r I ■ 1 j ■^'■■■■■'.'.'■. # : Glass. Book. So TO THE EIGHT HON. LOKD BKOWNLOW IN POOK ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF PRINCELY KINDNESS f p §M IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY GERALD MASSEY. \ CONTENTS. 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 Personal Sonnets : — Shakspeare to the Earl, wishing him to Marry . . 108 Shakspeare 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 Courtship of his Friend Southampton, according to the Earl's suggestion 152 Dramatic Sonnets : — Southampton in love with Elizabeth Vernon . . 160 Personal Sonnets : — Shakspeare to the Earl, when he has known him some three years . . . . . . 169 shakspeare proposes to write of the Earl in his absence abroad . . . . . . 171 CONTENTS. Dramatic Sonnets : — The Earl to Mistress 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 Jealousy . 228 Elizabeth Vernon repays the Earl by a Flirtation of her own : 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 own 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 Rich ...... Thomas Thorpe, and his ' Onlie Begetter ' of the Sonnets Of the New Reading and Arrangement . 'His Sugred Sonnets among his Private Friends.' The Man Shakspeare : A Re-touched Portrait . PAGE 380 416 436 460 491 APPEKDIX. 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 Andronicus .... 580 Appendix E : — 'Eysell' . . . . - 586 Appendix F : — Sonnet 132, and the Taming of the Shrew 589 Appendix G-: — William Herbert and Shakspeare' s Minor Pieces 591 Appendix H : — The Silent Lover .... 594 Appendix I : — Notes on Disputed Readings. King John ..... 598 Macbeth ..... 599 Cymbeline ..... 600 Romeo and Juliet .... 601 AN INDEX OF THE SONNETS ACCORDING TO THOEPE'S ARRANGEMENT. PAGE v — PAGE PAGE Sonnet 1 . 110 Sonnet 33 . . 206 Sonnet 65 . . 125 » 2 • . 110 „ 34 . . 206 „ 66 . . 239 „ 3 : . 110 n 35 • . 207 „ 67 . . 239 4 . . Ill „ 36 . . 177 „ 68 . . 240 " 5 . 111 » 37 . . 168 » 69 . . 241 » 6 . 111 „ 38 . . 157 „ 70 . . 226 n 7 • . 112 „ 39 . . 171 „ 71 . . 292 ;; s . . 112 „ 40 . . 210 » 72 . . 292 „ 9 . 113 „ 41 . . 207 „ 73 . . 292 H 10 ■ 113 » 42 . . 208 „ 74 . . 293 ;; ii . 113 v 43 • . 181 n 75 . . 229 » 12 . 114 „ 44 . . 182 n 76 . . 254 „ 13 . 114 „ 45 . . 183 „ 77 . . 241 » 14 • 114 „ 46 . . 186 n 78 . . 130 „ 15 . . 115 » 47 . . 187 „ 79 . . 130 „ 16 . 115 „ 48 . . 182 » 80 ■ . 130 ;; 17 . 116 „ 49 . 233 „ 81 . . 294 n 18 • 120 „ 50 . . 177 „ 82 . . 133 „ 19 . 124 „ 51 . . 178 „ 83 . . 132 n 20 . 119 „ 52 . . 183 » 84 . . 132 ;; 21 . 132 „ 53 . . 121 „ 85 . . 131 „ 22 . 121 » 54 . . 121 » 86 . . 131 » 23 . 124 „ 55 . . 126 „ 87 . . 245 „ 24 . 186 „ 56 . . 229 „ 88 . . 233 » 25 . 118 „ 57 . . 373 „ 89 . . 245 „ 26 . 109 „ 58 . . 373 „ 90 . . 246 „ 27 . 179 » 69 • . 119 „ 91 . . 234 v 28 . 180 .„ 60 . . 125 „ 92 . . 235 „ 29 . . 166 „ 61 . . 181 „ 93 . . 235 „ 30 . . 167 » 62 . . 120 „ 94 . . 241 » 31 . 168 „ 63 . . 293 » 95 . . 236 „ 32 . . 133 „ 64 , . 125 „ 96 , , 370 INDEX OF THE SONNETS. -• T Q A PAGE PAGE PAGE Sonnet 97 . • 248 Sonnet 1] . 272 Sonnet ] . 375 „ 98 . . 249 )> 118 . . 272 )) 138 . . 368 v " • . 249 V 119 . . 273 V 139 . . 374 „ 100 . . 252 )) 120 . . 274 )) 140 . . 374 „ 101 . . 253 )) 121 . . 271 )) 141 • . 376 n 102 • . 253 )) 122 . . 321 j) 142 . . 372 „ 103 . . 253 ii 123 . . 303 j? 143 . . 372 „ 104 . . 169 )9 124 . . 303 )) 144 . . 205 „ 105 . . 255 )} 125 . . 304 )i 145 . . 342 „ 106 . . $29* )) 126 . . 170 )) 146 . . 379 ,, 107 . . 312 j> 127 . . 367 )) 147 . . 379 „ 108 . . 254 ?? 128 . . 368 )} 148 . . 376 ,, 109 . . 269 )) 129 . . 378 )) 149 . . 375 v no • . 270 )) 130 . . 369 ij 150 . . 377 „ Ill . . 270 )) 131 . . 370 )) 151 . . 378 „ 112 . . 271 jj 132 . . 368 » 152 . . 377 ,, 113 . . 178 )j 133 . . 209 )j 153 . . 569 „ 114 • . 179 )} 134 . . 209 it 154 . , 570 „ 115 . . 308 )) 135 . . 371 „ 116 . . 285 )) 136 . . 371 ;r THE SONNETS: NOTICES AND COMMENTS. ' As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Py- thagoras : so the sweete wit tie soule of Ovid lives in mel- lifluous & hony-tonguecl Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends.' Thus wrote Francis Meres, Master of Arts of both Universities, in his work entitled 'Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, being the Second Part of Wits Common- wealth,' published in the year 1598. This is the earliest notice we have of Shakspeare's Sonnets, and it supplies us with an important starting- point. From the information given by Meres, 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 published 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 the supporters of an unsound theory. Thus, according to Francis Meres, in 1598, Shakspeare had made the 'private friends ' for whom he was composing his sonnets, and if the sonnets be the same, the private friendship publicly B 2 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. recognised, must include that which is so warmly cele- brated in the earliest numbers. Further, the title to Thorpe's Collection, printed in 1609, reads with an echo to the words of Meres — ' Shakspeare's Sonnets, never before Imprinted,' 1 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 them forth for the public' The sonnets were published in 160 9, 2 with this in- scription : — TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF . THESE . LNSVING . SONNETS . M r . W . H . ALL . HAPPINESSE . AND . THAT . ETERNITIE . PROMISED . BY . OYR . EVER-LIVING . 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 1 Hence the title to the present work. 2 According to the following technical account, ( Shake-speares sonnets. Neuer "before Imprinted. At London by G. Eld for T. T. and are to be solde by William Aspley. 1609.' 4°. Collation. Title, one leaf; Inscription, one leaf; the Sonnets, etc. B to K in fours, and L 2 leaves=40 leaves. In some copies, for William Aspley we have Iolin Wright, dwelling at Christ- church gate. 1609. The sonnets commence on B 1 recto and end on K 1 recto, with einis. Then comes, without any advertisement, A Louers com- plaint by William Shakespeare. 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 Louers complaint is a poem in 47 seven-line stanzas. VARIOUS EDITIONS. literature. He edited a posthumous work of Marlowe's, and was the publisher of plays, by Marston, Jonson, 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 Thorpe 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 the ' 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 Bequest 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Thorpe's Collection. Curll's, in 1710, follows that of Cotes. Gil don gave it as his opinion, that the sonnets were all of them written in praise of Shakspeare's mistress. Dr. Sewell edited them in 1728, and he tells us, by way of illustrating Gildon's idea, that ' a young Muse must have a Mistress to playoff 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 Shakspeare's Plays,' (1778) and the notes to the sonnets include his own conjectures and conclusions, together with 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 that William Harte, Shak- speare's nephew, might be the person addressed under the initials 'W. H.' However, the Stratford Eegister soon put a stop to William Harte's candidature, for it showed that he was not baptised until August 28, 1600. Tyrwhitt was struck with the peculiar lettering of a line in the 20th sonnet, — A man in Hetu all Hews in his controlling, 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 Parliament that could be 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 their only intelligent STEEVENS' CENSURE. 5 editor, Mr. Malone, whose implements of criticism, like the ivory rake and golden spade in Prndentins, are, on this occasion, disgraced by the objects of their culture. Had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, his 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 sonnets, that the reader (after our best endeavours at explanation !) will frequently find reason to exclaim with Imogen — I see before me, man, nor here, nor there, Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them That I cannot look through.' . ' This purblind and obscure stuff,' 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 ? 'ji 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 his eyes would 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 SHAKSPEAEE'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 ; the 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 ; l 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 wayside flower. 2 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 underlie the sparkling surface. The conceits, that play of fancy, which is a sort of more serious wit, came on him too suddenly with 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 1 I had rather Tbe a canker in a hedge. Than a rose in his grace. — Much Ado about Nothing. 2 This recalls 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, writes — 1 As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh.' Steevens catches at this, and replies : ' Every one knows that the gloss or polish on all works of art may be restored, and that rubbing 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 gilding. WORDSWORTH — COLERIDGE — CHALMERS. 7 preface, printed with the Lyrical Ballads, has administered a just rebuke to Steevens, and reprehended his flippant impertinence. He says, 4 There is extant a small volume 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 Parliament 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 with admiration, as an inmate of the celestial regions, ' there sitting where he durst not soar.' This was written by Wordsworth in 1815 ; he had read the sonnets for their poetry, independently of their object, and had thus got a little 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 were addressed to Queen Elizabeth, although Her Majesty must have been close upon sixty years of age when the sonnets were first commenced. He argues 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 listening to panegyric, he determined, with the resolution of his own Dogberry, to 8 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. bestow his whole tediousness 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 Ireland forgeries. Coleridge also held, though on a far sounder basis, that the person addressed by Shakspeare was a woman. He fancied the 20th sonnet might 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 was only a disguise ; for, whilst the expression would indicate one sex, the feeling 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-shming 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 sparkle 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 beauty, 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 — BOSWELL — DHAKE. 9 character as with a chevanx-de-frise. He has wisely hesitated rather than rashly joined in making a wanton charge of immorality and egregious folly against Shak- speare. He likewise thinks it impossible that William 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 editing 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 would have been better suited to a ' cockered silken wanton ' than to ' one of the most gallant noblemen that adorned the chivalrous age 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 affectionately 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 little 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 from 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 happiness 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 Boswell that Mr. W. H. was the obtainer of the sonnets for Thorpe, and he remarks that the dedication was read in that light by some of the earlier 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 were never directed to a real object. ' Credulity itself, we think, cannot suppose other- wise, and at the same time, believe that the poet was privy to their publication.' 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 Herbert, 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 trying 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 be 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 ' Sliakspeare's Autobiographical Poems, being his sonnets clearly developed, with his character drawn chiefly from his works by Charles Armitage Brown ' (1838.) Mr. Brown adopts the hypothesis of Mr. Bright, that Mr. W. H. is the Earl of Pembroke ; he also accepts the sug- gestion first made by Coleridge, 1 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 life'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 having been some time silent and disclaiming the charge of inconstancy. Sixth Poem. Stanzas 127 to 152. To his mistress, on her infidelity. 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 Shakspeare was a self-debaser and self-defamer of a species that has no previous type — no after-copy. Mr. Hunter thinks the discovery made by Mr. Bright settles the whole matter. He considers the claims of the Earl of Southampton as ' too improbable to deserve examination, and the sooner they are dismissed from 1 Table Talk, p. 231. 12 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. the public recollection, the better for the reputation of those who proposed them.' 1 Mr. Hallam inclines to the personal theory of the sonnets, and evidently thinks we may safely conclude that William Herbert was 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 insulting kind — the seduction of the mistress to whom we have alluded, he felt and bewailed without resenting ; ' that on the whole, 4 it is impossible not to wish the sonnets of Shakspeare had never been written.' Mr. Dyce, in 1864, rests in the conclusions which he had reached thirty years before. Tor my own part, repeated perusals of the sonnets have well nigh convinced me that most of them were 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 1 Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 236-7. MRS. JAMESON — MR. CORNEY— M. CIIASLES. 13 was the male friend addressed by Shakspeare, but that some of the sonnets may have been written for the Earl to send to Elizabeth Vernon, who afterwards became Countess of Southampton. 1 Mr. Bolton Corney, in a pamphlet 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 slight 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 worship 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 unjustifiable, theory, a mischievous fallacy. He accepts M. Chasles' reading of Mr. Thorpe's inscription, and thinks a Frenchman has solved the Shakspeare problem which 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, Mr. Corney feels compelled to accept M. Chasles' interpreta- tion ; he thinks that William Herbert dedicates the sonnets 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 1 I was not aware of this fact when my article on ' Shakspeare and his Sonnets ' appeared in the Quarterly Revieto, April, 1864. 14 SHAKSPEARE'S SOXXETS. Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke ; but he follows the discoverer of this 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 that 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 the 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) wishes all happiness, and that eternity promised (to him) by our ever-living poet. This was the private inscription, in imitation of the lapidary style, written 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 4 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 autobiographic. Mr. Henry Taylor, in his c Xotes from Books,' speaks of those sonnets in which Shakspeare ' reproaches Fortune and himself, in a strain, which shows how painfully conscious he was that he had lived unworthily of his doubly immortal spirit.' MR. MASSON — ULRICI. 15 Mr. Masson 1 states resolutely, that the sonnets are, and can possibly be, nothing else than a record of the Poet's own feelings and experience during a certain period of his London life ; that they are distinctly, intensely, painfully autobiographic. He 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 life 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 beins: also a mortal man, and open to temptation, he, having fallen 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 himself 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 1 Essays, chiefly on English Poets. 16 SHAKSPEAKE'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 whom 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 the 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 Adorns.' 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 BernstorfF, and it is out of sight more successful than any attempt yet made to read them. It is so immeasurably far-reach- ing, so unfathomably profound, that Ave 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- ganger. For the sonnets do not speak to beings of flesh and blood, no Earls of Southampton or Pembroke, no Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth Vernon, no corporeal 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 51 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. EL — William Himself. The critic has freed the Shakspearian 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 empyrean 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 prophesies that the time will yet come when the w T orld 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, 'JSTot a whit, simple truthful 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 with 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 things 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 we 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 where, as is popularly supposed of the sea, there is no bottom, and he has gone right through headlong ! OF THE PERSONAL THEORY AS IXTEKPEETED BY CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN. Xow tliis ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers bv mad ears "believed "be. — Sonnet 140. There lias never yet been any genuine, honest attempt to grapple with, and truly interpret, the sonnets. A theory has 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 themselves. There has been no prolonged endeavour to grasp the reality. Xo one has yet wrought at the sonnets with 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 again andasain, until thev should fit with such nicety that the departed spirit 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. There has been nothing done, except a little sur- face work. Thorpe's Inscription has afforded a dehghtful bone of contention, most savoury and satisfactory to the c 2 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 forth the respect- ful sword-salute. The 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 be shaken at ' those sonnets,' and fools may not wag the finger with comforting reflec- tions upon the littleness of great men. The poet's bio- MR. BROWN'S SHORTSIGHTEDNESS. 21 graphy cannot be satisfactorily built, with tliis shifting sand of the sonnets at the foundations. To illustrate and enforce his theory of the sonnets, Mr. Brown has appended 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 literaiities 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' in public print, when he had written something that 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 things 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 kind, with all the 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 memory of them moves him intensely, and the music 22 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. grows grave and slow with the burden of feeling, the weight of gathered tears ; it sounds like a dead-march heard 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 rny 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 there 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 this speaker, and says what a torment his absence would be, but that the ' sour leisure oives sweet leave ' to write about him, and make one person twain by 6 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 long escaped censure is no security for the future ; and your power in the w r orld might be too great, were you believed faultless. Which reading has not the least likeness to what 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 he 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 MR. BROWN'S SUPPRESSIONS. 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- curred ; the earl had been blamed for his conduct ; slan- der had 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 flying 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, should be slandered. But, ' so thou be good,' he says, ' Slander only proves thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time J 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 hast 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 fact, which Shakspeare says is to the earl's praise, will not be sufficient to tie up 24 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 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 — No consideration can controul my true friendship. In spite of death itself, I shall live in this verse, and it shall be your enduring monument. .Now let the reader turn to the sonnet thus paraphrased. The historic circumstances and all the 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 lines, 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 Southampton — That I have frequent been ivith unknown minds, And given to Time your oivn dear-purchased right ; That I have hoisted sail to all the tvinds That should transport vie 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 his 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, wdiatsoever the guilt may be ; his are the blots ; so guilty is he, that for the other to take notice of him publicly, will be to court dishonour. THE PERSONAL READING OF SONNET 36. 25 4 My bewailed guilt,' is the guilt which I do bewail — am sorry for — not which I did bewail and give expression to in public. Boaden, who is here followed by Gervinus, was driven to think that in this 36th 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. Nor 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 though he were a mountebank whose face 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 26 SHAKSPE ARE'S SONNETS. 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 natter 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 enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure. Sonnet 75. And prove thee virtuous though thou art forsworn. Sonnet 88. But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot ? Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not. Sonnet 92. How like Eves apple doth thy beauty grow, If thy siveet virtue answer not thy show. — Sonnet 93. 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. Sonnet 96. For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my Rose ! in it thou art my all. Sonnet 109. HIS SUPPOSED UNTRUTHFULNESS TO NATURE. 27 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 blood ? — Sonnet 121. Thus, it is assumed that Shakspeare, the peerless Psychologist, the poet whose observance of natural law was infallible, whose writings contain the 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 months of age. And finally, the upholders of this Herbert Hypothesis have, in their helpless desperation, been driven to assert that the 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 lost I 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 muddy that it was impossible to see to the bottom. OF THE PERIOD AT WHICH THE EAEEIEE SONNETS WERE WEITTEN, AND THE PERSON 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 the ' 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 liberum spiritumJ The abundant use of anti- thesis also shows J:hat 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 MEANING OF SONNET 26. 20 with his ' pupil pen.' Sonnet 16 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 would 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 address him in a public dedication, he will w r ait 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 shall not shrink from offering to his patron in public ; the present sonnets being exclusively private ; then will he hope to show himself worthy of the friend's 4 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 with his ' pupil pen ; ' he sends them as private exercises before he appears in print, and he is looking forward hopefully to the time when he may be ready with a w r ork which shall be more worthy of his love than are these sonnets — preliminary 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 print. Whosoever we may hold to have been the Lord of Shakspeare's love here addressed, he would know, however much may be hidden from us, whether or not the poet was telling the truth; and there can be no 30 SHAKSPEAKES SONNETS. other conclusion for us but that this 26th sonnet, together with those to which it is L'Envoy, was presented to the patron before the 4 Venus and Adonis ' was publicly dedi- cated to the 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, with poetic warrant, to Shakspeare, entitled ' The Eeign of King Edward III.' The same line occurs in sonnet 94 : — Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds. This drama was 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 was one of the sonnets in which 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 sonnets, which I take to have 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 composition perhaps running parallel at times. SIGNS 01" EARLY WORKMANSHIP. 