&c.;

Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly They contrast remarkably with the tone of When summer's breath their masked buds the 32nd Sonnet,discloses :

“ These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover." But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Meres has a passage :

As Ovid saith of his Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; worksOf their sweet deaths are sweetest odours

'Jamque opus exegi quod nec Jovis ira, nec made:

ignis, And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetusWhen that shall fade, by verse distils your tas;' truth.-54.

and as Horace saith of his, Not marble, not the gilded monuments

Exegi monumentum ære perenniu Of of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; so say I severally of Sir Philip Sidney's, But you shall shine more bright in these con- Spenser's, Daniel's, Drayton's, Shakespeare's, tents

and Warner's works." What Ovid and Than unswept stone, besmeard with sluttish Horace said is imitated in the 55th Sonnet. time.

But we greatly doubt if what Meres would When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

have said of Shakspere he would have said And broils root out the work of masonry,

of himself, except in some assumed character, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall

to which we have not the key. Ben Jonson, burn The living record of your memory.

to whom a boastful spirit has with some 'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity

justice been objected, never said anything Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still so strong of his own writings; and he wrote

with too much reliance, in this and other Even in the eyes of all posterity

particulars, upon classical examples. But That wear this world out to the ending doom.

was not a writer of Sonnets, which, So till the judgment that yourself arise, pitched in an artificial key, made this boastYou live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. ful tone a constituent part of the whole per

--55. formance. The man, who never once speaks

of his own merits in his dramas, the greatest Wherever we meet with these magnificent promises of the immortality which the poet's productions of the human intellect

, when he verses are to bestow, we find them associated put on the imaginary character in which a

poet with that personage, the representative at

is weaving a fiction out of his supposed once of “ Adonis” and of “ Helen,” who pre- form himself to the practice of other masters

personal relations, did not hesitate to consents himself to us as the unreal coinage of

of the art. Shakspere here adopted the tone the fancy. In many of the lines which we

which Spenser, Daniel, and Drayton had have given in the second division of this inquiry, the reader will have noticed the adopted. The parallel appears to us very affecting modesty, the humility without remarkable ; and we must beg the indulgence

of our readers while we present them a few abasement, of the great poet comparing himself with others. Here Shakspere indeed passages from each of these writers.

And first of Spenser.

His 27th Sonnet speaks. For example, take the whole of the 32nd Sonnet. We should scarcely imagine,

will furnish an adequate notion of the if the poem were continuous, as Mr. Brown general tone of his ‘Amoretti,' and of the

self-exaltation which appears to belong to believes, that the last stanza of the second

this species of poem :portion of it in his classification would conclude with these lines :

"Fair Proud ! now tell me, why should faiz be

proud,

Sith all world's glory is but dross unclean, Not marble, not the gilded monuments

And in the shade of death itself shall shroud, Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme." However now thereof ye little ween!

find room,

That goodly idol, now so gay beseen,

Delia, these eyes, that so admire thine,
Shall doff her flesh's borrow'd fair attire ;

Have seen those walls which proud ambition
And be forgot as it had never been;

rear'd That many now much worship and admire ! To check the world; how they entomb'd have Ne any then shall after it inquire,

lien Ne any mention shall thereof remain,

Within themselves, and on them ploughs have But what this verse, that never shall expire,

ear'd. Shall to you purchase with her thankless pain! Yet never found that barbarous hand attain'd

Fair! be no longer proud of that shall perish, The spoil of fame deserv'd by virtuous men; But that, which shall you make immortal, Whose glorious actions luckily had gain'd cherish."

The eternal annals of a happy pen.

And therefore grieve not if thy beauties die; And the 69th Sonnet is still more like the

Though time do spoil thee of the fairest veil model upon which Shakspere formed his That ever yet cover d mortality; 55th:

And must enstar the needle and the rail.

