WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

1564-1616.

THE sonnets of Shakespeare are a puzzle to his commentators, who cannot agree upon the person to whom they were addressed. They-the sonnets, not the commentators -were published for the first time in 1609, and dedicated by the publisher, T. T. (Thomas Thorpe), to Mr. W. H., whom he declared to be their "onlie begetter." Who Mr. W. H. was, has never been settled. Dr. Farmer supposed the initials were those of William Harte, the poet's nephew; but as that young gentleman was only nine years old when the sonnets were published, his suggestion refuted itself. Tyrwhitt pointed out a line in the twentieth sonnet,

"A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,"

and because the word hues was printed Hews in the old edition, inferred that they stood for William Hews, or Hughes. Dr. Drake was for reversing them, when they would stand for those of Henry Wriothesley, the patron and friend of Shakespeare, to whom "VENUS AND ADONIS," and "THE RAPE OF LUCRECE" were dedicated. Mr. Boaden, and Keats' friend, Mr. Charles Armitage Brown, were for letting them remain, and interpreting them as the initials of William Herbert, Sydney's nephew, and the son of the Earl of Pembroke. Whether this young nobleman, who, by the by, was Earl of Pembroke himself, when the sonnets were published, his father dying in 1601, could with propriety be styled Mr. William Herbert, is still a subject of dispute. Not being a Shakespearean commentator, I shall not favour the reader with any theory of my own, but leaving him to take his choice of the persons suggested, pass on to what more immediately concerns me, which is, whether the enigmatical Mr. W. H. was what Thorpe declared him to be, the "onlie begetter" of the sonnets. To this there can be but one answer: He was not. That the majority of the sonnets were addressed to a man, is certain; but that a considerable number of them, about one third, I should say, were addressed to a woman, is equally certain. The difficulty hitherto has been the way in which they were originally printed. Instead of being divided into poems of a certain length, they were huddled together carelessly, no order being preserved, except in the first twenty or thirty. Whether the blame rests with Thorpe, or the person who

furnished him the copy, can not of course be ascertained, but probably with the latter. There is reason to think that Shakespeare did not assist in their publication, but that they were given to the world without his concurrence, as was the case with all his plays printed in his lifetime. Had he published the sonnets himself, he would have printed them, I am convinced, in a different order to that in which they now stand, and not as sonnets proper, but rather as poems in the sonnet stanza, like Spenser's "VISIONS OF PETRARCH," " VISIONS OF BELLAY," etc. He would have classified them, as Mr. Brown and others have since done. Whether his classification would have corresponded with theirs, is another matter. Mr. Brown divides them into six consecutive poems, or parts. With this division I agree in the main, although it seems to me in some respects imperfect. I would shift some of the stanzas into different poems, and would re-arrange the order of the whole. Especially I would add to the last division, which Mr. Brown christens, "To his mistress, on her infidelity," because it is the only writing of Shakespeare's extant, which seems to be autobiographical. Whether it is so, or not, we shall probably never know. For my own part I love to think it is. It is a pleasure to me when I read the sonnets, to think that I am obtaining a glimpse of Shakespeare an insight, however slight, into the emotions of that great Spirit. He permits me to read a page in the volume of his heart-a page of all others the most interesting—the story of his love.

"And who was she the lady of his love!"

Not Mistress Shakespeare, of Stratford, née Anne Hathaway, though he doubtless loved her as his wife, and the mother of his children, but some light dame who consoled him for her absence when he was living in London. Of this Siren, who had black eyes and black hair, we know nothing, except that Shakespeare loved her, and that she was false to him. When this happened we can only conjecture: I imagine it to have been between 1593 and 1598; certainly not much later than the last year, when Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets" were well enough known to be mentioned in print. (MERE'S WIT'S TREASURY.) My reasons for this supposition are various. First, the form of the verse in which Shakespeare celebrated this mysterious episode in his life-the Sonnet. It was not an early form with him, as far as we can ascertain, for his two earliest poems, "VENUS AND ADONIS," published in 1593, and “The Rape of LUCRECE," published in 1594, are in measures the music of which is utterly at variance with that of the Sonnet. If he had tried the Sonnet before the six and seven line stanzas of these poems, it would have been difficult for him to have avoided its cadences while writing them. He was a master of rhythm, it is true; but it is equally true that at certain periods of his poetical life, he wrote in certain styles, and in no other. He began, like all young poets, with some peculiar rhythm or tune in his head; but as his mind enlarged with practice and knowledge, he learned new ones, and shaped his creations according to their laws. My second reason for thinking the sonnets were written after "VENUS AND ADONIS," and "THE RAPE OF LUCRECE," is, that they are in all respects superior to those poems. It might not be safe to apply this test to the works of some of the modern poets, for their latest works are frequently their worst; but it is safe to apply it to Shakespeare, for his

great mind never retrograded. Another reason for thinking that his sonnets were written after 1593, is that at that time the Sonnet was just beginning to be popular in England. There were three causes for this popularity, or rather three poets who contributed to it-Sydney, Daniel, and Drayton, whose sonnets, the reader will remember, were published in 1591, '92, and '93. The fashion was set by them, and Shakespeare was not long in adopting it. His model was Daniel, the linked sweetness of whose versification was in harmony with his own taste. He commenced with "THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM”—admitting it to be his work, which many critics doubt-and finding his studies, so to speak, successful, tried his hand at a poetical portrait of the enigmatical Mr. W. H. As his touch became firmer and more assured, he painted himself and his Delilah. Would that we could know who she was, that dallied with the invincible locks of this greater than Samson! But we can not. What song the sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture; but Shakespeare's mistress is.

Gone like a wind that blew

A thousand years ago.

"I fear," says Mr. Brown, at the conclusion of his dissertation on Shakespeare's sonnets, "I fear some readers may be surprised that I have not yet noticed a certain fault in Shakespeare, a glaring one-his having a wife of his own, perhaps, at Stratford. May no persons be inclined, on this account, to condemn him with a bitterness equal to their own virtue! For myself, I confess I have not the heart to blame him at all-purely because he so keenly reproaches himself for his own sin and folly. Fascinated as he was, he did not, like other poets similarly guilty, directly, or by implication, obtrude his own passions on the world as reasonable laws. Had such been the case, he might have merited our censure, possibly our contempt. On the contrary, he condeinned and subdued his fault, and may therefore be cited as a good rather than as a bad example. Should it be contended that he seems to have quitted his mistress more on account of her unworthiness than from conscientious feelings, I have nothing to answer beyond this: I will not seek after questionable motives for good actions, well knowing by experience, that when obtruded on me, they have been nothing but a nuisance to my better thoughts."

So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse;
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse;
Making a complement of proud compare

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in his huge rondure hems.

O let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

Let them say more that like of hear-say well;
I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How then can I be elder than thou art ?
O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary,

As I not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,

To work my mind, when body's work 's expired:
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see;

Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo! thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That, to my use, it might unuséd stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou may'st come and part;

And even thence thou wilt be stolen I fear,
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer's time!
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase.