must be recollected that he has an ancient and a high authority for it in Genesis. On the other hand, all writers, ancient and modern, have united in setting truth before us under the image of a virgin, usually described as a king's daughter, and thus called a princess, always described as a surpassing beauty,

Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth.

We understand very well that the poet does not apply all this denunciation to "lovely woman," but to what he calls the woman's part in man; and so far as there is any truth in it at all it is as applicable to what may as appropriately be called the woman's part in woman; for the double nature of the mastermistress is shared by both man and woman, these expressions signifying, in the Sonnets, the reason and the affections. Hence, in several of the Sonnets, the two natures are referred to as separate persons; as in the 42d and also in the 133d and 134th Sonnets, the poet himself making a third person in the unity, in some cases even a fourth; for the unity always remains, no matter how many of the composite ele ments are referred to.

The 133d and 134th Sonnets are extremely

complicated, but they are to be explained upon the theory we have assumed. To understand the 133d Sonnet, we must consider that the poet has been reflecting upon the pain which his own misconduct has brought upon his better nature, as if this "better part" of himself was separated from him (Sonnet 36); and he condemns that (woman's part) in him which has misled him. Hence he exclaims, line 1, as we will paraphrase it,-Beshrew that heart (or affection in me) which has misled me, and induced the pain I feel from the thought of having wounded the higher spirit, as well as me; proceeding, line 3: -is it not enough that I should suffer alone, for what I have done, but must my better spirit be brought into slavery, or suffering, in addition to my own pain? and he continues, line 5: that cruel affection (human) has made a division in my own nature, separating me from " my most true mind" (as expressed in the 113th Sonnet), and hast made my better part suffer even more than me; thus disuniting my whole self, leaving me in utter desolation; or, as in line 7, utterly forsaken : " and now he prays, line 9, that his better self would take his (human) heart into its own steel (or strong) bosom (or nature)-where he proposes to "bond" himself

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for the release (from suffering) of his higher self; and will constitute himself a guard for the faithful execution of the bond. This being all (metaphysically) arranged, he says, line 12, addressing his "better part,"-Thou can'st not be rigorous with me, thus imprisoned in thy steel bosom, because I, being pent in thee, am thine [or thee]. "Yet thou wilt be so"-because, as we explain it, notwithstanding all this wrestling with the spirit, he could not free himself from a sense of his demerits; as appears also in the 134th Sonnet.

The expression in the 13th line, "being pent in thee," carries us to the poet's sense of the unity, just as, in the last line of the 135th Sonnet, the language "think all but (or only) one," is a clear indication of the same doctrine.

This may appear to be an overstrained solution of the mysticism in these Sonnets, but a careful consideration of the poet's doctrine of the duality and triplicity, all in the unity, as seen in the 42d Sonnet, will reconcile the difficulties. In the Sonnet just named, the poet declares: "My friend and I are one," the friend being the object addressed, called the better part of himself in the 39th Sonnet.

That this object was not a merely contemporary

person, will become more and more apparent as the reader becomes familiar with the idea, that the poet is addressing what Emerson charmingly calls the Over-Soul. Thus, the 53d Sonnet is surely addressed to the Source of all being:

53. 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 foizon * 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.

This Sonnet clearly recognizes the constancy or

permanence of the spirit in variable nature.

It may

remind us somewhat of the maya doctrine of the Hindoos, as it also reminds us of the doctrine of those who would have us see God in all things, or all things in God,

* Plenty, or harvest.

As between Jacobi and Goethe, our poet would undoubtedly have sided with the latter, who declared that nature reveals God, while Jacobi was of opinion that nature conceals God.

To those who do not perceive God in nature, the latter must wear a "black," terrible aspect, to be likened only to death; but to our poet this material existence was illumined by the spirit,

27. Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.

If the reader still doubts as to the object addressed, let him turn to the 122d Sonnet, and study its meaning. The "gift," the "tables," referred to in the 1st line, are two expressions for one thing, the written law of Moses--often called the gift of God, said to have been written on tables of stone. St. Paul speaks, in the 3d chapter 2d Corinth., of tables in the same sense, and tells us of the law written upon the fleshly tables of the heart by the Spirit of God, which gave him life, and by which he was enabled to leave the written law-called Christ in the flesh-"behind," calling the same written law elsewhere a schoolmaster, who may be dismissed after his lesson has been taught. In like manner,