his friend to follow the sirens. His passionate 
 outpourings on that occasion would be in reproach of the 
 Earl for having left him, and for being lured away by the 
 woman. It was the Earl who was represented as going 
 astray, not the Poet. All that he wanted was to be left 
 in quiet possession of his cockatrice, and keep his friend 
 the Earl true to him. The falsehood as well as the wan- 
 dering was the friend's. Shakspeare showed no desire to 
 desert his friend for a mistress ; no wish to leave his mis- 
 tress for his friend. He was only anxious to keep both, 
 and to keep them apart from each other. His grief was 
 not that he loved the woman, but that his friend also loved 
 her ; not that the mistress had taken his heart from his 
 friend, but his friend from him to lierself Position and 
 effects are quite different to those supposed to have been 
 represented in those earlier sonnets, and the confession 
 here has no fitting relationsliip to the past in that way ; 
 no meaning as from man to man. 
 
 In the life and character of Soutliampton alone shall we 
 discover the subject of tliis group of sonnets, spoken by 
 the Earl to his much-enduring mistress, Elizabeth Yernon. 
 There only will be found the opposition of Fortune, the 
 breaking-out and ' blenches ' of rebellious blood, the
 
 THE PUBLIC LIFE THAT MADE THE ' MANNERS.' PUBLIC 283 
 
 li armful doings that were the cause of common scandal, 
 tlie absences abroad, and all the trials of that true love here 
 addressed. Also, in the Earl's- case only are the excuses on 
 the score of Fortune at all admissible. Shakspearewas really 
 a favourite of Fortune, both in his life and friendship ; she 
 smiled on him graciously. Nor is there a single complaint 
 against her in the whole of the personal sonnets ; neither 
 can we see that he had any reason to complain. He does 
 not accredit Fortune with any spite towards him, nor 
 show any himself. But, as we have seen, Fortune Avas 
 against the Earl, his friend, in the person of the Queen, 
 and her opposition to his marriage ; and but for his being 
 a public man and so much in the power of the Court for 
 appointment and preferment, he would not have had so 
 long and trpng a fight with Fortune. He could have 
 carried off his love and lived a calmer hfe ; he would have 
 escaped many a scar that he received in the struggle with 
 such an untoward Fortune as at length landed him by the 
 side of Essex at the scaffold foot, although he had not to 
 mount the steps. He was also a soldier of Fortune, not 
 only fighting under the English Crown, but seeking ser- 
 vice and glad of any fighting that could be got. As a 
 soldier so circumstanced, and a man of so fiery a spirit 
 that it led him into brawls, he could fairly say — 
 
 ' Thence comes it that my name receives a brand. 
 And almost thence my nature is subdued 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand : 
 Pity me then and wish / were renewed.^ 
 
 Poor fellow! he was continually 'in for it.' No doubt 
 there were many things known to Shakspeare and Mrs. 
 Vernon that have not come down to us, besides the pro- 
 posed duels which tlie Queen had to prohibit, and the 
 hubbub in Court, for which ' vulgar scandal ' stamped the 
 Earl's brow, and Elizabeth Vernon effaced the impression 
 with her ' love and pity'; but we know quite enough.
 
 L>84 SHAKSPEARES SONNETS. 
 
 Thus, in Southain})ton's life, we can identify every circmn- 
 stance touched upon in this group of sonnets ; veritable 
 facts that quicken every figure and make every line alive. 
 
 Eowland Whyte in his letters, and Shakspeare in these 
 lines, chronicle the same occurrences and paint companion 
 pictures of the same character, whilst the sonnets as 
 clearly and recognisably reflect the image and motion of 
 the young Earl's mind, the impetuous currents of his 
 nature, as any portrait could present to us the features of 
 his face. In all respects the opposite to the character in 
 whose presence we feel ourselves, when Shakspeare per- 
 sonally speaks, and we hear the ground- tone of a w^eightier 
 mind, and the feeling has a more sober certainty, the 
 thought a more quiet depth ; the music tells of no jarring 
 string. 
 
 Sonnet 116 is a personal one ; the speaker in it is the 
 writer of it. And it is sufficient evidence that the sonnets 
 which we have called confessional do not, cannot, refer to 
 Shakspeare's doings, pourtray his character, or express his 
 feelings. If they had, this sonnet would be an amazing 
 conclusion, and contain his own utter condemnation, 
 spoken with an unconscionable jauntiness of tone. He 
 would have been a sinner in each particular against the 
 law and gospel of true love, which he now expounds so em- 
 phatically. ' Love's not Time's fool ; ' yet, on his own 
 confession, he would have cruelly and continually made it 
 the fool of Time and sport of accident. Love is ' an ever- 
 fixed mark ; ' he says, and he would have wilfully and 
 wantonly cut himself adrift from its resting-place, ' Love 
 alters not ; ' but he would have been moved hghtly as a 
 feather with every breath of change. If he had been 
 the speaker in the foregoing sonnets, he could not now 
 say : ' Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit 
 impediments.' He could not call himself true, if no false. 
 He could not have uttered his own condemnation with so 
 airy and joyous a swing ; so lusty a sense of freedom.
 
 SOFT] 1AM ITOX MAKIMKI) AT LAST. 28.', 
 
 He could not thus exult iu the genuine attributes of ti'ue 
 love, and say, ' if tliis he error and upon me proved, I 
 never writ, noi" no man ever loved.' It would have been 
 proved only t(jo clearly that he was in error, or else that 
 he was a bold hypocrite — if he were the guilty one who 
 had before confessed ! But the line, ' I never writ, nor no 
 man ever loved,' almost divides the subject into its two 
 parts, and points out the two speakers. It shows Shak- 
 speare to be the writer on a subject extraneous to him- 
 self except as writer. And here the poet is commenting 
 upon a matter quite external, the particulars of which do 
 not, and the generalities cannot, apply to him personally. 
 The comment, too, is on the very facts confessed by the 
 scapegrace of the previous sonnets. Those were the con- 
 fessions of a love that had not been altogether true ; this 
 is the exaltation of the highest, holiest love. It is Shak- 
 speare's own voice heard in conclusion of the quarrelling 
 and unkindness ; his summing-up of the whole matter. 
 His own spirit shines through this sonnet. It is a perfectly 
 apposite discourse on the loves of Southampton and Eliza- 
 beth Vernon. The confessional sonnets were written in 
 illustration of the last full reconciliation of this couple, 
 whose love did not run smooth outwardly, which is so apt 
 to beget ripples inwardly. They were married in the year 
 following that in wliich the hubbub in Court and the con- 
 sequent scandal had occurred, and this sonnet is in 
 celebration of the happy event. 
 
 SIIAKSPEARE OX THE EARL's MARRIAGE. 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true miuds 
 
 Admit impediments: Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds. 
 
 Or bends with the remover to remove ! 
 
 Oh, no ; it is an ever-fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ! 
 
 It is the star to every wandering bark, 
 
 Whose worth's unknown, altho' his height be taken :
 
 i'80 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Love's not Time's fool, tho' rosy lipS and cheeks 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom : ' 
 
 If this be error and upon me proved 
 
 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 (llG.) 
 
 This is a marriage service of tlie Poet's own, witli an 
 obvious reference to the marriatxe service of the Eni>lisli 
 Church. He gives his answer, he who knows all the cir- 
 cumstances of the case and is acquainted wdth all his 
 friend's failings, to the appeal as to whether any witness 
 knows of sufficient cause or impediment why these two 
 should not be joined together in the holy matrimonial 
 bond. The Poet knows of their quarrels and of the 
 Earl's wild or Avanton courses ; but he says firmly, let me 
 not admit these as impediments to tlie marriage of true 
 minds. If my friend has done all these sad things which 
 have been confessed, yet is it not the nature of true love 
 to alter and change when it finds change in another; 
 because one has wandered and removed hterally that is 
 not sufficient reason wjiy the other should waver and liy 
 oir in spirit. Appearances themselves are false where 
 hearts are true. 
 
 The supreme object of Shakspeare's sonnets was to aid 
 in getting the Earl, liis friend, married, and see him safe 
 in JMistress Vernon's arms, encompassed with content. 
 This is the be-all and end-all of his song ; his one theme 
 with many variations. He woos liim towards the door 
 of the sanctuary with the most amorous diligence and 
 coaxing words. He tries by many winning ways to get 
 tlie youth to enter. He rebukes him when he fiinches 
 from it ; and the last effort he makes for the consumma- 
 
 1 'Even to the edge of doom ;' so in ^Ml's Well that Ends Well/ to the 
 ' extreme edge of hazard,' and in ' Macbeth/ the ' crack of doom/ i.e., the 
 breaking up of nature.
 
 THE POET CROWNS ELIZABETH VERNON'S ' TRUE LOVE.' 287 
 
 tion so devoutly wished almost amounts to a visible p?As7i 
 from behind. He has attacked all tlie obstacles that 
 stood in the way ; scolded the Earl for his ' blenches ' 
 from the right path ; no mother ever more anxious about 
 some wild slip of rebelHous blood ; and now, when he is 
 safe at last, with tlie rosy fetters round his neck, and the 
 srolden rino- is on the finger of the wife, their Poet grows 
 jubilant with delight; a great weight is off his heart, and 
 he breathes freely on the subject of the Earl's courtship 
 for tlie first time ; can even speak with a dash of joyful 
 abandon. The writer is in his cheeriest mood and the 
 sonnet has a festal style. The true love that is apotheo- 
 sized in this Aveddino- strain is not the affection of Shak- 
 speare ; not the love of the Earl, his friend ; but the 
 steadfast, pure and lofty love of Elizabeth Vernon ! Tliis 
 is the love that has not been the fool or slave of Time ; 
 that has altered not with his brief hours and weeks, but 
 has borne all the trials ; been true to the very ' edge of 
 doom ' and kept her heart iirmly fixed even wdien, as 
 Eowland Whyte hints, her mind threatened to waver and 
 trive way. She did not alter when she found an alteration 
 in him ; did not ' bend w^ith the remover (the traveller and 
 wanderer) to remove.' She was ' the ever-fixed mark ; ' 
 the liglithouse in the storm, that ' looked on tempests and 
 Avas never shaken,' but held up its lamp across the gloom. 
 Her true love was the fixed star of his wandering bark, 
 that shone when tlie sun went down ; this was his glory 
 in disgrace ; his fount of healing when wounded by tlie 
 world, or his own self-inflicted injuries ; the bright, still 
 blessedness tliat touched his troubled tlioughts ; his resting- 
 place, where the Poet hoped he would at last find peace, 
 and hear in his household love, the murmurs of a dearer 
 music than any he could make in a sonneteering strain. 
 
 There is in this sonnet one of those instances of Shak- 
 speare's mode of vivifying by means of an image, whicli 
 are a never-ending surprise to his readers. But it takes
 
 288 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 all its life from the love-story now unfolded. It is tlie 
 astronomical allusion to Elizabeth Vernon as the -star 
 whose worth was unknown although its height was 
 measured — meaning that there yet remained the unex- 
 plored world of wedded love ; the inidiscovered riches of 
 the wedded life. Althouo-h the distance between them 
 had been taken, the best could not be known until he has 
 made that star his dwelling-place and home of love ; 
 knt)ws its hidden worth as well as he knew its brightness 
 and its faithfulness as a guiding light in the distance. 
 
 The Queen's opposition to the marriage of Southampton 
 and Ehzabeth Vernon is apparent all through these sonnets 
 devoted to them. The burden of the whole story is an 
 opposition wliich has to be borne awhile. This is figured 
 as the spite of Fortune and the tyranny of Time. In 
 sonnet 36 (p. 176) the spite begins by separating the two 
 lovers, and stealing sweet hours from love's delight ; this 
 enforced parting is the first shape taken by Time's tyranny. 
 In his absence the lover speaks of liis mistress as his 
 locked-up treasure kept by Time. Sonnet 70 (p. 226) 
 recognises how much the Earl is tried by this waiting 
 imposed upon him by Time. Moreover, the promises of 
 immortality are expressly made to right this wrong of 
 Time. Against all the powers of Time and 'Death and 
 all-oblivious Enmity' shall he 'pace forth,' wearing an 
 eternal crown which he has won by his steadfastness in 
 love. And in this marriage sonnet the true love is 
 crowned by the Poet because it has not been the fool or 
 slave of Time ; has not given in to the adverse circum- 
 stances, or succumbed to the opposition, but ' borne it out 
 even to the edge of doom.'
 
 289 
 
 PERSONAL SONNETS. 
 
 1599 1600. 
 
 SlIAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, CHIEFLY OX HIS OWN 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 This is a group of very touching sonnets. Nowhere 
 else shall we draw more near to the poet in his own per- 
 son. They look as if written in contemplation of death. 
 They have a touch of physical languor : the tinge of 
 solemn thought. And if they were composed at such a 
 time, they show us how limitedly autobiographic the 
 sonnets were intended to be. Shakspeare never speaks 
 of himself except in relation to the Earl. Here his request 
 is that, should he die, his friend is not to mourn for him 
 any longer even than the death-bell tolls. He Avoiild 
 rather be forgotten by the Earl than that his friend should 
 grieve for him when he is gone. Also, he begs that the 
 Earl will not so much as mention his name, lest the keen 
 hard world should see the disparity betwixt what the friend 
 in his kindness may have thought of the Poet and its own 
 shrewder estimate ; for if the world should task the living 
 to tell Avhat merit there was in him that is dead, the 
 Earl will be put to shame, or be driven to speak falsely of 
 one whom he loved truly. 
 
 The third sonnet appears to me to have in it more of 
 
 u
 
 290 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 illness than of age. The Poet is urging excuses : and, in 
 case he should die, he is making the best of it for his 
 friend. Tlien he is decrying his own appearance as one 
 that sees himself in the glass when worn and broken by 
 suffering. He feels his life to be in the sere and yellow 
 leaf The boughs are growing bare where the sweet birds 
 lately sang. The twilight is creeping over all, cold and 
 grey. The fire that he has warmed himself by is sinking 
 low ; there is more white ash than ruddy glow. All this 
 he urges in case the flame should go out suddenly. The 
 sonnet concludes with another excuse. Because this is 
 so, and the Earl sees it, that is why liis love grows stronger, 
 fearing lest it should lose him. ' But do not mind,' he 
 says, ' though I should die, yet sliall I be with you ; I 
 shall live on in tlie lines which I leave ; these shall stay 
 with you as a memorial of our love. When you look at 
 these sonnets, you will see the very part of me that was 
 consecrated to you. Earth can but take its own as food 
 for the worms. My spirit is yours, and that remains with 
 you.' ' Against the time shall come,' he continues, ' when 
 my friend shall be, as I am now, bowed down and crushed 
 by "Time's injurious hand," when the blood runs thin, and 
 tlie brow is as a map filled with the lines and crosses of 
 care ; his day is approaching " age's steepy night," and his 
 beauty is vanishing — against such a time as this have I 
 written these sonnets, (which are to remain with him), so 
 that when he dies his beauty may live on in enduring 
 youth.' ' Either I shall live to write your epitaph, or 
 you will survive long after me ; be this as it may. Death 
 sliall not take hence the memory of you, although I shall 
 be quite forgotten. Your name shall have immortal life 
 from tliese lines, although I, once gone, shall be gone for 
 ever. The earth will yield me but a common grave ; your 
 grave shall be in the eyes of men, and my verse shall 
 build, your gentle monument.' 
 ■ I am by no means sure that the first two lines of the
 
 THE POET FEELS SOMEWHAT BROKEN IX SPIPJT. 201 
 
 5th sonnet do not indicate more than age or ilhiess. 
 Wlien we consider Sliakspeare's reticence on the subject of 
 self, they look particularly pointed for a passing allusion. 
 Time is not used for age m these two lines ; tliat follows 
 in the next line; these contain their own particulars. The 
 Poet is crushed and overworn by Time's injurious hand. 
 Here is the same personification of Time, the ruling 
 tyrant, as we fuid in the sonnets spoken by Southampton. 
 It is time present, not time in general. Then ' injurious' 
 is an appellation of reproach, meaning that from the pre- 
 sent time, or at tlie present moment, Shakspeare is suf- 
 fering some wrong which is unjustly hurtful. Time's 
 hand is here injurious in a moral rather than physical 
 sense. And this wrong, whether of detraction or perse- 
 cution, he feels to be so great, that he is quite ' crushed 
 and overworn.' Steevens remarked of this expression, that 
 to say first he was crushed and then overworn, was little 
 better than to say of a man that he w^as first killed and 
 then wounded. But it is perfectly right, and much like 
 the Poet's inclusive way of speaking, if he felt crushed in 
 the moral sense, as well as worn down in physical health. 
 And that there was such an accumulation of affliction is 
 shown by the emphatic ' As I am now ! ' What was this 
 heavy injustice which so bowed the Poet's spirit at the 
 time, and caused the nearest approach to a personal cry 
 in the whole of the sonnets? As the sonnet is addressed 
 to Southampton, the subject will be one that he is cogni- 
 sant of, and in which he is interested, or even this little 
 allusion to himself would hardly have been permitted by 
 the Poet. It may have to do with Shakspeare's having 
 fallen under the suspicion of those in authority, possibly 
 of Majesty itself, on accoiuit of Southampton's friendly 
 intimacy and his appearance of being bound up with the 
 cause of Essex. Had he not said something very flatter- 
 ing of the Earl in his Henry V. ? This may have been 
 reported to the iiijuiy of the Poet, and resented by Her 
 
 u 2
 
 292 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Majesty. It was something very important, or it would 
 not have been chronicled in a personal sonnet. 
 
 No longer mourn for me, when I am dead. 
 Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
 Give warninu' to the world that I am fled 
 From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell : 
 Nay, if you read this line remember not 
 The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 
 If thinking on me then should make you woe : 
 if — I say — you look upon this verse 
 When I perhaps compounded am with clay,' 
 Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. 
 But let your love even with my life decay : 
 
 Lest the wise world should look into your moan. 
 And mock you with me after I am gone. 
 
 (71.) 
 0, lest the World should task you to recite 
 What merit lived in me, that you should love 
 After my death, dear Love, forget me quite. 
 For you in me can nothing worthy prove ; 
 Unless you would devise some virtuous lie. 
 To do more for me than mine own desert. 
 And hang more praise upon deceased I 
 Than niggard truth would willingly impart : 
 lest your true love may seem false in this. 
 That you for love speak well of me imtrue. 
 My name be buried where my body is, 
 And live no more to shame nor me nor you ! 
 
 For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, 
 And so should you, to love things nothing worth. 
 
 (72.) 
 
 That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold 
 Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang I 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
 
 ' So ' Hamlet,' when a-sked what he has done with the dead body of 
 Polonius, replies, ' Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.'
 
 THE PROMISED IMMORTALITY. 293 
 
 Which by and l)y black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest ! 
 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 
 Consumed with that which it was nourished by : 
 
 This thou perceiv'st, which mak'st thy love more strong 
 To love that well which thou must lose ere long. 
 
 (73.) 
 
 But be contented ! when that fell arrest 
 Without all bail shall carry me away, 
 My life hath in this line some interest. 
 Which for memorial still with thee shall stay : 
 When thou reviewest this, thou dost review 
 The very part was consecrate to thee : 
 The Earth can have but earth, which is his due ; 
 My spirit is thine, the better part of me I 
 So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, 
 The prey of worms — my body being dead — 
 The coward- conquest of a wretch's knife. 
 Too base of thee to be remembered : 
 
 The worth of that is that which it contains. 
 And that is this, and this with thee remains. 
 
 (74.) 
 
 Against my Love shall be, as I am now, 
 
 With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn ; 
 
 When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow 
 
 With lines and wrinkles ; when his youthful morn 
 
 Hath travelled on to Age's steepy night, 
 
 And all those beauties whereof now he's king, 
 
 Are vanishing or vanished out of sight, 
 
 Stealing away the treasure of his Spring ; 
 
 For such a time do I now fortify 
 
 Against confounding Age's cruel knife. 
 
 That he shall never cut from memory 
 
 My sweet Love's beauty, tho' my Lover's life : 
 
 His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, 
 And they shall live, and he in them still green. 
 
 (63.)
 
 294 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Or I shall live your Epitaph to make, 
 Or you survive when I in earth am rotten ; 
 From hence your memory Death cannot take, 
 Altho' in me each part will be forgotten : 
 Your name from hence immortal life shall have, 
 Tho' I, once gone, to all the world must die : 
 The earth can yield me but a common grave. 
 When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie : 
 Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
 Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read ; 
 And tongues to be your being shall rehearse. 
 When all the breathers of this world are dead ; 
 
 You still shall live — such virtue hath my Pen — 
 Where breath most breathes — even in the mouths of 
 men. (8i.) 
 
 Thus the Poet speaks of his own death and the death 
 of his friend, with a soul brimful of tender love as the 
 summer dew-drop is of morning sun. No image of dis- 
 grace darkens the retrospect of life ; all is purity and 
 peace. The sonnets treasure up his better part, and they 
 are to ' blossom in the dust ' with a breath of sweetness 
 and memorial fragrance, when he lies in the ground. 
 Here also is proof, I think, that he did not contemplate 
 being known to the world as the writer of these sonnets 
 when he composed this group. The work was a cherished 
 love-secret on his part, all the dearer for the privacy. 
 He thought of doing it, and he believed it would live, 
 and that his friend and all the love between them should 
 live on in it, but he himself ivas to steal of unidentified. 
 In tlie last sonnet, he says : — 
 
 * Your name from hence immortal life shall have, 
 Tho' I, once gone, to all the world must die : 
 The earth can yield me hut a common fjrave, 
 When you entombed in men^s eyes shall lie. 
 Your monument shall be my (jentle versed 
 
 Clearly the sonnets were to be nameless, so far as the 
 author was concerned, or Shakspeare must have been a
 
 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AS SIIAK.SPEAliES. 295 
 
 sharer with his friend in both the immortal hfe and monu- 
 ment ! Again, he says, when he is dead — 
 
 * Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, 
 My name be buried where my body is.' 
 
 And in Sonnet 76 (p. 254), there is a kind of 'liush !' He 
 speaks of his friend so i)lainly, tliat ' every word doth 
 ahnost tell un/ name,' and from whom the Sonnets pro- 
 ceeded, as if that were self-forbidden. He assures his 
 friend of immortality, he speaks of having an interest in 
 tlie verses, for they contain the 'better part' of himself 
 consecrated to his friend, but he does not contemplate 
 living in them by name. 
 
 These sonnets have the authority of parting words, and 
 tliat in a double sense ; for not only arc they written 
 when Shakspeare was ill, as I understand him, but they 
 are written when he fancied the Southampton series was 
 just upon finished. How, then, was the immortality to 
 be conferred ? How was tlie monument erected Ijy 
 Shakspeare to be known as the Earl of Southampton's ? 
 How were the many proud boasts to be fidfiUed ? In this 
 way I imagine. Sidney had called his prose work ' The 
 Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia,' and in all likelihood, 
 when these sonnets were written, it was Shakspeare's 
 intention, if they ever were published, to print them as 
 the Earl of Southampton's. The fiict of his having written 
 in the Earl's name points to such a conclusion. This view 
 serves to explain how it was tluit the Poet could care 
 so little for fame ; seem so unconscious of the value of his 
 own work, and yet make so many proud boasts of im- 
 mortality. It is whilst fighting for his friend that we 
 have this escape of consciousness, if it amounts to that, 
 not whilst speaking of himself, nor whilst contemplating 
 living by name, and the sonnets are to be immortal 
 because they are the Earl of Southampton's, rather than 
 on account of their being William Shakspeare's.
 
 296 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1601 — 1603. 
 
 SOUTHAMPTON, IN THE TOWER, TO HIS COUNTESS. 
 
 ALSO 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL IN PRISON, AND UPON 
 
 HIS RELEASE. 
 
 This is the story of the next group of sonnets : — The 
 Earl of Southampton was, as is well known, tried for 
 treason, along with the Earl of Essex, and condemned 
 to die. His share in the wild attempt at rebelhon was 
 undoubtedly owing to his kinship, and to his friendship 
 for the Earl. His youth, his friends, pleaded for him, and 
 his hfe was spared. He was respited during the Queen's 
 pleasure, after having been left for some weeks under 
 sentence of execution. The sentence beinof at length 
 commuted, he was kept a close prisoner until her Majesty's 
 death. These three sonnets give us a dramatic represen- 
 tation of the situation. They are spoken by the Earl to 
 his Countess ; and they illustrate the facts and circum- 
 stances of the time with the most literal exactness, the 
 utmost truth of detail. The Earl is in the Tower, and the 
 shadow of the prison-house creeps darkly over the page 
 as we read. The imprisonment is personified as Time. 
 Time holds the Earl tightly in his grip. Time has the
 
 THE TOWER OF T/)Xnr)\. 207 
 
 speaker in his keeping for a while — is absolute master for 
 the moment. This is a very perfect image of imprison- 
 ment. But, safely as Time holds him, surely as he has 
 got him, the Earl defies Time still, and says, in spite of 
 this newest, latest, strongest proof of his power, Time 
 shall not boast that he changes. He will still be true to 
 his love, ' Tliy pyramids built up with newer rni<jht^ to 
 me are nothing novel, nothing strange!' That is, this 
 latest proof of Time's power — he has had many in the 
 course of his love — shall not impose on him in spite of 
 its new shape and its arguments drawn from remote 
 antiquity. 
 
 'Thy pyramids' — the various towers of which the 
 Tower is composed — ' built-up anew over my head, with 
 this display of might which has shut me up within them, 
 are only a former siglit freshly dressed : I recognise my old 
 foe in a novel mask. You are my old enemy, Time, the 
 tyrant ! You have given me many a shrewd fall ; you 
 have chafed my spirit sorely; but I still defy your worst. 
 In vain you hold me as in a chamber of torture, and show 
 me the works you have done, the ruin you have wrought. 
 In vain you point with lean finger to all these emblems of 
 mortality and proofs of change, and foist upon me these 
 signs of age. I see the place is rich in Records of times 
 past, and the Registers of bygone things, I know our 
 dates are brief compared with these of yours, but your 
 shows and shadows do not intimidate me ; they will not 
 make my spirit quail, I shall not waver or change in my 
 love, however long my imprisonment may last. I defy 
 both yourself and your taunts of triumph. I am not the 
 slave of Time, and it is useless to show me your dates. I 
 wonder neither at the present nor the past. I stand with 
 a firm foot on that which is eternal, and can look calmly 
 on these dissolving views of time. Whatsoever you may 
 cut down, I shall be true, despite thy scythe and thee !' 
 Thus the Earl meditates, shut up in the Tower of London^
 
 298 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the grey gloom and ghostly atmosphere of whicli may be 
 felt in the first sonnet. The reader will perceive how 
 perfect is this interior of the prison-house — this garner of 
 Time's gleanings — if it be remembered tliat the Tower was 
 then the great depository of the public Records and 
 national Registers ; the Statute EoUs, Patent Eolls, Parlia- 
 ment Polls, Bulls, Pardons, Ordinances, Grants, Privy Seals, 
 and antique Charters, dating back to the time of Wilham 
 the Norman. In no place could Time look more imposing 
 and venerable, or be dressed with a greater show of autho- 
 rity, than in the old Tower, standing up grey against the 
 sky ; full of strange human relics, and guilty secrets, and 
 awfid memories, and the dust of some who are noblest, 
 some who are vilest among our England's dead. 
 
 The Poet makes only a stroke or two — the ' pyramids ' 
 or turrets without ; the ' Eegisters,' ' Eecords,' and 
 ancient dates within ; but there we have the Tower, and 
 no picture could possess more truth of local hoary colour. 
 
 It will give an added force to the speaker's tone of 
 defiance if we remember what a grim reahtv the Tower 
 was in those days, and what a lively terror to the 
 Elizabethan imagination. A personification of living death ! 
 
 The meditation of the next sonnet is very express. 
 The Earl had endeavoured to marry Elizabeth Vernon 
 for some years before he succeeded. He was compelled 
 to marry her secretly at last. And in this sonnet he 
 rejoices that they were married before his imprisonment 
 occurred. If, he says, he had not effected his purpose in 
 spite of the Queen, and his beloved were now unmarried 
 to him, if his ' love ' had remained merely the ' child of 
 state,' the creature of a Court, subject to its policy or the 
 Queen's intention, it would, now he is taken away, have 
 been the veriest bastard of Fortune — a child witliout a 
 father. If we bear in mind the condition of Elizabeth 
 Vernon previous to the stolen marriage, we shall see the 
 dual meaning of this illustration ! Ilad it been so, he
 
 THE IRISH REBELLION. 209 
 
 says, it would have continued subject to Time's love or 
 hate, and might have fallen under his scythe in the most 
 hap-hazard way ; a flower amongst flowers, or a weed 
 among weeds, just as chance might have determined. 
 But no, he has secured it from scorn and insult. lie has 
 built beyond the reach of accident. His beloved may be 
 out in the world alone, but she wears the name of wife — 
 nay, she is gathered up into his bosom by that grand in- 
 clusive way in which the sonnet personifies the ' love ' in 
 its oneness. ' It was builded far from accident ' — the 
 marriage made that sure ! and now, as things are, it ' suf- 
 fers not ' in the falsely ' smiling pomp ' of Court favour ; is 
 not compelled to seek Court preferment, is no more ex- 
 posed to the changeful weathei', the sun and shower of 
 royal caprice ; nor does it fall imder — cannot come within 
 reach of — that ' blow of thralled discontent ' to which the 
 ' inviting time ' calls ' our fashion ' ; the young nobles, 
 England's chivalry, who at that moment were being 
 summoned to the aid of Mountjoy in Ireland. 
 
 No apter image of Ireland in the year IGUl could be 
 conceived than this ' thralled discontent ' gives us. 
 
 Camden says the affairs of that country were in a ' lean- 
 ing posture,' tending to a ' dejection,' and the Spaniard 
 seized the occasion to make one more push, and if pos- 
 sible, topple over English rule in Ireland. It was pro- 
 claimed that Ehzabeth was, by several censures of the 
 Bishop of Eome, deprived of her crown. The spirit of 
 rebellion sprang u[) fuU-statured at tlie promise of help 
 from Spain ; and ' thralled discontent ' once more wel- 
 comed tlie deliverer. Rumour came flying in all haste, 
 and babbling with all her tongues. It was an ' inviting 
 time' indeed to the younggallants — the Earl's old comrades 
 — who were fast taking horse and ship once more. The 
 prose parallel to tlie sonnet will be found in a letter to Mr. 
 Winwood from Mr. Secretary Cecil, Oct. 4, IGOl ^ He 
 
 ' iri/i wood's Memorials, vol. i. p. 35 L
 
 300 STIAKSPEAKE-S SONNETS. 
 
 writes, ' on the 25th of last moiitli there landed between 
 five and six thousand Spaniards in the province of Munster, 
 commanded by Don Juan d'Aguila, who was general of 
 the Spanish army at Bluett. The Lord Deputy (Mountjoy) 
 is hasting, with the best power he can make, and her Ma- 
 jesty is sending over six thousand men, with all things 
 thereto belonging, which, being added to eighteen thou- 
 sand already in that kingdom, you must think do put 
 this realm to a wanton charge.' Of course the sonnet 
 does not make the Earl exult that he cannot follow to join 
 his old friends in the two campaigns which ended in 
 Mountjoy's leading captive the rebel Tyrone to the feet 
 of Elizabeth. That would have been undramatic, un- 
 natural. He only says that, shut up in prison as he is, 
 his love does not '■fall under the hloiv' whereto the time 
 calls so inviiingly. It has no fear of policy, that heretic 
 in love and love-matters ! which, after all — and here is an 
 ominous hint, perhaps of the Queen's age — works on a 
 short lease, or a lease of short-numbered hours. No ! it 
 stands all alone — completely isolated from the strokes and 
 shocks of time and change in the outer world. He sits 
 at the centre of the wild whirl — or rather he is just where 
 things stand still — and ' hugely politic,' it is too ! His love 
 ' nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers ' of the 
 Court world. But it has an inward life of its own ; is 
 firm as the centre ; steadfast and true to the end. To the 
 truth of his assertions he calls his witnesses, and weird 
 witnesses they are ; for, being where the speaker is, we 
 get a glimpse of Tower Hill through the window bars, and 
 see the solemn procession ; the sawdusted stage with its 
 black velvet drapery of death ; the headsman in his black 
 mask, his axe in his hand, and all the scenery and cir- 
 cumstance of that grim way they had of going up to God. 
 The speaker calls for witnesses, the spirits of those political 
 plotters, whose heads fell from the block, and whose bodies 
 moulder witliin the old walls. The ' fools ' who had been
 
 TIIK fT.orn DF WITNESSES. 301 
 
 the sport of the time, lie calls them, who lived to commit 
 Clime, but died nobly at last — made a pious end, as we say. 
 
 Shakspeare had evidently remarked that, as a rule, 
 those who were condemned to die on the scaffold died 
 ' good,' no matter what the Ufe had been : it was the custom 
 for them to make an edifying end. Stowe relates how 
 Sir Charles Danvers mounted the scaffold and ' put off his 
 gown and doublet in a most cheerful manner, rather like 
 a bridegroom than a prisoner appointed for death, and he 
 then prayed very devoutly.' The allusion is no doubt more 
 particularly directed to Essex and his companions, who 
 had died so recently ; Essex having been executed on the 
 inner hill of the Tower. The ' fools of time ' may give 
 us the Poet's estimate of Essex's attempt. He w^as one of 
 those who had lived to reach the criminal's end, but who 
 ' died for goodness' in the sense that he, like Danvers, died 
 devoutly, and took leave of life with a redeeming touch 
 of nobleness. But the manner of the death is still more 
 obviously aimed at — the dying in public, lifted up for the 
 view of the gaping crowd, and making sport for the time, 
 by giving a bloody zest to a popular holiday. 
 
 The next sonnet still carries on tlie idea of imprison- 
 ment, and the external image of bearing the canopy is in 
 opposition to his present limitation in the Tower. Con- 
 fined as he is, and limited to so narrow a space for hving, 
 he asks, were it anything to him if he bore the whole 
 canopy of the heavens outside, ' honouring the outward ' 
 with his externals, filled the world with the fame of his 
 doings, made the heavens, as it were, his arch of triumph, 
 or ' laid great bases for eternity,' as some do, and prove 
 tliem to be ' more short than Avaste or ruining ? ' Has he 
 not seen how it went with many who sought Court favour 
 and fickle fortune — Essex, for example — the ' dwellers on 
 form and fiivour ' — has he not seen how they lost all, and 
 more — this life, perhaps next — by paying down their veiy 
 souls for glittering need-nots ; foregoing all the simple
 
 302 SHAIvSPEAKE'S SONNETS. 
 
 savour of life for a ' compound sweet,' adulterated with 
 poison ? 
 
 These are the Avords of one standing apart, thrust 
 aside, who can now watch how the game goes, with its 
 tricks and intrigues ; its fervours and failures. He can 
 see how much reality the players forego for the sake of 
 their illusions ; see what they trample under foot in their 
 visionary pursuit, and how they stumble into the ditch, 
 with foolish eyes fixed on their stars ! The pitiful 
 thrivers in their gazing spent ! No. He is ambitious for 
 none of these things. Let his beloved but accept the 
 humble offerings of his love, he cares for no other 
 success. His love for her is mixed with no secondary 
 ambition. Cooped up as he is, thrust out of service, he 
 has all if he have her safely folded up in his heart : she is 
 his all-in-all, and he asks for a ' mutual render, only me 
 for thee ! ' The sonnet ends with a defiance which, I 
 think, clenches my conclusion. Camden tells us that 
 amongst the confederates of Essex, one of them, whilst 
 in prison, turned informer, and revealed what had taken 
 place at the meetings held in the Earl of Southampton's 
 house, though he, the historian, could never learn who 
 it w^as. In the last two fines of the sonnet, the Earl 
 flings his disdain at the ' suborned Informer^' and com- 
 paring himself with so base a knave, he feels that he is 
 truer than such a fellow, althouiih the world calls him a 
 traitor ; and when most impeached (for treason), he is 
 least in such a loyalist's control. The difference betwixt 
 their two natures is so vast, not to be bridged in life or 
 death. We have only to remember how recently the 
 Earl of Southampton had been impeached as a traitor, 
 and those two lines must speak to us with the power of 
 his living voice ! He concludes his prison-thoughts by 
 hurling his defiance at the man whose treachery led to 
 this imprisonment.
 
 L()^•K DEFIES TIME OR IMPRISONMENT. 303 
 
 THF: earl IX TRISOX ADDRESSES ELIZABETH VERXOX, 
 NOW LADY SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 No ; Time, thou shall not boast that I do change ! 
 Thy pyramids, built up with newer might, 
 To me are nothing novel — nothing strange — 
 They are but dressings of a former sight : 
 Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire 
 What thou dost foist upon us that is old. 
 And rather make them born to our desire 
 Than think that we before have heard them told : 
 Thy Kegisters and thee I both defy. 
 Not wondering at the present, nor the past, 
 P'or thy Records and what we see doth lie, 
 Made more or less by thy continual haste ! 
 This I do vow, and this shall ever be, 
 I will be true despite thy scythe and thee. 
 
 (123.) 
 
 If my dear love were but the child of State, 
 
 It might for Fortune's bastard ' be unfathered 
 
 As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate ; 
 
 Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered : 
 
 No, it was builded far from accident ! 
 
 It suffers not in smiling pomp,^ nor fixlls 
 
 Under the blow of thralled Discontent, 
 
 Whereto the inviting time our Fashion calls : 
 
 • ' Foiiioivs Bastard,' in the sense of being nameless ; an illegitimat« child 
 having no name by inheritance. The Poet speaks of ' nameless bastardy ' in 
 * Lucreece,' and in the * Two Gentlemen of Verona,' * That's as much as to 
 sny hastaril virtues, that indeed know not thfir father's name, and therefore 
 have no name." If the Earl's ' love ' lutd only been the child of State, the 
 marriage would not have taken place at all, and it would now have been a 
 nameless bastard of Fortune. And, as such, his love would have remained 
 subject to ' Time's love or to Time's hate,' as it was before his man-iage. 
 
 ' It suffers not in the smiliiif/ jyouip of the Court at home, nor falls under 
 the blow of rebellion abroad. So the Duke in ' As You Like It,' speaks of 
 his court life as a life of 'pai>if)'d pomp.'' Also Anne Bullen, in ' Henry VIII., 
 says of Queen Katheriue, ' Much better she ne'er had known pomp,' mean- 
 ing royalty and its immediate surroundings. 'See Ca'sar! 0, behold how 
 pomp is followed/ exclaims Cleopatra ; and Lear cries, ' Take physic, 
 pomp ! '
 
 304 SHAKSPEARE'S SON>"ETS. 
 
 It fears not Policy' — that Heretic 
 
 Which works on leases of short-numbered hours — 
 
 But all alone stands hugely politic, 
 
 That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers : ^ 
 To this I witness call the fools of Time 
 Which die for goodness who have lived for crime. 
 
 (124.) 
 
 Were it ought to me I bore the canopy. 
 With my extern the outward honouring ? 
 Or laid great bases for eternity. 
 Which prove more short than waste or ruining ? 
 Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour 
 Lose all and more by paying too much rent ? 
 For compound sweet foregoing simple savor ; 
 Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent ! 
 No ! let me be obsequious in thy heart,^ 
 And take thou my oblation, poor but free, 
 
 ^ ' It fears not policy.^ It had been the Queen'' s 2}olici/, piu'siied for years, to 
 prevent the marriage of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon. 
 
 ^ ' That it nor groios with heat nor drowns with showers,' 
 
 Steevens's comment on this line is, ' Though a huildhig may be drowned, i.e. 
 deluged with rain, it can hardly grow under the influence of heat. I would 
 read c/lows.'' The Earl was not speaking of a building, but of his ' dear love,' 
 which had been builded or cemented by his marriage. So, in ' Antony 
 and Cleopatra, ' the cement of our love, to keep it builded.' He did not 
 mean that his love had become a building. We speak of the bees building 
 their cells, and of the comb growing in size, but we do not call the honey a 
 building. The building up of love is a favourite expression of Shakspeare's : 
 
 ' And ruined love, when it is hiilt anew. 
 Grows fairer than at first.' — Sonnet 119. 
 
 * Shall love in building grow so ruinate.' 
 
 Ttvo Gentle7nen of Verona. 
 
 ' But the strong base and building of my love 
 Is as the very centre to the earth.' — TroilKs and Cressida. 
 
 The obtuseness and impertinence of this critic are at times insufferable. To 
 see him in Shakspeare's company at aU causes a general sense of uncomfort- 
 ableness, such as Laiuice may have felt respecting the manners of his dog Crab. 
 3 So Falstaff" to 3Irs. Ford, in the ' Merry Wives,' ' I see you are obse- 
 quious in your love.'
 
 SOUTHAMPTON'S 'LOVE' THE 'CHILD OF STATE.' 305 
 
 Which is not niixM with .st-ctjiuls,' knows no art. 
 
 But mutual render, only me for thee ! 
 
 Hence, thou suborned Informer, a true soul 
 When most impeached stands least in thy control ! 
 
 (125.) 
 
 Shakspeare might have been the speaker in the three 
 foregoing sonnets witliont any conflict with some of the 
 historic ch'cumstances to which they refer — such as the 
 Earl's imprisonment and the Irish war. But had he been 
 the speaker in those sonnets which confess a changing, 
 ranging, false and fickle spirit, that had so often and so 
 sadly tried the person addressed, he could scarcely have 
 been as heroic in asscrtinG^ his unswerving steadfastness 
 of affection, and hurled at Time his defiant determination 
 to be eternally true. Time might not ' boast,' but Shak- 
 speare would be boasting with huge swagger at a most 
 sorrowful unseasonable period. He might fairly enough 
 defy Time, and all State-policy, to alienate him from his 
 friend. But his ' dear love,' his friendship, was not the 
 ' child of State ' in any shape, therefore he could not speak 
 of its being only the ' child of State.' Shakspeare gene- 
 rally uses State in the most regal sense. Hamlet the 
 Prince was the first hope and foremost flower of the State. 
 So, in ' King Henry YIH.,' we have ' an old man broken 
 by the storms of State.' Nor was State-policy likely to be 
 exerted for any such purpose in his case. He miglit, as 
 most probably he did, have visited the Earl in the Tower, 
 and there moralized on the doings of Time, and told him, 
 to his face, he was an old impostor, after all, who tried to 
 play tricks with appearances on those who were close 
 prisoners there in his keeping. But his ' love ' could not 
 be an 'unfathered bastard of Fortune' in consequence 
 of being onli/ the ' Child of State.' It cotdd not have 
 
 * Mi.v'<I ivith seconds.'' So in 'King Lear,' 'No seconds? all myself?' 
 
 Act iv. sc. 0. 
 
 X
 
 SOG SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 been buikled far from 'accident' when so terrible a one 
 liad just occurred to the EarL He might have been in- 
 wardly glad that his friend could not get away to the Irish 
 wars, and within range of the impending blow of ' thralled 
 Discontent.' But he could not have congratulated the 
 Earl on his imprisonment being the cause why the friend- 
 ship did not come under that blow. It will be observed 
 that there is a self-gratulatory tone in the sonnets. Nor 
 could his love, his friendship have suffered in ' smiling 
 pomp ;' and if it might, it was not for Shakspeare to say 
 such a thing to his fettered friend, doomed to a life-long 
 imprisonment. Nor could he, by his own showing, have 
 said that his love feared not Policy, the Heretic, for in the 
 107th sonnet he tells us how much he had feared. He 
 was filled with fears for the Earl in prison, and trembled 
 for the life supposed to be forfeited to a ' confined doom.' 
 Clearly, then, he could not be thus loftily defiant of the 
 worst that had happened, or could happen, on behalf of 
 another, and that other his dear friend who was sitting in 
 the very shadow of death ! The defiance and the boasts 
 would have been altogether imnatural from Shakspeare's 
 mouth. How could his love stand 'all alone' and be 
 ' hugely politic?' One would have thought, too, that his 
 love would have been ready enough to 'drown with showers,' 
 had he been speaking of his beloved friend in such perilous 
 circumstances. Moreover, it would be exceedingly strange 
 for Shakspeare to call the 'fools of Time' as his witnesses. 
 Wliat for ? Save to show what a fool he was in makins; 
 such a singular declaration of his enduring love. He 
 could have made no such vast and vague a public appeal 
 to prove the truth of his private affection. Then, with 
 the Earl bound hand and foot and in great mental agony, 
 as he must have been, is it to be supposed that Shak- 
 speare would fix his gaze on himself and his own limiting 
 circumstances ? ' Were it ought to me I bore the canopy.' 
 Why, what would it be to his friend, the Earl ? Such
 
 SOUTIIAMIT'ON'S FIGHT WITH TIME AND FORTUNE. P,07 
 
 reference to himself — sucli a '■ look at me' ■would have 
 been tlie veriest mockery to his poor friend ; such a dis- 
 course on the benefits of being without a tail would have 
 been a vulgar insult. If Shakspeare were speaking thus 
 of himself, tlie reader's concern would be for Southampton ! 
 But enough said : it is not Shakspeare wlio speaks in 
 these sonnets. It is the same speaker who has so long 
 sustained the fight with ' Time' and 'Fortune,' which have 
 overthrown him at last, although when prostrate on the 
 ground, he will not yield. The speaker, who, in sonnet 29 
 (p. 166), feels himself to be in ' disgrace with Fortune,' and 
 men's eyes are turned from him. In sonnet 37 (p. 168) he is 
 made lame, is disabled, or shut out of service, by Fortune's 
 ' dearest' or most excessive spite. In sonnet 90 (p. 246), the 
 same person is still pursued by the malice of Fortune, 
 which is bent on crossing liis deeds. It is the same 
 speaker, the unlucky scapegrace, the noble ' ne'er-do- 
 weel,' who, in sonnet 111 (p. 270), asks his much-suffering, 
 more-loving friend to chide this ' Fortune' that has 
 been to so great an extent the guilty goddess, the cause 
 of his harmful doings and his 'blenches,' or starts from 
 rectitude. It is the same person on whose behalf 
 Shakspeare makes sucli a ])i-olonged fight with Time 
 and evil Fortune, and in .some of the personal sonnets 
 speaks so proudly of the power of his verse to give him 
 an immortality to right tliis wi'ong of time. At first 
 sight a reader might fancy some of those sonnets to 
 have been written after a visit to the Tavern, when the 
 canary had added a cubit to the Poet's stature, and he 
 talked loftily for so modest a man. But he had a stronger 
 incentive; a wilder wine was awork within him when 
 he made these sounding promises of immortalit}^ Not 
 fiattery nor the s])irit of tlie grape were his inspiration, but 
 a passionate feeling of injustice and wrong, and a determi- 
 nation to make his ' love ' triumph over time and enmity, 
 and all the oj)position of a malevolent fortune. This is 
 
 x-2
 
 308 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the man who speaks in the foregoing sonnets, and it 
 will be seen that the personal theory has not the shadow 
 of a chance when compared with the dramatic one. It 
 cannot gauge these sonnets ; does not go to the bottom 
 in any one of the deeper places. The dramatic version, 
 with Southampton for speaker, alone will sound the 
 depths, and make out the sense. It penetrates, informs, 
 and iUumines the dimmest nook with a light that we 
 can see by, whereas the personal rendering, in aU its ex- 
 plorations, only leads us into the middle of a maze, and 
 there leaves us in the dark. 
 
 If we would listen to the words of Shakspeare himself 
 speaking to the Earl of Southampton in prison, we shall 
 hear him in the 115th sonnet : — 
 
 SHAKSPEARE TO THE EAEL IN PEISON. 
 
 Those lines that I before have writ do lie ; 
 Even those that said I could not love you dearer ! 
 Yet then my judgment knew no reason why 
 My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer! 
 But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents 
 Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings. 
 Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents. 
 Divert strong minds to the course of altering things ; 
 Alas ! why, fearing of Time's tyranny. 
 Might I not then say, ' Now I love you best ? ' 
 When r was certain o'er incertainty. 
 Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? 
 Love is a babe ; then might I not say so. 
 To give full growth to that which still doth grow. 
 
 (11.5.) 
 
 These lines tell us that Shakspeare had before said 
 he loved his friend so much it was impossible for him to 
 love the Earl more dearly. Because, at the time of saying 
 so, he could neither see nor foresee reason why that flame 
 of his love should afterwards burn clearer, or soar up 
 more strongly. But this new and more perilous position
 
 A NEW APPEAL TO THE POET'S LOVE. 300 
 
 of his friend serves to make him pour fortli liis love in a 
 larger measure, and he now sees why lie ought not to 
 have said he could not love him more. The shadow has 
 fallen on his friend ; the waters of affliction have gone 
 over him, and he loves him more than ever in his latest 
 calamity. He feels that he ouglit not to have boasted of 
 his love even when he felt most certain over uncertainty, 
 because the Earl has been so marked a victim of ' Time's 
 tyranny.' Even when *tlie present was crowned in the 
 Earl's marriage, he ought still to have doubted of the 
 rest, and not made any such assertion. The lines have an 
 appearance of Shakspeare's taking up the pen once more 
 after he had looked upon the expression of his affection 
 in sonnets as finished when he celebrated the marriage of 
 Southampton. Now he has found a fresh cause for speaking 
 of that love, to which a stronger appeal has been made. 
 The reason, as here stated, ' love is a babe,' sounds some- 
 what puerile, but it is the Poet's way of making light of 
 himself; the personal sonnet being sent merely in attend- 
 ance on the three dramatic ones, which were the messen- 
 gers of importance, whilst this was only their servant. 
 It is a part of my theory that Shakspeare did not mean 
 to write passionate personal sonnets, and that the dra- 
 matic method was adopted partly for the suppression of 
 himself. He does not seek to make the most of this 
 occasion, and give adequate expression to such feelings as 
 he must have had when the Earl was condemned to die. 
 His friend in relation to his Countess, not himself, was his 
 object. Thus, while he makes many of his personal sonnets 
 into pretty patterns of ingenious thought, the others are 
 all aglow with dramatic fire and feeling, only to be 
 fully felt when we have learned who the speakers are. 
 Here his own warmth of heart is suppressed, to be put 
 into cordial loving words, for the forlorn and desolate 
 wife of his dear friend. 
 
 It is one of Boaden'sarsunients tliat these sonnets cannot
 
 310 SHAKSPK-^RE'S SONNETS. 
 
 have been addressed to the Earl of Southampton, because 
 the Poet has not written in the direct personal way on the 
 passing events of the Earl's life. He asks, with a taunt, 
 how did the Poet feel upon the rash daring of Essex ? 
 Had he no soothing balm to shed upon the agonies of his 
 trial, liis sentence, his imprisonment, bitter as death ? 
 Could his eulogist fmd no call upon him for secure con- 
 gratulation when James had restored him to hberty ? 'We 
 should expect Shahspeare to tell him, in a masterly tone, 
 that calamity was the nurse of great spirits ; that his afflic- 
 tions had been the source of his fame ; that mankind never 
 could have known the resources of his mighty mind, if he 
 had not been summoned to endure disgrace, and to gaze 
 undauntedly on death itself Here, however, the critic 
 has only copied Daniel. These are that Poet's sentiments 
 expressed in the direct personal v/ay. Shakspeare being a 
 great Dramatic Poet, and a close personal friend of the 
 Earl, wrote in his own way, or according to that friend's 
 wish, expressed years before. It did not suit him, nor the 
 plan of his work, to wail and weep personally. Was he 
 not the man of men, who always kept himself out of sight ? 
 And is not tlie closest touch of hearts where none can see ? 
 It suited all the persons concerned that he should use the 
 Earl's name, and try to infuse into the Earl's nature some- 
 thing of his own impassioned majesty of soul, so that the 
 Earl might unconsciously feel strengthened in Shak- 
 speare's strength, and be able to look on life through his 
 eyes who saw with so lustrous a clearness. Thus, the Poet 
 could instruct his friend, and stand over him as an invisible 
 teacher, when the Earl only saw the writer of sonnets 
 labouring for his amusement; and to us he speaks over the 
 shoulder of his friend. This was Shakspeare's dramatic 
 way with all whom he has taught — all whom heyet teaches. 
 There are, however, some important allusions in this 
 sonnet ! Tlie reference to Time changing ' decrees of 
 Kings' no doubt includes the change in that decree
 
 souTiiAMrrox i.s set free. 311 
 
 wliicli had doomed tlie Earl to deatli. And I think the 
 attempt of Essex to create a revolution, or some great 
 change, is immistakeably meant in the line that speaks of 
 Time diverting ' strong minds to the course of altering 
 things V If so, it also shows something of the amaze- 
 ment witli wliich Shakspeare had witnessed so futile a 
 diversion on tlie ])art of a strong — possibly he thought 
 head-strong — mind to the course of altering things that 
 were so firmly fixed. He looks upon the futile, foolish 
 assault as a mental aberration, and one of the accidents — 
 not to say wonders — of Time ! This hne is one of those 
 personal and precious particulars witli which the sonnets 
 abound, and for which all the rest were written. They 
 are too solid to be dissipated into that vapour of vague ge- 
 neralities which some of the interpreters so much delight 
 in, but in which thin air the rich poetic life of Shakspeare 
 could not have breathed. 
 
 Sonnet 1U7 will show us that, in spite of the dramatic 
 method adopted by Shakspeare in writing of the Earl, he 
 did jind a call for secure congratulation ivhen James had 
 restored the Earl to his liberty. 
 
 shakspeare's greeting to the earl ox his release 
 
 from the to aver. 
 
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, 
 Can yet the lease of my true love control. 
 Supposed as forfeit to a confined Doom ! ' 
 The mortal Moon'- hath her Echpse endured. 
 And the sad Augurs mock their own presage ; 
 Incertainties now crown themselves assured. 
 And Peace proclaims olives of endless age ; ' 
 
 ^ 'Confined doom/ i.e., a doom defined by boundaries. In 'King Lear' 
 we have the ' confined deep.' 
 
 "^ * Mortal Moon.' The Queen is personified as the moon, cold and chaste, 
 in the allegon' of a ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' Our poet calls the eyes 
 of his Lucrece ' imvial /:tar.<,' 
 
 ^ ' "When King James came to be King of England, the kingdom was in entire
 
 312 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
 My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes. 
 Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme, 
 While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes, 
 And thou in this shalt find thy monument. 
 When T^'rants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. • 
 
 (107.) 
 
 There can be no mistake, doul)t, or misgiving here ! 
 This sonnet contains evidence beyond question — proof 
 positive and unimpeachable — that the man addressed by 
 Shakspeare in his personal sonnets has been condemned in 
 the first instance to death, and afterwards to imprisonment 
 for life, and escaped his doom through the death of the 
 Queen. 
 
 It tells us that the Poet had been filled with fears for 
 the fate of his friend, and that his instinct, as well as the 
 presentiment of the world in general, had foreshadowed 
 the worst for the Earl, as it dreamed on things to come. 
 He sadly feared the life of his friend — the Poet's lease of 
 his true love — was forfeited, if not to immediate death, 
 to a 'confined doom,' or a definite, a life-long imprisonment. 
 The painful uncertainty is over now. The Queen is dead 
 — the ' Mortal Moon hath her echpse endured.' ^ Cynthia 
 was one of Elizabeth's most popular poetical names. 
 
 peace within, and in martial state and full of honour and reputation abroad.' 
 A Detection of the Court mid State of Emjland, by Roger Coke, vol. i. p. 29. 
 Likewise Cranmer, in 'Henry VIII. / points out the/jeoce for James I., which 
 is one of the assured blessings of Elizabeth's reign, ' Peace, Plenty, Love 
 shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him.' 
 
 ^ This is the last of the Southampton Sonnets, as they have come to iis. 
 Shakspeare's warfare with Time and Fortune on his friend's behalf is ended ; 
 the victory is won, he has found peace at last. There is a final farewell touch 
 in the concluding iteration of the immortality so often promised. The Earl 
 shall have a monument in the sonnets now finished, when the Abbey tombs 
 have crumbled into dust. When he wrote these last lines, the Poet could 
 not have contemplated leaving the monument without a name. Hitherto, 
 however, the Earl ha.s only found a tomlj. 
 
 * So Antony says of Cleopatra, ' Alack, our terrene Mocm is now 
 eclipsed.'
 
 THE DEATH OF QUEEX ELIZABETH. 313 
 
 An image of maiden purity to lier Majesty, in which 
 some of the Wits also saw the symbol of changefulness. 
 Change of moon brings change of weather, too ! His love 
 is refreshed by tlie drops of this most balmy time, the 
 tears of joy ; his lease of love is renewed. Those who 
 had propliesied the worst can now laugh at tlieir own 
 fears and mock their urifLdfilled predictions. The new 
 King calls the Earl from a prison to a seat of honour. 
 As Wilson words it, ' the Earl of Southampton, covered 
 long witli the ashes of great Essex his ruins, was sent 
 for from the tower, and the King looked upon him with 
 a smiling countenance.' ' Peace proclaims olives of end- 
 less age.' Our Poet evidently hopes that the Earl's hfe 
 will share in this new dawn of gladness and promised 
 peace of the nation. lie can exult over death this time. 
 It is his turn to triumph now. And his friend shall find 
 a monument in his verse which shall exist when the 
 crests of tyrants have crumbled and their brass-mounted 
 tombs have passed from sight. 
 
 This sonnet is a pregnant instance of Shakspeare's twin- 
 bearing thought, his inclusive way of writing, which 
 could not have been appreciated in the sonnets hitherto, 
 because they have never been ' made flesh ' for us to 
 grasp. The sonnet carries double. It blends the Poet's 
 private feeling for his friend with the public fear for the 
 death of the Queen. The ' Augurs ' had contemplated 
 that event with mournful forebodings, and propliesied 
 changes and disasters. The natural fact, of which this 
 mortal ^eclipse' is the image, is illustrated in 'King Lear.' 
 ■•I am thinking, brother,' says Edmund, '0/ a prediction 
 I read the other dnij what should follow these eclipses.' 
 The prediction having been made by his father, Gloster ; 
 ' These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no 
 good to us,' &c. (act i. sc. ii.) 
 
 But it has passed over happily for the nation as joy- 
 fully for the Poet. Instead of his friend yielding to Death,
 
 314 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Death — surel}^ in the death of the Queen ? — ' subscribes,' 
 that is, submits to the spealcer. 
 
 Shakspeare himself gives us a hint, in his dramatic way, 
 that he was present at the trial of the Earl, for he has, in 
 a well-known speech of Othello's, adopted the manner and 
 almost the words with which Bacon opened his address 
 on that memorable occasion : — ' I speak not to simple 
 men,' said Bacon, but to 'prudent, grave, and wise peers.' 
 And this is obviously echoed in Othello's ' Most potent, 
 grave, and reverend signiors.' The manner of address 
 and the rhythm of the words are the same ; the emphasis 
 has in it more likeness to personal character than to an 
 accident. And we may be sure that our Poet was one 
 of the first to greet his friend at the open door of his pri- 
 son > with that welcoming smile of pure sunshine, all the 
 sweeter for the sadness past, and press his hand with all 
 his heart in the touch. In this sonnet we have his written 
 gratulation of the Earl on his release. It proves his sym- 
 pathy with him in misfortune, and it proves also that he 
 iiad been writing about the Earl. For we cannot suppose 
 ' this poor rhyme ' to mean this single sonnet, but the 
 series which this sonnet concluded. 
 
 It maybe asked, did Shakspeare rejoice in the death of 
 the Queen ? I do not say that he did, in any personal 
 sense. His exultation was for his friend's freedom. 
 Had he summed up on the subject in a balance-sheet, 
 as Chatterton did on the death of Lord Mayor Beckford, 
 he would have been glad the Queen was dead, by the 
 gain of Soutliampton. But I do think Shakspeare looked 
 upon her as a tyrant in all marriage matters, and not 
 witliout cause. Her Majesty appears not only to have 
 made up her mind to remain single herself, when getting on 
 
 ^ We may likewise be sure that Shakspeare had Southampton's good 
 word in securing ihe patronage of James, and the privilege accorded by 
 liCtters Patent to his own theatrical company, directly after the King had 
 reached London.
 
 ^r.vTDs ()]• iToxorn tx love. .315 
 
 for sixty, but also to prevent her maids I'ruin being married. 
 What the Queen's treatment was of lier maids that wished 
 to marry, we may gather from tlie letter of Mr. Fenton to 
 John Ilarington,^ in wljich, speaking of the Lady Mary 
 Howard, he tells us tliat the Queen will not let her be 
 married, saying, ' I have made her my servant, and she 
 will make herself my mistress,' which she shall not. More- 
 over, she 'must not entertain ' her lover in any conversation, 
 but shun his company, and be careful how she attires her 
 person, not to attract my Lord the Earl. The story runs 
 that the Lady Mary had a gorgeous velvet dress, sprinkled 
 with gold and pearl. The Queen thought it richer than her 
 own. One day she sent privately for the dress, put it on, and 
 appeared wearing it before her ladies in waiting. It was 
 too short for her Majesty, and looked exceedingly unsuited 
 to her. She asked the ladies how they liked her new- 
 fiingled dress, and they had to get out of their difficulty 
 as Ijest they could. Then she asked Lady Mary if she 
 did not think it was too short and unbecoming. The poor 
 girl agreed with her Majesty that it was. Wliereupon the 
 Queen said if it was too short for her, it was too line for 
 the owner, and the dress was accordingly put out of sight. 
 Sir J. Harington relates how the Queen, when in a 
 pleasant mood, would ask the ladies around her chamber 
 if they loved to think of marriage ? The wisely-wary 
 ones would discreetly conceal their liking in the matter. 
 The simple ones would unwittingly rise at the bait, and 
 were caught and cruelly dangling on the hook the mo- 
 ment after, at which her Majesty enjo^^ed fine sport. We 
 might cite other instances in which the attendants con- 
 gratulated themselves in the words of Mr, John Stanhope, 
 who, in writing to Lord Talbot^ on the subject of Essex's 
 mariiage, and the Queen's consequent fuiy, says, ' God be 
 thanked, she does not strike all she threats ! ' Mr. Fenton 
 
 ' Ilavington's jXiu/fr Antiqutr, vol. i. p. 2:^3. 
 "^ Loch/cs lUudrations, 1838, ii. 422.
 
 316 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 tells us that her Majesty ' chides in small matters, in 
 such wise as to make these fair maids often cry and 
 bewail in piteous sort.' The fair Mrs. Bridges, the lady 
 at Comt with ^vhom the Earl of Essex was said to be in 
 love, is reported to have felt the weight of her Majesty's 
 displeasure, not only in words of anger, but in double-fisted 
 blows. Elizabeth Vernon appears to have been driven 
 nearly to the verge of madness, and a good deal of South- 
 ampton's trouble arose from the Queen's persistent opposi- 
 tion to their mari'iage. Some recent writers seem to think 
 that there ought to have been neither marrying nor giving in 
 marriage, if such was her Majesty's virgin pleasure. Shak- 
 speare did not think so ; he looked on life in a more na- 
 tural light. It was his most cherished wish to get the earl 
 married, and the Queen had been implacable in thwarting 
 it ; this made tliem take opposite sides. I hke to find the 
 Poet standing by the side of his friend, even though he 
 speaks bitterly of the Queen as a 'heretic' to love, does 
 not express one word of sorrow when the ' mortal moon ' 
 suffers final eclipse, and lets fly his last arrow in the air 
 over the old Abbey where the royal tyrants lie low, with 
 a twang on the bow-string unmistakeably vengeful. 
 
 We know that the poet was reproached for his silence 
 on the death of the Queen. In Chettle's ' Enarlande's 
 Mourning Garment' (1603), he is taken to task under the 
 name of 'Mehcert.' 
 
 *Nor doth the silver-tonged Melicert 
 
 Drop from his honied Muse one sable teare 
 To mourn her death tltat graced Ids desert, 
 And to his laies opened her royall eare. 
 Shepheard, remember our Elizabeth, 
 And sing her rape done by that Tarquin, Death.' 
 
 But the shepherd had his own private reasons for being 
 deaf and dumb ; he remembered anotlier Ehzabeth.
 
 ;J17 
 
 THE 
 
 MSS. BOOK OF THP: SOUTHAMPTON 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 If the reader will refer back to sonnet 77 (p. 241), 
 and study it awhile, he will see how a large number of 
 the sonnets were written for Southampton. Hitherto 
 the commentators have assumed that Shakspeare's friend 
 had presented him with a table-book ! But the sonnet is 
 not composed either on receiving or making a gift ; no 
 such motive or stand-point can possibly be found m it. The 
 subject is the old one of warring against Time, and the 
 writer is at the moment Avriting in a book from w^hich he 
 draws one of a series of reflections in illustration of his 
 thought. The mirror, he says, will tell the Earl how his 
 'beauties wear ; ' and the dial w^ill show him Time's stealthy 
 progress to eternity. ' This book ' will also teach its lesson. 
 Its vacant leaves will take the mind's imprint ; and he ad- 
 vises his friend to write down his own thouijhts in these 
 ' waste blanks,' and they will be a living memoiy of the 
 past, one day — just as the mirror is a reflector to-day. If 
 he Avill do this, the habit — ' these offices ' — will profit him 
 mentally, and much enrich the book. 
 
 Evidently this is a book for writing in, and as e\idently 
 Shakspeare is then writing in it. Moreover it lias ' vacant 
 leaves ' — ' Avaste blanks ; ' therefore it has pages that have 
 been filled. And to the contents of these written pages
 
 318 SHAIiSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the Poet alludes : ' Of this book this learning may'st 
 thou taste ; ' that is, the Earl will find in it other illustra- 
 tions of the writer's present theme, which is youth's 
 transiency and life's lleetness. This book, then, has 
 been enriched by the Poet's writing ; but if Southampton 
 Avill take the pen in hand, and also write in the book, 
 it will become much richer than it is now. ' This 
 book ' shows that it is in Shakspeare's hand, but it 
 does not belong to him. ' Jliy book ' proves that it is 
 the Earl's property. In this book, I doubt not, most 
 of the Southampton sonnets were written, just as contri- 
 butions may be made to an album, and in this particular 
 sonnet we find the Poet actually writing in it. Now, there 
 is every reason to conclude that this book is the same as 
 the Earl has parted w^ith in the following sonnet, and so I 
 print the sonnet by itself, although it belongs, by its plead- 
 ing and defensive tone, to tliose which treat of the last re- 
 conciliation of tlie lovers. It is of more value in another 
 aspect, should it be the MS. book of the Southampton 
 series, for it may have important bearings on the publi- 
 cation of Shakspeare's sonnets. It is in reply to an 
 expostulation. The Earl, for he is the speaker, has given 
 away a book. This book was, in the first place, a gift 
 from his mistress, and, in the second place, it has been used 
 as a record of her, for the purpose of scoring and keeping 
 count, as it were, of his love — hence the comparison of 
 it with ' tallies,' which were used for scoring accounts. 
 
 This book, given to the speaker by the person addressed, 
 and used as a record of his love, a retainer of her image, 
 has been parted with ; perhaps, the lady thought, foolishly. 
 The Earl makes his most complimentary defence, or the 
 Poet does so for him. Her true tables are within his 
 brain, she is there written, or engraved to all eternity ; 
 or, at least — here the writer was recalled by the physical 
 fact — until brain and heart shall crumble into dust, her 
 real record will remain there ; a something that can never
 
 ]:L1ZABETII VERNON'S SIIAKSPEAUE-ALJiL'M. 319 
 
 be effaced, never given away. The gift of gifts was her- 
 self, not her gift-book, and the true tables are not that 
 book, but his living l)rain. That 'poor retention' could not 
 hold his love for her, nor does he need ' tallies,' her ' dear 
 love to score,' therefore he made bold to give away the 
 book, the tallies which contained his love-reckonings, 
 the memorandum-book which retained her, as is cun- 
 ningly suggested, on purpose to trust his memory and 
 mental record all the more. If he had kept such a thing 
 to remind him of her, it would have been a kind of re- 
 proach to himself, as it would charge him with being 
 forgetful, so he has just dispensed with this artificial 
 memoiy, and henceforth will depend on his natural one 
 alone ! Besides, it was altogether incapable of holding 
 his large love ! 
 
 This book was something very special for a sonnet 
 to be written on the subject of its having been given 
 away. The purpose to which it had been devoted is 
 likewise as choice and particular. Shakspeare was not 
 in the least likely to fill a book with sonnets about the 
 Earl and then give it away, when they had been written 
 for the Earl, nor did he keep ' tallies ' to score the Earl's 
 dear love for himself. The sonnet supports my reading 
 in each single point, and by its total weight of evidence. 
 The ' tallies, thy dear love to score,' were none other than 
 the leaves of this gift-book, in which the Poet wrote his 
 dramatic sonnets on the love of his friend for EHzabeth 
 Vernon. The book had been a present from IMistress 
 Vernon to the Earl of Southampton ; his parting with it 
 was one of her grievances ; and Shakspeare had enriched 
 its value with sonnets in his own hand-writinsf. 
 
 It may have been a table-book, such as were then in use, 
 elegantly bound for a dainty hand. Aubrey, speaking of 
 Sir Philip Sidney, says, ' my great uncle, Mr. T. Browne, 
 remembered him ; and said tliat he was wont to take his 
 table-book out of his pocket and write down his notions
 
 820 SILVKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 as they came into liis head, wlicii he was writing his 
 " Arcadia," as he was hnnting on our pleasant plains.' But 
 ' thy gift — thy Tables,' does not necessarily mean the 
 Table-hook which you gave me. What the gift was has 
 to be inferred from its use and by comparison. ' Thy 
 Tables ' signifies the most sensitive receiver of her true im- 
 pression. Shakspeare is writing in his inclusive and, we 
 may add, infusive way ; he speaks of two things, and 
 the larojer contains the lesser. 
 
 This book, then, in Avhicli Shakspeare wrote sonnet 
 77, and which has been given away by the Earl in 
 sonnet 122, must, Southampton being the speaker, have 
 been the record of his love written, the tally that was 
 kept by Shakspeare, the ' poor retention' of Elizabeth 
 Vernon's beauty and goodness, which the Poet had held 
 up so steadily in view of his friend, by means of the 
 dramatic sonnets written in it ! The lady has felt exceed- 
 ingly annoyed that he should have held her gift and its 
 contents so lightly, and this sonnet Avas written to soothe 
 her all it could. 
 
 The reader will recollect that, in my reading of sonnet 
 38 (p. 157), I proposed to unclasp a secret book. This was 
 not merely a metaphor ; it was a veritable fact, but I have 
 till now reserved my concluding argument and crowning 
 illustration. In that sonnet, as we saw, the Poet was 
 about to adopt a new argument, at the Earl's own sugges- 
 tion, and a new method of writing which was of the Earl's 
 own invention. This new argument is something too 
 secretly precious to be written in the ordinary way, or 
 even on the ordinary paper luhich the Poet has been ac- 
 customed to use. It is ' too excellent,' he says, for ' every 
 vulgar paper to rehearse.'' That is, the new subject of 
 the Earl's suG^f^estin^ and the new form of the Earl's in- 
 
 CO o 
 
 venting are too choice to be committed to common paper : 
 which means that Shakspeare had until then written his 
 personal sonnets on slips of paper provided by himself.
 
 THE 1500K PROBABLY GIVEN TO WILLIAM HERBERT. 321 
 
 and now tlie excelling argument of the Earl's love is to 
 be written in Southampton's own l)ook — the book which 
 was given to him by his Mistress for our Poet to write in. 
 Thus, in sonnet 38, we see tliat Sliakspeare is beginning 
 to write in the book, which in sonnet 77 he is positively 
 writinsx in ; and tliat in tlic following; sonnet this same 
 book has been given away by the Earl of Soutliampton. 
 In sonnet 38 it was to be devoted to the Earl's love, and 
 in sonnet 122 it has been devoted to tlie celebration 
 of his love for Elizabetli Vernon. There is a reference 
 to the circle of ' private friends,' who -were to read 
 the sonnets in this book. ' If my slight Muse do please 
 tliese curious days ' must mean the private friends of the 
 Earl and his Mistress, as the sonnets were not for public 
 readers. It points to the privileged ones who were in the 
 secret, and who were permitted to look at Mistress Vernon's 
 gift-book. I further hold that the Earl of Soutliampton 
 gave these MSS. to William Herbert, and that tlie first 
 cause why Shakspeare's sonnets came into the world in so 
 mysterious a manner, may be legitimately supposed to 
 originate in tliis fact, that the Earl liad given tliem away 
 privately on his own account, and thus forestalled tlie 
 Poet in the right to possess or print them ; in all proba- 
 ])ility frustrating any such intentions of publishing, as he 
 may at one time liave entertained. 
 
 THE EARL TO ELIZABETH VERXOX OX rARTlXd WITIF A 
 BOOK WHICH SHE HAD GIVEX TO HIM. 
 
 Thy gift — thy tables — are within my brain 
 Full-charactered witli la.sting memory, 
 Which shall above that idle rank ' remain 
 Beyond all date, even to eternity ; 
 Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart 
 Have faculty by nature to subsist, 
 
 ^ ' That idle nmli.' The sonnets were the work of Shalispearc's ' idle 
 hours ! ' 
 
 Y
 
 322 SILiKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Till each to raised oblivion yield his part 
 Of thee, thy record never can he missed : 
 That poor retention^ could not so much hold, 
 Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score. 
 Therefore to give them from me was I bold, 
 To trust those tables that receive thee more : 
 To keep an adjunct to remember thee. 
 Were to import forgetfulness in me. ('22.) 
 
