H.

REMARKS

ON THE

SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE;

WITH THE SONNETS.

SHOWING THAT THEY BELONG TO THE HERMETIC
CLASS OF WRITINGS, AND EXPLAINING THEIR
GENERAL MEANING AND PURPOSE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

CHRIST

"REMARKS ON ALCHEMY," ""SWEDENBORG A HERMETIC PHILOSOPHER,"
THE SPIRIT," AND "THE RED BOOK OF APPIN WITH INTERPRETATIONS."

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER,

(SUCCESSOR TO C. S. FRANCIS & CO.)

522 BROADWAY.

1865.

GENERAL

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
JAMES MILLER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.

JOHN F. TROW,

PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER,
50 Greene Street, New York.

ADVERTISEMENT.

For the convenience of those who may be drawn to the study of the Sonnets of Shakespeare by these Re

marks, the Author has given directions to print the Sonnets with them.

E. A. H.

WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., Nov. 1864.

REMARKS

ON THE

SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER I.

HERMETIC Writing is a species of painting; and as no artist upon canvas can be permitted to interpret his own picture, so no artistic hermetic writer can be allowed to translate into didactic statements the meaning of his own scripture or writing. It would be disgraceful for a painter to label a picture "this is a horse," in order to guard against its being mistaken for some other animal; and so, in like manner, if an art-writer, like Dante or Goethe, were to set about interpreting his own writings, it would be proof that his labors had fallen short of their object.

But while this is true with respect to the artist himself, it is entirely proper for a critic to discuss