31 These plays are the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ; Love's Labour Lost,' a ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' and ' Eomeo and Juliet.' First, we have an indefinable likeness in tone and mental tint, which is yet recognisable as are the ilowers 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 somiet he was at times working from one and the same life-model. Coleridge 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 Avith 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. With 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 nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sAveet in the freshness of spring ; but it ends with a long deep sigh, like the breeze of evening.' 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 Avork, of the same period, and that it is most identifiable in the spring-time of his poAvers, Avhen the AA^armth of May Avas stirring the budding forces, and the music AA^as 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 and re- appear. We might call them by name, as the shadow- idea or conceit, the Avar of roses in the red and Avhite of 32 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. a lady's cheek, the pattern or map-idea, the idea of the antique world in opposition to the tender transciency of youth, 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 their 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 was yet the time of fondling, the honey- moon of fancy, the spring 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 splendour 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. Two 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 ! 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 ! Y r ou Thief of Love ! What, have you come by night And stolen my Love's heart from him ? Hennia to Helena ; Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. scene 2. Sweet Roses do not so ; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made. Sonnet 54. Earthlier happy is the Rose distilled, Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grrows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. Midsummer Night's Dream. That is my home of love : if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again. — Sonnet 109. My heart with her but as guest-wise 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 Nights 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 ivaste. 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 j ewel 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. Romeo and Juliet, act i. scene 5, When sparkling stars tire 1 not thou gikVst the even. Sonnet 28. Fair Helena who more engilds the night Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light. Midsummer Night 9 8 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. 1 See note to the Sonnet. RESULT OF THE COMPARISON. 35 Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give. Sonnet 37. Ah me ! how sweet is love itself possessed, When but Love's shadows are so rich in joy ! Borneo 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 applies to the extracts from sonnet 109. But there the likeness 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 h 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, when, in each, they apply to the same person. This, which is at the root of the matter, 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 1 These I should date — 'Two Gentlemen of Verona/ 1593 ; 'Lore's Labour's Lost/ 1594 ; ' Midsummer Night's Dream/ 1595 ; ' Romeo and Juliet/ 1596. d 2 36 SHAKSPEARE'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 hi. 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 wit to know love ; she gave you an excellent body to reward love ; which kind of liberal rewarding is crowned with an unspeakable felicity. For this, as it bindeth the receiver, so it makes happy the bestow er. This doth not impoverish, but enrich the giver. the comfort of comforts, to see your children grow up, in whom you are, as it were 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 Philoclea) 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 ? Hoiv fine it looks! how siveet it smells while 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 f 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 suggestion of sonnet 13 : — Dear, my Love, you know, You had a Father : let your son say so ! 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, c O change 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 following out of the illustration in the next sonnet, 6 Make sweet some vial ; ' and the argument of the ' single string ' in sonnet 8, reversely applied : all these are in that brief passage of Sidney's prose, and all are used for the same purpose, the main difference being that in the ' Arcadia ' it is a woman speaking to a woman. Various 38 SHAKSPEARE'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.' Eeaders 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.' Shakspeare was undoubtedly 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 WERE BEGUN. 39 of great admiration, such as belongs to a somewhat youth- ful time of life. 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 published 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 five in London till the year 1598, l and was then only eighteen years of age, he cannot be 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 1 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 43. 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 relics of Shakspeare are the short prose epistles in which he in- scribes his two poems to the Earl of Southampton. These 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 when he was ready to appear in print and put worthy 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 SOUTHAMPTON. 41 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 that 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 already recorded. The feeling of the earliest 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 follows :— The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end, whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition not the worth of ray untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours ; what I have to do is yours ; being part in all I have devoted yours. 1 Were my worth greater my 1 In the Malone and Grenville copies this reads ' being 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 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. duty would shoiv 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. 'What 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 26th sonnet, HIS PUBLIC ALLUSION TO THEM. 43 which 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 hi 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 known, and his step-father, Sir Thomas Heneage, being 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 would 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 caUs 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 4 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 who is the c 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 weU 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 Greville and others, to get the Earl of Southampton installed as royal favourite in the stead of Essex. ' There was a time,' says Sir Henry Wotton, 1 sometime secretary to the Earl of Essex, 'when Sir Fulke Greville (Lord Brook), a man intrinsicaUy with 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 1 Reliquice Wotbonian<£ } p. 163. SOUTHAMPTON AS FAVOURITE 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 whose voice she took some pleasure ; whereof the couplet, methinks, 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 young Earl of Southampton ; this to some extent is implied in the fact recorded, but there 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 Elizabeth's character, we must remember that 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 happiness 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 SHAKSPEARE'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 evidently fatherless^ 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 early 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 Henry VI., part hi. act 5 : — I will not ruinate my father's house. And in the absence 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 ? THE PERSON ADDRESSED IS FATHERLESS. 47 And, although aware that the lines may not be con- fined to the literal 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 Mother'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 living 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, 6 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 society, and by the fatherless condition which gave a weightier 48 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. emphasis to the poet's argument for marriage, a more paternal tone of anxious interest to his personal affection. To revert for a moment to the words of Meres, it is obvious that the ' private friends ' of Shakspeare 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,' Shakspeare 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 poets 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 poets 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 name.' Whose name did he hallow or honour save that of Southampton ? Again in sonnet 102 : — Our love was new and then but in the spring, "When I was wont to greet it with my lays. What love but that betwixt this earl and Shakspeare did the poet ever greet with his lays? And sonnet 105 tells us that up to the time at which it was written, the affec- 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 publicly 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 the 'tenth Muse' of sonnet 38, not in the beginning of the sonnets, but after many of them had been begotten, and prove how he only could be a part in what Shakspeare had devoted to him. -And lastly, I shall show that whether the sonnets be addressed to the object of them by Shakspeare himself, or spoken dramatically, it is the character of Southampton and that alone, with its love of change, its shifting hues, its passionate impetuosity, its spirit restless as name, its tossings to and fro, its hurrying here and there to seek in strife abroad the satisfaction denied to him in peace at home, that we shall find reflected all through the larger number of them, and Southampton only who is congratulated in sonnet 107 on having escaped his doom of imprisonment for life, through the death of the Queen, E LIFE AND CHAKACTEB OF HENKY WKXGTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON. The name of Southampton 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 baleful 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 VIII., ' HONOUR IN HIS PERFECTION.' 51 who granted to him the Promonstratensian abbey of Tichfield, Hants, endowed with about 280/. per year in 1538, creating him Baron Tichfield about the same time, and Earl of Southampton in 1546. He died July 30, 1550. A rare work entitled ' Honour in his Perfection,' by G. M., 4 to, 1624, 1 contains the following notice of our Southampton's ancestors: — 'Next (0 Britain!) read unto thy softer nobility the story of the noble house of Southampton ; that shall bring new fire to their bloods, and make of the little sparks of honour great flames of excellency. Show them the life of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who was both an excellent soldier and an admirable scholar ; who not only served the great king, his master, Henry VIII. in his wars, but in his council chamber ; 2 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 that integrity of heart, and true mixture of conscience and justice, that he won the hearts of both king and people. ' After this noble prince succeeded his son, Henry, Earl of Southampton, a man of no less virtue, 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- 1 ' Honour in his Perfection ' supposed by Malone to have "been written by Gervase Markham. But Gervase was accustomed to write his name Jarvis or Iarvis. He signs his sonnets dedicatory to his tragedy of Sir Richard Grenville, his dedication to the ' Poem of Poems or Sion'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 Markham, the brother of Gervase. He served under the Earl of Southampton in Ireland, as Colonel of Horse, and was an intimate personal friend. 2 As Secretary of State. e2 52 SHAKSPEARE'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 anything unworthy of his great calling ; for he ever had - a world of testimonies about him.' This earl was attached to Popery, and a zealous adherent to the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots ; which led to his imprisonment hi 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. 'When 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 malice or vengeance 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 the enemy — shall I that 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 EAELY YEAHS. ■ 53 can equal the least spark of fire within 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 child- 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 6, 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 Henry, Earl of Southampton, as appears by the books of that house ; on June 6, 1589, he took his 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 high eulogies 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 Coquinarias, were al- ways the place of esteem with the Queen, who considered that they fitted youth for the future, and were the best antechambers to her Court, And it was customary for the nobility, as well as the most considerable gentry of England, to spend some time in one of the Inns of Court, 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 1611. Malone was inclined to believe that he rather was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, to the chapel of which society the earl gave one of the admirably painted windows, in which his arms may be yet seen. One of the earliest notices of the earl in the calendar of 54 • SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. State Papers, 1 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 wooden 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 Yice-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 Burghley 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. 2 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 Yere. And on the 19th September, same year, Anthony Viscount Montague writes to Lord Burghley to the effect that he has had a conversation with the Earl of Southampton as to his engagement of marriage with Burghley 's granddaughter. The Countess of Southampton 1 Domestic Series of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1581-1590, p. 417. 2 Calendar of State Papers, lb. p. 693^ SOUTIIAMrTON'S CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE. 55 the earl's mother, and Montague's daughter, is not aware of any alteration in her son's mind. 1 The son's mind was changed, however ; the lady was destined only to play the part of Rosaline until Juliet 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 his 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 affray, and threw themselves under his protection. He concealed them for some time in his house at Tichfield, and afterwards con- veyed them to France, where Sir Charles Danvers became highly distinguished as a soldier under Henry IV. He returned to England in 1598, having with great diffi- culty obtained the Queen's pardon, and his personal at- tachment to the Earl of Southampton caused him to lose his head on Tower Hill, in March, 1601. 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 I., 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 the two earls, who were rivals for Her Majesty's affection. Of this we get a glimpse in the story told by Wootton. Also 1 Calendar of State Papers, p. 688. 56 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. the favours, the rivalry, and the consequent personal differences, are implied in the following note of Eowland White's, in the 'Sydney Memoirs,' 1 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 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 — (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 Mistress Vernon,' and fallen deeply in love with her. This affection 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 fortunes 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.' 2 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 Shropshire, 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. 2 Sydney Memoirs, vol. i. p. 348. SOUTHAMPTON IX LOVE WITH ELIZABETH VERNON. 57 his prodigies of valour for 'a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.' Bowland White's statement contains matter of great moment to our subject. The Earl of Southampton's love for Elizabeth Vernon cost him the favour of the Queen. Her Majesty was not to be wrought on, even through 'her hurnours 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 Elizabeth Vernon. Birch quotes a letter of Antonio Perez, written in Latin, dated May 20th, 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 without 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- ing of Mr. Standen's letter to Mr. Bacon, same date, in which 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 Eobert 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 Ms tress 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. 1 Whatsoever the precise 1 Birch's Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 238.- 58 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. occurrence may have been, it is doubtless the one referred to by Kowland 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 Ealeigh 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, 6 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- bigh — ' Catalogi Librarum Manuscriptorum Anglise,' &c, vol. ii. p. 36, where the following notice is found : 'Diana of Montemayor (the first part), done out of Spanish by Thomas Wilson, Esq., in the year 1596, and dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, who was then upon the Spanish THE QUEEN'S OPPOSITION. 50 voyage with my Lord of Essex' 1 He could not, however, have left England in company with Essex, as on the 1st of July, 1596, the earl executed at London a power of attorney to Kichard Eounching 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. But 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 Rutland, who was then making a tour of France, Italy and Switzerland. 2 Prom the time that the Queen for- bade his marriage with Elizabeth Vernon, and ordered him to absent himself from the court, 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 public career, he became more and more impatient when struck by the stings and arrows of his cruel and outrageous fortune, that so pitilessly pursued him. Out- breaks of his fiery blood, and ' tiffs ' 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 1 It has been a subject of wonder how Shakspeare got at the Diana of Montemayor, to take so much of his ' Two Gentlemen of Verona ' from it. But as both he and Wilson were under the patronage of Southampton, there can be nothing more likely than that Shakspeare had a look at "Wilson's translation long before it was printed. Attention had been drawn to the drama by Sidney's translations from it made for Lady Rich. 2 It was on the occasion of the Earl of Rutland's journey in 1595 that Essex addressed to him the long letter of advice which may be found in the Harleian MSS (4888. 16.) 60 SHAKSPEAKE'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 i brave Lord Willoughby,' he could not belong to the Beptilice of court life. He had a will of his own, a spirit that 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 wilfulness, 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, 1 ' 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 fighting 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, 4 My lord of South- ampton, by 200 means, hath gotten leave to go with them' (Essex and Ealeigh). The influence here exerted in 1 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 24. THE ISLAND VOYAGE. 61 favour of the earl was Cecil's. Whatsoever the feeling o 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 which 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 driven 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 Pi all, 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 returning from Fiall, it pleased the general to divide it, and he 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, like a fearful herd they fled from the fury of our earl, who, notwithstanding, gave them chase with all his canvas. One 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 with great boats at mid- 62 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. night, and to cut the cables of the nearest ships, that they might be forced to sea by the gusts which blew from shore. But the Spaniards kept too strict a watch, and the project miscarried.' 1 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 great 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 the 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 ! 1 Camden's Elizabeth, p. 598. A BKOIL IN COURT. G3 On this occasion the quarrels of Essex and Ealeigh were visited on the head of Southampton. Fortune ap- peared to have an unappeasable spite against him ; 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 ill reports that she heard of his doings, and waited, hoping for the better days to come when he should pluck his rose x from the midst of the thorns, and wear it on his breast in peaceful joy. In January, 1598, a disgraceful affair occurred in court which became the subject of common scandal. On the 19th of that month Eowland White writes : — ' I hard of some unkindness should be between 3000 (the JSTo. 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 I see 3000 full of dis- contentments.' 2 And on the 21st of January he says : — 6 The quarrel of my Lord Southampton to Ambrose Wil- loughby grew upon this : that he with Sir Walter Ealeigh and Mr. 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 would not leave he would call in the guard to pull down the board, which, Sir Walter Ealeigh seeing, put up his 1 For nothing tliis wide universe I call, Save Thou, niy Rose, in it thou art my all. Sonnet 109. 2 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 82-3. 64 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.' 1 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 lies in the likelihood that Touchstone, in 'As you like 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 " If" 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 Euthven, the Earl of Gowrie'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 1 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 82-3. THE EARL OFFERS HIS SWORD TO HENRY IV. OF FRANCE. 05 Devereux, the sister of Lady Eich and Robert Earl of Essex. In one of their domestic quarrels the Earl of Northumberland had said he would rather the King of Scots were buried than 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. x 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 Rowland White's letters will continue the story. January 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, who, for awhile, by her Majesty's command, did absent himself.' January 30.—' My Lord Compton, my Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Raleigh, my Lord Southampton, do severally feast Mr. Secretary before he depart, and have plays and banquets.' February 1. — ' My Lord of Southampton is much troubled at her 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 wash her fairest face with too many tears. 1 Birch's Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 514. Perhaps Shakspeare had heard of this when he made Beatrice exclaim, ' O God, that I were a man ! I would eat his heari, in the market-place.' F W SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. I pray God his going away bring her to no such infirmity which is as it were hereditary to her name.' 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 was 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 customary 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, 2 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 little slothfulness.' The same writer 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.' 