 ^ ' That poor retention is the tahle-hook (jivcn to him hy his friend.'' — Malone. 
 Nothing of the kind. The book spoken of in sonnet 77 is not Shakspeare's. 
 It belongs to the person addi'essed. The speaker is writing in it, and he 
 asks the Earl to commit his own thoughts to the waste blanks, the vacant 
 leaves, of tliis book, which he calls ^ thy booh,'' just as he says ^thy ylass,' 
 and ' thy dial.^ So that it is impossible for the Earl's book of sonnet 77 to 
 be given away by Shakspeare in sonnet 122. It is a^jf(/Kv book having some 
 leaves written on, others blank. The speaker does not, in either case, say 
 thy ' table-book.' He says in etFect the gift-book which contained the lady's 
 tables. Table being the ancient term for a picture, Shakspeare uses it in 
 the pictorial, rather than in the note-book sense. This book, which was the 
 lady's gift, contained pictures of her, charactered by the Pen. The Earl has 
 parted with the book, but he says her tables, not her book, are within his 
 brain, her truest picture-place, not to be parted with and never to be eliaced.
 
 y23 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 THE 'DAKK' LADY OF THE LATTER SONNETS. 
 
 * Nothing of him that doth fade 
 But doth suffer a sea-change 
 Into something rich and strange.' 
 
 We now come to the last group of Sliakspeare's son- 
 nets — a series that tells a somewhat doubtful story ; 
 doubtful, that is, in regard to the speaker and the person 
 addressed ; otherwise, the story is uncommonly plain, and 
 the speaker is infatuated with a Mistress whose character 
 is not in the least doubtful. The passion is one of those 
 which Horace calls ' the tortures that urge men to confess 
 tlieir secret.' Others wonder what lie sees in her to 
 compel his worship with such fire-oiTerings of love. They 
 cannot find anytliing in her face or featm'es tliat should 
 make ' love groan.' Nor can he, when he comes to look 
 closely at her. He is astonished that it should be so ; he 
 linds no warrant for lier Avonderful sway over his foolisli 
 heart, and he asks : ' Oh, from what power hast tliou this 
 powerful miglit witli insufficiency my heart to sway, to 
 make me give the lie to my true siglit, so that in tlie very 
 refuse of thy deeds thou canst so inlhience my mind that 
 I think thy worst exceeds the best of all others?' He is 
 told, and he himself sees, her moral deformity ; her cha- 
 racter is quite plain to him, it lies before his eyes, bare and 
 black as the harbour-mouth at the lowest ebb o^ tide, and 
 
 t2
 
 324 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 yet his foolish heart dotes on her, loves her the more, the 
 more he hears and sees just cause of hate, and, in spite 
 of himself, he is compelled to follow the footprints of a 
 beauty gone by. Unaccountable as is the charm of her 
 presence, her tjrranny over him is fierce as could be that 
 of those Avhose beauties proudly make them cruel, and 
 whose sway would be explicable and natural. She has 
 glorious black eyes, but then her deeds are as black. 
 He knows that his own eyes are corrupted by over-partial 
 looks, and that he vainly seeks to enclose in the embrace 
 of his love one of the ' wide world's common places,' but 
 this knowledge does not help him to his deliverance. It 
 is not easy to convert such knowledge into wisdom. 
 
 The story is grimly real ; the nature and strength of the 
 passion are prominent as a wrestler's muscles : the sonnets 
 differ from the others as dark from day. And it is the 
 passion of a youth, that devouring flame which a dallying, 
 dangerous woman of years knows so well how to fan with 
 a whisper, setting the blood all ablaze witli a subtle smile. 
 In sonnet 143, it is youth in the pathos of its plea ; in 
 sonnet 147, it is youth in the fever of its passion, and in 
 sonnet 151, youth in the grossness of ebuhant blood. The 
 feeling is absolutely that of youth ; the arguments are 
 youthful, and youthfulness is the sole excuse of the son- 
 nets. That the woman is much older than the speaker 
 is conclusively shown by the whole feeling, thought, and 
 imagery of sonnet 143, in which the lover calls liimself 
 her Babe ! 
 
 But there is nothing to connect them with Shakspeare's 
 youth ! They are printed as though they were the latest 
 written, and we have no right, no reason to distmb that 
 arrangement. Moreover, there is evidence to prove that 
 they were written late, the same as there is to show that 
 the earlier ones were written before certain plays, viz. in 
 the thought, image or expression being used first in the 
 sonnet, and repeated soon afterwards in the di'ama. On
 
 PARALLEL PROGRESS OF SONNETS AND PLAYS. 325 
 
 this ground alone we may trace the parallel progress of 
 the sonnets and plays. For example, to refer back to the 
 Southampton series, the Une in sonnet 89, (p. 246) — 
 *For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate,' 
 
 reappears in ' Much Ado about Nothing,' as — 
 
 * For I will never love that which my friend hates.' 
 Also the thought of these Hues from sonnet 122, p. 321 — 
 
 * Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain 
 Full charactered with lasting memory ; 
 Which shall above that idle rank remain 
 Beyond all date, even to eternity : 
 
 Or at the least so long as brain and heart 
 Have faculty by nature to subsist ' — 
 
 is reproduced in ' Hamlet' ; — 
 
 * From the table of my memory 
 
 I'll wipe away all trivial fond records. 
 And thy commandment all alone shall live 
 Within the book and volume of my brain. 
 
 Kemember thee? 
 Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat 
 In this distracted globe.' Act. i. Sc. 5. 
 
 Again, in sonnet 88 (p. 234) — 
 
 ' With mine own weakness being best acquainted. 
 Upon thy part I can set down a story 
 Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted.' 
 
 So Hamlet — 
 
 * I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my 
 mother had not borne me.' 
 
 In sonnet 116 (p. 285), which was written about the 
 time of the Earl's marriage, we read : — 
 
 ' Love's not love 
 That alters when it alteration finds.' 
 
 And in ' King Lear ' — 
 
 ' Love's not love 
 When it is mingled witli regards that stand 
 Aloof from the entire point.'
 
 326 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 But the greatest proof of all that there is some guidance 
 iu this method of following Shakspeare occurs in the son- 
 net of 1G03, on the death of the Queen and the libera- 
 tion of Soutliampton (p. 311). In this we have — 
 
 ' The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured.' 
 
 and in ' Antony and Cleopatra ' — 
 
 * Alack, our terrene moon is now eclipsed.' 
 
 Again, in the same sonnet — 
 
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
 
 And in the same play — 
 
 'Prove this a prosperous day the three-nooked world shall 
 bear the olive freely.' 
 
 The chief resemblances betwixt these latter sonnets and 
 the plays occur in ' King Lear,' ' Othello,' ' Macbeth,' and 
 ' Antony and Cleopatra.' 
 
 Here are a few lines paralleled : — 
 
 * Robbed other's beds' revenues of their rents.' 
 
 Sonnet 142. 
 
 * And pour our treasures into foreign laps.' 
 
 Otliello. 
 
 ' Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those 
 Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee.' 
 
 Sonnet 142. 
 
 * Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.' 
 
 King Lear. 
 
 ' And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check.' 
 
 Sonnet 58. 
 
 ' A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows.' 
 
 Edgar, in King Lear. 
 
 ' Commanded by the motion of tliine eyes.' 
 
 Sonnet 149.
 
 THE SPEAKER NOT A MARIIIED MAN. 327 
 
 * He waged me with his countenance.' 
 
 Coriolanus. 
 
 Also — 
 
 * Her gentlewomen like the Nereides 
 
 So many mermaids tended her i' the eyes.' 
 
 Antony and Cleopcdra. 
 
 ' If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks, 
 
 Be anchored in the bay,' &c. 
 
 Sonnet 173. 
 
 * Then should he anchor his aspect and die 
 With looking on his life.' 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 * To put fair truth upon so foul a face.' 
 
 Sonnet 137. 
 
 * False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 ' Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill ? ' 
 
 Sonnet 150. 
 
 * Vilest things become themselves in her.' 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 We find the greatest number of resemblances in ' Antony 
 and Cleopatra.' Here, however, as in the more striking 
 features of the earlier sonnets, the likeness is a personal 
 one. We may safely conclude, from internal evidence, 
 that the present group was written after those sonnets 
 which are devoted to the courtship of Southampton ; and it 
 is enough to know that the speaker in these sonnets is far 
 too young for it to have been Sliakspeare himself at the 
 time when they must have been ^witten. 
 
 Further, to my thinking, sonnet 152 contains indubitable 
 proof that the speaker is not a married man. It brings 
 the question to an issue. He distinctly charges the lady 
 with being married and untrue to her wedding bed and 
 bond. Then he admits that he, too, is foresworn, and that 
 she knows him to be so. liut he says she is twice fore-
 
 328 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 sworn, in being false to her husband and false to him. 
 And, having said the worst of her, hurled at her the most 
 damning charges, he turns on liimself with a revulsion of 
 feeling, determined to show himself as the most perjured 
 oath-breaker of the two. Now, surely, we shall have it ! 
 He is about to prove, in bitterness of heart, that he is more 
 perjured than she, and that his sins are of a deeper dye 
 than hers. Therefore, one would have thought that, if a 
 married man and anxious for self-condemnation, desirous 
 of showing himself in a still lower gulf of guilt, the first 
 thing he would have done would be, to point out that he 
 was as bad as her in kind, being iiimself married, and, 
 possibly, worse than her in an indefinite degree, because he 
 was the father of a family. Instead of this — instead of a 
 manly voice heavy with ]:)assion or dogged witli determi- 
 nation to say the worst, we hear the treble of a youth, 
 asking, ' l^ut why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, 
 when I break twenty?' And what are the twenty oaths 
 sworn and vows broken by liim ? Why, he has sworn 
 that she was kind, loving, trutliful, and fifty other 
 pretty things, which are all lovers' lies ; liis perjury 
 consists of oatlis in her praise. And this has been imagined 
 to be Shakspeare speaking of himself, under the most self- 
 culpatory circumstances. The married man who has 
 cruelly charged her with her crime, Avhich would appear 
 to have been committed for his sake, and then tried to 
 turn the reproach from his cowardly self by a playful 
 handling of the subject ! 
 
 The thing is simply inconceivable ; totally incapable of 
 a positive image, as the metaphysicians say. So is it with 
 sonnet 143, of which Steevens has remarked ' the begin- 
 ning is at once pleasing and natural, but the conclusion of 
 it is lame and impotent indeed. We attend to the cries 
 of the infant, but Ave laugli at tlie loud blubbering of the 
 great boy. Will.' And well we might, if Shakspeare, who, 
 in an earlier sonnet, has painted the leaf of liis life in
 
 THE SUBJECT NOT PERSONAL TO THE POET. 329 
 
 autumnal tint, and appeared to liave felt the evening of 
 his day folding about liim, and seen its sliadows length- 
 ening' in the sunset, had here represented himself in love 
 with, and stark mad for, a bold had woman — by the 
 ima^'eof a poor little infant, a tender child, toddling after 
 its mammy, and crying for her apron-corner to hold by, 
 and her kiss to still its whimpering discontent. This would 
 be laughable, if not too lamentable. But Siiakspeare did 
 not ^¥Y\te to be laughed at, nor did he in his riper years, 
 put forth what woukl, if lie were the speaker, be pure 
 maudliu, and the very degi^adation of pathos. The blun- 
 der of the imagery would have been almost worse than the 
 criminal infatuation. But this is not the personal wooing 
 of the man who carried within him the furnace of passion, 
 in which the swart lineaments and orient gorgeousness of 
 Cleopatra glow superbly, — the lightnings that leap from 
 out the huge cloudy sorrows of old Lear, — the awful 
 power that in Lady Macbeth can darken the moral 
 atmosphere, past the seeing of the colour of blood, — the 
 flashes of nether flame, which play like serpent tongues 
 about Othello's love, till they have licked up its life-springs ! 
 Again, we are asked to believe that, after Shakspeare 
 had written to be laughed at, after he had published his 
 private shame in so hideous a self-exposure, for the 
 amusement of his patron and friends, he addressed that 
 solemn 14Gth sonnet to his soul, by way of self-admonition ! 
 We are to suppose this and the 129th sonnet to contain 
 comments on his own degradation — a sermon to himself; 
 which, if the rest of the tale were true, would be a 
 mocker)'' indeed. The 129th sonnet is obviously written 
 for a purpose, but that piu'pose is to knit and strengthen 
 another against the sin which is his special shame. The 
 generalised excuse of the last lines shows that it is not 
 personal to the writer — 
 
 ' All this the world well kuowt;, yet none knows well, 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.'
 
 330 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 That is neither Shakspeare's own morahty nor his own 
 personal excuse for a criminal relationship. It is the same 
 as with the closing argmnent of sonnet 121 (p. 272) — 
 only possible on behalf of another person than the writer, 
 and only springing from an exigency of private friendship. 
 These two sonnets, 24th and 25th of the present series, 
 contain matter enough, properly morahsed, to convince all 
 who have ever approached the real soul of Shakspeare, 
 that the latter sonnets were not written on an amour of 
 his own. They ought to be sufficient to set us right on the 
 subject, even if we had for awhile done him the injustice 
 of thinking he could have been so bad, and babbled about 
 it so foolishly. On the score of personal character alone, 
 we should be entitled to assume tliat the subject of these 
 sonnets was not of Shakspeare's own choosing, but im- 
 posed on him by one of the ' private friends ' for whom he 
 wrote. It has no touch of his quality. In his dramas he 
 abets no intrigues of the kind ; encourages no treacheries 
 to the marriage bed ; is no dealer in adulteries. His 
 wholesomeness in this respect is unimpeachable, and it is 
 unparalleled amongst the dramatists of his or the following 
 age. My interpretation is, that these sonnets were written 
 for WiUiam Herbert ; that the ' Will,' of this series is the 
 ' Mr. W. H.' of the Dedication, and that they were written 
 whilst his name was Herbert. 
 
 It will not be necessary for me to enter much into 
 detail to prove that this young nobleman was a personal 
 friend of Shakspeare. The advocates of the theory that 
 Herbert was the ' Only Begetter ' of the sonnets, have 
 laboured utterly in vain if they failed to show thus much ! 
 Whilst those who hold Herbert to be the sole begetter 
 of the sonnets cannot, for the time being, become my 
 opponents, whilst I show how he was one of the begetters. 
 It is a fact of much significance, that the first play pre- 
 sented to King James in England was performed by 
 Shakspeare's company in Herbert's house at Wilton. Also
 
 WILLIAM HERBERT. 331 
 
 the empliasis of the players' words, hears far more on a 
 private friendshij) titan upon any facts that have been made 
 jyublic : they carry the imaghiation behind tlie scenes. In 
 their dedication to the first foho they tell us the Earl of 
 Pembroke h^d prosecuted the Poet with so much favour that 
 they venture to hope for the same indulgence towards the 
 icorks as was shown to the parent of them. Herljert was 
 an intimate friend of Shakspeare's friends Southampton 
 and Essex. He was too young or too indifferent to become 
 a prominent partisan of Essex, or, rather as I read it, he 
 was more in love with the Earl's sister than with his cause. 
 When he first came to Court, as we learn by Eowland 
 White's Letters,^ of the year 1599, Lord Herbert was 
 greatly beloved by everyone ; and the kindly old gossip 
 hopes he will prove a great man there. He is highly 
 favoured by the Queen, who is very gracious to the young 
 Lord. He is of sufficient mark and likelihood in 1599 
 for White to wish that Sir Eobert Sidney may be lucky 
 enough to find in him a ' ladder to go up to that honour,' 
 White holds his master to be so worthy of. Still, he 
 does not care to climb the steep and slippery ascent up 
 which so many crawl, or become the petted lap-dog of 
 Majesty, and is inclined to make way for others who pur- 
 sue the matter with more persistency ; he does not follow 
 the Courtier's business with the necessary care and caution. 
 We find that ' My Lord Herbert is much blamed for his 
 cold and weak manner of pursuing her Majesty's favour., 
 having so good steps to lead him unto it.' Evidently his 
 heart as a Courtier is elsewhere than v/ith her Majesty. 
 August 18th, 1599, White says, 'My Lord Herbert hath 
 been from Court these seven days in London, swafrfjerinsf 
 it amongst the men of war, and viewing the manner of 
 the musters.''^ September 8th,same year, 'My Lord Herbert 
 
 ^ Si/diici/ JMemnirs, vol. ii. 
 
 2 There had been a sudden alarm of the Spaniards comin<r. Order was 
 given for a camp to be raised, and ships were preparing in all haste.
 
 332 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 is a continual Courtier, but doth not follow his business with 
 that care as is Jit; he is too cold a courtier in a ^natter of 
 such greatness.' He is charged witli a want of spirit and 
 courage, and is said to be a ' melancholy young man.'' Also, 
 ' it is muttered that young Sir Henry Carey stands to he 
 a Favourite^' and White appears to be jealous of ' young 
 Carey ' who folloivs it — the prize of favourites — ' ivith 
 more care and boldness.' White does not account for the 
 young Lord's listlessness as a Courtier, his indifference to 
 the Eoyal caresses, jior for his melancholy as a man. It 
 is not that he wants a wife, for, when the subject of his 
 marriage is mooted, White says, ' I don't find any dis- 
 position in this gallant young lord to marry.' He has a 
 continual pain in the head, for which he finds no relief 
 except in smoking tobacco. More than once White hints 
 that the young Lord is greatly in want of advice. He is a 
 very gallant gentleman, but he needs such a friend as Sir 
 E. Sidney to be near liim. My interpretation of Lord 
 Herbert's symptoms, as detailed by Eowland White, is 
 that he was in love, but not as his friends would have 
 wished ; he was then nursing a secret flame for the Lady 
 Eich, the woman of various lovers. My immediate object, 
 however, is to show from White's Letters that in the 
 years 1599 and IGOO William Herbert was received at 
 Court by Her Majesty in the most friendly manner, and 
 might have hcen favourite 'an he would.' ISText, to point 
 out that during the two years following a great change 
 took place in the Queen's personal regards toward him. I 
 doubt not there is more evidence extant than I have been 
 able to collect, but some lines by John Davies will suffice 
 for my purpose. In his ode of rejoicing upon the acces- 
 sion of James to the EngHsli throne, Davies congratulates 
 the Earl of Pembroke, amongst others, upon the change 
 that has taken place, and his prospect of a more inviting 
 future at Court. He says —
 
 LADY RICH. 333 
 
 * Pembroke to Court, to v:hu-k thou iveH made strange, 
 Go ! do thine homage to thy Sovereign : 
 Weep and rejoice for this sad joyful change. 
 Then weep for joy : thou neecVst not tears to fain, 
 Slth late thine eyes did nought else entertain.^ 
 
 We see by this tliat tlie Earl Jiad, before the death of 
 Elizabeth, been looked on eoldly at Court ; that he had 
 kept or been kept from it, and suffered some bitterness 
 of feehng which had filled his eyes with tears. My ex- 
 planation is, that the estrangement arose from his being the 
 personal friend of Essex and Southampton — the over- warm 
 admirer of Lady Eich. We may learn how suspiciously 
 tlie Queen had eyed any friend of theirs after their Trial, 
 by a Letter of Cecil's to Winwood,^ wherein he speaks of 
 Sir Henry Danvers, whom Lord Moimtjoy had employed 
 to bring the report of his success in L^eland as a good op- 
 portunity to lielp him to kiss her Majesty's hands : ' in 
 whose good opinio?! he hath been a good while suspended, 
 being known to be more devoted to the late Earl than be- 
 came him.' We may also see, by a letter from the Earl 
 of Nottingham to Lord Mountjoy, to be quoted later, how 
 closely and jealously the Queen was accustomed to watch 
 the bearing of those for whom tlie Lady Eich had superior 
 charms, and to Avhom her eyes were lodestars. I suspect, 
 lujwever, that Herbert was drawn towards Essex and away 
 from the Court by an infkience that was amatory rather 
 tlian political. Late in the year 1599 Lady Eich had left 
 tlie Court, as is reported, on account of her character, never 
 to recover her lost place in the Queen's favour wdiilst 
 Elizabeth lived ; and in the September of tliis year ' My 
 Lord Mountjoy, with the Lord Ilerbert and Sir Charles 
 Danvers, have been at Wanstead these four days.' Again, 
 in the ^[ay of the next year we find tliat Herbert was 
 paying a visit of three days' length to Lady Eich and 
 Lady Southampton, in company with tlie same trusty friend 
 
 ' ll'imcuiHrs Moiioridk, \o\. i. p. 070.
 
 334 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 of Soutliaiiiptoii, who laid down his hfe for hiiii and Essex 
 on Tower-hill. In a letter dated May 2Gth, 1600, White 
 says : — 
 
 ' This Morning (Monday) my Lord Herbert and Sir 
 Charles Danvers have taken water and gone to see my 
 Lady Eich and Lady Southampton, almost as far as 
 Gravesend ; it will be Thursday ere they return.' This 
 plainly enough strikes the trail of my subject : it shows the 
 intimacy of the persons with whom my theory is concerned, 
 and it gives a possible clue to the meaning which Eowland 
 White's letters only hint at darkly. Herbert was ' greatly 
 in need of advice,' questionless because of the friendships 
 he cultivated and the company he kept — these being most 
 unpleasing in her Majesty's sight, for the Earl of Essex and 
 his sister, Lady Eich, were now both out of favour ; the 
 Essex fortunes were falling, their star was fading, and the 
 dark end was coming fast. We may judge how her Ma- 
 jesty would resent this wandering away of Lord Herbert 
 in such a pursuit by another Letter of Eowland White's,^ 
 dated December 28th, 1602, in which he speaks of some- 
 thing that concerns the fortunes of the Sidney family, and 
 says — ' The storm continues now and then ; but all de- 
 pends upon my Lady Bich's being or not being amongst 
 you^ Evidently hers was at that time a perilous acquaint- 
 anceship. The Earl of Southampton and his Countess 
 were also in the deepest shadow of her Majesty's dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 Thus, I conclude that the young Lord Herbert's coldness 
 as a Courtier was owing to his warmth elsewhere, and that 
 it was mainly by the influence of Lady Eich he was drawn 
 from the path whicli Eowland White was so anxious for 
 him to follow, and fmally caused him to lose the favour 
 of the Queen altogether. There is in sonnet 149 a touching 
 allusion to the estrangements which the lady has occa- 
 sioned, and apparently to the loss of friends for her sake — 
 
 1 Sydney rapers, vol. ii. p. 262.
 
 LORD lUanJERT. yy5 
 
 * Who hateth thee that I do call my friend ? 
 On whom IVown'st thou that I do fawn upon ? ' 
 
 These latter sonnets, then, I hold to be written dramati- 
 cally by Sliakspcare to express William Herbert's passion 
 for Lady Eich. 
 
 As we have seen, the Southampton sonnets almost 
 ceased with the Earl's marriaQ;e in 1598 — their chief 
 end and aim being then accomplished. In the year 
 1598, William Herbert had come to Hve in London/ and 
 possibly through his intimacy with Lord Southampton, 
 had met with Shakspeare and soon acquired some personal 
 inlluence over our Poet. Tlie time was most opportune. 
 The young Lord could not take the warm place in his heart 
 which had been consecrated to Southampton ; he did not 
 call forth any such fragrance of affection as breathes 
 through the sonnets devoted to the earlier, dearer friend 
 of Shakspeare. But he had winning ways, was a lover 
 of poets, and something of a poet himself. As a friend 
 of Southampton, and of Lady Eich, he would be early 
 acquainted with the ' sugred sonnets ' of tlie Southampton 
 series. 
 
 I have suggested that he was the friend, the young 
 enthusiastic seeker of Shakspeare's ' sonnets among his 
 private friends,' to whom Southampton had given the 
 book in sonnet 122 (p. 321) which book had been a present 
 from Elizabeth Vernon to the Earl, and contained most 
 of their .sonnets ! It followed, as a matter of course, that 
 Herbert should be ambitious of having sonnets by Shak- 
 speare devoted to himself. Eut how was this to be done ? 
 Shakspeare was now getting past liis sonneteering time. 
 He could never renew for Herbert the old affection which 
 had set him singing for Southampton in the spring-tide. 
 Before the first cycle of sonnets was completed, he had felt 
 
 ' Lord Herbert was in Loiuluu, April Sn\, 1597, on a visit to the Sitloeys, 
 as we leani by White's letter of that ilatc (' Sydney Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 35), 
 and ' by mij Lord Jlcrbcrt's comituj into the (jankn.'
 
 336 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the autumnal iniliience touching his riper manhood and 
 luishing that burst of music whicli once set all the green 
 thickets of young Hfe thrilling, and he had pleaded 
 
 * Our love was new and then but in the spring 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays. 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sin or 
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days.' 
 
 This spring, this love, these songs could not be repeated 
 for another. I imagine Shakspeare was not seriously 
 inclined to write at all for Herbert. He must have felt 
 it tended to make common the mould of expression which 
 had been hallowed by real love for Southampton, made 
 sacred for ever by the privacy of their personal friendship 
 and the tender uses for which many of the sonnets had 
 been written. But Herbert, as the players tell us, ' piir- 
 sued him with so inuch favour^ was very urgent in his 
 sohcitations, and Shakspeare good-naturedly wilhng to 
 oblige. Being, as he fancied, deeply and desperately in 
 love with Lady Eich, a friend of his family, a companion 
 beauty to his mother, a lady who must have entered the 
 young lord's heart by the way of his imagination, as the 
 object of Sidney's poetry and prose, there is nothing more 
 natural than that Herbert should have sought to get his 
 passion besung by Shakspeare. The Poet enters into the 
 humour of tlie thing so far as to laugh at the disparity of 
 their ages. He rallies his friend on the absurdity of his 
 passion ; fights all he may against his infatuation ; renders 
 with all possible plainness the lady's well-known character, 
 and once (jr twice grows very serious on the subject, and 
 as in sonnets 129 and 14G, administers a tonic to tlie 
 frantic inamorato, wrapt up and gilded in the gold leaf 
 of the poetry. 
 
 It is apparent tiiat if ' Master W. H.' be meant for 
 Wilham Herl)ert, Earl of Pembroke, lie must have had 
 something to do with the sonnets, not only as the collector
 
 THE LOVETl'S YOUTH AND TIIE LADY'S AGE, 837 
 
 and oljtainer of them for the press, but as a party to the 
 private mystery out of which the pubUc one arose, to 
 have had the right to give them to Th(jrpe. I say wliat 
 his part in the imbraiu/lemeiit was, and tliere is httle 
 need for me to argue the possibihty of that which is 
 capable of demonstration. 
 
 Shakspeare, as we have seen, had written dramati- 
 cally for Southampton, therefore it was most likely that 
 if he wrote at all for Herbert he would use the same 
 form, and my argument that Herbert himself supplied 
 his own sentiments and subject, as Southampton had 
 done, is suggested by the familiar use of his name in 
 the puns upon the word 'Will.' I assume that Herbert 
 used the sonnets as though they had been written by 
 himself. 
 
 At first sight, it looks as if sonnet 138 was against my 
 view of the speaker's youth, but a little more study will 
 enable us to see how this sonnet will supply such proof 
 of his youth and the lady's age as will serve to clench 
 my conclusion on this head. We must bear in mind 
 that a new element enters into the composition of these 
 latter sonnets. They become playful and ironic at times. 
 In sonnet 96, there is irony of a most bitter Idnd. The 
 speaker assumes to be concerned for the 'good report' 
 of the lady who, in sonnet 131, is black in her deeds — in 
 137, is the 'wide world's commonplace' — in sonnet 1-12, 
 has profaned her lips by sealing false bonds of love, and 
 in sonnet 147, is 'black as hell, as dark as night.' In 
 sonnet 138 the irony is of a smiling kind, the meaning 
 altogether covert. The writer here uses the form ' Noema,' 
 or, as ruttcnham has it, the figure of ' Close Conceit.'' 
 The subject really is not the age in the usual sense, 
 but the extreme youth of the speaker. Tlie word ' age' 
 conveys a double-pointed joke ! 
 
 This sonnet was printed in 1599, therefore it must have 
 been written when William Herbert was in hi? nineteenth 
 
 z
 
 338 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 or twentieth year.^ It is spoken in merry mockery, half 
 on account of his youth, and half on account of the lady's 
 age, for she is seventeen years older than him and getting 
 on towards forty ! Tlie facts are partly reversed, the 
 explanation is wrong by intention, on purpose to increase 
 the jest. The ^ simple truth.' certainly was suppressed on 
 both sides, and thereby fini was made in the demm-est 
 fashion. The young rogue knew well enough that his 
 days were not past the best, and so did the lady ; both 
 also knew whose days were ! But the lady's age being a 
 tickhsh point, that point is here used to produce the 
 greatest amount of tickling. As the sonnet says, with a 
 sly simphcity, ' age in love loves not to have years told.' 
 It is not necessary, however, to personify ' Age,' as readers 
 have done, though the printers did not. This explana- 
 tion looked so natural that its sedateness has never been 
 suspected. No one has seen how this might apply equally 
 to youth in love ; the quip has never been descried. To 
 prove that my reading is right, we have only to compare 
 this sonnet with the copy printed in the ' Passionate Pil- 
 grim,' which would be the version made use of in sending 
 to the lady ! In that the lady's lies turn on her own age, 
 and the ninth line asks — 
 
 ' But wherefore says my Love that she is young V 
 
 Wliich gives us the clue to the true interpretation of the 
 sonnet, supphes the necessary opposition betwixt age 
 and youth, adjusts the right relationship of the persons, 
 shows how and why there are lies on both sides, and 
 thus reveals the humour of the treatment. The youth's 
 manner of speaking of himself and his years is partly a 
 pleasant bit of satire on the lady's habit of not acknow- 
 ledging her own age ! She swears she is not more 
 than thirty or so, and that she tells truth ; he smilingly 
 credits ' her false-speaking tongue,' although he knows 
 well enough tliat she tells lies. 
 
 » ]?orn Fobruary 8tli, ]r>80.
 
 TWO VERSIONS OF SONNET 138, 339 
 
 * But wherefore says my Love that she is young ? 
 And wherefore say not I tliat / a^n old ? 
 I love's best habit is a soothing tongue, 
 And age, in love, loves not to have years told.'' 
 
 Therefore he lies on the score of his age, because she does, 
 and so they disguise the disparity by lying together. The 
 meeting-point of both, in the last line quoted, being that the 
 lady objects to the truth on account of her many years ; 
 the youth because his years are so few, and he has the 
 desire to be thought more of a man than his years warrant. 
 
 The 'Passionate Pilgrim' has 'Smiling I credit her 
 false-speaking tongue,' which was altered in the later 
 copy to ' simply I credit' — the smihng being too conscious 
 an expression for a youth ; the other more appropriately 
 demure and tending to point the play on ' sinqjle truth,' 
 which has to be suppressed in the next line. The sim- 
 plicity here has a touch of Shakspcare in liis Autolycus 
 mood : ' Ha, ha ! what a fool Honesty is, and Trust, his 
 sworn brother, a very simple gentleman !' Even so has 
 it been with the simplicity and trust of the readers of 
 these sonnets, who have been completely deceived by the 
 merry masker's serious face. This interpretation of sonnet 
 138 helps to prove that the 96th of necessity belongs to 
 the Herbert series, with its opening innuendo, ' Some say 
 thy fault is youth.' 
 
 But we have not quite done with the two versions of 
 this sonnet. It was most lucky that Jaggard did get hold 
 of the earher copy, for witliout it we could not have 
 seen on what the lady's lying turned, when she swore 
 that she told the truth, nor coidd we have detected the 
 speaker's youth, or perceived how the ' simple truth ' was 
 suppressed on both sides, if we had not known what the 
 l3'ing was about. The earher copy proves that her lies 
 were on the score of her age. It also serves to make us 
 curious respecting the alteration. Why should the sonnet 
 have been corrected so carefully, and for the worse? As 
 
 Z 'I
 
 340 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 in making the change tlie Poet loses the antithesis between 
 young and old — tlie grain of salt that he liked to see 
 sparkle in his lines ; and the real subject of the lady's lies 
 disappears altogether. There must have been private 
 and particular reasons for generahsing thus vaguely. 
 It must have been apprehended that the hne — 
 
 * But wherefore says my Love that she is young ? ' 
 
 might excite suspicion, and the whole story be got at ; 
 another touch was needed to perfect the disguise. And 
 so we catch the Poet, unless the change was made by 
 Herbert himself, doing a bit of work analogous to that 
 which has to be performed by the stealers of marked 
 linen, viz, picking out the proof of ownership. 
 
 This speaker then is so young that his years, in contrast 
 with the lady's age, can be treated as matter for a laugh 
 in the sleeve ; he is unmarried, and his Christian name is 
 ' Will.' All the testimony on the score of character 
 unites with tlie other evidence in proof that this is young 
 William Herbert, not WiUiam Sliakspeare ; he was a 
 spirit of a different complexion, a man of another mould, 
 and, at the time neither young enough to he the speaker 
 v'ith the humorous reading, nor old enough for the serious 
 interpretation hitherto accepted, he being just 35, exactly 
 ' midway in this our mortal life.' At which period of 
 perfect manhood and ripened power, his days could not 
 possibly have been 'past the best.' If he were the 
 speaker, the sonnet would have no meaning. For he 
 would not be lying in saying that he was not old, and 
 the ' simple truth ' could not have been suppressed by his 
 not admitting that he was old. 
 
 When Shakspeare described himself as older-looking 
 than his years justified in the Southampton sonnets, he 
 had an object ; here, however, such a policy in love 
 would have been fatally opposed to his object. It is not 
 the wont of men at 35 years of age, who are passionately 
 pursuing a woman, to talk of their days being ' past the
 
 HERBERT'S TOETRY. 311 
 
 best,' or assume, in "vvTiting to tlie lady, that they per- 
 sonify ' Age in love.' But it seems that nothing was 
 too unnatural to be committed by this writer, who of all 
 men came the nearest to nature ! The ' simple truth' 
 for us is just this: Shakspeare is not the speaker of this 
 sonnet. It is tlie youth who is imaged in sonnet 143 as 
 running after the lady, like a little child following and 
 crying for its mother, and who pleads, in sonnet 151, that 
 ' love is too young to know what conscience is.' 
 
 It is likewise my settled conviction, not only that these 
 sonnets were written for Wilham Herbert upon subjects 
 given by him for the Poet to work out, but tliat Herbert 
 himself had a hand in their composition. They are 
 frequently much less perfect than the earlier ones. Hence 
 it has been conjectured that, although they are the last 
 printed, they were earlier written, bearing, as they do, 
 some unmistakeable marks of youth. But the youthfulness 
 I hold to be not that of Shakspeare 's early writing. The 
 ' Will,' whose name is played upon, and to whom they 
 are inscribed, had sufficient to do with tlie printing to 
 ensure that the series devoted to him came into its 
 proper place, just as the first and the last groups of the 
 Southampton cycle are in their right position. And he 
 also, I doubt not, had sometliing to do witli the writing of 
 these latter sonnets. Herbert was himself a poet, with a 
 lively sparkle of fmcy, but too much given to grossness. 
 He, and not William Hunyis, who died in 1597, is the 
 ' W. IL' of England's HeUcon, and this is one of his 
 pleasant conceits. 
 
 • How shall I her pretty tread 
 Express 
 When she doth walk ? 
 Scarce she does the primrose head 
 Depress 
 Or tender stalk 
 Of hlue-veined violets, 
 Whereon her foot she sets.'
 
 342 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Again, lie makes a lover ask, prettily enough. — 
 
 * Wliat voice is this, I prithee mark, 
 With so much music in it ! 
 Too sweet methinks to be a lark, 
 Too loud to be a linnet.' 
 
 In these we find the precise play of fancy, amount of 
 mind, and sort of poetry that go to the making of the 
 following canzonet : — 
 
 * Those lips that Love's own hand did miahe 
 
 Breathed forth the sound that said " 7 hate,'''' 
 To me that languished for her sake : 
 
 But, when she saw my woful state, 
 Straight in her heart did mercy come, 
 
 Chiding that tongue that, ever sweet. 
 Was used in giving gentle doom, 
 
 And taught it thus anew to greet : 
 " I hate " she altered with an end 
 
 That followed it as gentle Day 
 Doth follow Night who, like a. fiend, 
 
 From heaven to hell is flown away : 
 " I hate " — from hate away she threiv. 
 And saved my life, saying — " not you ! " ' 
 
 (145.) 
 
 Any, the slightest, examination of these hues must tend 
 to a conviction that this is not one of Shakspeare's sonnets. 
 It is not in his measure,' but in the very verse which 
 one feels he disliked,''^ the kind of which Touchstone 
 says, ' I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and 
 
 ^ That the lines are not in our Poet's measure is some evidence against 
 their being of his writing. In sonnet 7G (p. 254) he had excused himself for 
 always using the same measure, never changing the familiar dress of his 
 thought, ' Keeping Invention in a noted weed.' 
 
 * A measure that he has travestied for the purpose of mockery. See the 
 song of Peter in ' Homeo and Juliet,' act iv. so. 4 :— 
 
 ' When griping grief the heart doth wound, 
 And doleful dumps the mind oppress ; ' 
 
 which mimics an old song beginning — 
 
 ' When griping griefes do grieve the mind,'
 
 HERBERT'S IIAXD IN TIIEM. 343 
 
 suppers and sleeping-hours excepted ; it is the right butter- 
 woman's rank to market, the veiy false gallop of verses.' 
 The Hnes start with a false note in the sound of the four 
 first endings. Our Poet's ear would not have tolerated so 
 uncertain a difference in the sound as exists between the 
 words 'make' and 'hate,' 'sake' and 'state.' Shakspeare's 
 lines go off with a hearty smack of difference which brings 
 them out full and satisfying to the ear, so that the rhymes 
 percuss with no uncertain sound. Next, there are three 
 imperfect rhymes in ' come ' and ' doom,' ' end ' and 
 ' fiend,' ' threw ' and ' you,' All of which Shakspeare 
 may have used at times, but he never crowded them into 
 so small a space. The hnes have nothing of our Poet's ; 
 matter or manner ; neither his kind of playful conceit nor 
 Ills musical gravity ; they no more possess his mental sta- 
 ture than they do his length of line ; they are a bit of 
 pretty apprentice work, and have no touch of the Master's 
 hand. I hold them to be William Herbert's. Sonnet 130, 
 likewise, is as palpably different from the others near it 
 as it would appear if printed in red uik whilst the rest 
 were all printed in black. It does not wear the vestiu'e of 
 Shakspeare's mind ; has neither the dark depth of his 
 thought nor the smihng surface of his expression. It is 
 in fact an imitation of sonnet 21, p. 132, wdiich says : — 
 
 ' ! let me, true in love, but truly write, 
 And then, believe me, my Love is as fair 
 As any mother's child, tho' not so bright 
 As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air.' 
 
 The early sonnet is a protest against the use of false 
 comparisons for the purpose of flattery, and the latter con- 
 cludes with the hnes : — 
 
 ' And yet, by heaven, I think my Love as rare 
 As any she belied with false compare.' 
 
 to be found in the ' Forest of Fancy,' a very rare and interesting old col- 
 lection, 'Imprinted by Thos. Purfoote, dwelling in Newgate Market, within 
 the New Reut;s, at the sign of ' Lucrece/ London, lo7i).
 
 344 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 It is also a tliird address to the Mistress's eyes ; moreover 
 I do not think Shakspeare woukl liave made ivires grow ! 
 A different kind of repetition occurs in sonnet 9G, one that 
 it is impossible to explain on the personal theory : — 
 
 * But do not so, I love thee in such sort, 
 As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.' 
 
 Tliese lines have been used once before in sonnet 3C (p. 177), 
 where the feeling has the eagerness and purity of truest 
 love, and they are repeated in a spirit of sheer mockery ; 
 the comparisons are sarcastic, and the plea of the repeated 
 hues is intentionally and utterly ironic. My explanation 
 of this is that the sonnet is one of Herbert's ; that he being, 
 possibly in the way 1 have shown, in possession of a copy 
 of the Southampton Sonnets, took the liberty of quoting 
 two lines of one of them, which were very suitable to 
 his purpose, because susceptible of a double meaning. 
 I find it next to impossible to read as Shakspeare's the 
 lumbering line — 
 
 ' Thou mah^st faults graces that to thee resort.' 
 
 He does not stumble amongst the consonants in that way ; 
 Ills sense of accent and the rehef of alliteration were too 
 true. 
 
 The curious in such matters may find in Herbert's own 
 Poems ^ proof that the writer of them is one in nature, 
 age and taste with the speaker of these sonnets. There is 
 proof in his own handwriting, so to say, that he was per- 
 sonally a sufferer from exactly such a passion as is here 
 painted, and that he addressed a lady, the very same in 
 character and kind of charm, as is here imaged by Shak- 
 speare — not as an object of worship, but for the purpose 
 
 1 Poems, written by William, Eari of Pembroke, many of wbich are 
 answered by Sir "William liudyard ; with otber poems written by them, 
 occasionally and apart. lOoO. Of these poems Mr. Ilallam observes: 
 * Some are grossly indecent, but they throw no light whatever on the 
 Sonnets of Shakspeare.'
 
 THE SAME L.ADY .VBDEESSED BY IIEI^BERT. 845 
 
 of disparagement and depreciation, Tliis was not tlie lady 
 who afterwards became the celebrated Countess of Devon- 
 shire. That lady, we are told, was the object of Herbert's 
 'chaste idolatry;' this lady of whom we speak was just 
 the reverse. He has presented her pictiu-e in some lines 
 replying to a friend avIio had flatly given his opuiion of the 
 lady, and wondered what the young Earl could see in her 
 to admire : — 
 
 ' One with admiration' told me, 
 
 He did wouder much and marvel, 
 (As, hy chance, he did behold ye) 
 How I could become so servile 
 To thy beauty, which he swears 
 Every alehouse lattice wears. 
 
 ' Then he frames a second motion, 
 
 From thy revoluting eyes. 
 
 Saying — such a wanton motion 
 
 From their lustre did arise. 
 
 That of force thou could'st not be 
 From the shame of women free ! ' 
 
 This is the lady of the latter sonnets, feature by feature ; 
 her whole character summed up briefly with a perfect 
 tally. Sonnet 131 says — 
 
 ' So77ie say that thee behold, 
 Thy face hath not the jpower to make love groan.' 
 
 Here is the same servility to the beauty that is quite m- 
 commensurate in appearance to the efiects which it pro- 
 duces — the beauty so accosting that it is merely a sign hke 
 that of an alehouse, which aptly expresses the ' wide 
 world's connnonplace ' of sonnet 137 — the servility felt 
 by the ' proud heart's slave and vassal wretch ' of sonnet 
 141. Then there is the very motion of those eyes so 
 often dwelt on in the sonnets, and, looking in at their 
 windows, we see the same interior, the same fire aglow. 
 
 I < 
 
 Vduiii-aliou,' i.e. Surprise.
 
 346 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the same picture of Paplios. One of Herbert's poems, com- 
 mencing ' Oh, do not tax me with a brutish love,' is aUke 
 in argument with sonnet 141 ; and all through there is 
 the same inexphcable infatuation, though this is rendered 
 so much more powerfully by the hand of Shakspeare. 
 Havimx reached the conclusion, then, that William Herbert 
 is the ' Will ' of these latter sonnets, it further appears to 
 me that aU the probabilities point to one person, and all 
 the evidence tends to the identification of Penelope Eich 
 as the lady addressed. 
 
 We might fairly enough assume that these sonnets 
 were in some way an issue of the earher ones ; or that 
 the same friends and acquaintances are bound up by some 
 personal link of connection in the Book as they were 
 in hfe and in their relation to the Poet. However diverse 
 in subject they may be, we cannot but infer that there is 
 some meetmg-place of the same persons from the fact, that 
 the sonnets come to us as Shakspeare's Sonnets, un- 
 doubtedly gathered up by one of the friends who knew 
 of their unity. Then the way in which they are mixed 
 most curiously illustrates the intimacy of the persons, 
 and the interchange of the sonnets. Thus we find some of 
 Elizabeth Vernon's in company with those addressed 
 to the other lady, and some of the ' dark ' lady's mixed 
 up with Elizabeth Vernon's. Also the two sonnets which 
 were printed in the ' Passionate Pilgrim ' were single 
 sonnets belonging to two separate stories, and yet they 
 come into print together, which has a look of their 
 having met in the hands of one and the same person, who 
 was tlie ol:)ject of both. If it be Lady Eich in the one 
 sonnet, it will be in the other. 
 
 The testimony of character, too, is very conclusive. 
 Even with the personal interpretation, it has been taken 
 for granted that the lady whom Shakspeare is supposed 
 to have loved so madly in these latter sonnets was one 
 with the Mistress of whom the friend was supposed to
 
 LADY RICH THE ' LASCR'IOUS GRACE.' 347 
 
 have robbed the Poet in the earUer ones, and this proba- 
 ])ility is vastly increased by the present reading. The 
 lady of whom Elizabeth Vernon is jealous and afraid 
 possesses the closest natural affinity to the Circe of these 
 latter sonnets. We have only to allow for the deeper 
 hues into which such a cliaracter rapidly darkens for the 
 likeness to be dramatically perfect. In sonnets 40 and 41 
 (pp. 208 and 210) she is the wanton wooer of another wo- 
 man's lover, and the ' Lascivious Grace,' with such power 
 in transforming evil into an appearance of good that all ill 
 shows well in her ; and in sonnet 150, there is the same 
 '■becoming of things ill.'' In the Jealousy sonnets her '■foul 
 pride^' her ' steel bosom,' and her ' cruel eye' are dwelt 
 upon by one victim of her iron rule and imperious 
 will. The same character, the precise characteristics, 
 are reproduced here, where another victim is made bitterly 
 to feel her tyrannizing power ; there is the same command- 
 ing motion of the pecuhar eyes, the same cruel pride in 
 their power to enthrall ; the same matters for that public 
 gossip which has grown bolder with her name, as her 
 reputation has become worse. Matters are now more 
 serious, and the language has gro^vn more emphatic, 
 but the lady is one with the ' woman coloured ill,' in 
 sonnet 144 (p. 205), and hkely enough to lead souls to 
 hell — the same as her of whose ' false adulterate eyes ' 
 we catch a glance in sonnet 121 (p, 271); the same 
 person as is mocldngly addressed in the seventh sonnet 
 of the present group : — 
 
 * Thou maFst faults graces that to thee resort. 
 As on the finger of a tlironeJ Queen, 
 The basest jewel will be well-esteemed : 
 So are those errors that in thee are seen. 
 To truths translated and for true things deemed. 
 
 With this evidence alone I could venture to submit my 
 case, whether the object of Elizabeth Vernon's Jealousy 
 and the so-called ' dark lady ' of these sonnets be not one
 
 348 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONXETS. 
 
 and the same person, because of my great reliance on 
 Shakspeare's dramatic perception, and truth to nature in 
 all that he paints, whether manipidating minutely or only 
 giving an apparently careless stroke. But I shall be able 
 to produce the most satisfactory proof that this is the same 
 lady, and that she is none other than the Cleopatra of the 
 Elizabethan Court, Lady Penelope Eich ! 
 
 When once we have discovered a speaker for these 
 sonnets who is in every way a more befitting person than 
 the Poet himself, and we couple with them the name of 
 Lady Eich, a whole host of suggestions and illustrations 
 start up to enforce the conjecture that she is the lady 
 addressed ; the object of this blind and frantic passion. 
 Her coarser character in later hfe could not have been 
 more exactly rendered than it is in these sonnets. They 
 read hke the plainest comments on the well-known facts 
 of her career. Li the year 1600 she had lost the Queen's 
 favour, says the historian Camden, because she was more 
 than suspected of being false to her husband's bed. And 
 sonnets 142 and 152, written about the same time, contain 
 the bluntest statement of this precise charge. 
 
 King James told Mountjoy that he had '-purchased a 
 fair woman ivith a black soul.' So the lover in these sonnets 
 denounces the lady as having a heart black enough to be 
 the devil's looking-glass, but full of fatal witchery herself. 
 In sonnet 131 he says : — 
 
 ' In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds.' 
 
 And in sonnet 147 — 
 
 ' I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright. 
 Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.' 
 
 The Ijlack eyes of Lady Eich were a subject of constant 
 comment in her time, and frequently was their colour 
 associated with another kind of blackness. It was divined 
 that her startling combination of fair and dark was in 
 some degree the outward symbol of her curious moral
 
 SIDNEY'S STELLA. 349 
 
 mixture. There is a liiiit of tliis in a letter of the Earl 
 of Nottingham, who, in writing to Lord Moimtjoy, twits 
 him respecting these same black eyes. He says, ' I think 
 her Majesty would be most glad to see and look upon 
 your black eyes here, so she were sure you icould not look 
 with too much respect of other black eyes.' ' But for that,' 
 sa3's the old gallant past sixty, 'if the Admiral (him- 
 self) were but thirty years old, I think he would not differ 
 in opinion from the Lord Mountjoy.'^ The lady of these 
 sonnets is one in pride of spirit with her to whose power 
 Essex paid unconscious tribute when he spoke of his 
 sister's strength of mind and force of character, and proved 
 his own miserable weakness : ' She must be looked to, for 
 she has a proud spirit.' This was cowardly on the part 
 of a brother, but he spoke the bitter truth of her who had 
 been the master spirit of his intrigues with James of Scot- 
 land, and who helped to hurry on his own weakness until 
 his folly met its fate. 
 
 Not only have we the nature, the age, the eyes, of 
 Lady Eicli accurately dehneated, but sonnet 135 contains 
 a play upon her name, and this occurs in a manner too 
 remarkable for it to have been mere coincidence. The 
 sonnet is an echo to one of Sidney's — his 37th, in which 
 the name of ' Rich^ is played upon throughout : — 
 
 ' Towards Aurora's Court a nymph doth dwell, 
 Rich iu all beauties which man's eye can see ; 
 Beauties so far from reach of words that we 
 Abase her praise, saying she doth excel : 
 Rich in the treasure of deserved renown, 
 Rich in the riches of a royal heart. 
 Rich in those gifts Avhich give the eternal cro^vn, 
 Who, thotigh most Rich in these and every part 
 Which makes the patents of true earthly bliss, 
 llath no misfortune but that Rich she is.' 
 
 Shaks])eare's 135th sonnet (the 8tli here) is a manifest 
 imitation of this : — 
 
 ' Brewer, 14— IS.
 
 350 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 ' Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ivill, 
 And luill to boot, and tvill in over-plus ; 
 INIore than enough am I that vex thee still. 
 To thy sweet will making addition thus : 
 Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious. 
 Not once vouchsafe to hide my ivill in thine ? 
 Shall luill in others seem right gracious. 
 And in my ivill no fair acceptance shine? 
 The sea, all water, yet receives rain still. 
 And in abundance addeth to his store ; 
 So thou, being EiCH in ivill, add to thy ivill 
 One ivill of mine, to make thy large ivill more : 
 Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. 
 Think all but one, and me in that one Will.^ 
 
 The point of this is that the speaker is ' Will' by name, 
 and the lady by nature ; and the lover playfully proposes 
 to add the two ' Wills' together ; her ivill, or wilful tem- 
 per, is so large that it cannot be much if she will make 
 ' addition thus' to that ' sweet will' of her own by adding 
 him ! In the next sonnet he pleads that, as she is so fond 
 of having her ivill, she should make ' his name her love,' 
 and have her will in the shape of him whose name is 
 ' Will.' In this personification of ivill or wilfulness, we 
 again meet the rival lady to whose high imperious ' will' 
 the speaker in sonnet 133 (p. 209) is a prisoner, and it 
 likewise features the wilful Lady Eich, the breakings-out 
 of whose will were perpetual, and dashed with the true 
 Cleopatra-like audacity, 
 
 Shakspeare's sonnet touches Sidney's most nearly in the 
 eleventh line, which I contend names the object of both. 
 Here the secret is let out quite as palpably as the circum- 
 stances would permit. It teUs the lady's name in a way 
 to make the mind conceive and the eye quicken, if not 
 so emphatically as the speaker announces his own. There 
 is an antithesis suggested which positively proves the in- 
 tention of playing upon the name of 'Eich' in necessary 
 opposition to the name of ' Will.'
 
 THE LADY IS NOT A 'BLACK BEAUTY.' 351 
 
 But there is still further proof of tlie trutli of my inter- 
 j)retation. 
 
 Hitherto it has been assumed that the lady of these 
 sonnets was a black-eyed, black-haired beauty, with a 
 complexion of the swarthiest hue. This must result 
 from her black eyes having unduly influenced the reader's 
 imagination. In the old age, says the first of these sonnets, 
 ' black was not counted fair.' But the Poet is not speak- 
 ing of women whose faces are black ; when he says that 
 black is now your only true beauty, he does not mean 
 ' Blacks,' It is the lady's eyes, not her complexion, that is 
 black. Her character may be black, but her countenance 
 is not : she is neither a blackamoor nor a ' black beauty.' 
 
 Lady Eicli did appear in one of the Court masques, 
 called the '•Masque of Blackness,' as an Ethiop beauty, 
 with her hands, arms, and face blackened to the required 
 tint, whilst her naked white feet dazzled the eyes as they 
 dalhed Avitli a running stream ; but this cannot be the 
 complexion celebrated. Nor did it need Shakspeare 
 to tell us that the negro complexion was not wont to 
 be admired in the antique time. The subject touches in 
 a most particular way the old poetic quarrel respecting 
 the rival charms of black eyes and blue. In the old 
 time the frank eye of bonny Englisli blue, or good honest 
 grey, bore away the palm as the favourite of our Poets. 
 Black eyes were alien to the Northern ideal of beauty. 
 But here is such a triumph of this colour that black 
 is Beauty's only wear. Black eyes and black eyebrows, 
 not a black face nor a dark complexion ! It is the 
 eyes alone that have put on mourning, and become 
 ' pretty mourners.' Now, the eyes would not have j)^^^ 
 on mourning if the face had been very swarth}- ; the hair 
 black; and it is the eyes alone that are 'c<fo suited' in 
 mourning hue. There are two distinct excuses why the 
 eyes should have assumed this mourning and jmt on this 
 black ; neither of which would have had a starting-point
 
 352 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 if the lady had been altogether dark ; tlien it would have 
 been her beauty that was dressed in the mourning-robe, 
 not her eyes and brows alone. 
 
 It Avill be seen tliat there is something very special 
 about these black eyes — in opposition to which some- 
 thing fair is required and implied, or where is the mo- 
 tive? — and when we have lifted tlie veil of mystery 
 through which they have glittered, and behind wdiich 
 the face has been so long concealed, we shall, I think, 
 find that the supposed dark lady of Shakspeare's Sonnets 
 is the famous golden-haired and black-eyed beauty 
 Penelope Eich, the first love of Philip Sidney, the cousin 
 of Ehzabeth Vernon, tlie sister of Essex, the Helen of the 
 Ehzabethan poets. 
 
 She was ' a most triumphant lady, if report be square 
 to her,' whose Hvely blood ran blush-full of the summer 
 in her veins. As wonderful a piece of work as ever 
 Nature cunningly compounded, and her beauty was of the 
 rarest kind known in the North. Sidney, who proclaimed 
 his love for her and his joy therein, ' tho' nations might 
 count it sliame ' and in the heavens set her starry name, 
 has left vivid Venetian paintings of her as the ' Stella ' 
 of his Sonnets, the ' Philoclea ' of his Arcadia — whereby 
 the lady glows in the mind, warm with life once more. 
 She had hair of tawny gold, witli tresses lustrous as those 
 of the Greek day-god. Sidney described them as beams 
 of gold caught in a net. In complexion of face she was 
 nearly a brunette. Her Poet has exactly marked the 
 colour of her cheek as a ' kindly claret,' which is defi- 
 nite as the tint described by Dante as being ' less than 
 that of the rose, but more than that of the violets ;' it is 
 the ripe red that has the purple of peacli-bloom in its dye, 
 and is only seen in tlie deep complexion — hardly ever 
 found with golden hair. 
 
 ' Of all complexions the culled .sovereignty 
 Did meet as at a fair in her fair cheek.'
 
 A TIED BEAUTY. 353 
 
 And lier eyes were black — 'black stars,' Sidney calls them. 
 l\lsew]iere they are twin-r-hildrcn of the Sun, begotten 
 black in the fervour of his aflection. So black were the 
 eyes that those who have attempted to depict them seem 
 to have felt, as they say of their very dark women in 
 Angoulcme, they were ' born when coal was in blossom.'' 
 Sidney calls them eyes ' of touch,' tliat is, of black marble. 
 This opposition of blonde and brunette w^as striking as is 
 the rich gold and the gorgeous black of the humble-bee. 
 Thus her beauty had the utmost contrast and chiaroscuro 
 with which Nature paints the human face. Day, with its 
 golden lights may be said to have dwelt in her hair : Xight 
 and starlight, in her eyes. The light above and the dark 
 below — the fair hair with its Xorthern frankness of smile 
 . and the black burning eyes of the South glittering deadly- 
 brilliant under black velvet eyebrows, with what Keats 
 might have called their fi6>?z diamonding, gave that piquancy 
 of character to her appearance on which the poets loved 
 to dwell. 
 
 An aufjel of liirht at the first ulance : a ' precious visitant,' 
 looking as though just stepped down from heaven, but 
 with Proserpine-like eyes of such mystery you could not 
 tell whether the indwelUng divinity might not be an angel 
 of darkness ; could not get at the spirit in the black mask ! 
 And so she walked as a wonder among men, gathering 
 liearts by impressment under the banner of her strange 
 beauty, and winning such worsliip as foils to but few ; 
 one of those ' earth-ti'eading stars,' as Shakspeare calls 
 them, that come and light up our old world awliile, it may 
 be, on their downward wayfrom that pure heaven in whicli 
 they will shine no more ; one of the women who are just 
 angels falling ! 
 
 The poetry of Sidney is a good deal like a gorgeous 
 Court dress of his time, seamed so stiffly with precious 
 stones and pearls of price that it can almost stand alone, 
 without being used for human wear. But to Lady Eich 
 
 A A
 
 354 SIIAKSPEARFS SONNETS. 
 
 it is indebted for its most life-like breathings of nature 
 and its most visible beatings of a heart beneath. To her 
 beauty we owe those delicious descriptions in which poetry 
 grows divinely dainty, celebrating the outward graces of 
 a woman and consecrating her physical charms. It was 
 Stella's beauty, seen through Philoclea's transparent veil, 
 that inspired some of the loveliest, most movingly delicate 
 things ever said or sung of bodily beauty. This was 
 Stella's hair — 
 
 * Her hair fine threads of finest gold 
 
 In curled knots man's thought to hold.' 
 
 These were Stella's eyes, the 'matchless pair of black 
 stars' — 
 
 ' Their arches be two heavenly lids 
 Whose wink each bold attempt forbids.' 
 
 These were Stella's cheeks — 
 
 * Her cheeks with kindly claret spread, 
 Aurora-like new out of bed.' 
 
 These were Stella's lips — 
 
 * But who those ruddy lips can miss. 
 Which blessed still themselves do kiss ? ' 
 
 These were Stella's pretty pearly ear-tips — 
 
 ' The tip no jewel needs to wear ; 
 The tip is jewel to the ear.' 
 
 It was of Stella that Sidney said — 
 
 * Her shoulders be like two white Doves 
 Perching ! ' 
 
 And of Stella's hand — 
 
 ' Where whiteness doth for ever sit. 
 And there with strange compact do lie 
 Warm snow, moist pearl, soft ivory.' 
 
 And of her foot — 
 
 * In shew and scent, pale Violets 
 Whose step on earth all beauty sets.'
 
 IDEXTIFICATIOX OF THE 'MOURNING EYES.' ;}."j 
 
 And after recounting her outer ])erfections with the purity 
 of a spirit wliose "warmest tliouglits walk naturally in 
 white, he tells how all this beauty is l)ut 
 
 *the fair Inn 
 Of fairer guests which dwell witliiu.' 
 
 There is a lovely description of the same lady weeping 
 in the thii'd book of the 'Arcadia.' ' Her tears came 
 dropping down like rain in sunshine, and she, not taking 
 heed to wipe the tears, they hung upon her cheeks and 
 lips as upon cherries wdiicli the dropping tree bedeweth.' 
 But the chief point of attraction now, as in her life-time, 
 is the lady's eyes. It was the wonder of Sidney why, 
 with such light hair and face so fair that the roses blushed 
 and drooped half-dotingly, half-enviously to see the deeper 
 bloom in her cheek, these eyes should have been so black ! 
 He asks did Nature make them so, like a cunning painter, 
 on purpose to produce the utmost effect of light and 
 shade ! 
 
 ' When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes, 
 In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright? 
 Would she in beam}' black, like painter wise, 
 
 Frame daintiest lustre, mi.xed of shades and liorht ? 
 Or did she, else, that sober hue devise. 
 
 In object best to knit and strength our sight. 
 Lest, if no veil those Lrave gleams did disguise, 
 
 They, sunlike, should more dazzle than delight ? 
 Or, would she Iter niimculuus pmcer show. 
 
 That luhcrcas black seems Beauty's contrary^ 
 She even in black doth make all beaut ij flow, 
 
 Both so, and thus, she, minding Love should be 
 Placed ever there, gave him his mourning weed, 
 To honour all their deaths who for him bleed.' 
 
 These same )nouruing l'Jcs hvq ihoso of • riiiloclea,' and 
 the Poet has the very thought in prose ('Arcadia' p. 95), 
 ' Her black eyes, black indeed, whether Aature so made 
 them that ice might be the more able to behold and bear 
 
 A A '.i
 
 356 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 their iconderful shininq, or that she, goddess-hke, would 
 woi'k this miracle with herself^ in giving blackness the 
 price above all beauty !' And these are the eyes of Pene- 
 lope Eich, tlie 'only Philoclea!' The eyes that consti- 
 tuted the feature on which her singers always settled as 
 they ranged over her beauties with the honeyed murmurs 
 of bees busy in a world of flowers ! And in tlieir dark 
 depths lies the imfatliomed secret of these latter sonnets. 
 Here are the mourning eyes, and the very miracle which 
 Nature wrought in one particular person to set blackness 
 above all beauty. Shakspeare adopts and expands the 
 ingenious idea used twice by Sidney : he adds other reasons 
 for the eyes appearing in mourning, but the elfin-bright 
 black eyes are the same ! In fact, suggestions from 
 Sidney are the germ of these latter sonnets, just as with 
 the earliest ones ! 
 
 The lady of Sidney's description, then, is not a person of 
 the ordinary dark and swarthy complexion, with hair of 
 blue-black lustre, although he speaks of Kature setting 
 blackness above all beauty ; nor is the lady of Shakspeare's 
 Sonnets ; the blackness which he also celebrates as the 
 only beauty is of the eyes, not of the face and hair. But 
 the blackness of tlie eyes and the blackness of her cha- 
 racter have blended to dye these sonnets and made the 
 lady look dark indeed. 
 
 Tlie opening sonnet is of necessity founded on such a 
 contrast as was only to be met in the complexion of Lady 
 Piich. The argument is that since the painting of faces 
 and dyeing of hair have become so common, here, in this 
 peculiar combination of black and fair, this triumph of 
 Nature's most cunning workmanship is Beauty's only j^lace 
 of worship. 
 
 The fashion at Elizabeth's Court was to imitate the 
 hair of the Queen. If the painter of an early portrait of 
 her Majesty is to be trusted, her hair must have been of 
 a ruddy gold, somewhat like the bark of the Scotch fir
 
 WE MUST READ BETWEICX THE LINES. 357 
 
 seen in the glow of sunset. Tliis natural hue was after- 
 wards mahitained by artifice. The practice of dyeing 
 hair became as prevalent as it is to-day in Paris. The 
 dead were robbed of tlieir tresses, and, as we are told by 
 Stubbes, ladies were accustomed to allure children into 
 private places to snatch a grace from Nature by stealing 
 their fair locks. Therefore, because of this,^ ' my Mistress' 
 eyes are raven black,' says the speaker, tliey have gone 
 into mourning on this account, and so well does this black 
 become them in spite of the implied contrast, that every 
 tongue says ' Beauty should look so ! '— should appear in 
 this pattern which owes nothing to Art and cannot be 
 imitated. 
 
 If these be the jetty eyes of Lady Rich, wliere then are 
 the tresses of the Su'en's own colour, tlie Mermaid's 
 yellow, which the Poets so harped upon? Sonnet 130 says, 
 ' if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head ;' but I 
 have said enou^di to indicate that these sonnets are not 
 to be fathomed by- the careless, casual glance with which 
 they have as yet been read. They have many covert 
 meanings that have hitherto lurked privily. AVe nuist 
 learn to read between the lines. They tell a secret history 
 in cypher of which we have never before possessed the key. 
 I repeat, the element of irony enters into tlieir composition. 
 In sonnet 1 88 it is irony in a smiling mood ; in 9G, it 
 grows bitter, it jests with the lady's age — ' some say thy 
 lault is youth" — it pleads with her not to play the part 
 of Wolf in Sheep's clothing — woi to assume a lamb like 
 innocence of look on pm'pose to lead the gazers astray. 
 ' Do not so I love thee in such sort 
 A.s tlioii, being mine, mine is thy yood report.' 
 
 And this sonnet 130 is full of irony of the subtlest kind — 
 that which makes its mock in smootli words of smiliiiu' 
 
 ' Our Poet's dis<,'Uhit nuitft luivo been very strong on the subject ot" these 
 practices, frequent expressions of which escape botli in the sonnets and 
 plays. ' Excellently done, »/ God did idl,' exclaims ^■iola at first sight of 
 Olivia's luiveiled beautv.
 
 853 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 dissimulation — wins the ear of tlie person addressed witli 
 a low loving whisper, and makes her lean expectant of some- 
 thing sweet in her commendation, to find that the word 
 of promise is craftily qualified — breathed to the ear and 
 broken to the heart. This is what Puttenham calls giving 
 the ' privy nippe,' the sly pinch of disparagement under the 
 pretended fondling of praise ; it is serving up the honey 
 with a sting in it. ' There's no such sport as sport by sport 
 o'erthrown,' says the Princess in ' Love's Labour's Lost ; ' 
 and tliis is the sort of sport which the speaker here makes 
 ■with the lady who has made sport of him, and pastime of his 
 passion. He is showing that he can ' gleek upon occasion.' 
 The ultention of the sonnet is to decry and depreciate under 
 an assumed guise of praise. Ko one can suppose, for ex- 
 ample, if the lady's breasts were dun-coloured, that the fact 
 was mentioned for the sake of flattery, or that the description 
 of the breath reeMng from her indicates any niceness of 
 feeling ! Tlie apparent frankness of statement is not meant 
 to please, but to take in and entrap the unwary seeker of 
 flattery. It is a bit of malicious subtlety to call the lady's hair 
 ' black wires,' which was so often be-sung as golden hair ; 
 and she had been so vain of its mellow splendour — so proud 
 of its repute ! The use of tlie word ' wires' points to this 
 ironic reading, for the primary comparison of hair with 
 'wnre ' is when it is golden — tlie golden wire which was made 
 when Apollo's lute was strung with his sunny hair. It is 
 always golden wires that hair is likened to in our poetry. 
 It is not tlie quality of the hair, not the wiryness^ as we 
 say, l)ut the colour that is meant to he decried, and the ex- 
 pression is ' hlach wires,' whicli, by implication, points to 
 a far dlfleront colour. If it were necessary I might parry 
 this expression with another which was made equally at 
 random, and not meant to be a statement of fact — 
 
 * In nothing art thou hlach, save in thy deeds.' 
 
 13ut there is the '?/' to be considered — 'much virtue in
 
 THE SAME LADY, THOUGH SOMEWHAT CHANGED. 3o9 
 
 ail " if! " ' — ' If liairs be ^vires,' says tlie speaker, ' black 
 wires grow on her head.' So that the 'black' is only used 
 conditionally, and the ftict remains that 'hairs' are not 
 ' wires.' The lady's hair was just as much black as her 
 breasts were ' diui^ ' and no more. It is the eyes alone 
 that have put on black — that ' sweet black which veib 
 her heavenly eye,' as Sidney describes it in his 20th sonnet. 
 This is proved by sonnet 132, where the eyes only are in 
 mourning, and the speaker says how well this mournnig, 
 wliicli the eyes have put on, becomes her, in spite of the 
 admitted incongruity, and lie continues — 
 
 * let it then as well beseem thy heart 
 To mourn for me, since mourning- doth thee grace. 
 And suit iJty pity like in every 'part I' 
 
 Tliere is no mention of black hair or swarthy skin, but if she 
 will do this and go into mourning altogetlier, then he will 
 
 * Swear Beauty herself is black. 
 And all they foul that thy complexion lack.' 
 
 This 130th sonnet is not intended as a true description of 
 the lady, but such a deprecation as shall serve to confess 
 the speaker's fatuity, and mock a coquette's vanity. 
 
 Of course if Penelope Eich be the lady of these sonnets, 
 she is not the Lady Eich of Sidney's love. Time and the 
 turn of things have had their way. She is now getting on 
 for forty, althougli one of those who never do feel forty. Tlie 
 lustres of youtli have somewhat dimmed ; the splendour 
 of her beauty has been doubly tarnished. Besides, it is 
 not the wiiter's cue to praise, the description is not in- 
 tended to flatter. He never meant to laud tlie golden 
 garniture of her sunshiny head — the ' yellow locks that 
 shone so bright and long ' in Spenser's verse, and glowed 
 so in Sidney's eyes. (Moreover, I hold this 130th sonnet to 
 be Herbert's and lacking Shakspeare's certainty of touch !) 
 Iler cheeks also are compared to the ' grey cheeks of the 
 cast,' and the 'sober west' in their faded paleness, lia\iiig
 
 360 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 lost the 5'Oimg red that used to flush up wlien the smile 
 took its rosy rise from the cupid-coriiered moutli, and 
 spread over them in a soft auroral bloom, ' as of rose- 
 leaves a little stirred ' with the warm breath of Sidney's 
 love. This is Lady liicli with the spring-freshness gone, 
 the blusliing graces withdrawn. Lady Eich in the rem- 
 nant of her loveliness and I'cfuse of her deeds ! But 
 chansfinoj as she is, there is all the old fire, and in her 
 plainness she is proudly cruel as those who are in the 
 first blush of their budding-time. And the black eyes 
 remain imperial as of old in their infatuating charm ; 
 cunning as ever in the black art of their beauty — full of 
 the old spells, with a power to haunt like the weird 
 eyes of a dream. There is a reminder too of Stella's eyes 
 in ' tliat full Star that ushers in the Even.' 
 
 Tlie nature of Herbert's passion, and the deepening 
 shadows of Lady Eich's character made it impossible, had 
 he been so minded, for Shakspeare to laud her like 
 Sidney liad done, as ' that virtuous soul, sure heir of 
 heavenly bliss V and '■rich in those gifts which give the 
 eternal crown.'' Nor did he look on her through Sidney's 
 eyes. He had seen and heard of her later gifts and 
 graces. Yet, in spite of tlie toucli of time, and the waste 
 of a passionate life in her intense face — in spite of the 
 descriptions wliicii so tend to defeature the image set up 
 by Sidney — we recognise the lady of the mourning eyes, 
 the complexion beyond the reach of Art, whose blackness 
 was above all otlier beauty, and know her by the original 
 likeness that passes all likeness of imitation. 
 
 Apart from otlier evidence, there must be some })ar- 
 ticular meaning in Sliakspeare's repeated description of 
 the eyes having put on mourning, and tlie arguments 
 being so perfectly those of Sidney, when the peculiarity 
 Avas so singular, the complexion so rare and without 
 rival as to constitute a title to fame, for the first poitrait 
 f)f Lady Eich, wc must r('meml)er, appears in tlie work
 
 VERY UNUSUAL IXDIVIDUALISATIOX. 301 
 
 that was -written for William llci'bert's inotlier, and it 
 reappears in tliese sonnets written for the son. Besides 
 which this dwelling upon a featm'e is so thoroughly 
 opposed to Shakspeare's usual way of Avorking. Ex- 
 cept for a humorous purpose, as in the case of Bar- 
 dolph's firebrand of a nose, and FalstaflTs mountain of a 
 belly, it is not his habit to mnke featureli/ remarks, or to 
 map out his characters by any of their particular physical 
 signs. We do not remember Shakspeare's men and wo- 
 men, as a rule, by their personal featiu'es. Not that the 
 poet generalises them into vagueness, but the instinct of 
 the Actor was alive to the fact that any stereotyped set of 
 features would have interfered Avitli the ])erfect pourtrayal 
 in action. The girth of Falstaff is always a difficulty, be- 
 cause the idea which has been given to the spectators 
 must be acted up to ! And Shakspeare wisely abstained 
 from giving liis own set of faces and features, which must 
 have left but little or no latitude in playing. He gives us 
 the spirit of the character minutely fuiished, but leaves the 
 ])hysical face a good deal to the actor, and thus alloA\'s 
 scope to the imagination, and a great possible variety 
 of ' filling in' ; this he does wdth so careless an air, but 
 such cunning of hand, that he is gone before we have 
 noted it ! So that there must be some very uncom- 
 mon cau>^e for these repetitions of the ' mourning eyes,' 
 and this frequent looking into their unfiithomable dark- 
 ness. For I shall show that these eyes haunted the im- 
 agination of Shakspeare as much as they did that of any 
 other Ehzabethan poet. There is notliing like it in the South- 
 ampton sonnets ; no such dwelling on a j^articular feature. 
 Therefore the explanation must be sought in the nature of 
 the object, and there is snllicient internal evidence to 
 show tluit in the })res(.'nt instance Shakspeare and Sidney 
 both drew from one original, and that the one poet re- 
 peated the other's description because he was a})plying it 
 to the same ladv.
 
 502 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 The sentiment in these sonnets of the eyes in mourning 
 and of hlach being the sole beauty, together with the 
 argument for the eyes and brows being black, when, 
 according to the other parts, they ought not to he so^ is 
 only a repetition, curiously complete, from the play of 
 ' Love's Labour's Lost.' It is there applied to ' Eosaline' 
 by Lord Biron. Again the same mistake has occurred. 
 Eosaline is not a dark lady in the ordinary sense. It is the 
 remarka])le complexion of Lady Eich once more. It is 
 the peerless eyes of 'Stella' that have burned on Lord Biron 
 and made his temperament all tinder to their sparks — 
 ' Oh, but her eye ! by this light, but for her eye, I would 
 not love her : yes, but for her two eyes ' — tlie startling 
 strangeness of her black eyes and eyebrows, under the 
 tawny yellow hair, that excites the jesting comments of tlie 
 merry mocking lords. The peculiarity of wdiich they make 
 fun is something beyond a dark skin : that would not ex- 
 plain the pleasant conceit wliich moves their mirth. Lord 
 Biron only defends the lady's eyes and brows, on account 
 of blackness, and Sliakspeare would not have written in 
 this manner had tlie case been simple as supposed. 
 
