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, My saucy bark, inferior far to his, On your broad main doth wilfully appear. Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, The worst was this;-my love was my decay.-80. 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, 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 Which should example where your equal grew. 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 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 But, when your countenance fil'd up his line, Then lack'd I matter that enfeebled mine. -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; My bonds in thee are all determinate. For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? And for that riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. 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. ing the original arrangement as the natural | have therefore left us no regret that he had and proper one-as one suggested by the dependence of one part upon another, in a poem essentially continuous. Mr. Hallam, with these impressions, adds, somewhat strongly, "it is impossible not to wish that Shakspere had never written them." Let us, however, analyze what we have presented to the reader in a different order than that of the original edition : written them. If we are to regard a few of these as real disclosures, with reference to a "dark-haired lady whom the poet loved, but over whose relations to him there is thrown a veil of mystery, allowing us to see little except the feeling of the parties—that their love was guilt,"- -we are to consider, what is so justly added by the writer from whom we 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 laureats hip"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. lxxi. p. 466. in many instances they might shadow forth real feelings, and be outpourings of the inmost heart, were presented to the world as exercises of fancy, and were received by the world as such. The most usual form which such compositions assumed was that of loveverses. Spenser's Amoretti' are entirely of this character, as their name implies; Daniel's, which are fifty-seven in number, are all addressed "To Delia;" Drayton's, which he calls "Ideas," are somewhat more miscellaneous in their character. These were the three great poets of Shakspere's days. Spenser's 'Amoretti' was first printed in 1595; Daniel's 'Delia' in 1592; Drayton's 'Ideas' in 1594. In 1593 was also published 'Licia, or Poems of Love, in honour of the admirable and singular virtues of his Lady.' This book contains fifty-two Sonnets, all conceived in the language of passionate affection and extravagant praise. And yet the author, in his Address to the Reader, says " If thou muse what my Licia is, take her to be some Diana, at the least chaste, or some Minerva, no Venus, fairer far. It may be she is Learning's image, or some heavenly wonder, which the precisest may not mislike: perhaps under that name I have shadowed Discipline." This fashion of Sonnet-writing upon a continuous subject prevailed, thus, about the period of the publication of the Venus and Adonis' and the 'Lucrece,' when Shakspere had taken his rank amongst the poets of his time-independent of his dramatic rank. He chose a new subject for a series of Sonnets; he addressed them to some youth, some imaginary person, as we conceive; he made this fiction the vehicle for stringing together a succession of brilliant images, exhausting every artifice of language to present one idea under a thousand different forms "varying to other words; And in this change is my invention spent." Coleridge, with his usual critical discrimination, speaking of the Italian poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and glancing also at our own of the same period, "In opposition to the present age, and says, perhaps in as faulty an extreme, they placed the essence of poetry in the art. The ex cellence at which they aimed consisted in the exquisite polish of the diction, combined with perfect simplicity."* This, we apprehend, is the characteristic excellence of Shakspere's Sonnets; displaying, to the careful reader "the studied position of words and phrases, so that not only each part should be melodious in itself, but contribute to the harmony of the whole." He sought for a canvas in which this elaborate colouring, this skilful management of light and shade, might be attempted, in an address to a young man, instead of a scornful Delia or a proud Daphne; and he commenced with an exhortation to that young man to marry. To allow of that energy of language which would result from the assumption of strong feeling, THE POET links himself with the young man's happiness by the strongest expressions of friendship-in the common language of that day, love. We say, advisedly, the poet; for it is in this character that the connexion between the two friends is preserved throughout; and it is in this character that the personal beauty of the young man is made a constantly recurring theme. With these imperfect observations, we present the continuous poem which appears in the first nineteen Sonnets: From fairest creatures we desire increase, fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Biographia Literaria,' vol. ii. p. 27. |
