So I, for fear of trust, forget to say And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might. O let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love, and look for recompence, More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.-23. Between the 23rd and 25th Sonnets, which we have just given-remarkable as they are for the most exquisite simplicity of thought and diction-occurs the following conceit :— Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; For through 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, where-through 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. But, separated by a long interval, we find two variations of the air, entirely out of place where they occur. Can we doubt that these three form one little poem of themselves? Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead, that thou in him dost lie, (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,) A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; 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. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, And to the painted banquet bids my heart: So, either by thy picture or my love, 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. The 77th Sonnet interrupts the continuity of a poem which we shall presently give, in which the writer refers, with some appearance of jealousy, to an "alien pen." There can be no doubt that this Sonnet is completely isolated. It is clearly intended to accompany the present of a note-book : Thy glass will show thee how thy beautics wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know find Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, The 76th to the 87th Sonnets (omitting the 77th and 81st) have been held to refer to a particular event in the poetical career of Shakspere. He expresses something like jealousy of a rival poet-a "better spirit." By some, Spenser is supposed to be alluded to; by others, Daniel. But we do not accept these stanzas as a proof that William Herbert is the person always addressed in these Sonnets, for the alleged reason that Daniel was patronised by the Pembroke family, and that, in 1601, he dedicated a book to William Herbert, to which Shakspere is held to allude in the 82nd Sonnet, by the expression "dedicated words." This is Mr. Boaden's theory. One of the Sonnets, supposed also to refer to William Herbert as "a man right fair," was published in 1599, when the young nobleman was only nineteen years of age. But in the stanzas which relate to some poetical rivalry, real or imaginary, the person addressed has "added feathers to the learned's wing, And given grace a double majesty." He is as fair in knowledge as in hue." The praises of the "lovely boy," be he William Herbert or not, are always confined to his personal appearance and his good nature. There is a quiet tone about the following which separates them from the Sonnets addressed to that "unknown youth;" and yet they may be as unreal as we believe most of those to be :— Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why write I still all one, ever the same, O know, sweet love, I always write of you, For, as the sun is daily new and old, So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse, sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, And given grace a double majesty. And arts with thy sweet graces graced be; -78. Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, say, Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.-79. O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame ! But since your worth (wide, as the ocean is,) The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, I grant thou wert not married to my muse, In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend; And their gross painting might be better us'd Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.-82. I never saw that you did painting need, How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; 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 Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.-84. My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly com pil'd, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the muses fil'd. I think good thoughts, while others write good words, And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry "Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords, In polish'd form of well-refined pen. Hearing you prais'd, I say, "T is so, 't is true," And to the most of praise add something more; But that is in my thought, whose love to you, Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others for the breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts speaking in effect.-85. 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 -86. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate: The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. -87. We cannot trace the connexion of the 121st Sonnet with what precedes and what follows it. It may stand alone-a somewhat impatient expression of contempt for the opinion of the world, which too often galls those most who, in the consciousness of right, ought to be best prepared to be indifferent to it : "T is better to be vile, than vile esteem'd, No.-I am that I am; and they that level I may be straight though 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. Lastly, of the Sonnets entirely independent of the other portions of the series, the following, already mentioned, furnishes one of the many proofs which we have endeavoured to produce that the original arrangement was in many respects an arbitrary one : Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.-146. III. We have thus, with a labour which we fear may be disproportionate to the results, separated those parts of this series of poems which appeared to be manifestly complete in themselves, or not essentially connected with what has been supposed to be the "leading idea" which prevails throughout the collection. It has been said, with great eloquence, "It is true that, in the poetry as well as in the fictions of early ages, we find a more ardent tone of affection in the language of friendship than has since been usual; and yet no instance has been adduced of such rapturous devotedness, such an idolatry of admiring love, as the greatest being whom nature ever produced in the human form pours forth to some unknown youth in the majority of these Sonnets."* The same accomplished critic further speaks of the strangeness of "Shakspere's humiliation in addressing him (the 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 be wailed without resenting." We should agree with Mr. Hallam, if these circumstances were manifest, that, notwithstanding the frequent beauties of these Sonnets, the pleasure of their perusal would be much diminished. But we believe that these impressions have been, in a great degree, produced by regard* Hallam, Literature of Europe,' vol. iii. p. 502. Will Black eyes Tyranny False compare. I. Sonnets. 3 1 2 3 Slavery 2 Coldness. 1 I hate not you. 1 The little love-god (not reprinted) 2 Love and hatred 10 Infidelity 3 ing the original arrangement as the natural | have therefore left us no regret that he had and proper one-as one suggested by the written them. If we are to regard a few of dependence of one part upon another, in a these as real disclosures, with reference to a poem essentially continuous. Mr. Hallam, "dark-haired lady whom the poet loved, but with these impressions, adds, somewhat over whose relations to him there is thrown strongly, "it is impossible not to wish a veil of mystery, allowing us to see little that Shakspere had never written them." except the feeling of the parties-that their Let us, however, analyze what we have love was guilt,”— -we are to consider, what is presented to the reader in a different order so justly added by the writer from whom we than that of the original edition :— quote, that "much that is most unpleasing in the circumstances connected with those magnificent lyrics is removed by the air of despondency and remorse which breathes through those which come most closely on the facts." But it must not be forgotten that, in an age when the Italian models of poetry were so diligently cultivated, imaginary loves and imaginary jealousies were freely admitted into verses which appeared to address themselves to the reader in the personal character of the poet. Regarding a poem, whether a sonnet or an epic, essentially as a work of art, the artist was not careful to separate his own identity from the sentiments and situations which he delineated-any more than the pastoral poets of the next century were solicitous to tell their readers that their Corydons and Phyllises were not absolutely themselves and their mistresses. The Amoretti' of Spenser, for example, consisting of eightyeight Sonnets, is also a puzzle to all those who regard such productions as necessarily autobiographical. These poems were published in 1596; in several passages a date is somewhat distinctly marked, for there are lines which refer to the completion of the first six Books of the 'Fairy Queen,' and to Spenser's appointment to the laureatship"the badge which I do bear." And yet they are full of the complaints of an unrequited love, and of a disdainful mistress, at a period when Spenser was married, and settled with his family in Ireland. Chalmers is here again ready with his solution of the difficulty. They were addressed, as well as Shakspere's Sonnets, to Queen Elizabeth. We believe that, taken as works of art, having a certain degree of continuity, the Sonnets of Spenser, of Daniel, of Drayton, of Shakspere, although * Edinburgh Review,' vol. Ixxi. p. 466. II. Confiding friendship 3 43 Sonnets. 9 9 Humility Absence Estrangement. A second absence Fidelity. 13 Dedications The picture The note-book Rivalry. 3 3 3 1 10 1 1 61 We have thus as many as 104 Sonnets which, if they had been differently arranged upon their original publication, might have been read with undiminished pleasure, as far as regards the strangeness of their author's humiliation before one unknown youth; and |