 * 0, who can give an oath ? where is a book ? 
 That I may swear Beauty doth beauty lack, 
 If that she learn not of her eye to look : 
 No face is fair that is not full so black. 
 0, 'if in black my lady''s brow be decked 
 It TYiourns that painting and usurping hair. 
 Should ravish doters with a false aspect. 
 And therefore is she born to make black fair. 
 Her favour turns tJte fashion of these days, 
 For native blood is counted painting now ; 
 And therefore red that would avoid dispraise 
 Paints itself black to imitate her brow.' 
 
 It is the eyes and brows that are black, not the hair, 
 nor the swarthiness of skin. 
 
 ' No face is fair that is not full so black.'
 
 ONLY ONE LADY OF TIIE ' MOURNING EYES.' 303 
 
 It is the red eyebrow that Avas bhickenetl to avoid dis- 
 praise, not the red head of hair. Xow, as ruddy golden 
 hair was tlie fasliioii of Elizabeth's days, if Eosaline's hair 
 had been black, the others ought to have dyed their hair 
 as well as their eyebrows. The statement carefully 
 confines the comparison to the lady's eyes and brow. 
 Evidently her hair was in fashion. The eyes and the 
 brow alone mourned over the falsehood of other com- 
 plexions, with which tricks were pla3^ed artificially. The 
 perfect contrast of her complexion was a trick of Nature's 
 own ; not to be approached by any cunningnesses of Art. 
 Elsewhere Biron calls the lady 
 
 ' A witty' wanton with a velvet brow, 
 AVitli two jjitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes.' 
 
 The eyes are ' stuck in,' not as naturally belojiging. The 
 description is the same as that of the sonnets : ' Those 
 two mourning eyes!' it is also one with Sidney's, and the 
 sole meeting-place of all three is the person and com- 
 l)lexion of Lady Rich. Biron's indication of Rosaline's 
 character is also full of likeness. There is, moreover, the 
 same personification of that will to which Elizabeth Ver- 
 non was ' mortgaged \'' the Will that is so punned upon. 
 
 ' Biron. Is she wedded or no ? 
 Boyet. To her will, sir, or so.' 
 
 And anotlier resemblance in colour. Tlie Kinu- in the 
 Play exclaims 
 
 'l>l;u-k is the Ixulge of he!I, 
 The hue of dungeons, and the scoivl^ of night.' 
 
 ' I ciuiiiot tliink Shalvspeare wrote n ' whitehj wanton ; ' he certainly could 
 not in the .sense of a sjiUow luce or ' cheek of cream,' because Biron savs : 
 
 * Of all complpxions the culled sovereignty 
 J)o moot as at a fair in her fair chock, 
 "NMiere several worthies make one dijrnitv, 
 "Where nothing wants that Want itself doth seek.' 
 
 "^ Here, I think, my interpretation will determine a disputed reading-. 
 The king is deciung those brows which have ptd on blackness as the night
 
 364 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 The lady of tlie sonnets is called 
 
 * As black as hell, as dark as night.' 
 
 This repetition in the latter sonnets from an early play 
 is the most remarkable in all Shakspeare's writings, and it 
 reverses his usual custom, which is to repeat in the play, 
 from the sonnet wlienever he quotes himself The only 
 satisfactory solution is that the description was written 
 and repeated for the same person, and all the evidence 
 concurs, all the points converge in the inevitable conclu- 
 sion that this was Lady Eich. There was but one Lady 
 Eich ; a woman who bad no living likeness, and her lady- 
 ship is the only possible '•she' of these. descriptions which 
 are not presentments of an ordinary dark complexion, but 
 of a complexion that was the most extraordinary. 
 
 Thus we have Penelope Eich identified as the lady of 
 the latter sonnets, by the portrait which Sidney drew and 
 Shakspeare copied. She is identified as the cousm of 
 Ehzabeth Vernon — the 'Lascivious Grace' that intrigued 
 for purposes amatory and political — the witch-woman 
 who had strange cunning in quickening men's pulses — the 
 tyrant in her capricious power of plaguing. ^Ve have 
 her identified by the very facts of her married life, her age 
 in contrast with Herbert's youth, her ill deeds and darken- 
 ing reputation ; by tlie mysterious union of opposites in her 
 complexion — the 'light condition in a beauty dark,' and 
 by the starry immortality of her strange black eyes ; in 
 short, we have tlie Lady Eich, in feature, and in fame ; 
 the Lady Eich by nature, and by name. 
 
 The Historian Clarendon, in liis portrait of the Earl of 
 Pembroke, makes a statement very much akin to my 
 reading of these latter sonnets as spoken by Wilham Her- 
 bert to Lady Eich. He remarks 'the Earl was immode- 
 rately given up to women. But, tlierein lie Ukewise 
 
 puts on its scowl. In the kings eyes the black brows .are repulsive, on ac- 
 count of the contrast implied, and he likens their colour to the scowl on the 
 brow of Night.
 
 CLAr.ENDON'SDESCIJIITION' OK IIKUBEnTS PASSION. .305 
 
 retained such a power and jurisdiction over his appetite 
 that lie was not so much transported with l^eauty and 
 outward aUurements as with those advantages of tlie 
 mind, as manifested an extraordinary wit, and spirit, 
 and knowledge, and administered great pleasure in the 
 conversation. To these he sacrificed himself, his precious 
 time, and mucli of his fortune ; and some, who icere 
 nearest his trust and friendship, were not without appre- 
 hension that his natural vivacity and vigour of mind 
 began to lessen and decline by those excessive in- 
 dulgences.' Tliis is the exact replica of the character 
 and taste of Shakspeare's speaker. It is a perfect parallel 
 to the 141st sonnet. Throughout the sonnets, the 
 speaker keeps saying it is not the outward allure- 
 ments of the lady's loveliness, that hold his foolish heart 
 captive : not her hair, nor her complexion, nor her face — 
 these have not sufiicient beauty to account for his subser- 
 viency. The eyes, of course, have their charm ; they 
 are the windows from whence looks a spirit wonderful in 
 wit and wantoness, and in its ripest age of power; the 
 potent spirit that by word or look can bind him fast in 
 strong invisible toils. lie protests he is not the slave 
 of his senses, but that neither senses nor wits can dissuade 
 him from loving her. Then, if the character of the speaker 
 in tliese sonnets is true to the one portrayed by Clarendon, 
 the character of the Earl's ' particular vanities' is precisely 
 that of the lady here addressed and of the Lady Eich, 
 about the vear IGOO. Tlie o;losses of her vouth were 
 going ; the flower had shed its purest perfume ; those that 
 once ' kneeled to the rose-bud ' might ' stop their noses ' 
 against the rose over-blown. But, her mauic in workiu"- 
 on the heart, and Hinging a glamour over the eyes of a 
 youth, must have attained its supremest sulitlety. She 
 had a keen wit ; was sprightly in conversation, and could 
 say things full of salt and sjxirkle as a wave of the sea. 
 Iler hardened feelings had taken a diamond-like point.
 
 3G6 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Her natural simplicities of the early time were now craftily 
 turned into conscious art. Practice had made her perfect 
 in the use of those conquering eyes when they took aim 
 with their deadly level in the dark. She was mistress of a 
 combination of forces most fatal to a young and fervent 
 admirer ; knew well liow to feed liis flame, and could 
 turn her own years into a maturer charm for his youth. 
 And as the Herbert of Clarendon's portrait is one in 
 character with the speaker of these sonnets, and as the 
 lady of the sonnets is the fittest of types for the females 
 quoted by the Historian as being so victorious over 
 the Earl, it is but reasonable to suj^pose that Lady Eicli 
 may have sat for Clarendon's description as well as for 
 Shakspeare's. The Poet would not be tlie only person 
 conversant witli the Earl's passion for this lady. The 
 knowledge would be extant, the fiict would still live on 
 in the memory of Clarendon's older friends — one or more 
 of whom may have been the very friends of Herbert re- 
 ferred to — when he wrote his history. It is obvious that 
 he had in mind particular instances from whicli he gene- 
 ralised his description, and it is certain that no more per- 
 fect illustration of his meaning could have existed than in 
 tlie person and character of Lady Eich.
 
 nn? 
 
 DRAMATIC SONNETS. 
 
 1599-1600. 
 
 WILLIAM HERBERT'S PASSION FOR LADY RICH. 
 
 In the old age black was not counted fiiir, 
 Or if it were, it bore not Beauty's name ; 
 But now is black Beauty's successive heir, 
 And Beaut V slandered with a bastard shame : 
 For since each hand hath put on Nature's power, 
 Fairing the foul with Art's false-borrowed face. 
 Sweet Beauty hath no name, no holy hour,^ 
 But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace : 
 Therefore my Mistress' eyes'^ are raven black. 
 Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem 
 At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack. 
 Slandering creation with a false esteem : 
 
 Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe. 
 That every tongue savs, ' Beauty should look so I' 
 
 (127.) 
 
 ' ' No holy hour. The Quarto reads ' bower.' >ralone made tlie altera- 
 tion, whicli is very happy. The idea is of the hour of worship : this is shown 
 by the 'profaned' of the next line. Also see sonnet 68 : — 
 
 ' In him those holy antique hours (of beauty) are seen.' 
 
 ' * ^fy mistress' eyes,' These eyes are .so dwelt upon, and the lady's hair 
 is .so obviously omitted as to suggest a something qxiito miaccouiilable. 
 Walker fancied the ' eyes ' of this line might have been a misprint for 
 * hairs.' The editors of the * Globe ' and ' Gem ' editions, acting on this 
 hint, have taken a leap in the dark, and printed * brows.' By ' her eyes so 
 suited,' Shakspeare did not mean also, but her eyes thus dressed in black. 
 A repetition which lays a double stress upon the eyes.
 
 308 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, 
 
 Knowing- thy heart torments me with disdain, 
 
 Have put on black, and loving mourners be, 
 
 liOoking with pretty ruth upon my pain : 
 
 And truly not the morning sun of heaven 
 
 Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, 
 
 Nor that full star that ushers in the even 
 
 Doth half that glory to the sober west. 
 
 As those two moiu-ning eyes become thy face :' 
 
 O, let it then as well beseem thy heart 
 
 To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, 
 
 And suit thy pity like in every part : 
 
 Then will I swear Beauty herself is black, 
 
 And all they foul that thy complexion lack. (i32.) 
 
 How oft when thou, my Music, music playest 
 Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds 
 With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently swayest 
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds. 
 Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap 
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, 
 Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, 
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand I 
 To be so tickled, they would change their state 
 And situation with those dancing chips, 
 O'er wiiom thy fingers walk with gentle gait. 
 Making dead wood more blest than living lips : 
 Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, 
 Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.'^ (i-^-) 
 
 When my Love swears that she is made of truth 
 I do believe her, tho' I know she lies : 
 That slio migljt think me some untutored youth. 
 Unlearned in the world's false subtleties ! 
 
 ' So in the ' Taming of the Shrew :' — 
 
 * Wliat stars do spangle heaven with such beauty 
 As those two eyes become that heavenly face ? ' 
 2 This is the only sonnet about which I have any lasting misgivings. I 
 think it may be one of the Southampton series. To me it mirrors the face 
 of Mistress Yemon rather than that of her cousin. But as it does not neces- 
 sarily belong to any one of the stories, and as I wish to alter no more than 
 I am compelled;! have left it witli Herbert's sonnets.
 
 COMPLIMEXTAL IIIONY. 369 
 
 Thus vainly thinking- that she thinks me young, 
 Altho' she knows my days are past the best, 
 Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue : 
 On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed : 
 But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 
 And wherefore say not I that 1 am old ? 
 0, love's best habit is in seeming trust, 
 And age in love loves not to have years told : 
 Therefore I lie with her and she with me. 
 And in our faults by lies we flattered be.' 
 
 (ms.) 
 
 My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ; 
 Coral is far n\ore red than her lips' red : 
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ; 
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head : 
 I have seen roses damasked, red and white. 
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks ; 
 And in some perfumes is there more delight 
 Than in the breath that from my Mistress reeks."'^ 
 
 ' In the ' Passionate Pilgiiui,' this sonnet reads thus : — 
 
 Wlien my Love swears that she is made of trutli, 
 [ do holiove hpr, tliougli I Imow she lies, 
 That she mi|-'ht think me some untutored youtli, 
 UnskilfitU hi the workl's false forf/eries : 
 Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, 
 Although I kiioir my i/ear.'^ be past the hest, 
 / s>nili>i(f credit her false-spealdng tongue, 
 Out-favitKj fauUn in love with loves ill rest : 
 But wherefore says m;/ Love that she is i/oioig ? 
 And wlierefuro say \U)i I tluit I am old ? 
 (), love's hi'f't hahit is a mothiiuj touyite, 
 And ago in love loves not to have years told : 
 
 Therefore I'll lie with love, and love witli me, 
 
 Since that our faults in love thus smothered be. 
 
 " ' The hreath that from my Mistress 7-eeks.'' This expression is very 
 gross to apply to n lady's hreath. When Rliakspeare makes use of it as 
 * reek,' ' reekv," or ' reochV,' it is meant to bo repulsive, and convoys a coarse 
 idea, as in Hamlet's description of the King's dalliance with his mother, and 
 Juliet's shrinking from the hones in the sopuhlne. Here it would have 
 been stning enough if the Indy had been a Blade. 
 
 B B
 
 370 SIIAKSPEAr.E'S SONNETS. 
 
 I love to bear her speak, — yet well I know- 
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 
 I grant I never saw a Goddess go, — 
 ]My ]Mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground : 
 
 And yet, by heaven, I think my Love as rare 
 
 As any she belied with false compare. 
 
 (l30.) 
 
 Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou. art. 
 
 As those whose beaiities proudly make them cruel : 
 
 For well thou know'st, to my dear-doting heart 
 
 Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel ! 
 
 Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, 
 
 Thy face hath not the power to make love groan ; 
 
 To say they err, I dare not be so bold, 
 
 Altho' I swear it to myself alone : 
 
 And, to be sure that is not false I swear, 
 
 A thousand groans — but thinking on thy face — 
 
 One on another's neck, do witness bear 
 
 Thy black is fairest in my judgement's place ! 
 
 In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, 
 And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds. 
 
 (131.) 
 
 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness, 
 Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport ; 
 Both grace and faidts are loved of more and less ; 
 Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort ! 
 As on the finger of a throned Queen 
 The basest jewel will be well-esteemed. 
 So are those errors that in thee are seen 
 To truths translated and for true things deemed : 
 How many lambs might the stern Wolf betray, 
 If like a lamb he could his looks translate ! 
 How many gazers might'st thou lead away 
 If thou would'st use the strength of all thy state I 
 ' Bvt do not so : I love thee in such sort, 
 As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.'' ' 
 
 (96.) 
 
 1 The sonnets are so essentially self-contained in subject, so limited in tlio 
 range of their reference to matters concerning- the private friends, that we
 
 THE TWO WILLS. 371 
 
 \Mioever hath her wisli, thou hast thy Will ! 
 
 And Will to boot, and Will in overplus: 
 
 More than enough am I that vex thee still, 
 
 To thy sweet Will making addition thus : 
 
 Wilt thou, whose Will is large and spacious, 
 
 Not once vouchsafe to hide my ' Will ' in thine ? 
 
 Shall Will in others seem right gracious, 
 
 And in my ' Will^ no fair acceptance shine ? 
 
 The sea, all water, yet receives rain still 
 
 And in abundance addeth to his store ; 
 
 So thou being KICH in Will, add to thy Will 
 
 One ' Will ' of mine, to make thy large Will more : 
 
 Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill ; 
 
 Think all but one, and me in that one ' Will/ ' 
 
 (135.) 
 
 If thy soul check thee that I come so near. 
 Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy ' Will,'' 
 And Will, thy soul knows, is admitted there I 
 Thus far, for love, my lovesuit. Sweet I fulfil : 
 
 Lave but a small circle to traverse for the purpose of identification, whether 
 of person or circumstance. Thus we may conclude that the past love- 
 quarrel and its consequent ' night of woe ' referred to by Southampton 
 in sonnet 120, is the same as we saw taking place in ' Elizabeth Vernon's 
 Jealousy ; ' that being the very reason why it was referred to ! So of the 
 gift-book which has been parted with in sonnet 122. It is the same as Shak- 
 speare was about to write in in sonnet 38 ; the same as he was writing in when 
 he composed sonnet 77, and that again is the reason why a soimet is devoted 
 to its being given away. So of the lady of these latter sonnets, whose wan- 
 ton graces have ' such becoming of things ill.' She is here written of be- 
 cause she was the siren addressed in tlie earlier ones as that * Lascivious 
 Grace in whom all ill well shows!' Following this clue, I must believe 
 that these lines were repeated to one who was acquainted with them in 
 the Southampton sonnets, for therein lies the very point of their sting, 
 and I candisciiver no other motive for the repetition. But, then, Shakspeare 
 could not have repeated his own well-known lines for the purpose of scathing 
 Lady llich with scorn ! I see no other feasible or possible conclusion than 
 that Herbert repeated two of Shakspeare's lines in a sonnet of his own, be- 
 cause the lady wa.* already familiar with tlicm. 
 
 ' The lady's Will is a personitication of her wilfulness; the speaker's 
 * Will ' is his name ; these I have tried to distinguish. His plea is that the 
 lady should love his ' Will ' — him.self — rather than hers, and have his 
 ' Will ' instead of her own, by making him her 'Will.' 
 
 n I! 2
 
 372 SIL\.KSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 AVill will fulfil the treasure of thy love. 
 Ay, fill it full with Wills, and my ' Will ' one : 
 In things of great receipt with ease we prove 
 Among a number one is reckoned none : 
 Then in the number let me pass untold, 
 Tho' in thy store's account I one must be. 
 For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold 
 That nothing me, a something. Sweet ! to thee : 
 
 Make but iny name thy love, and love that still. 
 And then thou lov'st me, for my name is ' WilU 
 
 (l36.) 
 
 Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate ! 
 Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: 
 0, but with mine compare thou thine own state, 
 And thou shalt find it merits not reproving ; 
 Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, 
 That have profaned their scarlet ornaments 
 And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine ; 
 Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents : 
 Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those 
 Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee : 
 Boot pity in thy heart, that when it grows 
 Thy pity may deserve to pitied be : 
 
 If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, 
 By self-example may est thou be denied ! 
 
 (142.) 
 
 Lo ! as a careful housewife runs to catch 
 One of her feathered creatures broke away, 
 Sets down her babe and makes all swift despatch 
 In pursuit of the thing she would have stay. 
 Whilst her neglected child holds her in chace. 
 Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent 
 To follow that which flies before her face. 
 Not prizing her poor infant's discontent ; 
 So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, 
 Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind : 
 But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me. 
 And play the Mother's part, kiss me, be kind ! 
 
 So will I pray that thou may'st have thy ' Will,' 
 Jf thou turn l>ack, and my loud crying still. 
 
 (143.)
 
 LOVING ELSEWHERE. 373 
 
 Being your slave, wliat should I do Init tend 
 I'pon the hours and times of your desire? 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 Nor services to do, till you require ! 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, 
 Whilst I, my Sovereigii, watch the clock for you, 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour 
 When you have bid your Servant' once adieu : 
 Nor dare I question with my jealous thought 
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, 
 But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought 
 Save, where you are how happy you make those : 
 So true a fool is love that, in your ' Will,' '^ 
 Tho' you do anything, he thinks no ill. 
 
 (57.) 
 
 That god forbid that made me first your slave, 
 
 I should in thought control your times of pleasure ; 
 
 Or at your hand the account of hours to crave. 
 
 Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure ! 
 
 let me suffer, being at your beck, 
 
 The imprisoned absence of your liberty ; 
 
 And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check 
 
 Without accusing you of injury ! 
 
 Be where you list, your charter is so strong 
 
 That you yourself may privilege your time ; 
 
 Do what you will ; to you it doth belong 
 
 Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime I 
 
 I am to wait, tho' waiting so be hell ; 
 
 Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.' 
 
 (58.) 
 
 • ^ Your 'Servant.'' ' Servant ' iiiipHed the ' Mistress ' in the frallantry of 
 the time. In the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona' (act ii., sc. 4 ), Mistress and 
 Servant occur three times over in ei^ht lines. In other sonnets the * Mis- 
 tress ' is spoken of, and in this the rehitionship of the Cavalier Serveufe is 
 described with marked emphasis. 
 
 * ' JJ'ilC This 'Will,' which links sonnet 57 to the Herbert series, ha-s 
 been quite lost sitrht of ever since the Book of Sonnets was tirst printed. 
 See remarks in a later chapter. 
 
 3 Here is the obverse side of this Coin of Character, with the lady's fea- 
 tures stamped upon it large as life ! Accordinji: to my interpretation it is 
 the person addressed in these sonnets, the Lady llich, who, as INisaline,
 
 374 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 0, call me not to justify the wrong 
 That thy imkindDess lays upon my heart ; 
 Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue ; 
 Use power with power and slay me not by art : 
 Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere, but in my sight 
 Dear heart ! forbear to glance thine eye aside : 
 What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might 
 Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide ? 
 Let me excuse thee : ah ! my Love well knows 
 Her pretty looks have been my enemies ; 
 And therefore from my face she turns my foes, 
 Tliat they elsewhere might dart their injuries : 
 Yet do not so ; but since I am near slain. 
 Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain. 
 
 (139.) 
 
 Be wise as thou art cruel I do not press 
 
 jNIy tongue-tied patience with too much disdain ; 
 
 Lest Sorrow lend me words, and words express 
 
 The manner of my pity-wanting pain : 
 
 If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 
 
 Tho' not to love, yet, Love, to tell me so ; 
 
 tlius threatens that treatment and torture which Ilerhert aclcnowledges in 
 the heaiitiful tyrant's own words, and humbly accepts in veiy deed. 
 
 ' IIow I would make him fawn, and he<j, and seek, 
 
 And 7vait the season, and observe the times, 
 
 And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes, 
 
 And shaiK his service wholly to mxj hests, 
 
 And make him proud to make mc j)rond, that jests! 
 
 So potently* would 1 o'ersway his state 
 
 That he shoidd be my fool, and / his fate.'' 
 
 Lovers Labour's Lost, act v., so. 2. 
 
 ■ I elect to use this word in place of the ' peiitannt like,^ or 'pniazint like,'' 
 of Quarto and Folio. It may have been ' potent like,' meaning like a poten- 
 tate ; but I more than doubt if Sliakspeare an'ested his thought niid-swing, 
 lamed his expression, and checked the coming climax of the lines by a simile 
 conveyed in that way. Neither do I think the Poet wrote 'you equal po- 
 tenta ' in ' King .John,' but ' you equal-potent, fieiy-kindled' spirits,' as he 
 used 'subtle-potent ' in ' Troihis and Crossida.' ' Potently ' points the emplia- 
 sis on the ' so ' with far more simple force. The whole word was bungled by 
 the printers, who would find it equally easy to make the ' lie ' into ' like,' 
 as to convert ' jmtent ' into ' perttaunt.' That it was not ' portent-like,' may 
 be gathered from a line in ' Coriolanus : ' — 
 
 ' Arriving, 
 A place of potency, and sway o' the state.' 
 
 Thus read and illustrated, the lines quoted prove the^ chanrjcful potency' of 
 ' Troilus and Cressida' (act ii., sc. 2; to be the right lection.
 
 BLINDFOLD LOVE. 375 
 
 As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, 
 No news but health from their Physicians know ; 
 For if I should despair, I sliould grow mad. 
 And in my madness might speak ill of thee : 
 Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, 
 ]Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be : 
 
 That I may not be so, nor tljou belied, 
 
 Bear thine eyes straight, tho' thy proud heart go wide. 
 
 (140.) 
 
 Cans't thou, cruel ! say I love thee not, 
 When I against myself with thee partake ? 
 Do I not think on thee when I forgot 
 Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake ? 
 Who hateth thee that I do call mv friend ? 
 On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon ? 
 Nay, if thou lower'st on me, do I not spend 
 Revenge upon myself with present moan ? 
 What merit do I in myself respect. 
 That is so proud thy service to despise. 
 When all my best doth worship thy defect. 
 Commanded by the motion of thine eyes ? 
 
 But Love, hate on, for now I know thy mind ; 
 
 Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind. 
 
 (149.) 
 
 Thou blind fool, love, what dost thou to mine eyes, 
 
 That they behold, and see not what they see ? 
 
 They know what beauty is, see where it lies. 
 
 Yet what the best is take the worst to be : 
 
 If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks. 
 
 Be anchored in the bay where all men ride. 
 
 Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, 
 
 Whereto the judgement of my heart is tied ? 
 
 Why should my heart think that a several plot. 
 
 Which my heart knows the wide world's common place ? 
 
 Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not. 
 
 To put fair truth upon so foid a face ? 
 
 In things right true my heart and eyes have erred, 
 And to this false plague are they now transferred. 
 
 (137.)
 
 370 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 me I what eyes hath love put in my head, 
 Which have no correspondence with true sight ? 
 
 Or if they have, where is my judgement fled, 
 
 That censures falsely what they see aright ? 
 
 If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, 
 
 ^Vhat means the world to say it is not so ? 
 
 If it be not, then love doth well denote. 
 
 Love's eye is not so true as all men's I ' no. 
 
 How can it ? 0, how can love's eye be true. 
 
 That is so vext with watching and with tears ? 
 
 No marvel then, tho' I mistake my view ; 
 
 The sun itself sees not till heaven clears : 
 
 cunning Love I with tears thou keep'st me blind, 
 Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find ! 
 
 (148.) 
 
 In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes. 
 For they in thee a thousand errors note ; 
 But tis my heart that loves what they despise. 
 Who in despite of view is pleased to dote : 
 Nor are my ears with thy tongue's tune delighted ; 
 Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, 
 Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited 
 To any sensual feast with thee alone : 
 But my five wits, nor my five senses can 
 Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee. 
 Who leaves, unswayed, the likeness of a man. 
 Thy proud heart's slave and vassal-wretch to be : 
 Only my plague thus far I count my gain. 
 That she that makes me sin awards me pain. 
 
 (141.) 
 
 ' 'Love's eye is not so true as all meu's.' It lias been suggested by the 
 Editor of ' Walker's Examination,' that a pun was intended in this line on 
 the ' eye ' and I, i e. ' ay.' And the editors of the ' Globe ' and ' Gem ' 
 editions have adopted it, and read * Love's " eye " is not so true as all men's 
 " No." ' 13ut I cannot bring myself to believe that Shakspeare thus snapped 
 tbe continuity and maimed the sense to catch at a quibbling soimd. His point 
 is that the eye of one cannot see so truly as the eye of all men, and this is 
 lost if we accept the pun and alter the punctuation. Singleness of expression 
 is absolutely demanded by the nature of the thought, and for the carrying on 
 of the argument. Shakspeare did not make all the puns that were possible 
 to him.
 
 PAST CURfi— PAST CARE! 377 
 
 (), fioia wliat power has tliuii this powerful might 
 
 \\'ith insufficiency my heart to sway ? 
 
 To make me give the lie to my true sight. 
 
 And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? 
 
 Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, 
 
 That in the very refuse of thy deeds 
 
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill 
 
 That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds ? 
 
 Wlio taught thee how to make me love thee more 
 
 The more I hear and see just cause of hate? 
 
 0, tho' I love what others do abhor, 
 
 With others thou should'st not abhor my state ! 
 
 If thy unsvorthiness raised love in me, 
 
 More worthy I to be beloved of thee. 
 
 (l50.) 
 
 My love is as a fevei", longing still 
 
 For that which longer nurseth the disease ; 
 
 Feeding on that which dotli preserve the ill. 
 
 The uncertain sickly appetite to please : 
 
 My lieason, the Physician to my love. 
 
 Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, 
 
 Hath left me, and I desperate now approve 
 
 Desire is death, which Physic did except : 
 
 Past cure I am, now reason is past care. 
 
 And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; 
 
 My thoughts and my discourse, as madmen's, are 
 
 At random from the truth vainly expressed ; 
 
 For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright. 
 Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. 
 
 (^147.) 
 
 In lovinii' thee thou know'st I am forsworn. 
 But thi)-i art twice forsworn, to me love swearing. 
 In act tliy bed-vow broke and new faith torn 
 In vowing new hate after new love bearing: 
 But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee. 
 When I break twenty? I am perjured most ; 
 For all my vowb are oaths but to misuse thee. 
 And .-ill inv honest faith in tliee is lost :
 
 378 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 For I have sworn deep oatlis of thy deep kindness. 
 Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy ; 
 And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness. 
 Or made them swear against the thing they see ; 
 For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I, 
 To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie. 
 
 (152.) 
 
 Love is too young to know what conscience is ! 
 Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love ? 
 Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, 
 Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove : 
 For thou betraying me, I do betray 
 My nobler part to my gross body's treason ; 
 My soul doth tell my body that he may 
 Triumph in love ; flesh stays no farther reason ; 
 But rising at thy name, doth point out thee 
 As his triumphant prize : proud of this pride 
 He is contented thy poor drudge to be. 
 To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side : 
 
 No want of conscience hold it that I call 
 
 Her — Love ! for whose dear love I rise and fall. 
 
 (151.) 
 
 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 
 Is lust in action ; and till action, lust 
 Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame. 
 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ; 
 Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight. 
 Past reason hunted, and no sooner had 
 Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait 
 On purpose laid to make the taker mad : 
 Mad in pursuit and in possession so : 
 Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; 
 A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe ; 
 Before, a joy proposed ! behind, a tb'eam ! 
 
 All this the world well knows, yet none knows well 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to thLs hell. 
 
 (129.)
 
 FINAL AEPEAT. TO THE LOVER'S MANHOOD. 379 
 
 Poor Soul, the centre of my sinful earth, — 
 My sinful earth these rebel powers array — 
 "Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth. 
 Painting thy outward walls so costly-gay ? 
 Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? 
 Shall worms, inheritors of this excess. 
 Eat up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ? 
 Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss. 
 And let that pine to aggi-avate thy store ; 
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross : 
 Within be fed, without be rich no more ! 
 
 So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on Men, 
 And Death once dead there's no more dying then.' 
 
 (l4C.) 
 
 ' The firat two lines of this sonnet in the Quarto read — 
 
 ' Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 
 Mtj sinful earth these i-cbel poivers that thee mray.^ 
 
 There being two syllables too many in the second line, Malone thought the 
 printers had inadvertently repeated ' my sinful eai-th/ and proposed to read, 
 
 ' Fooled by these rebel powers that thee array.' 
 
 Steevens would read, ' Starved by the rebel powers.' It has been sug- 
 gested that we should read, ' Foiled by these rebel powers.' Also, * Slave to 
 these rebel powers, &c.' I have simply taken out two superfluous words, 
 which the printers stuck in, and the result is perfect sense, without losing 
 the added touch of solemnity that is given, and obviously intended, bv tlie 
 repetition of * my siii/td earth.'' The sonnet is in Shakspeare's largest, sim- 
 plest style, and lie would not have cramped his second line bv such an expres- 
 sion as ' that thoe array.' Not only would not, he could uot, for there is no 
 Hhee' to address in this line. These ^ rebel powers^ do not array the soid; 
 they are of the flesh ; they array his sinful earth. ' Array,' here, does not 
 only mean dross, I think it also signifies that in the flesh these rebel powers 
 set their battle in array against the soul.
 
 380 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 LADY PENELOPE RICH. 
 
 Penelope Devereux was a daughter of one of those proud 
 old Eiighsh houses, whose descendants love to dwell on 
 the fact that they came in with the Norman Conquest. 
 The progenitor of the English branch of the Devereux' 
 bore high rank in Normandy before he carved out a larger 
 space for himself on English soil at the battle of Hastings 
 as one of Duke William's ii^htiuo- men. He became the 
 founder of an illustrious H(juse that was destined to match 
 four times with the royal Plan tagenets, and to be enriched 
 with the blood and inherit tlie honours of the Bohuns and 
 Pitzpierces, Mandevilles and Bouchiers. On the father's 
 side, Penelope Devereux descended from Edward HI., and 
 her mother, Lettice Knollys, was cousin, once removed, to 
 Queen Elizabeth. Thus a dash of blood doubly-royal ran 
 in her veins, and in her own pei^sonal beauty this noble 
 sap of the family tree appears by all i-eport to have put 
 forth a worthy blossom. 
 
 Her father was that good Earl Walter whom Elizabeth 
 called ' a rare jewel of her realm and an ornament of her 
 nobility,' whose character was altogether of a loftier kind 
 than that of his more famous son Eobert, the royal Fa- 
 vourite. His story is one of tlie most toucliing — he 
 having, as it was suspected, had to change worlds in order 
 that Leicester might change women. 
 
 Penelope was four years older than hvr brother liobcrt.
 
 DEATH OF THE GOOD EAIIL WALTER. 381 
 
 She was born at Cliartley in 15G3. Very little is known 
 of Iier chilclhood. She was but thirteen years of age, the 
 oldest of five children, at the time of her father's early 
 death, and the bitterest pang felt by the brave and gentle 
 Earl was caused at his parting from the little ones that 
 were being left so young when they so muoh needed his 
 fatherly forethought and protecting care. 
 
 There are few stories more pathetic than that told of 
 this Earl's beaiingon his death-bed, by the faithful pen of 
 some affectionate soul, said to have been one of his two 
 chaplains, Thomas Knell by name. lie suffered terribly 
 and was grievously tormented, says the narrator, for the 
 space of twenty-two days. He was dying far from liis poor 
 children, who were about to be left fatherless, w4th almost 
 worse than no mother. He may have had a dark thought 
 that he had been sent away by one of his enemy's cunning 
 Court-tricks to be stricken and to die — ' nothinf^ was 
 omitted,' says Camden, ' whereby to break his mild spirit 
 with continual crosses one in the neck of another' — that 
 Leicester was secretly taking his life preliminary to the 
 taking of his wife ; but he bore his affliction with a most 
 valiant mind, and, ' although he felt intolerable pain, yet 
 he had so cheerful and noble a countenance that he seemed 
 to suffer none at all, or very little,' nor did he mur- 
 mur through all the time and all the torture. He is 
 described as speaking ' more like a divine preacher and 
 heavenly prophet' than a mortal man, lying or kneeling 
 with a light soft as the light of a mother's blessing, smiling 
 down from her place in heaven, on his fine face, which 
 was moulded by Xature in her noblest mood, and finished 
 by suffering with its keenest chisel. ' What he spoke,' 
 says the narrator, ' brake our very liearts, and forced out 
 abundant tears, partly for joy of his godly mind, partly 
 for the doctrine and comfort we had of his words. But, 
 chiefly I blurred the paper with tears as I writ." Ilis 
 only care in worldly matters was for his children, to
 
 382 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 whom often lie commended liis love and blessing, and 
 yielded many times, even with great sighs, most devout 
 prayers to God that he would bless them and give them 
 his grace to fear him. For his daughters also he prayed, 
 lamenting the time, which is so vain and ungodly, as he 
 said, considering the frailness of women, lest they should 
 learn of the vile world. He never seemed to sorrow but 
 for his children. ' Oh, my poor children,' often would he 
 say, ' God bless you, and give you his grace.' Many times 
 begging mercy at the hands of God, and forgiveness of 
 his sins, he cried out unto God, ' Lord forgive me, and 
 forgive all the world. Lord, from the bottom of my heart, 
 from the bottom of my heart, even all the injuries and 
 wrongs. Lord, that any have done unto me. Lord, for- 
 give them, as I forgive them from the bottom of my 
 heart.' He was anxious that Philip Sidney should marry 
 his daughter Penelope, and in feeling he bequeathed her 
 to him. Speaking of Sidney, two nights before he died 
 he said, ' Oh, that good gentleman ! have me commended 
 unto him, and tell liim I send him nothing, but I wish 
 him well, and so well that if God so move both their 
 liearts, I wish that he might match with my daughter. I 
 call him son. He is wise, virtuous and godly ; and if he 
 go on in the course he hath begun, he will be as famous 
 and worthy a gentleman as England ever bred.' Two 
 days before his death he wrote his last letter to the Queen, 
 in wdiich he huml)ly commits his poor children to her 
 Majesty, and her Majesty to the keeping of God. ' My 
 humble suit must yet extend itself further into many 
 branches, for the behoof of my poor children, that since 
 God doth now make them fatherless, yet it will please 
 your Majesty to be a mother unto them, at the least by 
 your gracious countenance and care of tlieir education, 
 and their matches.' The night before he died ' he called 
 William Hewes, which was his musician, to play upon the 
 virginals and to sing. Play, said he, my song, Will Hewes,
 
 SIDNEY'S LOVE FOR PEXELOPE DEVEREUX. 883 
 
 and I will sing it myself. So lie did it most joyfully, not 
 as the liowling swan, which, still looking down, wailetli 
 her end, but as a sweet lark, lifting u\) his hands and 
 casting up his eyes to his God, with this moinited the 
 crystal skies and reached with his imwearied tongue the 
 top of the highest heavens. Who could have heard and seen 
 this violent conflict, having not a stonied heart, without 
 innumerable tears and watery plaints F' Unhappil}^ the 
 dying father's Avish on the subject of his daughter's mar- 
 riasfc was not to be fidfilled. Waterhouse, in his letter 
 to Sir H. Sidney,' unconsciously uttered a prophecy 
 when he said, ' Truly, my lord, I must say to your lord- 
 ship, as I have said to my Lord of Leicester and Mr. 
 Philip, the breaking off from this match will turn to more 
 dishonour than can be repaired with any other marriage 
 in England ! ' The marriage did not take place, and in 
 many wa5"s the predicted dishonour came. 
 
 It has been conjectured that Sidney alluded to Lady 
 Penelope in a letter to his friend, Languet, who, in the 
 course of their correspondence, had exhorted him to marry. 
 lie says, ' Respecting her of whom I readily acknowledge 
 how unworthy I am, I have written you my reasons long 
 since, briefly indeed, but yet as well as I was able.'^ If 
 Sidney spoke of Lady Penelope Devereux in this letter, 
 his reasons for not marrying just then may have been that 
 he thought her too young at that time, for she was but 
 fifteen years old, the date of his letter being March 1578. 
 In his 33rd sonnet he reproaches himself for not being able 
 to see by the ' rising moon' what a 'fair day' was about 
 to unfold. It is not probable that the two lovers were 
 already apart three years before the lady's marriage with 
 Lord Pioh. The time came, however, when, from some 
 fatal cause or other, they were sundered, although there 
 
 ' Si/(lnri/ McnioirSy i. 147. 
 
 ^ CoiTo.'^poiuU'nce of Siduey and Languet, translated by S. A. Pears, 
 1845: p. 144.
 
 384 SH.\KSPIL\r.E'S SOXyETS. 
 
 is proof that tliey had been drawn together by very 
 tender ties. 
 
 Lady Penelope Devereiix in her eighteenth year, had 
 bloomed into such a rose of beautv, as would have found 
 (we like to think,) a fit nestling place for giving forth its 
 sweetness in the bosom of Philip Sidney I And it seems 
 one of those sad inevitable things which make so much 
 of the tragedy of the human lot, that these two should 
 not have come together. If they liad married, how 
 different it all micrht have Ijeen ! 
 
 Heylin describes Penelope Devereux as being • a lady 
 in whom lodged all attractive graces of beauty, wit, and 
 sweetness of beha\'iour. which miirht render lier the 
 absolute mistress of all eyes and hearts.' '\V]iat Sidney 
 was, the world has gathered from the glimpse we get 
 of him, in his brief beautiful life, and saintly death. In 
 his nature, humanitv nearlv touched the summit of its 
 nobleness. And, from him, Penelope was taken to be 
 given to a man whose character as nearly sounded the 
 deptlis of human baseness. Thus the radiance of her 
 tender romance died out, and tiie hues of love's young 
 dawn all faded into the hght of common day I 
 
 Sidney has told the stoiy of his love foi- Lady Iciuh 
 under the title of ' A.strophel and Stella.' in 108 sonnets, 
 which were first printed in quarto. L501. He asks us to 
 hsteu to him, because he must iiufuld a riddle of his OAvn 
 life. It was of this personal passion of his, that the Muse 
 said to him : ' Fool I look in thy heart and write.'' The 
 object of his writing, he tells us, w^as that the ' dear she,' 
 whom he had lost for ever through her jnarriajre with 
 Lord Piich, might ' take some pleasure of his pain ; ' a 
 sentiment that springs straight from the deepest root of 
 the feeling of whicli it has been .said, ' All other pleasures 
 are not w^orth its pains ! ' 
 
 We have seen something of Penelope Devereux's per- 
 sonal graces as pictured by her lover in the ' Arcadia.'
 
 THE LOVERS PARTED. 385 
 
 lu these sonnets he again describes lier as liaving ' black 
 eyes,' and ' golden hair,' and he dwells mucli upon those 
 ' black stars,' and ' black beams ' of her eyes. He illus- 
 trates the peculiarity of her complexion, and the ' kindly 
 claret' of her cheek, by a story. The 22nd sonnet 
 relates how on a hot summer's day he met ' Stella ' with 
 some other fair ladies. They were on horse-back, with a 
 burning sun in the cloudless blue. The other Ladies were 
 compelled to shade their faces with their fans to preserve 
 their fairness; 'Stella' alone rode with her beauty bare, 
 and she the daintiest of all, went openly free from harm, 
 whilst the ' hid and meaner beauties,' were parched. 
 
 * The cause was this ; 
 The Sun which others hurned, did her but kiss.' 
 
 It is of Lady Eich that Sidney speaks, when in sonnet 
 39, he uiakes his enchanting promise to Sleep, in that 
 most charming of invocations. — 
 
 ' make in me these civil wars to cease ! 
 I will good tribute pay if thou do so ; 
 Take thou of me, sweet pillows, sweetest bed ; 
 A chamber deaf to noise and blind to Hght ; 
 A rosy garland and a weary head : 
 And if these things, as being thine by right. 
 Move not thy heavy grace, tlwu shall in mc^ 
 Livelier than elseivhere, S fella's image seel ' 
 
 Not only is she 'rich in all beauties' thai man's eye can 
 look on, but she is likewise, — 
 
 ' Kicli in tlie treasnre of deserved renown; 
 Kiili in tli(^ riches of a royal heart; 
 Kich in those gifts whicli give the Eternal Crown ; 
 Wlio, tho' most Eich in these and every part 
 Wliich make the patents of true earthly bliss, 
 llatli no misfortune, l)ut, that Rich she is.' 
 
 This lady so rich by nature is cursed in being Rich by 
 
 cc
 
 386 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 name. The 33rd sonnet appears to tell iis liow the Poet 
 lost her. — 
 
 ' I might, unhappy word I me ! I might, 
 And then would not, or could not see my bliss ; 
 Till now, wrapt in a most infernal night, 
 I find how heavenly day, Wretch ! I did miss. 
 Heart ! rend thyself, thou dost thyself but right ; 
 No lovely Paris made thy Helen his ! 
 No force, no fraud, robbed thee of thy delight. 
 Nor Fortune of thy fortune author is : 
 But to myself, myself did give the blow. 
 While too much wit (forsooth) ! so troubled me. 
 That I respects for both our sakes must show : 
 And yet could not, by rising Morn foresee 
 
 How fair a day was near ! punished eyes ! 
 
 That I had been more foolish, or more wise.' 
 
 He might have called her his own, but he must needs 
 show Ills ■wisdom by waiting a little longer. He was 
 troubled in the matter with too many thoughts, and too 
 much wit forsooth. He stood upon respects for both 
 their sakes, which kept them asunder until it was too 
 late. For wdhlst he would, and would not ; looked and 
 longed, and shyly shilly-shallied, other influences were 
 brought to bear. The lady's friends were anxious that 
 she should wed a wealthy fool, and possibly the proud 
 impetuous beauty of sixteen or seventeen may have felt 
 piqued at Sidney's delay, and wilfully played into the 
 hands of an evil fortune. How Sidney was aroused from 
 his dream, and awoke to the fact that he had lost his 
 day, and might now stretch forth liis empty arms till 
 they ached, and call in vain upon those eyes that were 
 far from him as the stars, is told in his sonnets ; how 
 the reckless lady found that she had dashed away the 
 sweetest, purest cup of noble love ever proffered to her 
 hps, is" written in her after-life, and in the useless search 
 for that which she had missed once and for ever. Tlie 
 two were doomed to walk on the opposite banks, with
 
 CHARACTER OF LORD RICH. 387 
 
 yearnings toward eacli otlicr, wliile tlie river of life kept 
 broadening on between them, pusliing tliem farther and 
 farther apart, who were sundered for all time, possibly 
 for eternity. 
 
 The character of Lord Rich as a husband is painted 
 by Sidney in sonnet 22. The description agrees with 
 others in representing him to have been a poor, vulgar 
 Lord with a very sordid soul. 
 
 ' Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart 
 Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow 
 And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart; 
 Wealth breeding want; more blest, more wretched grow: 
 Yet to those fools Heaven doth such wit impart. 
 As ivhat their hands do hold their heads do krunv. 
 And knowing love, and, loving, lay apart 
 As sacred things, far from all Danger's show ! 
 But tliat rich Fool who, by blind Fortune's lot. 
 The richest gem of love and life enjoys, 
 And can with foul abuse such beauties blot; 
 Let him, deprived of sweet but unfelt joys, 
 
 (Exiled for aye from those high treasures, which 
 He knows not) grow in only folly rich.' 
 
 The sonnets lead us to think that the lady's heart 
 remained with Sidney ; although or because he depicts the 
 passion as being kept sacred chielly tlirough her o^vn 
 strength of character. In sonnet 11 he treats the subject 
 in an elegantly quaint manner. ' In trutli, love,' he 
 exclaims, ' with what a boyish mind thou dost proceed in 
 thy most serious ways ! Here is heaven displaying its 
 best to thee. Yet of that best tliou leavest the best behind.' 
 For like a child that has found some pretty picture-book 
 with gilded leaves, and is content with the glitter and 
 the outside show, and does not care for the written riches, 
 so love is content to play at ' looking babies ' in Stella's 
 eyes, and at bo-peep in her bosom. 
 
 * Sliining in each outward part, 
 But, fool ! seeks not to get into her heart.' 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 SHAIvSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Then the lover's pleadings grow more in earnest. 
 
 * Soul's joy ! bend not those morning stars from me, 
 Where virtue is made strong by beauty's might ; 
 Where love is chasteness, pain doth learn delight. 
 And humbleness grows on -with majesty: 
 Whatever may ensue, oh let me be 
 
 Copartner of the riches of that sight : 
 
 Let not mine eyes be hell-driven from that light ; 
 
 Oh look ! oh shine ! oh let me die, and see ! ' 
 
 In sonnet 73, the Poet has dared to steal a kiss whilst 
 the lady was sleeping, and the aspect of her beauty, when 
 ruddy mth wrath, causes him to exclaim 
 
 * heavenly fool ! thy most kiss-worthy face. 
 Anger invests with such a lovely grace. 
 That Anger's self I needs must kiss again ! ' 
 
 This stolen kiss was the one immortalized in his famous 
 81st sonnet, commencing 
 
 ' kiss I which dost those ruddy gems impart.' 
 
 In one of the songs interspersed among the sonnets, the 
 Poet also tells us of a stolen interview on the part of the 
 two Lovers. 
 
 ' In a grove most rich with shade. 
 Where birds wanton music made ; 
 Astrophel with Stella sweet, 
 Did for mutual comfort meet ; 
 Both within themselves oppressed. 
 Both each in the other blest, 
 llirn great harms had taught much care; 
 Her fair neck a foul yoke bare : 
 Wept they had ; alas the while I 
 But now tears themselves did smile.' 
 
 Here they had met, with eager eyes and hungry ears, 
 asking to know all about eacdi otlier in absence.
 
 A STOLEN LOVE-TnYST. 389 
 
 * Rut, their tongues restrained from walking, 
 Till their hearts had ended talking I ' 
 
 At length the lover pleads — 
 
 * Stella, sovereign of my joy. 
 Fair triumpher of annoy ; 
 Stella, star of heavenly fire, 
 Stella, loadstar of desire : 
 Stella, in whose shining eyes, 
 Are the lights of Cupid's skies : 
 Stella, whose voice when it speaks. 
 Senses all asunder breaks ; 
 
 Stella, whose voice when it singeth, 
 Angels to acquaintance bringeth ; 
 Stella, in whose body is 
 Writ each character of bliss, 
 WTiose face all, all beauty passeth 
 Save thy mind, which it surpasseth, 
 Grant, grant — but speech alas ! 
 Fails me, fearing on to pass ; 
 Grant — oh me, what am I saying ? 
 But no fault there is in praying ! 
 
 Stella replies, and 
 
 * In such wise she love denied 
 As yet love it signified.' 
 
 For whilst telling him to cease to sue, she says his grief 
 doth grieve her worse than death, and 
 
 * If that any thought in me 
 Can taste comfort but of thee. 
 Let me feed, with hellish anguish 
 Joyless, helpless, endless languish ! 
 Therefore, Dear, this no more move 
 Lest, tho' I leave not thy love. 
 Which too deep in me is framed, 
 
 I should blush when thou art named.' 
 
 Thus we have it upon Sidney's testimony, that the lady 
 triumphed in her purity, Avhilst acknowledging him to be
 
 390 SHAIvSPExVRE'S SONNETS. 
 
 the natural lord of her love. The conditions on which 
 she was his, are stated in sonnet 69. 
 
 * joy too high for my low style to show, 
 
 bliss fit for a nohler state than me ! 
 
 Envy put out thine eyes, lest thou do see 
 
 What oceans of delight in me do flow. 
 
 My friend that oft saw'st thro' all masks of woe. 
 
 Come, come, and let me pour myself on thee. 
 
 Gone is the winter of my misery ; 
 
 My Spring appears ; see what here doth grow ! 
 
 For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine. 
 
 Of her high heart given me the monarchy : 
 
 I, I, oh ! I may say that she is mine : 
 
 And tho' she give but thus conditionly 
 
 This realm of bliss, while virtuous course I take. 
 No kings be crown'd but they some covenants make.' 
 
 The marriage of Penelope Devereux with Lord Kich, 
 appears to have been promoted by the Earl of Huntingxlon, 
 then Lord President of the North, who was a great friend of 
 the hunily, a relative also, and one of the guardians of the 
 young Earl of Essex. The sisters, Penelope and Dorothy, 
 sometimes resided in his house. In a letter addressed to 
 Lord Burghley, the other guardian, March 10th, 1580, 
 the Earl of Huntingdon proposed that a match should be 
 made between the Lady Penelope and the young Lord 
 Eich, he ' being a proper gentleman, and in years very 
 suitable.' ^ In August of the same year, Essex informs 
 Burghley that he is about to leave Cambridge for a time, 
 on purpose to accompany Lord Eich, 'who, for many 
 causes not unknown ' to the guardian, was very dear to 
 him. The handing over of the Lady Penelope to* this 
 Lord Cloten, was then about to be completed. 
 
 In his ' Epistle to the King,' with which the Earl of 
 Devonshire accompanied the ' Discourse ' wTitten by him 
 in defence of his marriage with Lady Eich, the case is 
 
 1 Lanscl MSS., 31, f. 40.
 
 STELLA'S FORCED MARRLVGE. 391 
 
 thus put on behalf of the ' poor lost sheep,' shut out of the 
 fold, as he calls his wife. 'A lady of great birth and 
 virtue, being in the power of her friends, was by them 
 married against her will unto one against whom she did 
 protest at the* very solemnity, and ever after ; between 
 whom, from the first day, there ensued continual discord, 
 altho' the same fears that forced her to marry, constrained 
 her to live with him. Instead of a comforter, he did 
 study in all things to torment her ; and by fear and fraud 
 did practise to deceive her of her dowry ; and tho' he 
 forbore to offer her any open -wrong, restrained with the 
 awe of her Brother's powerfulness, yet as he had not in 
 long time before (the death of Essex) in the chiefest 
 duty of a husband used her as his wife, so presently after 
 his death, he did put her to a stipend, and abandoned her 
 without pretence of any cause, but his own desire to live 
 without her.' It was, says Mountjoy, after Lord Eich had 
 withdrawn himself from her bed for the space of twelve 
 years, that he did ' by persuasions and threatenings, move 
 her to consent unto a divorce, and to confess a ftiult with 
 a nameless stranger ! ' 
 
 Two years after the marriage of Penelope Devereux 
 witli Lord Eich, Phihp Sidney married the daughter of 
 Sir Francis Walsingliam, but if we are to trust the son- 
 nets, and poetry is often true to the deepest trutli, his 
 love for Lady Eich, and her love for him, must have sur- 
 vived the marriage of both. Sidney was struck do\vn with 
 liis mortal wound at Zutphen, on the 22nd of September, 
 1586, and he died on the 17th of the October foUowinir. 
 
 His Avidow was again married, this time to the Earl of 
 Essex, in the year 1590. She thus became sister to Lady 
 Eich, Sidney's first love. The sonnets in which Sidney 
 had proclaimed his passion were first pubhshed in the 
 next yeai\ And, as a curious illustration of the mannei's 
 of the time, Spenser in a new Volume of Poems printed 
 in 1505, also celebrated the loves of 'Astrophel and
 
 392 SIIAKSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Stella,' and inscribed the poem ' to the most beautiful 
 and virtuous Lady, the Countess of Essex.' Thus Sidney, 
 having lost his first love, and being in all likelihood mar- 
 ried at the time, was not only deeply in love with the wife 
 of another man, but sang of it in fervent verse, and rejoiced 
 in it, ' tho' nations might count it shame,' and, after his 
 death, liis friend, the Poet Spenser, publishes an apotheosis 
 of this passion, and respectfully dedicates his poem to 
 Sidney's widow, who had now become LadyEich's sister! 
 In applying the latter sonnets of Shakspeare to the 
 character of Lady Eich, it will be well to recall this 
 puzzling state of things, in relation to the sonnets of Sid- 
 ney and the poetry of Spenser. Spenser introduces Lady 
 Eich as ' Stella' in his ' Colin Clout's come home again' — 
 
 ' Ne less praiseworthy Stella, do I read, 
 Tho' nought my praises of her needed are. 
 Whom verse of noLlest Shepherd, lately dead. 
 Hath praised and raised above each other star.' 
 
 And in his ' Astrophel ; a pastoral Elegy upon the Death 
 of the most noble and valourous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney,' 
 lie has caught up for immortality that early love of Sidney's 
 for Lady Eich, with the tenderness of its clewy dawn about 
 it, and the purple bloom of young desire. Many maidens, 
 says the Poet, would have delighted in his love, but 
 
 * For one alone he cared, for one he sigh't. 
 His life's desire, and his dear love's delidit. 
 Stella the fair, the fairest star in sky. 
 As fair as Venus or the fairest fair ; 
 A fairer star saw never living eye 
 Shoot her sharp-pointed beams thro' purest air: 
 Her he did love, her he alone did honour. 
 His thouglits, his rhymes, his songs were all upon her. 
 
 To her ho vowed the service of his days, 
 On her lie spent the riches of his wit, 
 For her he made hymns of immortal praise, 
 Of only her he sung, he thought, he writ.'
 
 SPENSER'S ' ASTROPIIEL AND STELLA.' 393 
 
 Tliis 'gentle Shepherd born in Arcady,' was engaged in 
 luinting, on foreign soil, in a forest \vide and waste, where 
 he was wounded by a wild beast. There he lay bleeding 
 to death, 
 
 * While none was nigh his eyelids up to close, 
 And kiss his lips like faded leaves of rose.' 
 
 At length he was found by some shepherds, who stopped 
 liis wound, though too late, and bore him to his ' dearest 
 love,' his Stella, who, when she saw the sorry sight, 
 ' Her yellow locks, that shone so bright and long, 
 As sunny beams in fairest summer's day, 
 She fiercely tore, and with outrageous wrong 
 From her red cheeks the roses rent away. 
 His pallid face impictured with death. 
 She bathed oft with tears and dried oft ; 
 And with sweet kisses sucked the wasting breath 
 Out of his lips, like lilies, pale and soft.' 
 
 He dies, and her spirit at once follows his ! 
 
 * To prove that death their hearts cannot divide. 
 Which living were in love so firmly tied.' 
 
 * The Gods, which all things see, this same beheld. 
 And pitying this pair of lovers true. 
 Transformed them there lying on the field 
 
 Into one flower that is both red and blue ; 
 It first grows red, and then to blue doth fade. 
 Like Astrophel, which thereinto was made. 
 
 ' And in the midst thereof a star appears, 
 As fairly formed as any star in skies, 
 Resembling .Stella in her freshest years. 
 Forth-darting beams of beauty from her eyes ; 
 And all the day it standeth full of dew. 
 Which is the tears that from her eyes did flow. 
 
 ' That herb of some Starlight is called by name, 
 Of others Penthia, tho' not so well ; 
 But thou, wherever thou dost find the same. 
 From this day forth do call it Astrophel : 
 And whensoever thou it up dost take, 
 Do pluck it softly, for that shepherd's sake.'
 
 394 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 This representation was most unfair to Sidney's wife, 
 who followed him to the Netherlands in June or July ; 
 was near him in his pain, to soothe him and kiss the fixding 
 hps, and when the knitted brows smoothed out nobly into 
 rest, she was there ' his eyelids up to close.' This thought, 
 however, did not trouble the serene Spenser. 
 
 We are not told in prose how Lady Eich felt and bore 
 the death of Sidney, but Lodowick Bryskett, in his 
 ' Mourning Muse of Thestylis ' ^ professes to give an ac- 
 count of her bearing and appearance under the affliction. 
 He says 'twas piteous to hear her plaints, and see her 
 ' heavy mourning cheere,' while from ' those two bright 
 stars, to him sometime so dear, her heart sent drops of 
 pearl.' He continues in some quotable lines— 
 
 * If Venus when she wailed her dear Adonis slain, 
 Aught moved in thy fierce heart compassion of her woe, 
 Her noble Sister's plaints, her sighs and tears among, 
 Would sure have made thee mild, and inly rue her pain : 
 Aurora half so fair herself did never show. 
 When, from old Tython's bed, she weeping did arise. 
 The blinded archer-boy, like lark in shower of rain, 
 Sat bathing of his wings, and glad the time did spend 
 Under those crystal drops, which fell from her fair eyes ; 
 And at their brightest beams him proyned in lovely wise. 
 Yet sorry for her grief, which he could not amend. 
 The gentle boy 'gan wipe her eyes, and clear those lights, 
 Those lights thro' which his glory and his conquest shines.' 
 
 We shall not find a prettier picture of Love and Lady 
 Eich ! 
 
 Spenser, in his poem on the death of Astrophel, 
 makes Stella follow ' her mate like turtle chaste.' Lady 
 Eich did nothing of the kind in reality ; it might 
 
 1 ' Thestylis ' says the Countess of Pembroke in her * doleful Lay of 
 Clarinda,' written on Sidney's death, was 
 
 ' A swain 
 Of gentle wit, and dainty-sweet de\ace, 
 Whom Astrophel full dear did entertain 
 Whilst here he lived, and held in passing price/
 
 LADY RICH'S TROUD SPIRIT, 395 
 
 liavc been better for her if she had. Her position was 
 now most perilous ; one that made her beauty a fatal 
 gift. Much that was noble in her nature seems to have 
 passed away with the noble Sidney. In this sense 
 there may have been some allegorical shadow of the 
 truth in the Poet's representation. There was no love in 
 her own home to kindle at the heart of her life, and 
 touch the face of it with happy health, and hallow her 
 superb outward beauty with the light that shines sacredly 
 witliin, or gives the expression from above, whilst the 
 well-known fact of Sidney's love for her, and the halo of 
 romance which his poetry had created round her name, 
 were but too likely to expose her more than ever to fresh 
 temptations. To these sooner or later she undoubtedly 
 yielded ; and ' not finding that satisfaction at home she 
 ought to have received, she looked for it abroad, where 
 she ought not to find it.' Wliether Mountjoy was the 
 first cause of serious quarrel betwixt her and Lord Eich, 
 is not on record. But according to his statement, it 
 must have been as early as 1592 or 1598, that Lord 
 Eich, either with or without just cause, withdrew himself 
 from liis marriage bed. lie soon found that tlie wife he 
 had bought had to be paid for. Her friends had forced 
 her to the altar, but there was the after-life to be lived 
 with her, liice to face, when the same friends could not 
 help him. She was not the kind of woman to bear her 
 sorrow proudly silent, or receive his imkindness meekly. 
 His morose sellishness was not calculated to draw out her 
 better part. Iler's was not the nature from which the 
 sweetness is to be crushed by treading on ; not the spirit 
 to submit to a passive degradation. 
 
 • He dreamed a bonny blooming Rose to wed ; 
 He woke to find a briar in his bed.' 
 
 He caught at the flower of which he had obtained legal 
 possession, and he fell among the thorns. These must
 
 39G SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 have pricked him unmercifully at times with the finger 
 pointings of scorn, the darts of her wild wit, and the 
 sharp thrusts of the veiy sting of bitterness. 
 
 In a letter written by tliis poor Lord to Essex, Sept. 11th, 
 1595, we perceive how uneasily he wriggles on one of his 
 thorns! He is suspicious of the contents of his wife's 
 letters, which he dares not intercept or open. 
 
 'My Lord, — I acknowledge with all thankfulness, your 
 Lordship's favour, signified by your letters, which I received 
 yesterday by my man ; entreating leave also to put you in mind 
 to remember your letters into Staffordshire to your sister, and to 
 the other ijarty. I met this messenger from thence, but durst not 
 intercept the letters he brings, for fear these troublesome times 
 Avill bring forth shortly a parliament, and so perhaps a law to 
 make it treason to break open letters written to any my lords 
 of the Council, whereby they are freely privileged to receive 
 writings from other men's wives without any further question, 
 and have full authority to see every man's wife at their 
 pleasure. A lamentable thing, that this injustice should thus 
 reign in this wicked age. I only entreat your Lordship, that 
 as you hear anything farther of that matter I wrote to you of, 
 I may have your pleasure and farther directions. And so, com- 
 mending your Lordship to the blessed tuition of the Almighty, 
 I remain your Lordship's poor brother to command in all 
 
 honesty. 
 
 Ko. KiCH.'* 
 
 It is possible that the ' other party ' of this letter may 
 have been Mountjoy, and ' that matter' referred to the 
 beginning of his liaison with Lady Eich. If so, Essex 
 did not trouble himself much in the matter, he rather 
 winked at the freedom of his sister in trying to exchange 
 the ' foul yoke her fair neck bore,' for the solace of her 
 lover's arm. He had his own designs upon Mountjoy. 
 He could have cared little for the lady's morals, to have 
 brought home to her close acquaintanceship, and placed 
 on the most famihar footing, the sparlding, clever, vain, 
 
 * Among Anthony £acon^s Papers.
 
 SIGNOR ANTONIO PEREZ. 397 
 
 and presumptuous Antonio Perez, tlie Spanisli renegade, 
 whose intimacy with lier son Francis made good old 
 Lady Bacon hold up her liands in horror. * Though I 
 pity your brother,' she Amtes in a letter to Antliony 
 Bacon, ^ ' yet so long as he pities not himself, but keepeth 
 that bloody Perez, yea, as a coach companion and bed 
 companion ; a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose being 
 about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and 
 doth less bless your brother in credit and otherwise in his 
 health ; surely I am utterly discouraged, and make con- 
 science furtlier to undo myself to maintain such wretches 
 as he is, that never loved your brother but for his own 
 credit, living upon him.' Lady Bacon felt more care for 
 her son than Essex did for his sister. 
 
 A ])retty fellow was this Perez to fdl the situation as- 
 sicrned to him, in the following letter from Mr. Standen to 
 Mr. Bacon, which also serves to show us something of the 
 uncertain temperament and incalculable turns of the Lady 
 llich. Tlie letter was written in March or April, 1595. 
 
 * Riglit Worshipful, — As we were at supper, my Lady 
 Rich, Signer Perez, Sir Nicholas Clyfford, and myself; there 
 came upon a sudden into the chamher, ray Lord and Sir Rohert 
 Sidney, and there was it resolved that Signer Perez must be, 
 to-morrow morning at eiglit of the clock, with my Lord in 
 Court ; after which my Lord means to dine at Walsingliam 
 House, and in the way, to visit Mr. Anthony Bacon ; which, my 
 Lady Ricli understanding, said she would go also to dine with 
 them at Walsingham's. And my Lord, asking how she would 
 be conveyed thither, she answered, that she would go in their 
 companies, and in coach with them, and, arrived at Mr. ISacon's 
 house, and there disembarked my Lord, her brother. Sir Robert 
 should bring her to Walsingham's, and return back with the coach 
 for my Lord, her brother. All which I write unto you. Sir, by 
 way of advice, to the end you be not taken unarmed. Women's 
 discretions being uncertain, it may be she will not dismount, 
 and the contrary also will fall out. Koiv, it is resolved, that 
 
 » Birch, i. 143.
 
 398 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Mr. Perez shall not depart, for that my Lord hath provided 
 him here ivith the same office those eunuchs have in Turkey, 
 ivhich is to have the custody of the fairest dames ; so that he 
 wills me to write, that for the bond he hath with my Lord, he 
 cannot refuse that office.'^ 
 
 Ill a postscript to one of her letters to Anthony Bacon, 
 dated May 3rd, 159G, Lady Eich being at the time in a 
 ' solitary place where no sound of any news can come,' 
 entreats him to let her know something of tlie world. 
 Amongst other things, she would fain hear what has 
 become of liis wandering neighbour, Signor Perez, This 
 flattering knave and charming hypocrite, who had the 
 insinuating grace of the serpent, the subtilty and impu- 
 dence of Lacliimo, was on such familiar terms Avith Lady 
 Eich as to write the following letter to her, March 26th, 
 1595. 
 
 'Signer Wilson hath given me news of the health of your 
 Ladyships, the three sisters and goddesses, as in particular, that 
 all three have amongst yourselves drunk and caroused unto 
 Nature, in thankfulness of what you owe unto her, in that she 
 gave 3^ou not those delicate shapes to keep them idle, but rather 
 that you should push forth unto tis here many buds of those divine 
 beauties. To these gardeners I wish all happiness for so good 
 tillage of their grounds. Sweet ladies mine, many of these 
 carouses ! what a bower I have full of sweets of the like 
 tillage and trimmage of gardens.' ^ 
 
 Tlie clever scamp goes on to say thn.t he has written a 
 book full of such secrets as some persons would not like 
 to have known. lie appears to intimate that on his re- 
 turn to England, these people must pay or he shall pub- 
 lish, so that with the one means or the other, he will live 
 by his book. 'My Book,' he says, 'will serve my turn. 
 But I will not be so good cheap this second time. My 
 receipts will cost dearer, wherefore let every one provide!' 
 
 » iJirch, vol. i. p. 229. 2 ^7^^,^^^ ^^.^.^ 4225
 
 LADY RTCII AND LORD MOUNTJOY. nno 
 
 111 tlie December of this year 1595, we learn by Row- 
 land White's Letters tliat there was to be a christening at 
 Sir Robert Sidney's, to wliich Lady Rich and Lord Mount- 
 joy were both invited. ' I went to Holborn,' says White, 
 ' and found my Lord Mountjoy at his house. I said my 
 lady sent me unto him, to desire him, both in your name 
 and her's, to christen your son tliat was newly born, which 
 he very honourably promised to do ; and when I told him 
 my Lady Rich was godmother, he was much pleased at 
 
 it!' 
 
 Lady Rich had willingly agreed to be a godmother. 
 White told her that both the mother and child had the 
 measles, ' to which she suddenly replied, that after eight 
 days there was no danger to be feared, and therefore it 
 shall be no occasion to keep me from doing Sir Robert 
 Sidney and my lady a greater kindness. When I saw her 
 so desperate, I huniljly besought her Ladyship to take a 
 longer time to think upon the danger, which she did till 
 that afternoon, and then coming to her to Essex House, 
 she told me she was resolved.' Her ladyship was not 
 afraid of tlie measles. And yet the christening was de- 
 ferred. Writing later in the month, White reports Lady 
 Rich to be in Town, but ' the christening is put off till Wed- 
 nesday, New Year's Eve. She says that my Lord Comp- 
 ton desired her to defer it till then, because of some urgent 
 business he hath in the country, that will keep him away 
 till Tuesday niglit ; but I do rather think it to he a tetter that 
 suddenly broke out in her fair white forehead^ which will 
 not he icell in Jive or six days, that keeps your son from 
 heing christened. Rut my Lady Rich's desires are obeyed 
 as commandments by my Lady.'' Evidently the lady 
 wished to look lier best, and show no spot on the face of 
 her beauty, in the presence of my Lord Mountjoy. The 
 interest whicli these two mutually inspired kept increasing, 
 until at length their criminal intercourse was publicly 
 
 ' Si/dney Memoirs, vol. i. p. 385.
 
 400 SHAKSPEARE'S SOJ^NETS. 
 
 kno^^^l; the husband being looked upon as no impedi- 
 ment. Johnstone intimates tliat the patience of Lord 
 Eich as a husband was more wondered at than admired ; 
 and that his strange conduct in retaining his wife, after 
 being perfectly Avell aware of her connection with Lord 
 Mountjoy, was thought anj^thing but prudent. But the 
 morality of the time does not appear to have been greatly 
 outraged. The Queen showed the first sign of disapproval. 
 Camden records the fact, that in IGOO, Lady Eich 'had 
 lost the Queen's favour for abusing her husband's bed.' 
 This he softened, on revision of his work, to ' Quae, mariti 
 thorum violare suspecta.' 
 
 Let us now glance for a moment at the Lady Eich in 
 another of the many-coloured lights in which she was seen 
 by her contemporaries. In November, 1598, Bartholomew 
 . Young, a poet of the time, — he who is the largest con- 
 tributor to England's Helicon, — inscribed to her his Trans- 
 lation of the Diana of George of Montemayor, with tlie 
 foUoAving dedication, — 
 
 * To the Right Honourable and my very good lady, the Lady 
 Eich. 
 
 * Right Honourable, such are the apparent defects of art and 
 judgement in this new pourtraied Diana, that their discovery 
 must needs make me blush, and abase the work, unless with 
 undeserved favour erected upon the high and shining pillar 
 of your honourable protection, they may seem to the beholder 
 less or none at all. The glory whereof as with reason it can 
 no ways be thought worthy, but by boldly adventuring upon 
 the apparent demonstration of your magnificent mind, wherein 
 all virtues have their proper seat, and on that singular desire, 
 knowledge, and delight, wlierewith your Ladyship entertaineth, 
 embracetb, and affecteth honest endeavours, learned languages, 
 and this particular subject of Diana,* warranted by all virtue 
 and modesty, as Collin, in his French dedicatory to the illus- 
 trious Prince Lewis of Lorraine, at large sotteth down and com- 
 mandeth ; now presenting it to so sovereign a light, and relying 
 
 ^ From wliicLi Sidney Jiad made some translations.
 
 LADY lUCirS LOVE OF LITERATURE. 4ul 
 
 on a gracious acceptance, what can 1)6 added more to the full 
 content, desire, and perfection of Diana, and of her unworthy 
 interpreter, (that liath in English here exposed her to the view 
 of strangers), than for their comfort and defence to be armed 
 with the honourable titles and countenance of so hi^h and ex- 
 cellent a Patroness. But as, certain years past, my honourable 
 good Lady, in a public show at the jNIiddle Temple, where your 
 honourable presence, with many noble Lords and fair Ladies, 
 graced and beautified those sports, it befel to my lot, in that 
 worthy assembly, unworthily to perform the part of a French 
 orator, by a dedicated speech in the same tongue, and that 
 amongst so many good conceits, and such general skill in 
 tongues, all the while I was rehearsing it, there was not kny 
 whose nature, judgment and censure in that language I feared 
 and suspected more than your Ladyship's, whose attentive ear 
 and eye daunted my imagination with the apprehension of my 
 disabilities, and your Ladyship's perfect knowledge in the same. 
 Now, once again, in this Translation out of Spanish (which 
 language also with the present matter being so well known to 
 your Ladyship), whose reprehension and severe sentence of all 
 others may I more justly fear, than that which. Honourable 
 Madame, at election you may herein duly give or with favour 
 take away? 1 have no other means, than the humble insinua- 
 tion of it to your most Honourable name and clemency, most 
 humbly beseeching the same pardon to all those faults, which 
 to your learned and judicious views shall occur. Since then, 
 for pledge of the dutiful and zealous desire I liave to serve your 
 Ladyship, the great disproportion of your most noble estate to 
 the quality of my poor condition, can afford nothing else but 
 this small present, my prayer shall always importune the hea- 
 vens for the hajipy increase of your high and worthy degree, 
 and for the full accomplishment of your most honourable 
 desires. 
 
 ' Your Honour's 
 
 * Most humbly devoted, 
 
 ' Bartiiol. Young.' 
 
 Such "was tlie language of literature addressing Lady 
 -Kich, ill the year 1508. 
 
 Troubled times ^vere now eoming for the house of 
 
 D D
 
 402 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Essex ; the clouds were oratherins: fost in which the star 
 of Lady Eich was to suffer temporary echpse. 
 