2 But, according to Mr. Chamberlain's letter of August 30, 1598, the Earl of • Southampton must have made a 1 Very possibly some of the sonnets sent by Shakspeare to the earl in Paris. There were two familiar visitors at Sir Eobert Sidney's house who were much interested in the sonnets of Shakspeare, yiz. ; William Herbert and Lady Eich. 2 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 102-4. SOUTHAMPTON'S SECRET MARRIAGE. 67 special journey from Paris for the purpose of effecting his marriage, and been on his way back when accom- panied to Margate by Sir Thomas Germaine. Elizabeth Vernon had been compelled to retire from the Court. Chamberlain writes : — ' Mistress Vernon is from the 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 l under her girdle, and swells upon 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 purpose 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.' In 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.' 2 That the earl was also thrust into prison on his return we may infer from the words of Essex in 1 Venue or venew. Steevens and Malone differed respecting this word, which, occurs in ' Love's Labour's Lost.' Armado. ' A sweet touch ! a quick veneiv of wit ! ' Steevens argued that it was the technical term for a bout or set-to at the fencing school. Malone held that it meant simply a hit. 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 unfairly given. 2 S. P. 0. f2 68 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. his letter of July 11, 1599 : — ' Was it treason in my Lord of Southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither long imprisonment nor any punishment besides that hath 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 Vernon, 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 when 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 Yernon 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- where, 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 virulently SOUTHAMPTON IN IRELAND. GO pursued as the Earl of Southampton. Towards no one else was the fire of her anger kept so long aglow. 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, 1 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 for your own glory a matter wherein our pleasure 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 2 gives us a glimpse of the earl's daring 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 strength, resolved to charge them at all disadvantage, which was performed with that suddenness and resolution that the enemy which 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 him 1 S. P. O. 2 Nugcs Antiques, vol. i. p. 287. 70 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. (which were almost all noble), there was made a notable slaughter of the rebels.' Here, too, we find fighting by Southampton'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, 6 the confinement was 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 11 : — ' 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. 1 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- 1 Sydney Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 132, SOUTHAMPTON'S QUARRELS. 71 land White, January 24, 1600, 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 danger of them. He therefore would let him 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 opponents ; and here we may recall the last words of Sir Charles Danvers on the scaffold. Amongst 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 whom the Lord Grey professed absolute enmity. ,' In 1600 the Queen had neither forgotten 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, 1600.— ' 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 Ireland February 26, and on March 15, Wliite 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 ; his horses and stuff are gone before.' March 22 : — ' My Lord of Southampton hath not yet kissed the Queen's hands, but 72 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. attends it still/ March 29 : — ' My Lord of Southampton attends to-rnorrow 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 Southampton 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 Gralway 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 than 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, saved the honour of the Queen's army. 1 It was as useless, 1 Mory son's History of Ireland, ftook i. chap. 2, p. 173. INTIMACY OF SOUTHAMPTON AND ESSEX. 73 however, for Mountjoy 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 25th, 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 26, 1600:— < The Earl of Southampton arrived upon Monday night, and upon Wednesday went to his lady who lies at Lees, my Lord Eiches; he hath been extreme sick but is now recovered.' Such treatment as Southampton had received from the Queen was materially calculated to drive him closer to the side of his friend Essex, who was then under the Queen's sore displeasure, brooding over his discontent. So far had her Majesty's petty tyranny been carried, that in the March of this 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 links 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 Southampton, in April, 1600, went to join Lord Mountjoy in Ireland, 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 him ; 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 the King of Scots would 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 bring to pass that which was intended.' He had afterwards advised the Earl of Essex to have patience and wait. Southampton had opposed this march on Lon- don. He held it altogether 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 extraordinary, wherefore he, Southampton, could never give his consent to it. 1 To me the attempt of Essex looks like a too audacious endeavour to apply, in a more public way, 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 c 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 policy 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. 2 ISTo doubt there were some who stood about the earl and urged him on with desperate advice, that secretly nursed the wildest hopes of what a success might bring forth for them, who also calculated that the earl's influence with the Queen would tide them over a defeat. Southampton had his personal 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 him it was essentially a matter of personal friendship ; he acted according to his sense of personal 1 Examination of Southampton after his arraignment. 2 Camden's Elizabeth, p. 622. 76 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. honour, which blinded him to all else. He had told Sir Charles Danvers that he would cast in 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 long before it fell from the block. He was one of those who 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 might 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.' l 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 1 It was indeed foolish, for such a cause, and such a cry of revolution as < For the Queen ! For the Queen ! My life is in danger ! ' were never set up in this world hefore 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 TRIAL OF SOUTHAMPTON. 77 her Majesty's person. I deny that I did ever mean or intend any treason, rebellion, or other action against rny 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 Southampton'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 which Lord Southampton an- swered, that the Queen being made a party against them 9 78 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. they were forced to yield, but 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 lie hurled at him. The Queen bad them remember where they were.' 1 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 Tower 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 di^awn 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 death 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 wrought in himself no other change to- 1 Nichollss Progresses of James I. r SOUTHAMPTON'S RELEASE. 79 wards his lordship than this, that he might safely be that to him now, which he was truly before. 1 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 him, 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- arch. 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, While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes. And thou in this shalt find thy Monument When Tyrants' crests and Tombs of Brass are spent. Mr. Chamberlain, writing to Dudley Carleton, April 1603, says, 4 The 10th of this 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, 2 4 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 smiling countenance, though displeasing happily to the 1 Birclis Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 500. 2 History of England, vol. ii. p. 663. 80 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. new Baron Essingclon, Sir Eobert Cecil, yet it was much more to the Lords Cobham and Grey, and Sir Walter 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 ! 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 Grod 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 SOUTHAMPTON'S RESTORATION. 81 to London. In Mcholls's ' Progresses of James I.' 1 we read, that ' Within half a mile of Master Oliver Crom- well's (our Oliver's uncle), the Bailiff of Huntingdon met the King, and there delivered the sword, which his High- ness gave to the new-released Earl of Southampton, to bear before him. admirable work of mercy, confirming the hearts of all true subjects in the good opinion of his Majesty'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 upon 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 clay (March 1), in the morning ; a saint to be much honoured by that house for so great a blessing, by wearing a leek for ever upon that day.' 2 On the 27th of the same month the child was christened at Court, ' the King and Lord Cranbourn with the Countess of Suffolk being gossips.' March 30 the earl was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, together with his friend the Earl of Devonshire. These marks of favour were fol- 1 Vol. i. p. 98. 2 Sydney Memoirs. 82 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. lowed, in June, 1606, 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 friend 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. 1 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 which 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 1 Vol. Hi. p. 154. THE COLONISATION OF VIRGINIA. 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, 1609): Southampton being appointed one of the council. He became a most active promoter of voyages of disco- very, and a vigilant watcher over the interests of the colonists. December 15, 1609, 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 Salisbury 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, ' but 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 Nicolas. They sailed along the coast of New England, and were sometimes well but oftener ill received by the natives. They returned to England in the same year, bringing five savages back with them. One wonders whether Shakspeare's rich appreciation of such a 'find' had not something to do with his 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. August, 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. October 27, 1613, a piece of ambergris was found, 4 big as the body of a giant, the head and one arm want- ing ; but so foolishly handled that it brake in pieces, so that the largest 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 insulam. 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 6 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 ruinecL 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 SOUTHAMPTON'S NAME IN AMERICA. 85 England thrilled to the deeds done by Virginians in the 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 honour, 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 1613 he entertained the King at his house in the New Forest. A letter written by him to Sir Ealph Win wood, 1 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 heard as much as I can write ; by which you may discern the power of a King with J udges, 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 could be as well pleased to be anywhere 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 Cleves. In 1617, Southampton accompanied James on his visit to 1 Winwood Memorials, vol. iii. p. 475. 86 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Scotland. And, from a letter of the earl's to Carleton, April 13, 1619, we 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 : — 6 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 will 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 Court. 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 1 : — '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 thaman actor.' 1 Life and Reign of King James I., p. 736. SOUTHAMPTON'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 King 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 1621 he made a successful motion against illegal patents ; and Camden mentions that during the sitting of the 14th of March ' there was some quarrelling 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 Westminster, 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 keeper, and Sir W. Parkhurst was 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.' 1 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 1 Court and Times of James, vol. ii. p. 263. 88 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. was also set at liberty, on the same day as the Earl of Southampton, July 18, 1621. 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 ! ' In 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, full-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 activity. 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 horizon), fifteen hundred in a Eegiment, 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 the 'so long impossible Eest.' 'The DEATH OF SOUTHAMPTON. 89 winter quarter at Kosenclale,' Wilson writes, ' was also fatal to the Earl of Southampton, and the Lord Wriothesley his son. Being both sick there together of burning fevers, the violence of which distemper wrought most vigorously upon the heat of youth, overcoming the son first ; and the drooping father, having overcome the fever, departed from Eosendale 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 were buried at Titch- fielcl, 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. 360), as plainly appears, he adds, ' by the relation of Doctor Eglisham.' This relation of Eglisham's will be found in the ' Forerunner of Eevenge.' 1 The doctor was one of King James's physicians for ten years. His statement amounts to this — that the 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 ; 2 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 1 Harleian Miscellany, vol. ii. pp. 72-7. 2 Vide Ayscough'scatalogiie 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 which John Felton, 4 with a wild flash in the dark heart of him,' probed swiftly and deeply with his avenging knife, — to be known hereafter. 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, with highly finished manners ; a soldier, whose personal valour was proverbial ; a lover of letters, and a munificent patron of literary men. Chapman, in one of his dedicatory sonnets prefaced to the Iliad, 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 4 if graced by that heavenly countenance which gives THE EARL'S PATRONAGE OF LITERATURE. 91 light 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 'Kichard Gr en ville, addresses Southampton thus : — Thou, the laurel of the Muses hill, Whose eyes doth crown the most victorious pen. 1 Wither appears to have had some intention of cele- brating the earl's marked virtues and nobility 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 young, 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, G-rave care adorns his head with silver hairs ; His valiant fervour was not then decayed, But joined with counsel as a further aid. 1 It has been suggested that Markham here alludes to the Earl's patronage of Shakspeare. 92 SHAKSPEAKE'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 Father 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. Walpole, in his Anecdotes 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, 1 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 1 Peachum, in his ( Graphice, or the most Ancient and Excellent 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 1634. The first edition, a copy of which is in the British Museum, wa3 published in 1612. ELIZABETH 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 little 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 Eussell, 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 ; almost 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 grand-daughter 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 Eouvigni, a French Protestant noble. 94 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. POET AND PATRON: THEIR PERSONAL 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 him 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 likehhood 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 ability. And, although not intended as an autobiographic record, the Sonnets sufficiently show 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 VALUE OF THE EARL'S FRIENDSHIP. 95 Shakspeare 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 truth 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, while he was working 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 with 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 life 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 were 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 light and shadow, 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 much of that 96 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 Elizabethans 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 life, 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 life. 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 Southampton 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 the Queen, and who ' played the God Luz, with a flitch of bacon at his back ; and the Queen bade them take away the knave for making her to laugh so excessively, as he fought against her little clog Perrico de Faldas, with his sword and longstafF, and bade the Queen take off her mastiff.' 1 That was a time in which character was 1 Scrap of paper in the State Paper Office, 1588. Calendar of State Papers, Elizabeth, 1581-1590, p. 541. HIS PRIVATE FRIENDS. 07 brought closer home to the dramatist. And the Earl of Southampton's friendship was a means of introducing our poet to characters that must otherwise have remained out of reach. 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 the 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 gave 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 the silent fighting men, who had done what they could not put into words. Looking over the shoulder 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 delicate,' 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 munificent 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 his own sincere heart, and are vital with his own affectionate H 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 which 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 kingliest 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 FIE ST MEETING OF POET AND PATRON. 99 wearer's position in life. Therefore 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 sonnet tells us plainly enough, that the young earl first sought out the 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 sea 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 was that natu- ral gentleman, who could preserve exactly the distance at which the attraction is magnetically perfect, and most powerfully 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 his 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 now serve to show how close were the person- alities, 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 the 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 touch of nature, a familiarity in the tone, beyond the dream or the daring of a forger 100 SHAKSPEARE'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 this letter, the earl pleads with his powerful friend the Lord Ellesmere, on behalf of the 'poor players of the Blackfriars,' 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 the destruction of their means of livelihood '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 writer 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 Shaks- 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 perfectly 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. 1 The sonnets themselves abound with proofs that 1 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 Palseographists, who, in the case of a copy 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 that 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 Shakspeare and Southampton was very inward, the friendship 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 he were praising himself. Therefore, he proposes to take advantage of a separation, which is to divide them, 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 feeling 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 protectingly as a nurse carries her babe.' His spirit hovers about the earl. He warns him that youth is short, and beauty a fleeting glow. He defends him 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 friendship ! Then, the recommendation of Shakspeare on account of his good reputation as a married man, is so utterly opposed to the idea of a forgery. It was not one of the outlines of the poet's life pencilled ready for filling in ! For it has always "been assumed that his reputation as a married man was not good, and latterly it has been taken for granted that the Earl of Southampton had very private reasons for knowing so. Nevertheless, the letter, as I believe, states 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. sion, for his moral behoof and mental benefit. He will write of him and his love in his absence abroad, and when he returns to England how lovingly (in sonnet 100) he holds 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 with the tide of calamity, 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 Southampton,' 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 disgrace, 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 that was never meant to be tested for the 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 was 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. 1 In this fact we may find one more illustration of the inwardness of their personal intimacy. They were too intimate, and knew each other 1 Sonnet 82, 'Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue.'' NEARNESS OF THE TWO FRIENDS. 103 too well, for any ' bosli ' to be tolerated on either side. When Shakspeare spoke of his friend Southampton it was from the quiet depths of genuine feeling, not from the noisy shallows of flattery ; and such was the nature of their intercourse, the freedom of their friendship, that he was permitted to do so, and could afford it, What Shakspeare foimd in Southampton was not great gifts of mind to admire, but a fine 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 i lozengerie.' His tone is like the voice of good breeding gentle and low, with no straining for effect. Any exaggerative expression was unnecessary, and would have been most unnatural, which with Shakspeare means impossible. This 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 familiar kind. Those who 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 Elizabethian reading. My interpretation supposes a nearness equally great, a personal intimacy equally 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 probability in assuming it to have been close enough for Shakspeare to write dramatic sonnets on his friend's love 104 SHAKSPEARE'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 feeling 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 wooing 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 Vernon. 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 remind 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 friend 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 BROTHERHOOD. 