THE PROBLEM SOLVED AT LAST.

459

surmises' as have attainted the sonnets and wronged the Poet must for ever pass away.

I also claim for my Theory that it is proved by the utmost evidence the nature of the case admits; that the probabilities alone are such as to inspire a feeling of certainty, that these clothe themselves in a mail of poetic proof, a panoply of circumstantial evidence and confirmatory facts. Attempting so much, it must be very assailable if wrong, only those who think me wrong must be able to set me right. Mere professions of unbelief or nonbelief will be valueless; their expression idle. My facts must be satisfactorily refuted, my Theory disproved simply and entirely, or, in the end, both will be accepted. I cannot expect the result of my explorations to be taken in at first sight, for I myself best appreciate all the intricacies of the process,1 and the many surprises of my discovery. Some readers will find it hard to believe that a thing like this has been left for me to accomplish. Nevertheless, the thing is done; I can trust a certain spirit in the sonnets, that will go on pleading when my words cease; and, as Shakspeare has written, the silence often of pure Innocence persuades when speaking fails.' Even so will his own innocence prevail, and with a perfect trust in the soundness of my conclusions, I leave the matter for the judgement of that great soul of the world which is just.

1 Had we a full biography of the Poet with all his surroundings, we might explain much that is obscure in these remarkable effusions, but by no process that I can conceive, may we hope to seize the genuine allusions to facts that they contain, and succeed therefrom to illustrate and reanimate the life.' Life of Shakspeare, by William Watkiss Lloyd.

'HIS SUGRED SONNETS

AMONG HIS PRIVATE FRIENDS."

Meres.

My reading of the sonnets gives new meaning to the words of Meres. It makes definite a somewhat vague though sure description. In 1598 he could have spoken only of the Southampton series, but he must have had an inkling of their true nature to have generalized thus successfully. He does not say Shakspeare's personal sonnets to a friend or a Patron. And we have only to substitute the dramatic for the fugitive character that has been ascribed to the sonnets, and his words admit all that my interpretation substantiates. They are 'sugred sonnets,' too, which means love-sonnets; known to a circle of private friends, various of whom were concerned in their begettal, and all of whom could be appealed to in witness of their worth. In short Meres identifies the sonnets, up to 1598, as the love-sonnets of Shakspeare written for his private friends. The critic wrote with an eye to these friends. And who were they?

His words mark the very time at which William Herbert had joined the group and become one of those who took an interest in the sonnets. This young lord, from his love of poetry, was probably the one who talked most about the sonnets and made them known. Unquestionably he was one of the 'private friends' referred to in connection

THE PRIVATE FRIENDS.

461

with Shakspeare's sonnets; thus Meres puts us on the track pursued in a previous chapter. The Earl of Southampton was of course the chief of these private friends publicly recognised. That fact is established on the Poet's own personal testimony, independently of the sonnets, although it could not be known apart from the present interpretation of them how secret a bosom-friend he was, how closely linked in habits of intimacy as those 'whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love.'

Southampton being so near and dear a friend of our Poet, it is only the most natural thing in the world that Elizabeth Vernon should be one of his friends also. How could she help being interested in one who had addressed those earlier sonnets to Southampton, urging him to marry, and sought to twine about him so many flowery bands, lead him to the shrine of wedded love, and bring under a nobler direction the riotous energies of youth, so apt to break out of bounds, and run to waste? She must

have loved Shakspeare for his fatherly watchfulness of the young Earl's career and conduct, his anxious jealousy of all immoral companions; and it is only natural to conclude that she was one of the 'private friends' of whom Meres makes mention.

So much might have been assumed, if the sonnets had told us no more.

The Lady Rich's link of relationship, as illustrated by Elizabeth Vernon's jealousy is very obvious and immediate. She being Mistress Vernon's cousin; her companion in childhood and at Court; the starry object of Sidney's sonnets, having herself acquired a taste for poetry, it was not possible that the sonnets in celebration of Elizabeth Vernon's love and lover could have been unknown to her. According to the abstract reason of things, were there no other evidence, she must have been one of the group alluded to by Meres as acquainted with the

sonnets.

It is almost as impossible that the Earl of Essex should not have been one of the friends in the critic's mind when he wrote of those amongst whom the sonnets privately circulated. Essex was something of a poet : he possessed the kindling poetic temperament and was fond of making verses; a lover of literature, and the friend of poets. It was he who sought out Spenser when in great distress and relieved him, and, when that poet died, Essex buried him in Westminster Abbey. Being, as he was, so near a friend of Southampton, it could scarcely be otherwise than that he should have been a personal friend of Shakspeare. It is highly probable that some of the Poet's dramas were first performed at Essex House. In the chorus at the end of Henry V., Shakspeare introduces a prophecy of the Earl's expected successes in Ireland:

'Were now the general of our gracious Empress
(As in good time he may) from Ireland coming,
Bringing Rebellion broached upon his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit

To welcome him?"

Also, one of the grounds upon which Essex was beheaded was the play which had been performed after it was altered for the purpose of adding the Deposition Scene. This alteration was in point of fact adduced by Coke as proof of the intentions of the conspirators to dethrone the Queen. It has been felt ere now that Shakspeare was in some way and to some extent implicated in the Essex attempt. The sonnets with the present rendering will supply the missing link of connection. He was known to Essex as the personal friend of Southampton and as the writer of sonnets on the affection of that Earl for Essex's cousin, Elizabeth Vernon; in this wise Essex became one of the private friends to whom the sonnets were known in MS., as mentioned by Meres, and the Poet was induced to lend his pen at Southampton's re

KING JAMES'S LETTER TO SHAKSPEARE.

463

quest to serve the Essex cause. John Davies, in his 'Scourge of Folly,' speaks of Shakspeare as having lost some chance of being promoted to the companionship of princes, under the reign of King James :

'Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,
Hadst thou not played some parts in kingly sport,
Thou hadst bin a companion for a King,

And been a King among the meaner sort.'

Now, although it is proved by entries in the Accounts of the Revels' and by the testimony of Ben Jonson, that Shakspeare's plays were in great favour at the Court of James, yet, it was not as a player and playwright that he would have been welcomed at Court so much as because he was the friend of the late Essex and the living Southampton. James had the warmest greeting for the friends and partisans of Essex and honours were showered upon them. Davies's allusion accords with the tradition that James was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to W. Shakspeare, which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William Davenant,' respecting which, Oldys, in a MS. note on his copy of Fuller's Worthies, states that the Duke of Buckingham (John Sheffield, that 'high-reaching Buckingham' who aspired to improve Shakspeare's Julius Caesar' in his 'Death of Marcus Brutus') told Lintot that he had seen it in the possession of Davenant. This consideration respecting Shakspeare's private friends makes the letter a far greater likelihood. Sad to say, the Poet does not seem to have taken much to our Solomon' of Royal fools, but to have taken liberties with his character instead.

It will be remembered that the queer love-epistle, over which Lord Rich shook his puzzled head, and which I conjecture may have been the group of sonnets relating to his wife, was being sent by Lady Rich to her brother, the Earl

1 Solomon, the son of David (Rizzio),' he was called by Henry IV. of France.