 We may be satisfied that both Essex and his ambitious 
 sister were continually haunted with the thought of his 
 relationship to Elizabeth being as near as that of Queen 
 Mary Stuart's son, and that their blood would be running 
 too red and high with this royal reminder, which begat 
 the most tantalizing hopes ; sang Avith insidious sug- 
 gestion in his oar, and secretly undermined his whole 
 life, and that Lady Eich fanned tliis fire in her brother's 
 blood, and fed the foolish aspirations of his perturbed 
 spirit. Possibly the early intrigue of Essex and his sister 
 with James in 1589,^ in which the 'Weary Knight' ex- 
 pressed himself as so tired of the ' thrall he now lives in,' 
 so desirous of a change, and offered himself, his sister, and 
 all their friends in anything he (James) had to ' do against 
 the Queen,' arose in great part from their thinking that 
 a change, if brought about turbulently, would give Essex 
 a chance of taking the throne. Quite as unlikely things 
 had occurred in the national History. Stowe remarks on 
 the tendency of the Kentish Men to be swayed lightly at 
 the change of Princes. 
 
 It is certain that Essex's sister was with him in his 
 schemes, although she personally escaped the conse- 
 quences. The sonnets of Shakspeare hint as much. And 
 on the morning of the fatal Sunday, when Essex and his 
 armed followers rushed through the streets on their mad 
 mission, she was moving about like the very bird of the 
 storm : her spirit hovers visibly above the coming wave 
 of commotion. The Earl of Bedford (Edward the 3rd 
 Earl) in liis letter of exculpation to the Lords of the 
 
 ^ In a communication to Burgliley, made by Mr. Tliomas Fowler from 
 Edinburgh, October 7th, lo89, he says of Lady Hich, ' Slie is very pleasant 
 in her letters, and writes the most part thereof in her brother's behalf. 
 "He," the King, "commended much the fineness of her wit, the invention, 
 and well-writing." ' Murdin, niO.
 
 LADY rtlCII AS REBEL. 40:3 
 
 Council,' relates how Lady liich ramc to his house in the 
 midst of the sermon, and told him that the Eaii of Essex 
 desired to speak with him. Wlien he got to Essex House, 
 lie found out how he was caught, and he declares that 
 when the sally was made, he secretly escaped down a 
 cross street, and made his way home agam. There can 
 be no doubt that her ladysliip was a clever, determined 
 Avhipper-in for the Essex cause. The Earl of Nottingham 
 writing to Lord Mountjoy on the behaviour of Essex after 
 the trial, tells how he spared none in 'letting us know 
 how continually they laboured him about it.' And now, 
 said he, I must accuse one wlio is most nearest to me, my 
 sister wito did continually urge me on with telling me how 
 all my friends and followers thought me a coward^ and 
 that 1 had lost my valour} Truly his sister had loved 
 him not wisely, but too well, 'It is well known,' she 
 said, ' that I have been more like a slave than a sister ; 
 which proceeded out of my exceeding love, rather than 
 his authority.'^ This occurs in her letter of defence, 
 written to the Earl of Nottingham, in the postscript of 
 which there is a natural touch. ' Your Lordship's noble 
 disposition forceth me to deliver my grief unto you, hear- 
 ing a report that some of these malicious tongues have 
 sought to wrong a icorthy friend of yours. I know the 
 most of them did hate him for his zealous followinir the 
 service of her ]\Iajesty, and beseech you to pardon my 
 })resuming thus mucli, though I hope his enemies have 
 no power to harm him.' This worthy friend of the Earl's, 
 about wh(^ni the lady is so anxious, was Lord Mountjo)^ 
 
 On the accession of James to the English throne, the 
 sl;u- of Lndy liich shi)ne once more in the Court horizon. 
 We iind pompous John Florio among the first to hail its 
 re-arising. She was one of the live noble ladies to whom 
 he erected his five altars, and burnt incense, when he in- 
 scribed to them his Translation of Montaigne's Essays, in 
 
 » Birch Add. MSS., 4100. = Ji,.^i-cr, p. 17. ^ Brewer, 20. 
 
 D D 2
 
 404 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 1G03 ; her ladyship being one of those from whom he 
 had received countenance and favour ; ' one of those 
 whose magnanimity and magnificent franlv nature have 
 so Ivindly bedewed my earth when it was sunburnt ; so 
 gently thawed it when frost-bound, that I were even more 
 senseless than earth, if I returned not some fruit in good 
 measure.' 
 
 The new reign opened with a general restoration of 
 Essex's fiiends. Lady Eicii was one of the six noble per- 
 sonages chosen to proceed to the Scottish border for the 
 purpose of meeting and conducting the new Queen to the 
 English Capital. Lady Anne Cliirord, in a note to her 
 narrative, says the Queen showed no favour to the elderly 
 ladies, Avhen the meeting took place, but to my Lady Eich 
 and such like company. The new Queen was in some 
 respects a kindred spirit, and made a favourite companion 
 of Lady Eich. She was, says the French Ambassador 
 Eosni, afterwards Duke de Sully, of a bold and enter- 
 prising nature ; loved pomp and splendour, tumult and 
 intrigue. With such a Queen, and in such a Court, Lady 
 Eich was again in lier glory. Her status in the new 
 Court was defined by special license. On the occasion of 
 the Eoyal procession from the Tower to WJiitehall, March 
 15th, 1604, her place was appointed at the head of four- 
 teen Countesses, who all bore most noble names. 
 
 The King granted to Lady Eich ' the place and rank of 
 the ancientest Earl of Essex, called Bouchier, whose heir 
 her fatlier was, she having by her marriage, accorchng to 
 the customs of the laws of honour, ranked herself accord- 
 ing to her husband's barony. By this gracious grant, she 
 took rank of all the Baronesses of the kingdom, and of all 
 Earls' daughters, except Anmdel, Oxford, JSTorthumber- 
 land, and Shrewsbury.' The Earl of Worcester, writing 
 to tlie Earl of Slirewsbury in 1003,^ says, in reporting 
 news of the Court, ' Tliis day the King dined abroad with 
 
 ^ Lodijes Illudratlons, vol. iii.
 
 LADY lacil AdALN AT CUUliT. 400 
 
 tlie Florentine Ambassador, who taketh now Ids leave 
 very shortly. He was with tlie King at the Play at night, 
 
 and si4)ped with my Lady Hitcliic in her chamber 
 
 We have ladies of divers degrees of i'avour ; some for the 
 ]:)rivate chamber, some for the bed-chamber, and some for 
 neither certain. The plotting and malice among them is 
 such, that I think Envy hath tied an invisible snake about 
 most of their necks, to sting one another to death.' 
 
 The Lady Eicli would be able to hold her own, and feel 
 perfectly at home in the Court of James and Oriana, where 
 the morals were loose, and the manners free, and her sin- 
 gular beauty shone nightly iniparagoned as Stella Veneris. 
 ' The Court,' Wilson says, ' being a continued Ma.skerado, 
 wliere she, the Queen, and her ladies, like so many sea- 
 nymphs or Nereides, appeared often in various dresses, to 
 the ravishment of the beholders ; the King himself being 
 not a little delighted with such fluent elegancies as made 
 the night more glorious than the day.' ' Their apparel 
 was rich,' says Carleton, speaking of the ladies in one of 
 these masques, ' but too light and courtezan-like for such 
 great ones.' At the masque which followed the marriage of 
 l^ir riiilip Herbert, Ave learn by Winwood's Memorials,^ 
 that ' there was no small loss that night of chains and 
 jewels, and many great ladies were made shorter bj^ the 
 skirts, and were very well served that they could keep cut 
 no better.' Also, Carleton, in his letter to Mr. Winwood, 
 giving an account of the marriage, supplies us with a 
 curious picture of the Court and King, and the manners 
 of both. He says, 'the Bride and Bridegroom were 
 L^lLTcd in the Council Chamber, where the Kinir, in liis 
 shirt and night-gown, gave them a reveille-matin,, before 
 they were up, and spent a good time in or iq)()n the bed, 
 choose which you will believe.' 
 
 And all went merrilv for the lady Eich. So lonfj as 
 she only lived in adultery with Mountjoy, her honoured 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 43.
 
 406 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 position in Court and society was unquestioned. But 
 Mountjoy was conscientious enough to wish to make her 
 liis wife, and obtain the Church's blessing on tlie bond 
 which had held tlieni together so long, if so loosely. He 
 desired to make his wife an honest woman, and liis 
 chiklren legitimate. By an agreement among the several 
 parties a judgment was obtained fiom the Ecclesiastical 
 Court. Lady Eich was divorced from her husband, and 
 the Earl of Devonshire immediately married her. But, 
 the divorce proved to be only a legal separation ; not a 
 sufficient warrant for a subsequent marriage. The mo- 
 tives of Mountjoy were of the purest and most manly, 
 but an oversight had assuredly been made in interpreting 
 the law. This attempt to make the Lady Eich his own 
 lawful wife, drew down on the head of Mountjoy a burst- 
 ing thunder-cloud. The Court world which had looked 
 on so complacently whilst the law of God was broken full 
 in its slight, was horrified at this violation of the law of 
 man, even though it were done unwittingly. The King was 
 moved to such anger that lie told Mountjoy he had ' pur- 
 chased a fair woman with a black soul ! ' others chimed 
 in, most indignantly rejecting the lady's right to become 
 private propert}^ ! Yet, this ' fair woman with a black 
 soul,' had, whilst merely living in open criminal inter- 
 course, been accepted as the light and glory of the Court. 
 Mountjoy pleaded with manly tenderness and Christian 
 charity for his wife, and tried to justify his act, but 
 in vain. He told the King that ' the laws of moral 
 honesty, which in things not proliibited by God, I have 
 ever held inviolable, do only move me now to prefer 
 my own conscience before the opinion of the world.' In 
 spite of which noble sentiment, his heart broke, trying to 
 bear the sad lot that had befallen him. ' Grief of unsuc- 
 cessful love,' says his secretary Moryson, ' brought him to 
 his last end.' He died within four months of his marriage 
 April 3, 1606. 
 
 b'^'
 
 EARL OF DEVOXSIIirtE'S DEATH. 407 
 
 Sir Dudley Carleton, writing to Mr. J. Cliaml)erlain, at 
 Ware Park, on Gcjod Friday, A] )i-il 17, IGOG, says : — 
 
 'My L. of Devonshire's funeral will be performed in West- 
 minster, about three weeks hence. There is much dispute 
 among the heralds, whether his lady's arms should be impaled 
 with his, which brings in question the lawfulness of the marriage, 
 and that is said to depend on the manner of the divorce. Her 
 estate is much threatened with the King's account, but it is 
 thought she will find good friends, for she is visited daily by 
 the greatest, who profess much love to her for her Earl's sake; 
 meantime, amongst the meaner sort you may guess in what 
 credit she is, when Mrs. Bluenson complains that she had m^ide 
 her cousin of Devonshire shame her and her whole kindred. 
 
 2nd May. — It is determined that his arms shall be set up 
 sin£>:le, without his wife's.' ^ 
 
 o 
 
 The first publication of the dramatic poet, John Ford, 
 was a poem on the death of the Earl of Devonshire, 
 ])rinted in 1606, entitled ' Fame's Memorial,' and dedi- 
 cated ' To the rightly Eight Honourable Lady, the Lady 
 Penelope, Countess of Devonshire.' Some of the lines are 
 interestinii: : — 
 
 ' Tvinked in the graceful bonds of dearest life, 
 Unjustly termed disgraceful, he enjoyed 
 Content's abundance ; happiness was rife. 
 Pleasure secure; no troubled thought annoj^ed 
 His comforts sweet ; toil was in toil destroyed ; 
 ]Nh\ugre the throat of malice, spite of spite, 
 He lived united to his heart's delii>ht: 
 
 ' His heart's delight, who was the beauteous Star 
 Which l)eautified the value of our land ; 
 The lights of whose perfections brighter are 
 Than all the lamps which in the lustre stand 
 Of heaven's forehead by Discretion scanned ; 
 Wit's ornanient I Earth's love ! liove's paradise ! 
 A saint divine, a beauty fairly wise: 
 
 ' S. r. O.
 
 408 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 ' A beauty fairly wise, wisely discreet 
 In winking mildly at the tongue of rumour ; 
 A saint merely divine, divinely sweet 
 In banishing the pride of idle humour : 
 Not relishing the vanity of tumour, 
 More than to a female of so high a race ; 
 With meekness bearing sorrow's sad disgrace.' 
 
 It is clifFiGiilt to resist smiling at the idea of making the 
 Lady Eich a sort of icinking saint. The Poet is nearer 
 the mark when he likens her, in another stanza, as a wit 
 among women, to a nightingale amidst a quire of com- 
 mon song birds. 
 
 Poor Lady Piicli ! Her fate was as full of contrast as 
 the moral mixture of her nature, or the outward show of 
 her twilight beauty. The most striking opposites met in 
 lier complexion, her character, and her life ; as though the 
 parental elements in her were not well or kindly mixed. 
 Like Beatrice, slie seems to have been born in ' a merry- 
 hour when a star danced,' over her father's house ; born 
 to be clothed in the purple of choicest speech a poet's love 
 can lavish ; to sit as a proud queen in the hearts of some 
 wlio were among the kingiiest of men, and be crowned 
 with such a wreath of amaranth as descends upon the 
 brow of but few amoncr women. One of the bright 
 
 a 
 
 particular stars of two Courts ; the beloved idol of two 
 heroes; one of the proudest, wittiest, most fascinating 
 women of her time ; the Beauty, in singing of whom, the 
 poets vied like rival lovers, as they strung their harps 
 with ' Stella's ' golden hair, and strove together in praise of 
 the starry midnight of those eyes that were so darkly lus- 
 trous with their rich eastern look. And her day of 
 stormy splendour appears to have ended in the saddest 
 way imaginable ; closmg in impenetrable night : all the 
 pride of life suddenly laid low in the dust of death, and so 
 dense a darkness aljout her grave, that wc cannot make 
 out her name.
 
 A STAR SUDDENLY GONE OUT. 40U 
 
 Her mother, tlie ' little Western Flower,' lively- 
 blooded Lettice Kuollys, ' She that did supply the wars 
 with thunder and the Court with stars,' lived on in 
 her lustiliood to a green and grey old age, walking 
 erectly, to appearance, after all the crookednesses of lier 
 career ; her smiset going down with a melloAV and tran- 
 quil shine, and dying at last amidst her momiiers in 
 tlie very odour of sanctity. But the daughter vanishes 
 from view in a moment, while yet the star of her life rode 
 high, and we are left in the darkness all the blinder 
 for the late dazzle of her splendour. Slie who luul been 
 the cynosure of all eyes, passes out of siglit idmost un- 
 noticed, and one who was among the first in fame becomes 
 suddenly imknown. Of all who were so well known in 
 their life-time, she surely must have been the least re- 
 membered in her death. It looks as though the disap- 
 pearance had been intentional ; as though she had taken 
 the black death-veil, and drawn tlie dark curtains about 
 her, and that by a tacit agreement betwixt her and the 
 world, her name and reputation should be buried with 
 her body, as one of those, of whom the Poet sings, wdio 
 were 
 
 * 3Ierely born to bloom and drop ; 
 Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly 
 
 were the crop : 
 \N'hat of soul was left I wonder, when the kissing had to 
 
 stop ? 
 " Dast and as/tes" so you creak it, and I want the heart to 
 
 scold. 
 Dear, dead women, witli sucli liair, too — what's become 
 
 of all the gold 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly ;uul 
 
 grown old.' ' 
 
 So com[)letely did Ladj" Eich pass out of siglit that not a 
 portrait of lier remains. Yet she was often painted, and 
 
 ^ 'A Toccata of Galupjn's.^ Robert Browning.
 
 410 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 there must ]iave been various pictures of her extant at 
 the time of her death. One of Burghley's secret agents, 
 wlio writes to the Enghsli Minister from the Scottisli 
 Court, informs him on the 20th of October, 1589, that 
 Eialta (Lady Eicli) has sent the King her portrait. There 
 is also a portrait of her mentioned, among the goods and 
 chattels at Wanstead, in the inventory taken of Leicester's 
 property after his death. But I have failed to trace 
 either painting or engraving of Lody Bicli at present 
 in existence. ^ It is also most difficult to find any 
 record of her out of poetry and the Sydney Memoirs. I 
 know of but one mention of her death : it was disin- 
 terred by Professor Craik only a few years ago from the 
 Latin History of Eobert Johnstone (Historia Eerum Bri- 
 tannicarum), published at Amsterdam in 1655. At page 
 420, the writer relates that Devonshire, stung by the 
 reproaches of the King, who told him he had purchased 
 a fair woman witli a black soid, broke down altogether 
 and breathed his last in the arms of Lady Eich, passing 
 away in the midst of lier adorations, tears and kisses. 
 And he adds that the lady, worn out with grief and 
 lamentation, did not long survive him, but, laden with 
 the robes and decorations of mourning, lay night and day 
 stretched on the floor in a corner of her bed-chamber, 
 refusing to be comforted, except by death. ' Happy pair,' 
 he says, ' had but a legal union sanctified their glowing 
 and constant love.' This- is the only ray of liglit that 
 ])ierces the gloom ; the only word that breaks the silence. 
 In tliis dearth of recorded facts relating to the close of 
 Lady Eich's life it is little marvel that a secret intrigue, 
 such as I deduce from Sliakspeare's Sonnets, should not 
 have been elsewhere chronicled for posterity ; especially 
 
 ^ Her Ladyship must have boon painted in some of the Court processions 
 as one of the principal Maids of Honour. I'ossibly her Portrait may turn up 
 at tlie forthcoming Exliibitiou of National Portraits^ amongst those that are 
 anonymous or misnamed.
 
 A SECRET IXTKIGUE. 411 
 
 as it was a secret history. The liaison witli Lord IMoiintjoy 
 attracted all the public attention at the time. But it may 
 be remembered tliat although Lady Ixicli was more closely 
 attaclied to Lord Mountjoy m the j^ears 150U and IGOO, 
 for instance, than to her husband wlio, according to Mount- 
 joy, had kept her from his bed for the space of twelve 
 years before they finally and absolutely parted ; yet there 
 was no bond that bound her to Mountjoy with inviolable 
 ties when he was away, for example, with his army in 
 Ireland ; nothing to hinder such an intrigue, if we consider 
 the manners of the time and the morals of the lady. 
 Mountjoy, we may be sure, was not the only 'noble ruin of 
 her ma<T;ic.' At the most he could but claim a share in her 
 until he had made her his own, after her divorce from Lord 
 Eich. This, indeed, he acknowledges by his diifidence on 
 the score of paternity, for, out of the five children assigned 
 to him by Lady Eich, he only recognised and provided for 
 three of them as his own. These five children were all 
 born after the Lord Eich (on Mountjoy's own showing) 
 had withdrawn himself from his lady's bed, and at least 
 four of the five were born before the re-marriacje of her 
 Ladyship with Mountjoy. Here, then, is a father wanted. 
 One of the two thus left unacknowledi^'ed was a dauiihter 
 named Isabella. And curiously enough we find l)y let- 
 ters in the State Papers Ofiice, that in the year 16 18 Wil- 
 liam Eiirl of Pembroke, then Lord Chamberlain, is one of 
 the persons most anxiously interested in tlie marriage of 
 Liidy Isabella Eich with Sir Thomas Smythe's son, Avhicli 
 marriage, for reasons best known to the parties concerned, 
 was eflected without the knowledge of the young man's 
 fother. Mr. Chamberlain to Carleton, November 28th, 
 1018, writes tiiat 'tlieLord Chamberlain and others have 
 forwarded the marriage of Sir Thomas Smythe's son of 
 eighteen, to Ladv Isabella Eich, without knowledire of the 
 father wlio, at their entreaty, has consented to receive 
 her.' The Eev. Thomas Lorkinji; iiives an account of the
 
 412 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 affair in his letter of January 5th, 1618-19, 'I forgot to 
 acquaint you, in my former letter, "vvith a matter that hath 
 been here sim/fled uj? between Sir Thomas Smythe's son and 
 Mrs. Isabella Eich ; who, finding themselves both together 
 
 at Sir Udal's, some few days since, and liking well 
 
 enough either the other, my Lord Chamberlain, who was 
 there present, sent for his own Chaplain, to Barnard Castle, 
 to make the matter sure by marrying them : icho, making 
 some difficulty, for that they had no license, his Lordship 
 encouraged him, upon assurance of savi?ig him harmless. 
 So they w^ere presently married ; and, from thence con- 
 ducted to my Lord Southampton s to dinner, and to my Lady 
 Bedford's to bed. But the father is a heavy man to see his 
 son bestowed without his privity and consent.' Camden says 
 that young Smythe left England about eight months after 
 the marriage, without takinj]!; leave of either Father or Mo- 
 ther ; and Wood further afiirms that he did so ' upon some 
 discontent.' My inference is that the Lord Cliamberlain 
 had veiy private personal reasons for the interest he felt 
 and showed in the marriage of Lady Isabella Eicli. 
 
 It is with a feeling of sadness that I have come to break 
 that silence which Wordsworth has called a privilege of 
 the grave, a right of the departed, and disturb the repose 
 of Lady Eich, or wake the sleeping echoes of her name by 
 reviving the errors that were laid in dark foro;etfulness, all 
 the more that the result is to prove another blot upon her 
 fame as a woman. I would much rather have had to re- 
 ]ial)ihtate her character ; re-set her image in the likeness 
 of that Stella who glowed in Sidney's eyes as ' that virtuous 
 soul, sure lieir of heavenly bliss ; ' this would liave been 
 far pleasanter than having to rake, as it were, in the dust 
 of death for this fresh frailty of her life, and stir the cold 
 quiet aslies for some cunningly- concealed spark of tlie old 
 ])assionate fire. For no one can put together what is known 
 of tiie lady's life, or see how it got all wrong at the begin- 
 ning, liow she missed her chance Avhen she lost lier first
 
 A CIIARACTEIi OF MANY COLOURS. 413 
 
 love — the liu^baiiel on whom heri'atlier had .set liis he;irt — 
 the man who was to become tlie flower of English nobility, 
 and give to the national chivalry its crowning grace — 
 
 ' The Courtier's, Soldier's, Scholar's eye, tongue, sword, 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
 The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 
 The observed of all observers' — 
 
 gentle and beloved Philip Sidney, and was handed over 
 at so early an age to one of the most ignoble and sordid 
 of men, withont a feeling of pity for her unfortunate lot 
 and mournfid fate. One woidd not bear hardly on the poor, 
 passionate, warmdiearted lady, who was thus wedded by 
 family necessities to a cold-blooded brute, that had not 
 soul enough to be sensible of his own disgrace, nor con- 
 science enough to fight for his honour, but kept his wife 
 because she was convenient to liim, although he well knew 
 of her leanings out of his house, and tortured her for years 
 before he let her leave him altogether. 
 
 And it is but right that I should point out ho^v my 
 reading of the latter sonnets does bear hardly on her 
 by making so real and intensely personal that ANhicli 
 was never meant to be identified. The sonnets I hold 
 to have been written for the purpose of giving utterance 
 to a youtli's passion for a woman whose fame was such 
 as to permit great latitude in speaking of her character 
 in genend. But it was never contemplated that they 
 should be read as Shakspcare's own arraignment of 
 Lady Eich on the score of immoral conduct. Somethiii<v 
 of tliis shape they assume : now we have the lady unveiled 
 in public court tmd Shakspeare, as it were, in thcAvitness- 
 box. The lady nuist not be judged, however, without 
 remembering who the speaker really is, how the sonnets 
 were written, and that when the blackest changes were 
 made, it was never thought she Avould be requested 
 to lift her veil and have her face known as that of
 
 414 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Penelope Eich. In the other novel readings, such as 
 EUzabeth Vernon's Jealousy, I liave been able to do 
 justice to Shakspeare and free his character from some 
 very vile imputations without doing injustice to anyone 
 else. The latter sonnets will not permit such a pleasant 
 solution of their poetic pioblem. But, in seeking to take 
 the weight off tlie broad slioulders of our great Poet, one 
 does not want it to fall witli unnecessary force on the 
 woman who already had more than enough to bear. 
 
 Sidney has painted the Lady Ptich as an Angel of Light. 
 My reading, and the exigencies of William Herbert's case, 
 make Shakspeare represent her as an Angel of Darkness. 
 ]3ut the living woman in whom these two alternated, and 
 out of which her nature was compounded — the woman 
 Avho, with lier tropical temperament and bleak lot in 
 marriage, could yet remain the conqueror of .Sidney and 
 herself in such circumstances of peril as he has depicted 
 in liis confessions — the woman who would fi2;ht for her 
 husband through thick and thin, and hurry back to him 
 if she heard he was ill, wait upon liim and watch over 
 him day and night from a sense of duty ratlier than a 
 necessity of affection — the woman who was passionately 
 fond of her children, and so devoted to her brother Eo- 
 bert that she would have bartered body and soul for him, 
 and gone through liell-hre for his sake — ^^vho v/as always 
 ready to help a friend when her influence was of value at 
 Court — ^this woman has never been pourtrayed for us, 
 unless some approach to her picture under other names 
 has been made by the one great master, solely capable, in 
 his dramatic works. 
 
 It is difficult, as Fuller has said, to draw those to the 
 life who never sit still. The Lady Eich is one of these 
 subjects, all sparkle and splendour, and the radiance as of 
 rain which continual motion keeps a-twinkle, so various 
 in their humours and sudden in their change. In her the 
 most perplexing opposites intermixed with a subtle play
 
 A .AirXGLED YATJX OF noop AND EVIL. tlo 
 
 jind ciuUfSS shiftings of light and sliade, many-coloured 
 tuid evanescent as the breeze-tinted ripples of a summer 
 sea. No two portraits of her could possibly be alike. 
 In some respects she was one of those generous sinners 
 that Christ himself was very kind to, with a heart that 
 was bountiful or pitiful and always ready to do a kindly 
 action for those who were distressed. For example — 
 In March 150C, she writes to Essex : — ' Worthy Brother, I 
 was so loth to importune you for this poor gentlewoman, 
 as I took this petition from her the last time I was at the 
 Court, and yesterday I sent her Avord by her man that I 
 would not trouble you Avith it, but wished her to make 
 some other friends. Upon which message, her husband, 
 that hath been subject to franticness through his troubles, 
 gi-ew in such despair as his wife's infinite sorrow makes 
 me satisfy her again, who thinks that none will pity her 
 misery and her children if you do not ; since, if he cannot 
 have pardon, he must iiy, and leave them in ver}^ poor 
 estate. Dear brother, let me know your pleasure; and 
 believe that I endlessly remain your most faithful sister, 
 Penelope Rich.' And Eowland White gives us a pleasant 
 glimpse of her ladyship in this aspect — 
 
 In IMarch 1597, he had occasion to seek her aid for 
 the purpose of getting presented to the Queen a very 
 earnest petition of Sir Eobert Sidney's. He says, ' I took 
 this opportunity to beseech her to do you one favour, 
 which was to deliver this letter (and shewed it to her) to 
 the Queen ; she kissed it and took it, and told me that 
 you had never a fiiend in Court who would be more ready 
 than herself to do you any pleasure ; I besought her, in 
 the love I found she bore you, to take sometime thisniglit 
 to do it ; and, withcnit asking anything at all of the con- 
 tents of it, she put it in her bosom and assured me tliat 
 this niiiht, or to-morrow morniuLT, it would be read, and 
 bid me attend her.' Which makes us feel a waft of 
 cordial warmth breathed from a kindly-aflectioned heart, 
 as the letter disappears in its temporary resting-place.
 
 410 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 THOMAS THORPE. 
 
 AND HIS 
 
 *ONLIE BEGETTEE' OF THE SONNETS. 
 
 We are now able to deal with tlie Inscription written by 
 Thomas Thorpe, and bring it within the domain of positive 
 facts, instead of leaving its meaning to remain any longer 
 a matter of opinion. I am not sure that it is without a 
 touch of malicious satisfaction that I place Thorpe after 
 the Sonnets for the first time ! Whilst standing full in 
 front of them, darkening the doorway, and almost shutting 
 Sliakspeare out of sight, he has given me a great deal of 
 trouble. And yet, he is not so much to blame for the 
 perplexity, as others are. I venture to doubt that the 
 Ehzabethans, who knew their man, ever mistook his mean- 
 ing, or were misled by his ' onlie begetter.'' This was left 
 to the discoverers of later times, in which Thorpe's Inscrip- 
 tion, rather than Shakspeare's Sonnets, has become the 
 main object of critical interest and ingenuity, and Thorpe's 
 shallowness not Shakspeare's depth has received all the 
 attention of eiTorts wliicli have been vain as it would be 
 to try and gauge tlie deptlis of azure heaven in the reflex 
 of a road-side puddle. So completely has this inscription 
 on the outside been interposed betwixt us and the Poet's 
 own writing, that the only aim of the efforts hitherto 
 made to decipher the secret history of the sonnets does
 
 TIIOKPE'S IXSCKII'TION. 417 
 
 l)iit amount to an attempt at discovering a man who 
 sliould be yoinig in years, handsome in person, loose in 
 cliaracter ; the initials of whose name must be ' W. //.' 
 The discoverers being quite ignoi'ant at the outset of their 
 enterprise as to what Thorpe himself knew of the soimets ; 
 what he really meant by his ' 07ilie begetter,'' and liable, 
 after all, to be met with the fotal fact that he used the 
 word ' begetter ' in its more remote, its original sense, and 
 thus inscribed tlie sonnets, with his l)est wishes, to the 
 person Avho might be legitimately called the *" ojily ob- 
 tainer' of tliem for him to print. We are now in a position 
 to grapple with Thorpe's Inscription — 
 
 TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF . 
 THESE . INSVING . SONNETS . 
 M"" . W . II . ALL . IIAPPINESSE . 
 AND . THAT • ETERNITIE . 
 PROMISED . 
 BY . 
 OVH . EYER-LIVING . TOET . 
 WISUETH . 
 THE . "\YELL-AVISHING . 
 ADYENTYRER . IN . 
 SETTING . 
 FORTH . T. T. 
 
 A Shakspcare scholar who had read my Article on 
 ' Shakspeare and liis Sonnets ' in the ' Quarterly Eeview,' 
 admitted that he cnuld not answer my arguments, wliich 
 li;id l)L'en urged to show tliat if tlie sonnets ever had 
 an ' only begetter ' in the creative sense, the Earl of Soutli- 
 amptnn must have been the man, but he utterly refused, 
 lie said, to believe that the Earl of Southampton was 
 Sliakspeare's Master W. IT. Thus missing the very obvious 
 point, tliat there is no such person as Shakspeare's 'Mr. 
 W. II.!' This mistake has been common witli most who 
 liave touched the subject. If the Poet himself had penned 
 the dedication, then no amount of labour could have been 
 
 E E
 
 418 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 wasted in fatlioiniiig its import. The word ' begetter ' 
 would then, however, have had but one possible meaning. 
 But the Inscription is not Shakspeare's ; the ' only begetter' 
 and the 'Mr. W. H.' are not his; tliey are only Thomas 
 Thorpe's ! He, the Bookseller, having got the sonnets into 
 his hands, wishes ' Mr. W. H.,' whom he calls the ' only 
 begetter,' all happiness and that eternity promised by 
 Shakspeare in the sonnets. He does not say that the Poet 
 promised immortalit}^ to Mr. W. H. ; but he, Thomas 
 Thorpe, wishes it to him, in setting forth the sonnets. 
 From this inscription it has been assumed that Thorpe dedi- 
 cated the sonnets to their only objective creator — the man 
 who begot them in Shakspeare's mi?''d, and that this Mas- 
 ter W. H. was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Not 
 that any worthy attempt has been made to solve a problem 
 or grapple with a great difficulty ! Nor has Herbert ever 
 been wedded to the sonnets by any identification of facts ; 
 no single proof ha\dng been produced ! We have had an 
 inference drawn from Thorpe's Inscription, not in the least 
 a result of reading the Sonnets of Shakspeare ! A closer 
 study has led the French Critic, M. Chasles, to per- 
 ceive how untenable is the hypothesis that WiUiam 
 Herbert was the ' only Begetter ' of the sonnets in the 
 sense now commonly supposed, and he has tried to make 
 extremes meet by a new reading of Thorpe's dedication, 
 earnestly as though tliere Avere but one use of the word 
 ' begetter^' and as though Thorpe must of necessity have 
 known all about the sonnets, and the secret relationship 
 of the persons concerned ! His new interpretation may 
 be given in his own series of conclusions : — ' 1. Tliat we 
 have here no dedication, properly so called, at all, but a 
 kind of monumental inscription. 2. That this inscription 
 has not one continuous sense, but is broken up into two 
 distinct sentences. 3. That the former sentence contains 
 the real inscription, wliich is addressed by and not to W. H. 
 4. That the person to whom the inscription is addressed
 
 M. CIIASLES' RENDEKING. 410 
 
 is, for some reasons, not directly named, but described by 
 what the learned call an Autonomasia (the only begetter 
 of these ensuing sonnets), 5. That the latter sentence is 
 only an appendage to the real inscription. G. That the 
 publisher, in the latter sentence, is allowed to express his 
 own good wishes, not for an eternity of fame to the beget- 
 ter of the sonnets, which would be an impertinence on his 
 part, but for the success of the undertaking in which he, 
 the adventurer, has embarked his capital.' 
 
 Tlie critic aro-ues that William Herbert is the writer of 
 the inscription, and that he dedicates the sonnets to their 
 ' only begetter,' the Earl of Southampton. This reading 
 looks like a discovery at first sight, but it will not bear a 
 second thought. It seeks to surmount one obstacle by 
 another still tj-reater. To have to wrench the word 
 ' icisheth ' from its present place in tliat wnld way is a 
 violation of ;dl probability more patent than anything 
 hitlierto proposed in regard to the dedication. What 
 makes M. Chasles' interjiretation appear feasible on a first 
 glance is that it somewliat illustrates the underlying facts 
 of the case. If any man in this world did set Shakspeare 
 writing sonnets, and call forth our Poet's love in that 
 form, it certainly must have been the Earl of Southamp- 
 ton. But it is difiicult to see why it should have been 
 assumed that Thorpe knew of an 'only begetter' in the 
 creative sense, and who he was, or what would be the ad- 
 vantage of proving that the inscription did dedicate to such 
 an ' only Begetter' wlien the sonnets themselves would dis- 
 prove it again by telhng us in Shakspeare's own words, 
 that there was no sole begetter in any such sense ? It is 
 only a later endeavour to set Thorpe above Shakspeare. 
 The inscription, however, will not bear such a division ; it 
 is essentially one. If the Printers had made a mistake and 
 run it on, Thorpe was there to correct it. But his own 
 phraseology makes that impossible, and carries us over 
 any break or division. Mr. Corney thinks it was an over- 
 
 £ £ 2
 
 420 SIIAKSrEAIiE'S SONNETS. 
 
 sight on tlie part of Thorpe to add his \\^(i\\-wishing Ad- 
 venturer so close to the wishetli. This is a strange obser- 
 vation to make, and most unfortunate in relation to his 
 adopted theory, for it must be obvious to all who consider 
 how fond were the Elizabethan sonneteers, Shakspeare 
 especially, of the figures Anadiplosis, or the Redouble, and 
 Epanelepsis, or the Echo-sound, that Thorpe has been 
 trying to imitate the poetic figure, and managed to pro- 
 duce a double of his own, an alliteration in sound and sense 
 which has in it tlie very smack of his self-L?atisfaction, and 
 which certainly proves the Inscription to be all one. If 
 this had been the solution of the great Shakspeare prob- 
 lem oiu^ 'homely wits' were not in the least likely to accom- 
 plish it, for assuredly no Englishman could have made 
 the discovery. 
 
 Not only is M. Chasles' reading impossible in the latter 
 part of the Inscription ; it was doomed in the beginning if 
 Thorpe meant the only Obtainer of the sonnets for his 
 ' only Begetter.' 
 
 In dealing with tliis dedication we must take it as it 
 stands, remembering always tliat it is Q'liorpe's inscrip- 
 tion; not Shakspeare's. And first, what did Thorpe mean 
 by his ' onlie begetter of the ensuing sonnets?' There 
 could liave been no ' only begetter,' in the creative sense, 
 as is amply proved by the sonnets. There must have 
 been more than one person concerned in their begettal 
 because the two sexes are directly addressed ; a variet)^ 
 of character is implied, and dramatically evolved, and 
 Avhere there are two or more Inspirers, there cannot be 
 an' ordy begetter,' except it were Shakspeare. There being 
 no ' only begetter ' in that sense, Mr. W. H. could not 
 be rightly addressed, as the sole begetter in such sense. 
 Besides, if there had been an. ' only l^egetter,' wdiom 
 Shakspeare loved so much, it is imi)ossible to conceive 
 that he could have left the dedication of so nuich love, 
 to the wdiimsical wording of a bookseller, who had a 
 strong spice of buffoonery in his nature ; this being totally
 
 THE ' BEGETTER' ONLY THE OI'.TAIXER. 421 
 
 opposed towliat ]u' ]i;i(l (lone in puhlisliing his poems, and 
 to the promises lie tlieii recorded, and as utterly opposed 
 to the spirit of all the personal sonnets. There is no ' only 
 l)egetter,' then inscribed to by Shakspeare himself, and 
 the sonnets tell us that no such person begot them, how 
 then should Thorpe dedicate to an ' only begetter ? ' 
 
 Some of the earlier commentators, as Chalmers and 
 Boswell, have suggested that by his ' only begetter,' Thorpe 
 might have meant the ^ only obtamer,' the only person who, 
 so far as Thorpe was concerned, had power to procure the 
 sonnets for him to publish. And this is the original signifi- 
 cation of the word. ' Beget,' is derived by Skinner from the 
 Anglo-Saxon begettan or begyten — ' obtinere.' The Glos- 
 sary to Thorpe's ' Analecta Anglo-Saxonica ' renders ' be- 
 gytan ' to beget — obtain. Johnson derives ' beget,' from the 
 Anglo-Saxon 'begettan,' to obtain. Webster gives the 
 Avord 'begetter' from ' begetan,' of 'be,' and 'getan' to get. 
 An Anglo-Saxon Glossary of Latin words, apparently of the 
 ninth century,^ renders ' Adquiri,' beo7i be-gyten. In the 
 Proverbs of King Alfred, we find the word ' beget,' used 
 tor obtain. ' Thus quoth Alfred : If thou a liiend bi-gete,' 
 i. e. if you be-get or get a friend. In Chaucer we have 
 ' getten,' for obtained with the ' y,' as prefix ' y-getten.' 
 'J'hus the original sense of the word be<jet was possessive, 
 not creative ! I believe the word to be used Avith this 
 primary meaning in ' Titus Andronicus,' ' Till time bi'get 
 some easeful remedy.' It certainly is so used by Dekkar 
 in his ' Satiromastix' which was printed seven years 
 before the sonnets. lie writes — ' I liave some cousin- 
 germans at court shall biu/et you (that is, obtain for 
 vou) tlie reversion of the Master of the Kind's Iievels.' 
 In this sense the ' begetter,' is merely the person v/ho 
 acts, or obtains a thinLT. We have divided the word 
 and doubled the use of it, but Dekkar employs it in 
 the simjjle Anglo-Saxon sense. And this is the sense in 
 
 * See ReUqufp Antiquce, vol. i. ]i. II.
 
 422 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 ichich Thorpe inscribed Shakspeare's sonnets to the ' only 
 begetter.' Such at least, is my interpretation ; and it is 
 demanded by all the necessities, illustrated by all the cir- 
 cumstances, enforced by all the facts of the case. In 
 Minsheu's Dictionary (1617), the verb to beget is given 
 to b)'i)ig forth. So that Thorpe in dedicating to the 
 ' begetter,' for the ' obtainer,' had really a double choice 
 of meanings when he inscribed to the only ' obtainer', 
 or ' bringer-forth.' My reading will show tliat there 
 ■was no only begetter in any other sense. . And, if there 
 had been, we may rest assured that Mr. Thorpe would 
 not have been delegated to explain a mystery which 
 Shakspeare had not thought fit to make clear ; he would 
 not be empowered to address the very person whom 
 the Poet has left nameless, with regard to the sonnets. 
 Besides which, if Shakspeare had purposed naming his 
 begetter of the sonnets, and intended to dedicate the 
 individual affection, and the promised immortality to 
 liis friend, this was the vaguest way of conferring name 
 and fiune ever yet adopted, for there is no name and con- 
 sequently there could follow no fame. Thorpe was not 
 in the least concerned ^\\i\\ the person or persons wlio 
 * begot ' the sonnets, only in the person who 'got,' obtained 
 them for him to print, and it is not in the remotest degree 
 likely that hcwas made a party to the mystery in any shape. 
 What the three friends did not choose to reveal, they 
 could not permit a bookseller to know, much less to pub- 
 lisli abroad. It is the begetter for him that he addresses 
 Avitli compliments, not the begetter from Shakspeare. 
 The begetter of the sonnets ; not tlieir begetter. This 
 ' only begetter,' therefore, is Thorpe's not Shakspeare's. 
 And as Thorpe w^as only too glad to obtain the sonnets 
 for printing, he would be too fearful of olTence to commit 
 himself rashly by any unadvised dedication. Not bemg 
 commissioned to speak for others, he would be discreet 
 enough to speak only for liimself.
 
 TIIOP.PE'S AFFECTATION. 423 
 
 111 a matter so delicate lie would put forth nothing 
 without some warrant for its appropriateness and accept- 
 ance ; his setting-forth would be done on a safe footing ; 
 and 'Mr. W. H.' knew right well that he was not the ' only 
 begetter,' save in the sense of ' obtamer.' Therefore ^\■e 
 may infer that the same power which suppressed the full 
 title of •• Mr. \Y. H.' would be exerted to prevent any such 
 mistake on the part of Thorpe, whose w^ords would be 
 thus rendered reliable and trustworthy for us. 
 
 Thorpe had undoubtedly peeped at his treasure when 
 the sonnets came into his possession, and he knew there 
 was a promise of immortality often re]:)eated in them, but 
 lie did not know to whom ! He could not know the 
 hidden history, or life-relationships that my reading 
 unfolds. He only approached the sonnets on the book- 
 seller's side. He could only dedicate them to the person 
 who obtained them for printing ; could only thank the 
 getter of them. 
 
 But there is no need to take advantage of my reading, 
 and prove the inscription by the sonnets. The Inscription 
 alone may be made to supply adequate demonstration that 
 Thorpe inscribed to the ' only ohtainei\' when he dedicated 
 to the ' only begetter.' And first of its Avriter : Thorpe 
 publi>^lied Lucan's hrst book, which was translated by ]\hir- 
 lowe. In doing so, he dedicated the work ' To his kind 
 and true friend, Edward Blunt,' in the following conceited 
 and fantastical fashion. 
 
 ' Hli)unt : I purpose to Le blunt with you, and out of my 
 (luhu'ss to encounter you with a Dedication in the memory 
 of that pure element all wit C'hr. ]\hirlow ; whose ghost or 
 Genius is to he seen walk the Churchyard in (at least) three 
 or fdur sheets. jNIethinks 3'ou should presently look wild now, 
 and grow humourously frantic upon the taste of it. Wi-ll, 
 lest you shouUl, let me tell you : This spirit was some- 
 time a familiar of your own, Lucan's first Book translated : 
 which (in regard of yi.iur old rights in it) I have raised 
 in the circle of your patronage. But stay now Edward (if I
 
 424 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 mistake not) you are to accomodate yourself with some few 
 instructions, touching the property of a Patron, that you are 
 not yet possest of; and to study them for your better grace as 
 our Gallants do fashions. First you must be proud and think 
 you have merit enough in you, tlio' you are nere so empty, 
 then when I bring you the book take physic and keep state, 
 assign me a time by your man to come again, and, afore the 
 day, be sure to have changed your lodging; in the meantime 
 sleep little, and sweat with the invention of some pitiful dry 
 jest or two which you may happen to utter, with some little 
 (or not at all) marking of your friends when you have found 
 a place for them to come in at : or if by chance something has 
 dropt from you worth the taking up weary all that come to 
 you with the often repetition of it: censure scornfully enough, 
 and somewhat like a travailer ; commend nothing lest you dis- 
 credit your (that which 3^ou would seem to have) judgement. 
 These things if you can mould yourself to them, Ned, I make 
 no question but they will not become you. One special virtue 
 in your patrons of these days I have promised myself you shall 
 fit excellently, which is to give nothing. Yes, thy love I will 
 challenge as my peculiar object both in this, and (I hope) 
 many more succeeding offices : Farewell, I affect not the world 
 should measure my thoughts to thee by a scale of this nature; 
 leave to think good of me when I fall from thee. 
 
 * Thine in all rights 
 
 * of perfect friendship, 
 
 ' Thom. Thorpe.' 
 
 This will afTord us a crucial test of the literary taste of 
 the man Thorpe, and Ave may gather from it the sense in 
 which he would use the word 'be«;etter.' He affected a 
 rather Pistol-like phraseology, and loved to catch au ' ink- 
 horn term by the tail.' To be cjuaint in his meaning and 
 far-fetched in his words was the ' lunnour of it' with him ; 
 he sought to be uncommon with a learned look. His ' wish- 
 eth the well-wishing ' shows tluit lu; affected the phrase, 
 the learned style, consequently, he would be quite certain to 
 use the word ' begetter' in its remoter sense ; that which 
 lay nearest to its Saxon derivation, and was then passing
 
 THE ONLY ONE RESPOXSinLE FOR PUBLISHING. 4i>.-, 
 
 into obsoleteness. Now, till tlie quaintnes.-!, nil the af- 
 fectedness, all the remoteness, all tijat was most uncom- 
 mon and therefore characteristic of Thorpe, lies in the use 
 of the word 'begetter' for ' obtainer,' and that was why- 
 he chose it to express his meaning. He used the prefix 
 'be' to ' getter' just as Spenser affected ihc'y'in such 
 words as 'yclad' or ' ycleped' — to give an antique tuuch. 
 Also, the word only is to me as determinate of his 
 meaning as the word ' begetter.' It must be plainly 
 apparent that the emphasis on this ' onhj ' is most incom- 
 patible with tlie tone of the latter portion of the inscrip- 
 tion, if we suppose Thorpe to have used the 'begetter' in 
 the creative sense. To the only begetter he says, with all 
 the authority in the world ! Yet, later on, he does not 
 know who it was to whom Shakspeare had promised 
 immortality. If he were sure of the onhi one he would 
 not have been thus weak and waverino-. He Avould not 
 have skirted the edge of the subject if he had struck to 
 the heart of the matter in his ' only begetter.' Had Mr, 
 W. H. been the ' only begetter' as the objective creator 
 of the sonnets, and Thorpe had known this, and said it, 
 and used the word only with such certitude, then it was 
 the idlest impertinence for him to have weakly whhed 
 Mr. W. II. tlidt ' eternity promised by our everliving 
 Poet.' Had he been in possession of the fact supposed, 
 he would have followed up the bold note of his ' only 
 be<xetter' with words more definite and sure. He would 
 have said to whom the innnortality had been promised, 
 and congratulated the person addressed, if he had known, 
 as he must have known if he inscribed to the ' only be- 
 getter' of the sonnets in Shakspeare's mind; the sole 
 object of Shakspeare's love, l^ut whatever else may be 
 obscure, it is luminously self-evident that Thorpe does not 
 say, and did not know to Avhom the innnortality was 
 promised. He does not knoAV, does not pretend to know, 
 he only alludes to a known fact in a general Avay, and
 
 426 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 this after being so pointed and particular in his ' only 
 begetter.' He cannot speak for Shakspeare here ; only 
 for himself ; if he could, he certainly would have said the 
 most because he is anxious to say the most in a compli- 
 mentary strain. And, as he does not speak for Shak- 
 speare in the latter words of the dedication, but only for 
 himself, he cannot speak for Shakspeare when using the 
 ' only begetter,' consequently, the ' only begetter' must 
 be Tliorpe's — that is the person who was really the ' only 
 obtainer' of the sonnets for printing — and he can address 
 him with confidence as such whilst compelled to wish and 
 hint so vaguely in regard to the immortality. 
 
 This weight of emphasis on the word ' only' not only 
 serves to turn the scale in favour of the 'obtainer' for 
 the ' begetter,' but it has another signification. It has the 
 look of Thorpe taking position behind what he considers 
 a safe defence, as though the matter stood thus in his 
 mind — ' I, Thomas Thorpe, am pushing a transaction that 
 has an equivocal look. Shakspeare is not publishing his 
 own sonnets, and I have no direct warrant from him to 
 publish them, some of which are rather queer in texture. 
 ]3ut I did not steal them. I have ample warrant for 
 their appearance. I inscribe them to the only person who 
 had sufiicient power to authorise their going to press, and 
 who is responsible for their appearance. Mr. W. H. is 
 well known to Shakspeare, and he can bear all blame 
 should any offence be taken, and efiectually shield me. 
 My inscription shall serve to saddle the right horse.' 
 There is still another stress of which the words are sus- 
 ceptible ; one peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances. 
 The sonnets must have been a publisher's prize and much 
 sought after. In dedicating to the 07ily person who had 
 power to obtain tliem, Mr. Thorpe was proud to call 
 attention to the fact that he was the only receiver, the 
 only [)ublislier fortmiate enough to secure the coveted 
 sonnets.
 
 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS. 427 
 
 Thus he inscribed tliem to ' :Mr. W. 11.' as the only 
 getter, or, as he chose allectedly to say, ' onhj 6<.^-getter' 
 of them for pubUshing purposes. lu' doing this he tries 
 to add sometliing comphmentary, and likes to sliow that 
 he has read the sonnets, so he wishes ' Mr. W. II.' all 
 happiness and eternal life, connecting the latter idea witli 
 Shakspeare's promises of immortality. 
 
 Allowing for Mr. Thorpe's touch of affectation in the use 
 of the word ' begetter,' it is all perfectly natural, and the 
 inscription no longer deepens the mystery of the sonnets. 
 We can now afford to be honest and confess that it was 
 our suspicion that Shakspeare had something to conceal 
 which gave the shadowy terror to, and made a bugbear of 
 Thomas Thorpe's curious inscription ! 
 
 These are my conclusions on the whole matter. There 
 are properly but two series of the sonnets. The first was 
 written for the Earl of Southampton ; the latter for Wil- 
 liam Herbert. Shakspeare was sought out by the young 
 Earl of Southampton about the year 1591 — unexpectedly 
 by the Poet, as is intimated in sonnet 25, (p. 118). The 
 acquaintanceship soon ripened into persoiud friendship. 
 The youth was generous and loveable, but apt to squander 
 the treasures of his dawning manhood. Shakspeare began 
 to write the sonnets by advising his young friend to get 
 married ; thus, from the first, his object was his friend, not 
 himself; the sonnets were not intended to be autobiogra- 
 phic. When the Earl met with the ' faire ]Mistress Vernon ' 
 and fell in love with her, Eomeo-like, at first sight, a 
 change of subject and treatment was suggested by the 
 Earl himself, as is indicated in sonnet 38, (p. 157) ; and 
 the Poet commenced writing dramatically on his friend's 
 new affection, in Southampton's own book. He went 
 deeper and deeper into his subject, sometimes treating 
 it playfully, sometimes in sad earnest, as the feelings 
 were more intensified by time and trial. This continued, 
 in the various ways illustrated by my reading, up to the
 
 428 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 year 1G03, when the Earl of Soutliamptoii was released 
 from prison, the dramatic sonnets being interspersed with 
 personal ones written from time to time ; although the 
 sonnets had nearly ceased when the Earl was married to 
 Elizabeth Vernon in 1598. His purpose in beginning the 
 sonnets was to induce liis friend to marry, and when the 
 Earl has fallen in love with Elizabeth Vernon, he devotes 
 tliem chiefly to the practical purpose of carrying on the 
 courtship, and they nearly end with the marriage. 
 
 In the spring of 1598 William Lord Herbert came to 
 live in London, and formed a personal friendship with 
 Shakspeare. Southampton was away from England almost 
 the whole of this year, and Herbert possibly drew nigher 
 to the Poet on that account. He succeeded in getting; 
 Shakspeare to write some sonnets for him, and by doing so 
 became the cause of all the mystery. 
 
 Shakspeare most certainly never wrote the Southampton 
 Sonnets with any intention of their coming before the 
 public by such a bye-way under his own name. When 
 he began to write the sonnets it was with no thought of 
 their being printed. In sonnet 17 he looks forward to 
 their remaiidng in jMS., and the paper on which he writes 
 growing yellow witli age. Nor is it easy to see how he 
 could have published the sonnets as his own, or have been 
 connected with the selling of them, as they were at first so 
 sacred a memorial of private friendship that the Poet must 
 have felt it a sort of sacrilege to take them to market. 
 In this respect his intention is proclaimed in sonnets 21, 
 (p. 132), and 102, (p. 253), where he tells us that he pur- 
 posed not to sell, and ' that love is merchandised whose 
 rich esteeming the owner's tongue doth publish every- 
 where.' Still, he may at one time have meant to print 
 them without his name in the manner previously sugo-ested ; 
 and his intentions have been frustrated by an act of the 
 Earl, such as giving away the copy of his sonnets to Her- 
 bert, who thus stepped into possession, and tlie matter was
 
 THE IIEAKT OF THE MYSTERY. Ji'!» 
 
 thereby taken out of Shakspeare's hands. As my reading 
 sliows, neither of tliese two friends liad auglit to conceal ; 
 there is nothing in the nature of the Southampton Sonnets 
 to cause tlie mysterious pubhcation oftliem. 
 
 The Earl's love and fortuiu's liad prospered. The Queen 
 was dead, and all her tempers over. Clearly there were 
 no reasons here for any further concealment had Shak- 
 speare chosen to fulfil his own promises in his own way, 
 and dedicate the Southampton Sonnets to their ' begetter.' 
 We must look to the Herbert Series for an explanation. 
 Here we discover something to conceal ; and, in his infa- 
 t nation for a woman of loose character, not in Shakspeare's 
 moral delinquencies shall we find the predominate reason 
 why the sonnets were ushered into" the world in such a 
 second-hand manner. It suited Herbert — and even he could 
 have entertained no thought of printing the latter sonnets 
 so long as Lady Rieh was alive — that if the sonnets were 
 ])rinted they should go forth veiled in their own mystery, 
 and not tell the various love-stories publicly Avhich they 
 had told privately to the initiated friends. He would be 
 pleased to have his sonnets included with the rest of Shak- 
 speare's, and desirous that they should go forth without 
 explanation of facts or identification of persons. Shakspeare, 
 I imao-ine, must have felt some dislike of the Herbert 
 Series being included, for he could not but have seen that, 
 liowever read, they did not reflect any credit on himself. 
 Not that he supposed they would ever be interpreted as 
 personal confessions, so thoroughly would the ''sonnets 
 amonq his prirate friends ' be understood to mean sonnets 
 written for his private friends, but although he was so 
 indifll'rent to fame he could not have been indifTerent to 
 tlie fate of his sonnets which were so expressive of his 
 love for Soutluunpton. Still, if Herbert obtained that Eai'l's 
 consent for the whole of them to go forth together, just 
 as sonnets, there remained nothing for Shaks})eare to do but 
 to give his consent also. If Southampton did not object,
 
 430 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 did not seek to have his sonnets kept apart from others, 
 Sliakspeare would naturally feel it was not for him to resist 
 on his own behalf, if he had been so inclined. I do not 
 argue, however, that the sonnets were put forth by Thomas 
 Thorpe instead of Shakspeare because there was need of 
 any kind of concealment. There was no necessity of con- 
 cealing that which readers were not in the least likely to 
 discover. After all, the sonnets were composed for pri- 
 vate purposes — the work of 'idle hours' — and were a 
 sort of private property. Shakspeare had given them 
 away to the private friends, who were in a position to do 
 as they pleased with their own. This idea of concealment 
 has resulted from the subject of some of the sonnets being 
 coupled with Thorpe's seemingly singular inscription. The 
 friends were not putting on the mask against detection in 
 permitting a dedication of any kind to one of themselves ! 
 It Avas never contemplated that the sonnets would re-tell 
 their own secret histories ; therefore such a possibility was 
 not sought to be provided against, by what would have been 
 a most shallow device. I look upon the affair as a private 
 confidence with which Thorpe had nothing whatever to 
 do, and it has been a stupid mistake to expect the Book- 
 seller to explain that which the Poet and his friends never 
 thought of explaining, never meant to be explained, 
 never dreamed that the world would not rest on the 
 subject until their secret should be explained. Herbert, 
 having a personal interest then in the sonnets, and 
 influence with the writer of them, would obtain from 
 Shakspeare — before he left London for Stratford — some 
 such permission as that they might be printed at a future 
 day if in a form Southampton would not object to. 
 And the Poet, after giving up all his ' pretty ones,' proba- 
 bly gave a promise that the whole should be left a mys- 
 tery as to their precise nature. So Shakspeare, in his 
 easy way, let the matter slide, and Herbert acquired the 
 right to give away the sonnets. Thorpe, then, dedicated
 
 TIIE RIDDLE READ. 431 
 
 them to the only Obtainer, and the inscription was left to 
 him with the injunction thattlie present title of Pem])roke 
 should be suppressed and initials alone be used. In ac- 
 cordance with which hint, and to follow suit, Mr. Thorpe 
 as setter forth, and contrary to his usual custom, only 
 prmts his own Initials. And thus was Shakspeare's in- 
 tended but unfinished Monument to Southam]:)ton crowned 
 and completed with the head and inscrutable face of a 
 Sphinx, upon which, to perfect the riddle, Thorpe inscribed 
 his hieroglyphics. It suited the publisher's purpose and 
 was consonant with his character to make the thimr look 
 as mysterious as possible, to provoke curiosity and in- 
 crease his importance. The transaction was most likely 
 effected by an intermediate person, who was also anxious 
 for the sonnets to be secured in print. I do not think 
 Herbert had any direct dealings with the printers. The 
 arrangement would have been somewhat more perfect, 
 and the press better corrected if anyone so intimately ac- 
 quainted witli tlieir secret history had read the proofs of 
 the sonnets. Luckily, certain batches of the sonnets must 
 have been so written, or fastened together, as to cohere in 
 spite of the printers' or other handling, and the Herbert 
 Series did secure some sort of markinir-off'into its distinct 
 position. 
 
 My greatest difficulty has been with the many loose 
 single sonnets which had got out of position and mixed 
 the various strata of the whole book in a most perplexing 
 manner. It has been my endeavour to restore each to its 
 own place according to its kind and the law of formation. 
 iMiially, I conclude that no one but the person for whom 
 the latter sonnets were written would or could have given 
 the whole of them to the press ; that they are not personal 
 to tlie Poet whose wise reticence and shrinkinii; from ojivino; 
 publicity to personal affairs — one of the most marked 
 characteristics of our race — must have been a ruling power 
 of his English nature ; that the sonnets icere inscribed by
 
 432 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Tliorpe totlieir ' only begetter ' as the only ohtainer ; that 
 they had no onli/ begetter in any other sense ; that this 
 only ohtainer was William Herbert, who obtained the 
 Southampton Sonnets together with such other odds and 
 ends of Shakspeare's poetry as the Poet had given to 
 him ; that he added to these the sonnets which had been 
 written for himself at his OAvn suggestion ; he giving the 
 subject and having a hand in their composition; that his 
 own series was written for him in the years 1599 and 
 1600 — when the Southampton Sonnets ceased for a time — 
 before Herbert became Earl of Pembroke — which is implied 
 in the permitted inscription to ' Mr. W. H. ; ' that he ob- 
 tained a general permission from Shakspeare respecting 
 their being given to the press on account of his personal 
 interest in the sonnets, in consequence of which interest he 
 collected the sonnets, and thus they were inscribed to 
 him so curiously by Thomas Thorpe ! 
 
 I also conclude that Herbert took advantasje of the 
 Poet's general permission, and that he alone is re- 
 sponsible for bringing up the rear of the sonnets with 
 the Black-Guard. In my own mind I am perfectly sure 
 that there are some sonnets included which Shak- 
 speare never meant to be printed, even if he ever saw 
 them all. I can imagine him writing most of these for 
 a purpose, but that purpose was altogether private, and 
 fully served when the sonnets were sent to the person 
 addressed, especially if they were sent as Herbert's. And 
 I cannot imagine Shakspeare giving his consent for the 
 sonnets to appear exactly as they come to us. There are 
 some here, I think, that made the Poet look amazed when 
 he saw the printed copy. It is certain he never had proof- 
 sheets for correction, and the fact has to be accounted for! 
 If it had been all square and above-board, as we say, why 
 should not Herbert or Tliorpe have secured the Author's 
 finishing touch ? 
 
 It is to me a matter of moral certainty that Sliakspeare
 
 ADDITIONS MADE BY IIEI{15EIiT. 433 
 
 (lid not write the 151st sonnet, wliicli is irrecogni sable as 
 his by any light flashed from his spirit, or reflected in 
 his works ; it has no likeness to the other sonnets ; it 
 is opposed by sonnet 141 — utterly diverse in spirit and 
 tendency ; quite incompatible witli his treatment whctlier 
 smiling or serious, and absolutely repudiated by tlie 
 rebidving gravity and solemn significance of the two 
 last sonnets.^ Thus, for the various reasons assigned, I 
 hold that at least four of these pieces were written by Wil- 
 liam Herbert. What warrant he may liave had for ])rinting 
 lines of his own I cannot judge; there is no evidence.''^ 
 ButJJdo feel satisfied that there are pieces to the pul)lica- 
 tion of which Shakspeare never gave his sanction. I have 
 shown that these things were not written upon a passion 
 of his own, and I hold him to have been as incapable of 
 giving his leave for the whole of them to become public 
 ])roperty, more especially when they had been written for a 
 private purpose — at the suggestion of another. lie could 
 
 ' Since writing the foregoing, I find by the 'Gem Edition' that an Editor 
 of delicate taste has singled out this sonnet, to reject it from the Herbert 
 series. The instinct may be safeh^ trusted a little farther. 
 
 Mr. Palgrave accepts the Personal Theory, and, on his own admis- 
 sinn, can make but little of it. Although each sonnet ' is an Autoliior/raphic 
 Confession,' he remarks, we are completely foiled in getting at Shaks}it>aro 
 himself, and these 'revelations of the Poet's innermost nature^ appear to 
 * teach us less of the man ' than the tone of mind which we trace or seem to 
 trace in his Dramas. The ' strange imagery of passion which passes over the 
 mugic mirror has no tangible existence hefore or behind if.' And yet these son- 
 nets are, every one of them, ' Autobioi/raphic .' ' It is Shakspeare shoiciny 
 himself to us, not only in person, for he has revealed to us. so th«>y keep say- 
 ing, the * depths of his heart, in a drama more traffic thmi the madness of 
 Lear, or the atjonies of Othello.' "Would it not be wiser and more prudent to 
 suspect such a Theon,', than to suppose that Shakspeare, the great master of 
 expression, the man whose art of saying just what he meant is incomparable, 
 supremely potent, and of infinite felicity, should have written an Autobio- 
 graphy that is Impersonal — a Subjective Revelation wliich reveals nothing ? 
 The thing is a barefaced impossibility ! You cannot cross the sea by land. 
 
 ' In sonnet 77 (p. 241), Shalcspeare most assuredly offers tlie pen to 
 Southampton, and asks him to fill some of the vacant leaves of the book in 
 which he is then writing one of the sonnets. 
 
 F F
 
 434 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 not liave permitted all of these lattei' sonnets to accompany 
 the Southampton ones and thus defde the sanctities of 
 love and friendship. ' Is it not most damnable in us,' 
 says one of his characters, ' to he trumpeters of our 
 unlaivful intents ? ' And is it to be credited that lie 
 would not feel and act up to the level of that thought in 
 such a matter of personal import as this ? he who must 
 have had the supremest sense of fair fame and unstained 
 reputation, a perfect loatliing of that which should bear a 
 ' hateful memory upon record,' ' The purest treasure 
 mortal times afford is spotless reputation,' says Mowbray. 
 ' Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, is the im- 
 mediate jewel of their souls,' says lago. Prince Harry 
 prays over his slain enemy Hotspur, that his praise may 
 ascend to heaven, his ignominy sleep in the grave, and not 
 be remembered in his Epitaph. ' I have offended repu- 
 tation,' exclaims Antony, ' a most unnoble swerving.' 
 The thought of his lost reputation sobers Cassio on the 
 instant, and the remembrance of his infamy gives the 
 death-sting to Enobarbus. ' But, if it be a sin to covet 
 Honour, I am the most offending soul alive ! ' cries his 
 darling hero, Hariy V. 
 
 A most sensitive feeling of honour is associated with 
 all his nearest touches of nature, — his greatest moments 
 of action — his proudest thoughts of life — his deepest 
 apprehensions of death, — and I will not believe that in 
 this regard he was careless for himself alone in a work 
 which was to be published with his name. It is not 
 possible to think that a man who cared so little about 
 gathering up his best works could have been party to 
 the careful treasuring up of his worst ! With Herbert 
 the sonnets were left : from Herbert they were obtained 
 by Thorpe, and to Herbert belongs the responsibility of 
 printing all that we find under the title of Shakspeare's 
 Sonnets, and the onus of their being inscribed to himself 
 as ' Mr. W, H.' This is to all intents and purposes ac-
 
 THE OXUS OF nUXTING RESTS WITH HERBERT. Vio 
 
 kuowledged, luid even pointed uul by Tliorpe. If the Poet 
 expressed any wishes ou tlie subject they were not impli- 
 citly obeyed ; more was included as ' SItakspeares Sonnet's' 
 than had been authorised. Tiiis is shown in an artistic 
 j)oint of view by the insertion of three pieces which are not 
 ' sonnets^' and two fragment'^ on a subject that has notJiinij 
 to do with the work. And in the moral aspect it is as- 
 suredly the most just to conclude that a want of discretion 
 was far more in keeping with the character of Herbert 
 than with that of a man who was so full of self-res})ect, 
 domestic prudence, practical sagacity, wise reserve, and 
 canny discreetness as was our Shakspeare ; he who had 
 passed his London-life ^vithout blemish of his honour, stain 
 on his reputation, or suspicion of his morahty, and who, 
 when the sonnets were prmted, had more incentives than 
 ever for observing the decencies of life, and the respecta- 
 bilities of personal character. -~ 
 
 F F 2
 
 430 SILVKSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 OF THE NEW READING 
 
 AND 
 
 ARRANGEMENT. 
 
 The reading of Shakspeare's Sonnets now presented af- 
 fords the only theory yet adventured that is not full of 
 perplexity and bewilderment. It is the only one that 
 surmounts the obstacles, disentangles the complications, 
 resolves the discords, and out of various voices draws the 
 one harmony. It ignores no difficulty, violates no fact, 
 strains no point for the sake of making extremes meet ; it 
 gathers up every possibility, and is consistent from begin- 
 ning to end. AVe cannot but feel a degree of certitude that 
 the central magnet of the meaning must be grasped when 
 all things surrounding thus fall into place, and obey their 
 compelling law of gravitation ; cannot but think we have 
 reached the heart of the Maze when standing where so 
 many probabilities converge, and we see, as in a map, the 
 beginning of each ; the blending of all. 
 
 The personal interpretation is a real rendering of dark- 
 ness visible. The story breaks off suddenly after the first 
 twenty-six sonnets : it will not run or unravel autobiogra- 
 phically. To borrow an illustration from the silkwinders, 
 it takes a world of trouble to find the ' end ' each time 
 there is a snap ; and, when found, it is continually a start 
 and then a stand-still. 
 
 It is utter fcjlly to talk of a self-revelation made by 
 Shakspeare so inward that we cannot reach it. There are
 
 CURRENT TIIEOniES. 437 
 
 fifty^ })lain facts to be met — facts of outer life, of cliaractei', 
 of sex, — oil tlie surftice of the sonnets, all opposed to the 
 Autol^iographic view, before anyone need have dived into 
 the deeps of their own subjectivity for the suj)posed 
 dreadful secrets of the Poet's heart. Nor will the theory 
 work which holds that the sonnets are mere fantastic ex- 
 ercises of ingenuity, having no root in reality — no relation 
 to Sliakspeare's own life. They are intensely real from 
 first to last through a wide range of varying feelings, 
 whatsoever their meaning. Although they were pubhshed 
 as sonnets, and the stories they once told have pa.ssed out 
 of sight when the Poet withdrew into his cloud, they 
 refuse to be read singly, even if we give separate titles to 
 every one. The life cannot be pulverised out of them by 
 any such process. The story will not come to a full stop 
 at the sonnet's end. It will continue its course out of 
 sight, lurking underground, hke the river Mole, where it 
 cannot run visibly on the siu-face, and reappear a little 
 farther on. Those who take so shallow a view must, of 
 necessity, be exceedingly dull readers of poetry, or very 
 
 ^ ' Fifty ? ' In one sonnet alone, the 124th, there are at least a dozen : — 
 
 1. The speaker's affection has been the * Child of State.' 
 
 2. It is no loii<jer the ' Child of State.' 
 
 3. Had it continued to be merely so it would now have likewise become 
 the ' unfathered ba.-^tard ' of Fortune ! 
 
 4. It no more suffers in the ' smiling pomp ' of a Coui-t. 
 
 5. It has heretofore so suffered. 
 
 G. The {speaker is hindered by what has occurred from joining the young 
 men of his own rank (* OXJR Fashion ') who are going to help put down 
 Rebellion, or facing the threatened blow of ' thralled Discontent.' 
 
 7. Such speaker must be a possible servant of the State ; obviously a 
 Soldier. 
 
 8. He fears not 'Policy ' the heretic ! which has worked against him. 
 0. His alVection now stands all alone in its own policy of independence. 
 
 10. Something has occurred which dignities the speaker with danger, ami 
 makes fresh appeal to his steadfastness. 
 
 11. He rejoices in having beforehand broken the power of accident by 
 making his ' love ' secure, come what might. 
 
 12. To the truth of his assertions he calls as present witnesses the spirits 
 of those that sutlered an ignominious death in connexion with athurs of State.
 
 438 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 often startled by the strange passion in the expression, tlie 
 unaccountable force of the pleadings, the depths of feeling 
 sounded which make the sonnets perplexing as a dance of 
 many figures to a spectator who is so deaf that he does not 
 hear the music to which the motions are timed. Keats 
 found the sonnets to be full of fine things said uninten- 
 tionally, in the intensity of working out conceits.^ It 
 must be felt that the writer has a singular way of saying 
 nothing. Of the two readings this is the shallowest. 
 Shakspeare could write nonsense ; no man better ; but it 
 was the rich overflow of an irrepressible humour, never 
 the sheddings of a maudlin sentimentality. He never 
 wept on the tearful pretence of a sham sorrow. He was 
 not the man to ' discourse fustian with his own shadow.' 
 The other theory does rest on some natural ground — a 
 belief in his earnestness when he was writing — this theory 
 is absolutely baseless. It is hkewise in direct contradiction 
 to his own assertion, for he tells us, with all emphasis, that 
 it is not with him as with ' that Muse — stirred by a 
 painted beauty to his verse.' Not a creation of fancy, but 
 creatures of flesh and blood are his objects ; his reliance 
 is on truth and reality ; he is no mere fancy-monger or ven- 
 der of similes ! But the crowning absurdity that tops 
 extremity is the third theory, which holds the sonnets to be 
 symbohc;^ a mere bubble-world of transcendentahsm, in 
 which the most richly objective of poets is the most 
 mystically subjective. 
 
 ' Life, vol. i. p. 70. 
 
 ^ When -miting of the German-su'bjective-tran.scendental-symbolic view 
 of the sonnets m the first chapter of tliis work, I did not know that it had 
 "been out-IIerauded in our country by a writer in 'Temple Bar.' (See No. 17 
 for ' A neiv Vieiv of Shakspeare^ s sonnets.'') Had this been written as a bur- 
 lesque ontheCTerman book, it would have made an excellent jest. But Mr.He- 
 raud is as absurdly serious as his cou&iu-German. ' After a careful rvpcrusal 
 (he remarks), I have come to the conclusion that there is not a sinyle sonnet which 
 is addressed to any individual at all/ He maintains that the ' Two Loves ' 
 of sonnet 144 are ' the C'elihate Church on the one hand, and the lieformed 
 Clmrch on the other.'' And in the latter sonnets, our poet is reading his
 
 ONLY TIIEOKY BY WlilCll TIIKV (AX BE READ. l.'K) 
 
 The present tlieory, wliicli is really an appeal to common 
 sense on belialt" of the most practical of men and poets, 
 alone enables us to see how it is that Shakspeare can be at 
 the same time the Friend who loves and is blessed, and the 
 Lover who doats and is disconsolate ; how tlie great calm 
 man of the sweetest blood, the smoothest temper, and most 
 cheery soul can be the anxious, jealous, fretful wooer who 
 has been pursued by the ' slings and arrows of outrageous 
 Fortune,' and di-iven from his heart's home to drift about 
 tlie world as a wanderer, who, in his weakness, has said 
 and done things for which he prays forgiveness, and wliicli 
 ill him are not hard to forgive, because he is a lover who 
 has been much tried, and amidst all the shiftin2;s of life 
 and slidings of fortune has been true at heart and stead- 
 fast in his love. Here we can see how the Poet has been 
 the Player still, in his ' idle hours,' and how he can person- 
 ate a passion to the life, and disguise his face past our recog- 
 nition, and change the dramatic mask at will for the amuse- 
 ment of his ''private friends : ' at one moment rendering 
 the pretty petulance and tender reproaches of a jealous 
 lady who grows desperate because she does not know the 
 worst, but is fully inclined to tliink it ; at another breathing 
 all his heart into the protestations of a ranging lover who 
 has been here and there, and whose love has appeared to 
 be the slave of Time and the sport of wind and wave, and 
 
 l»ible — ^ Has the vcnj Book open before him,'' Mr. Iloraud says, 'lie is in 
 fact reading the Canticles ; and there lie finds the Bride, who is " h/trek but 
 comely " — at once the bride of his Celestial Friend and his own ' ! I ! Oh, »ii/ 
 Lady Ikich how art thou translated ! I think this too good to omit, although 
 I can only make a note of it : good enough surely, if boundless ft)llv ciin 
 reach so far, to tickle Shakspeare in eternity and make him feel a canial 
 gush of the old human jollity ! Verily, he might say of his expounders, a.s 
 Sterne said of the asses in his * Sentimental Journey,' ' How they viewed 
 
 AND KEVIKWED TS ! ' 
 
 Ikit why recognise such rootless and literally groundless imaginings as 
 these ? "Wherefore notice such vain shadows at all in the presence of reali- 
 ties firm and fast as the centre ? "What says Deilus in Randolph's ' Muses' 
 Looking-Glass' when he has been cen;?ured for his fear of Sliadows? TfV/o 
 J,nows but they come leering after us to steal array the subMance.'"
 
