THE YOUNG EARL'S LAPSES.

239

sagacious and sincere, and he who wrote these lines must have been known by the person addressed to have kept his own life sweet, his affections high and pure, for his words to have had either weight or warrant of authority.

As one of the lines had appeared in a play in the year 1596, the sonnet to which it belongs, together with the rest of the group, would not be written later, I think, than 1595, or early in the year following; but it is of course impossible to date every one of the sonnets:

1

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, —

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And Art made tongue-tied by Authority,
And Folly, doctor-like, controlling Skill,
And simple truth, miscalled simplicity,
And captive Good attending captain Ill:

Tired with all these, from these I would be gone,
Save that to die, I leave my Love alone!

Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,'
And with his presence grace impiety,
That Sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?

Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,

Beggared of blood to blush thro' lively veins?

'Ah, wherefore with infection should he live?'

(66.)

In sonnet 111, it is the speaker who offers to drink potions of Eysell' because of his strong infection.'

For she hath no exchequer now but his,

And, proud of many, lives upon his gains:

O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
In days long since, before these last so bad.

Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn,
When Beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were borne,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away
To live a second life on second head,
E'er Beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;

And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore!

(67.)

(68.)

1 Without all ornament itself and true.' Surely we ought to read 'himself and true,' says Malone. Surely not: If the eye be lifted one half inch beyond the nose, it will perceive that the 'Beauty' of the 2nd and 8th lines governs the itself of the 10th. The Poet means Beauty, 'simple, of itself,' as was Falstaff's sack!

N.B.-A like case occurs in the

Tempest,' and, if I do not greatly err, a similar look backward will tend to simplify a perplexing passage :—

'My sweet mistress

Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness

Had ne'er like executor! I forget

But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours

Most busiless when I do IT.'

He

Here the labours are referred to parenthetically: the previous 'work' is the 'it' of the last line. Ferdinand says, for his part he forgets, not only the baseness of his work, but the work altogether; is only reminded of it by these sweet thoughts that will come and perforce refresh his labours. is least occupied with the work, least engaged in it as a matter of business, most unbusied by it, or most busiless whilst doing it, because his thoughts are with her who thus turns his consciousness into comforting. The subtle, dreamy lover-like beauty of his 'I forget -he only thinking parenthetically, and by reflex from his mistress even of how the labour is lost in the love!is one of the poet's rarest effects. So rare and fine is it that the meaninglike the smitten harp-string-is almost rapt from sight to pass away in sound.

'NOBLESSE OBLIGE.'

Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend :
All tongues-the voice of souls-give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend:
Thine outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound,

By seeing farther than the eye hath shown:

They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;1

241

Then (churls) their thoughts, altho' their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds!

But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The solve is this-that thou dost common grow.2

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who moving others are themselves as stone,
Unmovéd, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit Heaven's graces
And husband Nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence:
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;

But if that flower with base infection meet,

The basest weed outbraves his dignity!

(69.)

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

(94.)

1

Thy Glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy Dial how the precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this Book this learning may'st thou taste!

'Thy deeds.' In Sonnet 111, it is the speaker who bewails his 'harmful deeds.'

2 Thou dost common grow.' In Sonnet 112, the speaker has been the

mark of common scandal.

R

The wrinkles which thy Glass will truly show
Of mouthéd graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy Dial's shady stealth may'st know
Time's thievish progress to eternity:

Look, what thy memory cannot contain

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nursed-delivered from thy brain-To take a new acquaintance of thy mind:

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy Book.

(77.)

DRAMATIC SONNETS.

1597-8.

A FAREWELL OF THE EARL'S TO ELIZABETH VERNON.

It has now come to a parting in downright earnest with Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon. The lover speaks as one who has an honourable grief lodged here, that burns worse than tears can drown.' She is too dear for him to possess. He has called her his for awhile, because she gave herself to him, either not knowing her worth or his unworthiness. She gave herself away upon a mistake, a misconception, his patent having been granted in error; and her better judgment recalls the gift. Farewell! Whatsoever reason she may assign for this course, he will support it, and make no defence on his own behalf. She cannot disgrace him half so badly, whatever excuse she may put forth for this desired change,' as he will disgrace himself. Knowing her will, he will not claim her acquaintance, but walk no more in the old accustomed meeting-places; and should they meet by chance, he will look strange, see her as though he saw her not. He will not name her name lest he- too much profane'-should soil it, and very possibly tell of their acquaintanceship. He will fight against himself in every way for her; he must never love him whom she hates. Then hate me