105 to Lord Southampton, either 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. He 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 6 months. Our poet was born April, 1564, 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 life, were very different 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 child,' he does not first stop to consider whether the person so addressed is some twenty years younger than 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 liberty and latitude of affection. He uses the language of a love that delights to dally with 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 purpose to get all the nearer to nature, it being the 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 prerogative of very near friendship — an authority which no age could necessarily confer. And it is also his way of expressing the difference of rank and position, as the world would 106 SHAKSPEARE'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 hues 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 ratheness 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, excelling 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 ; the 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 sonnets has become objective in the plays. Thus, behind Bassanio and Antonio we may identify Southamp- ton and Shakspeare. How much Shakspeare may have SHAKSPEARE'S KING RICHARD II. 107 adventured for his young friend who was bound up in the Essex bond, — how far he lent himself, in spite of his better judgment, we shall probably never know, but we may be sure that his love, like that of Antonio, was strong enough to surmount all selfish considerations. And so, at the pressing solicitations of Southampton, 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. 1 1 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 Tragedy of King Richard the 2nd, with new additions of the Parliament scene and the deposing of King Richard. As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Majesties servants, at the Globe ' ? Plainly enough it is the play altered for the purpose which excited curiosity, and had a long run in consequence. The same advertisement is printed in the edition of 1615, and it is perfectly absurd to suppose that any other ' King Richard the SeconcV was being played at Shakspeare's Theatre in the year 1611. This is going against the tide, and seeking to catch at a straw (Forman's Jack Straw !) most vainly. 1C8 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. PERSONAL SONNETS, 1592. 3>8^c SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, WISHING- HIM TO MARRY. 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 tbey 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 sparkling on the surface of these earlier sonnets there lies a grave purpose, a profound depth 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 home, to bring the exuberant life into the keeping of the highest, holiest law. Nothing like the wifely influence, and the clinging DEDICATION OF EARLY SONNETS. 109 of children's wee ringers, for twining winningly about the lusty energies of youth, and realizing the antique image of Love riding on a lion ; the laughing mite triumphantly lead- ing captive the fettered might, having taken him ' pri- soner, in a red rose chain ! ' 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 which 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 his friend in 'written embassage ' of love, hoping that he may yet have some- thing 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. DEDICATORY. 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 thine In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it : Till whatsoever star that guides my moving 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, 110 SHAKSPEAKE'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 ! mak'st waste in niggarding : Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. 00 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, Where 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, " this fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my 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. w 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 MEN SHOULD MARRY. Ill So thou, through windows of thine age, shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time : But if thou live — remembered not to be--- Die single, and thine image dies with thee. (3.) Unthrifty loveliness ! 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 : Then, beauteous niggard ! why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give ? Profitless usurer ! 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. 0-) 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-snowed, and bareness everywhere : Then, were not Summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was ! But flowers distilled, tho' they with 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 : That use is not forbidden luxury, ITS SHAKSPEARE'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 thon art, If ten of thine ten times refigured 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 under-eye 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 hear'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 wilt 'prove none." (8.) WORDS OF WARNING. 113 [s it for fear to wet a widow's eye, That thou consam'st thyself in single life ? Ah ! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, The world will 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 enjo} T s it ; But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, And kept unused, the user so destroys it : Xo love towards others in that bosom sits That on himself such murderous shame commits. (9.) For shame ! deny that thou bear'st love to any, "Who for thyself art so unprovident : 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 mav 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 Then may'st call thine, when thou from youth convertest : 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 Xature hath not made for store. Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish : 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. en.) 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 ; When 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 thee hence. (.2.) 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 w T ere 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 WAE 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 eyes my knowledge I 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. (14.) When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment ; That this huge stage presenteth 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 your day of youth to sullied night ; And all in war with Time for love of you, 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, Much liker than your painted counterfeit : So should the lines of life that life repair, Which this time's Pencil, or my pupil Pen, 1 1 This line has never yet been read, nor could it be -whilst printed 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 SHAKSPEABE'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.) Who 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's; he painted the Earl's portrait in early manhood. 117 PERSONAL 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. These are the praise of his friend's beauty and the promise of immortality. Yet, they are wrought out with a sufficient distinctness to warrant my keeping them apart. I group them accord- ing 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 the 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 118 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. the Poet's urgency on the score of his friend's marriage ceases with 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 ! Not 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- gratulates himself on having so dear a friend. DEDICATORY. Let those 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 1 After a thousand victories once foiled, Is from the book of honour rase*d forth, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled : Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove, nor be removed. (25.) 1 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 i 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. 119 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, Grilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, Wnich steal Men's eyes and Women's souls amazeth : And for a Woman wert thou first created, Till Nature, as she wrought 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 treasure. (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 ! 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 Skakspeare, lie tries his hand at a transposition thus: — ' The painful warrior for worth famousedj After a thousand victories once foiled, Is from the book of honour quite razed. 1 And he unostentatiously remarks that the rhyme may be recovered in that way i without further change. 120 SHAKSPEARE'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 enough your worth to sing : For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. (106.) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough 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 untrimmed ; 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. (is.) 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 rnyself 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. >2.) THE HIGHEST BEAUTY. 12J My glass shall 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 Eose 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 Eoses 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 PERSONAL 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 feelings, and so he asks that his books, his writings, may speak for him, silently eloquent. 124 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. DEDICATORY. As an imperfect Actor on the stage Who 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, Overcharged with burthen of mine own love's might : 0, let my books be then the eloquence l 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 what e'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 Lore shall in my verse live ever young. (19.) 1 ' 0, let my books be then the eloquence.' Steevens gives a decided preference to ' looks ' instead of books, because ' the eloquence of looks would be more in unison with Love's fine wit, and much more poetical.' As if Skakspeare 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 books — i.e. the Earl of Southampton. LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER TIME. 125 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their 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 Against his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound : Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels on Beauty'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. (60.) 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 ; Euin 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 which it fears to lose. (6..) £>4 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'er sways 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 S0NNET8. 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 beauty can forbid ? none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my Love may still shine bright. (65.) Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 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.) 12; PERSONAL SONNETS. 1592-3. SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, CHIEFLY CONCERNING A RIVAL POET, ADJUDGED TO BE MARLOWE. I have grouped these 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 Earl's name, and received so much inspiration for his verse, that every c alien pen ' and outsider have followed suit, and sought to set forth their poesy under his patronage. His eyes have 128 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. not only taught 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 singles 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 well as for his of proud sail and lofty build. And if he ride hi 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 HIS 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 lives 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 what 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 warm love in them, not for their lite- rary merit, and vouchsafe me but this one loving thought, ' Had my friend lived he would have brought me something better than this ; something to compare with the best, k 130 SHAKSPEAEE'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 Learn ed'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 upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace ; But now my gracious numbers are decayed, 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 found 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. (79.) 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 tjie ocean is — The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, HIS GREAT RIVAL. 131 My saucy Bark, inferior far to his, On your broad main doth wilfully appear ! Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride ; Or, being 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 the 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 ! He, 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 : that enfeebled mine ! (86.) My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Eeserve 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 c Amen ' To every line l that able spirit affords In polished form of well-refined pen : Hearing you praised, I say, ' 'tis 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 : 1 ' Every line.' The Quarto reads ' every himne,' but Shakspeare knew that the most unlettered clerk would not cry ' Amen ' after the hymn. Also, * line ' is more consonant with the march of the verse and the emphasis on ' every ' j therefore I venture to think that ' himne ' was a misprint. k 2 132 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Then others for the breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts speaking in effect. (85.) So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse ; Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, And every fair with his fair doth rehearse ; Making a couplement 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 short, Speaking of worth, what 1 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 ! 1 ' What worth/ meaning which worth. I should hare thought the word ' what ' might have been a misprint for ' which/ but was checked in changing it by the sound of the first word in the next line but one. OTHER COMPETITORS. 133 Lean penury within that Pen doth 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 my 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 ! 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 1 them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men : 0, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought ! Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, 1 ' Reserve/ i.e. 'preserve.' 134 SHAKSPEARE'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 I'll read ; his for his love. (32.) To get at the life within life of these sonnets we must look a little closer into this group, with a full belief that when our poet used particular words he freighted them with a particular meaning ; definiteness of purpose and truth of detail being the first recommendation and the last perfection of these sonnets. The pen with which he wrote for his patron w^as 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 certain 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 6 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. ' Resolute John Elorio ! ' as FLORIO y. SIIAKSPEARE. 135 he signed his name ; Thrasonical John Florio, as he was by nature. Florio dedicated works to the Earl of South- 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 support 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 know or can, to your bounteous Lordship, in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years, to whom I owe and vowe the years I have to live. 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 that they play in England are neither right comedies nor right tragedies, but representations of Histories without decorum! Shakspeare's Chronicle Flays 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 lay-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 that Florio gives the retort, not courteous, to Shakspeare's having made fun of him, by getting furious in a passage 136 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. of his preface to the new edition of his ' World of Words,' 1 598, in which 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 Labour's Lost, act iv. sc. 2. This conjecture is not merely ingenious, but it is of ex- ceeding likelihood, and my reading of sonnet 78 may throw some light on the subject, from a far different point of view. If Shakspeare in public spoke slightingly of the Ehymer, we see him in this sonnet privately laughing in his sleeve at ' heavy Ignorance ' trying 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 Florio that Shak- speare did not think much of his poetry, which nettled him wrathfully, 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,' which the Earl had taught to soar aloft. And if he did aspire to mount on the wings of rhyme in approaching his patron, there is no other competitor amongst those who dedicated to the Earl that comes near him in per- TOM NASH. 137 soual appropriateness. It is curious to think, in connec- tion with this subject, that Shakspeare's own copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays — now in the British Museum — should 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. 1 Having spoken of himself and heavy Elorio, Shakspeare comes to another pen which made him use the epithet of g 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 wing.' 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 i Learning ; ' he was one of the learned sort ; and he was hitting continually at those 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, e Alas, poor Latinless Authors ! ' In his epistle to the 4 Astrophel and Stella ' of Sidney, he says, speaking of the works of Sextus Empedocles, ' they have been lately translated into English for the benefit of un- learned writers ' (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 with plucking the 1 Florio dedicated his first work to the Earl of Leicester in 1578, as 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 * congruent and measurable ; a word well-adled, choice, sweet, and apt ; picked, spruce, and peregrinate.' In 1611 he withdrew his dedication to Southamp- ton, and inscribed his 'World of Words' to the 'Imperial Majesty of the highest-bom Princess Anna of Denmark, crowned Queen of England, Scot- land, France, and Ireland.' 138 SHAKSPEARE'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 an allusion 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, Shak- 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, which is bitter in its abuse of patrons. At page 42, Nash writes, ' If any Mecaenas 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 6 the matchless image of honour, and magnificent rewarder of virtue ; Jove's eagle-born Ganymede ; thrice noble Amyntas ; most courteous Amyntas ! ' Tocld sup- poses that Ferdinando, Earl of Derby, was meant ; because Spenser, in his ' Collin Clout's come home again,' calls him by the common pastoral name of 'Amyntas.' But there SOUTHAMPTON'S PATRONAGE OF NASII. 139 is nothing known to connect Nash with this Earl, 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, 1 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, the ana- gram made out of whose name was the ' Stamp of Honour.' 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 writings, and this work, though not pub- lished until 1594, was dated 1593. So that I can 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 has 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 slightly 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 Earl of Southampton, 2 and that this method of passing 1 Here, then, is one" answer to Boaden's assertion that the Earl of South- ampton could not have been the youthful nohle who was beloved by Shak- speare — because he was not sufficiently handsome ! ' Pursuing yesternight, with idle eyes, The Fairy Singer's stately-tuned verse, 140 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. off his poetry gives the 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 fc 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 all others that we, following the Eliza- bethans, associate with the march of Marlowe's ' mighty line ! ' But the patron, Shakspeare says, has exalted And viewing, after chapmen's wonted guise, What strange contents the title did rehearse j 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 memory ! 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 hurrying eagerly over the list of Spenser's patrons ! POET. 141 the poet, and made his poetry doubly majestic, or twice what it was before. If Marlowe be the rival poet of these sonnets — one of the two spoken of by Shakspeare as 'both your poets' — it follows that he is the poet of these four lines, the sense of which I should read thus : — , e Thine eyes that taught the dumb (myself ) on high to sing, And heavy Ignorance {Florid) aloft to flee, Have added feathers to the Learned's (Nash's) wing, And given Marlowe 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 singing 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 jaunty presumption and high-handed way, assures us that the c better spirit ' and great rival poet here spoken of was poor Samuel Daniel ; because he was brought up at Wilton House, and inscribed his ' De- fence of Ehyme ' to William Herbert, in 1603, and because, in the 82nd sonnet, Shakspeare ' hints at the actual ground of his jealousy.' But if these sonnets should be those which Meres mentioned in 1598, Shakspeare could not have been disturbed by Daniel's ' dedicated words ' in 1603. 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 the prize of his patron, and the fact that the patron has touched up 142 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. the 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 wizardry, and whose work 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 pointed out the ' proud full sail ' of Daniel's (of all others) 6 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 ' under the Earl of Pembroke's patro- nage, if he inscribed a prose work to that nobleman; or, if he did seek, the young Earl must have grown shy of him ; possibly because Daniel had been brought up in the family. In a letter of this poet's, addressed to the Earl of Devonshire (1604), he is sorry for having offended his patron by -pleading before the Council, when called in CHARACTERISTICS OF MARLOWE. 143 question for the Tragedy of Pliilotas, that he had read part of it to the Earl (of Devonshire), and says he has no other friend in power to help him! If this had' been the great poet of whom Shakspeare and William Herbert are supposed to have thought so highly, and whose rela- tion had been so intimate, how then should poor Daniel have had no other friend in power to help him, when 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 elate 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 his time, and that. Marlowe is the rival poet of these lines. That Marlowe is the other poet of sonnets 80 and 86 is shown by the most circumstantial evidence in every line 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 style. He would in those younger years fully appreciate the delicious bodily beauty of many of Mar- lowe's lines, like those in which Faustus describes his visionary Helen. He has, in ' As you like it,' a kindly thought for the dead poet, and quotes a line from Mar- 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. might possibly have remained more of a rhymer, and not attained his full dramatic stature. Nothing 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 Ml sail, and goodly pride, and Shakspeare is the small trim bark — the 6 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 writing. He has not only flourished in the Earl's favour, 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 : — 6 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse ? 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, — He, 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 ; that enfeebled mine.' MEPIIISTOPHILES THE 'AFFABLE FAMILIAR" SPIRIT. 145 If we believe that Shakspeare had 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 hues 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, IMarlowe became a student of the Black Arts, and a practiser of necromancy — he was reputed to have dealings with the Devil. Xo 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 ; Tambiudaine.' And this is exactly how Shakspeare has treated the subject. In his dramatic way, he has identified ^larlowe 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 yqyj plausible familiar ghost or attendant spirit ! Thus our L 146 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Poet sees the Doctor, or Marlowe, and his familiar ' gulling hirn nightly ' with his promises, and such pleasant intelli- gence as that in Hell is all manner of delight! 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 4 affable familiar ghost ' and ' execrable art ' — Mephistophiles^ his visitant that gulled him nightly — and the poet of that ' 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 6 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 doing his utmost to honour the Earl and make our Poet ' tongue- MARLOWE'S 'HERO AND LEAXDER.' 