 440 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 yet no distance could sever it from its true resting-place. 
 Then lie can lay aside tlie mask and sliow his own face 
 calm and noble, and wearing a look of smiling cheer for 
 his friend ; or, if there be a shadow on it, this does not 
 darken from within — comes from no selfish pang — no 
 personal compunction of conscience — it only reflects that 
 cloud wliich is passing over the fortunes of his ' dear Boy.'' 
 Thus we may understand how he can be modest for him- 
 self and shrinking out of all notice, yet grow defiant and 
 dazzling as a ' mailed angel on a battle-day ' when he is 
 fi oh ting for this friend, and the sword o;litters, the shield 
 glows, the valour mounts, and the trumpet rings. These 
 sounding promises and lofty boasts of immortality are only 
 the echoes and reverberations in the upper air of the 
 battle Avith Time and Fortune, and 'all-oblivious Enmity ' 
 which is going on below. Thus we may comprehend how 
 Shakspeare can rejoice in this friend who is all the world 
 to him, when his own life-battle may have been going hard 
 against him, and, directly after, depict the feeling of for- 
 lorn friendlessness of that friend who is 'in disgrace with 
 Fortune and Men's eyes,' and who looks on himself as an 
 outcast, and wishes he were as those who have friends and 
 sit within the warm and rosy inner circle of happiness ; 
 how the spirit, that in motion was at rest, can appear full 
 of all unrest and disquietude ; how the love that is such a 
 still blessedness to the one can be to the other like the 
 fabled thorn in the heart of the Nightingale which she 
 presses and sings ' sweet ! sweet ! sweet ! ' bleeding all the 
 while she turns her sorrow into song ; how one sonnet 
 can tell of the speaker's ' ivell-conterited day,' and show that 
 meek spirit of content which really and rightly mherits 
 the earth, and has the richest of all possessions in its 
 own self-possession, wliilst its neighbouring plaint em- 
 bodies a spirit that is perturbed and full of discontent ; 
 changeful as a day in April. IIow he can deal ])]ayfully 
 on one side of the same theme, and be deei)ly, painfully in
 
 THE DUALITY. 4Jl 
 
 earnest on the otlier. Thus, on the subject of parting he 
 can liimselt" afford to seek a somewliat fantastic and son- 
 neteering kind of excuse — 'Even for tliis — that \^,fov me 
 to write about you — let us separate (39), and render tliat 
 friend's parting from his mistress (to go abroad) witli a 
 most dramatic fire and smoke of torment. He can assert 
 liis own steadfastness of unwavering affection, and with an 
 ahnost monotonous iteration protest its unchangeableness 
 now and for ever, whilst, at the same time, he continues the 
 story : the quarrels, the llirtations, partings and greetings of 
 a pah' of lovers the course of whose love did not run smooth, 
 but was full of ups and downs, tests and trials, leavetakings 
 and makings-up. And wdien he has done ample justice 
 poetically to the character of the Earl, and ' confessed ' him 
 with all his unfolded faults and penitent tears, he can, in 
 his own person, give him absolution and, wdth the lustiest 
 sense of his oAvn liberty to do so, celebrate that ' marriage 
 of true minds' in sonnet IIG — assert emphatically the 
 truth of the whole matter, and challenge all the w^orld with 
 the airiest, cheeriest defiance to prove any error on him. 
 He writes playful, punning sonnets for William Herbert, 
 and some that paint the youngster's passion in fiery hues, 
 but showing that he presides over his own work ; gives 
 his own summing up and last word, we hear his real self, 
 speaking out finally in characterization of the subject, with 
 a judicial solemnity of tone which goes fiirthest, sinks 
 deepest, and tells us ])lainly enough when his own spirit 
 touches us to call our attention so that we may look and 
 see his own thought and understand his words. All 
 the secret lies in the simple fact that the ' sweet swan 
 of Avon,' hke Wordsworth's swan upon St. Mary's Lake — 
 
 ' ' Fliiats nouBLE, swan and shadow.' 
 
 No other theory can pretend to reconcile the conflicting 
 dillerences and prickly points of opposition with which 
 the sonnets have so bristled all over that many persons,
 
 442 SHAKSPILVRE'S SONNETS. 
 
 seeing the host of difhculties, liave shut their eyes and 
 closed the book. This, alone, takes the sonnets almost as 
 they stand ; tells their various stones, identifies the differ- 
 ent characters ; matches these with their expression ; 
 calls them by name and they answer, proves many of 
 the inner facts by events, and dates, and illustrations 
 i'vcmi the outer life of the persons and the historic sur- 
 roundings of the period. It shows that many of these 
 sonnets are sliaped by the spirit of the age ; how they wear 
 its ' form and pressure,' and liave its circumstances figured 
 in their imao-erv. It tells us how tlie things here written 
 w^ere once lived by Shakspeare and his friends. It shows 
 us the concealed half of the Man ; the other side of the 
 luminary, and does more than anything hitherto accom- 
 plished to connect him with the life of his time ; makes him 
 touch earth again ; brings him back to us in his habit and 
 affection as he lived. It is the most authentic revelation 
 ever given of his own inner life, for some twelve years 
 of his sojourn on this earth ; affords the most private peep 
 into the sanctuary of his soul that was kept so closely cur- 
 tained to the gaze of his contemporaries, and tells us more 
 about his own self than all that has been gathered of him 
 since the day of his death. By its help we may enter the 
 early garden of his dramatic mind — the very site whereof 
 seemed lost — and trace certain tap-roots of his nature ; see 
 how they first put forth their feelers to take hold of 
 that human world which they were to ramify through and 
 through, and embrace all round. These life-roots of his, 
 that germinated in the Sonnets to flower at their fullest in 
 the Dramas, we can now hold up to the light as we might 
 contemplate the hyacinth in its water-glass, with its fine 
 fibres below, and its consummate flower above. 
 
 Hitherto half the matter and all the most precious part 
 of the meaning have been lost sight of. We have missed 
 the points that toucli life tlie nearest, and the traits tliat 
 bring us the closest to Shakspeare. The light of nature
 
 THE ENKICII.MENT FlIOM 1;]:AE1TV. 413 
 
 ]ias been put out, and the sonnets have lacked the living 
 glow. We have been shamefully cheated by impoverish- 
 ing impositions. The images that are figured facts 
 coloured from the life, have hitherto been mere phantoms, 
 making a dumb show of poetry. But once we can see 
 and believe that our Poet is dealinii; with realities, the 
 rekindled light illumines everything. The sonnets are ;dl 
 astir Avith a more vital existence. The dust of words is 
 all a-sparkle, the wayside common-places flower again ; 
 the world of fancy grows summer-green and golden ; a 
 new soul has come into the sonnets ! They gain im- 
 mensely in beauty, gravity, and fitness to subject, when 
 Ave have reached their underlying realities, and are won- 
 drously enriched when ranged in contrast and set jewel- 
 like, ' each other's beams to share,' wearing the diverse 
 colours of the various characteristics. All their poetic quali- 
 ties are enhanced by our getting at the right relationship 
 of persons. Truth is ever the eternal basis of the highest 
 beauty, and as we reach tlie truth here the meaning 
 deepens indefinitely, the poetry brightens in a loftier light. 
 The solemn thought is more sagely fine, the tenderness 
 more pathetic, the feeling more significant, the fancy more 
 felicitous, the strength more potent, the sweetness more 
 virginal, the illustration more appropriate. We are no 
 longer hindered in our enjoyment of the divinely-dainty 
 love-poetrj', that could only have been offered to a 
 woman, and which seems to flush the page with the 
 vernal tints of spring and the purple light of love, by the 
 feelinfi; that makes Englishmen ' scunner ' to see two men 
 kiss each other, or hear them woo one another in amorous 
 words. 
 
 We now see that these sonnets transcend all others 
 as much as his plays are above those of his contem- 
 poraries. ' Shakspeare's divine Sonnets,' they were 
 nobly named by Elizabetli Barrett Browning ; but how 
 intensely human they are, how exquisitely natural,
 
 4i4 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 could not be known till now, when, for the first time, 
 the real heart-beat of them may l)e felt. And by 
 as much as they grow in meaning, in vivid life, in 
 morality, does their writer gain in manliness. Hitherto 
 they have been read in sad uncertainty of Shakspeare's 
 drift, or with sadder certainty of his moral delin- 
 quency. For the first time we can read them without 
 fear or trembling lest some apparition of the Poet's 
 guilt shoidd rise up vast and shadowy, and as we might 
 try to stammer excusingly, much larger than life. We 
 can now sit down to their banquet of beauty without 
 being nervously apprehensive about the ghost rising. We 
 may see that tlie most passionate of the sonnets are not ne- 
 cessarily the travail of his own soul and sweat- drops of his 
 own agony , all the more perplexing to us, because he had 
 apparently put himself and us to the torture when there 
 was no need. We can breathe more freely, feel a little 
 calmer, when we do comprehend that he did not crucify 
 himself for the whole world to see his shame ; did not make 
 all the poetic capital possible out of his friend ; and, hav- 
 ing handed liim over to his enemies, hang himself publicly, 
 Judas-like, in a fit of repentance. And we shall soon 
 feel that it is not so very marvellous a thing that 
 the most dramatic of poets should have at times employed 
 the dramatic method in his sonnets. Especially when his 
 subject was real life — the life and the loves of those who 
 were so ■ dear to him — in singing of which some disguise 
 was demanded by the nature of the case ; the marked 
 position of his friends. 
 
 The sonnets have had many readers who felt there 
 was much more in them than had yet been foimd, and 
 who would have been only too glad if they could have 
 got to the root of the matter by means of such a theory 
 as is now propounded. Charles Lamb, for instance. 
 He was a reader of the sonnets. One who would have 
 brooded over them till his heart ran over in the quaintest
 
 THE PRIVACY OF LO\EIiS AND FRIENDS. 445 
 
 babblement of loving words, if he might only have grasped 
 the revelation that flashed out of them by evanescent 
 gleams, and left the darkness more bewildering than ever. 
 But to catch the Protean spirit, and liold it, and compel it 
 to declare itself in a recognisable shape, was as tantalizing 
 and provoking a task as trying to arrest the reflection of 
 a f\ice in water all in motion, with the sunbeams dancin": 
 on it, and the eyes completely dazzled. This will explain 
 why the sonnets have had so few commentators, when the 
 other works of Shakspeare have collected such a host. 
 The wisest readers have been content to rest with Mr. 
 Dyce in his declaration, that after repeated perusals, he 
 was convinced that the greater number of them was com- 
 posed in an assumed character, on different subjects, and 
 at diiTerent times, for the amusement, and probably at 
 the sufjfirestion of the author's intimate associates. And 
 
 CD 
 
 having cracked the nut, as I think, we hud this to be the 
 very kernel of it ; only my theory inimasks the characters 
 assumed, unfolds the "nature of the various subjects, 
 traces the different times at which they were composed, 
 and identifies those intimate associates of Shakspeare who 
 supplied both suggestion and subjects for his sonnets. It 
 brings us, like the Prince in search of his Sleeping Beauty, 
 to the inmost nook of Shakspeare's poetry ; the magic 
 hermitage to which the invention of Southampton ' gave 
 light,' and which was locked up and the key given to 
 Herbert two centuries and a half ago. We shall find 
 eveiything nearly as the Poet left it, for the place is 
 sacred from the touch of Time. The friends and lovers 
 are here pictured as in life, wearing the dresses they wore 
 of old, and looking for us as they looked in the eyes of 
 each other. As we break the stillness the life seems to 
 begin again, the colour comes back to the fiices, and the 
 sound of breathing is heard in the charmed chamber of 
 imageiy which has been sealed in silence for so long. "We 
 have come secretly into the presence of Shakspeare him-
 
 446 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 self. Does lie resent this intrusion ? Do tlie srailinii; 
 brows darken at our coming ? I trust not, I think not. 
 If I liave rightly interpreted the feeling of our Poet 
 for his friend Southampton, he would willingly reach 
 a hand from heaven to place the rightful wreath on Ins 
 brow. So fully did he once mean to set a crown of im- 
 mortal flowers where Fortune had bound her thorns, only 
 he was hindered by one of those complications of life 
 that perplex human nature, with circumstances absurdly 
 insufficient, and so often foil intention, and drag down 
 the lifted hand. 
 
 Although I maintain that our Poet wrote dramatic 
 sonnets for the Earl of Southampton at his own request, 
 and that, in these, much of the Earl's character is caught 
 and reflected, as Shakspeare could not fail to touch 
 nature whatsoever his standpoint, yet I do not say he 
 undertook to complete the circle of that character in the 
 compass of a certain number of sonnets. It is the court- 
 ship rather than the character which is Shakspeare's sub- 
 ject, only character will be visible in courtship as in other 
 things, and so we get glimpses of the Earl's. But our 
 Poet uses the dramatic method with subtle art in these 
 poems, for purposes of his own, in the way he makes the 
 Earl speak of himself and his doings, hoping, no doubt, 
 that the silent eloquence of certain lines might prove 
 their best. He had pleaded in the earlier sonnets — 
 
 * 0, learn to read what silent love hath writ, 
 To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit ! ' 
 
 And at times I think he inserts something scarcely war- 
 ranted, if he were bound by the strictest dramatic pro- 
 priety. He suggests more to the Earl than might be 
 absolutely conveyed in the sound of the sonnet. He seeks 
 an echo from the inner sense. In the confessional sonnets, 
 as we may call them, after so strong a self-condemnation, 
 so long a Hst of wilful errors and wanton sins against true
 
 THE ESSEX INFLUENX'E. 4-17 
 
 love, the excuses ure certainly very weak and puerile, even 
 for a lover to wiiom much is to be pard(jned. If Shak- 
 s])eare were the speaker, they would be despicable, but for 
 Southampton they are trivial and poor. lie himself must 
 have seen how shallow after the admissions of such deep 
 wrong. If he felt guilty when reading the confessions, 
 the consciousness must have increased when he saw the 
 excuses. The case would look bad if these were the best 
 that Shakspeare could make for his dear friend. 
 
 ' Nevertheless,' the Poet would seem to say, ' these are 
 the best I can find for you ; I know they are poor indeed, 
 but that is no fault of mine. I have always done my 
 utmost to make you look in the eyes of others as you 
 show to me at heart. Indeed, I rather strained a point, 
 you know, for a particular occasion, (in sonnet 70 p. 22G). 
 I have excused your follies, and your treatment of Mistress 
 Vernon ingeniously as I could, but you see how httle, 
 really, there is to be said.' 
 
 In the same way I find evidence that his own feeling 
 fii^hts, all it can under the conditions, airainst the influence 
 of Essex over the Earl of Southam})ton. It w^as purely 
 owing to this infiuence which sprang out of his love for 
 the Earl of Essex's cousin, that Southampton came so near 
 to losing his head ; this he confessed on his Trial. His 
 share in the guilt arose from his personal affection rather 
 than from any rebel ambition. And, I doubt not that 
 Sliakspearc, the peerless reader of character, the friend 
 who had such 'precious seeing' in his eye — who loved 
 the Earl of Southampton with such a manly tenderness, 
 liad his boding dread and prophesying fear of this in- 
 fiuence proving fatal in the end. He must have caught 
 hints, heard whispers of the Earl of Essex and the Lady 
 Ivich's intrigue with the Scots' King ; it was a family 
 alfair, and Southampton had become as one of the family ; 
 ailianced in friendship and bound in love. He himself 
 was induced to lend his pen once or twice in the Essex
 
 448 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 service. But I am sure that he did not hke tlie look of 
 things, and he divined that bad would come of the con- 
 nexion for the Earl, his friend. This is the fear, this is 
 the bitterness of the sonnets spoken by Elizabeth Vernon 
 to Lady Eich. Her great grief is not only that the lady 
 has stolen or tried to steal her lover, but that she herself 
 should be the cause of his having been brought within 
 range of an influence from which she anticipates dan- 
 ger to the Earl. She is bound to the Lady Eich per- 
 force — she is a prisoner in her power — ' pent in thee,' 
 and 'mortgaged' to her will — that is understood — that, 
 she thinks, ought to be enough, without the Earl being 
 made a slave to such a slavery. And she speaks stingingiy 
 of the ' bond' which binds them all up together ; a 'bond' 
 w^hich is not one of love : says she was cruel herself to 
 briuGi; the Earl into such an entan^^lement, and it is mean 
 of her cousin, the Lady Eich, to take advantage of what 
 she has unwittingly done — to sue him, distress to the 
 uttermost, him who only became a debtor — placed him- 
 self in Lady Eich's power — amatory or political — for Eliza- 
 beth Vernon's sake ! Here, I think, Shakspeare's own 
 personal feeling recognisably peeps out. The earnest 
 expression, ' let my heart be his guard,' lias in it the 
 yearning desire of our Poet to shield his friend from the 
 danger which his quick instinct foreboded. Thus I account 
 for the expression in which Shakspeare calls those who 
 have died on the block the ' fools of Time.' This, if 
 Essex were included, would be unfriendly on the part of 
 his friend, Southampton, who is the speaker in that son- 
 net. I take it that Essex is included, so far as the writer 
 is concerned, but that the writer's feeling shapes the 
 speaker's expression. The dramatic mask slips aside for 
 a moment, or Shakspeare takes the liberty of telhng the 
 Earl what his own estimate of Essex's character and con- 
 duct really is. He looked upon him as one of the fools 
 of Time, the restless, iinpatient, fretful fool — the ' weary
 
 DOUBTFUL RE.U)INGS DETl^RMINED. 440 
 
 knight,' he called lihnself — who would not wait for the 
 eternal audit but must force affairs or hurry himself to 
 the last account, and died to make sport for the time. 
 Of course we do not know but what this may have been 
 Southampton's opinion of the man who so foolishly thought 
 to shake a throne which was so firmly founded in the 
 affection, and smilingly surrounded with the strength of 
 a great-hearted people. 
 
 The present interpretation will give a verdict against 
 wdiich there is no appeal in the case of some readings 
 that have been hitherto disputed and doubtful. The most 
 ob\dous way of trying to get out of a difficulty has been 
 to suspect that the printers have given us a corrupt 
 text, but there are many instances in which this method 
 is not at all satisfactory. For example, in the lines of 
 sonnet 70 — 
 
 ' So thou be good, slander doth but approve 
 Thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time.' 
 
 ^[alone and Steevens both fail to make out the meanins^. 
 The former asks, ' What idea does icorth wooed of, that is 
 by. Time present ? ' and says, ' Perhaps the Poet means that 
 however slandered his friend may be at present, his w^orth 
 shall be celebrated in all future time.' Steevens replies 
 that he has already shown, on the authority of Ben Jon- 
 son, that 'of Time' means of the then present one, and 
 says, ' Perhaps we are to disentangle the transposition of 
 the passage thus — " So thou be good, slander being Avoo'd 
 of Time, doth but approve thy worth the greater "' — i.e., if 
 you are virtuous, dander, being the favourite of the age, 
 only stamps the stronger mark of approbation on your 
 merit.' Another commentator asks, 'May we not read, 
 "being icood of Time?" taking wood for an epithet applieil 
 to slander, signifying frantic, doing mischief at random. 
 I can make no other sense of the Avords as printed.' The 
 present reading alone solves the difficulty. The person 
 
 G G
 
 450 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 addressed being that Earl of Southampton whose marriage 
 with Ehzabeth Vernon was forbidden by Queen Ehzabeth, 
 who hindered their coming together for some years after 
 the Earl began to court his Mistress. He is spoken of as 
 'wooed by Time' — not the worth — because he is kept 
 waiting. And whilst waiting, and having to hold the 
 bridle-hand over the impetuous passion of love, the Poet 
 says, ' So you be good and keep pure, Slander shall only 
 serve to prove your worth the greater because of the 
 position in which you are placed, having thus to wait ; 
 being thus " wooed of Time !" ' We see by sonnet 115 
 how fearful the writer had been of ' Time's tyranny ' over 
 his friend. 
 
 Again, in sonnet 75, the speaker says — 
 
 * And for the "peace of you I hold such strife 
 As twixt a miser and his wealth is found.' 
 
 Malone remarks, ' the context seems to require that we 
 should rather read, " for the price of you," or, " for the 
 sake of you." The conflicting passions described by the 
 Poet were not produced by a regard to the ease or quiet 
 of his friend, but by the high value he set on his esteem ; 
 yet, as there seems to have been an opposition intended 
 between peace and strife, I do not suspect any corruption 
 in the text.' This is an acute observation. The critic 
 perceives there is something wrong; the character of 
 the conflicting feelings is not suitable to Shakspeare as 
 the speaker, yet he suspects that it goes too deep for a 
 mere change of phrase. He saw as profoundly as could 
 be seen on the personal interpretation. But we shall 
 fatliom a little deeper and find a firmer bottom when we 
 have got such a speaker as Southampton addressing his 
 Mistress, and when we grasp his character and the conflict 
 of his affection with the outward circumstances of his Hfe, 
 and see him holding such strife with himself for the peace 
 of his beloved.
 
 PRESENT THEORY A TOUCHSTONE OF TRUTH. 4ol 
 
 Tliere is a story -which tells how a girl had to nin a 
 race Avith a vase of water on her head and was not to 
 oversi)ill a drop of it if she wonld win her lover. Tliis 
 would nj)tly symbol the lot of the Earl in Iji-aring his 
 love and trying to keep it steady through the strife 
 within and the storms without. Tliat is what Shak- 
 speare's Hne expresses as the pith of his meaning. In this, 
 as in the previous instance, we may see how the Poet has 
 crowded a world of specialty — of human character and 
 external condition — into a single phrase ! Nothing could 
 be so perfect for their purpose, — no other words could 
 say so much, — as these which are the perplexities of criti- 
 cism until we get the right theory of interpretation, and 
 then for the first time we see how procreant, how inclu- 
 sive, how Shakspearian they are. The touches whicli 
 are nearest to Nature are just those that make the matter 
 the most remote from us luitil we have got the proper 
 clue to their meaning. 
 
 One conjectural emendation made by Malonc is ren- 
 dered invincible l)y my theory. Line 9, sonnet 41 
 (p. 207), reads in the Quarto: * Ah, me, but yet thou 
 mightst my seat forbear.' Malone suggested and printed 
 ' my Sweet ' instead of ' ray seat,' an expression much 
 more appropriate to the tender appeal of the woman 
 speaker in my interpretation of the sonnet, and still 
 more in the spirit and manner of Shakspearc who would 
 surely not have talked of ^ forbearuuj a seat ! ' Mr. 
 Dyce thinks the Quarto reading well supported by a 
 quotation from 'Othello' made by Boaden, in which, 
 however, there is no likeness to forbearing a seat. The 
 inner feeling of the sonnet goes to prove more than 
 any outside comparison, else it might be shown ad infi- 
 nitum what a fond and favourite expression of the Poet's 
 this Siceet is. In tlio 'Lover's Complaint' we find ' 0, 
 my Sweet.' In the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ' Sweet ! 
 except not any.' In the 'Tempest,' ' Sweet, now silence.' 
 
 G c. 2
 
 462 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 In ' Othello,' ' The sooner Sweet ! for you.' In ' Love's 
 Labour's Lost,' ' Take thou this, my Sweet.' In ' Troilus 
 and Cressida,' ' Sweety bid me hold my tongue !' In the 
 ' Comedy of Errors,' ' Sweet, now make haste.' And in 
 ' Eomeo and Juliet,' ' Do so, and bid my Sweet prepare to 
 chide.' 
 
 I might give further examples, but these will suffice to 
 show what I mean by saying that the present reading of 
 the sonnets settles various moot questions once for all. 
 Having got the key to the inmost character, the shaping 
 spirit of the sonnets, we can now judge of their external 
 characteristics and distinguish betwixt the essential and 
 tlie accidental ; the master-touch of Shakspeare and the 
 bungling of the printers. 
 
 My reading owes but little to my arrangement of the 
 sonnets. I have not had to pull the book to pieces and 
 put the sonnets together as the letters of a name might 
 l3e transposed, until a pretty anagram was formed. The 
 theory necessitated no such ingenious puzzle-work. I 
 did not bring the theory to the sonnets, but the sonnets 
 supplied the theory. They confessed their own secret, 
 though somewhat coyly. They told their own series of 
 stories, and once I had got hold of a story, the sub- 
 ject gathered up its own proper parts. So naturally 
 did the mutually dependent portions draw together and 
 reveal their shai'e of the secret that at times I could 
 only wait and see how things were going, only ob- 
 serve whilst they combined, as one might watch some 
 chemical experiment which should produce a result half 
 expected and half unexpected, the unforseen portion be- 
 ing by far the most important. Looking back now at the 
 making out, it does not appear like restoring a statue 
 piecemeal, after long search for the scattered fragments, 
 so much as getting a glimpse of something buried, dig- 
 ging away the earth, and coming upon the statue perfect 
 almost as it came from the liand of the master. So pal-
 
 THE OrJGINAL COPY. 453 
 
 pably are the facts necessary to my reading all there, and 
 so little does the reading depend on the arrangement of 
 the sonnets ! 
 
 It will be seen that one of the two greatest changes 
 made occurs in restoring three of the sonnets that have 
 been heretofore printed among the first series. These have 
 been incorporated with the Herbert group ; not witli- 
 out sufficient sanction. In the old arrangement, they 
 are numbered 57, 58, and 96 ; in the present, they Avill 
 be found the 7th, 12tli, and 13tli of the Herbert group. 
 If the first copy had been followed exactly, and had not 
 been altered to suit a theory, however silently it was 
 working in the corrector's mind, it must have been per- 
 ceived ere now that sonnet 57 was one of those that contain 
 puns on the name of ' Will.' The last two lines of this 
 sonnet, as first printed, run thus : — 
 
 ' So true a fool is love, that, in your Will, 
 Tho' you do anything, he thinks no ill.' ' 
 
 This at once raised a doubt whether the sonnet ouQ;lit 
 not to have been placed with the later ones. And further 
 looking into the matter, convinced me that this and the 
 other two sonnets mentioned belong, by the natiu-e and 
 phrasing of the passion they express, to the sonnets which 
 I hold to have been written for Wilham Herbert. They 
 are too unmanly in their extravagant protestations to be 
 worthy of the character and the affection of Southampton, 
 as Shakspeare has mirrored them both for us. He knew 
 the value of all such vows.'-' If we trace the Earl right 
 
 * Various unwnrrnntable alteration.s having been made in these sonnets, it 
 becomes necessary to go back to the early copy. Fortunately this has been 
 admirably reprinted from an unrivalled original, by means of photo-zinco- 
 graphy. It has been of inestimable use to me. 
 
 " * Vows were ever brokers to defiling.' 
 
 A Lover's Lament, 
 
 ' Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers ; mere imphiratora of unholy 
 suits.' Hiiiulet.
 
 454 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 through the sonnets devoted to him we sliall find the 
 passion is pure ; the man is manly. In the first of these, 
 (29 — p. 166), we see a noble spirit almost despising itself for 
 having misgiving moods of mind, which are very natural 
 to his condition. The note struck is essentially manly ; 
 the love expressed is warm and deep, but it has no whine 
 of sentiment ; no abjectness of spirit. His bearing is no 
 more lowered because of his fervour of feehne, than it is 
 because of Fortune's mahce. In sonnet 36 (p. 176) he has 
 done something which makes it necessary that for his 
 Mistress's sake he should leave her, lest the ' guilt ' which 
 he bewails, and is sorry for, should bring her shame. 
 Here there is the touch of magnanimity in his repentance ; 
 nothing weak or grovelling. On the journey, and dm^ing 
 his absence, amidst all the loving conceits and tender home- 
 ward yearnings, the quaint expression of fond fancies, the 
 touches of jealous thought, the speaker never abases his 
 manliood, and the love is crystal-clear in its depths of 
 purity — shining most clearly when the mind is most dis- 
 turbed. All through, the passion is of the kmd that exalts 
 a man ; it tends upward. The manliness of sonnet 49 
 (p. 233), mixed with the conflicting feelings and domi- 
 nating over them, is especially fine. So is the self-abne- 
 gation and sacrifice of sonnet 88 (p. 233). It is the voice 
 of a true man, and noble lover, even though the dress be 
 a caprice of fashion or of fondness. The love may be like 
 devouring flame, as in sonnet 75 (p. 229), but there is no 
 tendency to eat dirt and delight in it. The lover keeps 
 the attitude and aspect of manhood, and does not wallow. 
 If we would learn how naturally noble is the Earl's love 
 for Elizabeth Vernon, we may feel it in sonnet 95 (p. 236), 
 where it is tried terribly by the 'ill-report' that has reached 
 
 ' Well, do not swear ! ' 
 
 Juliet to liomeo. 
 ' No, not an oath ! 
 
 Swear Priests and cowards and men t;autelous.' 
 
 Bkuits. in Julius Ccesar.
 
 THE TWO LADY-COUSINS ADDRESSED. 4r>5 
 
 his ears, witli regard to her beliavioiir at Court. How 
 iarge-hearted and ahnost parental is tlie cautioning ten- 
 derness! IIow firm also the belief in the diamond-like 
 nature of his lady's purity, in spite of what the busy tongues 
 have whispered — Only ' take heed^ dear heart, of the large 
 privilege which your beauty and your position confer on 
 you ! ' In his most piteous pleadings, and most humili- 
 ating confessions, it is a noble fellow at heart ; whatsoever 
 buffetings of fortune and slips of the foot he may have 
 had, he has borne high that torch of his love, and tried to 
 keep it burning pure and bright. BQs love has ennobled 
 his manhood — straightened it upward — makes it dilate to 
 a prouder height, as in the farewell sonnet 90, (p. 240), 
 where the poetry is quick with the feehng of a Avronged, 
 heroic soul ; written in the very life-blood that runs from 
 wounds unjustly given, and lia\ang the pathetic force of 
 a strong man in tears. 
 
 All through, the passion is perfectly pure, and the 
 sonnets are spoken to a perfectly pure woman by him 
 who has the sole right to caution her when she ' flirts ' 
 with others, as we may understand it, and the Court gos- 
 sips make ' lascivious comments ' on what she has been 
 doing in ' sport ' — half spite, half fun — when the two 
 lovers were on tiff, Southampton would not have called 
 himself a ' slave,' a ' sad slave ' to tlie woman he loved, 
 lie would not have prostrated himself in any unmanly way 
 at her feet like the speaker in sonnets 57-8, (p. 373). His 
 was the love in honour which demanded the ' mutual ren- 
 der, only me for thee.' We know tliat he did think the 
 ' bitterness of absence soiu-^' — did dare to ' question with 
 his jealous thought' where she was, and what she was 
 doing. He did think ill, and warn her when he heard a 
 c'ertain report of her doings. He was no fool in love, and 
 did not tolerate being befooled. Nor was his the patience 
 
 ' So did Shakspeare in one of his pei-soual sonnets (oO — p. 171).
 
 456 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 that, ' tame to sufferance,' would ' bide each check' and put 
 up with all kinds of trifling. Nor did he consider that it 
 belonged to his lady to pardon herself for her ' self-doing 
 crimes.' Southampton rightfully held his lady responsible 
 to him for what she had done when he reproached her. 
 Nor did he think that errors were translated to truths 
 when seen in her ! 
 
 The spirit of these sonnets is one with the rest of 
 Herbert's. The 'sad slave' and wretched vassal of son- 
 nets 57-8, (p. 373), is the ' proud heart's slave ' and ' vassal 
 wretch' of sonnet 141, (p. 376). The passion in both is 
 a fire that crumbles the manhood from within. The 
 hectic hue of its lower nature is lurid in every hue. The 
 apparent magnanimity is only prostration for a selfish 
 purpose. And the lady's character also is as distinctly 
 seen by the same light. The lover protests too much, 
 offers too much — would fling himself into any puddle, like 
 Kaleigh's cloak, for the lady to step on. Then he has no 
 sole right to address her amorously — he must be content 
 to take his place with the rest of Circe's suitors, and his 
 turn in winning her smile ! — 
 
 ' I am to wait, tho' waiting so be bell, 
 Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.' 
 
 And— 
 
 * So true a fool is love, that in your * Will,' 
 Tho' you do anything, he thinks no ill.' 
 
 It is the same lady who inspired sonnet 96 (p. 370) ; all 
 the images are stamped in her likeness. Southampton 
 did not think the faults of his lady were graces in her. 
 His jealous thought was for the lady herself, and not on 
 behalf of the innocent 'gazers' whom she might lead 
 astray. Such a suggestion would be utter profanity ; the 
 comparison implied, in the ' stern wolf,' an insult ! Tlie feel- 
 ing of sonnet 95 (p. 236), is filled with most anxious love — 
 jealous of 'trifles light as air.' The jealousy of the other is 
 altogether ironical ; this is proved by the repetition of the
 
 OLD AND NEW AIlItANGEMENT. 457 
 
 two lines which were used with so difTerent a meaning in 
 sonnet 36 (p. 170). In every respect the spirit and look of 
 the two sonnets are the perfect opposite of each other ; the 
 object of the illustration is exactly reversed. The one lady 
 is learned against those vices that lead astray^ the other 
 is asked not to use all her strength to lead others astray. 
 One is all innocence and budding beauty cautioned against 
 her ' sport ' on which the gossips talk freely. The other 
 is pleaded with not to play the part of Wolf by trying to 
 look as innocent as the Lamb. Of the one lady we may 
 say, in the words of Lear, ' her eyes are fierce,' but the 
 eyes of the other ' do comfort and not burn ! ' Of the one 
 sonnet that it has an unhallowed glow, of the other tliat it 
 wears the wdiite halo of purity. 
 
 Next, I have taken three sonnets from tlie latter, or 
 Herbert series, and restored them to those that illustrate 
 Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy of Lady Eich. And here I 
 may reiterate how satisfactorily this mixture of the sonnets 
 illustrates my reading. Because the sonnets spoken to 
 Lady Eich by her cousin were sent to her as well as those 
 spoken by Wilham LTerbert, and they come back to us 
 mixed up together, both in the 'Passionate Pilgrim' and 
 in Thorpe's Book ! That some of Herbert's should be 
 mixed up with Elizabeth Vernon's, points to the proba- 
 bility that the woman addi'essed so warmly by that lady 
 and William Herbert is one and the same — Ehzabeth 
 Vernon's cousin, Lady Eich. In each case, too, the num- 
 ber of sonnets that have changed places is the same. 
 
 For the rest, tliere is proof of the intent to keep the 
 Herbert scries apart at the end of the book, the odd son- 
 nets which were written for Southampton still later having 
 been intermediately inserted with the others of his series. 
 The last of these, written in 1603, on the Earl's re- 
 lease from the Tower, was composed after ' Mr. W. H, 
 became Earl of Pembroke,' therefore, according to my 
 
 ' lie succeeded to the title on the 10th of Jaiiuarv, 1001.
 
 458 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 view, after the Herbert sonnets were written. It has 
 been thrust in quite at random, still it is with the South- 
 ampton sonnets. Then the 126th (p. 170) is a fragment ; 
 it is printed in the quarto, with brackets to indicate the 
 missing lines. It was unfinished, ergo, never sent, there- 
 fore it would be amongst the loose papers of Shakspeare, 
 and this, which belongs by tone and tint to a much 
 earlier period, has been placed last of the Southampton 
 series, and by its aid the Herbert group is marked off into 
 its place apart. 
 
 Some of the other batches of sonnets have shifted 
 places, the Marlowe group is one of these. But in each 
 case a dropped sonnet or two remains to indicate the 
 right position and tell us where the others should have 
 been. The greatest confusion has been caused by the odd 
 sonnets that have been let loose like riderless horses in the 
 ranks to come in anywhere hap-hazard. I venture, how- 
 ever, to affirm that I have got them approximately right, 
 both in date and subject, and they will be found arranged 
 in natural sequence with the help of such hints as they 
 contain, so that each group shall best evolve its story. 
 
 I now claim for my interpretation that it corrects the 
 errors which have been made by superficial research, 
 and clears up tlie mystery of Thorpe's inscription ; that 
 it recovers for us the long-lost key wherewith Shakspeare 
 unlocked his heart to his ' private friends ;' that it 
 fathoms and unfolds the secret histories which have been 
 a sealed book for two centuries and a half and solves one 
 of the most piquant and important of all literary pro- 
 blems ; makes the life-spirit that once breathed in these 
 fragments stir and knit themselves together again to be- 
 come a living body of facts, shaped objectively in some near 
 likeness to the form originally worn in Shakspeare's mind 
 — a veritable presence before which all the phantom 
 falsehoods must fade, and all ' such exsufllicate and blown
 
 THE PROBLEM SOLVED AT LAST. 459 
 
 surmises ' as have attainted the sonnets and wronged the 
 Poet must for ever pass away. 
 
 I also claim for my Theory that it is proved by the ut- 
 most evidence the nature of the case admits ; that the 
 j)robabilities alone are such as to inspire a feehng of cer- 
 tainty, — tliat these clothe themselves in a mail of poetic 
 proof, a panoply of circumstantial evidence and confirma- 
 tory facts. Attempting so much, it must be very assailable 
 if wrong, only tliose who think me wrong must be able 
 to set me riglit. Mere professions of unbelief or non- 
 behef will be valueless ; their expression idle. My facts 
 must be satisfactorily refuted, my Theory disproved 
 simply and entirely, or, in the end, both will be accepted. 
 I cannot expect the result of my explorations to be 
 taken in at first sight, for I myself best appreciate all the 
 intricacies of the process,^ and the many surprises of my 
 discovery. Some readers will find it hard to beUeve tliat 
 a thing like tliis has been left for me to accomplish. 
 Nevertheless, the thing is done ; I can trust a certain 
 spirit in the sonnets, that will go on pleading when my 
 words cease ; and, as Shakspeare has written, the ' silence 
 often of pure Innocence persuades when speaking fails.' 
 Even so will his own innocence prevail, and with a per- 
 fect trust in tlie soundness of my conclusions, I leave tlie 
 matter for tlie judgement of that great soul of the world 
 which is just. 
 
 • * Had we a full biography of the Poet M-ith <all his surroundings, we 
 might explain much that is ukscure in these remiirkahle etlusidns, hut bi/ no 
 pmcTss that I can convcive, inaij xce hope to seize the yenuine allusioiDi to facts 
 thut they contain, and succeed therefrom to iUudratc and reanimate the life.' 
 Life of Shakitpeare, by William "Watkiss Lloyd.
 
 460 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 'HIS SUGRED SONNETS 
 AMONG HIS PRIVATE FRIENDS.' 
 
 Meres. 
 
 My reading of the sonnets gives new meaning to the 
 words of Meres. It makes definite a somewhat vague 
 though sure description. In 1598 he could have spoken 
 only of the Southampton series, but he must have had an 
 inkling of their true nature to have generalized thus 
 successfully. He does not say Shakspeare's personal 
 sonnets to a friend or a Patron. And we have only to 
 substitute the dramatic for the fugitive character that has 
 been ascribed to the sonnets, and his words admit all that 
 my interpretation substantiates. They are ' sugred son- 
 nets,' too, which means love-sonnets ; known to a circle 
 of private friends, various of whom were concerned in 
 their begettal, and all of whom could be appealed to in 
 witness of their worth. In short Meres identifies the son- 
 nets, up to 1598, as the love-sonnets of Shakspeare written 
 for his private friends. The critic wrote with an eye to 
 these friends. And who were they ? 
 
 His words mark the very time at which William Her- 
 bert had joined the group and become one of those who 
 took an interest in the sonnets. This young lord, from his 
 love of poetry, was probably the one who talked most about 
 tlie sonnets and made them known. Unquestionably he 
 was one of the ' ])rivate friends ' referred U) in connection
 
 THE PRIVATI': FRIENDS. 461 
 
 witli Shakspeare's sonnets ; thus Meres puts us on tlie 
 track pursued in a previous chapter. Tlie Earl of Soutli- 
 ampton was of course the chief of these private friends 
 ])ubh('ly recognised. That fact is estabUslied on tlie 
 Toet's own personal testimony, independently of the son- 
 nets, although it could not be known apart from tlie 
 present interpretation of them how secret a bosom-friend 
 lie was, how closely linked in habits of intimacy as those 
 ' whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love.' 
 
 Southampton being so near and dear a friend of our 
 Poet, it is only the most natural thing in the world that 
 Elizabeth Vernon should be one of his friends also. How 
 could she help being interested in one who had addressed 
 those earher sonnets to Southampton, urging him to 
 marry, and sought to twine about him so many flowery 
 bands, lead hira to the shrine of wedded love, and bring 
 under a nobler direction the riotous energies of youth, so 
 apt to break out of bounds, and run to waste ? She must 
 have loved Shakspeare for his fotherly watchfulness of the 
 young Earl's career and conduct, his anxious jealousy of 
 all immoral companions ; and it is only natural to con- 
 clude that she was one of the ' private friends ' of whom 
 Meres makes mention. 
 
 So much might have been assumed, if the sonnets had 
 told us no more. 
 
 The Lady Eich's link of relationship, as illustrated by 
 Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy is very obvious and imme- 
 diate. She being Mistress Vernon's cousin ; her com- 
 panion in childhood and at Court ; the starry object of 
 Sidney's sonnets, having herself acquired a taste for 
 poetry, it was not possible that the sonnets in celebration 
 of Elizabeth Vernon's love and lover could have been un- 
 known to her. According to the abstract reason of things, 
 were there no other evidence, she must have been one of 
 the group alluded to by Meres as acquainted with the 
 sonnets.
 
 4G2 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 It is almost as impossible that the Earl of Essex 
 should not have been one of the friends in the critic's 
 mind when he \vrote of those amongst whom the sonnets 
 privately circulated. Essex was something of a poet : he 
 possessed the kindling poetic temperament and was 
 fond of making verses ; a lover of literature, and the 
 ffiend of poets. It was he who sought out Spenser when 
 in great distress and relieved him, and, when that poet 
 died, Essex buried him in Westminster Abbey. Being, 
 as he was, so near a friend of Southampton, it could 
 scarcely be otherwise than that he sliould have been a 
 personal friend of Shakspeare. It is highly probable that 
 some of the Poet's dramas were first performed at Essex 
 House. In the chorus at the end of Henry V., Shak- 
 speare introduces a prophecy of the Earl's expected suc- 
 cesses in Ireland : 
 
 ' Were now the general of our gracious Empress 
 (As in good time he may) from Ireland coming, 
 Bringing Eebellion broached upon his sword, 
 How many would the peaceful city quit 
 To welcome him ?' 
 
 Also, one of the grounds upon which Essex was beheaded 
 was the play which had been performed after it was al- 
 tered for the purpose of adding the Deposition Scene. 
 This alteration was in point of fact adduced by Coke as 
 proof of the intentions of the conspirators to dethrone the 
 Queen. It has been felt ere now that Shakspeare was in 
 some way and to some extent implicated in the Essex 
 attempt. The sonnets with the present rendering will 
 supply the missing link of connection. He was known 
 to Essex as the personal friend of Southampton and as 
 the writer of sonnets on the affection of that Earl for 
 Essex's cousin, Elizabeth Vernon ; in this Avise Essex 
 became one of the private friends to whom the sonnets 
 were known in MS., as mentioned by Meres, and the 
 Poet was induced to lend his pen at Southampton's re-
 
 KING JAMES'S LETTER TO SIUKSPEARE. 403 
 
 quest to serve the Essex cause. John Davies, in liis 
 'Scourge of Folly,' speaks of Shakspeare as having lost 
 some chance of being promoted to the companionship of 
 princes, mider the reign of King James : — 
 
 ' Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, 
 Hadst thou not played some parts in kingly sport, 
 Thou hadst bin a companion for Ti King, 
 And been a King among the meaner sort.' 
 
 Now, although it is proved by entries in the ' Accoiuits 
 of tlie Eevels ' and by the testimony of Ben Jonson, that 
 Shakspeare's plays were in great favour at the Court of 
 James, yet, it was not as a player and playwright that he 
 would have been welcomed at Court so much as because 
 he was the friend of the late Essex and the living South- 
 ampton. James had the warmest greeting for the friends 
 and partisans of Essex and honours were showered upon 
 them. Davies's allusion accords with the tradition that 
 James ' was pleased with his own hand to write an ami- 
 cable letter to W. Shakspeare, which letter, though now 
 lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William Dave- 
 nant,' respecting which, Oldys, in a MS. note on his copy 
 of Fuller's Worthies, states that the Duke of Buckingham 
 (John Sheffield, that 'high-reaching Buckingham' who 
 aspired to improve Shakspeare's ' Jidius Ca3sar ' in his 
 ' Death of Marcus ]3rutus ') told Lintot that he had seen 
 it in the possession of Davenant. This consideration 
 respecting Shakspeare's private friends makes the letter a 
 far greater likelihood. Sad to say, the Poet does not seem 
 to have taken much to our Solomon^ of Eoyal fools, but to 
 have taken liberties with his character instead. 
 
 It will be remembered that tlie queer love-epistle, over 
 which Lord Rich shook his puzzled head, and which I con- 
 jecture may have been the group of sonnets relating to his 
 wife, was being sent by Lady Eicli to her brother, the Earl 
 
 * 'Soloninn, the son of David (Rizzio),' he was called hy Tlenrv IV. of 
 Franco.
 
 464 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 • 
 
 of Essex, on its way in all probability, back to Elizabeth 
 Vernon. And in the letters and verses of Essex will 
 be found thoughts and expressions which ahiiost prove 
 his acquaintance with the sonnets in MS. In a letter to 
 the Queen, written from Croydon, in the year 1595 
 or 159G, there occurs a likeness remarkable enough to 
 suggest that Essex \vas a reader of the sonnets as they 
 were written. The Earl speaks, in absence from the 
 Queen, when he is about to mount his horse for a gallop. 
 He writes : ' The delights of this place cannot make me 
 unmindful of one in whose sweet company I have joyed 
 so much as the happiest man doth in his highest content- 
 ment, and if my liorse could rim as fast as nty thoughts 
 do fly, I iL'Ould as often make mme eyes rich in beholding 
 the treasure of my love.^^ It is superfluous to point out 
 the resemblance to the thought in two of the sonnets 
 spoken by theEarl of Southampton, when on horseback, and 
 in absence from his Mistress. In Essex's letter of advice 
 to the young Earl of Rutland, 1595, there are one or two 
 touches that look like reminiscences of the early sonnets. 
 Shakspeare says to his young friend, sonnet 54, after 
 speaking of his outward graces : 
 
 ' Oh hoiv much more doth beauty beauteous seem, 
 By tlcat siveet ornaraent that truth doth give,' &c. 
 
 Essex tells his young friend — ' Some of these things may 
 serve for ornaments, and all of them for delights, but the 
 greatest ornament is the inward beauty of the mind.' 
 Again, in a letter to the Queen, dated May, 1600, Essex 
 writes : ' Four whole days have I meditated, most dear 
 and most admired Sovereign, on these ivords that there 
 are two kinds of angels — the one good, the other evil ; 
 and that your Majesty wishes your servant to be accom- 
 panied with the good ;'''^ which sounds very like an echo 
 to the 144th sonnet, beginning — 
 
 ^ Lives of the Deverevx Earls of Essex, vol. i. p. 292. 
 ^ Birch's Memoirs of Elizabeth, vol. ii. p, 445.
 
 PROOFS OF ESSEX'S PEKSOXAL INTIMACY. JG5 
 
 ' Two loves I have of comfort and despair. 
 Which like two spirits do sut^gest me still ; 
 The better an<i^ol is a man ri<^ht fair, 
 The worser spirit a Woman, coloured ill.' 
 
 Of course the Earl iniulit liave seen tliis sonnet in tlie 
 '■Passionate Pilgrim,' tlie year before, Ijut T liold that his 
 acquaintancesliip was nuich closer tlian that ; here is yet 
 stronger proof ! 
 
 In Shakspeare's 35th sonnet, the speaker excuses the 
 ])erson adtkessed, because '■all men make faults ■' and in a 
 sonnet written hy the Earl of Essex, ' in his trouble,' ' the 
 speaker says ' all men's faults do teach her to suspect.' 
 Thus Essex says the faults of all men teach the Queen to 
 suspect, and Shakspeare's speaker says the faults of all 
 men teach her to forgive. The thought and expression of 
 Sliakspeare must have been in the mind of Essex, to have 
 been so curiously turned. The likeness in the two last 
 instances occurs in sonnets belonging to the group devoted, 
 to Elizabetli Vernon's jealousy of her cousin, Avhich I 
 sup])ose to be the epistle of ' Dutch love,' sent by Lady 
 Eicli to her brother Eobert. 
 
 In adducing evidence that Essex was one of Shakspeare's 
 ])nvate friends, we have seen that the Poet lent his pen on 
 two occasions for the Earl's service. I have now to sug- 
 gest another instance. There is a copy of verses in ' Eng- 
 land's Helicon,' (IGOO), reprinted from John Douland's 
 ' First Book of Songs ; or, Ayres of four parts, with a 
 Tableture for tlie Lute.'- It is an address to 'Cvntliia.' 
 
 ' My tlioughts are winged with hopes, my hopes with love: 
 Mount love unto the Moon in clearest night ! 
 And say as she doth in the heavens move. 
 In earth so wanes and waxeth my delight. 
 And whisper this — but softly — in her ears, 
 How oft Doubt hangs the head, and Trust sheds tears. 
 
 ' JiiU. lic</. .V.S'. , I^iitisli Musouni. 17, J5. 1>. 
 * 1?>- IVtcr Short, \o\)l, folio. 
 II H
 
 466 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 * And you, my thoughts that seem mistrust to carry. 
 If for mistrust my Mistress you do blame ; 
 Say, tho' you alter, yet, you do not vary, 
 As she doth change, and yet remain the same. 
 Distrust doth enter hearts, but not infect, 
 And love is sweetest seasoned with suspect. 
 
 *If she for this with clouds do mask her eyes, 
 And make the heavens dark with her disdain ; 
 With windy sighs disperse them in the skies. 
 Or with thy tears derobe ' them into rain. 
 
 Thoughts, hopes, and love return to me no more, 
 Till Cynthia shine as she hath shone before.' 
 
 These verses have been ascribed to Shakspeare on the 
 authority of a common-place book, which is preserved in 
 the Hamburgh city library. In this the lines are subscribed 
 W. S., and the copy is dated IGOG. The little poem is 
 quite worthy of Shakspeare's sonneteering pen and period. 
 And the internal evidence is sufficient to stamp it as 
 Shakspeare's, for the manner and the music, with their 
 respective fehcities, are altogether Shakspearian, of the 
 earlier time. The alliteration in sound and sense ; the 
 aerial fancy moving with such a gravity of motion ; the 
 peculiar corruscation that makes it hard to determine 
 Avhether the flash be a sparkle of fancy or the twinkle of 
 Avit, are all characteristic proofs of its authorship. No 
 other poet of the period save Spenser could have been 
 thus measuredly extravagant, and he would not have 
 dared the perilous turn on ' mistress ' and ' mistrust.' 
 
 Steevens pencilled the initials of Fulke Greville (Lord 
 Brooke) against these lines. But we have no warrant for 
 supposing them his, or tliat his poetic capacity was equal 
 to them. 
 
 ^ ' Derohe.^ This fine expression, so illustrative of Shakspeare's art of 
 saying a thing in the happiest way at a word, Mr. Collier suspects ought to 
 be ' dissolve ' ! ! Even so, if they were allowed, would some of his Critics 
 dissolve Shakspeare out of his poetry.
 
 A KECOVEIIKJ) LYinc. 4G7 
 
 The line, 
 
 ' And love is sweetest seasoned with suspect ' 
 surely comes from the same mint as 
 
 ' The ornament of beauty is suspect.' Sonnet :o. 
 Also the line, 
 
 ' And make the heavens dark with her disdain' 
 
 is cssentiall}' Shakspearian ; one of those which occur at 
 times, after threading the way daintily through intricate 
 windings, swee]:)ing out into the broader current with a 
 l"idl stroke of music and imagination, such as this from 
 the 18th sonnet : 
 
 ' But thy eternal sinnmer shall not fade.'' 
 
 Then the ' windy sighs,' and the tears for rain are just 
 as recognisable as a bit of the Greek mytliology. Here is 
 one of the Poet's pet trinkets of fancy. With him sighs 
 and tears, ' poor fiincy's followers I ' are sorrow's icind 
 and rain} 
 
 I have not the least doubt of the poem being Shak- 
 speare's own, and my suggestion is that it was written for 
 the Earl of Essex, at a time when the Queen, ' Ci/nthia,'' 
 was not shining on him with her favouring smile, and 
 
 * * Storming her w(nld with sorroid's wind and rain.'' 
 
 A Lover'' s Lament. 
 ' Tilt' winds thij siijlis.'' 
 
 liomeo and Juliet. Act iii. 8C. 5. 
 ' Wc cannot call her winds and waters, siyhs and tears.'' 
 
 Anton}/ and Cleojmtra. 
 'Where are my tears? liain, rain, to lay this wind.' 
 
 Troilits and Cressida. 
 ' Give not a wind;/ night a rainy morrow.' Sonnet 90. («'. e. give not a 
 iii"-lit of sighs a morning of tears). 
 
 ' The sun not yet thy si(/hs from heaven clears.' 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. sc. 3. 
 In these last the mental likeness is y&ry strildng. 
 
 II 11 2
 
 4G8 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 that Essex had it set to music, by Douland, to be sung 
 at Court. 
 
 Tlie group of Shakspeare's private friends, for whom 
 the sonnets were written, being thus far identified, it re- 
 mains to be seen whether, by way of further corroboration, 
 we can follow any trace of their characters in the plays. 
 We may be quite sure that Shakspeare was hard at work, 
 whilst, to all appearance, merely at play in the sonnets. 
 He would mark the workings of Time and Fortune on 
 those in whom he took so tender an interest, wistfully as 
 a bird watches the mould upturned by the plough, and 
 pick up the least germs of fact fresh from life, and treasure 
 lip the traits of his friends for a life beyond life in his 
 dramas. He had followed Southampton's course year 
 after year anxiously as Goethe watched his cherry-tree 
 in patient hope of seeing fruit at last ; and one season the 
 spring-frosts killed the blossom, another year the birds ate 
 the buds, then the caterpillars destroyed the green leaves, 
 and next there came a bli^jht, and still he watched and 
 hoped to see the ripened fruit ! 
 
 Shakspeare's finest and most impressive characters are 
 so real and profound, because of the amount of real life at 
 the heart of them, that breathes beneath the robe of other 
 times ; the mask of other names. Living men and women 
 move and have their being in his dramas. And the great- 
 est of all reasons why his characters exist for all time is, 
 because he so closely studied the men and women of his 
 own time, and wrote with one hand touching; warm 
 reality, the other on the pen. Some of those who must 
 have come the nearest home to him, would be the 'private 
 friends ' of his ' sugred sonnets.' 
 
 For example, we might assume without further proof 
 that if the Lady Pdch sat to Shakspeare for some of his 
 sonnet-sketches, she would be certain to reappear, full- 
 picture, in some of his plays. She was too rare a product 
 of IS'ature not to leave an impress on the mould of his
 
 WORKING FRO^I THE LIFE. 409 
 
 iinagiiiation tliat would- not easily pass away — an image 
 that would give its similitude to cliaracters afterwards 
 lashioned by the Poet. If he wrote about her on account 
 of otliers, we maybe sure he did on his own. Sidney 
 liad thus challenged the poets of his age — 
 
 ' But if (both for your love and skill) your name 
 You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame, 
 Stella behold I and then begin to indite.' Sonnet 15. 
 
 And Shakspeare was not in the least likely to neglect the 
 hint. 
 
 Where the character was less marked, it would still 
 l)t' sufficient for suggestion, and with him initials were 
 cnou»di ; from a small seed he could rear the consummate 
 llower. His promises of immortality made to the Earl of 
 Southampton in the sonnets, have had such fulfdment in 
 the plays as the world but little dreams of. Every heroic 
 tiait and cliivalric touch in the Earl's nature would be 
 carefully gathered up to reappear enriched in some such 
 favourite type of English character as King Henry V. 
 Who but Henry Wriothesley, the gay young gallant, the 
 chivalrous soldier, the beau sahreur and dashing leader of 
 horse, could have lived in the mind's eye of Shakspeare 
 when he wrote — 
 
 * I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 
 His cuisses on his tliighs, gallantly armed, 
 Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury ! 
 He vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
 As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, 
 To turn and wind a tiery Pegasus 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship.' 
 
 Here we have the very man to the life, named by name, 
 just as the Poet had seen him mount horse for the wars 
 when he bade him farewell and trium})lied in his pride. 
 Tiie words are ]nit into Sir Eichard Vernon's mouth, Init 
 it is Shakspeare's heart that speaks in them. Camden
 
 470 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 relates that about the end of March (1599) Essex set 
 forward for Ireland, and was ' accompanied out of 
 London with a fine appearance of nobility and the 
 most cheerful huzzas of the common people.' And, 
 seemg that Shakspeare in Heiny V. makes his allusion to 
 Essex's coming home, I infer that in Henry IV. he 
 pictures Southampton as he saw him at starting, on a 
 simihir occasion, dressed in heroic splendours, to his proud 
 loving eyes ; the noblest, the fieriest of the troop of yoimg 
 gallants, aU noble, aU on fire, ' all clinquant, all in gold ! ' 
 When Eowland White saw Southampton off for teland, 
 in 1600, he could not help exclaiming, ' He is a very fine 
 gentleman, and loves yon (Sir Eobert Sidney) well.' 
 
 Also, the troubled history of Southampton's love for 
 Elizabeth Vernon, and the opposition of Fortune, much 
 dwelt upon in the sonnets, could not fail to give a more 
 tragic touch to the play, a more purple bloom to the poetry, 
 when the subject was the sorrow of true but thwarted love. 
 I fancy that Shakspeare was working a good deal from the 
 life and tlie love of his friends when he wrote his 'Eomeo 
 and Juliet ;' the Queen's opposition to their marriage stand- 
 ing in the place of that ancient enmity of the two Houses. 
 There is much of Southampton's character and fate in 
 Eomeo the unlucky, doomed to be crossed in his dearest 
 wishes, whose name was writ in sour Misfortune's book. 
 The Poet must have often preached patience to his 
 friend, like the good Friar Lawrence, and at the same 
 time apprehended w^ith foreboding feeling and presaging 
 fear some tragic issue from the clashing of such a tem- 
 perament with so trying a fortune. There are expressions 
 pointing to the lady of the early sonnets as being in the 
 Poet's mind when he was thinkino; of Juliet. A remarkable 
 image in the 27 th sonnet is also made use of in Eomeo's 
 first exclamation on seeing Juliet for the first time. In 
 tlie sonnet the lady's remembered beauty is said to be 
 ' like a jewel hung in ghastly night,' which
 
 THE POET'S BYPLAY. 471 
 
 ' Makes black Night beauteous, and her old face new.' 
 
 Rouieo says — 
 
 ' Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of Night 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.' 
 
 ConsideriiifT wlio tlie sonnets were written for, tliis fifinre 
 rea])pears in too pointed a way not to have some sugges- 
 tive significance. Looked at in this light, the question of 
 Juliet — 
 
 * Art thou not Eonieo and a Montague ? ' 
 
 comes upon us witli luminous force ; for the fact is, that 
 Southampton was a Montague by the mother's side, she 
 being Mary, daughter of Anthony Browne, fair Viscount 
 Montague, which fact calls to mind wliat has always seemed 
 a little bit of the Nurse's nonsense in the fourth scene of 
 the Second Act of this drama : — 
 
 'Nurse. — Doth not rosemary and Eomeo both begin luith a 
 letter ? 
 
 Romeo. — Ay, Nurse ; what of that ? both with an E. 
 
 Nurse. — Ah, mocker I that's the dog's name: E is for the — 
 No — / know it begins with some other letter : and site hath the 
 'prettiest sententious of it, of you and Rosemary, that it would 
 do you good to hear it. 
 
 Romeo. — Commend me to thy lady.' 
 
 Now, here is more meant than meets the eye. The Nurse 
 is bein^ used. There is something that she does not 
 quite fathom, yet her lady does. She is prettily wise over 
 a pleasant conceit. Eomeo understands it too, if we 
 may judge by his judicious answer. The Nurse, however, 
 knows there is another letter involved. There is a name 
 that beijins witli a dillereut letter to the one sounded, 
 but this name is not in the Play, therefore it cannot be 
 Eoseniary which the Nurse knows does not begin with an 
 ' R.' Name and letter have to do with Ixomeo, the lady
 
 472 SIIAKSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 sees how, but tlie Nurse, wlio started to tell the lover a 
 good joke about Juliet's playing with his name, is puzzled 
 in the midst of it ; can't make it out exactly, but it's a 
 capital joke, and it would do his heart good to see how 
 it pleases the lady, who is learned in the matter, though 
 she, the Nurse, be no scholar ! We shall find a meaning 
 for the first time if Southampton be the original of Eonieo, 
 and make sense of the Nurse's nonsense by supposing, as 
 we well may, that here is an aside on the part of the Poet 
 to his friends, and that the name which begins with another 
 letter than the one first sounded is Wriothesley ! 
 
 This bit of Shakspeare's fun has perplexed his commenta- 
 tors most amusingly ; their hunt after the Dog and the 
 ' dog's letter E' being the best fun of all. The only ' dog' in 
 the Nurse's mind is that ' mocker' of herself, the audacious 
 lover of her young lady. Eoraeo has put her out of 
 reckoning by saying ' both witli an E.' And the Nurse, 
 with the familiarity of an old household favourite, and a 
 chuckle of her amorous old heart, says, 'Ah, you dog, 
 you, 'E' is for ' Eosemary,' and also for — no, there's 
 some other letter, and my lady knows all about it ; only 
 she says this half to herself, as she tries to catch the miss- 
 ing meaning of her speech, the very point of her story. 
 'Eosemary' is merely the herb of that name. ' Thafs 
 for remembrance' with Juliet, not for the name of a dog ! 
 The second Dog is Tyrwhitt's, not Shakspeare's. 
 
 In the present instance the Poet is using the Nurse for 
 the amusement of his friends, just as he uses Mrs. Quickly 
 and Dogberry for ours ; that is, by making ignorance a 
 dark reflector of light for us ; causing them to hit the 
 mark of his meaning for us whilst missing it for them- 
 selves ; tlius we are flattered and they are Ijefooled. 
 
 It is also exceedingly probable that in the previous scene 
 of this same act we have anotlier aside which glances at 
 my reading of the sonnets, if only for a moment, the 
 twinkling of an eye, yet full of merry meaning.
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIOIITS DREAM. 473 
 
 Merciitio says of Romeo in love, 'Now is he for the 
 numbers Petriircli flowed in : Laiiia Id his lady was but a 
 kitcheii-weneh ; marry, tske had a better love {ur friend) 
 to be-rhyr)ie her' Supposing my theory to be the right 
 one, the perfection of the banter here — as between Shak- 
 speare and Southampton — would He in an allusion imper- 
 ceived by the audience, but well known to poet and patron, 
 as relating to the sonnets which were then being written. 
 This would be no more than his making a public allusion 
 to the sonnets, as work in hand, when he dedicated the 
 poem of 'Lucrece.' Besides, Shakspeare may be the original 
 of Mercutio, (see Ben Jon son's description of his hveli- 
 ness !) he may even be playing the part on the stage to 
 Burbage's Eomeo, and the joke at his own and his friend's 
 expence would be greatly heightened by an arch look at 
 Southampton sitting on the stage in ' the Lords' places, on 
 the very rushes where the Comedy is to dance.' ^ Many 
 things would be conveyed to the initiated friends by the 
 Poet's humour thus slyly playing bo-peep from behind 
 the dramatic mask. 
 
 I have already suggested that the Eosaline of 'Love's 
 Labour's Lost,' and the lady of the latter sonnets are 
 both drawn from the same original ; the Lady Eich. 
 And I believe that to the jealousy of Elizabeth Vernon, 
 as pourtrayed in the sonnets, we owe one of the loveliest 
 concei)tions that ever sprang on wings of splendour 
 from the brain of man, the ' MidsunnnerXight's Dream ; ' 
 dreamed by the potent magician, when he lay down as 
 it v/ere apai't from the stir and the strife of realit}^ imder 
 the boughs of that Athenian wood ; a region full of 
 li\ntasy ! and in the mystic time, and on the borderland 
 of life, the lairies came floating to him under the moon- 
 light, over the moss, on divers-coloured, dew-besilvered 
 })lumes, lighting up the leafy coverts with their glow- 
 worm lamps, moving about him in tiny attendance,, to do
 
 474 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 his spiritings as they filled the sleeping forest with the 
 richness of a dream. 
 
 The play and the bye-play are the ver}^ forgery of Jea- 
 lousy; the jealousy of mortals mirrored with most exquisite 
 mockery in fairy world. 
 
 In the sonnets we have two women wooing one man, 
 and in the play two men are made to pursue the love of 
 one woman. Puck, speaking of the eifect of the flower- 
 juice squeezed on the eyes, says, 
 
 * Then will two at once woo one.' 
 
 Only the parts being reversed, the two that were wooing 
 Hermia, so passionately, are compelled to follow Helena 
 as persistently. The object too of Oberon's sending for 
 the magic flower, was, in its human aspect, to turn a false 
 love into true, but by a mistake on the part of Puck, that 
 was intentional on the part of the Poet, a true love is sub- 
 jected to a false glamour, through the ' misprision ' that 
 ensues. A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful 
 youth, wdio has capriciously left her to pursue the 
 betrothed of another, and thus gives the leading move- 
 ment to the [ove-fiigue. ' Anoint his eyes,' says Oberon , 
 that he, in fact, 
 
 ' May be as he was wont to be, 
 And see as he was wont to see.' 
 
 And Helena, groping through the glimmering night, half- 
 blind with tears, in pursuit of her truant lover, chides al- 
 most in the same language as the lady of the sonnets — 
 
 *Fie, Demetrius ! 
 Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex ; 
 We cannot fight for love as men may do ; 
 We should be wooed, and were not made to woo.' 
 
 The Poet having written sonnets upon Elizabeth Vernon's 
 jealousy of her cousin Lady Eich, found enough reality, 
 and no more, in it to play with the subject. So the pain 
 and the petulance, the pleadings and reproaches, all passed
 
 THE TABLES TURNED. 47n 
 
 away into tliis liaiiiitcd realm of his imagination. Tie 
 dreamed about it, and the fact of tlie day ])ecame the 
 fiction of the night ; tliis being the tian^^figured sliape it 
 took in the spirit-world of things — a rainbow of most 
 ethereal beauty, that rose up in wonder-land, after the 
 April storm of smiles and tears had passed from the ftice 
 of real love, in the human world! — an arch of triunijih, 
 under which tlie friends were to pass, on their way into 
 the world of wedded life. All fairy-land is lit up for the 
 illustration of jealousj^ and we have the love-tifTs, fallings- 
 out, and makings-up of the Poet's friends, represented in 
 the most delicate disguise. 
 
 His fancy has been tickled, and his humour is all alive 
 with an elfish sparkle. He will make the wee folk mimic 
 the quarrels of these human mortals ; the fairy jealousy 
 shall be just theirs, translated to the realm of the quaint 
 spnits, who are a masked humanity in miniature. In 
 dream-land, too, the Poet can have his own way, and turn 
 the tables on the facts of real life. He will play Oberon, 
 and use the charmed juice for a ' fair maid's sake.' The 
 lover shall be punished, that was of late so mad for 
 Hermia, and have his eyes opened by a truer love-sight, 
 and be rejected by Helena, as the breather of false vows. 
 The lady that drew all hearts and eyes shall be forsaken 
 and left forlorn. In the sonnets, poor Helena has to 
 reproach her cousin for stealing her lover from her side ; 
 Hermia is there, the ' gentle thief.' In the play this is 
 reversed, and Hermia charges Helena for the theft. 
 
 ' me ! you juggler! you canker-worm ! 
 You thief of love! Wh.it ! have you come hy night 
 And stoleu my Love's heart from hitn ? ' 
 
 Midsummer NighVs Dream, act i. so. 2. 
 
 jMany touches tend to show that Hermia is Lady Pich, 
 and Helena, Elizabeth Vernon. The complexion of Her- 
 mia is again tiinud at, in her being called a * laven ; ' 
 complexion and spirit both, in the ' tawny Tartar.' The
 
 476 SILVKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 eyes of Stella are likewise distinguishable in. ' Hermia's 
 sphery ejiie,' and in 'your eyes hyq lodestars F also in 
 these hues : 
 
 ' Happy is Hermia, vvheresoe'er she lies ; 
 For she hath blessed and attractive eyes ; 
 How came her eyes so bright ? Not with salt tears : 
 If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers. 
 
 Hers too, I think, was the black brow of which we 
 have heard so much, the ' brow of Egypt,' in wliicli ' the 
 Lover ' could see ' Helen's beauty.' 
 
 The difference in character and in height of person 
 agTces with all we know, and can fairly guess, of the two 
 cousins. Elizabeth Vernon — Helena — is the taller of the 
 two ; she is also the most timid, and, as in the sonnets, 
 fearful of her cousin, who 'was a vixen when she went to 
 school,' and who is fierce for her size. In the 28th sonnet, 
 Elizabetli Vernon is thus addressed : 
 
 ' I tell the Day, to please him thou art bright, 
 And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven ; 
 So flatter I the swart-complexioned Night ; 
 When sparJding stars tire not, thou gUd'st the even.^ 
 
 In the drama, Lysander exclaims, 
 
 ' Fair Helena, ivho more engilds the Night, 
 Than all tJte fiery oes and eyes of light ! ' 
 
 Again, in sonnet 109, Southampton says, on the subject 
 of his wanderings in the past, and with a special allusion 
 to some particular occasion, when the two lovers had 
 suffered a ' night of woe ' — this Play being a Dream of 
 that 'Night' in which the Poet held the lovers to have 
 been touched witli a Midsummer madness ! — 
 
 ' As easy might I from myself depart. 
 As from my soul, ivhich in thy breast doth lie: 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged. 
 Like him that travels, I return again.''
 
 THE 'LITTLE WESTEIIX FLOWER.' 477 
 
 And ill t]ic Drama the rcpuutaiit lover, asIicu the 
 glaniour has gone from his eyes, says of the Lady wlioin he 
 has been following fancy-sick — 
 
 * Lysander keep thy Heriiiia. I will none : 
 If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone. 
 My heart to her bat as c/icest-ivise sojoiirnedy 
 And liovj to Helen it is home returned^ 
 There to remain.'' 
 
 Lastly, the early and familiar acquaintanceship of the two 
 cousins, Lady liicli and Elizabeth Vernon, is })erfectly 
 pourtrayed in these lines. Helena is expostulating on 
 the cruel bearing of Hermia towards her — 
 
 ' 0, is it all forgot ? 
 All school-days' friendship, childhood-innocence ? 
 We, Hermia, like two artificial gods. 
 Have with our needles created both one flower. 
 Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion. 
 Both warbling of one song, both in one key. 
 As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, 
 Had been incorporate. So we grew together, 
 Like to a double-cherry, seeming parted, 
 But yet an union in partition ; 
 Two lovely berries moulded on one stem, 
 So with two seeming bodies hut one heart.' 
 
 Midsummer NicjhVs Dream, act iii. sc. 2. 
 
 Mr. Ilalpin, in ' Oberon's Vision, illustrated,'^ has con- 
 clusively shown the ' little western fiow^er ' of the AUe- 
 gor}'' to be the representative of Lettice Knollys, Countess 
 of Essex, whom the Earl of Leicester married after he had 
 shot his bolt with her Majesty and missed his mark of a 
 royal marriage.^ My reading dovetails Avitli his, to the 
 
 • Sfiakupcnre Sociiii/'s Papers, 184^1. 
 
 - My iiitiTpr(>tation of Oboron's reinark — 
 
 ' That very time I saw, but thou cotdcVst not ' — 
 is to this effect: — 
 
 Shakspoiire is treating Puck for the moniont, a.? a personificatidn of liis 
 own biiyliood. ' Thim rcitwinhered the rare vision wo saw at the " IMnoely 
 Pleasures" of Kenilworth!' *I remember/ replies Puck. So that he wa;j
 
 478 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 strengtliening of botli. But, Mr. Ilalpiii does not cxplaiii 
 ichy tliis ' little flower ' should play so important a 
 part ; why it should be the chief object and final cause 
 of the whole allegory, so that the royal range of the 
 imagery is but the mere setting ; why it should be the 
 only link of connexion betwixt the allegory and the play. 
 This must be because it has more relationship to charac- 
 ters in the ' drama ' than to persons out of it. My ren- 
 dering alone will show why and how. The allegory was 
 introduced on account of these two cousins ; the 'little 
 western flower ' being mother to Lady Eich, and aunt to 
 Elizabeth Vernon. The Poet pays the Queen a com})li- 
 ment by the way, but, his allusion to the love-shaft loosed 
 so impetuously by Cupid is only for the sake of marking 
 Avhere it fell, and brino-ing; in the Flower. 
 