That grace which doth more than enwoman “ The famous warriors of the antique world

thee,
Us’d trophies to erect in stately wise,

Lives in my lines, and must eternal be."
In which they would the records have enroll'd
Of their great deeds and valorous emprise. But Drayton, if he display not the energy
What trophy then shall I most fit devise, of Shakspere, the fancy of Spenser, or the
In which I may record the memory
Of my love's conquest, peerless beauty's prize

, the extravagance of his admiration or his

sweetness of Daniel, is not behind either in Adorn'd with honour, love, and chastity ? Even this verse, vow'd to eternity,

confidence in his own power. The 6th and
Shall be thereof immortal monument; the 44th ‘Ideas' are sufficient examples :-
And tell her praise to all posterity,
That may admire such world's rare wonder- “How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
ment;

That now in coaches trouble every street,
The happy purchase of my glorious spoil, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Gotten at last with labour and long toil." Ere they be well wrapp'd in their winding-

sheet!
Spenser's 75th Sonnet also thus closes : When I to thee eternity shall give,
“My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.

And queens hereafter shall be glad to live Where, when as Death shall all the world Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise ; subdue,

Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes, Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

Shall be so much delighted with thy story,

That they shall grieve they liv'd not in these Of Daniel's Sonnets, the 41st and 42nd times, furnish examples of the same tone, though

To have seen thee, their sex's only glory:

So thou shalt fly above the vulgar throng, somewhat more subdued than in Shakspere

Still to survive in my immortal song.”
or Spenser :-
"Be not displeas'd that these my papers should

" Whilst thus my pen strives to eternize thee, Bewray unto the world how fair thou art;

Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face, Or that my wits have show'd the best they

Where, in the map of all my misery,

Is modell’d out the world of my disgrace: could. (The chastest flame that ever warmed heart!)

Whilst, in despite of tyrannizing rhymes,
Think not, sweet Delia, this shall be thy shame,

Medea-like, I make thee young again,
My muse should sound thy praise with mourn.

Proudly thou scorn'st my world out-wearing ful warble;

rhymes, How many live, the glory of whose name

And murther’st virtue with thy coy disdain; Shall rest in ice, when thine is grav'd in

And though in youth my youth untimely marble !

perish,

To keep thee from oblivion and the grave,
Thou mayst in after ages live esteem'd,
Unburied in these lines, reserv'd in pureness;

Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish,
These shall entomb those eyes, that have re-

Where I entomb'd my better part shall save; deem'd

And though this earthly body fade and die,
Me from the vulgar, thee from all obscureness.

My name shall mount upon eternity."
Although my careful accents never mov'd

We now proceed to what appears another
thee,
Yet count it no disgrace that I have lov'd continuous poem amongst Shakspere's Son-
thee."

nets, addressed to the same ohject as the

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd,
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 liv'd alone,
Which three, till now, never kept seat in

one.-105.

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers

divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same ;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page ;

Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show

it dead.--108.

When in the chronicle of wasted time

If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguild, I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,

Which labouring for invention bear amiss In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

The second burthen of a former child ! Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

0, that record could, with a backward look,

E'en of five hundred courses of the sun,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd

Show me your image in some antique book, Even such a beauty as you master now.

Since mind at first in character was done! So all their praises are but prophecies

That I might see what the old world could Of this our time, all you prefiguring ;

say And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,

To this composed wonder of your frame; They had not skill enough your worth to

Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,

Or whether revolution be the same. sing; For we, which now behold these present

0! sure I am, the wits of former days days,

To subjects worse have given admiring Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to

praise.-59. praise.-106.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled

shore, Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul So do our minutes hasten to their end; Of the wide world dreaming on things to

Each changing place with that which goes come,

before, Can yet the lease of my true love control,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

Nativity, once in the main of light, The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, Incertainties now crown themselves assurd,

And Time, that gave, doth now his gift conAnd peace proclaims olives of endless age.

found. Now with the drops of this most balmy time Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, My love looks fresh, and Death to me sub- And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; scribes,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, Since spite of him I 'll live in this poor rhyme,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. While he insults o'er dull and speechless And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall tribes.

stand, And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass

-60. are spent.--107.

Of these eleven stanzas nine are consecutive What's in the brain that ink may character,

in the original, being numbered 100 to 108. Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? | The other two, the 59th and 60th, are What 's new to speak, what now to register, certainly isolated in the first arrangement; That may express my love, or thy dear merit? | but the idea of the 108th glides into the