To this I witness call the fools of time,

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

Were it aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honoring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favor
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet foregoing simple savor,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.

124.

Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul,
When most impeached, stands least in thy control.

125.

Dr. Drake, in maintaining that the Sonnets, from the 1st to the 126th, were addressed to Lord Southampton, has alleged, as "one of the most striking proofs of this position," the fact that the language of the Dedication to the Rape of Lucrece, and that of the 26th Sonnet, are almost precisely the same." If the reader will turn to this Dedication, he will at once see the resemblance. "The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end," shows that in the Sonnets, as in the works of contemporary writers, the perpetually recurring terms of love and lover were meant to convey the most profound respect as well as the strongest affection. In that age, friendship was not considered as a mere conventional intercourse for social gratification. There was depth and strength in it. It partook of the spiritual energy which belonged to a higher philosophy of the affections than now presides over clubs and dinner-parties. • My friend," or my lover," meant something more than one who is ordinarily civil, returns our calls, and shakes hands upon great occasions. Lord Southampton, in a letter of introduction to a grave Lord Chancellor, calls Shakspeare "my especial friend." To Lord Southampton Shakspeare dedicates "love without end," This 26th Sonnet, we have little doubt, is also a dedication, accompanying some new production of the mighty dramatist, in accord

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ance with his declaration, "What I have done is yours, have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours :"

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

what I

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides by moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspéct,

And puts apparel on my tattered loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect :

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,

Till then, not show my head where thou may'st

prove me.

26.

The Sonnet which precedes this has also the marked character of the same respectful affection; and, like the 26th, in all probability accompanied some offering of friendship :

Let those who are in favor with their stars
Of public honor and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlooked for joy in that I honor most.
Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread,
But as the marigold at the sun's eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famouséd for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honor razéd quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove, nor be removed.

25.

Again the 23d Sonnet is precisely of the same character. All these appear to us wholly unconnected with the poems which surround them little gems, perfect in themselves, and wanting no setting to add to their beauty: —

As an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put besides his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love's rite,

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 presages of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love, and look for recompence,

More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ :
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

23.

Between the 23d 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 played the painter, and hath stelled
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter's art.

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,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
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,)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impannelléd

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determinéd

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.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other :
When that mine eye is famished 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:
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part
So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thyself away art present still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
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.

46.

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 beauties 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 mouthéd graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look, what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.

77.

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 Shakspeare. 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 patronized by the Pembroke family, and that, in 1601, he dedicated a book to William Herbert, to which Shakspeare is held to allude in the 82d Sonnet, by the expression "dedicated words." This is Mr. Boaden's theory. One of the Sonnets supposed also to refer to William Herbert as 66 a man right fair” was published in 1599, when the young nobleman was only 19 years of age. But in the stanzas which relate to some poetical rivalry, real or imaginary, the person addressed has

He is

"added feathers to the learned's wing, And given grace a double majesty."

"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