 It is the little flower alone that is necessary to his 
 present purpose, for he is entertaining his ' private 
 friends ' more than catering for the amusement of the 
 Court. This personal consideration will explain the ten- 
 derness of the treatment. Such delicate dealino; with 
 such a subject was not likely to win the royal favour ; 
 the ' imperial votaress ' never forgave the ' little western 
 flower ' and only permitted her to come to Court once, 
 and then for a private interview, after her Majesty 
 learned that Lettice Knollys was really Countess of Lei- 
 cester. Shakspeare himself must have had sterner 
 thoughts about the lady, but this was not the time to 
 show them : he had introduced the subject for poetic 
 beauty, not for poetic justice. He brings in his allegory, 
 then, on account of those who are related to the ' little 
 
 then present, and saw the; siglits and all tlie outer realities of the pageant. 
 But the Boy of eleven could not see what ( )heron saw, the matrimonial mys- 
 teries of Leicester : the lofty aim of the Earl at a Royal prize, and the secret 
 intrigue then pursued by him and the Countess of ]<lssex. Whereupon the 
 Fairy King unfolds in Allegory what he before saw in vision, and clothes 
 the naked skeleton of fact in tlie very bloom of beauty, with touches and 
 tints delicate as those of Spring, embroidering a grave with flowers.
 
 LOVK-IX-IDLEXESS AND LOVK-IX-KAIJNEST. 170 
 
 western flower,' and in his use of the llower he is playfully 
 tracinj^ up an effect to its natural cause. The mother of 
 Lady liich is typified as the flower called ' Love-in-idle- 
 ness,' the power of which is so potent that — 
 
 ' The juice of it on sleeping eyeliils laid, 
 Will make a man or woman madly doat 
 Upon the next live creature that it sees.' 
 
 And the daucrhter was like the mother. ' It comes from 
 his mother,' said the Queen, with a sigh, speaking of the 
 dash of wilful devilry and the Will-o'-the-wisp fire in the 
 Earl of Essex's blood ! Shakspeare, in a smiling mood, 
 says the very same of Lady Eich and her love-in-idleness. 
 ' It comes from her mother !' She, too, was a genuine 
 ' light-o'-love ' and possessed the qualities attributed to 
 the ' little western llower ' — the vicious virtue of its 
 juice, the power of glamourie by communicating the 
 poison with which Cupid's arrow was touched when 
 dipped for deadliest work. 
 
 These she derives by inheritance ; and these she has 
 exercised in real life on the lover of her cousin. The 
 juice of ' love-in-idleness ' has been dropped into South- 
 ampton's eyes, and in the play its enchantment has to be 
 counteracted. Here I part company with Mr. IIal})in. 
 ' D'uuis bud^' the ' other herb,'' does not represent h{i> 
 Elizabeth, the Queen, but mij Elizabeth, the ' laire Ver- 
 non.' It cannot be made to lit the Queen in any shape. 
 If the herb of more potential spell, 'whose liquor hath 
 this virtaoits property ' that it can correct all errors of 
 sight, and ' undo this hateful imperfection ' of the ena- 
 moured eyes — 
 
 ' Dian's bud, o'er Cupid's flower. 
 Hath such force and hlessed power.' 
 
 were meant for the Queen ; it would have no application 
 whatever in life, and the allegory would not impinge o\\ 
 the play, ^^'hose eyes did this virtue of the Queen purge
 
 480 SILVKSPEAEES SONNETS. 
 
 from the grossness of "wanton love ? Assuredly not Lei- 
 cester's, and as certainly not those of the Lady Lettice. 
 Indeed, if these had been so changed, why, their eyes 
 could not have ' rolled with wonted si^ht.' The facts of 
 real life would have made the allusion a sarcasm on the 
 Queen's virgin force and ' blessed power,' such as would 
 have warranted lago's expression, ' blessed jicfs-end /' If 
 it be ap})lied to Titania- and Lysander, Avhat had the 
 Queen to do with them, or they with her ? The allegory 
 will not go thus far ; the link is missing that should con- 
 nect it with the drama. No. ' Dian's bud ' is not the 
 Queen. It is the emblem of Elizabeth Vernon's true love 
 and its virtue in restoring the ' precious seeing ' to her 
 lover's eyes which had in the human world been doating 
 wrongly. It symbols the triumph of love-in-earnest over 
 love-in-idleness ; the influence of that purity which is 
 here represented as the offspring of Dian. 
 
 Only thus can we find tliat meeting-point of Queen 
 and Countess, of Cupid's Hower and Dian's bud, in the 
 play which is absolutely essential to the existence and the 
 oneness of the work ; only thus can Ave connect tlie cause 
 of the mischief Avith its cure. The aUusion to the Queen 
 Avas but a passing compliment ; tlie influence of the ''little 
 western flower ' and its necessary connection Avith persons 
 in the drama are as much the sine qua non of the play's 
 continuity and development as A\^as the jealousy of Eliza- 
 beth Vernon a motive-incident in the poetic creation. 
 
 Such, I believe, is the Genesis of this exquisite Dramatic 
 Dream ; the little grub of fact out of Avhich tlie wonder rose 
 on rainboAV Avings ; an instance of the Avay in Avhich 
 Shakspeare effected his marvellous transformations and 
 made the mortal put on immortality. For a moment Ave 
 have caught the Avizard at his Avork and seen how he at- 
 tained that remoteness Avhen dealino; Avith familiar thinj?s 
 Avhich can invest mere earth, so common to us in its near- 
 ness, Avith a lustre in the distance as of a lighted star.
 
 LADY TtlCII AS CLEOPATRA. 481 
 
 I do not doubt that tliis dainty drama was ^vritteii with 
 tlie view of celobratin<,^ the marriage of Soutliampton and 
 EHzabetli Vernon ; for tliem liis Muse put on the wed- 
 ding raiment of sucli richness ; theirs was the bickering of 
 jealousy so magically mirrored, the nuptial path so be- 
 strewn with the choicest of our Poet's Howers, the wed- 
 ding bond that he so fervently blest in fairy guise. He is, 
 as it were, the familiar friend at the marriage-feast who 
 gossips cheerily to the company of a perplexing passage 
 in the lovers' courtship, which tliey can afford to smile at 
 now ! 
 
 The play was probably composed some time before 
 the marriage took place, at a period when it may have been 
 thought the (Jucen's consent could be obtained, but not 
 so early as the commentators have imagined. I have 
 ventured the date of 1595.^ 
 
 'Of all Shakspeare's historical plays,' says Coleridge, 
 ' " Antony and Cleopatra " is the most wonderful. Not 
 one in Avhicli he has followed history so minutely, and 
 yet there are few in which he impresses the notion of 
 angelic strength so much — perhaps none in which he im- 
 presses it more strongly. This is greatly o"\\nng to the 
 manner in wliich the fiery force is sustained throughout, 
 owing to the numerous momentary flashes of nature coim- 
 leracting the liistoric abstraction.' 
 
 Thei-e were reasons for this vivid look of life and 
 warmth of colour unknown to Coleridge. It is not merely 
 
 ' Perhaps it was one of the Plays presented before Mr. Secretary Cecil 
 and Lord Southampton, wlien they were leaving London for Paris, in Ja- 
 nuary, WM, at wliich time, as Kowland White relates, the Earl's marriage 
 was secretly talked of. The same writer tells us, that on the 14th uf the 
 next month, there was a g-raud entertainment given at I'^ssex House. Thei-e 
 were present, the Ladies Leicester, Northumberland, Bedford, Essex, tind 
 Rich; also Lords Essex, Rutland, Mountjoy, and others. 'They had two 
 Plays, which kept them up till One o'clock after Midnight." {6'ultiei/ 
 Memoirs, vol. ii p. 01). Southampton was nway, but this brings us upon 
 the gi'oup of ' Private Friends ' gathered, in all likelihood, to witness a pri- 
 vate performance of two of our Poet's Plays. 
 
 I i
 
 482 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 life-like, but real life itself. The model from which 
 Shakspeare drew his Cleopatra was, like his statue of 
 Hermione, a very real woman all a-thrill with life : ' The 
 fixure of her eye liath motion in't !' Eipe life is ruddy 
 on the lip ; life stirs in the breath. A little closer, and 
 we exclaim with Leonatus, ' Oh ; she's warm /' 
 
 There was a woman in the North, whom Shakspeare 
 had known, quite ready to become his life-figure, for this 
 siren of the east ; her name was Lady Eich. A few 
 touches to make the hair dark, and give the cheek a browner 
 tint, and the change w^as wrought. The soul was already 
 there, apparelled in befitting bodily splendour. She had 
 the tropical exuberance, the rich passionate hfe, and 
 reckless impetuous spirit ; tiie towering audacity of will, 
 and breakings-out of wilfuhiess; the sudden change 
 from stillness to storm, from storm to calm, whicli kept 
 her life in billowy motion, on which her spirit loved 
 to ride triumphing, although others went to WTCck; 
 the cunning — past man's thought — to play as she pleased 
 upon man's pulses ; the infinite variety that custom could 
 not stale ; the freshness of feeling that age could not 
 whither ; the magic to turn the heads of young and old, 
 the wanton and the wise ! Her ' flashes of nature ' were 
 lightning-flashes ! A fitting type for the witch-woman, 
 who kissed away kingdoms, and melted down those im- 
 mortah pearls of price — the souls of men — to enrich the 
 wine of her luxurious life ! The very ' model for the devil 
 to build mischief on,' or for Shakspeare to work by, when 
 setting that ' historic abstraction' all aglow with a confla- 
 gration of passionate life, and making old Nile's swart 
 image of beauty in bronze breathe in flesh and blood and 
 sensuous shape once more to personify eternal torment 
 in the most pleasurable guise. The hand of the Enghsh- 
 woraan flashes its wdiiteness, too, in witness, when she 
 offers to give her ' bluest veins to kiss,' forgetful that 
 it was black with ' Phcebus' amorous pinches.' The
 
 ESSEX AS HAMLET. 483 
 
 ' lascivious Grace, in irlumi alt ill irell shows.' Sonnet 40, 
 (p. 210), is that 'serpent of old Nile,' who was 'cunning, 
 past man's thoiifiht ;' she who is asked hi sonnet 150, 
 (p. 377)- 
 
 ' Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill 
 That in tlie very refuse of thy deeds, 
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill 
 That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds ? ' 
 
 is the same person, of whom it is said in the tragedy, 
 'the vilest things become themselves in her;' the lady 
 addressed in sonnet 9G, (p. 370) — 
 
 ' Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort, 
 As on the finger of a throned Queen, 
 The basest jewel will be well-esteemed ; 
 So are those errors that in thee are seen 
 To trutlis translated, and for true things deeme<l — ' 
 
 is one with the 
 
 ' Wrangling Queen, 
 Whom everything becomes, to chide, to laugh, 
 To weep : whose every passion fully strives 
 To make itself, in thee, fair, and admired ! ' 
 
 This veri-similitude is not casual, it comes from no in- 
 advertence of ex])ressi(ni, but goes to the life-roots of a 
 personal character, so unique, that the Poet on various 
 occasions drew from one originrd — the Ladj' Rich. 
 
 In the same way I think Shakspeare wrought from the 
 character of Lady Rich's brother, in creating one of his 
 most perplexing personages. The puzzle of history, called 
 ' Essex,' was well calculated to become that problem of 
 the critic, called 'Hamlet.' This has been before sug- 
 gested.' The characters and circumstances of both have 
 much in common. The fixther of Essex was [)opularly 
 
 ' In ' L'ourt and Snciffi/ froni Ellzahi-th to Aiuii:' 
 11 2
 
 484 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 believed to have been poisoned by the man who after- 
 wards married the widow. Tlien the burden of action 
 imposed on a nature divided against itself, the restlessness 
 of spirit, the wayward melancholy, the fantastic sadness, 
 the disposition to look on life as a sucked orange, — all point 
 to such a possibility. We can match Hamlet's shifting 
 moods of mind with those of the ' weary knight,' heart- 
 sore and fancy-sick, as revealed in letters to his sister, 
 Lady liich. In one of these he writes — 
 
 ' This lady hath entreated me to write a fantastical .... 
 but I am so ill with my pains, and some other secret causes, as 
 I will rather choose to dispraise those affections with which 
 none but women apes and lovers are delighted. To hope for 
 that which I have not, is a vain expectation, to delight in that 
 which I have, is a deceiving pleasure : to wish the return of that 
 which is gone from me, is womanish inconstancy. Those 
 things which fly me I will not lose labour to follow. Those 
 that meet me I esteem as they are worth, and leave when they 
 are nought worth. I will neither brag of my good-hap nor 
 complain of my ill ; for secrecy makes joys more sweet, and I 
 am then most unhappy, when another knows that I am un- 
 happy. I do not env}', because I will do no man that honour 
 to think he hath that which I want ; nor yet am I not con- 
 tented, because I know some things that I have not. Love, I 
 confess to be a bHnd god. Ambition, fit for hearts that already 
 confess themselves to be base. Envy is the humour of him 
 that will be glad of the reversion of another man's fortune ; and 
 revenge the remedy of such fools as in injuries, know not how 
 to keep themselves aforehand. Jealous I am not, for I will be 
 glad to lose that which I am not sure to keep. If to be of this 
 mind be to be fantastical, then join me with the three that I 
 first reckoned, but if they be young and handsome, with the 
 first. 
 
 Your brother that loves you dearly.' ' 
 
 Again he writes to his ' dear sister : ' 
 
 ' I am melancholy-merry ; sometimes happy, and often dis- 
 contented. The Court is of as many humours as the rainbow 
 1 Court and Society frinn E/iziihefh to Anne, vol. i. p. 299.
 
 LIKENESS OF ESSEX JO HA.MLKT. -itto 
 
 hatb colours. The time wliereiu \V(.- live is more inconstant 
 than woman's thoughts, more miserable than old age itself, and 
 breedeth both people and occasions like itself, that is, violent, 
 desperate, and fantastical. Myself, for wondering at other 
 men's strange adventures, have not leisure to follow the 
 ways of mine own heart, but by still resolving not to be proud of 
 any good that can come, because it is but the favour of chance ; 
 nor do I throw down my mind a whit for any ill that shall 
 happen, because I see that all fortunes are good or evil as they 
 are esteemed.' ' 
 
 These read exactly like expressions of Hamlet's weari- 
 ness, indifference and doubt, as for example, this sighing 
 utterance, ' How weary, flat, stale and unprofitable, seem 
 to me all the uses of this world ! ' And this : 
 
 ' Indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this 
 goodly frame, the earth, seems to me as a sterile promontory, 
 this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'er- 
 hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire ; 
 why, it appears no other-thing to me than a foul and pestilent 
 congregation of vapours .... Man delights not me ; no 
 nor woman neither.' 
 
 There is the same worm at the root, the same fatal 
 fractm^e running through the character, the same vacci- 
 lation and glancing aside the mark, that tendency to zig- 
 zaa: which made Coleridgje swerve from side to side of his 
 wd\k in the Garden, because he never could make up his 
 mind to go direct. It strikes me tliat the subject of 
 ' Hamlet ' was forced on Shakspeare as a curious study 
 from the hfe of his own time, rather than chosen from a 
 rude remote age for its dramatic aptitude. For the 
 character is undramatic in its very nature ; a passive, 
 contemplative part, rather than an acting one. It has 
 no native hue of Norse resolution, but is sicklied over 
 with the ' jxile cast ' of modern thought. As witli 
 Essex, the life is hollow at heart ; dramatic only in 
 
 1 Court and SocUii/ from Elizahcth to Anne, vol. i. p. 207.
 
 486 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 externals It is tragic periiiissively, not conipiilsorily. 
 The Drama does not solve any riddle of life for us, it is 
 the represented riddle of a life that to this day remains 
 unread. Doubtless, it Avould be the death of many fine- 
 spun theories and rare subtleties of insight regarding 
 Shakspeare's intentions, if we could only see how contented 
 he was to let Nature have her way, and trusted the 
 realities which she had provided ; steadily keeping to his 
 terra Jinna, and letting his followers seek after him all 
 through cloudland. 
 
 Wlien the Poet put tliese words into the mouth of 
 Ophelia — ' Bonnie Sweet Eobin is all my joy,' they did 
 not mean, I think, to refer merely to the tune of that 
 name. ' Sweet Eobin ' was the pet name by which the 
 Mother of Essex addressed him in her letters. One 
 wonders whether either of the Court ladies — Elizabeth 
 Southwell, Mary Howard, Mrs. Eussell, or the ' fairest 
 Brydges' — whose names have been, coupled Avith that of 
 Essex, gave any hint of ' Ophelia ' to Shakspeare ? 
 
 There is no hkeness, however, betwixt Horatio and the 
 Earl of Southampton ; the philosophic calm of the one is 
 totally opposed to the other's natural fervency of tem- 
 perament, and the dear friend of Essex cannot possibly 
 be one with the friend of Hamlet. The Prince's descrip- 
 tion of Horatio determines that ! 
 
 ' Thou hast been 
 As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; 
 A Man, that Fortune's buffets and rewards 
 Hast ta'en with equal thanks ! 
 
 And blest are those 
 Whose blood and judgment are so well comniiugled 
 That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger. 
 To sound what stop she please. '- 
 
 Malone supposed that our Poet, in writing the last 
 Avords of Horatio —
 
 ESSEX'S LAST PI{AYEIJ. 
 
 487 
 
 * Now cracks a nohlc lieart — good night, sweet prince, 
 Aud flights uf angels sing thee to thy rest I' 
 
 liad in mind the last words of Essex in his prayer on tlie 
 scafFold — ' And wlien my sold and body sliall part, aend 
 thy blessed angels^ to he near unto me, which may convey 
 it to the joys of heaven' 
 
 But ' Hamlet ' is a somewhat earlier play than Malone 
 supposed. It must have been the last words of Horatio 
 that were in tlie last thoughts of Essex, or else they w^ere 
 so familiar to him for personal reasons, as to shape his 
 last expressions imconsciously to himself. 
 
 It is in the play of King Henry VHI. tliat w^e may 
 find the last words of Essex worked up by the dramatist, 
 and with great fulness of detail. Tlie speech of Bucking- 
 ham on his way to execution, includes almost every 
 point of Essex's address on the scaffold, as may be seen 
 by the following comparison. 
 
 Essex. 
 ' I pray you all to pray with 
 me and for me,' 
 
 Buckingham. 
 ' All good people pray for 
 
 me. 
 
 Essex. 
 'I beseech you and the 
 world to have a charitable 
 opinion of me, for my inten- 
 tion towards her ]\Iajesty, 
 whose death, ujpon my s(dva- 
 tion, and before God, I protest 
 I never meant, nor violence to 
 her person.' 
 
 Buckingham. 
 ' I have this day received a 
 Traitor's judgment, 
 
 And by that name must 
 die : yet heaven hear wit- 
 ness', 
 
 And, if I have a conscience, 
 let it sink me. 
 
 Even as the axe falls, if I 
 he not faithful.'' 
 
 Essex. Buckingham. 
 
 ' Yet I confess I have re- ' I had my trial, and must 
 
 ceived an hououral)le trial, and needs say a noble one.' 
 am justly condemned.'
 
 48d 
 
 SHAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Essex. 
 * I beseech you all to join 
 yourselves -svith me in prayer, 
 not with eyes and lips only, 
 but with lifted up hearts and 
 minds to the Lord for me . . 
 Grod, grant me the inward 
 comfort of Thy Spirit. Lift 
 my soul above all earthly 
 cogitations, and when ray soul 
 and- body shall part, send Thy 
 blessed angels to be near unto 
 me, which may convey it to 
 the joys of heaven.' 
 
 Essex. 
 
 ' I desire all the world to 
 forgive me, even as I do freely 
 and from my heart forgive all 
 the world.' 
 
 Essex. 
 ' The Lord grant her Ma- 
 jesty a prosperous reign, and a 
 long, if it be his will. O Lord, 
 grant her a wise and under- 
 standing head ! Lord, bless 
 Her I' 
 
 Buckingham. 
 * You few that loved me, 
 
 And dare be bold to weep 
 for Buckingham, 
 
 His noble friends and fel- 
 lows, whom to leave 
 
 Is only bitter to him ; the 
 only dying ; 
 
 Gro with me like good angels 
 to the end; 
 
 And as the long divorce of 
 steel falls on me, 
 
 INlake of your prayers one 
 sweet sacrifice. 
 
 And lift m/y soul to heaven.' 
 
 Buckingham. 
 ' I as free forgive you. 
 As I would be forgiven : I 
 forgive all.' 
 
 Buckingham. 
 * Commend me to his grace. 
 My vows and prayers 
 
 Yet are the King's ; and, till 
 m}'' soul forsake, 
 
 Shall cry for blessings on 
 him ! may he live. 
 
 Longer than I have time to 
 tell his years ! 
 
 Ever beloved and loving- 
 may his rule be.' 
 
 Even so did he who held that the players were the 
 ' abstract and brief chronicles of the time,' and that the 
 dramatist should show the ' veiy age and body of the 
 time, its form and pressure,' deal with the reahties around 
 him ; the men whom he knew, the scenes which he saw, 
 the events as they occurred ; although these, when seen
 
 THE COMPARISON CONTINUED. 489 
 
 through the himiiious ether of his poetry, and heard in 
 liis hum'r utterance, are often so olian^ed in their 
 translated sliape, tliat they are as difFicuU to identify as it 
 may be to recognise in anotlier world many glorified 
 spirits that once dwelt obscure and dim in this. Also the 
 personages live so intensely in his Poetrj^ who have only 
 come to us as phantoms in histoiy, that it is no marvel 
 we should have lost their likeness. In the present 
 instance, the identification of the fact in the fiction is 
 easy, for not only has the Poet used the thoughts and ex- 
 pressions of Essex pnd dramatised his death-scene, but he 
 has also rendered the very incidents of Essex's trial, his 
 bearing before his Peers, and given an estimate of 
 persons and circumstances exact in application. 
 
 First Gent. ' To his accusations 
 He pleaded still not guilty, and alleged 
 Many sharp reasons to defeat the law. 
 The King's Attorney on the contrary, 
 Urged on the examinations, proofs, confessions 
 Of divers witnesses ; which the Duke desired 
 To have hroufjht vivco voce to his face : 
 At which appeared against him his surveyor ; 
 Sir Gilbert Peck, his chancellor ; and John Carr, 
 Confessor to him ; with that devil-monk, 
 Hopkins, that made this mischief.' 
 
 Second Gent. ' That was he 
 That fed him with his prophecies?' 
 
 First Gent. ' The same.' 
 
 Here is obvious reference to the brutal vehemence of 
 Coke, the Attorney-General, to the private examinations 
 of the confederates, wdiose depositions were taken the 
 day before the trial of Essex and Southampton ; to the 
 confession of Sir Christopher Blount, wdio had been Essex's 
 right-hand man in his fatal afUdr ; to the treachery of 
 Mr. Ashton, Essex's confessor ; and a most marked and 
 underlined allusion to Cufle, the Jesuitical plotter of
 
 490 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 treason, the chief instigator and evil tempter of Essex ; 
 the man that 'made this mischief.' 
 
 A closer scrutiny would yield further proof, that in this 
 scene our Poet was working directly from the life of his 
 own time. The hues — 
 
 ' Nor will I sue, altho' the king have mercies, 
 More than I dare make faults — ' 
 
 give utterance to a prominent fact in Essex's case. And 
 the allusions to the Irish Depiityship and the ' trick of 
 state,' whicli was ' a deep envious one,' most probably 
 liave personal application to Essex, and Mountjoy, and 
 possibly to Cecil. 
 
 For myself, I feel half ashamed to be decomposing 
 Shakspeare's poetry in this way ; taking the instrument 
 in pieces to see whence the music came. It looks like 
 filching a light for the purpose of plajdng the detective's 
 part. And yet, every touch of his personal relation- 
 ships, and every authentic footprint are precious to 
 me and important to my subject. Also, this identifica- 
 tion unites with the other internal evidence in proof that 
 ' King Henry WII.' was written during the life of 
 Elizabeth. The fate of Essex must have profoundly 
 affected Sliakspeare, and I feel tliat it was yet fresh in 
 his memory when he wrote the ' Prologue,' witli its 
 iteration of tlie truth of the scenes represented. The play 
 was composed quite in time to be that ' Enterlude of 
 King Henry VIII.' which was entered in the Stationers' 
 Books under date Feb. 12th, 1604-5 ; but not performed, 
 I think, until after the accession of James. The allusions 
 to him and the glories of his reign, I hold to be an after- 
 thought, interpolated to meet the players' exigency. But 
 surely not by Shakspeare ? How could liis dramatic 
 instinct liave tolerated the proclamation of James as 
 Elizabeth's heir in a Prophecy ?
 
 ■H»i 
 
 THE MAN SHAKSPEARE 
 
 KE-TOUCHED POKTKAIT. 
 
 In retelling an old story, my plea is that I adduce fresh 
 evidence ; novel facts ; and bring new witnesses into the 
 Court of Criticism. We are now able for the first time to 
 see round the character of Shakspeare in its completeness, 
 witliout misgivings respecting those back slums of his 
 London life, in which he has been supposed to have got 
 so sadly bemired. We no longer need fear lest he should 
 have cast and fixed a black shadow of himself as his sole 
 personal portrait bequeathed to us. We can look him 
 full ill the face in clear honest daylight, untroubled 
 by the moody mists and fantastic shadows, and bat-like 
 suspicions that liave so long haunted the twilight uncer- 
 tiiinty, to learn at last that our man of men wlio seemed 
 something more than human in his wisdom of life was not 
 miserably unwise in his own life ; did not wantonly 
 profane the beauty of his work, nor wilfully flaw and 
 stain one of our loftiest statues of humanity. Once for 
 all we are now able to silence those who fancied that 
 they had gotten on the blind side of the great seer, and, 
 at least, caught the god ' kissing carrion,' whilst on his 
 visit to our oartli. 
 
 Three hundred years liavc passed by <'mcQ tlie little
 
 402 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 cliild opened its eyes on the low ceiling and bare walls of 
 the poor birth-place at Stratford-on-Avon, to grow up 
 into that immortal god-send of a man wdiom we call 
 William Shakspeare. In all this long procession of years 
 we meet wdth no other such face looking out on us ; 
 the eyes rainy or sunny w^ith the tears and laughters of 
 all time ! No other such genius has come to trans- 
 fi2;ure Eno-Hsh literature. All tliis while the world has 
 been getting hints of what the man Shakspeare was, 
 and how infinitely wonderful and precious was the 
 work he did ; how richly ennobling to us Avas the 
 legacy of his name ! Innumerable writers have thrown 
 Avhat light they could upon his page to help the 
 world on its way ; but, as Coleridge says, no compre- 
 hension has yet been able to draw the line of circum- 
 scription round this mighty mind so as to say to itself 
 ' I have seen the whole.' And, how few of aU 
 who read his works, or continually repeat his name, 
 have any adequate or even shapeable conception of the 
 man ! He who, of all poets, comes nearest home to us 
 with his myriad touches of nature, is the most remote 
 in his own personality. We only reach him figuratively 
 at best. We think of him as the chief star of the 
 Elizabethan group, large and luminous above the rest ; 
 but we do not get at the man in that way, however we 
 may stand on tiptoe with longing, having no glass to 
 draw the planet Shakspeare sufficiently close to us, so 
 that we might make out the human features amid the 
 dazzle of his glory, and see his ' visage in his mind.' We 
 know that somewhere at the centre sits the spuit of all 
 this bricrhtness, however veiled in lioht. Throbs of real 
 mortal life, pulses of pleasure and pain, first made the 
 light with their motion, and stiU shoot forth every sparkle 
 of splendour — every evanescence of lovely colom^ — every 
 gleam of grace. Shakspeare's own life — Shakspeare him- 
 self — is at the heart of it all ! Although a miracle of a
 
 THE ENGLAND OF HIS infE. 493 
 
 man, and, as a creative artist, just the nearest to an 
 cartlily representative of tliat Creator wlio is ever}'where 
 felt in His works, nowliere visible ; yet he Avas a man, 
 and one of the most intensely human that ever walked 
 our world. And it is my present purpose to try briefly 
 to get at the man himself, and make out his features so 
 far as our means will allow, by extracting what spirit of 
 Shakspeare we can from his works, taking advantage of 
 the fresh facts to be derived from this reading of the 
 sonnets, and clothing that spirit as best we may : a grain 
 of human colour, a touch of real life being of more value 
 for my purpose than all the husks of Antiquarianism. 
 
 That Spanish Emperor who fancied he could have 
 improved the plan of creation if he had been consulted, 
 would hardly have managed to better the time, and place, 
 and circinnstances of Shakspeare's birth. The world 
 could not have been more ripe, or England more re^idy — 
 the stage of the national life more nobly peopled — the 
 scenes more fittingly draped — than they were for his 
 reception. It was a time when souls were made in 
 earnest, and life grew quick uithin and large without. 
 The full-statured spirit of the nation had just found its 
 sea-legs and was clothing itself with wings. Shakspeare's 
 starting-place for his victorious career was the fine 
 \antage ground which England had won when she had. 
 broken the strength of the Spaniard, burst the girdle they 
 had sought to put round her, and sat enthroned higher 
 than ever in her sea-sovereignty — breathing an ampler 
 air of liberty, strong in the sense of a lustier life, and glad 
 in the great dawn of a future new and limitless. 
 
 Into a mixed, multiform, many-coloured -world was 
 William Shakspeare born, three hundred years ago. Old 
 times and an old faith had been passing away, like the 
 leaves of autumn wearing their richest colours, and eveiy 
 rent of old ruin was the rift of a new life. England was 
 ])icturcsque to look on in hci" changing tints, as is
 
 494 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 tlie woodland tit the turn of tlie year, wlieii winter still 
 lingers in the bare dark bonghs above, and the young 
 spring comes up in a burst of song and a mist of tender 
 green below. In the year of our Poet's birth we learn 
 that the sum of two shillings was paid by the Corporation 
 of Stratford for defacinii' an imacce of the ancient faith in 
 the chapel. The fires of Smithlield had but recently 
 smouldered down, leaving a smoke in the souls of 
 Englishmen that should yet burst into a flame of noble 
 spiritual life, and fierce in their minds was the memory 
 of ' Bloody Mary.' The stage of political hfe was 
 crowded with magnificent men and women, heroes and 
 poets, statesmen and sea-kings ; men who, like Drake, 
 won their victories with such a dash, and others who, 
 like Sidney, won their glory with such a grace. A rare 
 group it was that gathered round Elizabeth and spread 
 their sumptuous braveries in her presence, as in the very 
 sun of pageantry. The citizens of London were yet 
 accustomed to go forth on a May-morning to gather 
 hawthorn-bloom in the village of Charing, and the prim- 
 roses grew where the Nelson Monument is planted, if not 
 growing, now. Coaches were apt to break down or stick 
 in the deep ruts of rural Drury Lane. In country places 
 like Stratford the old times lingered and the old customs 
 clung. The Cucking-stool was still used as a warning to 
 wives of a termagant tongue. Apprentices and servants 
 who stayed out of their masters' houses after nine o'clock 
 at night were liable to be fined twenty shillings, and have 
 three nights and three days in the open stocks. Brewers 
 were legally compelled to brew a good and wholesome 
 ' small drink ' for a halfpenny a gallon ; but no one was 
 allowed to be a ' Typlar ' unless appointed by the king's 
 justices. Troops of strolling players had now taken the 
 place of the wandering friars of old, and won a warmer 
 welcome up and down the country-side. And in the 
 midst of this time of change, of stirring life, of hopeful
 
 OUH I'OET'S CHILDHOOD. 49o 
 
 lliiiigs, wlieii tlie eager national sjnrit stood <»ii lli" voiy 
 threshold of expectation, our Sliakspeare was born, lite- 
 rally in the heart of England. 
 
 Nearness to Nature we may l(jok on as the great 
 desideratum for the nurture of a national poet, and this 
 was secured to Shakspeare. He came of good healthy 
 yeoman blood, he belonged to a race that has always 
 been heartily national, and clung to their bit of soil from 
 generation to generation — ploughed a good deal of their 
 life into it, and fought for it, too, in the day of theii- 
 country's need. No doubt Nature stores up much healtli 
 and freshness of feehng, love of green things, and songs 
 of birds and quiet appreciation of all out-of-door sights 
 and sounds in men like these — carefully hoarding it until 
 one day it all finds expression, and the long and slowly- 
 gathered result breaks into immortal flower, when, in the 
 fulness of time, the Burns or Shakspeare is born. 
 
 We know but little of the childhood of our greatest 
 Englishman. Curiously enough, whilst seeking for the 
 facts of liis early life, we find it recorded, as if in smiling 
 mockery of our endeavours, that in the year 1558 the 
 father of Shakspeare was fined fourpence for not keeping 
 his gutters clean. We learn that in the year 1552 he was 
 certainly doing business as a glover, and in 155G he 
 brought an action against Henry Field for imjustly 
 detaining eighteen quarters of barley, which looks as 
 though he were then a maltster or farmer. In 15G5 he was 
 chosen an alderman; in 15G5) he was high-bailiff; and 
 in 15Tl-'2 chief alderman. In 1570 he is styled a 
 yeoman. He was in pretty good circumstances when the 
 Poet was born, having a small landed estate near 
 Stratford and some property in the town. It appears as 
 though he met with a great and sudden reverse of fortune 
 about the year 1578, whereby he became no longer 
 worshipful ; Avhat or how we are unable to conjecluro. 
 In 1587 wo lind liini in prison for dc'I>l. and in 15'.)'2 his
 
 400 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 name is in a list of persons wlio are supposed to stay 
 away from cliurch througli fear of a process of debt. 
 
 It is pleasant to know that Shakspeare could have 
 his fair sliare of a mother's tenderness, and was not 
 compelled too early to fall into the ranks by his father's 
 side and fight the grim battle against poverty, with 
 childhood's small hands and weary feet. 
 
 When the boy Shakspeare was five years of age, his 
 fiither, as high-bailifT, entertained the players. This is the 
 earliest notice we have of theatrical performances in the 
 town. And in all likelihood the child caught his first 
 o;limpse in the Stratford Guildhall of that fairy realm in 
 which he was to become the mightiest magician that ever 
 waved the enchanter's wand, and, as the trumpet sounded 
 for the third time and the dramatic vision was unveiled, we 
 may imagine how the yearnings of a new life stirred within 
 him, and he would be dreamingly drawn toward those 
 rare creatures that seemed to have no touch of common 
 earthiness as they walked so radiant in such a world of 
 wonder. It would be an event, indeed — that first sight of 
 the Players ! 
 
 In the summer of 1575, when Shakspeare was eleven 
 years of age, there were brave doings and princely 
 pageants at Kenilworth, where the Earl of Leicester gave 
 royal entertainment to Queen Elizabeth. The superb affair 
 was continued eighteen days. That Sliakspeare was 
 there is beyond any reasonable doubt, and a vision of its 
 ' princely pleasures ' and pyrotechnic displays rises on his 
 memory in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' This we 
 know is his way of telling us many facts of his own life ! 
 
 When our Poet was sixteen years of age there was a 
 William Shakspeare drowned in the Avon, near Stratford. 
 How impossible to sum the difference to the world, to 
 human thought, liad it been our William Shakspeare ! 
 
 He was in all likelihood educated at the Free-school so 
 long as the ftither could spare liim from work. Possibly
 
 IWTllElt AMj SOX. 407 
 
 he may liave become wliat we sliould now call a pupil- 
 teacher, and this have given rise to the tradition tliat 
 Shakspeare was once a country schoohnaster. We cannot 
 infer what. he was from what he knew, for he seems to 
 have known everything. But we do not doubt that he 
 helped his father in his business, and that sorry mixture 
 probably included looking after sheep on the bit of land 
 they possessed or hired, killing the sheep and selling the 
 meat, dealing in the wool that grew on the sheep and in 
 the gloves made from the wool. Labour was not so 
 minutely divided in those days as it now is, besides 
 which, we know how men in the circumstances of Shak- 
 speare's ftither will try to live by a multiplicity of means 
 in a small way, and grasp at any chance of staying the 
 down-hill tendency. 
 
 One feels that there is a considerable basis of truth in 
 the traditions whicli have reached us, telling that the 
 young Shakspeare was somewhat wild, and joined with 
 other young fellows and let his spirits overflow at times in 
 their boisterous country way. Hence we hear of the drink- 
 ing bouts and poaching freaks. We may depend on it 
 there was nothing prim and priggish about Willie Shak- 
 speare ; for 'Willie' he would be to his youthful compa- 
 nions as Avcll as to his ' pla^'-fel lows' of later days! lie 
 must have been a fine youth. And if he had anything 
 like the physique that glows through the ' Venus and 
 Adonis ' there must also have been wild leaps of ebulliant 
 blood, difficult to rei)ress, and the youth, Avith all his 
 powers at play, in the lustihood of animal spirits — the 
 senses hungry with an out-of-door zest, and few refining 
 influences at work about him, may have broken out of 
 bounds. If the sedate Goethe with his stately reserves of 
 ripened age had his luu'estful youth and frolic devih'ies, 
 Shakspeare may surely be accredited v/ith his extrava- 
 gances and runnini2;s riot, before the buovant air-bubbling 
 nature was calmi'd and crystallized into its noble man- 
 
 K K
 
 493 SIIAKSrEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 hood. Not that there was any great harm in liis frohcs, 
 only they may have been too expensive for the father's 
 position. He may not have been able to afford what the 
 youth was spending with a lavish hand. Possibly he kept 
 the worst as long as he could from his son's knowledge. 
 Suddenly there came a change. The young man looked on 
 life witli more serious eyes. He would see his father, as 
 it were, coming down the hill, beaten and broken-spirited, 
 as he was mounting full of hope and exulting vigour. 
 He would have sad thoughts, such as gradually steadied 
 the wild spirits within him, and malce resolves that we 
 know he fulfilled as soon as possible in after-life. Gentle 
 Willie would not be without self-reproach if he was 
 in the least a cause of his father's declining fortunes. This 
 thought we may surmise was one of the strongest incen- 
 tives to that prudence which became proverbial in after- 
 years, and one of the quickest feelings working within 
 him, as he strove so strenuously to make his father a gen- 
 tleman, was that he had once helped to make him poor. It 
 may be a worthless fancy, but I cannot help thinking that 
 oiu" Poet's great thrift and his undoubted grijy in money 
 matters had such an unselfish awakenment. 
 
 Anotlier fixed belief of mine is that the youth and the 
 ' fickle maid' of the ' Lover's Complaint ' are none other 
 than William Shakspeare and Anne Hathaway. In this 
 poem the Poet is, I think, making fim of their own early 
 troubles. There is a pleasant exaggeration throughout botli 
 in his description of her, and her description of him. The 
 humour is very pawky. Some people, he suggests, might 
 have thought her old in her ancient large straw -bonnet, or 
 hat. But he assures us. Time had not cut down all that 
 youth began, nor had j^outh quite left her ; some of her 
 beauty yet peeped through tlie lattice of age! The 
 lady is anxious for us to think that she is old in sorrow, 
 not in years. Tlie description of liim is pointed by 
 the author with the most provoking slyness, and used
 
 POriTlLVIT OF YOUNG WILT,. STIAKSPEARE. 409 
 
 ill lier defence for tlie loss of lier ' wliite stole.' ' I 
 eiitertiiin not the sliglitest doubt tluit we have here 
 the most life-like portrait of Shakspeare extant, drawn 
 by liimself under the freest, happiest condition for en- 
 suring a true likeness — that is, whilst humourously 
 pretending to look at himself through the eyes of Anne 
 Hathaway, luider cuxumstances the most sentimental. 
 A more perfect or beautifid portrait was never finished. 
 The frolic life looks out of the eyes, the red is ripe 
 on the cheek, the maiden manhood soft on the chin, 
 the breatli moist on the lip that has the glow of the garnet, 
 the bonny smile that ' gilded his deceit ' so bewitchingly. 
 He is — 
 
 * One by nature's outwards so commended, 
 That maiden eyes stuck over all his face ; 
 Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place, 
 And when in his fair parts she did abide, 
 
 She was new-lodged and newly Deified. 
 
 * His browny locks did hang in crooked curls. 
 And every light occasion of the wind 
 Upon his hps their silken parcel hurls ; 
 Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind. 
 For on his visage was in little drawn. 
 
 What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn. 
 
 ' Small show of man was yet upon his chin ; 
 His phoenix-down began but to appear, 
 Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin, 
 Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear, 
 Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear ; 
 And nice affection wavering, stood in doubt, 
 If best were as it was, or best without.' 
 
 The very hair, in shape and hue, that Sliakspcare must 
 have had when young, to judge by the bust and the de- 
 scription of it as left, coloured from life ! The inner man, 
 
 ^ There is the suhtle Sliakspearian smile at human nature's frailties in 
 the suggestion of stanza 2."i, that in like circunistanei's w.- s.ld.im let the bt/- 
 past perik of others stand iu our future waj'. 
 
 K K 2
 
 500 SIIAKSPEAKE'S SO^^NETS. 
 
 too, was beauteous as tlie outer : gentle until greatly 
 moved, and then liis spiiit was a storm personified — but 
 only such a storm 
 
 * As oft twixt May and April is to see. 
 When luinds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.'' 
 
 lie was universally beloved, and then, what a winning 
 toniiiie he had ! — 
 
 * So on the tip of his suhduing tongue, 
 
 All kinds of arguments and questions deep, 
 All replication prompt and reason strong. 
 For his advantage still did wake and sleep, 
 To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep.' 
 
 And he was such an actor too ! — 
 
 * He had the dialect and different skill, 
 Catching all passions in his craft at will ; 
 In him a plenitude of subtle matter. 
 Applied to Cautills, all strange forms receives, 
 Of burning blushes, or of weeping water. 
 
 Or swooning paleness ; and he takes and leaves, 
 In cither's aptness, as it best deceives. 
 To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes. 
 Or to turn white and swoon at tragfic shows.' 
 
 *&' 
 
 And to think 
 
 ' What a hell of witchcraft lay 
 In the small orb of one particular tear ' 
 
 when wept by him ! Poor Anne ! No marvel that 
 
 * My woeful self — 
 What with his Art in Youth, and Youth in art — 
 Threw my affections in his charmed power ; 
 Keserved the stalk, and gave him all the flower.' ' 
 
 We learn by the IGth stanza that he was also a capital 
 
 ^ Thus prettily anticipating an illustration in Burns' ' Bonny Doon ! '
 
 HIS FROLIC 1IL.M0UR. oOl 
 
 rider ; murli admired when lie followed tlie hounds across 
 couutiy with a daiing dash, or came cantering over to 
 Shottery with a lover's sideling grace. 
 
 Who can doubt that this is ' Will. Shakspeare,' the 
 handsome young fellow of splendid capacity, so shaped 
 and graced by nature as to play the very devil with the 
 hearts of the Warwickshire lasses? The poem is founded 
 on a circumstance that preceded the marriage of the Poet 
 and Anne Hathaway ; the ' lover ' being one who hath 
 wept away a jewel in her tears, and who is described as 
 older than her sweetheart. His own gifts and graces are 
 purposely made the most of in humouring the necessities of 
 poor Anne's case — the helplessness of his own. These 
 things which she points to in exteiniation also serve him for 
 excuse, as if he said, ' being so handsome and so clever, 
 how can I help being so beloved and run after ? You see, 
 it is not my fault ! ' This smiling mood has given free play 
 to his pencil, and the poem brings us nearer to the radiant 
 personal humour of the man, I believe, than all his plays, 
 especially that story of the Nun — 
 
 His ' parts had power to charm a sacred Nun ' — 
 
 a lady whose beauty made the young nobles of the Court 
 dote on her, who was wooed by the loftiest in the land 
 but kept them all at distance, and retired into a nunnery, 
 to 'spend her living in eternal love.' Yet, pardon liini 
 for telling it ; he confesses the fact with an ///?-' pudency 
 so rosy ! ' No sooner had she set eyes on him, by accident, 
 than she too fell in love. In a moment had ' religious love 
 put out religion's eye.' I think this a glorious outbreak 
 of his spirit of fun ! 
 
 If I am right then in my conjecture that 'gentle Willie' 
 was the beguiling lover of this forlorn lady of the 'Com- 
 plaint,' we shall lind a remark of his to the point on which 
 I have tcniched. In n-plv to some of the charges brought 
 aufainst him, he s:ivs,
 
 502 SIIAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 * All my offences that abroad you see, • 
 Are errors of tlie blood ; none of the mincV 
 
 When lie wanted four months of nineteen years of age, 
 Shakspeare was married to Anne Hathaway, the daughter 
 of a yeoman, at Shottery. We read that Eve was formed 
 from one of Adam's ribs, taken from him during a deep 
 sleep. And it has been suspected that our gentle Willie's 
 Eve was formed for him by the hand of Love during a 
 deep sleep of the soul ; that he threw the hues of his young- 
 imagination round her, and got married before he well 
 knew where he was. There is not much however to give 
 countenance or colour to the theory, which has sprung 
 from reading the sonnets as true to tlie Poet's own per- 
 sonal experience. Certainly she was getting on for eight 
 years older than himself, and he has in his works left a 
 warning to others against their doing as he did.' But 
 
 ^ At least so say the Critics. Thougli it would be difficult to find au}^ sign of 
 Sbalcspeare's own personality in the words. Mr. Grant White, in his recent 
 work, cannot forgive Anne Hathaway for marrying Shakspeare. He thinks 
 the second-best bed too good for hei', and if he could have had his will, she 
 would never have had her's. He contends that if Shakspeare had loved and 
 honoured his wife, he would not have written those passages, which must 
 have been ' ffall and iconnwood to his sold.'' That is good argument then 
 that he did love her, and that they were not quite so bitter to him. Surely 
 it is the more mean and unmanly to suppose that he wrote them because lie 
 did not love and honour his wife ! It is sad indeed to learn that Anne Hath- 
 away brought the Poet to such ' sorrow and shame/ as Mr. White says is 
 frequently expressed in the plays and the sonnets. This Critic takes the mat- 
 ter of Anne's age so much to heart, that one would be glad to suggest any 
 source of consolation. Possibly Mrs. William Shakspeare may have been 
 one of those fine healthy Englishwomen — [ have a sovereign sample in my 
 mind's eye now — in whose presence we never think of age or reckon years ; 
 whose tender spring is followed by a long and glorious summer, an autumn 
 fruitful and golden. These do not attain their perfection in April ; they 
 ripen longer and hoard up a maturer fragrance for the fall o' the year, a 
 mellower sweetness for the winter, and about mid-season they often pause, 
 wearing the bud, fiower, and fruit of human beauty all at once. Time does 
 not tell on these] as we are told he does on the American sisterhood. 
 Anne outlived her husband many years, and tradition says she earnestly 
 desired to be laid in the same grave vrith him, but that no one, for fear 
 of the curse on it, dared touch the gravestone. Mr. White should have seen 
 in this the object for which the lines were written!
 
 LEAVING STPtATFORD. .003 
 
 there is no reason to suppose tliat lie ran away from home 
 Ijecause he did not hkc his wife. 
 
 Another su])position obtains — that lie was compelled 
 to quit Stratford on account of his ])ropensity for deer- 
 stojilino;. I do not in the least doubt his liking for venison, 
 still the poor fellow did not need Sir Thomas Lucy's deer 
 to drive him forth into the world in search of a living. 
 We must remember that his wife had very recently 
 presented him with twin children, and at this hint of his 
 better half, he may have thought it quite time to look out 
 for better quarters. The increasing poverty of his father 
 would be another incentive to his leaving the old place. 
 This must have many a time made him look wistfully up 
 that London road at the top of Henley street, and long 
 for the great city, which loomed far in the distance, and 
 rose up so golden through the mist that would be filhng 
 his eyes. 
 
 In all probability our Poet went to London to be a 
 player. He must have been a born actor ; a dramatist, 
 in that shape, before he became one in writing. This was 
 the constitution of his nature ; the very mould of his mind. 
 The strongest proof to me that the ' Lover's Lament ' 
 is personal to Shakspeare, is the description of his exqui- 
 site art and abundant subtlety as an actor. His tendency 
 and inclination, if not his capability as such, must have 
 been known to some of his fellow townsmen, and he would 
 easily secure a good introduction to the theatre. That he 
 served an apprenticeship to the law I do not beUeve. To 
 say that he has a wider acquaintance with law — uses legal 
 forms and phrases more freely and unerringly than any 
 other poet, is only to say that we are speaking of Shak- 
 speare in one of the many departments of knowledge 
 where, as a poet, he is unparalleled ; he is not a wliit 
 more wonderful in this than in so many other things. 
 I think he obtained his insight through a personal con- 
 nexion with some live spirit of a fiiend, who could throw a
 
 504 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 light into tlie dark intricacies and cobwcbbed corners of tlie 
 law, rather than from any dead drudgery in an attorney's 
 office. Nor have we far to seek for such a possible 
 friend. There was Greene, the attorney, a Stratford man, 
 and a cousin of the Poet, whose brain and books may have 
 been at his service, and Shakspeare was the man who 
 could make more use of other men's knowledge than they 
 could themselves. The worst of it for the theory of his 
 having been an attorney's clerk is that it will not account 
 for his insight into Law. His knowledge is not office- 
 sweepings, but ripe fruits, mature as though he had spent 
 his life in their growth. The law stood high in Elizabeth's 
 estimation, and the Poet had his own private interest in 
 mastering its details so far as was possible. 
 
 After he entered the Blackfriars Theatre, we lose 
 sight of him altogether for some years. These years, 
 doubtless, include the hardest part of our Poet's struggle 
 for fame and fortune, which was at that time really 
 a struggle for his living. Our ' gentle ' Shakspeare 
 had his sufferings, and it may be especially at this time. 
 Not that I imagine personal suffering to have been his 
 incentive to song. He was not one of the subjective 
 brood, who find their inspiration in such a source. Large- 
 ness of sympathy with others, rather than intensity of 
 sympathy with self, was Shakspeare's poetic motive. His 
 soul was not a self-reflecting one, but a large mirror, that 
 gave back images of other lives ; absence of self being an 
 essential, and calmness a necessary condition of clearness. 
 This capacious mirror of his mind, and his sublimest mood, 
 are best indicated by his own words, in the poem of 
 ' Lucrece,' where, he speaks of the ' bottomless conceit that 
 comprehends in still imagination.' It is from a false view 
 of the sonnets that it has been supposed he lived his 
 tragedies before he wrote them. It is in natures of the 
 Byronic kind that tlie amount of force heaving below, 
 images itself permanently above in a mountain of visible
 
 EARLY STllUOfJLES. r,05 
 
 personality. Shakspeare's truer image would be the ocean 
 tluit can mould mountains into sha[)e, yet keep its own 
 level; and grow clear and calm as ever, with all heaven 
 smiling in its depths, after the wildest storm, the most 
 heart-breaking Tragedy. 
 
 His was not one of your ' sufTering souls.' These are 
 wrung and pinched, gnarled and knotted into a more em- 
 phatic form of personality than he wears for us. He 
 could keep a calm ' sough ; ' convert his surplus steam 
 into force ; consume his own smoke, and make his devil 
 draw for him. He gathered all the sunshine he could and 
 ripened on it, and his spirit enlarged and mellowed in 
 content. 
 
 This, however, we may safely infer ; his circumstances 
 were not very flourishing at first, or we should hardly 
 hear of his Either being in prison for debt, where we find 
 him in 1587, when Shakspeare has been in London two 
 years. His strong sense of family pride would have 
 prevented such a thing if possible. We hear of him 
 again in 1589, when he has been four years in London, 
 and, if apocryphally, it must be near the mark. 
 
 Mr. lirowning tells us there are two points in the 
 adventure of the diver — 
 
 ' One — when, a Beggar, he prepares to plunge ! 
 One — when, a Prince, he rises with his pearl I' 
 
 Our Poet had now made his plunge, and emerged into 
 daylight once more. If we could have asked him what 
 he had grasped in the gloom, he might probably have 
 told us a handful of mud, having experienced the worst 
 of his theatrical Hfe. He had become a player and a 
 part proprietor of the lilackfriars Theatre. But he had 
 also found his pearl. They had set him to vamp up old 
 plays, put llesh on skeletons, and adapt new ones ; and 
 he had discovered that he also could make as well as 
 mend. Durin^^ this time he had been workins; invisible 
 to us, at tlie foundations of his future fame ; like the
 
 506 STIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 trees and plants, he had been clutching his rootage in the 
 nioht time. 
 
 Here again let me remark on the influence wliicli a 
 personal theory of the sonnets has unconsciously liad in 
 making the commentators ignore the extreme probability 
 that, as soon as he was able, our Poet would naturally 
 have his wife and family to live with him in London. 
 It has been discovered that he paid rates, and why on 
 earth should he not have received his wife and children at 
 his home near the Bear-garden, in Southwark,or St. Helen's, 
 Bishopsgate ? He was by nature a family man ; true to our 
 most English instincts; his heart must have had its sweet 
 domesticities of home-feeling nestling very deep in it — our 
 love of privacy and our enjoyment of that ' safe, sweet 
 corner of the household fire, behind the heads of children.' 
 The letter attributed to Southampton records that he was a 
 married man, of good repute as such, and implies that the 
 wife and family lived with him in London. The true read- 
 ing of Betterton's story told through Eowe, is that Shak- 
 speare left his wife and family temporarily, and, as he 
 could not have returned to them after the short time of 
 parting to live at Stratford, they, of course, rejoined him 
 in London. Besides which, the mention of his going to 
 Stratford once a year suggests that his home was in 
 London, and this was a holiday visit. And, if the wife is 
 to be thrust aside, on account of her age, can we imagine 
 that Shakspeare's home would be in London, and his 
 daughter Susannah and his boy Hamnet, in whom lay his 
 cherished hope of succession, at Stratford? Again, if 
 he had left Anne Hathaway in dishke, why should he 
 have been in such apparent haste to go back to live with 
 his rustic wife, and buy for her the best house — the Great 
 House — in Stratford ? We may rest satisfied that Shak- 
 speare did just the most natural thing — which was to 
 have a home of his own, with his wife and family in it: 
 that he dwelt, as Wisdom dwells, with children round his
 
 HIS HOME IX LOXDOX. o()7 
 
 knees. And in this privaoy lie was hidden, when others of 
 his contemporaries were visible about town ; liere it Avas 
 that so much of liis work was done ; here 'his silence 
 would sit brooding ;' so many of liis days Avere passed 
 unnoticed, and he could hve the quiet happy life that 
 leaves the least record. 
 
 We should have still fewer facts of Shakspeare's life 
 than we have, were it not for his evident ambition to 
 make money, and become a man of property. Whatso- 
 ever feeling for fame and immortality he may have had, 
 he assuredly possessed a great sense of mortal needs. He 
 never forgot those little moutlis waiting to be fed by his 
 hand ; and we may believe him to have been as frugal in 
 his life as he was indefatigable in his work. He had seen 
 enough of the ills and felt enough of the stings of poverty 
 in liis father's home. So he sets about gaining what 
 money he can by unwearied diligence in working, and 
 grasps it firmly when he has it. 
 
 As a proof of his prosperity it may be noted that his 
 father had applied to the Heralds' College, in 1596, for 
 a grant of coat-armour ; and, in 1597, a suit in Chancery 
 was commenced on the part of John and Mary Shak- 
 speare, for the recovery of an estate which had been 
 mortgaged by them. In the year 1597 he is able to buy 
 the best house in Stratford, called Xew Place. In the 
 next year he sells a load of stone to the Corporation for 
 10(1. Fioni this little fact we may infer that alterations 
 were going on at New Place. He had Avorked hard for 
 some years, and made a nest, and was, as vve say, 
 'feathering' it ready for the time when he could quit 
 the stacre, and retire to Stratford, He is also doina- a 
 stroke of business as a maltster, or, rather, is not this the 
 likeliest reading of facts ? In the year 1598 he was 
 assessed on property in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. Two 
 years later his name has dropped out of the list. Now, 
 as New I'lare was bouuht and made readv by that time, the
 
 508 STIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 most probable conjecture is that his wife and family left the 
 house in London and went back to Stratford to live in their 
 new home. And, instead of the ten quarters of corn then 
 at New Place implying that he was trading as a maltster, it 
 may have been that Shakspeare had provisioned the little 
 garrison, in the matter of baking and brewing, against 
 famine ; for there was a great dearth of corn in the land 
 at the time, and sucli a careful forethought would be 
 exceedingly like him ? His circumstances had so far 
 improved that he could now look forward to longer visits 
 to Stratford, and, as he wrote more he would undoubtedly 
 begin to play less. London may not have agreed with 
 his children. Had not his boy Hamnet died in 1596? 
 
 He not only makes money, but he invests it, and turns it 
 over. The fame of his wealth soon spreads, and he is 
 looked up to in the Golden City. Some of his country 
 friends want liirn to buy, and he does buy ; others want 
 liim to lend, and he is able to lend. He lends to liichard 
 Quiney, the father of his future son-in-law, the sum of 
 30/. We are not sure that he did not take interest for it. 
 The transaction has a smack of percentage about it. Of 
 this w^e may be sure, that if Shakspeare did not take 
 interest /(9r his money, he took a most lively interest mit. 
 Li May, 1602, his brother Gilbert completed for him the 
 purchase of 107 acres of arable land, from William and 
 John Comb. In September of the same year, he bought 
 other property in his native town. In 1604 he brought an 
 action against Philip Eogers, in the Court of Eecord, at 
 Stratford, to recover a debt of 11. 16s. 10 d. In July, 
 1605, he makes liis largest investment. He purchases for 
 the sum of 440/. more than 2000/. of our money — half of 
 the lease of tithes, to be collected in Stratford and other 
 places, which has some thirty-one years to run. 
 
 He is now trying to leave the stage as player and 
 manager, and live at Stratford, where he can look after 
 his tithes, which we lind he does pretty sharply. He
 
 THE OIIB ON THE IIOIIIZUX. 009 
 
 has acquired lioiiscs and lands, and obtained a grant of 
 arms, and shown every desire to found a county family; 
 to possess a bit of this dear England in Avhicli he 
 could plant the family tree, and go down to posterity that 
 way. He appears to have been truly thoughtless and 
 careless of fame, and to have flung off his works to find 
 their own way as best they could to immortality. Pub- 
 lishers might print or misprint his poems, and he seems 
 to have taken no public notice of it. It is possible that 
 he had some large and lazy idea of one day collecting and 
 correcting an edition for .the press. If so, it passed into 
 that Colerid2;ian Limbo of unfulfilled intentions where so 
 many others have gone, or else death overtook him all 
 too swiftly. It is quite as possible that he may have 
 thought Puritanism was about to sweep the land clear of 
 plays and play-goers. But that he was ambitious of 
 founding a local family house, which should have sucli 
 foundations in the soil of England as he could broaden 
 out Avith his own toil, is one of the most palpable facts of 
 his life, enforced again and again, a fact most absolutely 
 opposed to the fancy that lie lived apart from his wife — 
 and it brings the man home to us with his own private 
 tastes and national feelings, plainly as though he had lived 
 but the other day, as Walter Scott. 
 
 We now turn to his life in London and what is said of 
 him there. His first rising is sun-like, with the mists 
 about him — the mists of malice and envy. The earlier 
 writers for the sta^e are jealous and diso-usted that a 
 mere plaj'cr, a factotum for tlie theatre, should enter the 
 arena with ' college pens ' and classical scholars. But 
 for these mists, the breatli of slander, and for the visible 
 blinking of tlie little lights at the glory of great sunrise, 
 we should lu^t know when or where the new orb was first 
 visible on the horizon. Our Poet, however, takes little 
 notice of them, but ascends serenely on his upward wny. 
 Most assuredly he had to fight for his place, and struggle
 
 510 SHAKSPEARE'S SOXXETS. 
 
 arduously at starting to win it. This cliiki of Nature would 
 be looked upon as a bastard by the learned, with no Greek 
 or Eoman godfather to stand sponsor for him. He tried 
 his best at times, as we may see, to be classical, and stuck 
 into his work all the mythologic allusions and Latin 
 words he could get together ; at which his enemies 
 laughed and made fun — thus forcing him more and more 
 to that reliance on Nature which was to raise him so high 
 above all his artificial, euphuistic, over-classical contempo- 
 raries. They might laugh, without^ — Nature was too 
 strong within him. He, too, had dallied with the old 
 Greek lyre in a dilettante fashion in his poems — the only 
 pcetry of his almost that his contemporaries praise. But 
 he was now fast growing into the human personification 
 of that legendary Israfel whose lyre was his own heart- 
 strings, not a pretty instrument to be held in the hand. 
 Moreover, the audience at the Blackfriars was unsophis- 
 ticated enough to prefer Shakspeare's more natural 
 drama to the learning and classicism of others, wdiich was 
 annoying, indeed, to all second-hand poets. ^ This strife 
 betwixt the natural and what was thought the true art 
 runs through all we hear of Shakspeare. There was 
 many a gird at him and his want of learning, and his 
 wit as not beino; colleo;e-bred. Bacon we know thouoht 
 Latin the only language for immortality. Luckily Shak- 
 speare found English sufficient. This strife would be bitter 
 at first. It mellowed afterwards into the humour of the 
 ' wit-combats,' but it reappears all through. We get a hint 
 of it from Shakspeare himself in sonnet 78 : 
 
 * But thou art all my Art, and dost advance 
 As high as Learning, my rude ignorance.' 
 
 We doubt not that our Poet in his quiet way gave his 
 opponents as good as they sent. We know how he 
 
 ^ 'Few of tlio Uiiivorsity pen plays -well. Why, here's our fellow Shak- 
 speare puts them all down.' The Return from I'arnassus.
 
 EARLIEST RECOGNITION, •'511 
 
 mimicked and mocked tlieir ufTectations. We sliould 
 prefer to tliiiik the anecdote true that tells of one of Shak- 
 speare's replies to Jonson, it looks so representative. It 
 is said our Poet was godfather to one of Ben's children. 
 After the christening Ben found liim in a deep study, and 
 asked him what he was thinking about. He replied that 
 he had been considering what woidd be the most fitting 
 gift for him to bestow on his god-child, and he had 
 resolved at last. ' I pry thee what ? ' says the father. 
 ' I'faith, Ben,' (fancy the rare smile of our gentle WiUie !) 
 ' I'll e'en give him a dowzen good Lattin spoones, and thou 
 sJialt translate them.' 
 
 I do not share the belief that Spenser's well-known 
 description in his ' Teares of the Muses ' was meant for 
 Shaks]ieare. Here the representation is so according to our 
 present view of the Poet that it has been caught at and 
 identified. But we may safely say that no man living in 
 1590 (the year in which the poem w^as really printed, 
 possibly for the second time,) ever saw Shakspeare as the 
 ' man whom Nature's self had made to mock herself, and 
 truth to imitate.' Todd's conjecture that Philip Sidney 
 was the ' Willy ' ^ meant is borne out by the whole of 
 the facts, internal and external. Todd supposes the poem 
 with all likelihood to have been written in 1580 ; and in 
 1580 we find Sidney had retired into the country dis- 
 gusted with the court. It is the man, much more than 
 the autlior, that Spenser celebrates. But he evidently 
 alludes to the 'Arcadia' in the 'kindly counter under 
 mimic shade' He also refers to the distaste of Sidney for 
 printing what he had written, when he speaks of those 
 who ' dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe.' His 
 ' choosing to sit in idle cell ' most probably refers to 
 Sidney's retirement, which lasted for some years, during 
 which time he would neither take public employment nor 
 publish what he had written. We need not scruple to 
 
 • ' ^^'illy ' was a general name for a Shepherd, i. e. Poet.
 
 512 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 say that Shakspeare's art could not at that time have been 
 thus recognised. Sidney's ' Arcadia ' and ' Masques ' 
 furnished the kind of art that Spenser meant ; such art 
 as has a lurking consciousness of doing its work a little 
 better than nature coidd. The person aimed at is like- 
 wise one of the ' learned,' whereas Shakspeare was not. 
 If Sidney be not the writer alluded to, I am perfectly 
 satisfied that it could not have been Shakspeare. 
 
 The lines in ' Colin Clout's come home again,' sup- 
 posed to point out our Poet, are in every way more 
 likely — 
 
 ' And there, though last not least, is ^tion ; 
 
 A gentler Shepherd may no-where be found ; 
 Whose Muse, full of high thoughts' invention. 
 
 Doth, like himself, heroically sound.' 
 
 These suit the Poet's name, his nature and his histories. 
 
 If this be Shakspeare so modestly placed by Spenser 
 it could hardly have been the same Poet as lie who was 
 so enthusiastically besung by him years before ! 
 
 It was two years later that Greene gave expression to 
 his splenetic attack upon the new and rising Dramatist, 
 and spoke of him as the upstart crow of a Player who was 
 beginning to dress in the feathers of braver birds, and sup- 
 posed that he could ' bombast out a blank verse' with the 
 best of them.^ There is personal character in Greene's 
 description. He calls the Poet ' an Absolute Johannes 
 Fac-iotum,' or Jack-of-all-trades for his Theatre, who could 
 tmni his hand to whatsoever work had to be done and do 
 it with aU his might. It gives us a lusty sense of Shak- 
 speare's activity, and shows that he had to play many 
 parts. The ' Tiger's heart' is also significant. As though 
 the fellow had apprehended dimly the coming earthquake 
 
 ' In spite of Nash's disclaimer, and Chettle's testimony as to the hand- 
 writing of Greene, there is some ground for suspicion that Nash had to do 
 with the ' Groat's-worth of wit.' In his epistle prefixed to Greene's ' Mcnn- 
 plion^ this writer speaks of tbose '■who think to outbrave better pens ivith the 
 sivellmg bojnbast of bruyyiny blank verse,^
 
 IIAliVEY'S DEFENCE. .013 
 
 of tlie great '•Shake-scene' andcaiiglit a glimpse of the cou- 
 chaiit strengtli and stealtliy might of tiie man Shakspeare, 
 and turned liis own inward fears iiitu outward bravado of 
 abuse, just as tlie savage will taunt ihc Jni])risoned or 
 wounded king of beasts when he hiin-eU' is out of harm's 
 way. 
 
 In September of the same year Gabriel Harvey took 
 II]) the cudgels on beludf of liimself and otliers who 
 had been attacked and outrageously abused by the Greene 
 ' set,' and rephed to ' Woeful Greene and beggarly Pierce 
 Penniless, as it were a Grasshopper and a Cricket, two 
 pretty Musicians but silly creatures ; tlie Grasshopper 
 imaged would be nothing less than a Green Dragon, and 
 the Cricket raalcontented the only Unicorn of the Muses.' 
 The letters are ' especialhj touching parties abused by Robert 
 Greene — incidentally of divers excellent persons, and some 
 matters of note.' In tlie tliiid of tliese we have what I be- 
 lieve to be the most appreciative of all contemporary notices 
 of Sliakspeare : the only intimation that anyone then living 
 liad caught the splendid sparkle of the jewel that was yet 
 to 'lighten all the isle.' It is surprising to me that no 
 more attention sliould liave been attracted to this very 
 obvious recognition of the rising genius of Shakspeare. 
 Harvey is partly pleading, partly ex})ostulating with Xash. 
 I spi^ak, he says, to a Poet, but ' good sweet orator, bi-: a 
 divine Poet indeed.' He urges him to employ his golden 
 talent to lionoui- \irtue and valour with ' lieroical cantos,' 
 as ' noble Sir I'hilip Sidney and gentle Maister Spenser 
 have done, with inunortal fame.' He is pleading for more 
 nature in poetry. ' liight Artificiality,' he urges, 'is not 
 mad-brained, or ridiculous, or absurd, or blasphemous, or 
 monstrous ; but deep-conceited, but pleasurable, but deli- 
 cate, but exquisite, but gracious, but admirable.' He 
 points out what he considers the finest models, the iruest 
 poetry of the past, and, turning to the Elizabethan time, 
 he names some dear lovers of the i\[uses whom he admires 
 
 L L
 
 514 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 and cordially recommends, making mention of Spenser, 
 Watson, Daniel, Nasli and otliers. These he thanks affec- 
 tionately for tlieir studious endeavours to })olis]i and enricli 
 their native tongue. He tells tlie poets of the day that he 
 ap{)reciates their elegant fancy, their excellent wit, tlieir 
 classical learnino:, their efforts to snatch a errace from the 
 antique, but he has discovered the bird of a new dawn, 
 with a burst of music fresh from the heart of Nature, 
 and its prelusive warblings have made his spirits dance 
 witliin him ; his words mount upon a rapture, as he ' rises 
 on the toe.' He will not call this new Poet by name, be- 
 cause, were he to say what he feels, he should be suspected 
 of exaggeration, over-praise, or unworthy motive. But he 
 says it is the ' sweetest and divinest Muse that ever sang 
 171 English or oilier language f 
 
 Now this cannot be either Spenser or Sidney ; these he 
 has named. It cannot be Drayton, for it is a new man, 
 and this is a plea for a new Poet, one of those whom 
 Greene has abused. The writer is bespeaking the atten- 
 tion of Poets and Critics, more especially of Thomas Nash, 
 to the writings of this new Poet, and he pleads with 
 those who flatter themselves on being learned not to sneer 
 at or neglect this ^fine handiwork of Nature and excel- 
 lenter Art combined. Gentle minds and flourishinsj wits 
 were infinitely to blame if they should not also, for curious 
 imitation, propose unto themselves such fair types of re- 
 fined and engraced eloquence. The right novice of preg- 
 nant and aspiring conceit will not outskip any precious 
 gem of invention, or any beautiful flower of elocution that 
 may richly adorn or gallantly bedeck the trim garland of 
 his l)udding style. I speak generally to every springing 
 wit ; but more especially to a few, and at this instant sin- 
 gularly to one, wdioni I salute with a hundred blessings, 
 and entreat., with as many prayers., to love them that love 
 all good wits., and hate none., hut the Devil and his incarnate 
 imps notoriously professed' This was published by
 
 TUE NEW POET AXXOT-XPED. 515 
 
 Gabriel Harvey late in the year 1592, in answer to the 
 attacks of Nash and Greene. Every particular points to 
 Shakspeare as tlie Poet meant. Marlowe certainly is not 
 named in the list of poets mentioned, though lie may be 
 liinted at as one of tl k )se ' notoriously professed.' He, how- 
 ever, was one that had been to college. This is a plea on 
 behalf of some one who has not, but who has been at- 
 tacked by the classic pen of ' young Juvenal' Nash. It is 
 a reply to the petulance and bitterness of Greene, and his 
 friend, the ' byting satyrist.' It is addressed to Thomas 
 Nash who, it must be remembered, was Shakspeare's ' old 
 sweet enemy ;' about the earliest to sneer at the player 
 who w^as gradually becoming a Poet, in his 'Anatomic of 
 Absurditie' printed in 1500, two years before he was 
 pelted with the wild ;iiul stupid abuse of the ' Groat's- 
 worth of Wit ' — in which, if Nash had no hand, we have 
 only too true a reflex of his spirit. If Nash and Greene 
 aimed at Shakspeare in their attacks, assuredly it is Shak- 
 speare whom Gabriel Harvey defends. The evidence is 
 conclusive. In effect Harvey replies to Nash, ' You are 
 infinitely to blame m the course you are pursuing with 
 regard to this new writer. Do not, I beseech you, wilfully 
 blind your eyes to so much beauty.' This he does in a 
 gentle conciliatory spirit, not wishing to stir up strife. 
 ' Love them that love all good wits,' he says, ' and hate 
 none.' 
 
 Thus to HarvL'y belongs the honour of first proclaim- 
 ing the sunrise. Others may have perceived the orient 
 colours, but this writer first said it was so, and cried aloud 
 the new dawn in English Poetr}- — had the intuition neces- 
 sary for seeing that the nature of Shakspeare's work w^as 
 incomparablyhigher than all the Art of the Classical School, 
 and uttered his feeling with a forthright, frank honesty, in 
 a strain so lofty, that it found no echo in that age until Ben 
 Jonson gave the rebound in his noble lines to Shaks]')eare's 
 memory. ])Ut Jonson then stood in the after-glow Uiat 
 
 L L 2
 
 516 SriAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 followed the sunset. Harvey penned his eulogy in the liglit 
 of the early sunrise. He pointed out the hrst springing 
 beams, and called upon all who were true worshippers 
 of tlie sacred fire. He alone dared to speak such a lusty 
 panegyric of the new Poet's natural graces, and exalt his 
 art above that of his most learned rivals with their fantas- 
 tic conceits, then" euphuistic follies, and ' Aretinish moun- 
 tains of huge exaggeration.' He alone called upon those 
 who Avere decrying Shakspeare so coarsely, to study 
 his works, and try to imitate his style ; this he did in words 
 which have the heart-warmth of personal friendship trying 
 to make friends for a friend out of the bitterest enemies : ^ 
 words which were, no doubt, lauglied at uproariously. 
 
 This early recognition of Shakspeare arises out of the 
 old quarrel of Learning versus the natui^al brain, which 
 appears and reappears in all we hear of Shakspeare's literary 
 life. In this quarrel Nash made the first onset, conthuied the 
 battle along with the Greene clique, until awed into silence 
 by the majestic rise and dilation of Shakspeare's genius, 
 or forced to lay his hand on his mouth because, as Cliettle 
 confessed, ' divers of worship have reported his upright- 
 ness of dealing, which argues his honesty and his facetious 
 grace in writing, that approves his Art.' And because 
 some influence had been brousfht to bear on Nash to make 
 him so quickly follow the ' Groat'sworth of Wit ' with a 
 Private 'Epistle to the Printer' prefixed to the 2nd edi- 
 tion of his ' Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Divell ' 
 (1592) in which he repudiates having had anything to do 
 
 ^ In most of the comments on tlie Nash and Ilarvej' quarrel, Nash wins 
 all the sympatliy, and Harvey all the ridicule. The I'rofcssor was a ver^' 
 pompous writer, but Greene was an indefensible blackguard, as bitter after 
 his conversion as before, and Nash was a thorough mud-lark of literature, 
 dearly delighting in the dirt he iiung. Harvey certainly did one good 
 thing when he proclaimed tliat this new genius flashed the authentic fire, 
 and he said one good thing when he called Greene's 'Arcadia ' the very 
 funeral of Sidney's! lie was probably on such a footing with some of 
 Shakspeare's 'private friends,' as to get a look at the earliest sonnets, and 
 the ' Venus and Adonis/ then in MS.
 