147 tied ' in speaking of his patron's fame. lie alludes ebiefly 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 The worst was this, my love was my decay. In sonnet 8 6, likewise, the Poet 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 writing it when death cut short the poet's life, 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 owing 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 c 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 ; L 2 148 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. which must mean more than that he has received it and smiled graciously upon it. He says explicitly 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 feelings 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 II.,' 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- bable, 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 FOP TRUTH TO NATURE. 149 gument is for truth to nature. And he most emphatically rebukes those who have assumed that he perpetrated all kinds of sonneteering 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,' 1 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 writer's lady, Ml 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.' 2 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 1 Published, says Pitson, with the ' Shepherd's Garland," and "Roland's Sacrifice to the Xine Muses/ in a volume printed for T. Woodcocke, 1593 : 4to. Drayton was amusingly anxious to show that he was ' stirred by a p a inted beauty to his verse/ and that his love vras 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 that which is insincere in others. 2 Thomas Watson — 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 that his sonnets were not mere fancv-work, but the outcome of real feeling. 150 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. write truthfully. This 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 first-born flowers and all things rare, that Heavens air in this huge rondure hems. 1 He protests as plainly as any living author could, who might write to the ' Times,' or ' Athenaeum,' 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; everv 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 Andronicus ' 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 and plays that Shakspeare had read Marlowe's two sestiads of ' Hero and Leander ' in MSS. 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.' 1 But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone, When you 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-builded ship, well-rigged and tall, The ocean maketh more majestical.' Also, readers of ' Romeo and Juliet ' will recognise Marlowe's ' gallop amain' and 'dark night is Cupid's day.' I cannot doubt that Shakspeare was acquainted with 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 { agreeable and thriving ' 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 i A Mid- summer Night's Dream, 1 where we meet with — ' The theice-theee Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, 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 write with '■ golden quill and precious phrase by all the iilses filed?' 152 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. A PERSONAL SONNET. 1593-4. SHAKSPEARE IS ABOUT TO WRITE ON THE COURT- SHIP OF HIS FRIEND SOUTHAMPTON, ACCORDING TO THE EARL'S SUGGESTION. ' And now I will unclasp a secret book.'' Turning to the Book of Sonnets, the reader will see that we can read them straight on as Personal Sonnets up to the 26th, 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 the 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 written never appears in person. There is neither ' man ' nor ' boy,' ' him ' nor ' his.' 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 WITNESS WITHIN. 153 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 which 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 perfusive 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 chord 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 thrillings ineffable towards a woman, and, in the unmistakeable cry, 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. Xot that Shakspeare is here wooing a woman in person. He 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 Southampton 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 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. which 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 I 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 clo 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. Whereas 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 will 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 Ins wit. We must not lose sight of the literal truth and substance of his meaning in following the figurative shadow, or we shall quite miss the palpable A CHANGE IN THE POET'S MODE OF WRITING. 155 facts, and find ourselves in the position of others who have 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 grip was as close, his feeling as true, his language as literal here as in his dramas. Then we shall find that they do in very truth tell their own story according to the theory now proposed and set forth. 'Not merely in the underlying evidence — the inner facts which can only be paralleled in the outer life of the different speakers, the distinct indi- viduality of the characters pour tray ed — 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, ' tiffs/ 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 their 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 enough 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 would 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 married. 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 for 'every vulgar paper to rehearse.' Here is something ' secret, sweet and precious,' not to be dealt with in 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 result 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 light,' 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 write of him dramatically, he exclaims ' be thou the tenth Muse ! ' And if his new sonnets should please the Earl and his friends, who are curious in such matters, his be the pain, the labour ; the Earl's shall be the praise. THE NEW THEME. 157 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. They may stand on the outside and address him, but the Earl has taken our poet into the inmost place of his private confidence, and whispered into his ear and breathed into his verse the argument of his love for Elizabeth Yernon, 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. SHAKSPEARE IS ABOUT TO WRITE SONNETS UPON THE EARL'S LOVE FOR ELIZABETH VERNON. 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 light? 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 bring 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. (38.) It has been said that such amorous wooings 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. sonnets shall we find the illustration ? Not in Spenser's, nor Sidney's, Drayton's, nor Daniel's, Constable's nor Driunmond's. Warton instanced the ' Affectionate Shep- herd ' ; but Barnefield, in his address ' To the curteous Gentlemen Eeaders ' 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 Yirgil in the 2nd Eclogue 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 ' Wailful sonnets whose composed rhymes should be full-fraught with service- able vows.' Thurio, in the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona, 7 goes into the city to seek a gentleman who 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 'Porest of Fancy,' 1579, informs us that 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 could not win her. He entreated the poet to try and move her with 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 his 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. DRAMATIC SONNETS. 1593-4. >tt< SOUTHAMPTON IN LOVE WITH ELIZABETH VERNON. These four sonnets are among the most beautiful that Shakspeare wrote ; a greater depth of feeling 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 life 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 ivhat 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 night-seasons of sadness and depression ; that he experienced reverses of fortune at his theatre, and sat at home in the night- IT IS NOT SHAKSPEARE SPEAKING. 1(31 time whilst his fellows were making merry after work, and nursed his hope and strength with cordial loving thoughts of his good friend. But we cannot picture Shakspeare turned malcontent and miserable ; looking upon 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 times 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 whatsoever '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 deaf Heaven with his boot- 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 having 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 cries of self would sooner or later have seemed bitterly selfish M 162 SHAKSPEARE'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 that 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 that 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 has 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 was 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 with 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. This 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, calling himself ' 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 blood,' 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 furnished, all in arms, All plumed like estridges that wing the wind, THE EARL OUT OF LUCK. 163 Bated like eagles having lately bathed ; Glittering 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 Ealeigh, going to do good work for England, and strike at the Spaniard a ^memorable stroke. The land lias rung from end to end with the fame of Grrenville's great deed and glorious death. A few years before Cavendish had come sailing up the river Thames with his merry mariners clad in silk ; his sails of damask, and his top-masts cloth of gold ; thus symbolling outwardly the richness 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 high heaving 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 feeling of his friend Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountj oy, who, twice or thrice, stole away from Court, without the Queen's leave, to join Sir John Norris in Bretagne, and was reproached by Her Majesty for trying to get knocked on the head as ' that inconsiderate fellow Sidney had done.' He hears the sounds of the strife, the trumpet's ' golden cry/ the 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 2 164 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. put on 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 things past, the old forms of the loved and the lost rise from A FILIAL AFFECTION. 165 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 facts 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 accounts 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 life 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 what 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 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. tears. She gathers up in one endearing image of love his 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 her pride of place wearing the rose of youth and shining 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 neither poor nor disabled nor despised. Whatever in the world is absolutely best he 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 the 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 beweep 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 me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, 1 like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that 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 : 2 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, 3 And moan the expense of many a vanished sight : 1 Rosalind, in ' As You Like It/ when making fun of the fantastical sadness of the melancholy Jacques, tells him to he l out of love with 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 autobiographic theory of the sonnets, finds here exactly the same form of ' self-dissatisfaction ' as in the above sonnet. How, I do not comprehend, as it is Rosalind 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 his sadness. Our poet had too deep a sense of the real sorrow of life to seriously countenance this affectation of melancholy — this playing at being sad. Jacques' melan- choly is ( right painted cloth j ' there is no heart 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, Rosalind, Orlando, Celia, and the banished Duke, these are the Poet's true comates in spirit. 2 Shakspeare could not have wasted his precious time after he had once got to work in London. 3 Southampton's father had been dead some twelve years ; his brother eight years. 168 SHAKSPEARE'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, f. 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 1 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.) 1 f Hung with the trophies.' An allusion to the ancient custom of hang- ing wreaths upon monumental statues. Here the dead have bequeathed their crowns to adorn this present image of past love. 169 PERSONAL SONNETS. 1594. SHAKSPEAEE TO THE EARL, WHEN HE HAS KNOWN 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 unfinished, 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 ! 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 was Beauty's summer 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 therein 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 IX 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 his friend whilst they are together is somewhat absurd, because they are so much one that it is like 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 fantastic excuse for a parting, and very different to the real parting that has to come. SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, WHO IS LEAVIXG EXGLAXD. 0, how thy worth with manners may I sing^ When thou art all the better part of me ? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring ? And what is't but mine own when I praise thee ? 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, 1 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,.) 1 The Earl's absence ; Shakspeare would not speak thus of his own, and of its proving a torment to his friend ! This absence of the Earl also teaches the Poet how to write of his friend when he is away j gives him his cue for the following sonnets. 173 DRAMATIC SONNETS, 1595. THE EAEL TO MISTEESS VERNON ON AND IN HIS ABSENCE ABROAD. It was in May 1595 that, according to Mr. Standen, the Earl of Southampton had got into disgrace at Court, and that Elizabeth 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, White 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, his absence, and the cause of both. 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 delight by the compulsory absence. He may not call her his any more, lest the guilt which he bewails should shame her, nor must she notice him for others to see, else it will be to her own 174 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. dishonour. He loves her so that her good report is his, and rather than endanger it further, he accepts the 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 parting. 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 image. His mind being '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 night ; 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 in vision ; the day takes him farther and farther away A LOVER'S THOUGHTS BY THE WAY. 175 from her. He tells them stories of his 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. He sees best when he shuts his 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 ? ' Oh, no ! he says, it is not her love nor her jealousy, but his own, that keep him awake and on the fret : — * 6 For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.'' This brings the very natural thought 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 lies 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 c fair health.' These go to and fro continually. Then he tries to give 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 finer 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 17G SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. 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 ! ' The reader cannot fail to feel how these sonnets dilate with 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 with 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 c 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 again ; ' as we let in a breath of fresh air ! THE LOVERS' PARTING. Let me confess that we two must be twain, 1 Altho' our undivided loves are one : 1 So Pandarus to Helen, speaking of Cressid and Paris ; says, 'She'll none of him ; they two are twain.' 1 SOUTHAMPTON 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, 1 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, When what I seek — my weary travel's end — Doth teach that ease and that repose to say e Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend ! ' l 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 Which heavily 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. 2 (50.) 1 So Bolingbroke, when going into banishment, says — 1 Every 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. 1 My grief lies onward and my joy behind.' Had Shakspeare been on his way to visit his wife and family at Stratford, which has been supposed, he must have been in a most dolorous condition. His return home was not a pleasant prospect, (and why, then, should he have gone ?) if be felt thus that he was going to grief ! But it is difficult to imagine that 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 where 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, 1 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 neigh no dull flesh in his fiery race.' Malone thought the expression of this line so uncouth that he laboured to alter it. He 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 j ' meaning that ' Desire, in the ardour of impatience, should call to the slug- gish animal (the horse) to proceed with swifter motion.' Steevens opines * the sense may be this — therefore desire, being no dull piece of ho?seflesh, 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 writer 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 ' neigh.'' 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. 1 79 Of' bis quick objects hath the mind no part, Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch ; For 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. 1 (us.) Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the Monarch's plague, this flattery ? Or whether shall 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. 2 (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, where I abide) Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see ; 1 The Quarto reads— ' My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.'' But an opposition is intended betwixt the mental and the visual sight ; ' mind ' and l eye ' are repeated thrice in this sense in the next sonnet. 2 It is possible that this and the preceding sonnet refer to a later journey, but they will find a fit place with the other sonnets spoken by the Earl in his absence. m 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 : l 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, When sparkling stars tire 2 not, thou gild'st the Even : 3 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 e Romeo and Juliet.' 2 ' When sparkling stars tire not.' The Quarto reads, 'When sparkling stars twire 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 he meant, for twinkle. Malone suggests that we should read ' when sparkling stars " twirl " not.' The word ' twire ' means motion of a peculiar kind. In Chaucer it is applied to the intermitted soimds of a bird. Twyreth (says Skinner), is interpreted singeth. Drayton has the word. He says ' the sun with fervent eye looks thro' the twyring glades ; ' by which I take it he means the 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 Gilford's explanation of the word is 'to leer aiFectedly.' Fancy a star leering affectedly! In Marston'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 tweered underneath.' 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 with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so ? How would — I say — mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When 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 foare-pipe ! ' So that, whether of sound or bodily motion, it signifies an intermittent movement. No word could 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 undoubtedly the a. s. 'thwyrian,' 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 tioire not,' which, so far as 'twire ' 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 still splendour. ' Thou gild'st the even ! ' So I doubt not that he wrote ' when sparkling stars tire not ;' i.e. when they adorn not. The fore-man and fore-room made the phrase familiar, and the act of tiring 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 till they return.' This is spoken of a woman by 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 1 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 wa}^, For then, despite of space, I would be brought From limits far remote, where thou dost stay, 2 No matter then altho' my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee, 1 ' My jewels.' So Bertram, in ' All's Well that Ends Well/ when preparing for a journey, says — ' I have writ rny letters, casketed my treasure. ,' It may he assumed that Shakspeare's own jewels at the period of writing were hardly worth mentioning to a nobleman. 2 i. e. I would he brought from * limits far remote ' where I am, on distant shores, to where thou dost stay, at home. MIND AND MATTER. 183 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 l when thou art gone, 2 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 either's woe. (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 : 3 For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to death oppressed with melancholy, Until life's composition be recured By those swift messengers returned from thee, 4 Who even but now come back again, assured Of thy fair health, recounting it to me ! 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, " 1 i To leap large lengths of miles.' So in ' King John ' — 1 Large lengths of seas and shores Between my father and my mother lay.' 2 * When thou art gone,' When her image, seen in vision, has vanished. 3 This line is usually and absurdly 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.' 4 The twin-likeness of these lines may be found in Valentine's letter to Sylvia (' Two Gentlemen of Verona '), beginning — 1 My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly ' ; which similar strain is, of course, addressed from man to woman ! 184 SHAKSPEAEE'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 lie 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 lie 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 which 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 : — f I must attend Time's 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 Shakspeare 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 fondling 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 his 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 is 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 which ends in such a loving league of amity. The three sonnets are obviously suggested by the 2 3rd of Drayton's Sonnets. 1 ' Whilst yet mine eyes do surfeit with delight, My woful heart imprisoned in my breast Wisheth to "be transformed to my sight, That it, like those, by looking, might be blest ; 186 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath stell'd 1 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, Which 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 e}^es) 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. (46.) But, whilst mine eyes thus greedily do gaze ; Finding 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 heart could see.' 1 ' Stelled.' Probably fixed. In e King Lear ' the stars are called the 'stelled fires.' THE PORTRAIT SEEN IN VISION. 187 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 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. THE DARK STORY OF THE SONNETS, One of the decisive battles of the sonnets has to be fought around the next group 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 delicate discrimination, the nicest intuition, the vulturine nose is forthwith elevated in disgust and scorn. Why, 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 believe 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 all 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 their look of kindly commiseration, and superb patronage with which they treat your want of worldly wisdom. ' Ah, you do not allow for human nature's frailties. Prove or assume what you please 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 world as an unconscionable debauchee in his life, 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 f 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 remarking thus : — ' May no person be inclined 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 with all the fierce tyranny 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 influence when his young friend Southampton or 4 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 the 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. his friend without a fierce struggle for her, during which he flung about him such wildfire 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 splendour— the foil which should render his glory less dazzling 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 life, 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 CHARACTER OF OUR POET. 191 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 find 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 Shakspeare — 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 understood that they were sonnets, not personal 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 vultures ; 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 could not have escaped, unnoticed and unknown. In this world it is easy enough at any period of history, and in any station of life, for some of the personal virtues 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 SHAKSPEAEE'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 pains to endorse them publicly. But there is not an ill-breath 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 purpose 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 glimpse 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 boy ' throned in the purest seat THE rOETS OBJECT IN WRITING. 193 of honour, the sanctity of a Home that is blessed with a wife and children. 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 Ear]. He fondly hopes by-ancl-by to publicly 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 him with an ill odour. ' To no other pass my verses tend Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.' 9 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 delighted 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 find 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.' Not anything he had done or said in his life ! 194 SHAKSPEARE'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 70, where he defends the youth against some slander, and bears testimony that his life presents a ' pure unstained prime.' He has kept sacred his right of affection to express his sadness when the Earl does associate with 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, because 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 the 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 wdiy ? 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 aw T ay, the worst is this, ' My love was my decay ' — INCONGRUITIES OF THE DARK STORY. 195 his love for the Earl, not for a bad woman. And it is useless for any one to reply that the disreputable affair may have occurred after some of the sonnets were written, for this pure and lofty tone is the dominant one up to the sonnet of 1603. Whereas, if there had been any such grievous error shared in common by poet and peer, it must have been in the earliest stage of their acquaintance- ship, when, as the Poet would be made to say, his friend had only been his for one 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. How could our Poet, who had so warmly advocated ' hus- bandry in honour ' for the Earl, have written sonnets for the purpose of picturing the 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 he himself had been in the stews with him 3 and done his best to per- petuate the fact by recording the most damning testi- mony ? How could he have charged his young friend with deception, baseness, and ill-deeds, when, if such things had been true, he would 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 he remonstrate with the Earl on his evil courses, warn him. about his health, and charge him with gracing impiety with his presence, if he had been the guilty partner in his fall ? How could he think his beloved would show ; like an Idol,' if he had laboured so sedulously to flaw the image he had set up, and so befouled it with dirt F How o 2 196 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. should he live 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 fidelity to his friends — we are compelled to indignantly spurn a theory 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 PURITY. 197 it opposed to all we believe, and all the testimony we may ball on the subject, 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 — - ■ 6 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 — 6 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? Now if the sad story as against Shakspeare had been true, this statement would be absolutely false in every 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 6 fair, kind, and true ' be all his argument if he had pas- sionately proclaimed the Earl as being foul, unkind, and false. The 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 ' — 6 Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days, Either not assailed, or Victor being charged,' 9 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 with such a wan- ton profanity? One of two things — Either the story was true, or it was not. If true, he could not directly after have extolled this false friend for his truth (sonnet 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 ARGUMENT PERSONALLY IMPOSSIBLE. 199 for permitting the ' base clouds ' and ' rotton smoke ' to hide his morning brightness, taunt him with sneaking to westward with ' this disgrace,' hold him 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 that which might heal the wound but 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 within 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 4 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 living 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 death of Tybalt, Eomeo, fearing the effect on Juliet, asks— 6 Does she not think 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, has 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 had found that 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 what con- science could the Poet turn round when caught by the 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 ? '— s 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 wrongs ' 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 his 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 thou hast done,' and try to make excuses for him, if he himself had done that which was infinitely worse ? The Earl might weep, 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 4 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 thou promise such a beauteous day, And make me travel forth without my cloak f ' It is not possible for any man to ask such a question under 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 disgusting 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 personally blameless to have any warrant or justifi- cation dramatically 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 l forbear,' and still assume to have his sole seat only in the heart of his friend, and allude to the pretty wrongs committed when absent from his heart. Nor could he say ' 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. Further, the speaker is not a married man. If he had been, he could 1 So read by the upholders of the Personal Theory. 202 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. not but have blamed himself when flinging reproaches so recklessly at his friend, or in the lull that 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 6 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. Nor could he make that appeal to the public, ' for no 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 4 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 9 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 SPEAKER IS A WOMAN. 203 session are of that absolute kind which only the woman can claim. The ' loss in love ' would touch her infinitely more nearly than it could a man. Such 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 find her, there need be no loss whatever. And if Southampton had stolen Shakspeare's Mistress and afterwards repented, Shakspeare would not have had the loss i^Tho thou repent, yet 1 have still the lossJ son. 3d) — 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 the 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 like one of his own characters, half-drunk, half- imbecile. Eor 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 might 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 I And if so, could they not all three continue in their devilhood comfortably corrupt ? 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 does not, cannot anywhere 204 SHAKSPEAKE'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 wise to be abused ; too honest to abuse.' 205 DRAMATIC SONNETS, ELIZABETH VERNON'S JEALOUSY OF HER LOVER, LORD SOUTHAMPTON, AND HER FRIEND, LADY RICH. ELIZABETH 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, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, l And would corrupt my saint to be a devil ; Wooing his purity with her foul 2 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, 3 I guess one angel in another's hell ! Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out. 4 (144.) 1 e Tempteth my better Angel from my side.' So in Othello, ' Yea, curse his better Angel from his side.' 2 ' With her foul pride.' The copy of this sonnet in the ' Passionate Pilgrim ' reads ' with her fair pride.' 3 l Both to each friend? Here is proof that the absent twain were friends before this affair. ' Till my bad Angel fire my good one out.' We may perhaps get at the root idea of this line by aid of an expression 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 ine*»r»oe, I presume, 206 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. ELIZABETH VERNON 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-triumphant splendour on my brow, Bat out, alack ! he was but one hour mine ; The region-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 l that bears the strong offence's cross : Ah ! 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 burning out of the fox with fire-brands, at which Shak- speare must have assisted when he was a country lad. 1 This ' him ' has misled readers into thinking 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 HER LOVER'S FAULTS. 207 No more be grieved at that which thou hast done : Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud ; Clouds and eclipses stain both Aloon 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, 1 salving thy amiss ; Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are ; For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, 2 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 3 To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me, (35.) Those pretty 4 wrongs that liberty commits When I am sometime absent from thy hearty Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art : (xentle thou art, and therefore to be won, Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed ; 1 * Myself corrupting.' It lias been supposed that the speaker of this sonnet, "being a man. finds a precedent for the fault of his Mend by com- paring it with his own. A fair sample of the way in which these sonnets have been unfairly read ! The sonnet contains nothing of the sort. The speaker says, l All men make faults,' and on that account she has tried to excuse him : has excused him even more than his sins called for. Her fault is that she has authorised his fault hy making 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 him to corrupt him- self by being so charitable when salving the misbehaviour of his young friend. i 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." 3 ' Xeeds must be.' That is an allusion to the powerful bond of sonnet 134. 4 ' Pretty ' in the sense of ' little.' 1 There is a saying old. but not so witty, That when a thing is little it is pretty.' — Taylor, the Water Poet. Also see the subject illustrated by l Moth ' for the edification of Don Arm ado. 208 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. And when a woman woos, 1 what woman's son Will sourly leave her till she 2 have prevailed ? Ay me ! but yet thou might'st, my Sweet ! 3 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 thv beauty being false to me ! (41.) That thou hast her, it is not all nry 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; 4 And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her : 5 1 ( When a woman woos.' ' For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood ? ' The Earl to Eliz. Vernon, Sonnet 121. 2 l Till she have prevailed.' The Quarto reads, ' Till he have prevailed.' An obvious misprint, corrected by Tyrwhitt. 3 My sweet, forbear.' The Quarto reads, l my seat, 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 ' might fairly be accepted as the true text, if only on accoimt of the ' sourly ' of the preceding line, — these are two of the poet's favourite twin- terms, almost inseparable : e. g. 'That sweet thief which sourly robs from me.'— Sonnet 35. ' Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave.' — Sonnet 39. ' To make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.' Troilus and Cressida, act iii. sc. 1. ' Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour' 4 '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 make good, to establish, and is so defined in ' Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of Hard English Words ' (1604). Thus the meaning here is, that the absent lady has ELIZABETH VERNON'S REPROACH OF HER COUSIN. 209 If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, And losing her, my friend hath found that loss ; Both 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 ! then she loves but me alone. (42.) ELIZABETH VERNON TO LADY RICH. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound 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 him, myself, and thee, T 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 ; l Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail : And yet thou wilt ; for I, being pent in thee, 2 Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. (133.) 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 i permitted the speaker's Lover to make good, or establish, 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. 1 So in the ' Arcadia/ book iii., Philoclea, a woman, prays on her lover's behalf— ' Whatever becomes of me, preserve the virtuous Musidorus.' 2 ' Being pent from liberty, as I am now.'— Richard III. act i. sc. 4. 510 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take 5 Thou usurer that putt'st forth all to use. And sue a friend came debtor for my sake ; So him I lose thro' my unkind abuse ! Him have I lost ; thou hast both him and 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, 1 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 Grace, in whom all ill well shows, 2 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 '— 1 You thief of love ! what, have you come by night, And stolen my love's heart from him ? ' This is spoken by a woman to a woman in the ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 2 So in ' sonnet 150/ which is addressed to a woman, ' Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill ? ' Also Cleopatra is called the 'Wrangling queen, whom everything becomes ! the vilest things become them- selves in her? A CLOSER READING DEMANDED. 211 is jealous. The first, as we have 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 hi 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 that we are endeavouring to decipher a secret history of an unexampled kind. We can get little help except from the written words themselves. We must not be too confident of walking 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 where 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 brings 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 a p 2 212 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. man. 1 These ' loves' of hers are like two spirits which she personifies as a good angel and a bad angel, and these keep tempting or instigating her with their conflicting suggestions of good and evil. The one, Southampton, is a ' man right fair.' The ' worser spirit ' is a woman 6 coloured ill.' This is her cousin, Lady Eich. The ' 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 went 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 the 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 camiot 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 2 — but another s hell, which implies 1 The mother of Essex, in writing to her ' sweet Kobin,' habitually speaks of Christopher Blount, her third husband, as 'mj friend.' So the Psalmist ' Mv lovers and my friends stand aloof from my soul.' — Psalm xxxviii. v. 11. An original love-letter of Sir George Hayward, written in 1550, begins 'My dearest Friend.' 1 — Howards Collection, p. 521. 2 l Hell ' is generally supposed to mean a place or state of punishment, and t is used by this speaker in line* 5 and 6 of +he first sonnet to ex- press great suffering. A LOVER'S HELL. 213 another's sin and suffering. This other's ' hell,' I take it, is a thought of another lady, who was a friend of theirs, and who caused and suffered ' helV in a former transac- tion. Lady Eich is the ' angel' of this line, not the Earl. She is one of the two angels of the whole sonnet, 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 Eich 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 ' another angel,' one whom they both knew, had faith in, and were deceived in ; one with whom 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 4 hell ; ' l hell to the speaker as well as to the fallen angel ; 1 '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 1596, although not all new, but re-formed, the same writer has thus painted the lover's hell : — 1 The gnawing envy, the heart-fretting fear, The vain surmises, the distrustful shows, The false reports that flying tales do bear, The doubts, the dangers, the 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 have 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 : — 1 An evil spirit, your beauty haunts 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. and she feels that this drawing away of her saint from her side is just the way to win her ' soon to hell ' — the hell created by the false friend. But she is not sure, she only lives in doubt — 6 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 will be seen that the coming back does not imply an occa- sional visit, 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 regard to the other c affair 7 and another angel 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,' the 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 THE CRY OF A WOMAN. 215 his having been led away from her side when it was yet the early dawn of their love. Her sun had but shone for ' one hour ' 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 him. Even though darkly hidden from her, she will have faith that he will shine again with all the early brightness. She will believe that the sun in heaven will be sullied by the clouds that pass over it soon as that her earthly sun 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 which the gathering clouds portend. Her unprotected condition is pourtrayed most exquisitely with that natural touch and image, solely feminine, of her having travelled forth ' ■without Iter cloak' Why 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 through that ' rotten smoke ' of cloud to kiss the tears off her storm-beaten face, because others have seen how he 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. Though he may repent, yet she has lost that which he cannot restore. The offender may be sorry, yet, as every one knows, that lends but a Aveak re- lief to the victim who has to bear the ' cross ' of a weighty 216 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. offence. There is an injury done which cannot so easily be undone. The 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 — 6 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 meaning 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 these pretty wrongs 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 this 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 grace there ' lurks a still and dumb-discoursing devil that tempts most cunningly.' * Ay me, but yet thou mighfst, my Sweet, 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 sophistical. With all the playfulness, however, the earnestness is unmistakeable. Naturally enough 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 ingenious 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 ! 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 is 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 had 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 were 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 although 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 who 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 was visited with a burst of sunshine. In fact, his 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 ; that wanton beauty, which 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 them. Eliza- beth Vernon feels that she is the innocent cause of bring- ing her dear friend the Earl into this double danger ; 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 heart,' 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 with me almost as you pleased. I was your prisoner whom you kept in confinement close pent. You hold me by force, and I will 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. Ah, 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 that bond that binds him as fast as it binds me, and you will sue him, a friend, who has only come to you as a debtor for my sake, and take the statute of your beauty, the right of might, you ' usurer that put forth all- to use ;' that is, she who takes advantage of her loveliness to turn friends into lovers and lovers 220 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. into political adherents to the Essex cause ; ' take all you" can, in virtue of your beauty and our bond. Him 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 fairly by the right gate ; do not climb over the Avail, 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 ivith spites, yet we must not be foes.'' Admitting the speaker to be a woman, there 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 argue that the sooner she and the one who robbed her mind of its peace were foes the better for all parties. Rather 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 who 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 DARK STORY TOLD FOR THE LAST TIME. 221 they should be turned on the Earl in wanton love than in bitter enmity. So deep is her dread of the one, so great her affection for the other. For his sake she resolves to bear all the ' spites ' which her 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, that the speaker feels compelled to be an accessory to the 'sweet thief ' that 'sourly robs' from her. She will be the slave of her high 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 whv there is such ' civil war ' in her 1 love and hate ; ' herein lies the covert meaning that has for so long dwelt darkly in these Hues. I thmk 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 messengers 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 ; ' x the natural womanliness of the expression, 6 Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,' the lines — 1 Myself I'll forfeit so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still ! ' ' Let not women's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks.' — Lear, act ii. sc. 4. 222 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. — the wrong done to love, which, though unknown, is worse 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 shows, 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 we 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 therein 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 ntteth 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 MYSTIFICATION. 223 ship sees, by this care of a fair maid's beauty, she doth not altogether despair of recovery of her own again ; which, if she did, assured by envy of others' fairness, would make her willingly 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 weightier affairs, I take my leave, and ever remain your Lordship's poor brother to command, Bo. Eich.' 