 TIU: 'LKVILNKJ)' AM) .SKlJ-'-KDLL'ATlJD. -jI' 
 
 with Greene's pamplilct, in such furious words as these : — 
 ' Other news I am advertised of, that a scald, trivial, lying 
 pamphlet, called " Greene's Groat'sworth of Wit," is giveu 
 out to be of my doing. God never have care of my soul, 
 but utterly renounce me, if the least word or sillible in it 
 proceeded from my pen, or if I were any way privie to 
 the writing or })rinting of it.' I have accounted for the 
 change in Nash by su])posing him to have found a patron 
 in the Earl of Southampton. 
 
 There are signs, I think, that Shakspcare grew sick of 
 hearing so much said about learning by those who 
 showed so little wisdom in their lives. There seems to 
 be a hint of this in the ' Taming of the Shrew ' : Gremio 
 exclaims, 
 
 ' this Learning ; what a thing it is ! ' 
 
 and Grumio replies, 
 
 ' this Woodcock ; what an ass it is I ' 
 
 He had the self-mastery that could keep quietly cool 
 in front of the most wrathful fire which his success had 
 kindled in others, but he sometimes smote them with his 
 humour as with a sun-stroke. For instance, in the case 
 of those ' feathers ' Greene had charged him with steal- 
 ing — a charge that was re-echoed in 1504. l)y the 
 author of ' Greene's Funerals ' ; 
 
 ' Nay more, the men that so eclipsed his fame 
 Purloined his plumes I Can they deny the same?' 
 
 Shakspeare assuredly makes private reference to these hi 
 sonnet 78, and a public one in ' Hamlet.' AVhcn the 
 prince grows exultant over the marked success of the 
 speech which he had set down for the players — he 
 remarks to Horatio, ' Would not this Sir, and a forest of 
 feathers — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk, with me — 
 with two Provenyal Eoses on my razed shoes, get me a
 
 518 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 fellowship in a cry of players?' Plainly enough this in- 
 dicates the way in which Shakspeare took his place in the 
 Blackfriars Company, and also contains a smiling allusion 
 to Greene's charo'e as to the manner of featherin^i; his nest 
 there. 
 
 There is more, however, in Hamlet's words than this 
 making fun of the ' feathers ; ' something covertly con- 
 cealed under the I'ose that no one has yet espied. If we 
 look intently we shall see the snake stir beneath the 
 flowers ; a subtle snake of irony Avith the most wicked 
 glittei- in its eye ! 
 
 I do not know the origin of the legend, but reference 
 is frequently made by the Elizabethan dramatists to the 
 devil hiding his cloven hoof under a rose stuck on the 
 shoe. Webster alludes to it in his ' White Devil,' 
 
 ' Why 'tis the Devil ! 
 I know liim hy a great rose he wears on 's shoe, 
 To hide his cloven foot.' 
 
 And Ben Jonson has a character ' Fitzdottrel ' in ' The 
 Devil is an Ass,' who has long been desirous of meetino: 
 with Satan ; so long that he begins to think there is no 
 devil at all but what the painters have made. On sud- 
 denly seeing 'Pug' he is startled into fearing that his 
 great wdsh may be at last realised, and he exclaims — 
 
 'fore hell, my heart was at ray mouth, 
 Till I had viewed his shoes well ; for those Roses 
 Were big enough to hide a cloven hoof I ' 
 
 Hamlet's puzzling remark assuredly glances at this legend 
 of the Devil hiding his cloven hoof under the rose. The 
 poet has a double intention in making such an allusion. On 
 the surface it may be interpreted as pointing to the trick 
 played on the King and Court, by Hamlet's having so 
 cunningly used the players for his purpose in touching 
 upon the matter of the murder — thus hiding the cloven
 
 SUB liOSA. .'>19 
 
 hoof ill the buskhi. l^ut it goes deeper, and means 
 more. It is the private hiiigli about tlie ' feathers ' con- 
 tinued. The poet is still jesting at the consternation 
 and amazement wliich his presence and his success liad 
 created amongst his learned rivals and the outcry tliey 
 made, as though the very devil had broken loose in the 
 theatre, and was hiding his cloven foot in a player's shoe ! 
 This reading will determine two thhigs. First, that 
 ' razed shoes ' signifies shoes cut or cloven, corresponding 
 to the cloven hoof. In Jonson's play ' Fitzdottrel' says — 
 
 ' Your shoe 's not cloven^ Sir.' 
 
 Secondly, the roses intended are Proven9al roses, not 
 Provincial. The Eose of Provence was a splendid large 
 rose, and it is here chosen on account of its size and the 
 shelter it affords the cloven hoof, or (as the Wit renders 
 it) ' razed shoe. ' In Webster's drama the devil wears a 
 ' great rose,' and in Jonson's the rose is ' big enough to 
 liide a cloven hoof.' So Shakspeare, in his way of using 
 a word that will burst into bloom, and make a picture of 
 his meaning, selects the Provencal Eose. 
 
 Again, in this same play he pokes fun at Master Nash ! 
 He has taken the identical subject treated by Marlowe and 
 Nash in their ' Dido, Queen of Carthage,' for the purpose 
 of mockinj]: the rant and bombast of these learned writers, 
 the speech chosen, most probably, being the w^ork of 
 Nash. 'One speech in it I chiefly loved,' says Hamlet 
 ' 'twas iEneas' tale to Dido ; and thereabout of it espe- 
 cially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter.' He then 
 proceeds to outdo the said speech, which in ' Dido ' 
 begins — 
 
 ' At wliich the frantic Queen leap'd on his face. 
 And in liis eyelids lianging by the nails, 
 A little while prolonged her husband's life — ' 
 
 the ' frantic Queen ' is turned into the ' mobled Queen,' and
 
 620 SIL\IvSrEAEF;S SONNETS. 
 
 in both speeches poor old Priain is struck down with the 
 wind of Pyrrhus' sword. Tlie burlesque is most patent 
 and complete ; the Poet's face is all one radiant broad 
 grin underneath the gravest of tragic masks. The Critics 
 have discovered I know not what concealed artistic pur- 
 pose in this bit of Shakspeare's natural and irrepressible 
 fun ! 
 
 Jonson spoke the last word in tins quaiTel, now grown 
 kindly, when he said that Shakspeare had little Latin and 
 less Greek. 
 
 In Marston's ' Scourge of Villanie,' satire 11, entitled 
 ' Humours,' there is a description which most unmistake- 
 ably points to Shakspeare, and no one else — 
 
 'Liiscus, what's plaid to-day? Faith, noiv I know 
 I set thy lips abroach, from ivhence dothfloio 
 Naiiglit hut pure Juliet and Romeo ! 
 Say who acts best ? Drusus or Eoscio ? 
 Kow I have him, that nere of ought did speal; 
 But when of Playes or Players lie did treat — 
 Hath made a Gommonplace-Book out of Playes, 
 And speaks in print : at least what ere he sales 
 Is warranted by curtain plaudites, 
 If ere you heard him courting Lesbia'^s eyes ! 
 Say (courteous Sir), speaks he not movingly. 
 From out some new pathetique Tragedy? 
 He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts (what not) ? 
 And all from out his huge. Ion g-scrapjed stock 
 Of ivell-penned Plays.'' 
 
 Marston has in a previous satire (tlie Ttli), parodied the 
 exclamation of Richard in ' A Man ! a Man ! a Kingdom 
 for a Man !' And in tliis he repeats the expressions and 
 parodies the speech of Capulet when calling upon his 
 company for a dance — 
 
 ' A hall ! a liaU I give room and foot it girls. 
 More light ye knaves, &c.' 
 
 This Marston mocks thus —
 
 MAUSTON'S CilKDS. r,2\ 
 
 'A hall! a hall ! 
 Koom for the spheres, the orbs celestial! 
 Will dance Kemp's jigge ; they'll revel with neat jumps ; 
 A worthy Poet hath put on their pumps.' 
 
 This will show how visibly Sliakspeare was in the writer's 
 mind. Next 'Eoscius' was the name b}^ which Burbage 
 was everywhere known : he was called by that name in 
 his lifetime, and Camden uses it in chronicling the player's 
 death. And then we have Sliakspeare con})led with him 
 as 'Drusns,' either after the eloquent Eoman Tribune or 
 some character in a ])lay now lost. The two are named 
 together as the chief men of the company that played 
 ' Komeo and Juliet.' So these two, Shakspeare and Biu'- 
 bage, are afterwards named together by John Davies in 
 his ' Microcosmos.' Shakspeare is also identified by the 
 allusion to ' Komeo and Juliet.' This Luscus is a wor- 
 shipper of the new dramatic poet, who speaks so movingly 
 from out each new pathetic tragedy. lie talks of little 
 else than Shakspeare, and is infected by the ebulliant 
 passion of this wonderful drama that has taken the town 
 by storm. At tlie mention of a theatre, Shakspeare's is 
 first in the satirist's mind, and at the mention of plays he 
 says, ' Now, I know you are off ! nothing goes down with 
 you but Shakspeare's plays ; you can talk of nothing but 
 Sliaks])eare.' This notice is intensely interesting. It is 
 the gird of an envious rival, who pays luiwilling tribute 
 to our poet's increasing popularity, and at the same time 
 gives us the most perfect little sketch of the man and his 
 manners, as Marston saw him ! He has marked his reti- 
 cence in such company as that of Playwrights and Players ; 
 only speaking upon what to tliem would be the subject of 
 subjects ; and he feels well enough that he has never got 
 at him. Now, he says, ' I have him who is so difhcult to 
 get at.' He is knoAvn also as a great maker of extracts ; 
 he keeps a common-place book filled from out his huge 
 long-accumulating stock of plays. So that he has been
 
 522 SlIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 a diligent collector of dramas, or maker of notes, and a 
 great student of his special art. It has been his custom 
 to copy the best things he met with into his scrap-book. 
 The satirist almost repeats Greene's ' Johannes Fac-totum ' 
 in his description of our Poet's varied ability, his aptness 
 in doing many things with as much earnestness as though 
 each were the one thing he came into this world to do. He 
 writes, he rails, he jests, he courts (what not?). And all 
 — this is how the malev^olent rival accounts for the abound- 
 ing genius ! — and all from out his collection of plays and 
 the scraps hoarded in his common-place book. Marston's 
 'satyres' were published in 1598, and this is evidently 
 written at the moment when 'Eomeo and Juliet' is in the 
 height of its success. It is tlie new pathetic tragedy of 
 these lines. Also, the image of the love-poet courting 
 Lesbia's eyes is obviously suggested by the balcony scene 
 of this play. 
 
 It is curious, too, that he should ask which of the 
 two is the better actor — Shakspeare or Burbage ? ' He 
 speaks in prinf reminds us of Hamlet's speech to the 
 players. According to this witness, it would look as 
 though the Poet had there figured himself for us some- 
 wdiat as his contemporaries saw him amongst his own 
 company of players. It makes one wonder how much he 
 had to do personally with the great acting of Burbage, 
 ni moulding such an embodiment of his own conceptions, 
 and inspiring the player when spirit sharpened spirit and 
 face kindled face. He was six years older than Burbage, 
 and the great Master of his Art. Of course, Marston's 
 notice is meant to be satirical, although he wriggles in 
 vain to raise a smile at his subject. This writer has 
 another mean ' gird ' at our Poet in his ' What you Will' 
 (art ii. sc. 1) — 
 
 ' Ha ! he mounts Cliirall on the wings of fame, 
 Ahorse! ahorse! ray kingdom for a horse ! 
 Look thee, / sjjcak play scraps !^
 
 DA VIES' IkLVP OF THE 1'0I:T\S MICl;r)C()SM. 52.i 
 
 Avliicli still luiilier lu'lps to identify Sliakspeare by a 
 double allusion. 
 
 I have previously remarked that no doubt Shak- 
 speare gave his contemporaries as good as tliey sent, 
 and although ^ve may be able to decipher but few of 
 his rephes, one at least is very definite. We have seen 
 that John Davies of Hereford made various allusions to 
 Shakspeare. We are very glad of these now in the dearth 
 of information. But we may well imagine that if any- 
 thing was particularly unbearable to our Poet, it must 
 have been the pat of approbation bestowed on him by 
 this garrulous old gentleman and persevering poetiser. 
 Accordingly, as I conjecture, Shakspeare does flash lire 
 and lighten from his cloud upon him and his descriptions 
 in the person of ' Menenius.'* Thrice had Davies tried to 
 compliment our Poet at the expense of his profession, and 
 pitied him that Fortune had not put him to better uses. 
 This he has done most noticeably in his poem entitled 
 ' Microcosmus.' He had also addressed Shakspeare as 
 ' our Enirlish Terence ' thus — 
 
 * Some say good Will, which I in sport do sing, 
 
 Hadst thou not plaid some kingly parts in sport. 
 Thou hadst bin a companion for a King, 
 
 And been a king among the meaner sort. 
 Some others rail ; hut rail as they think fit. 
 Thou hast no railin<>-, but a reinrninir wit : 
 And honesty thou sow'st, which they do reape. 
 So to increase their stocke, which they do keepe.' 
 
 The Poet replies : — ' I am known to be a humourous 
 jmtrickm, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not 
 a drop of allaying Tyber in't ; said to be somethimj imper- 
 fect-, hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion. What 
 I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath, 
 &^c. . . . if you see this in i\\Q Map of my Microcosm, 
 
 1 ( 
 
 Coriolauus,' act ii. sc. 1.
 
 624 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 follows it that I am known well enough too ? What harm 
 can your hisson conspectuities gleafi out of this character, if 
 I be known well enough too ? ' Not only does Sliakspeare 
 take him by the beard to smite him thus and give him, as 
 Hood says, two black eyes for being blind, but he has plii- 
 ralised the old schoolmaster for the pleasure of thrash- 
 ing him double. ' I cannot say your worships have de- 
 livered the matter ivell, when I find the ass in compound 
 with the major part of your syllables, and though I must 
 be content to bear with those that say you are reverend 
 grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you you have good 
 faces. You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything ! ' 
 Our Poet had a double reason for his retort. lie resents 
 what Davies had said of the stase as well as of himself and 
 Burbage. He speaks for the Company in general. He 
 says in eifect — ' You have sat in judgement, you ridiculous 
 old ass, but you have not handled the matter wisely or 
 well. And as for the railing that we are charged with, 
 Avhy, our very priests iniist become mockers if they shall 
 encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you 
 speak best unto the purpose it is not worth the wagging of 
 your beard.' 
 
 It will not be easy to detect any dramatic motive in 
 these replies of Menenius ; there was no sufficient cause 
 in the words of the Tribunes : they had not drawn the 
 map of his Microcosm ; liad not characterised him at all, 
 but merely remarked ' you are well enougli known, too ! ' 
 Ko one can, I think, compare what Davies wrote of our 
 Poet in his three different poems with this outburst of 
 Menenius' without seeing that the Poet has here ex- 
 pressed the personal annoyance of liimself and fellows. 
 We may, perhaps, take it as a slight additional indication 
 of Shakspeare's liaving John Davies in mind that nearly 
 tlie next words spoken by Menenius on hearing that Cori- 
 olanus is returning home are, ' Take my cap, Jupiter, 
 and I ihajik thee ; ' and poor John had, in lines already
 
 THE 'IIELICONIA.' 525 
 
 qiKitetl, greeted Southampton on liis release from tlio 
 Tower, with ' Southampton, u}) tliy cap to lieaven iling ! ' 
 
 We shall get a curious side- glimpse, and, to some ex- 
 tent, gauge how far Shakspeare was known to his contem- 
 poraries generally in the year IGOO, by turning over the 
 pages of ' England's Parnassus,' in the ' Heliconia.' Here 
 we come upon numerous quotations from the ' Lucrece ' 
 and ' Venus and Adonis,' but the extracts from the Plays 
 nre most insignificant. Yet at the time mentioned he had 
 in all probability produced some twenty of his dramas, 
 including the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'Merchant of 
 Venice,' ' Taming of the Shrew,' ' Eomeo and Juliet,' with 
 other fine works of his early and middle periods. 
 
 A breath of the passionate fragrance of the last-named 
 dainty drama had reached beyond the stage. But how 
 could the editor make so few extracts from such a mine of 
 wealth, and snatch no more from its ' dark of diamonds ? ' 
 He is in search of illustrations for given subjects, each of 
 which Shakspeare has enriched with pictures beyond tliose 
 of all other writers. He possesses taste enough to quote 
 many of the choicest passages from Spenser's poetry. The 
 inference is inevitable that the Poet and the poetry re- 
 vealed to us in Shakspeare's Plays were unknown to 
 Robert Allot, and possibly he only quoted at second-hand. 
 
 A playwright was not looked upon as a poet, so nmch as 
 a worker for the theatre. Spenser was the great Apollo of 
 his ao-e. He had the true mvthological touch and classical 
 tread. Accordingly the 'Heliconia' contains some 370 
 quotations from Spenser and only TO from Shakspeare ; 
 these mainly from his two poems. As late as 1605 
 Richard Barnefield, in his ' Lady Pecunia,' praises Shak- 
 speare for his Poems, but has not a word for the Plays. 
 
 It was impossible for Shakspeare's contemporaries to 
 know what there was in his works as we know them. 
 They could not help knowing of his dramatic successes, 
 and vrould often feel these to be unaccountable. Put there
 
 526 SIIAKSPEArtE'S SONNETS. 
 
 was no great reading public — no criticism to bring out tlie 
 liidden secrets of his genius. And if there had been, the 
 drama was comparatively an unpublished literature. In 
 this fact we may perceive one great reason why a man like 
 Bacon, for example, lived so long in the same city as 
 Shakspeare without discovering him, and possibly left 
 the world without knowing what he had missed on the 
 passage. 
 
 (It seems impossible that they should not have met 
 personally in the company of Essex and Southampton, but 
 Bacon makes no mention of Shakspeare, and in all likeli- 
 hood never penetrated the Player's mask.) 
 
 The early poems were well known, and some of the 
 sonnets were in circulation, but no one could predicate 
 from these the stupendous genius that orbed out and 
 reached its full circle in ' Lear,' and the other great 
 Trao-edies. 
 
 He was better known within the Theatre, and there 
 Ben Jonson being himself a player and playwright, pro- 
 bably got the truest glimpse of Shakspeare's mental sta- 
 ture, although I doubt not he fancied himself by much 
 the better writer. Ben could supply a ' tag ' to the end of 
 a hfe as well as to the end of a play, and, when in the 
 mood, sweat sincerity with all his bodily bulk. But, what 
 are we to think of his compliment to the ' true-filed line ' 
 when it is on record that he did not think the lines ' well- 
 liled,' for when the Players boasted that Shakspeare wrote 
 so easily he never blotted out a line, Ben wished he had 
 blotted out a thousand. And if we are to believe Drum- 
 mond, Jonson thought Shakspeare ' wanted art, and some- 
 times sense;' which is countenanced by his own words — 
 ' he redeemed his vices by his virtues. Tiiere was ever 
 more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.' If Jonson 
 had really known what Shakspeare had done for the stage, 
 for dramatic poetry, for Englisli Literature, how could he 
 afterwards boast tliat he himself would yet ' raise the
 
 BEN JONSON. ry27 
 
 despised head of Poetry ; stripping lier out of those rotten 
 :iii(l base rags wherewith the times have adulterated lier 
 i'orni and restore her to her primitive use and majesty, and 
 render her worthy to be embraced and kissed of all the 
 great and master spirits of the world.' Tliis, after Shak- 
 speare had found Poetry on the stage the slave of drudger}^ 
 tiie menial of the mob, and took her by the hand, like 
 his own Marina, and led her forth apparelled in all fresh- 
 ness of the spring ; fairer to look on than the ' evening 
 air, clad in the beauty of ten thousand stars,' and made 
 her the nursing mother of children strong and splendid ; 
 set her on a throne and crowned her as a queen whose 
 subjects are wide humanity; whose realm is the Avorld. 
 
 Ben's mind was not of a kind to jump with that of 
 Shakspeare in its largest leaps. He was the genuine pro- 
 totype of the critical kind that has yet a few living speci- 
 mens, in tliose persons who still persist in looking upon 
 Shakspeare as a writer far too redundant in expression. 
 They appear to think the foliage waving above too 
 lusty and large for the sustaining rootage below. They 
 have a feeling that Shakspeare was a Poet marvellously 
 endowed by Nature, but deficient in Art, the truth being, 
 that what they mean by Art is the smack of conscious- 
 ness in the finish left so apparent that the poetry is, 
 as it were, stereotyped, and the linisli gives to it a kind of 
 metallic foce ; something on the surface fiim to the touch, 
 and liatterino^ to a certain critical sense. 
 
 They like their poetry to be fossilised and wear a recog- 
 nisable pattern. Whereas Shakspeare's is all alive, and 
 illuminated from within ; as full of Xature in a book as 
 the flowers are in the field. 
 
 The secret which, in Shakspeare, is unfathomable can 
 be found out in the works of more self-conscious men. In 
 them Nature is subordinate to Art. But this is not the 
 greatest Art ; it is the lesser Ait, made more striking l)e- 
 cause there is less Xature.
 
 528 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 His is not the serene art of So]:)liocIes ; it does not 
 always smile severely on the surface. Then he has — 
 
 ' Such miracles performed in play. 
 Such letting Nature have its way ! ' 
 
 and the Nature is so boundless, we have to traverse such 
 an infinity of suggestiveness, that it is not easy for us to 
 beat the bounds. But the Art of Shakspeare transcends 
 all other Art in kind as much as the inscrutable beauty of 
 soul transcends the apparent beauty of form and feature ; 
 and his judgment is as sure as his genius is capacious. 
 Judge him not by Greek Drama or French Art, but accept 
 the conditions under which he wrought, the national 
 nature with which he dealt, and he has reached the pure 
 simplicity of utter perfection fifty times over to any other 
 Poet's once ! In all Shafepeare's great Plays his Art is 
 even more consummate, though less apparent, than that of 
 Milton, and it holds the infinitely larger system of human 
 world and starry brood of mind in its wider revolutions, 
 with as safe a tug of gravitation. It is the testimony of all 
 the greatest and most modest men that the longer they 
 read his works the more reasons they find to admire his 
 marvellous wisdom, and his transcendent intuition in all 
 mysteries of Law as well as knowledge of life. 
 
 Harvey's lusty reveille and Ben Jonson's eulogy not- 
 withstanding, it is quite demonstrable that Shakspeare's 
 contemporaries had no adequate conception of what man- 
 ner of man or majesty of mind were amongst them. We 
 know him better than they did ! He came upon the stage 
 of his century like the merest lighter of a theatre. He 
 kindled there such a splendour and jetted such ' brave fire' 
 as the world never before saw. He did his work so silently, 
 greeted his fellows so pleasantly, and retired so quietly, 
 that the men whose faces now shine for us, chiefly from 
 his reflected light, did not notice him suflficiently to tell us 
 wliat he was like; did not see that this man Shakspeare
 
 III8 UNKNOWN GREATNESS. 520 
 
 liad come to bring a new soul into the land — that in his 
 plays the spirit of a new faith was to obtain magnificent 
 embodiment — that here was the spontaneous effort of the 
 national spirit to assert itself in our hterature, and stand 
 forth free from the old Greek tyranny which might other- 
 ^vise have continued to crush our drama, as it seems to 
 liave crippled our sculpture to this day — that in these plays 
 all the rills of lann;uaQ;e and knowledcre runninc; from other 
 lands were to be merged and made one in this great ocean 
 of English life. Not one of them saw clearly as we do 
 that whereas Homer was the poet of Greece, and Dante 
 the poet of Italy, this gentle Willie Shakspeare, player and 
 playwright, was destined to be the Poet of a World ! 
 
 His real gloiy was unguessed at ! They could have 
 given him no assurance of the 'all-hail hereafter;' the lofty 
 expansion of his fame that now fills the great Globe Theatre 
 of our world! They never di^eamed of the imperial way 
 in which the Player should ascend his throne, to set the 
 wide round rin<2;in2j whose vast arch reverberates his voice 
 from side to side, whilst wave on wave, age after age, 
 the piean of applause is caught up and continued and 
 rolled on for ever by the passing Generations ! 
 
 I often think that one reason why he left no greater per- 
 sonal impression on them was because he was so much of 
 a good fellow in general ; his nature was so commonly 
 human and perfect all roimd, as to seem to them nothing 
 remarkable in particular. His greatness of soul was not 
 of a kind to pufl' out any personal pecuharities, or manners 
 ' hisli fantastical.' He did not take his seat in a crowdinii* 
 company with the bodily bulge of big lien, or tread on 
 their toes with the vast weight of his 'mountain belly ' and 
 hodman's shoulders, nor come in contact with them as Ben 
 ^vould, with the full force of his hard head and ' rocky 
 face.' Shakspeare's personal influence was not of the sort 
 that is so palpably felt at all times, and often most politely 
 uoknowlodu-od. He must have moved amongst them more
 
 530 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 like an Immortal invisible ; the deity being liidden in the 
 humanity. There was room in his serene and spacious 
 soul for the whole of his stage-contemporaries to sit at 
 feast. His influence embraced them, lifted them out of 
 themselves, floated them up from earth ; and while their 
 veins ran quicksilver, and the life within them lightened, 
 they would shout w^ith Jlatheo, 'Do we not fly high?' 
 Are we not amazingly clever fellows? Don't we astonish 
 ourselves? — How little they knew what they owed to 
 the mighty one in their midst ! How little coidd they 
 gauge the virtue of his presence which wrapped them in a 
 diviner ether ! When we breathe in a larger life, and 
 a ruddier health from the atmosphere that surrounds us 
 and sets us swimming in a sea of heart's-ease, we sel- 
 dom pause to estimate how much in weight the atmo- 
 sphere presses to the square inch ! So was it with the 
 personal influence of Shakspeare upon his fellows. They 
 felt the exaltation, the invisible radiation of health, the 
 flowing humanity that filled their felicity to the brim ; but 
 did not think of the weiorht of crreatness that he brouo-ht 
 to bear on every square inch of them. The Spirit of the 
 Age sat in their very midst, but it moved them so natu- 
 rally they forgot to note its personal features, and he was 
 not the man to be flashing his immortal jewel in their eyes 
 on purpose to call attention to it. 
 
 Big Ben took care to bequeath his body as well as his 
 mind to us. We know how much flesh he carried. We 
 know his love of good eating and strong drink ; his self 
 assertiveness and lust of power. We know that he 
 required a high tide of drink before he could launch 
 himself and get well afloat, and that amongst the Ehza- 
 bethan song-birds he was named, after his beloved liquor, 
 a ' Canary ' bird. One cannot help fancying that Shak- 
 speare, as he sat quietly listening to Ben's brag, got many 
 a hint for the fattening and glorifpng of his own Fal- 
 stafF. How different it is with our Poet ! We get no
 
 THE PRINCE OF ALL GOOD FELLOWS. .5.U 
 
 glimpse of him in his cups. The uumes ihey give him, 
 Jiowever, are significant. Tliey call him the 'gentle 
 Willie,' the ' beloved,' the • honey-tongucd.' Fuller's 
 description gives us an impression that Ben Jonsun 
 was no match for Shakspeare in mental quickness when 
 they met in their ^vit-combats at the ' Mermaid.' Ben 
 carried most in sight ; Shakspeare more out of sight. 
 For the rest, there is not much to show us what the 
 man Shakspeare was, or to tell us that his fellows knew 
 what he was. Vmt their silence is full of meaning. It 
 tells that he was not an extraordinary man in the vulgar 
 sense, which means something peculiar, and startling at 
 first sight. He must have been too complete a man to 
 be marked out by that which implies incompleteness — 
 some special faculty held up for wonder, and half picked 
 out by disparity on the otlier side ; as the valley's depth 
 becomes a portion of the mountain's height. There was 
 nothing of this about Shakspeare. And his completeness, 
 his ripeness all round, his level height, his subtle serenity, 
 would all tend to hide his greatness from them. They 
 can tell us the shape of Greene's beard, which he 
 'cherished continually, without cutting; a jolly long red 
 peak, like the spire of a steeple, whereat a man might 
 hang a jewel, it was so sharp and pendant;' his 'con- 
 tinual shifting of lodgings^' the nasal sound of Ben Jon- 
 son's voice, and his face 'punched full of eyelet holes 
 like the lid of a warming-pan.' But they tell us nothing 
 in this kind about Shakspeare, man or manner, and 
 this tells us much. There was that in him which over- 
 flowed all externals. 
 
 We know they thought him a man of sweet temper 
 and read}' wit, honest and frank, of an open and free 
 nature, very gentle and loveable, and as sociable a good 
 fellow as ever lived. And, indeed, he must have been 
 the best of all good fellows that ever was so wise a 
 man. He could make merry with those roystering 
 
 M M 2
 
 532 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 madcaps at tlie Mermaid, Avho heard the ' chimes at 
 midnight ' but did not heed tliem, and lie could pre- 
 serve the eternal rights of his o^vu soul, and keep sacred 
 its brooding solitude. He coidd be the tricksy spirit 
 of mad whim and waggery ; the very soul of solemn 
 thought ; one of the sprightliest maskers at the carnival 
 of high spirits he could go home majestic in his sad- 
 ness as he had been glorious in his gladness, and brood 
 over what he had seen of life with a mild melan- 
 choly such as made his own life bloom more inwardly, 
 and put forth those loveliest creations of his wdiich seem 
 to have unfolded in the still and balmy night-time when 
 men slept, and the flowers in his soul's garden were fed 
 with gracious dews from heaven. 
 
 He had his enemies, but no man in Shakspeare's life- 
 time ever ventured to assail his reputation. Greene 
 makes no such charge as that which has been gathered 
 from the sonnets. The only thing he can show is that 
 Shakspeare was growing too successful for him. Our 
 great Poet enters into none of their little quarrels. When 
 they work themselves up into a passion with him, he 
 takes no notice, or, if he does, it is to silently work them 
 up into his next play. Whilst men like Marlowe drive 
 furiously down the broad road to destruction, with passions 
 four abreast, he passes quietly on his watchful way with 
 serene hal)it and face erect, respected and self-respecting. 
 He must have had his temptations to wave off or wdiistle 
 down, and pick his way through the mire of our world ; 
 but this he does most happily and cleanly, and he comes 
 forth with no visible stains, or mud, clinging to him. JSTot 
 from any sediment of vice and folly did he gather all those 
 precious grains of golden wisdom. Not from his sowing 
 a bountiful crop of wild oats do we reap that rich harvest 
 of his works. He must have been a good man to have 
 been so loveable and to have had the health that resisted 
 so w^ell the infection of his time and place.
 
 UNX'ON.SCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 0.33 
 
 One great cause of Shakspeare's contemporaries telling 
 lis no more about him is still operant against our making 
 him out iu his works. He was one of the least self-con- 
 scious men, and so he is the least personally visible in his 
 writings. This was the condition of his greatness. lie 
 was to be so unsconscious of self as to be purely reflective 
 of all passing forms. If he had been a lesser man, he 
 would have shown us more of himself. If more imper- 
 fect, he would have revealed more idiosyncracy. We 
 should have caught him taking a peep at liimself in the 
 dramatic mirror. But Shakspeare's nature is all mirror 
 to the world around him. A more conscious man would 
 have managed to make the darkness that hides him from 
 us a sort of lamp-shade which should concentrate the 
 light on his own features, when he looked up in some 
 self-complaisant pause. Not so Shakspeare : he throws 
 all the light on his work, and bends over it so intently 
 that it is most difficult to get a glimpse of his face. Our 
 sole chance is to watch him at his work, and note his 
 human leanings and personal relationships. 
 
 In his first poem, ' the first heir of my invention,' 
 ' Venus and Adonis,' we may learn one or two out-of-door 
 facts of the Poet's life. "V\^iether he was a deer-stealer 
 or not, it is certain he had been on the track of a hare. 
 He knew poor puss's form, and had often seen her pow- 
 deiing the dew-drops into mist as she ran. He is inti- 
 mately acquainted with her habits. At the mention of 
 her name his thouglits are all off a-coursing at once, and 
 his feehng is in full cry. He had the Enghsh spirit of 
 sport in his blood, such as runs through the whole race 
 from peer to poacher. He was likewise a genuine lover 
 of horses, and could show off the 'points' of a thorough- 
 bred in a description that would tell at Newmarket. In 
 these early poems, which were most probably written iu 
 the country, we find the youth of Shakspeare all in flower 
 and full of colour. It was the hey-day in wliich it looks as
 
 534 SHAKSPEARE'S SON^■ETS. 
 
 though the battlements of heaven may be scaled by sheer 
 leaps of the young blood, the senses are so keenly alive. 
 The delighted spirit is in its first love with life, and Venus 
 is the goddess of the youthful fancy. The outer world is 
 all picture to the eye, the inner world all music and danc- 
 ing. External nature makes tlie deepest, though often 
 unconscious, impression at this time, when love works 
 within and beauty without at the making of a boy into a 
 poet. 
 
 The sonnets of Shakspeare afford us the most certain 
 means whereby we can get at the man. Nothing else 
 except the two prose dedications speaks to us so as- 
 suredly with liis own voice, or tells us so unmistakably 
 what were his own feelings and thoughts under various 
 interesting circumstances of his o^\m life. Our difficulty 
 has been to get the right interpretation of the sonnets, 
 and know Avhen Shakspeare is really speaking in his own 
 person, and wliere lie gives utterance to the thoughts and 
 feelings of another. We often heard tlie voice of Shak- 
 speare ; we knew the voice, and yet we did not get at the 
 man. It was as though he were speaking in the next 
 room ; tliere was a partition-wall between us. We fol- 
 lowed the voice, according to some theory of interpreting 
 the sonnet^, but Avhen we got into the next room Shak- 
 speare Avas not there. Still, tlie A^oice, hke that of the 
 ghost of Hamlet's father, kept breaking in, compelling us 
 to folloAV it. The clhef cause of this mtangibility, and the 
 main reason Avhy so many of these sonnets, seemingly 
 personal, did not strike straight home to us, with the full 
 force that is coiled up in their lines, Avill be found in the 
 conditions under Avhich they Avere Avritten, and in the fact 
 that the personal and dramatic ones have been mixed up, 
 to all appearance, inextricably. Shakspeare was not the 
 man to miss his mark, AA'hatever that may have been, 
 only we were not exactly the objects of liis aim. We 
 are noAV able for the first time since the poetry AA^as
 
 THE REAL MAX INSTEAD OF A MYTH. 535 ' 
 
 written to make the mystery clear ; stand in the right 
 position to judge of wliat is going on, get the relation- 
 ship of writer and reader rightly adjusted, fathom the 
 secret history and know how mudi and what part of 
 Shakspeare's character is visible in the sonnets. Unfor- 
 tunately he wrote them under a very limited liability law 
 of relationship. It was not his intention to write of him- 
 self, but of his friend. And liere, as elsewhere, that 
 amazing negative capacity of his has suppressed so much 
 that we would have given anything to know. They have 
 no introspection. In the most personal of them the eye 
 is outward-looking ; it does not brood within for any self 
 revelation. 
 
 It must not be thought, however, that we are losinc^ sic^ht 
 of Shakspeare's personality whilst eliminating the imper- 
 sonal somiets. We are drawing all the more closely to 
 himself. We are getting at him in another way. We 
 do not find him quite so melancholy, discontented, and 
 morbidly sensitive as many have imagined him, but much 
 more like what he is imaged in his other works, and 
 pourtrayed in that picture of hilarious health and consti- 
 tutional jocinidity — the Stratford bust. Our Shakspeare 
 of the Sonnets has no reason to plead guilty to abuses of 
 kindness and all sorts of inexplicable wilfulness and ingra- 
 titude, or to make continual appeal to the loving charity 
 which has been drawn upon to the utmost. 
 
 In our reading we find that Shakspeare, in Avhicli the 
 just sold of the world believes, in spite of appearances 
 having been so wrongly interpreted. The Shakspeare 
 of those manly qualities to which all the contemj)orary 
 testimony pays tribute. The Shakspeare of whom Chettle 
 begs pardon, for the Avords of Greene, because he has 
 found that 'divers of worship,' many of worth, have 
 ' reported his uprightness.' The Shaks])eare of whom 
 Southampton testifies that he is of good reputation, 
 deserving of favour, and his especial friend.
 
 o36 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 What we lose sight of is the phantom Shakspeare who 
 could ungraciously forget his early friend, to whom he 
 had made public promises, given hostages for the future, 
 and dedicated love without end : who could sins: of his 
 friend's eternal truth, after passionately denouncing his 
 falsehood, and talk of locking up his jewel lest it should 
 be stolen after it had been filched from him ; who could 
 slavishly prostrate himself at the feet of a boy ; who 
 could liypocritically reprove his friend for his loose con- 
 duct and lament his immoralities, whilst he himself, a 
 married man of ripe age, was partner with the boy in an 
 intrigue with some married woman ; wdio could accuse 
 himself of all sorts of inconsistent things, grow querulous 
 at the slightest cause, and ask pity on all kinds of false 
 pretences ; who could write sonnets on his own and his 
 friend's disgraceful amours, and supply copies to their 
 friends for the purpose of raising a laugh at their mutual 
 frailty — for such^ in defiance of dates, facts^ and all that 
 we know of our Poet's life and character, or gather 
 from his loorJcs, is the Shakspeare of Messrs. Boaden and 
 Brown's theory of the Sonnets — and we have found the 
 real man as he once lived, and loved his friend South- 
 ampton, and showed an interest in his passion for 
 Elizabetli Vernon ; took sides with them when they were 
 thwarted by the caprice of the Queen, and resented it 
 very strongly ; made the most ingenious defence, in play 
 and in earnest, for his friend ; fought for him against 
 ' old Time,' and ' evil Fortune,' and ' all-oblivious en- 
 mity ;' laboured to polish his virtues when they rusted, 
 and lifted them \\\) shiningly in the eyes of his beloved, 
 and strove to shield them from the tarnishinoj breath of 
 scandal ; probably seeing many sad things and having 
 many sad thoughts, JDut holding on to him faithful and 
 loving to tlie end. There is nothing to show that 
 his moral supremacy was not absolute as his mental ; 
 no grovelhng humility of the slavish sort, nothing but
 
 THE IlECOVERED LIKENESS. 537 
 
 that sim}>lc modesty wliich is tlie natural and perfect 
 grace of greatness. Sucli is the restored hkeness of our 
 Shakspeare-Portrait wliich lias been shamefully abused 
 and far worse daubed over than his bust at Stratf(jrd. 
 The world will not fail to recognise the truer resem- 
 blance and the purer life-colour of this portrait. I 
 have also the pleasure of doing justice to the robbed 
 and much-wronged Earl of Southampton, the only man 
 whom Shakspeare ever inscribed to publicly, and the 
 man who really begot the Sonnets of Shakspeare, 
 although William Herbert became the ' only obtainer ' 
 of them, the ' bringer-forth' for the pubhshing purpose of 
 Thorpe. 
 
 To come to the personal features of our newly-dis- 
 covered likeness, we see that the Shakspeare of the Sonnets 
 is as wise and practical a man as him of the Globe 
 Theatre and the Plays. He did not set out to write son- 
 nets on purpose to tell his friend about himself and his 
 doings and miss his mark by forgetting to write those 
 things which we are aU most anxious to know ! 
 
 Incidentally and indirectly he tells us a good deal about 
 himself ; and at times we see his very face wearing a 
 startling; look of life. lie tells us how much the friend- 
 ship of Southampton was to him during the earlier period 
 when he stood in the twilight and could hardly see his 
 w^ay clearly. We see how modestly he looked upon his 
 own works ; how little he thought of wearing such a 
 halo of renown. Whilst making promises of immortality 
 for his friend in the sonnets he expresses no hope, no 
 consciousness of living on either in them or the plays. 
 There is one glance at the Theatre in sonnet 100 (p. 252), 
 and he there speaks of his Muse as spending her fury on 
 some worthless song, or ballad subject, and darkening her 
 power to give the base matter light, instead of writing 
 about his friend. 
 
 Once or twice we see him face to face with grief; lie
 
 538 SIIAKSPE AIDE'S SONNETS. 
 
 comes nestling into our hearts in the lowhest attitude, and 
 asserts our common human relationship in the most 
 touching way. But, he did not seek to pierce us with 
 his own sharp and thorny thoughts ; his object was to 
 offer his friend their bloom and fragrancy. And the 
 sonnets afford us tliis self-luminous certainty. Shakspeare 
 could not have reproached and reproved Southampton for 
 his moral laxity if he had not iiimself walked uprightly 
 imder 'awful rule and right supremacy:' could not have 
 bewailed the Earl's dwelling in infectious society if his 
 own moral health had not been sound. His personal 
 bearing must have been blameless for him to express his 
 jealousy of evil companions. He could not have dared to 
 intimate that his young friend was not one of those who 
 are ' lords and owners of their faces ' unless he were 
 known to be ' king over himself.' 
 
 Also we have done for ever with ' William the Melan- 
 choly.'' Only a very false view of the sonnets could have led 
 any one to imagine that Shakspeare was a melancholy 
 man. Such a phantasm was begotten on a cloud of the 
 brain, and has no existence in reality. It may not always 
 have been honestly spoken out, yet it has been inwardly 
 believed that liia sins confessed in the sonnets were the 
 chief cause of his supposed sadness : that the moping, 
 abject condition in which he is assumed to have been at 
 times, was owing to liis misplaced affections and the 
 avenging Nemesis that, no doubt, pursued him and 
 whipped him back to the wife whom he liad deserted. 
 
 This personal interpretation of the sonnets has deepened 
 the character of Shakspeare in the mind of many to a 
 Eembrandtish depth of sliadow, and made Schlegel amongst 
 others tliink tliat these glimpses of the internal workings 
 of the Poet's spirit show it to liave been of all others the 
 most deeply sorrowful and tragic ! And the critic con- 
 cludes that the inmost feelings of the Poet's heart, the 
 deptlis of his peculiar, concentrated and solitar}^ spirit,
 
 rAL.SE \11':WS DEKIVKI) i'ltU.M TIU: .SONNETS. .0.39 
 
 could be agitated only by the mourn ful voice of nature. 
 No view could be lalser. His soid was not like a star 
 that dwelt apart in lonely majesty and cold splendour 
 remote from men. Impersonal as he is, Ave do not feel 
 tliat to be the result of remoteness. Someway we lose 
 him from very nearness rather than because of his dis- 
 tance from us. Not in isolation, but by a dehghtful in- 
 terfusion does he really pass into invisibility. 
 
 It was said by Mr. Hallam, ' Tliere .seems to have 
 been a period of Shakspeare's life when his heart was 
 ill at ease, and ill content Avith the world or his own 
 conscience : the memory of hours mis-spent, the pang 
 of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of 
 man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen 
 associates, by choice or circumstance, peculiarly teaches 
 — these, as they sank down into the depths of his great 
 mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the con- 
 ception of " Lear " and " Timon," but that of one primary 
 character, the censurer of mankind.' So it may have 
 seemed^ but so it is not in fact. This is but an illusion of 
 those who have accepted the sonnets as autobiographic 
 revelations. All that is observable is that the great stream 
 of his expanding power runs darker with deptli, and if 
 the searchino-s into the human heart 2:row more curious 
 and profound, and the tragedy is palled in more awful som- 
 breness, and the poetry draws our pleasure with approving 
 tears out of deeper soundings of pain, the comedy is also 
 richer and more real, the humour is as smilinij as the 
 terror is sublime ; there is no unhappy laughter in it, no 
 iestini]!: with a sad brow ; whilst the tender imasies of orace 
 and purity are bodied forth more movingly attired than 
 ever. We can match ' Hamlet' with the ' Merry Wives,' 
 ' Lear' witli ' Twelfth Niglit,' and ])air off Timon, the hater 
 of men, with Cressida and Cleopatra, who were as great 
 lovers of them; and his later, most precious creations, Des- 
 demona, Cordelia, Yirgilia,rerdita, Miranda, Imogen, give
 
 540 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 no liint of any unsoundness in the Poet's moral nature. 
 If lie wrote more tragedy as lie grew older, tliat was but 
 the natural result of his growing wiser, liis meditations on 
 life were graver ; the sad-looking bloom had gathered on 
 the fuller-ripened life-fruit. What says the prologue to 
 King Henry VIII. ? — 
 
 * I come no more to make you laugh ; things now 
 That hear a weighty and a serious brow, 
 Sad, high and working, full of state and woe, 
 Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, 
 We now present.' 
 
 It is impossible to commune with the spirit of Shakspeare 
 in his works and not feel that he was essentially a cheerful 
 man and full of healthy gladness, that his royal soul was 
 magnificently lodged in a fine physique, and looked out 
 on life with a large contentment ; that his conscience was 
 clear and his spiritual pulse sober. This is manifest in his 
 poems written at an age when most youngsters are wanton 
 with sadness. There is no sadness in his first song ; he 
 sustains a merry note lustily ; the ' Venus and Adonis,' 
 the ' Lover's Complaint,' are brim-full of healtli ; they 
 bespeak the ruddy English heart, the sunbrowned mirth, 
 ' countiy quicksilver,' and country cheer. The royal 
 blood of his happy health runs and riots in their rural vein. 
 It is shown in his hearty and continuous way of working. 
 It is proved by his great delight in common human nature, 
 and his full satisfaction in the world as he found it. It 
 is supremely shown in the nature of his whole work. A 
 reigning cheerfulness was the sovereign quality of the man, 
 and his art is dedicated to Joy. ISTo one ever did so much 
 in the poetic sphere to make men nobly happy. A 
 most profound and perennial cheerfulness of soul he must 
 have had to bring so bright a smile to the surface, and put 
 so pleasurable a colour into the face of liuinan life, wliich 
 never shone more round and rosy than it does in his eyes 
 at times ; he who so well knew what an infinite of sorrow
 
 NOT A MEL.VNX'IIOLY MAN. rAl 
 
 may brood beneath ; what .sunless (le[)ths of sadness and 
 lonely leafless wastes of misery ; who felt so intimately its 
 old heartache and pain ; its mystery of evil and all the 
 pathetic pangs witli wliich Nature gives birth to Good ! 
 
 The dramatic mood could be troubled, contemplative, 
 melancholy, according to his purpose, but the man himself 
 was of a happy temperament. A melancholy man must 
 have been more self-conscious, and shut up within limits 
 indefmitely narrower. 
 
 We may depend upon it that such sunny smiling fruits 
 of living as his works offer to us did not spring out of any 
 root of bitterness in his own experience ; they are ripe on 
 the lower branches as well as on the highest ; are sound 
 and sweet to the core, and show no least sign of having 
 been gnawn or pierced by the worm that dies not. Had 
 he felt sad for himself it would have broken out, if at all, 
 not lugubriously, but in a very lumiorous sadness — the 
 diamond-point of wit pricking the gathering tear before it 
 was fairly formed, or the drops would have been shaken 
 down in a sun-shower. The true Shakspearian sadness is 
 more nearly expressed in Mercutio and some of the clowns, 
 like the 'fool' in 'Lear,' for which he had a special fondness 
 and, I fancy, often played the part with zest. Hence the 
 lunnour is just sadness grown honey-ripe ! Beside which, 
 we get no suggestion from his contemporaries of a melan- 
 choly man. They never saw him in the dumps like John 
 Ford. So far as h<! left any impression on tliem it was 
 that of a gracious and pleasant man, fidl of good spirits, 
 equable at a cheerful height. They certainly saw nothing 
 of the social ' outcast ' or the friendless, melancholy man. 
 They caught no writhing of tlie face that indicated the 
 devouring secret within his breast ! They never suspected 
 that he had gone about ' frantic-mad with evermore un- 
 rest.' If so miserable a sinner in private, he must have 
 been in public a sad rogue, a nire hypocrite! Lastly, it 
 is impossible to study the bust at Stratford and think of
 
 542 SIIAKSPEAllE'S SONNETS. 
 
 it as the image of a melancholy man. It is the dropped 
 mask of a liappy-wise spirit, whose pleasantry was so in- 
 grained that the mask keeps on smiling after death in 
 merry memory of a smiling soul. Looking on this Bust, 
 we feel that he must have been a glorious jolly ])ersonage, 
 in whom tlie national spirit was most Englishly embodied, 
 just as ]iis Works most fully embody the national s])irit. 
 Thus all tlie evidence of personal testimony, of work, of 
 character, and disposition is arrayed against this modern 
 inference that is as false as the sands on which it was 
 founded, and we may now let it pass away for ever. 
 
 The sadness of the early sonnets is on behalf of the 
 friend for whom he utters so many complaints against 
 unkindly Fortune. 
 
 The true personal apphcation of the latter sonnets is, 
 not that Shakspeare was gloomy and guilty enough to 
 write them for himself, but that he had the exuberant 
 jollit}^ the lax gaiety to write them for the young gallant, 
 Herbert. 
 
 There is one thini»" in tlie sonnets that brinn;s the man 
 very closely houK^ to me. This is his glancing in the 
 glass at times to compare his age and looks with those of 
 his young friend. No doubt he purposely gives the Earl 
 the full difference in opposing Autumn with April, but I 
 fancy there was considerable truth in it. So great is my 
 belief in the Poet's truth to Nature that I feel he had a 
 rough skin and was jocose on the subject — stroking his 
 chin in a hmnorous way, as who should say look at my 
 old wreath er-beaten brown face — ' my glass shows me 
 myself indeed, beaten and chapped with tanned anti- 
 quity!' And, if as an actor, he kept the chin shaved 
 and tlie beard grew strong and stubby, it would add to 
 the roughness. There seems to be a look of this in the 
 Droeshout Etching. The 73rd sonnet, which is very 
 pathetic, would lead us to suspect that the Poet not only 
 thought himself old-looking, but that he also felt prema-
 
 rEUSOXAI. TIIAITS. o43 
 
 turely aged before he left London for liis own native air. 
 He had done so much work, and drawn ^^o niucli on liis 
 own hfe ; such ardours had gone out of liini. lie could 
 not have been forty years old, and yet the sonnet paints 
 the black bars of the coming night as falling across his 
 early sunset patli. It is very touching, if we think of it 
 as pourtraying our own Shakspeare : — 
 
 ' The time of year thou may'st in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold. 
 Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west. 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self that seals up all in rest ; 
 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire 
 That on the ashes of my youth doth lie 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 
 Consumed with that which it was nourished by.' 
 
 This has a touch of the yellowish tinge that will come 
 over the literary vision at times, when a bit of the best 
 Avork has been lately done. But, as I have before said, 
 the tone is as much that of illness as of age. He must 
 liave recovered health again, and his life put forth a new 
 leaf in its Stratford privacy, for he grew some of his 
 lustiest evergreens there ; did some of his best work, 
 briizht Avith health, and created two of his most loveablc 
 women, ' Imogen ' and ' Perdita,' full of English sweet- 
 ness to the core, with the pure breath of his country life 
 breathing fragrantly through them. 
 
 From his dramas we may obtain some traits of person- 
 ality, and a few facts of Shaks])eare's own life. It is very 
 interesting to watch the growth of his mind. We can get 
 no right estimate of the man unless we do this, and see how 
 he worked, and how he waxed in energy and capacity ; 
 how, as the stream of his life flowed on, the poetry grows
 
 544 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 clearer and is purified by time and travel. Shakspeare 
 did not come into the world ready-made, nor bringing 
 his poetry ready written. Nor does his supereminence 
 he in some unknown, abnormal power of creating poetry 
 and addino- it to life and nature. He was one of the 
 greatest Eeahsts that ever wrote. He got his poetry out 
 of life, and had to begin at the beginning. He must have 
 converted everything into force for that rare motion of 
 inner life which made the outer music of his poetry. Of 
 course he had a most marvellous illumination of the 
 seeing eye, a power unparagoned for absorbing know- 
 ledge, a nature rich and vital for all the hard actualities 
 of fact to unfold in and put forth their lovehest flower ; a 
 large and loving spirit that would brood over the meanest 
 materials until the influence had passed hito them and 
 transfigured them past our finding out. And yet this 
 man of magnificent resources, so lavish of his wealth, 
 must have been a very miser in hoarding up the least 
 fruits of life and experience. All life was picture and all 
 persons portraiture to him ; every liint would be full of 
 meaning, if not to-day, then he would garner it up for 
 seed in its season. Dull bits of fact would lie by in the 
 grub until he could warm them into life and give them 
 wings. When he wrote — ' Let us cast away nothing, for 
 we may live to have need of such a verse,' he gave ex- 
 pression to a personal trait. 
 
 He relies on reality as the engineer on the rock, but 
 his cunning in transforming matter into spirit is alike 
 subtle with his art of vanishing from view in his own 
 person. When the infinite spaces of his thought are 
 spanned and the scaflblding disappears as though all fairy 
 world had lent a hand to the labour, and the creation is 
 finished like an air-hung work of wonder, it is almost as 
 dlfiicult to connect it with the real earth whereon he 
 built as it would l)e to find the bases of the rainbow. The 
 way in wliich he creates for immortahty out of the
 
 EARI.Y WORK. 045 
 
 veriest dust of the earth, deals divinely witli things most 
 grossly mortal, and conjures the loftiest su!)limities from 
 the homehest realities, is one of the great Sliakspearian 
 secrets. As a slight example, see the hues in Macbeth — 
 
 ' The wine of life is drawu, and the mere lees 
 Is left this vault to hrag of I' 
 
 Here are Earth and Heaven, Wine-cellar and the concave 
 Vast wedded in a word, with one fusing flash of his 
 imaii:ination ! But who thinks or dares to think of the 
 idea, as first conceived, in the august presence of its 
 after-shape ? 
 
 Then, the early works are full of puns and comparisons, 
 and overrun with imagery. Here he plays more with 
 the shadows of things, and does not reach the utmost 
 reality. He played with words, says Eobert Gould, in 
 his satire of the 'Playhouse,' to 'please a quibbhng age.' 
 And we feel that he despised himself for doing so. He 
 had no heart in it. The clown, in ' Twelfth Night,' says 
 ' a sentence is but a Cheveril glove to a good vdt ; how 
 quick the wrong side maybe turned outward!' The 
 reply of Viola shows that Shakspeare felt the habit of 
 punning degrading, and that all singleness of language is 
 lost in this aiming at witty double meaning : ' Nay, that's 
 certain ; they that dally nicely with words, may quickly 
 make them wanton.' No bitterer comment was ever 
 made on the confirmed habit of jesting with meanings 
 and playing with words than he himself supplies m one 
 of his early plays, ' Love's Labour's Lost,' where ' my Lord 
 Biron ' is told to practise his witticisms for twelve months 
 upon the sick and dying in an hospital, and make the 
 'pained impotent to smile.' 
 
 The early plays contain the ' spring and foison ' of 
 Shakspeare's poetic life, overrunning with leafy richness 
 and the luxuriant undergrowth of his poetry. And how 
 the stature and strength of his work increases year by 
 
 N N
 
 540 SHAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 year, striking root yet deeper and broader in Englisli 
 earth, but lifting up its stately branches into airy regions. 
 What a growth from the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona ' 
 to ' Lear ; ' from the slender saphng to the tree whose 
 girth we may not span ! We can see how his expression 
 chastens and grows subUme with simplicity ; rich with the 
 most precious plainness of speech. We may see also in 
 his early plays what were his personal relations to the 
 England of that memorable time which helped to mould 
 him : see how the war stirred his nature to its roots, and 
 made them clasp England with all tlieir fibres : we may 
 see how he fought the Spaniard in feeling, and helped to 
 shatter their armadas. We learn how these things made 
 him turn to his country's history, and pourtray its past 
 and exalt its heroes in the eyes of Englishmen. How 
 often does he show them the curse of civil strife, and read 
 them the lesson that England is safe so long as she is 
 united ! Thus he lets us know how true an Englishman 
 he was ; how full of patriotic fire and communicative 
 warmth. 
 
 The rest of the world are welcome to prove him a 
 cosmopolitan ; but we know where his nationality lies. 
 He was a dear lover of this dear land of ours. He 
 loved her homely face, and took to his heart her 'tight 
 little ' form, that is so embraceable ! He loved her 
 tender glory of green grass, her grey skies, her miles on 
 miles of apple-bloom in spring time, her valleys brim-full 
 of the rich harvest-gold in autumn ; her leafy lanes and 
 ' field-paths, and lazy, loitermg river-reaches ; her hamlets 
 nestling in the quiet heart of rural hfe ', her scarred old 
 Gothic towers and mellow red-brick chimneys with their 
 Tudor twist, and white cottages peeping through the 
 roses and honeysuckles. We know how he loved his 
 own native woods and wild flowers, the daisy, the prim- 
 rose, the wild honeysuckle, the cowslip, and most of all, 
 the violet. This was his darhng of our field flowers.
 
 HIS PATRIOTISM, r>47 
 
 And most lovingly has lie distilled or expressed the spirit 
 of the violet into one of his sweetest women, and called hv.v 
 Viola ! His favourite birds also are the common homely 
 Enfrlish sinfrino; birds, the lark and ni<rlitin2;ale, the 
 cuckoo and blackbird that sang to Shakspeare in his 
 childhood and still sing to-day in the pleasant woods of 
 Warwickshire. He loved all that we call and })rize as 
 ' so English.' He loved the heroes whom he saw round 
 him in eveiy-day hfe, the hardy, bronzed mariners that 
 he saw go sailing 'Westward, Ho :' Indeed, the mention 
 of England's name offers one of our best opportunities for 
 a personal recognition ; when an English thought has 
 struck him, how he brands the ' mark of the hon ' on his 
 lines ! 
 
 There are times when he quite overruns the speech of 
 a character with the fulness of his own Enghsh feeling. 
 In one or two instances this is very striking ; for example, 
 in that speech of old Gaunt's in 'Eichard H.,' at the 
 name of England the writer is off, and cannot stop. His 
 own young blood leaps along the shrunken veins of grave 
 and aged Gaunt ; Shakspeare's own heart throbs througli 
 the whole speech ; the clramatic mask grows transparent 
 with the light of his own kindled face, and you know it 
 is Shakspeare's own features behind ; his own voice that 
 is speaking. A fact that he had forgotten for the 
 moment, because Nature was sometimes too strong for 
 his earlier art. Again, we have but to read the speech 
 of King Harry V., on the night, or rather the dawn, 
 of Agincourt, to feel how keen w-as the thrill of Shak- 
 speare's proud patriotism. Harry was a hero after our 
 Poet's own English heart, and he takes great delight in 
 such a character. His thoughts grow proud and jolly ; 
 his eyes fdl, his soul overflow's, and there is a riot of life 
 which takes a large number of lines to quell! That 
 ' little touch of Harry in the night ' gives us a flash of 
 Shakspeare in the light. 
 
 N N 2
 
 548 SHAKSPEARES SONNETS. 
 
 As he gets older and more perfect in his way of 
 workiuo- either his unconsciousness of self increases or 
 else he crows more cunning in his concealment. 
 
 He was a sturdy out-spoken Englishman, too. See the 
 character he draws of Henry VIH. ; and hear him plead 
 the cause of Catlierine, when thinking that the King's 
 daughter Elizabetli was to be one of the listeners, and 
 knowing that it was her mother who had taken the poor 
 Queen's place whilst it was yet warm with her late presence. 
 He had an eye very keenly alive to the least movement 
 of the national life. When the new map of England is 
 published he takes immediate note of it. Maria, in 
 ' Twelfth Night,' says, ' He does smile his face into more 
 lines than are in the new map with the augmentation of 
 the Indies^ And when the two crowns of England and 
 Scotland are united in the person of James, Shakspeare 
 alters the old doggrel, — 
 ' Fi, fo ! fum ! 
 I smell the blood of an Englishman,' 
 
 into 
 
 ' I smell the blood of a British man.' ^ 
 
 for which the Scotch take him closer to heart, and give 
 him an additional hug ! 
 
 He was undoubtedly monarchical in feeling, and had 
 great loyalty to what we call the Constitution. But he 
 looked more to the joints of the armour of our national 
 life than to any special piece of it. He was a great 
 upholder of the country's honour, and seems to have sus- 
 pected that the trading classes might not prove the truest 
 bearers of the banner. He may have foreseen the modern 
 tendency to a dry-rot in tlie commercial spirit. Wliat 
 he thought of the mob we may read in Jack Cade's 
 rising. He treats it rather like Marshal Lobau with his 
 fire-engine. He has especial delight in all the nobilities 
 
 1 His friend the Earl of Southampton had been one of the Commissioners 
 appointed in 1G03 for an Union betwixt England and Scotland.
 
 mS CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 649 
 
 of nature and tlie ]:)ersonal influence of aristocracy. He 
 may not liave been what is called a ' professing ' Chris- 
 tian, but lie was a most practical one. He had the root 
 of the matter in him. We miglit aj)i)ly to him his own 
 descri])tion of Benedick — 'The man doth fear God, 
 howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will 
 make.' 
 
 Coleridge says rightly there is not one really vicious 
 passage in all Shakspeare. There are coarse things, for 
 the customs and lano-uaf^e of the time were coarse. But 
 there is nothing; rotten at the root, nothinj^ insidious in 
 the suixg-estion. Vice never walks abroad in the mental 
 twilight wearing the garb of virtue. You hear the voices 
 of Wrong and Eight, Truth and Error in his works, but 
 there is no confusion of tongues for the confounding of 
 the sense. He has no softness for sentimental sinners, 
 lets down no drawbridge at the last moment to help them 
 over the dark gulf. His lines are drawn as sharply as 
 the scriptural decree that the tree shall lie where it falls. 
 
 He has infinite pity for the suffering and strugghng and 
 wounded by the way. The most powerful and pathetic 
 pleadings on behalf of Christian charity out of the New 
 Testament have been spoken by Shakspeare. He takes 
 to his large, warm heart much that the world usually casts 
 out to perish in the cold. There is nothing too poor or 
 too mean to be embraced within the circle of his sym- 
 pathies. He sees the germ of good in that which looks 
 all evil to the careless passers-by, for his eyes are large 
 with love and have its ' precious seeing.' If there be only 
 the least little redeeming touch in the most abandoned cha- 
 racter he is sure to point it out ; he recognises the slightest 
 glimpse of the Divine Image in the rudest human clay- 
 cast. If there is one word to be said for some poor, 
 helpless wretch, he urges it to arrest the harsh judgment 
 and waken a kindly thought. If there be but one sohtary 
 spark of virtue in the dark heart of the world's worst
 
 550 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 outcast, he reveals it with such a sigh of pity as seems 
 to kindle it into larger hfe. He must have been a 
 good man to have mirrored this round of human life so 
 ftiitlifully and yet so kindly. After all, it is the best 
 hearts that are the truest muTors even of this world, 
 for it is God's world, bad as we have managed to 
 make it. The worst men give forth an image distorted 
 into the devil's likeness. Shakspeare does not believe 
 that it is the devil's world. In spite of the many sad and 
 sorry sights that we have to look on, with human soids 
 so often weltering in the mire, and ApoUyon driving over 
 them with the wheels of his triumphal car, he knows that 
 the devil is not going to win the final victory. 
 
 What a large and all-including kindliness of soul he has ! 
 His charity is like the sun that smiles on the just and the 
 luijust. His luminous smile falls on the weed as well as 
 the flower, the thistle as well as the palm-tree, the poor 
 hovel as well as the palace-home. It lights the jewels of 
 tlie hero's crown, and it lets the veriest motes dance in its 
 sunbeams. He does not Hy into a passion with stupidity, 
 or ignorance, or pretention. He knows how large a part 
 these play in the natural scheme of things ; that they are 
 fathers of famihes and respectable householders, and get 
 represented in parliament. He looks on many sights 
 which put the little ardent folk out of temper with his 
 calm, slow, wise smile, as though he would say, ' If God 
 can put up with all these queer creatures and ignoramuses, 
 and simulations of human beings in his scheme of creation, 
 there is no reason why I should fume and fret, or denounce 
 them, or argue with them. Pie finds room for them aU 
 in his plan ; I'll make a place for them in mine.' And no 
 botanist ever culled his rarest specimens more lovingly 
 than Shakspeare his samples of what some might Pharisai- 
 cally call ' God's own unaccountables.' How he listens 
 to the long-winded garndousness of the ignorant, whether 
 smiple or knowing. Pearls might be dropping from its
 
 IITS r.AROE TOLERATION. 551 
 
 lips, or about to drop from tliem. lie does not say let no 
 dog bark, or donkey bray in my presence. Contrariwise, 
 he likes to hear what they have to say for themselves, 
 draws them out, and sometimes fools them t(j the top of 
 their bent. It is as though he tliought Nature had her 
 precious secrets hidden here as elsewhere, and with suffi- 
 cient patience we should find it all out, if we only watched 
 and waited impartially. See the generous encouragement 
 he gives to Dogberry ! How he draws him out, and makes 
 much of him. You would say he was ' enamoured of an 
 ass.' But perhaps the glory of all his large toleration 
 shines out in his treatment of that 'sweet bully' Bottom. 
 Observe how he heaps the choicest gifts and showers the 
 rarest freaks of Fortune around that ass's head. All the 
 wonders of fairy-land are revealed, all that is most ex- 
 quisitely dainty and sweet in poetry is scattered about his 
 feet. Airy spirits of the most delicate loveliness are his 
 ministers. The Queen of Fairy is in love with him. He 
 is told how beautiful he is in person, how angehc is his 
 voice. And Bottom accepts it all with the most sublime 
 stolidity of conceit. There is a self-possession of ignor- 
 ance that Shakspeare himself could not upset, although 
 he seems to delight in seeing how far it could go. Nick 
 Bottom has no start of surprise, no misgiving of sensitive- 
 ness, no gush of gratitude, no burst of praise. He is as 
 calm in his Ass-head as Jove in his Godhead. Shak- 
 speare knew how often blind Foitune will play the part 
 of Titania, and lavish all her treasures and graces on some 
 poor conceited fool, and feed him with the honey-bag of 
 the bee, and fan him with the wings of butterliies, and 
 light him to bed with glow-worm lamps, and the Ass 
 will still be true to his nature, and require his ' peck of 
 provender.' 
 
 If ever old Time had a conqueror in this world, or 
 found a match in mortal mind, it is in William Shakspeare; 
 and it is exceedingly interesting to notice what a sense
 
 552 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, 
 
 our Poet has of the power of his grim antagonist. He 
 appears to watch him at his work, he measures his prowess, 
 lie taunts him, and flinos hard names at him. Allied to 
 this feeling of Shakspeare's is a profound sense of mortality. 
 Not only has he the natural shrinking of ripe physical life 
 from the cold clutch of the bony skeleton, and the wormy 
 embrace of the grave, but he has been accused of a ten- 
 dency to consider the secrets of the grave and of decay 
 ' too curiously ; ' to moralize over a mouldering bone until 
 he is compelled to fling it down with the revulsion of 
 feeling. This is remarkable in so healthy a man. I can- 
 not help coupling with it the fact that Shakspeare was 
 born in the 'year of the plague' at Stratford : he must, 
 therefore, have sucked in a strange influence with his 
 mother's milk — a kuid of mysterious sense of death, and 
 danger, and pestilence. And, no doubt, the tales of terror 
 which would be told to the child would create an unde- 
 linable horror in his mind — ' Things,' as he says, ' that to 
 hear them told have made me tremble.' Besides which, 
 the heap of bones that was piled so high in the charnel- 
 house at Stratford would be sure to draw the boy to look 
 in upon it with a fearful fascination. Some such ghostly 
 memory seems to haunt him at times when he stands 
 near the grave or speaks of the charnel. This reaches its 
 climax in those hues written for his tombstone, which lines 
 Avere possibly written on account of their local application. 
 
 ' Grood friend, for Jesu's sake forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here : 
 Blest be the man that spares these stones. 
 And curst be he that moves my bones.' 
 
 This, however, which does not amount to a tendency, has 
 been vastly exaggerated by the personal theory of the 
 sonnets. After all, it is Hamlet who discourses in the 
 graveyard, not Shakspeare. 
 
 We may also find in our Poet an appalling sense of
 
 Ills SENSE OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 5o3 
 
 tlie supernatural, the nearness of the spirit world, and 
 its power to break in on the world of flesh when 
 nature prays for help, or darkly conspires to let it in ! 
 Ills working province was the world of human life. 
 His was the ' sphere of humanity ; ' tlie real work-a-day 
 world. As a dramatist he had to give that life a 
 ])alpable embodiment in flesh and blood, and endow 
 it with speech and action. But he knew that human 
 nature was made of spirit as well as flesh, and that it is 
 imder the ' skiey influences.' What an illustration of this 
 is the teaching of Eomeo's life and death ! It is a perfect 
 dramatising of St. Paul's saying, ' the good which I would, 
 I do not ! and the evil which I would not, that I do,' 
 When he is the cause of his friend Mercutio's death, he 
 ' thought all for the best ; ' he meant well, and such is the 
 end of our well-meaning so often ! 
 
 It seems to me that one great reason why ' Hamlet ' 
 will always remain so perplexing a study to those who 
 seek to divine Shakspeare's intentions, is because his 
 characters are so much a part of nature as to include the 
 supernatural ; and, in this case, whatsoever ' Hamlet' pro- 
 poses, Shakspeare shows us it is Fate, as we say, which 
 disposes. It is not Hamlet who finds the solution of his 
 problem of life and death : it is Fate that catches him up 
 in its surer grasp and swifter execution, so that when the 
 final crash comes, Hamlet is one of the most weak and 
 helpless victims in the higher hands. Divine laws over- 
 ride our human wishes. The innocent suffer alike with 
 the guilty, and things do not come about as they were 
 forecast. Thus it is in life ! And so it is in Shakspeare. 
 Tliis makes the tragedy. He knew that there was a 
 Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may. 
 He feels that this human hfe is all very wonderful in its 
 play of passions, its pleasures and its pains, with all their 
 ' crossings and conflicting lights and shadows, and he does 
 what he can to shed a httle light on the vast mystery.
 
 554 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 But he feels how small is this httle island of our human 
 life, set in the surrounding ocean of eternity, and how 
 limited is the light tliat he can throw upon it and upon 
 the darkness that hems us in ! He knows there is an 
 imfathomable sea where Ave can find no footing. We 
 must swim if we are to keep up at all. In common with 
 tlie rest of tlie universe, we have to repose upon unseen 
 foundations. We cannot ignore the spirit-world, and if 
 we do not get Jielp from it, we are pretty sure to get 
 hindrance. For example, in ' Macbeth,' Shakspeare shows 
 us that looking, longing, irresolute mood of mind, which 
 is the Devil's especial delight, because with such he is 
 quite sure of a nibble for his bait. Here we have the 
 perfect type of the wavering, undecided soul that will 
 peer, very cautiously of course, over the perilous precipice 
 in such a way, that the Weird Sisters are evoked from the 
 shadowy gulf below, and in sucli a tempting, balancing 
 attitude, that it is much more easy for the Devil to steal 
 behind and topple the peering spirit over. Nor did he 
 create and people his world of spirits by merely collecting 
 the shreds and patches of tradition, but from the vita- 
 lizing life of his own belief ; the faith that is an effluent 
 shaping power. 
 
 The more we study the works of Shakspeare, the more 
 we shall feel how natural piety made a large part of the 
 cheerful sunshine that smiles out in his philosophy of Hfe. 
 And in great emergencies we may see the flash of a re- 
 ligious feeling large enough for life, and deep enough for 
 death. How frank and bold, for example, is that expres- 
 sion of trust in the Divine when Banquo, encompassed by 
 dangers, exclaims — 
 
 ' In the great hand of God 1 stand ! ' 
 
 And when the fatal presentiment, wliich Shakspeare so 
 often recognises, comes over Hamlet, *what does he say ? 
 ' Thou knowest not Horatio, how iU all is here about my
 
 HIS NATURAL I'lETY. 055 
 
 heart : bat there is a special Providence even in tlie fall 
 of a sparrow.' What a world of meaning there is in the 
 confession of that rogue ' Autolycus' — giving us his view 
 of spiritual matters ! — ' as for the life to come, I sleej) out 
 the thouglit of it.' Frequent and fervent is the appeal to 
 tlie world hereafter, that is to make the 'odds' of this 
 ' all even,' and to Ilim who is the 'top of justice,' and his 
 ' eternal justicers.' lleverence, he calls ' that Angel of 
 tlie world.' How tender, gracious, reverential, grows his 
 language in Hamlet at the mention of our Saviour's birth ; 
 enough to show that he had the true flavour of that quaint 
 Elizabethan piety and touching sense of the human per- 
 sonahty of our Saviour, which led Dekkar to describe him 
 as the ' first true gentleman that ever breathed,' and old 
 Sylvanus Morgan to give coat armour to * gentleman 
 Jesus,' as he called him in his ' Sphere of Gentry.' ^ 
 
 Let us turn once more to that noble somiet (146), in 
 which he gives the gay young gallant the solemn address 
 to his soul, and which really is the writer's own comment 
 on the subject, embodying the essence of a thousand ser- 
 mons in a work only meant for amusement, conveying, at 
 the same time, the loftiest rebuke to those who have in- 
 sulted the great spirit with their gross sense. 
 
 * Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth — 
 My sinful earth these rebel powers array — 
 Why dost thou pine witliin and suffer dearth ; 
 Paintinof thy outward walls so costly gay ? 
 
 ' Morgan, however, is indebted to Dame Juliana Berners for the expres- 
 sion. In her Treatise on Coat Amiour she calls the ' gentyl Jesus Cryst ' 
 a 'gentleman of his mother's belialf.' According to this authority, ' Seth,' 
 the son of Adam, was a gentleman born, ' through his Father's and Mother's 
 blessing,' which is a departure from the code of the ' Book of Honour ' 
 (loOO, quarto), wherein a Gentleman means one who has descended from 
 three degrees of (ientr\', both on the Father's and ^Mother's side. Sliak- 
 speare has his joke on this subject. There is an allusion in 'King Lear' to 
 a * Yeoman who has a Gentleman to his son,' almost unintelligible except on 
 personal grounds ; and another in the * Winter's Tale,' where the Clown says 
 he wa-5 'a Gentleman before his father.' It looks as though Shakspeare did
 
 5oG SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?' 
 Sliall worms, inheritors of this excess, 
 Eat up thy charge ? Is this the body's end ? 
 Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss. 
 And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; 
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
 Within be fed, without be rich no more. 
 