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 4 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 from hand to hand. The ' Epistle ' over which Lord Eich tries to shake his wise head jocosely, is not sealed up from him. He has read it, and finds 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 purport 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 the 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 ray 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 Elizabeth 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, SHAKSPEAEE ON THE SLANDER. This sonnet I read as the Poet's comment on the fore- going subject. It is written upon an occasion when the Earl has been suspected and slandered, and Shakspeare does not consider him to blame. We shall see that the Earl 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 this 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 the crow that flies in the upper air. A handsome young fellow like the Earl is sure to be the object of suspicion and envy. The Earl 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 her 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 Q 226 SHAKSPEARE'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 6 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. Read 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 his friend. With the following sonnet we may take our leave of the author of so fallacious a discovery, so wanton a slander, and say, 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 ! ? SHAKSPEAEE TO THE EAEL. That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair, 1 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; 2 For canker Vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime : 1 In sonnet 112, it is the speaker who is this mark of slander. 2 Steevens, 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 being charged ; Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tie up Envy evermore enlarged : If some suspect of ill masked not thy show Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts should'st owe. (70.; 2 Q 228 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. DKAMATIC SONNETS. THE EAEL TO ELIZABETH VERNON AFTER THE JEALOUSY. Ls T 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 his friend's behalf. In the present in- stance, the Earl pleads for himself ; he seeks for a return to the old pleasant intimacy ; he asks that the spirit of love may not be killed with a ''perpetual dulness' Let this 'sad interim* be like the ocean that may 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 that the ' sad interim ' and the ' night of woe ' both meet in Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy, and that 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'S ANXIETY. 229 for the lady. For her peace he is at such strife with his thoughts and feelings as may be found betwixt the miser and his wealth. One moment he is rich beyond every- thing as he looks at his treasure, and the next minute he is doubting whether a 'filching 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, 1 renew thy force ; be it not said, Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allayed, To-morrow sharpen'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, 2 like 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 ; 3 Now counting best to be with you alone, Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure : 1 The l love ' here addressed is not a person, out a passion ; and it is dis- tinctly enough stated to be the love that precedes marriage. 2 This ' sad interim ' is marked in the original copy by italics. 3 ' Doubting the JHching age will steal 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 history 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 common. 231 DRAMATIC SONNETS. >>®4< 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 — c cast its utmost sum ' — and is called to a reckoning by wiser reflections and warier considerations to find nothing further in his 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 sufficiently grave — against that time he will fortify himself with the knowledge that he does not deserve such treatment. He admits her right to leave him, for he can allege no cause why she should love him. And if she be really disposed to make light of his love, and scorn his merit, he will fight on her side against himself, for he is best acquainted with his own weaknesses and the injuries which he does to himself. Such is his 232 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. love, and so much does he belong to her, that for her right he will bear all wrong. Some glory in their 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 than 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. That 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 thought ! — ' But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot ? 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, his 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 ! ' His thoughts have the yellow tinge of a lover's jealousy. Apparently, he is not yet ' paid out ' according to the lady's thinking. In the last of these sonnets she has not ceased to punish him. And, just as apparently, her artifice is so far successful. The 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 him with ample ad- ditions and coarse comments. 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- — Against that time do I esconce me here Within the knowledge 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.) When thou shalt feel disposed to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I'll fight And prove thee virtuous, tho' thou art forsworn : 2 i ( 2 Advised respects ;' i advised respect' occurs in ' King John/ act iv. so. 2, t And prove thee virtuous tho' thou art forsworn? Having "broken her oath or. troth-plight to be true to him. Thus in ' Venus and Adonis': — 1 So do thy lips Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn, Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn. 1 Having broken her oath of virginity. With Shakspeare, forswearing is oath-breaking. But what 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, 1 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, 2 Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me — Such is my love, to thee 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's 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, 3 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. 1 ' I can set down a story,' &c. So Hamlet says, plays. JSTor 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 theatre, or from his acts in con- sequence of his being a player. What name ? He had no name apart from the theatre, and the friendships it had brought him. 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 SIIAKSPEARE'S < WELL-CONTENTED DAY.' 203 should he exclaim against the theatre ? How could he receive a brand on his name/Ww* the theatre ? Supposing him to have had a great dislike to the life and work, it .would have been perfectly 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 dislike 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, although ' generous in mind and mood,' and one that ' sowed honestly for others to reap.' l 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 works, 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. He considered himself their 'fellow ' in 1616, when he remembered them in his will. A kindly thought, and just like him, but quite opposed to the personal 1 Scourge of Folly. 264 SHAKSPEARE'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 he 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 public scandal. And so evidently public are the parson, 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 POET XOT A < PUBLIC ' MAN. 265 manners had been such as to warrant the tone of these 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 whether 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 public manners were not likely to be any recommendation for such a position, or necessary result of it ! L In our time the phrase 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 comment for our Poet to make on what he had been striving to do, and on what Southamp- ton had in all probability helped him to accomplish. For the truth is, the ' Globe ' was built in order that the players might reach a wider public, and Shakspeare was one of the first to create what 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 innovator in search of the ' public ' complain of having to five by 6 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. 1 The title of ' the King's Servants ' was only conferred on Shakspeare's company of players by the Privy Seal of 1603. 2Q6 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. He lives the public life which attracts public notice. The opposition is between public and private life, 1 rather than between riches and poverty, or modes of payment — the public means of living his life, rather than the public means of getting 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 estimation 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 our 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 ' public ' 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 public means. 2 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 1 In a letter written by the Earl of Southampton to Sir Thomas Roe, December 24th, 1623, he expresses himself to be in lore with a country life. 2 The affair with Willoughby would not have given rise to public scandal but for its having occurred at Court. HIS PERSONAL MANNERS. 267 and other friends of the Earl mourn. The Poet considered that his friend had been irritated and made reckless by the obstinacy of Elizabeth the Queen in opposing his mar- riage with Elizabeth his love. And he holds Fortune to be in a great measure responsible for the Earl's harmful doings. 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 public 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 light on the many-coloured moving scene rather than join in the dance. He'll be a i 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 little of them in any 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 his ' 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 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. speare and his ' manners,' so far John 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 public in the theatrical world, and the theatre, says Dekker's ' Gull's Horn-Book,' is ' your Poet's Royal 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 public means, nor bewail his public maimers ; 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 ov^r 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. 209 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 EAEL OF SOUTHAMPTON TO ELIZABETH VEENON. 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 : For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my Kose ! 2 in it thou art my All. (109.) Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view : Grored 3 mine own thoughts ; sold cheap what is most dear ; Made old offences of affections new t 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 ! 1 'Like hiin that travels ' — lie has ranged as a traveller. 2 'My rose.' ' 0, Rose of May' — Laertes speaking of his sister Ophelia, ' Hamlet/ act iv. sc. 5. 3 l Gored mine own thoughts.' So Aehilles ; in { Troilus and Cressida/ 1 My fame is shrewdly gored ! ' 270 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Now all is done, have what shall have no end : l Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof to try an older friend — A Grod in love, 2 to whom I am confined ! Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most, most loving breast. (1.0.) 0, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty Groddess of my harmful deeds, 3 That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds : This 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 the 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, which is eternal. In short, he returns this time to marry his lady, and renew his life : ' Pity me, then, and unsh I were reneiued? 2 i 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 ' Comedy 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 Csesar ' he thus intensifies the feeling of scorn : — 1 His coward lips did/rom their colours Jly.' Which dash of soldierly daring Warburton called a ( poor quibble ! ' 3 In sonnet 69 (p. 241) it was the person addressed whose deeds had been so harmful j whose name had grown so common. THE LOVER PLEADS FOR PARDON. 271 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 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. (in.) Your love and pity doth the impression fill Which vulgar scandal stampt upon my brow ; l 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, When 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, W T hich 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 : 1 In sonnet 70 (p. 226) it was the person addressed who had been the mark of slander and subject of public scandal. 272 SHAKSPEAEE'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 ; l That I have frequent been with unknown minds And given to Time your own dear-purchased right; 2 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. (.17.) Like as, to make our 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. (us.) 1 See the extract from Mr. Chamberlain's letter for a very natural gloss on this line. 2 What dearly-purchased 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 GOOD IN THINGS EVIL. 273 What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distilled from lymbecks foul as hell within ; 1 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 hath thought itself so blessed never ! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been flitted 2 In the distraction of this madding fever ! O 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.) 1 In Sonnet 67 (p. 239) it was the person addressed who was dwelling in infectious society, and gracing impiety with his presence ! 2 ' Flitted.' The Quarto reads ' fitted/ hut I cannot think that Shak- speare's omnipresent vision and wakeful humour would allow him to say the eyes had heen fitted out of their spheres, when, if they had heen fitted at all, it would have been in their spheres. It must, I apprehend, he a mis- print for ' flitted,' the word that, above all others, signifies a ' moving ' or re- moval to the Scotch mind. Spenser makes use of the word ' flit ' : — * For on a sandy hill that still did flitt, And fall away, it mounted was full hie.' Fairfax's ' Tasso ' (5, 58) has it— ' Alas, that cannot be, for he is flit Out of this camp.' In Psalm 56 we find, 'Thou tellest my 'flittmgs? And Puttenham calls the figure Metastasis the ' Flitting Figure,' or the ' Remove.' The meaning of the line is, hoio 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 i 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 I rather con- clude he meant literally how have mine eyes heen drawn inward 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 starting from their spheres, in ' Hamlet,' under the influence of great terror. 274 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. That you were once unkind * befriends me now, And for that sorrow which I then did feel Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I hy 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 My 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 2 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 circumstance 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 him of sonnet 97 (p. 248), who has again been absent through the spring, summer, and autumn of the year. And here he speaks of those absences ; says what 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 unkind.' In the lady's jealousy of her cousin, Penelope Rich. 2 The Quarto reads, 'but th»t your trespass, which somewhat obscures the meaning ; let is far more in accordance with the pleading tone of the sonnet. PREVIOUS CHARGES ADMITTED TO BE TRUE. 275 brow. It is the same as him of whom Shakspeare said — 4 Ah, wherefore with infection should he live (sonnet 67). Also in sonnet 94 (p. 241) : — 4 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 vulgar scandal. This is the same victim of his fate as we have before met, who was in disgrace with Fortune, sonnet 29 (p. 166) ; made lame by For- tune's dearest spite, in sonnet 37 (p. 168) ; had suffered 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 praying 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, though these may have made him seem indifferent, and appeared to diminish his love. He could just as easily part from himself as from his soul, which dwells in her breast ; so deeply rooted in reality is his love, in despite of surface appearances. Her bosom is his home of love, 27G SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. to which he returns like a traveller ; that 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 nothing the sum of good and summit of glory which he attains in her, for he counts as nothing the whole wide universe compared with her who is creation's crown, his Eose ! his All ! Alas ! he admits it is quite true what she says of his wanderings, his flyings- off 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 offender 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 the 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 ; he begs her to accept what shall have no end, his de- voted undivided love, which shall be henceforth lived in her 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, thy pure and most, most loving breast.' And ' do not think the worst of me ; quarrel a little with Fortune. She is guilty of much that I have done. She placed me in a public position, in the power THE TOUCH OF TRUTH IS THE TOUCH OP LIFE. 277 of a Queen who so long tried to hinder me from making you mine own ; made me live so much in the public eye, and drove me to do things which have been so talked about by the public tongue.' Thence it arises that his name has been made the mark of scandal, and his nature has been almost subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. And here we come upon a striking example of the way in which 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 has never been seen. The perfection of its use, the very clasp of the comparison, the touch which makes the image absolutely alive, lie in the fact that the speaker is a man of arms, a soldier, a fighter, 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' i Purpled hands Dyed in the dyeing slaughter of their foes.') 'Pity me then on this account, and wish me better — my life renewed. I would willingly drink "potions of Eysell " for what I have wilfully clone. I should think no bitterness bitter that would disinfect me, no penance too hard for my correction. But pity me, dear friend, and your pity will be enough to cure me. Your love and pity suffice to efface the mark which common talk stamped on my brow. What do I care 278 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. how their tongues wag, or reck what they 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 oil 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 waft me the farthest away from you ; been abroad fre- HOW BLIND LOVE HAS BEEN BEFOOLED. 279 quently, and spent my time amongst foreigners instead of being with you at home ; book botli 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 ' being diseased ere that there was true needing.' But this policy of his love, which anticipated by inoculation the ills that were not, grew to 6 faults assured.' There was something wrong in the virus that he had not bargained for. And he suffered much in recovering the healthy state, which ' rank of goodness ' must needs be cured by ill. His experience has taught him that his medical course was not altogether 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 by their tears ; he has drunk potions distilled from lym- 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 thinking himself never so blessed. What a blind fool he has been ! How his eyes have been flitted out of their proper spheres in the distraction of this maddening fever, engendered of war and wandering. But there is this benefit in evil, that it serves to show the good in a clearer light ; makes the best things better. And love that has been rent asunder maybe joined anew, like other fractured articles, the newly soldered part becoming the 280 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. strongest, even firmer than at first. So he returns from his evil courses, his erratic wanderings, his 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 than 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. 4 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 yours, 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 night of sadness had reminded me how hard true sorrow hits ; what cruel blows the hand of love can give ; and that I had come to you as quickly and tendered to you as frankly the balm that befits a wounded heart, as you then came to me with healing, reconciliation, and peace ! But let your 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 he 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 fighting in that year, I conjecture that he joined his friend Eoger Manners, Earl of Rutland, who 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 RARL HAS MADE A PUBLIC FOOL OF HIMSELF. 281 left England to offer His sword to Henry IV. of France, and was again absent for some months. He had thus been in foreign countries, mixed with 'unknown minds' — people who do not speak our language — and to do this he had taken advantage of every breeze that would fill his sail which 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 image 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 world, his absence from the dear bosom on which 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 privilege 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 119 can only have been made to a woman. It would have no meaning from a 282 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. man to a man. It is a confession to a woman that the speaker has been beguiled by the 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 herself. Position and effects are quite different to those supposed to have been represented in those earlier sonnets, and the confession here has no fitting relationship to the past in that way ; no meaning as from man to man. In the life and character of Southampton alone shall we discover the subject of this group of sonnets, spoken by the Earl to his much-encluring 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 harmful doings that were the cause of common scandal, the 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. Shakspeare was really a favourite of Fortune, both in his life and friendship ; she smiled on him graciously. ISTor 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 was 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 trying a fight with Fortune. He could have carried off his love and lived a calmer life ; 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 braAvls, 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.' Xo doubt there were many things known to Shakspeare and Mrs. Vernon that have not come down to us, besides the pro- posed duels which the 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 . 28-4 SIIAKSPEAKES SONNETS. Thus, in Southampton's life, we can identify every circum- 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 weightier 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 lightly as a feather with every breath of change. If he had been the speaker in the foregoing sonnets, he could not now say : c Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.' He could not call himself true, if so false. He could not have uttered his own condemnation with so airy and joyous a swing ; so lusty a sense of freedom. S( IUTHAMPTON MARRIED AT LAST. 285 He could not thus exult in the genuine attributes of true love, and say, ' if this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.' It would have been proved only too 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 which the hubbub in Court and the con- sequent scandal had occurred, and this sonnet is in celebration of the happy event. SHAKSPEARE ON THE EARL'S MARRIAGE. Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments : Love is not Jove 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 : 286 SHAKSPEAEE'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. (.16.) This is a marriage service of the Poet's own, with an obvious reference to the marriage service of the English Church. He gives his answer, he who knows all the cir- cumstances of the case and is acquainted with 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 wanton courses ; but he says firmly, let me not admit these as impediments to the 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 literally that is not sufficient reason why the other should waver and fly off in spirit. Appearances themselves are false where hearts are true. The supreme object of Shakspeare's sonnets was to aid in getting the Earl, his friend, married, and see him safe in Mistress 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 him towards the door of the sanctuary with the most amorous diligence and coaxing words. He tries by many winning ways to get the youth to enter. He rebukes him when he flinches from it ; and the last effort he makes for the consumma- 1 ' Even to the edge of doom ;' so in < All'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 push from behind. He has attacked all the 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 rebellious blood ; and now, when he is safe at last, with the rosy fetters round his neck, and the golden ring 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 the 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 wedding 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 ! This 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 firmly fixed even when, as Rowland Whyte hints, her mind threatened to waver and give way. She did not alter when she found an alteration in him ; did not ' bend with the remover (the traveller and wanderer) to remove.' She was ' the ever-fixed mark ; ' the lighthouse in the storm, that ' looked on tempests and was never shaken,' but held up its lamp across the gloom. Her true love was the fixed star of his wandering bark, that shone when the sun went down ; this was his glory in disgrace ; his fount of healing when wounded by the world, or his own self-inflicted injuries ; the bright, still blessedness that touched his troubled thoughts ; 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, which are a never-ending surprise to his readers. But it takes 288 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS'. all its life from the love-story now unfolded. It is the 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 undiscovered riches of the wedded life. Although 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 ; knows 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 Elizabeth Vernon is apparent all through these sonnets devoted to them. The burden of the whole story is an opposition which 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 his 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 c 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. SHAKSPEAKE TO THE EARL, CHIEFLY ON HIS OWN DEATH. This is a group of very touching sonnets. JNowhere 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 would 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 what 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 SHAKSPEAKE'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. Then 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 his love grows stronger, fearing lest it should lose him. ' But do not mind/ he says, ' though I should die, yet shall I be with you ; I shall live on in the 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 the 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 shall not take hence the memory of you, although I shall be quite forgotten. Your name shall have immortal life from these 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 IN SPIRIT. 291 5th sonnet do not indicate more than age or illness. When we consider Shakspeare's reticence on the subject of self, they look particularly pointed for a passing allusion. Time is not used for age in these two lines ; that 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 find 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 the 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 was 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 nowV 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 account 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 Y. ? This may have been reported to the injury of the Poet, and resented by Her u2 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 bear the surly sullen bell Grive warning 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, 1 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. 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 untrue, 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* (71.) 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 ! In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, 1 So ' Hamlet/ when asked what lie has done with the dead body of Polonius, replies, ' Compounded it with dust, whereto r tis kin.' ■Tf THE PROMISED IMMORTALITY. 293 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 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 ! 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. (si.) 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 was to steal off unidentified. In the 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 but a common grave, When yon entombed in men's eyes shall lie, Your monument shall be my gentle verse.' 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 SHAKSPEARE'S. 295 sharer with his friend in both the immortal life 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 ' hush ! ' He speaks of his friend so plainly, that ' every word doth almost tell my 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 the 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 that in a double sense ; for not only are 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 the monument erected by Shakspeare to be known as the Earl of Southampton's ? How were the many proud boasts to be fulfilled ? 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 fact of his having written in the Earl's name points to such a conclusion. This view serves to explain how it was that 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 SHAKSPEAEE 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 rebellion was undoubtedly owing to his kinship, and to his friendship for the Earl. His youth, his friends, pleaded for him, and his life was spared. He was respited during the Queen's pleasure, after having been left for some weeks under sentence of execution. The sentence being 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 LONDON. 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. ' Thy pyramids built up with newer might, 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 sight 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. the grey gloom and ghostly atmosphere of which 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 that the Tower was then the great depository of the public Records and national Registers ; the Statute Bolls, Patent Bolls, Parlia- ment Bolls, Bulls, Pardons, Ordinances, Grants, Privy Seals> and antique Charters, dating back to the time of William 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 awful 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 ' Begisters,' ' Becords,' 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 reality the Tower was in those days, and what a lively terror to the Elizabethan imagination. A personification of Hving 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 without 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 ! Had it been so, he THE IRISH REBELLION. 299 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. He 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 weather, the sun and shower of royal caprice ; nor does it fall under — 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 1601 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 Elizabeth was, by several censures of the Bishop of Eome, deprived of her crown. The spirit of rebellion sprang up full-statured at the promise of help from Spain ; and < thralled discontent ' once more wel- comed the deliverer. Eumour came flying in all haste, and babbling with all her tongues. It was an 6 inviting time' indeed to the young gallants — the Earl's old comrades — who were fast taking horse and ship once more. The prose parallel to the sonnet will be found in a letter to Mr. Winwood from Mr. Secretary Cecil, Oct. 4, 1601 x He 1 WinwoocFs Memorials, vol. i. p. 351. 300 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. writes, ' on the 25th of last month 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 blow' whereto the time calls so invitingly. 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 sawclusted 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 within the old walls. The ' fools ' who had been THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 301 the sport of the time, he calls them, who lived to commit crime, 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 life 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 was 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 the 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 living, he asks, were it anything to him if he bore the whole canopy of the heavens outside, c 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 them to be ' more short than waste or ruining ? ' Has he not seen how it went with many who sought Court favour and fickle fortune — Essex, for example — the 4 dwellers on form and favour ' — has he not seen how they lost all, and more — this life, perhaps next — by paying down their very souls for glittering need-nots ; foregoing all the simple 302 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. savour of life for a ' compound sweet,' adulterated with poison ? These are the words 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 was. In the last two lines 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, although 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. LOVE DEFIES TIME OR IMPRISONMENT. 303 THE EARL IN PRISON ADDRESSES ELIZABETH VERNON, 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 Eegisters and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present, nor the past, For 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, 2 nor falls Under the blow of thralled Discontent, Whereto the inviting time our Fashion calls : 1 'Fortune's Bastard,'' in the sense of being nameless ; an illegitimate 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 say bastard virtues, that indeed know not their fathers name, and therefore have no name." If the Earl's 'love ' had 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 marriage. 2 It suffers not in the smiling pomp 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 'painted pomp.'' Also Anne Bullen, in ' Henry VIIL, says of Queen Katherine, l Much better she ne'er had known pomp, 1 mean- ing royalty and its immediate surroundings. l See Csesar ! 0, behold how pomp is followed/ exclaims Cleopatra; and Lear cries, 'Take physic, 304 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. It fears not Policy l — 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 : 2 To this I witness call the fools of Time Which die for goodness who have lived for crime. (.24.) 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, 3 And take thou my oblation, poor but free, 1 i It fears not policy. 1 It had been the Queen's policy, pursued for years, to prevent the marriage of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon. 2 ' That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.' Steevens's comment on this line is, ' Though a building may be drowned, i.e. deluged with rain, it can hardly grow under the influence of heat. I would read gloivs.'' The Earl was not speaking of a building, but of his ' dear love/ which had been builded or cemented by his marriage. So, in l Antony and Cleopatra, l 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 built anew, Grows fairer than at first.' — Sonnet 119. 1 Shall love in building grow so ruinate.' Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1 But the strong base and building of my love Is as the very centre to the earth.' — Troilus and Cressida. The obtuseness and impertinence of this critic are at times insufferable. To see him in Shakspeare's company at all causes a general sense of uncomfort- ableness, such as Launce may have felt respecting the manners of his dog Crab. 3 So Falstaff to Mrs. Ford, in the ' Merry Wives,' ( I see you are obse- quious in yolir love/ SOUTHAMPTON'S 'LOVE' THE < CHILD OF STATE.' 305 Which is not mix'd with seconds, 1 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 without any conflict with some of the historic circumstances 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 asserting; 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 4 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 VIH.,' 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 might, 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 only the ' Child of State.' It could not have 1 Mix'd with seconds." 1 So in 'King Lear/ 'No seconds ? all myself? ' Act iv. sc. 6. '306 SHAKSPEAEE'S SONNETS. been builded far from ' accident ' when so terrible a one had 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 unnatural 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. What for ? Save to show what a fool he was in making 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 tome I bore the canopy.' Why, what would it be to his friend, the Earl? Such SOUTHAMPTON'S FIGHT WITH TIME AND FORTUNE. 307 reference to himself — such a c look at me' would have been the 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, the reader's concern would be for Southampton ! But enough said : it is not Shakspeare who speaks in these sonnets. It is the same speaker who has so long sustained the fight with ' Time' and c 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 6 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 his 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 such a prolonged 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 this wrong 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 immortality. Not flattery nor the spirit of the 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 opposition of a malevolent fortune.. This is 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 illumines the dimmest nook with a light that we can see by, whereas the personal rendering, in all 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 EARL IN PRISON. 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 I 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. (115.) 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. 309 of his friend serves to make him pour forth his love in a larger measure, and he now sees why he 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 ought 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 the 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's arguments that these sonnets cannot 310 SHAKSPEARE'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, his sentence, his imprisonment, bitter as death? Could his eulogist find no call upon him for secure con- gratulation when James had restored him to liberty ? 'We should expect Shakspeare 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 way. 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 the 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 he yet teaches. There are, however, some important allusions in this sonnet ! The reference to Time changing ' decrees of Kings' no doubt includes the change in that decree SOUTHAMPTON IS SET FEEE. 311 which had doomed the Earl to death. 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 ! ' If so, it also shows something of the amaze- ment with which Shakspeare had witnessed so futile a diversion on the part 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 line is one of those personal and precious particulars with 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 107 will show us that, in spite of the dramatic method adopted by Shakspeare in writing of the Earl, he did find a call for secure congratulation when James had restored the Earl to his liberty. SHAKSPEARE'S GREETING TO THE EARL OX HIS RELEASE FROM THE TOWER. 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 ! l The mortal Moon 2 hath her Eclipse endured, And the sad Augurs mock their own presage ; Incertainties now crown themselves assured, And Peace proclaims olives of endless age ; 3 1 ( Confined doom/ i.e., a doom defined by boundaries. In ' King- Lear ' we have the ' confined deep.' 2 ( Mortal Moon.'' The Queen is personified as the moon, cold and chaste, in the allegory of a l Midsummer Night's Dream.' Our poet calls the eyes of his Lucrece ' mortal stars? 3 ' 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 Tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. 1 (107.) There can be no mistake, doubt, 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 eclipse endured.' 2 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 and State of England, by Roger Coke, vol. i. p. 29. Likewise Cranmer, in 'Henry VIII.,' points out the peace 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.' 1 This is the last of the Southampton Sonnets, as they have come to us. 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 has only found a tomb. % So Antony says of Cleopatra, 'Alack, our teirene Moon is now eclipsed.' THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 313 Aii image of maiden purity to her 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 the drops of this most balmy time, the tears of joy ; his lease of love is renewed. Those who had prophesied the worst can now laugh at their own fears and mock their unfulfilled 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 with 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 life will share in this new dawn of gladness and promised peace of the nation. He 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 prophesied changes and disasters. The natural fact, of which this mortal ' eclipse ' is the image, is illustrated in 'King Lear.' 6 1 am thinking, brother,' says Edmund, ' of a prediction I read the other day 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 SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. Death — surely in the death of the Queen ? — ' subscribes,' that is, submits to the speaker. 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 l 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 had 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 Chatter ton clicl on the death of Lord Mayor Beckford, he would have been glad the Queen was dead, by the gain of Southampton. But I do think Shakspeare looked upon her as a tyrant in all marriage matters, and not without cause. Her Majesty appears not only to have made up her mind to remain single herself, when getting on 1 We may likewise be sure that Shakspeare had Southampton's good word in securing the patronage of James, and the privilege accorded by- Letters Patent to his own theatrical company, directly after the King had reached London. MAIDS OF HONOUR IN LOVE. 315 for sixty, but also to prevent her maids from being married. What the Queen's treatment was of her maids that wished to marry, we may gather from the letter of Mr. Fenton to John Harington, 1 in which, speaking of the Lady Mary Howard, he tells us that 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- fangled dress, and they had to get out of their difficulty as best 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. Whereupon the Queen said if it was too short for her, it was too fine 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 enjoyed 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 2 on the subject of Essex's marriage, and the Queen's consequent fury, says, ' God be thanked, she does not strike all she threats ! ' Mr. Fenton 1 Harington's Nugce Antiquce, vol. i. p. 233. 2 Lodge's Illustrations, 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 Court with whom 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 marriage. 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 them take opposite sides. I like 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 'Englande's Mourning Garment' (1603), he is taken to task under the name of ' Melicert.' i Nor doth the silver-tonged Melicert Drop from his honied Muse one sable teare To mourn her death that graced his 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 another Elizabeth. 317 THE MSS. BOOK OF THE 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 in it. The subject is the old one of warring against Time, and the writer is at the moment writing in a book from which 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 will 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 thoughts in these ' waste blanks,' and they will be a living memory of the past, one day — just as the mirror is a reflector to-day. If he will 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 evidently Shakspeare is then writing in it. Moreover it has ' vacant leaves ' — ' waste blanks ; ' therefore it has pages that have been filled. And to the contents of these written pages 318 SHAKSPEARE'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 fleetness. This book, then, has been enriched by the Poet's writing ; but if Southampton will 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. ' Thy 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 with in the following sonnet, and so I print the sonnet by itself, although it belongs, by its plead- ing and defensive tone, to those which treat of the last re- conciliation of the 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 4 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 ELIZABETH VERNON'S SIIAKSPEARE-ALBUM. 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 brain. 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 memory, 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 Elizabeth Vernon. The book had been a present from Mistress 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-writing. 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 that he was wont to take his table-book out of his pocket and write down his notions 320 SIIAKSPEARE'S SONNETS. as they came into his head, when he was writing his " Arcadia," as he was hunting on our pleasant plains.' But 4 thy gift — thy Tables,' does not necessarily mean the Table-book 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 larger contains the lesser. This book, then, in which 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 was 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 Eaii'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 which 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 suggesting and the new form of the Earl's in- 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 BOOK PROBABLY GIVEN TO WILLIAM HERBERT. 321 and now the excelling argument of the Earl's love is to be written in Southampton's own book — the book which was given to him by his Mistress for our Poet to write in. Thus, in sonnet 38, we see that Shakspeare is beginning to write in the book, which in sonnet 77 he is positively writing in ; and that in the following sonnet this same book has been given away by the Earl of Southampton. In sonnet 38 it was to be devoted to the Earl's love, and in sonnet 122 it has been devoted to the celebration of his love for Elizabeth Vernon. There is a reference to the circle of ' private friends,' who were to read the sonnets in .this book. c If my slight Muse do please these 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 Southampton gave these MSS. to William Herbert, and that the first cause why Shakspeare's sonnets came into the world in so mysterious a manner, may be legitimately supposed to originate in this fact, that the Earl had given them away privately on Jiis own account, and thus forestalled the Poet in the right to possess or print them ; in all proba- bility frustrating any such intentions of publishing, as he may at one time have entertained. THE EAEL TO ELIZABETH VERNON" ON PARTING WITH A BOOK WHICH SHE HAD GIVEN TO HIM. Thy gift — thy tables — are within my brain Full-charactered with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank l remain Beyond all date, even to eternity ; Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist, 1 i That idle rank.' The sonnets were the work of Shakspeare's ' idle hours ! ' Y 322 SHAKSPEAKE'S SONNETS. Till each to raised oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never can be missed : That poor retention 1 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. (122.) 1 ' That poor retention is the table-book given to him by his friend.'' — Maloke. Nothing of the kind. The book spoken of in sonnet 77 is not Shakspeare's. It belongs to the person addressed. The speaker is writing in it, and he asks the Earl to commit his own thoughts to the waste blanks, the vacant leaves, of this book, which he calls i thy book] just as he says ( thy glass, , 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 paper booh having some leaves written on, others blank. The speaker does not, in either case, say thy ' table-book.' He says in effect 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 effaced. 323 DRAMATIC SONNETS, THE