 So shalt thou feed on Death that feeds on men, 
 And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.' ' 
 
 But, it is not in hints and allusions like these that I 
 would seek for evidence of Shakspeare's rehgious feehiig, 
 or we might multiply them, so much as in his dumb 
 appeal to such feelings as are left vibrating when some 
 great tragedy of his is over. It plainly appears to me 
 that amidst all the storms of life in which humanity may 
 be wrecked, the horror of great darkness in which the 
 powers of evil prevail, the misery and madness and mid- 
 night homelessness of poor, witless, white-headed old 
 Lear, with his blindness of trust and broken-heartedness 
 of love, Shakspeare knows right well where there is peace 
 beyond the tempest. Strange glimpses lighten through 
 the rents of ruin. He sees the waves roll on, and life 
 buffeted and tossed with the turmoil, and all the agony of 
 sinking hearts and outstretched hands ; but he also sees 
 the unmoving Eternity, and the 'so long impossible' rest. 
 He knows well enough where the compensations lie for 
 the great dumb love of Cordelia, which could not get 
 expression in life. He knew of aU the love in the hearts 
 of father and child, which would take an eternity to fully 
 unfold ; and where could he pillow it with more infinite 
 suggestiveness than beside the grave ? It is for us to see 
 
 refer to his 'beiiig a Gentleman on the Mother's side, whereas his Father was 
 only a Franklin. Very possibly this was a standing joke in the Shakspeare 
 family. 
 
 ' 'Neither can thoy die any more. For Death, the last enemy, is 
 destroyed.'
 
 FINAL APPEAL OF HIS TRAGEDY. 557 
 
 what is dimly visible through that dark window of the 
 other world ! He has said his say — let the rest be told 
 in silence ! And the soul must be dull indeed whose 
 sight has not been purged and feeling purified for the 
 loftier vision on the spiritual stage. Our interest does 
 not cease when the drama is ended. ' To be continued ' 
 is plainly written at the close of its fifth act. The heart- 
 ache which he has given us demands and draws the other 
 world near for very pity and comfort. You cannot help 
 looking up from amid the shadows of the dark valley to 
 where the lii>lit is breakinoj overhead, and feel a touch of 
 those immortal relationships which live beyond the 
 human. Let no one suppose that Shakspeare's genius, 
 being of such stature as it was, could not rise up and 
 'take the morning' that Hes beyond this night of time 
 where bewildered souls so often get beclouded. The fixed 
 calm of his eye, and the patient smile almost hovering 
 about his lips, with which he is able to contemplate the 
 workings of error and evil, and the victories of adverse 
 fate, imply his trust in that revelation which has called in 
 the New World of Christianity to redress the wrong mea- 
 sures and false balances of the Old. Thus all the action 
 of his tragedy, though confined to human life and this 
 round of time, has a reacting and em^iching influence 
 from the touch of other worlds. The sea of life and its 
 tides of passion, moved to the depths, do not merely 
 throw two dead bodies on the shore ; there are also 
 soids at rest, with a radiance on the ripple such as makes 
 the dark deeps beautifid. All this is natural result. It 
 was not Shakspeare's place as a writer of tragedj- to 
 frighten us and then say something for our comfort. lie 
 points no moral, winds up with no sermon. It is his 
 work to create interest, to quicken sympathy and enlarge 
 Hfe ; the rest follows. He knew how much Nature wiU 
 work for her favourites, and he was her own best 
 favourite, so he has only to set her well at work and
 
 558 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 quietly steal away, leaving Nature to finish. In this re- 
 spect his negative power is as great and surprising as the 
 positive capacity : what he does not do is often as 
 remarkable and effective as what he does ! 
 
 Great tragedy works some of its deepest effects 
 dumbly. It gives us a more significant version of that 
 sentiment — 
 
 ' Silence in love bewrays more woe 
 Than words tho' ne'er so witty ; 
 A beggar that is dumb, you know, 
 May challenge double pity.' 
 
 So is it with the final appeal of Shakspeare's ; and though 
 it leaves you gazing with streaming eyes on those two 
 dead lovers in the dim vault at Verona, yet has he suc- 
 ceeded in creating such a swelling spirit within you, put 
 such a breath of the eternal into your sad sigli that the 
 soul mounts into majesty and reigns and rules high above 
 the region of storms, where the spirits of those immortal 
 lovers shaU live their married life and part no more. 
 
 He was indeed the 'priest to all time of the wonder 
 and bloom of the world which he saw with his eyes and 
 was glad.' By all the forces of inner nature and outer 
 circumstance he was broadened to embrace human life 
 rather than narrowed to strike up keenly into the region 
 of abstract speculation. The fruit himself of a ripe time, 
 in him general humanity reaches its ripeness. 'Eipe- 
 ness is all,' he says, in ' Lear,' and in a sense this ripeness 
 was all to him ; he leaves the fruit where it falls. But, 
 he knew, none better, that the ripeness contained the seed 
 of life hereafter ; and ' ripeness ' with him means readi- 
 ness. He was the very spirit of the sense personified, but 
 no positive philosopher who is put out by a Providence 
 — the incalculable force that for ever expands dead law 
 with breathing life ! And he always makes room for 
 this in his dramatic arrangements ; catches the awful
 
 Ills RETIREMENT FROM THE STAGE. 559 
 
 Avliispcr of the Iiifiiiito ; is conscious of its weird watching 
 eyes, and its liorizon of mystery. If we cannot get at tlie 
 Man Shakspeare then, we can get at the Philosoplier, and 
 tliis was just the most natural of philoso[)liers ; the spirit 
 of the man shines through all his philosopliy. It is a 
 folly to talk al^out tlie little we know of Shakspeare, 
 wlien with a vitalizing spirit of research we might learn 
 so much ! 
 
 It is pleasant to think of our great Poet so amply reap- 
 ing the fruits of his industry and prudence early in hfe, and 
 spending his calm latter days in the old home of his boy- 
 hood wliich he had left a-foot and come back to in the 
 saddle. The date of his retirement from London cannot 
 be determined. I am decidedly of opinion that it was 
 before the publication of the sonnets, in 1609, and other 
 circumstances seem to indicate that he was living at Strat- 
 ford, in 1G08, in the August of which year he sued 
 Addenbroke ; on the Gth of September, his Mother was 
 buried ; and, on the 16th of October, he w^as sponsor at 
 the baptism of Henry Walker's son. Here, again, the 
 Southampton letter agrees exactly with the other evi- 
 dence in pointing out the year 1608 as the time at which 
 the Poet finally ceased to be an actor. 
 
 He had the feeling, inexpressibly strong with English- 
 men, for owning a bit of this dear land of ours and hving in 
 one's own house ; paying rent to no man. We know how 
 he clung to his native place all througli his London hfe, 
 strenixtheninix his rootasje there all the while. We learn 
 how he went back once a year to the field-flowers of 
 his childhood to hear in the leaves the whispers of 
 Long-Ago and ' get some green ' — as Chaucer says — 
 where the overflowing treasure of youth had, dew-like, 
 given its glory to the gi'ass, its freshness to the flower, 
 and climb the liills up which the boy had rmi, and loiter 
 along the lanes where he had courted his wife as they 
 two went slowly on the way to Shottciy, and the boy
 
 5G0 SI-LUvSPEARE'S SOXXETS. 
 
 tliouglit Anne Hathaway very fair whilst hngering in the 
 tender twilight, and the honeysuckles smelled sweet in 
 the dusk, and the star of love shone and shook with 
 tremulous splendour, and Wilhe's arm was round her, 
 and in their eyes would glisten the dews of that most 
 balmy time. 
 
 We might fancy, too, that on the stage, when he was 
 playing some comparatively silent part, his heart would 
 steal away and the audience melt from before his face, as he 
 wandered back to where the reeds were sighing by Avon 
 stream, and the Nightingale was singing in the Wier-brake 
 just below Stratford Churcli, and the fond fatherly heart 
 took another look at the grave of little Hamnet — patting it, 
 as it were, ^vitli an affectionate '■Come to you, little one^ by 
 and by,' and the play was like an unsubstantial pageant 
 faded in the presence of that scenery of his soul. 
 
 Only we know what a practical fellow he was, and if 
 any such thought came into his mind it would be put 
 back with a ' lie thou there, Sweetheart,' and he would 
 have addressed himself more sturdily than ever to the 
 business in hand. 
 
 At last he had come back to hve and write ; die and 
 be buried at home. He had returned to the old place 
 laden with honours and bearing his sheaves with him ; 
 wearing the cro^vn invisible to most of his neighbours, 
 but having also such possessions as they could appreciate. 
 They looked up to him now, for the son of poor John 
 Shakspeare, the despised deer-stealer and player, had 
 become a most respectable man, able to spend 500/. or 
 so a year amongst them. He could sit under his own 
 vine, and watch the ongoings of country life whilst 
 waiting for the sunset of his own ; nestle in the bosom of 
 his own family, walk forth in his own fields, plant his 
 mulberry-tree, compose several of his noblest dramas, and 
 ripen for his rest in the place where he had climbed for 
 birds'-nests, and, as they say, poached for deer by moon-
 
 FELLOW TOWNSMEN. •'''>! 
 
 light. I think ha must have enjoyed it all vastlj^ lie 
 entered into local plans, and astonished his fellow-towns- 
 men by his business habits. And they would hkc 
 him too, if only because he was so practical by habit, so 
 English in feeling. We know that he fought on their 
 side in resisting an encroachment upon Welcomb Com- 
 mon. He 'could not bear the enclosing of Welcomlj,' 
 he said. We feel, however, that as he moved amongst 
 these honest, unsuspecting folk, with so grave and douce 
 a fiice, he must have had internal ticklings at times, and 
 quite enough to do to keep quiet those sprites of mirth 
 and mischief lurkinj^ in the corners of his mouth and in 
 the twinlvle of his eyes as he thought how much ca]:)ital 
 he had made out of them, and how he had taken their 
 traits of character to market, and turned them into the 
 very money to which his fellow-townsmen were so 
 respectfid now. 
 
 The few fiicts that we get of Shakspeare's life at Strat- 
 ford are very homely, and one or two of his footprints 
 there are very earthy ; but they tell us it was the foot of 
 a sturdy, upright, matter-of-fact Englishman, such as will 
 find a firm standing-place even in the dirt, and it corre- 
 sponds to the bust in the Church at Stratford. Both 
 represent, though coarsely, that yeoman side of liis natiu'e 
 which would be most visible in his everyday deaUngs 
 with men. For example, we learn that in August, 1608, 
 he brought an action against John Addenbroke for the 
 recovery of a debt. The verdict was in his favour, but 
 the defendant had no effects. Shakspeare then proceeded 
 against Thomas Horneby, who had been bail for Adden- 
 broke. We cannot judge of the humanity of the case. 
 The law says the Poet was right. But, by this we may infer 
 that Shakspeare had learned to look on the world in tt)o 
 practical a way to stand any nonsense. He woidd be 
 abused, no doubt, for making anybody cash up that owed 
 him money. There would be people who had come to 
 

 
 562 SHAKSPEARE'S SOXA'ETS. 
 
 argiie that a player had no prescriptive or natural right to 
 be prudent and thrifty, or exact in money transactions. 
 Shakspeare thought differently. He had to deal with 
 many coarse and pitiful facts of human life ; and this he 
 had learned to do in a strong, effectual way. There 
 would be a good deal of coarse, honest prose even in 
 Shakspeare, but no sham poetry of false sentimentality. 
 What he had made up his mind to do, he would do 
 thoroughly. He was a man of business, and why should 
 he not apply their own laws to the Medes and Persians of 
 money ? 
 
 We get a fact curiously illustrative of Shakspeare's 
 domestic life from the Chamberlain's accounts of the year 
 1614 :— . 
 
 * Item, for one quart of sack, and one quart of clarett winne, 
 given to a preacher at the New Place, XXcZ.' 
 
 It has been suggested, that the Poet may have lent his 
 house for the occasion, as he himself could have had little 
 sympathy with a Puritan preacher. But it would be very 
 ungracious, not to say unflxir, to suppose that Shakspeare 
 lent his house for the entertainment, and took himself off 
 whilst the wine was drinking. This entry affords a most 
 interesting subject for conjecture. If we take it in another 
 aspect, is it not strange that the Puritan preacher should 
 have been located at the house of a player and playwright.^ 
 Por this, I think, is one of the earliest, if not the first, 
 instances of such an entry. Possibly the connexion was 
 through Shaks]ieare's daughter, Susanna, who may have 
 lived at New Place. Her epitaph tells of her being ' wise 
 to salvation,' and a good Christian. I do not suppose that 
 the Poet took much personal interest in the matter, doc- 
 trinally. He was not the man to be lightly caught up and 
 his wits set waltzing by every or any circling cyclone that 
 might gyrate over a small tract of the national mind. But 
 he was the kindly Christian to opon jiis house to a man
 
 I'LAVWKIGIIT AND I'lKlTAN". .'.•;.! 
 
 wJiom otliers of his local standing niiglit feel sliy of. It 
 is my belief however, that Shakspeare entertained the 
 preacher just for the fun of the thing; a great part of 
 the fun being the serious interest sliown hy liis good 
 daugliter, the best of it all being Susanna's consternation 
 when the Poet had drawn out the old Adam of the 
 Preacher's carnal man, with his own cliirrupiug canaiy 
 wine, and charming talk, and roguisli twinkle of wit, and 
 she was called upon to lend a hand in lielping to gather 
 up the fragments of her broken idol, by getting him off 
 to bed. For it is my settled conviction, that those two 
 quarts of wine and sack were not the only ones drank in 
 'New Place,' that niglit. If that Puritan were not one of 
 the sourest-blooded then going, we may conclude tliat lie 
 ripened in the sunny presence of his host ; and the godly 
 man never knew how much wine he had taken, if the 
 Corporation knew what they had to pay for. Shakspeare 
 must have had the very soul of hospitahty. He kept open 
 house and open heart for troops of friends, and loved to 
 enfranchise and set flying the ' dear prisoned spirits of the 
 impassioned grape ; ' many a time was his broad silver 
 and gilt bowl set steaming ; his smile of welcome beamed 
 like the sun throufrh mist ; liis laro-e heart welled with 
 humanity, and overflowed with good fellowship ; his talk 
 brightened the social circle with ripple after ripple of 
 radiant humour. And who can doubt that he was 'at 
 home ' to a friend of Mistress Hall ; sat in his own seat, 
 and presided at his own board and bowl ? 
 
 The tradition runs, that he caught liis death throudi 
 leaving his bed when ill, because some of his old fi-iends 
 and playfellows had called upon liim for a carouse. He 
 was quite unselfish enough for that; also too wise. The 
 probability is that he died very suddenly of a fever. 
 
 And what was this man like in person when ho walked 
 our world ? Thackeray has said that he would have liked 
 to have blaeked Sliakspeare's shoes, just to have looked 
 
 o o 2
 
 5G4 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 up into his face. We would give a great deal for a genuine 
 carte of his visit here ! Next to looking on the face of 
 him who spake ' as never man spake,' one would like to 
 have seen the living Uneanients of him who wrote as 
 never man wrote ; who contained such huge intellectual 
 forces, and vast possibilities of being ; so prodigal a fulness 
 of life, and so Protean a plasticity of power, that he could 
 body forth in liis works, characters enough to people a 
 world, and render a fair representation of our race : the man 
 who made the Map of Humanity — he whose nature con- 
 tained the awful rage of such a tempest of power as that 
 in which the reason of old Lear is wrecked, on such a niglit 
 of storm — the pathos of Lear's poor loveable, fond Fool — 
 the grace of Ariel, and grotesqueness of Caliban — the chi- 
 valry of Henry Y., the wit of Mercutio, the sweetbriar 
 pungency of pretty peerless Perdita — and all those ' gra- 
 cious silences,' and low-voiced loveable Avomen, few of 
 whom we shall meet upon our pilgrimage here, but whicli 
 will be preserved, we may well imagine, as patterns to be 
 copied from in other lives to come, and yet untrodden 
 worlds, with tlie chance of our meeting them hereafter ! 
 What a life it must have been, when all his characters 
 only reveal something of it in shadowy imagery, the pic- 
 tures on the walls ! What a Spirit ! When the ' Works of 
 Shakspeare ' are but the leafage and bloom it shed during 
 its season of time on earth ! if such be the foliage and 
 bloom til at have fallen from it, what must the fruit be 
 that still ripens on for eternity? 
 
 I take it that the Droeshout Etching roughly gives us 
 the Poet in his mid-manhood, and the Stratford Bust the 
 grander man, who created Lady Macbeth, Lear, Timon, 
 Othello, and Prospero, but smacking more of the jollity 
 of his country life. Mr. Dyce observes that the Bust ex- 
 hibits the Poet in the act of composition, and enjoying, as 
 it were, the richness of his own conceptions. 
 
 A happy remark in illustration of Shakspeare's smile
 
 THE STRATFOrtD BUST. r/jo 
 
 was made by R. B. Ilaydon in a note of his, written 
 June IStli, 1828, in the album kept at Stratford Church. 
 Sj)eaking of the bust, he says, ' TJie foreliead is fine as 
 Ivapliael's or Bacon's, and the form of the nose and ex- 
 quisite refinement of the mouth, witli its amiable, genial 
 hilarity of wit and good nature, so characteristic, imidea/, 
 bearing truth in every curve, with a Utile bit of the teeth 
 showing at the moment of smiling, ichich must have been 
 often seen by those who had the Jiappiness to kiuno Shak- 
 speare, and must have been pointed out to the sculptor as 
 necessary to likeness ivhen he icas dead.'^ 
 
 These two, the etching and bust, are sufficient for us to 
 re-create our Shakspeare as a man of sturdy build, with a 
 royal head and large lineaments. The hair of a warm 
 brown, and the beard somewhat more golden ; a man, 
 not made out of cheeseparings and heeltaps, but lull of 
 ripe life and cordial spirits and concentrated energy ; with 
 eyes to be felt by those whom they looked on ; such eyes 
 as see most thincjs without the head tm-nino; about ; a full 
 mouth, frank and brave, and richly humorous, capable 
 of giving free utterance to the laugh that would ring out 
 of the manly chest with all liis heart in it. But there are 
 lines in the face, and the forehead is not quite so smooth 
 as we have been accustomed to see in his portraits ; the 
 hair is waxing thinner; the beard growing grizzled. It is a 
 face that would look weather-beaten in the country, and 
 dusky in London ; being something coarse in the grain. 
 Not without bodily waste have the wear of life and work, 
 and the touch of time, shaped out the statue of such a 
 mighty soul ! And, on the whole, we imagine that liad it 
 been possible to have met our Poet in the streets of Strat- 
 ford, and looked on him as he lived, aged about fifty, we 
 should have been disappointed with his general appear- 
 ance. To us he is all immortal now ; and we shoidd be 
 looking for the halo, the garland, and the singing-robes 
 
 ' Shak-<pearc Society's Paj)c>s, vol. ii. p. 10.
 
 50G SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 about liim, but we should find a man who wore good 
 sound boots on his feet — not sandals — and a hat pnlled 
 rather tightly down over his magnificent brow. He would 
 not hold the lyre in his hand, and no wings would have 
 sprung at his shoulders. lie might be carrying samples 
 of corn, and meditating the price current, or congratula- 
 ting himseh" on having sold his shares before the Globe 
 Theatre was burned down. We must have attained a 
 most uncommon mastery of the sordid and fleshly facts of 
 human existence before we could possibly recognise our 
 Poet. If told that this was the man, he would not be our 
 Shakspeare. Him we should still have to seek in his 
 works. 
 
 His sudden death after so recent a record of his ' per- 
 fect health,' is quite in keeping with our idea of the man 
 Shakspeare, who was the very image of Life incarnate. 
 Such a death best embodies such an immortal spirit of 
 Hfe ; gives the finishing touch, and leaves us an image 
 in the mortal sphere, almost as consummate and un- 
 decaying as is the shape of immortality put on by him 
 in the realm of ]\iind. He went with his powers fuU- 
 summed ; his faculties in full lustre ; his fires unquenched, 
 his sympathies unsubdued. There was no returning tide 
 of an ebbing manhood, but the great ocean of his life, 
 that had gathered its wealth from a thousand springs, rose 
 to the perfect height, touched the complete circle, and 
 in its spacious fulness was still.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 nr.o 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 CUPID'S BRAND : TWO ODD SONNETS, 
 
 These two fragments or exercises have no necessary rela- 
 tion to either of the series of sonnets written for the Earl of 
 Southampton and William Herbert. I only include tliem 
 in my work, for the sake of making my reprint of Shak- 
 speare's Sonnets complete. These essays prove that the 
 Poet had nothing to do with making up the collection for 
 the Press. He w^oidd not have published a double treat- 
 ment of one idea hke this ; it could have no meaning, 
 save to show his cleverness. They, together witli the 
 ' Lover's Lament,' also prove that extraneous things were 
 gathered into Thorpe's Book, by William Herbert. 
 
 Cupid laid by bis brand and fell asleep, 
 A maid of Dian's this advantage found, 
 And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep 
 In a cold valley-fountain of that ground. 
 Which borrowed from this holy fire of love 
 A dateless-lively heat, still to endure, 
 And grew a seething bath which yet men prove 
 Against strange maladies a sovereign cure : 
 But at my Mistress ' eyes Love's brand new-fired. 
 The Boy for trial needs would touch my breast ; 
 I, sick withal, the help o' the bath desired. 
 And thither hied a sad distempered guest. 
 
 But found no cure : The bath for my help Ues 
 Where Cupid got new tire— my Misties^s" eycf:.
 
 670 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 The little Love-God lying once asleep, 
 Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, 
 Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste lives to keep, 
 Came tripping by ; but in her maiden-hand 
 The faii-est votary took up that fire 
 Which many legions of true hearts had warmed. 
 And so the General of hot desire 
 Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed : 
 This brand she quenched in a cool well by. 
 Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual. 
 Growing a bath and healthful remedy 
 For men diseased : but I, my Mistress' thrall. 
 Came there for cure, and this by that I prove — 
 Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. 
 
 (154.)
 
 0/ I 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 DKAYTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 It is understood that we have no contemporary notice of 
 the sonnets in MS., other than that of Meres. I cannot, 
 however, get rid of the idea that Drayton makes a re- 
 markable aUusion to them in some hnes of his Epistle on 
 ' Poets and Poesy.' He has spoken of Shakspeare by 
 name as a Comedian in whom the player predominates ; 
 considers him as good a Poet in the smooth comic vein, 
 as any that liad trafficked with the stage in his time ; 
 reserving his fire for Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Later 
 on in the poem are these remarkable Hnes ! 
 
 ' For such whose poems be they ne'er so rare. 
 In private chambers that encloistered are, 
 Aud bu transcription daintily must go 
 As tho' the ivorld umvorthy were to know 
 Their rich composures, let those men who keep 
 These wondrous relics in their judgement deep, 
 And cry them up so let such pieces be 
 Spoke of by those that shall come after me.' 
 
 Questionless Shakspearc's sonnets were not the only 
 poetry then lianded about in MS. amongst private friends, 
 aud spoken of as being rich as it was rare. Still there is 
 something very special in this description. It does not 
 apply to any known poetry of the kind, nor liit the exact 
 circumstantial conchtions, a« it does to the sonnets of
 
 572 SHAIvSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Shakspeare. \Ye have nothing of the sort identified as the 
 sonnets are by the mention of Meres. In truth the hnes 
 seem to reply to Meres as consciously as does the title in 
 Thorpe's Book. Here are the ' rare poems ' for ' sugred son- 
 nets,' the 'private chambers' for 'private friends,' the friends 
 who keep the sonnets, for the friends among whom Shak- 
 speare's sonnets are, and the men who cry up these relics 
 in their judgement deejj ! The critic Meres for example. 
 Tliere is a feeling of annoyance expressed, a sneer at the 
 poetry that is too rare for the common hght of day, but 
 must go daintily in delicate handwriting, be kept en- 
 cloistered in a sumptuous privacy, read by the coloured 
 hght of friendship, and exalted so to those on the out- 
 side who are not permitted to judge if the report be 
 true. All this is far too exphcit to be general, and must 
 have had a particular aim. It smacks of a personal pique. 
 And the author of these lines, we infer, had some such 
 feeling towards Shakspeare, or there was a coolness be- 
 tween them, from the fact that Drayton printed an eulogy 
 of Shakspeare, as the Poet of Lucrece, in his ' Matilda the 
 Fair and Chaste Daughter of Lord Eobert Eitzwater,' 
 wdiich complimentary reference to 
 
 ' Lucrece, of whom proud Eome hath boasted long, 
 Lately revived to live another age !' 
 
 was allowed to stand in the second edition of the poem 
 (L59G), but was omitted from aU subsequent editions. 
 What was the cause we know not. It may be that the 
 Poet was piqued at Shakspeare's not reciprocating his 
 praise. Whatever it was, some slight ill-feeling underlay 
 the act of Drayton, and if these lines do apply to Shak- 
 speare's Sonnets the expression is most apposite under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Mr. Collier states that the Epistle appeared in print for 
 the first time in the year 1627, but tliat affords no clue to 
 the date at which it was written. Drayton had been pub-
 
 DRAYTON'S SUPPOSED UEFEnENCE TO Tin:.M IN MS. .073 
 
 lisliing little ; he did not ])riiit anytliing betwixt his 
 * Legend of Great Cromwell' (1G07) and his ' Toly- 
 olbion (1613-22), as his poetry had no great success. It 
 may be that the publication of the sonnets in 1009 was 
 one cause why these hues were so long kept back. It was 
 a private Epistle, and the great probabiUty is that some 
 lines of it, early written, were afterwards added to when 
 the poem was published. I am unable to persuade myself 
 that the lines quoted do not refer to Shakspeare's Sonnets 
 in MS., or tliat tiiey were not written during the earlier 
 period of Shakspeare's career. Surely it w^ould have been 
 too absurd on the part of Michael Drayton, who had the 
 Poet's rage but mildly, to have merely praised Shakspeare 
 for his ' smooth comic vein ' if the hues had been composed 
 after 'Othello,' 'Lear,' and ' Macbeth' had been produced! 
 Shakspeare unquestionably borrowed from Drayton's 
 ' Nymphidia ' to set forth his ' Queen Mab,' and enrich his 
 fairy world of the ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' Possibly 
 Drayton resented this. 
 
 It has been held difficult to determine which was the 
 borrower in another instance. In his poem of the ' Barons' 
 Wars ' (1603), Drayton has these Hues — 
 
 ' Such one he was (of him we boldly sa}") 
 In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit, 
 In whom in peace the elements all lay 
 So mixt as none could sovereignty impute. 
 As all did govern yet all did obey : 
 His lively temper was so absolute. 
 That it seemed, when Heaven his model first began. 
 In him it showed perfection in a Man !' 
 
 Everyone remembers Antony's description of Brutus : — 
 
 * This was the noblest Eoman of them all ! 
 His life was gentle : and the elements 
 So mixed in him that Nature miglit stand up 
 And say to all the world " Tkis was a Man.'" '
 
 574 SHAKSPEARE'S SOXNETS. 
 
 This looks remarkably like one of Shakspeare's cases of 
 compression ; his stamp on another man's material. 
 
 I do not think 'Julius Cajsar' was written before 1608-9, 
 after ' Antony and Cleopatra,' and my impression is that 
 it was followed by ' Coriolanus ' about 1611. One reason 
 being that in the latter play Shakspeare replies to Davies' 
 lines, which appear not to have been published before 
 1610 or 1611. Be this as it may, it is noticeable that in a 
 later edition of his poem (1619) Drayton has returned to 
 his description, and retouched it into a still nearer like- 
 ness to that of Shakspeare. The last two lines are altered 
 thus : — 
 
 ' As that it seemed when Nature him began, 
 She meant to shoio all that might he in man.' 
 
 It certainly has every appearance of Drayton's hues having 
 been first written, and of his returning to them, after Shak- 
 speare had taken the thought to reclaim his own, improved 
 by the added touch of the greater Poet, only there is at 
 least one more fact in the case to be taken into account. 
 
 In ' Hamlet ' Shakspeare liad first of all written of tlie 
 Prince's dead father — 
 
 ' A combination and a form indeed, 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
 To give the world assm'ance of a Man.' 
 
 Thus the first appearance of the thouglit is, so far as the 
 evidence goes, in Shakspeare's work, but the after-con- 
 tention for it is curious.
 
 675 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FAVOUPtlTES. 
 
 Two of the persons with whom my Theory is concerned 
 having been spoken of in this work as Favourites Apparent 
 to Queen Ehzabeth, I should like to ask, for tlie sake of 
 information, what we are to understand by the term ' Fa- 
 vourite ? ' What in the minds of our modern Elizabethans 
 does it mean ? What was that relationship to Elizabeth 
 with the one name and so many persons, including Leices- 
 ter, Hatton, Ealeigh, Essex, Southampton, Herbert, Carey 
 and others? 
 
 ' I have learnt,' says De Quadra, the Spanish Ambas- 
 sador, writing in 1559, according to ]\Ir. Froude, 'I have 
 learnt also certain otlier tilings as to the terms on wliich 
 the Queen and Lord Eobert stand toward each other, 
 which I could not have believed.' These terms are written 
 in the next year to the Duchess of Parma thus : — ' The 
 Lord Eobert hath made himself master of the business of 
 the state and the person of the Queen ; ' and again lie 
 says, ' this woman is likely to go to sleep in the palace and 
 wake with her Lover in tlie Tower.' 
 
 In allusion to the current talk on the subject of the 
 Dudley amom- De Quadra also reports that the Queen 
 said she 'was afraid the Archduke Chnrlos miirht take
 
 f)76 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 advantage of the scandal which could not foil to reach his 
 ears on his arrival in England, and should he not marry 
 her (in consequence) her honour might suffer.' Should 
 not innocence have remained proudly silent ? Why should 
 her Majesty have met scandal one half-way if she had not 
 previously advanced the other half? 
 
 Then, there is the letter of expostulation and advice, 
 addressed to Sir Christopher Hatton (Harin.MSS. 787. f.88) 
 by Sir Edward Dyer, printed in Davison's Poetical Ehap- 
 sody, by Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1826). In the year 
 1572 the dancing Chancellor had incurred the Queen's 
 displeasure, and this letter of Dyer's reads as though it 
 were a persuasion for Hatton not to follow a course pri- 
 vately spoken of, and he uses these extraordinary words : 
 ' Though she do descend very much in her sex as a woman^ 
 yet we may not forget her place, and the 7iature of it ; ' and 
 ' For though in the beginning when her Majesty sought you 
 [after her good manner\ she did bear with rugged dealing 
 of yours, until she had what she fancied, yet now, after 
 satiety and fulness, it (such mode of action as Hatton had 
 contemplated) will rather hurt titan help you^ If this 
 letter be genuine my question regarding the meaning of 
 the word ' Favourite ' is answered. But, is it a forgery ? 
 Sir Edward Dyer appears to have been looked up to by 
 the Eoyal Favom^ites at times as a Mentor in certam pri- 
 vate matters pertaining to the Court. He had himself 
 hovered on the borderland, and once caught a glimpse of 
 the Delectable Mountains of Favouritism. Curiously 
 enough Essex writes to him when in a like fix and with a 
 similar feeling to Hatton — if Hatton really wrote the letter 
 which Dyer is presumed to answer. Essex writes to Dyer 
 July 31st, 1587. Two months before, he was first in favour; 
 Mr. Antliony Bagot writing to his father in May of the 
 same year, says: — 'When she (the Queen) is abroad,, 
 nobody near her but my Lord of Essex ; and at night 
 my Lord is at cards, or one game or another ^vith her,
 
 MYSTERIOUS AT.LCSIONS. o77 
 
 that lie Cometh not to his own lo(.lirin<r till birds sinf' in 
 the morning.' ' But now he has liad a quarrel with the 
 Queen and is starting off for the siege of vSluys. 
 
 Essex tells Dyer that he has been ' this morning at 
 Winchester House ' to seek him, and he continues, ' / 
 would have given a thousand pounds 1o have had one 
 hours speech with you ; so much I would liearken to your 
 counsel^ and so greatly do I esteem your friendship.' - 
 
 The cause of quarrel is the Earl's rivalry with Ealeigh 
 in Elizabeth's favour. And Essex says, ' I did let her 
 know whether I had cause to disdain his competition of 
 love, or whether I could have comfort to give myself over 
 to the service of a Mistress that was in awe of such a man ! ' 
 
 What can Eowland White have aimed at in his letter 
 of October 1st, 1595, when he writes 
 
 ' My Lord of Essex kept his bed all yesterda3\ Ilis 
 favour continues quam diu se bene gesserit. Yet my 
 Lord of Southampton is a careful waiter here, and sede 
 vacante, doth receive favours at her Majesty's hands ; all 
 this without breach of amity between them ? ' 
 
 One would also like to know what Avas the precise 
 meaning of Fidke Greville's proposition to make South- 
 ampton tlie Favourite in place of Essex, as related by 
 Wotton ? 
 
 And what are we to luiderstand from certain hints of 
 Eowland White, such as these : — 
 
 'It is nuittered that youufi Sir lien. Carey stands to be 
 a Favourite ; that his lady mother and my Lady Hunsdon 
 do further it and grace it.' 
 
 ' Now that my Lord Herbert is gone he is veiy much 
 blamed for his cold and weak manner of pursuing her 
 Majesty's favour. Young Carey foll(^ws it with more 
 care, and boldness. Some jealousy T had that you weie 
 sent away because you should not be here to advise and 
 
 1 JJlif/iJiM MSS. • liodkum. Tiuiiur M^>). 7(-i. 4(J. 
 
 r p
 
 578 SHAKSPK\RE'S SONNETS. 
 
 counsel liim (Herbert) in a matter of such greatness ; for 
 surely it would be to your good to see him a Favourite' 
 Again, we read in the Life of Edward Herbert, Lord 
 Cherbury, that when he first appeared at Court, he was 
 kneeling with the rest in the presence chamber, as the 
 Queen passed by to the Chapel at Whitehall, and, seeing 
 him, her Majesty stopped to ask who he was. On being 
 told that he was married, she, swearing her ordinary 
 oath, said, ' It is a pity he was married so young,' and 
 thereupon gave him her hand to kiss twice, both times 
 clapping him on the cheek. Various such illustrations of 
 character and conduct call to mind the coarse charge of 
 Cardinal Allen, in his 'Admonition to the people of 
 England,' which states that the Queen ' made her Coiu"t 
 as a trap to entangle in sin, and overthrow the younger 
 sort of the nobility and gentry of the land,' and make one 
 wonder more and more what feelino; it was that stirred 
 the virgin breast so strongly toward the comely young 
 courtiers, to the marriage of whom she had such insuper- 
 able objections. 
 
 It does not in the least help to fathom the secret of 
 this Favouriteship, through which Hatton, Leicester, and 
 Essex passed ; for which Southampton was proposed, and 
 to which honour Herbert might have aspired if he would, 
 but was out-distanced by ' young Carey,' to point to the 
 age of the Queen and the youth of the young nobles. 
 Many aged persons have had extremely youthful tastes. 
 It was a characteristic of the Tudor tooth. Besides the 
 Queen prided herself on not looking or growing old as 
 other women did. And according to unsuspected contem- 
 porary testimony, she must have borne her years very 
 youthfully. Jacob Eathgeb, wlio wrote the story of 
 Duke Frederick of Wirtemburgh, in ' England as seen by 
 Foreigners,' saw her Majesty in her 59th year, and, think- 
 ing; she was 67 at the time, he records that, although 
 she had borne the heavy burthen of ruhng a kingdom
 
 QUEEX ELIZAI'.KTir. 579 
 
 for 34 years, she need not indeed — to judge both from 
 her person and appearance — yield much to a young girl of 
 sixteen ! 
 
 My chief interest at present in the subject mooted, is in 
 relation to the Earl of Southampton and Elizabeth Ver- 
 non, and her Majesty's persistent opposition to then' 
 marriac^e. This led me to note other curious circum- 
 stances. Will some devout Elizabethan help me out of 
 my doubt and difficulty ? Will Mr. Kingsley, who, in his 
 paper on lialeigh, vouches with so much certitude for 
 the Queen's virtue ? Perhaps Mr. Froude will produce 
 a satisfiictory explanation? Meantime I am at liberty to 
 maintain that it is not necessary to possess a monkish 
 imao-ination not to be able to chime in with Fuller's em- 
 phatic cry of ' Virginissima,' where he calls Elizabeth 
 ivhen living, tlie first Maid on Earth, and when dead, the 
 second in heaven. 
 
 I* p -1
 
 580 SIIAKSrEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 TITUS ANDRONICUS. 
 
 This drama has been ascribed to the pen of Shak- 
 speare on the authority of Meres and tlie first foho ; all 
 the other evidence tends to show that Meres made a mis- 
 take which was afterwards repeated. 
 
 I cannot imagine how anyone who has intimately felt 
 the soul of Shakspeare can possibly countenance such a 
 mistake. For tlie play has none of the Shakspearian 
 condensation of thought which, in liis earhest work, is 
 loosed in the most utter sweetnesses and felicities of ex- 
 pression. None of the Shakspearian gusto of language 
 which makes many of his cordial words as it were the 
 audible kiss of sound and sense. None of the Shakspearian 
 ' flowing continuity of interchangeable pauses : ' there is 
 nothing of the vital glow or ' natural ruby ' of the Shak- 
 spearian hfe, and can be none of the usual signs of its 
 presence. In the wliole play, there is no single touch 
 that his closest acquaintances instantly and for ever recog- 
 nise as the master's; not one of those nearnesses to nature 
 that we knoAV as Shakspearian ; and yet he could not 
 write thirty lines without emitting an authentic flash of 
 such revelation. 
 
 In short, those who accept ' Titus Andronicus ' as 
 Shakspeare's work cannot only not have followed out his 
 nearness to nature in the more delicate touches and opal-
 
 'TITUS ANDRONICUS' NOT SIIAKSPEARE'S. C81 
 
 escent graces of his poetry, but tlicy totally iiiisapprehciid 
 the quality of his coarseness ; the signs of his inmuituiily. 
 ' Pericles ' is an early play. Drytlen calls it the earliest, 
 and I see no cause for doubting the tradition, but many 
 reasons for accepting it. And this play contains the un- 
 mistakeable Shakspcarian touch of life, of prompt and 
 pregnant thought, of phrase that glows hke the serene 
 fire in a gem. But it is impossible to find any proof of 
 Shakspeare's presence from beginning to end of the ' Titus 
 Andronicus.' 
 
 Shakspeare's is the tragedy of Terror ; this is the 
 tragedy of Horror. His tragedy is never bloodily sen- 
 sual ; his genius has ever a spiritualising influence. Blood 
 may flow, but he is dealing with more than l^lood. This 
 play is a perfect slaughter-house, and the blood makes 
 appeal to- all the senses. The murder is committed in 
 the very gateways of the sense. It reeks blood, it smells 
 of blood, we almost feel that we have handled blood ; it 
 is so gross. The mental stain is not whitened by Shak- 
 speare's sweet springs of pity ; the horror is not hallowed 
 by that appalling sublimity with which he invested his 
 chosen ministers of death. It is tragedy only in the 
 coarsest material relationships-; the tragedy of Horror, 
 
 Mr. Knight whose views on the subject of our 
 poet's earliest work, compel his arguments to straddle 
 over impossible spaces past all power of standing, en- 
 deavours to show that this play was written by Shaksi)eare 
 in some period of ' storm and stress' when he was in the 
 throes and acironies of labourins; mi^ht too bis; for birth, 
 and had not yet attained to his repose of power. 
 
 Yet, directly after, he remarks that from the first, 
 Shakspeare, ' with that consummate judgment which gave 
 fitness to eveiything he did or proposed to do, held his 
 genius in subjection to the apprehension of the people till 
 he felt secure of their capability to appreciate the highest 
 excellence.' But this equally implies his power to stand
 
 582 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 over his work and liold his genius in sucli subjection as 
 should effectually prevent its breaking out in the wild way 
 it must have done supposing him to be the author of 
 'Titus Andronicus.' It is demonstrable however that 
 Shakspeare did not pass through any such period of agita- 
 tion or mental green-sickness. His work is healthy from 
 the first. He makes no absurd endeavours to embrace im- 
 mensity ; had no assumptions of strength that collapse in 
 spasm. No tearing of things to pieces tooth and nail. 
 No blind haste or threatening rant. But everywhere the 
 ease, the depth, the fulness, the poise of a rich genius 
 flowering in joy, whose power was from the visible begin- 
 ning supreme in its range and according to its theme. 
 
 We shall best apprehend the superb and happy health 
 of the man by entering into the hum,oui' of his ' Venus 
 and Adonis.' His merry motive all through is to tantalize 
 the passion with which he plays so provokingly. And 
 this he does with the large ease, the sure touch, the 
 ripe humour of human nature's great master. The man 
 who could so early take such an attitude of assured 
 sovereignty could not liave afterwards become the fretting 
 fuming slave of ' Storm and Stress.' Besides which w^e 
 may learn from the Marlowe group of Sonnets that as 
 early as 1592 or 1593 Shakspeare was fully conscious of 
 the gross faults and defects, the surfeiting comparisons, 
 the Brobdignagian bombast that Marlowe and others 
 revelled in, who, as Nash told them, would 'embowel the 
 clouds in a speech of comparison ; thinking themselves 
 more than initiated in Poets' immortality if they but once 
 get Boreas by the beard and the Heavenly Bull by the 
 dewlap.' Shakspeare assures us that he does not do this, 
 and in spite of the handsome Avay in which he spoke of 
 his rival, his finer ear and truer taste must have detected a 
 good deal of bombast in the mighty line. He would see 
 that the glow of Marlowe's imagination had in it a sw^arthy 
 smoke, so that the poetry never attained the true regulus
 
 A MISTAKE RECTIFIED. 583 
 
 of colour, but came fortli from the furnace as bronze, 
 not liaving tlie mellow splendour of pure gold. He knew 
 well enough that Marlowe had not quite found the way 
 to the noble in poetry, and that he strove all the harder 
 to reach the grim heights Avhere frowns the terrible. 
 
 One of the greatest differences betwixt Sliakspeare 
 and jMarlowe was that the latter poet had not sufficient 
 humour to hinder his taking the step from the sub- 
 lime to the ridiculous, whereas Shakspeare had a most 
 active and ticklish sense of the absurd. This must have 
 been one of his quickest, keenest, most self-preser\'ing 
 instincts ! — the liveliest part of his self-consciousness. 
 This alone would have prevented his following in the track 
 of Marlowe save for the purpose of sketching on the back 
 of the other poet as it were, a portrait in caricatiu'c of his 
 more prominent features — making a face for the fun of the 
 thing, such as setting Pistol to parod}'' Tamburlane, and 
 devoting some of his earliest merriest satire to mock those 
 who talked unlike men of God's making. And yet 
 Shaksjieare is supposed to have written or re-written a 
 drama which contains many of Marlowe's worst charac- 
 teristics, the unnatural spirit of which is far worse than 
 anything in the expression. 
 
 Had this play been our Poet's it could not have been 
 very early work. It is assumed to liave been produced as 
 a new Play at Henslow^e's Theatre on the 23rd of January 
 1593. This however is a mistake. ' Titus Andronicus' 
 was not produced until January 2ord 1594. 
 
 At page 31 of the Diary Henslowe begins his dates 
 with the 2Tth of December 1593, and continues with that 
 year up to December 31st. Kext day January 1st shoidd 
 be dated 1594 or 159^, their New Year's day being March 
 25th. But the j'car has been left unchanged, and it 
 continues unchanged up to April 6th in the entiy apper- 
 taining to the Duke of Sussex's men and tlie Queen's 
 men, who were then playing together, or else Henslowe
 
 584 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 lumped his receipts together having a share in botli. 
 April 6th is dated 1593 and the following night, April 
 7th is dated 1594, for the first time in that year the recti- 
 fication of the dating is made. So that from January 1st 
 to April 7th the year according to our reckoning, is dated 
 Avrongly. During this time '' Titus Andronicus' was pro- 
 duced as a new p)l(^y on the 22nd of January 1593 as 
 dated, which means January 22nd 1594. This makes 
 it still more improbable that it was Shakspeare's Tragedy. 
 Malone supposes the play brought out at Henslowe's 
 Theatre to be the same as that included in Shakspeare's 
 Works as ' Titus Andronicus.' No doubt the play is the 
 same but it -is simply inconceivable that it should have 
 been a new work of our Poet's brought out at a rival 
 theatre in 1594. The play was probably founded ou the 
 older ' Titus and Vespasian ' of the same theatre but, as 
 Hallam judges, it is not Shakspeare's in any sense. It 
 seems to me that Ben Jonson's sneer at it is good evidence 
 that the play of which he speaks was not Shakspeare's. 
 Also, he may have classed it with the old ' Jeronimo ' on 
 account of its quality without implying that both were of 
 the same date. My conviction is that the play was 
 mapped out and partly written by Marlowe who was the 
 great poet at Henslowe's Theatre. His ' Jew of Malta,' 
 p,nd the ' Titus Andronicus' were running there alternately 
 and to judge by Henslowe's receipts the latter play was a 
 success. Marlowe's death in June 1593 would prevent his 
 finishing the play and be the chief cause why his name 
 slipped out of sight. It was entered in the Stationers' 
 Eegisters 1593 but not completed for performance till 
 early in the next year. And whose was the hand that 
 finished the play ? Whose should it be but Nash's ? he 
 who was united wdth Marlowe in the production of 
 ' Queen Dido.' It appears to me that no great amount 
 of insight is necessary to discover the same workmanship 
 in both plays. The Drama may have been removed to
 
 A MISTAKE lilX'TlFiKD. 585 
 
 Sliakspearc's Theatre on account of Nasli's part in it and 
 because both Nash and Marlowe were under tlie patronage 
 of Shakspeare's friend, Southampton, in whose interest 
 the play may have been completed and at whose request 
 it may have been adopted by the Blacklriars Company. 
 It was published without a name in 1504. And if our 
 Poet made a copy in his own hand-writing that may have 
 misled the Editors of tlie first folio. As for Meres, it is 
 lar easier to believe that he made one mistake in his list 
 of an unpublished literature than it is to accept ' Titus 
 Andronicus' as Shakspeare's work in any sense.
 
 '58G - SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 ' EYSELL.' 
 
 SONNET 111. 
 
 'Evsell' is Vinegar, says Steevens, and lie quotes a 
 colourable illustration from ' A mery Geste of the Frere 
 and the Boye.' 
 
 * God that dyed for us all 
 And drank both eysell and gall.' 
 
 Vinegar, says Malone, is esteemed very efficacious in 
 preventing the communication of the plague and other 
 contagious distempers, which is quite true and yet not ap- 
 plicable ; for the lover in the sonnet has no contagious 
 distemper, his infection was not physical, he did not require 
 to be fumigated ; his stomach was not literally a sick cham- 
 ber ; and our Social Science, as yet, has failed to show that 
 vinegar can contend successfully with immoral influences. 
 I cannot rest satisfied that the Eysell of the old ballad 
 was not more than an equivalent for vinegar ; I suspect 
 it of a much more subtle meaning. In the Salisbury 
 Primer (1555), the eighth prayer of the Fifteen O's be- 
 gins thus : — ' Blessed Jesu ! sweetness of heart and 
 ghostly pleasure of souls, I beseech thee, for the bitterness 
 of the Eysell and gall that thou tasted and suffered 
 for me in thy passion, &c.,' which seems to imply more 
 than is expressed by vinegar. No doubt we have inter- 
 [)reted the old ' EyseU ' as vinegar, but that is not tlie
 
 'EYSELL- MEANS MOIIE THAN VIXErJAlI. 587 
 
 question. My feeling is tliat when tlie word was used to 
 express tlie potion drunk by the Son of God on the cross, 
 it signified far more than vinegar. I do not think Shak- 
 speare coukl have chosen vinegar as the express juice of 
 all bitterness, seeing that bitterness is not only not its 
 dominant character ; it is not even a charafteristic ; 
 neither could it apply to a moral infection. Surely the 
 lady would have looked to see if her lover were ' snigger- 
 ing,' had he offered to swallow draughts of vinegar before 
 he ventured to kiss her ? And surely ' Eysell ' was used 
 because it had some moral signification ? My query is 
 whether ' Eysell ' may not have been a word in the vulgar 
 tongue, the exact meaning of which is now lost to the 
 Etymologists? May not it have once signified tears, 
 tears of sorrow, tears of repentance, tears of such pre- 
 ciousness and power, that the sight of the eye is as it 
 were, bartered for bitterness, its life and strength sold to 
 produce them ; thus, in brief, ' Eysell ' would be the life 
 and ' precious seeing ' of the eye sold in tears ? And the 
 lover would offer to drink potions of this, as the extract 
 of all bitterness, a water of the most potent efficacy in 
 washing a soul white, and cleansing it from moral im- 
 purity. Strange things were drunk, and strange offers 
 made by the lovers of the time, in amorous bravado. 
 But this lover was intensely in earnest, and the word is 
 chosen for some transcendant worth. There was no bit- 
 terness to be expressed beyond it, and so he has to follow 
 it with 'No bitterness that I will bitter tJiink.' Now 
 vinegar is altogether inadequate for the purpose, either in 
 Shakspeare's or the popular imagination. 
 
 There is, I think, some slight authority for my con- 
 jecture in the sense our Poet has of the virtue of tears, 
 and the way in which he speaks of drinking them. 
 
 In sonnet 34 the speaker says : — 
 
 'Ah ! hut those tears are pearl, wliicli tliy love slieds, 
 And tliey are rich and ransom all ill deeds.'
 
 688 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Here is the equivalent of ' Eysell ' as regards the precioiis- 
 ness of the tears, only translated more gaily. In the 
 ' Venus and Adonis,' Venus asks Death, ' Dost thou drink 
 tears, that thou provokest such weeping ? ' In part iii, of 
 King Henry VI. we have ' for every word I speak, ye see 
 1 drink the water of mine eyes!' And in sonnet 119 
 
 ' What potions have I drunk of siren tears ! ' 
 
 Here the speaker has drunk potions of tears of the wrong 
 sort. Moreover he pleads that in coming back to his 
 Mistress, he has brought water for his stain. I doubt if 
 ' Vinegar' c.n be traced etymologically to 'Eyesell.' On 
 the other hand, ' Eh-scen,' or ' Eoeh-sen,' is semi-Saxon for 
 eye-sight. Also we have the eye-water, Euphrasy, to 
 brighten and make clear. Why not the eye-water, 
 ' EyseU,' or Eye-sell, which is so precious a thing morally 
 when wept in bitterness of soul, as to be considered of 
 incomparable virtue in cleansing, and potent against 
 infection ?
 
 niE 'TAMING OF THE SHREW NOT SO EARLY A PLAY. o80 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 SONNET 132, AND 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 
 ' And truly not the morning sun of heaven 
 Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, 
 Nor that full star that ushers in the even, 
 Doth half that glory to the sober west, 
 As those two mourning eyes become thy face I ' 
 
 Sonnet 132. 
 
 * What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty. 
 As those two eyes become that heavenly face ! ' 
 
 Taming of the Skreiu, Act iv. sc. 5. 
 
 At first sight it will a})pear from the above coiuparisoii 
 that Shakspeare in this instance used the thought first in 
 the drama, the ' Taming of the Shrew ' being generally 
 considered a somewliat early phiy. But so far as my 
 insight into his working goes, and it can be corroborated 
 by intrinsic evidence, I more tlian doubt whether he did 
 reverse his usual practice even in this case. Unless with 
 a very personal [)urpose, as in the description of Lady 
 Rich's mourning eyes, it is positively the rule with 
 him for the thought or expression to appear iir^<t in 
 the sonnets. In the present instance, there is nothing 
 sufficiently personal to account for any departure 
 from his ordinary method. A question arir^es as to
 
 590 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 whether this repetition may not tlu'ow a little light on 
 the chronology of the play. The ' Taming of the Shrew' 
 is not mentioned by Meres in his hst of 1598, and if the 
 work be studied afresh Avith the foresi'oino; suo"2:estion in 
 mind, which is at least equal in authority to any tradi- 
 tional belief, I think it will be evident that the play is a 
 much later production than the critics have supposed. 
 It contains no signs of early woikmanship. All through 
 there is the most concentrated attention to business. The 
 direct simplicity, the certainty of touch, the self-control, are 
 quite worthy of Shakspeare's ripened art. The poetry has 
 that smack of cordiality in the ring of certain words, hearty 
 as the crack of Petruchio's whip, yet denoting the most 
 mature nicety of choice. The humour is quick of touch 
 and exquisite as his best. Moreover, the play has the 
 mastery to achieve in verse the same result as the Poet's 
 other comedy attains by prose. He has clothed farce 
 sumptuously as he apparelled his own Christopher Sly. 
 Never was farce so wealthily married to immortal verse. 
 It seems to me that the character of Petruchio belongs to 
 the same class of dramatic perceptions as that of Hamlet, 
 inasmuch as both characters play an assumed part ; and 
 that the comedy of the one may have been the natural 
 balance to the tragedy of the other — the other pennon, 
 so to say, on which the Poet's mind moved at the time. 
 It tends somewhat to the illustration of this view that 
 Shakspeare should, in both comedy and tragedy, have 
 made the same stage use of the ' players.' It is just possible 
 that the Herbert sonnet above quoted may have been 
 written in 1598. The younger the speaker was at the time, 
 the more effective would be the jest on the subject of age in 
 sonnet 138. Be this as it may, I hold that the Poet 
 woidd certainly use the thought in the sonnet before 
 applying it in the play.
 
 THE REPLY TO MAIILOWE'S • PASSIONATE SIIEPIIERI).' oOl 
 
 APPENDIX G. 
 
 WILLIAM HEKBERT AND SHAK- 
 SPEARE'S MINOR PIECES. 
 
 I SUSPECT ^ve owe to Herbert mucli of tlie confu.sion 
 that exists with regard to Shakspeare's minor pieces. In 
 the first place our Poet could not have written some of 
 the things ascribed to his pen. Nor could he have in- 
 tended the four fragments on the one subject, 'Venus 
 and Adonis ' — if they are all his — to appear in print as 
 we find them in the ' Passionate Pilgrim.' I think it 
 must have been from Herbert that Jacsard ol^tained the 
 two sonnets with other odds and ends of Shakspeare's 
 writing, mixed up with some of Herbert's own, all of 
 which Jaggard put forth as Shakspeare's. 
 
 So with the communications to ' England's Helicon.' 
 I believe that Herbert supplied the Editor with the copy 
 of Marlowe's ' Passionate Sheplierd ' and Shakspeare's 
 reply, now composed in full, willi a third poem on the 
 same subject written by Himself ! The signature of 
 ' Ignoto ' has simply, no meaning whatever for us. If it 
 had any when used, that is now identifiable, it nuist 
 surely have indicated the Editor's ignorance of the author- 
 ship !
 
 592 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 Pieces by a dozen different writers were subscribed 
 ' Ignoto.' Therefore the reply to Marlowe's ' Passion- 
 ate Shepherd ' cannot be ascribed to Sir Walter Ealeigh 
 on the strength of that signature. Ellis gave the reply to 
 Ealeigh because in one of the copies of 'England's Helicon,' 
 the intials W. E. were said to have been at first appended 
 to the earliest complete copy of the verses. But Ellis dis- 
 tinctly referred to Steevens's copy which is now among 
 Malone's books in the Bodleian (No. 27 S), and, as Mr. 
 Hannah states, he must have been mistaken, for, in that 
 copy the signature is simply ' Ignoto,' and has never 
 been disturbed. So that Ealeigh's claim to the poem 
 rests on the authority of Walton, which is not of the 
 slightest value. The old Angler's account is just the 
 vaguest hearsay, as wide of the mark as was Lamb's ran- 
 dom shot at the man whom he did not know, but 
 damned at a venture ! The first edition of Walton's book 
 was published in 1653. In this the writer speaks of ' that 
 smooth song which was made hy Kit Marlowe now at least 
 fifty years ago ! ' A very safe assertion for Marlowe had 
 then been dead precisely sixty years ! But Isaac's famili- 
 arity with the facts was not equal to his familiarity with 
 the Poet's name ! He further states that the reply was 
 written by Sir Walter Ealeigh ^in his yoimger days.' Now, 
 as Ealeigh was born in 1552 he was about half a century 
 old at the time when, according to Walton, the ' Passion- 
 ate Shepherd ' was written ! There needs no further 
 proof that the ' Angler ' had no personal knowledge 
 of the subject and is merely twaddling. The genuine 
 clue to the unravelment of the case appears to be given 
 in the ' Passionate Pilgrim,' where one stanza only of 
 the ' reply ' is printed. Tracing backward by such light 
 as my reading of the sonnets throws on the subject, I 
 should interpret the matter thus — Marlowe wrote his 
 song for Southampton, to which Shakspeare appended at 
 first four lines in reply. Southampton having given the
 
 'PASSIONATE PILGRIM' WRITTEN' I5Y SHAKSPEAKE. 503 
 
 paper to Herbert, it appeared witli otlier tilings in the 
 ' Passionate Pilgrim.' Al'terwards Sliakspeare wrote his 
 reply in full, Herbert composed a second reply, and all 
 tliree pieces came into print together in ' England's 
 Helicon.' Internal evidence stamps the first reply as 
 Shakspeare's. As his I reprint it here — 
 
 ' If all the world and love were j'oung 
 And truth in every Shepherd's tougiie, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee, and be thy Love. 
 
 * But Time drives flocks from field to fuM, 
 \Mien rivers rage and rocks grow cold : 
 And Philomel becometh dumb ; 
 The rest complain of cares to come I 
 
 ' The Flowers do ftide, and wanton fields 
 To wayward Winter's reckoning yields : 
 A honey tongue, a heart of gall, 
 Is fancy's Spring, but sorrow's Fall. 
 
 ' Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
 Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies. 
 Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotton ; 
 In folly ripe, in reason rotton ! 
 
 ' Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 Thy coral clasps and amber studs — 
 All these in me no means can move 
 To come to thee and be thy Love. 
 
 ' But could youth last and love still breed — 
 Had joy no date, had age no need; 
 Then those delights my mind might move 
 To live with thee and be thy Love.' 
 
 How like our practical Poet it is! and how Shak- 
 spearianly sensible are some of the expressions ! • In 
 folly ripe, in reason rotton,' is a line we may swear by. 
 
 Q Q
 
 594 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 APPENDIX H. 
 
 THE SILENT LOVER. 
 
 There is a lyric generally known by this name ; one of 
 the loveliest among Elizabethan love-lyrics. Its authorship 
 has been disputed. The latest editor of Ealeigh's poems 
 thinks Sir Walter's claim to it is ' supported by so many 
 independent testimonies, that we need not hesitate to 
 regard him as the author.' I beg leave to suggest a re- 
 consideration of the subj ect ; and submit one or two 
 items that have been overlooked in the evidence. The 
 poem is here printed with slight variations from the MS. 
 copy in the Ashmole Museum.' 
 
 ' Wrong not, dear Mistress of my heart, 
 The merits of true passion, 
 By thinking that he feels no smart 
 "Who sues for no compassion : 
 
 ' Though that my thoughts do not approve 
 The conquest of your beauty — 
 It comes not from defect of love, 
 But from excess of duty ! 
 
 ' For knowing that I sue to serve 
 A saint of such perfection. 
 As all desire, hut none deserve 
 A place in her affection — 
 
 1 MSS., Ashmole, 781. p. 143.
 
 THE 'SILENT LOVRR ' WRITTEN P.Y HEURERT. r.n.j 
 
 * I rather choose to want relief, 
 Than venture the revealing ; 
 Though glory recommends the grief, 
 Despair dissuades the healing : 
 
 ' Thus tlie desires that aim so high 
 Of any mortal lover, 
 When reason cannot make them die. 
 Discretion doth them cover : 
 
 ' Yet, when discretion doth bereave 
 The plaints that I should utter. 
 Then your discretion may perceive 
 That Silence is a suitor : 
 
 'Silence in love doth sliow more woe 
 Til an words tho' ne'er so witty : 
 The Beggar that is dvunl), you know. 
 May challenge double pity.' 
 
 The poem is wrouglit with great skill ; it has tlie linked 
 strength and graceful movement of a coat of chain-mail ; 
 the verses in this copy having no full stop until the lyric 
 has reached its climax in that most ndiiie of all conceits 
 in the last stanza. I do not think the mind of Ealeigh 
 moved thus lightly and naturally in verse. Such of his 
 poetry as can be identified, is altogether wanting in the 
 winsome grace of this song, and has no such quick spirit 
 of fancy. Ilis manner is more set and formal as though 
 the dress of his thought were stilHy brocaded. Tlie poem 
 is ascribed to Ealeigh in some of the old MS. collections 
 in which his name has been so often misapplied. In one 
 of the Eawl. MSS. the piece is entitled ' aSV;* Walter 
 Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth ; ' another instance, says the 
 Eev. Mr. Hannali, where a right name is coupled with a 
 wrong legend. I suspect the copyist may have been as 
 right with the name, as with the legend, and no more. 
 The copy in the MS. Ashm. is signed ' Lo. Walden ; "
 
 oOti SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 which is accepted as ' Lord Warden,' and assumed to 
 mean Sir W. Ealeidi as Lord Warden of the Stannaries. 
 
 o 
 
 This signature is eqally favourable however, to the other 
 claimant William, Earl of Pembroke, who was also Lord 
 Warden of the Stannaries, under James. Next the poem 
 is printed as Herbert's in the poems collected by the 
 younger Donne. Here, to say the least, is quite as good 
 authority as any on which the poem is ascribed to 
 Ealeioh. 
 
 It is almost the sole piece in the collection dedicated 
 by that editor to the Countess of Devonshire, to which 
 his words apply. ' Whatever was excellently said to any 
 lady in all these poems was meant for you.' Lastly, the 
 germ idea belongs to Shakspeare — he who wrote the 
 tenderest things touching silence in love. Li Sonnet 26 
 the Poet pleads — 
 
 ' 0, let my books he then the eloquence 
 And dumb presagers of my speaking breast ; 
 Who plead for love and look for recompence, 
 More than that tongue that more hath more expressed ! 
 learn to read what silent love hath writ : 
 To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.' 
 
 Again, in Sonnet 85 he says — 
 
 * Then others for the breath of words respect ; 
 Me, for my dumb thoughts speaking in effect.' 
 
 NoAV, if there be any value in the authority which assigns 
 the poem to Pialeigh, as one addi'essed by him to the 
 Queen, it goes to prove that the poem was written during 
 the life of her Majesty, or else the subject could not have 
 been given. And I think that whoever wrote the ' Silent 
 Lover' must have been acquainted with Shakspeare's 
 Sonnets so that if it was written before the Queen's death, 
 the acquaintanceship must have been with the Sonnets in 
 MS. Thus there would be three points in favour of Herbert
 
 TTIE 'SILENT LOVI'.II/ 507 
 
 — the borrowing of tJie thought from the ISouiiets, wliicli 
 the Earl held in MS. — the signature of ' Lord Warden,' in 
 the Ashniole MS. copy — and the fact of its appearance in 
 Herbert's collected poems. When we add to this the 
 hiternal evidence wliich is stronji ao;ainst Raleigh's claim, 
 I think the poem may be, with tlie greater probability, 
 assigned to Herbert. For, not only is Shakspeare's idea 
 the root of it, but I suspect the great Poet retouched it 
 for his young friend, and linished it with that last stanza 
 which is the 'captain jewel in the carcanet,' and has the 
 flash of our Poet's mind ; a thought that he set in many 
 lights. In ' Much Ado about Nothing' we fmd ' silence 
 is the perfcctest herald of joy.' In ' Troilus and Crcssida,' 
 ' See your silence, cunning in dumbness ! ' 
 Mr. Hannah prints these additional lines : 
 
 ' Passions are likened best to floods aud streams ; 
 The shallow murmur, hut the deep are dumb : 
 So when affections yield discourse, it seenis 
 The bottom is hut shallow whence they come. 
 They that are rich in words, in words discover 
 I'hat they are poor in that which makes a Lover' — 
 
 and seems to think the copy in Herbert's poems imperfect, 
 because the above lines are wanting. As one accustomed 
 to WTite lyrics, I should say that the man wdio "wrote the 
 ' Silent Lover,' an essential lyric, could by no means have 
 added the above lines. They are a tawdry bit of second- 
 hand trash that has been tagged on ! Any J/aS'*S'. which 
 included them could have no oritjinal authority. I shoidd 
 judge that the Ashmole copy contains the original poem, 
 and that the one in 'Herbert's Poems' was retouched 
 from it. For illustration, the word ' utter'' occurs twice 
 in the first-named copy, and it has been taken out of the 
 4tli stanza of the later version and the word' venture' 
 substituted, because ' utter ' was used in a rhyme of 
 stiinza 6. Also, in ' Herbert's Poems' the first stanza has 
 been repeated for a refrain at the end.
 
 598 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 KING JOHN. 
 
 ' We will uot line bis thin bestained cloak 
 Witb our pure bonors.' 
 
 Act. iv. sc. 3. 
 
 The present reading of the sonnets will shed many little 
 glancing hghts on the plays. It will open up a richer 
 vein of commentary which I have not been able to work 
 fuhy for want of space. I beheve, for example, that 
 sonnet 67 illustrates tile above quotation and compara- 
 tively proves ' thin bestained cloak' to be the wrong 
 reading. 
 
 ' Ah wherefore with infection should he live. 
 And with his presence grace impiety, 
 That sin by him advantage should achieve. 
 And lace itself witb his society ? ' 
 
 Here sin lacing or decorating itself assuredly suggests 
 that tbe cloak to be, or not to be, Hned ' with our pure 
 honors' was sm-bestained, not thin bestained. The cloak 
 might require new lining, either because it was very thm, 
 or much soiled, but Shakspeare would hardly have put 
 forth such a double reason for a single hning. Lastly, 
 ' our pure honours' necessarily impHes ''his sin bestained 
 cloak.'
 
 TWO OH THREE DISPUTED HEADINGS. C9U 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 ' I have no spur 
 To prick the sides of my intent, but only 
 Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself 
 And falls o' the other.' 
 
 Act i. so. 7. 
 
 As the text stands above we have iu shadowy imagery a 
 most extraordinary liorse and rider. Macbeth was no more 
 likely to wear a single spur that luould strike on both sides 
 than the Irishman was to discover the much-coveted gun 
 that would shoot round a corner. Moreover his hoi^e 
 must have had three sides to it at the least. Now, a horse 
 may have four sides, right and left, inside and outside, and 
 the street gamins will at times advise an awkward horse- 
 man to ride inside for safety, but it cannot have three sides. 
 And if the single spur had pricked two sides there could 
 have been no other left for ' vaulting ambition ' to fall on. 
 The truth is that ' sides ' is a misprint. The single spur of 
 course implies a single side — the side of Macbeth's intent, 
 which leaves ' the other ' for the ' vaulting ambition ' to 
 alicflit on in case of a somersault — the side of Macbeth's 
 unintent. The passage comes perfectly right if we read — 
 
 ' I have no spur 
 To prick the side of my intent, but only 
 Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself 
 And falls o' the otlier.'
 
 000 SIIAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 ' Wliat beast was 't then. 
 That made you break this enterprise to me ? ' 
 
 Act i. sc. 7. 
 
 That ' beast ' and not ' boast ' is the genuine lection here 
 may be inustrated comparatively, by referring to ' King 
 Eichard II.,' act iii. scene 4, where the Queen asks the re- 
 ilective Gardener — 
 
 ' What Eve, what Serpent hath suggested thee ? ' 
 
 The Sequent was sliding through the mind of Lady Mac- 
 beth just before, when she bade her husband to 
 
 ' look like the innocent flower 
 But be the serjpent under 't ' — 
 
 and no doubt she afterwards alludes to the Serpent as the 
 beast of the field and the tempter that beguiled Eve ; 
 ' What beast, what serpent was it that tempted you ? ' 
 
 CYMBELINE, 
 
 * some jay of Italy, 
 Whose mother was her painting.' 
 
 Act iii. sc. 4. 
 
 Here is one of those instantaneous Shakspearian flashes 
 which smelt the meaning of many words into one with a 
 lightning-like power. It is the strip of colour on the wing 
 of the jay that causes that bird to be commonly called the 
 painted jay ; this creates its popular character. And the 
 woman here spoken of is a jay ' whose mother was her 
 •painting ' because her beauty was a false creation ; her 
 painting made her, or mothered her, or was her Mother. 
 Her maker is the sense of the passage, but ' mother ' was 
 the nearest word that could be consistently used.
 
 AX ()\.D IJEADIXr; DRAMATIC ALLY TUnHT. 001 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 ' Spread thy close curtain love-perf(jrming liight, 
 2'hat Runawat/s eyes may ivink and Komeo 
 Leap to tbese arms untalked-of and unseen.' 
 
 Act iii. sc. 2. 
 
 1 do not understand why there should have been such 
 an absurd dance of the Commentators after the ' runn- 
 awayes ' of the old editions, or such a wild-goose chase in 
 search of unnecessary substitutes, like ' Eumour's ' ' Eu- 
 mourer's,' ' Eenomy's ' ' unawares,' ' enemies ' eyes,' &c. 
 To my thinking the old reading, with Juliet as llunaway, 
 is a most golden one ; subtly Shakspearian ; the passage 
 poetically playfully perfect. Jidiet is the Eunaway ! She 
 has run away from tlie parental authority and from her 
 duty as a daughter. She has run away from the arms of 
 fatlier and mother to the bosom of her lover. She has run 
 away to be secretly married, and is now waiting to run 
 into the embrace of her Imsband. No word could be 
 more characteristic than this, when applied by Juhet to 
 herself. Mr. Dyce has printed ' rude day's eyes,' whicli 
 may easily be shown to be an impossible reading. Juliet 
 would not wish the eyes of day to wink if she wanted them 
 to close altogether. Besides, the closing of day's eyes 
 would, of course, be included hi the coming of night, and 
 it is not Shakspeare's habit to state that which is ah'cady 
 implied. This rejection of Juliet as ' Eunaway ' and the 
 vulgar public a])peal to the day, &c. show that the Critics 
 have totally misapprehended the whole speech and grossly 
 misinterpreted the character of the speaker. They have 
 assumed that the sole incentive of this appeal for night to 
 come was Jidiet's eagerness for the perfecting of her mar- 
 riage. It is not so. That woidd make of Juliet a forward 
 wanton, and of her speech an invocation most immodest, 
 whereas her appeal to Night is for protection, for its dark- 
 ness to drop a veil that will, as it were, hide lu r fioin her-
 
 G02 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 
 
 self. She is naturally desirous for Eomeo's coming, but 
 her great anxiety for the night's coming is the sensitiveness 
 of modesty. The appeal is for Kight to curtain round the 
 bridal bed — for the Nisfht to teach her how to lose a winninor 
 match — for the night to ' hood her unmanned blood ' as 
 the eyes of the falcon are covered up. This is the govern- 
 ing thought of the speech, therefore it was of the first 
 dramatic necessity that an early cue should be given. And 
 so, after the first passionate outburst the Poet makes Juliet 
 vdsh. the night to come that her eyes may ' wink ; ' i.e. 
 may be bashfully veiled in the shadow of the darkness 
 so that slie can modestly countenance her husband's 
 coming. The Critics would deprive the speech of its 
 mood indicative, the character of a suggestion which was 
 meant to guard it ; a thought that acts hke a bridal veil — 
 a touch that gives to the invocation the tint of virgin 
 crimson without which the speech would be positively 
 barefaced. They have been looking too outwardly ; dwell- 
 ing too much on the assumed context of night and day, and 
 have missed the dramatic motive and the more precious 
 personal context. Juliet was not looking quite so much 
 abroad as they have been ; her thought was more inward 
 and had a more private appropriateness ; her feeling is 
 altogether more maidenly than has been supposed. Other 
 reasons and illustrations might be adduced to show that 
 the old editions have given us Shakspeare's meaning, which 
 cannot be mended. After what the Niu-se tells us of her 
 young Lady's pleasant conceit in coupling the names of 
 ' Eosemary ' and ' Eomeo,' it is very characteristic for Juliet 
 to match the names of Eunaway and Eomeo in loving aUi- 
 teration. Also the coupling of her name in some shape 
 or other with ' Eomeo ' in the lines quoted is of infinitely 
 the greater necessity. She wants the night to fold in the 
 pair of lovers, and would not leave herself out. The ' and 
 Eomeo ' is of itself sufficient to tell us that Eunaway must 
 be Juliet. Lastly, to come to that surface comparison be-
 
 AN OIJ> READING DRAMATICA rj,V UJCUT. 003 
 
 youd which the Critics liave so seldom gone lor illustration, 
 the thought in the Poet's mind respecting maiden motlesty 
 ivinking at marriage may be proved conclusively Ijy refer- 
 ence to the play of Henry V. : — 
 
 * Bur(jundy. Can you blame her then, being a maid 
 
 yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of 
 modesty, if she deny the appearance of a 
 naked blind boy. 
 
 ' Kinrj Henry. Yet they do luink and yield,— as love is blind 
 
 and enforces Good my lord, teach 
 
 your cousin to consent ivinking.'' 
 
 Act V. sc. 2. 
 
 Here is a sufficient exempUfication of Shakspeare's mean- 
 ing in making the appeal for Xiglit to come that Juhet's 
 (the naughty Runaway's) eyes may iviiik under the cover 
 of its darkness as well as Borneo's visit be perfectly secret. 
 The Commentators had no warrant whatever for suspecting 
 the old reading, and have shown an utter lack of insight in 
 their attempts to alter it, which have been quite destruc- 
 tive of the dramatic intention and injurious to the character 
 of Juliet. 
 
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