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-VI-

A PERSONAL SONNET.

Which affords a clue to the dramatic treatment of subjects suggested by
Southampton who is to supply his "own sweet argument," and "give
invention light."

"How can my Muse want subject to invent,
 Whilst thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
 Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
 O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
 Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
 For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
 When thou thyself dost give invention light?
 Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
 Than those old Nine which rhymers invocate,
 And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
 Eternal numbers to outlive long date:
     If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise."
                                                                                    (38)

According to the interpretation now presented, the above Sonnet (which is a little out of place) sounds the note of preparation for a change of method in writing; it is the prologue spoken by Shakspeare in person to the Secret Drama of the Sonnets.

    If the reader will turn to the book of Sonnets—a copy of which should be kept at hand, the reproduced Quarto being preferable for specialists—it will be seen that we can read the first 26 straight on as personal to Shakspeare himself, because the speaker of them is also the writer.  But with the 27th Sonnet comes confusion, and we soon feel ourselves to be all at sea, where it is of no use trying to make believe, either to ourselves or others, that we are not adrift. The most intensely passionate Sonnets, those that are filled with facts, most localized, most circumstantiated, are the least identifiable with Shakspeare's life and character, and the most impersonal to him as their speaker.  This statement can be tested by a study of Sonnets 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 40, 50, 51, 52, 75, 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 109, 110, 111, 123, 124, 125, which I consider to be dramatic.  And it is the Dramatic Sonnets that cause all the mystery. These refuse to be made autobiographical, just because they were not personal to Shakspeare.  They cannot be understood until we can stand where he did, by putting ourselves in his place.

    No doubt it will be denounced as a flaw in my treatment if I do not religiously keep to the arrangement (or want of it) to he found in Thorpe's edition! and if it could be shown that Shakspeare had himself printed the Sonnets, or had anything to do with their publication, that would constitute an argument against the least alteration.  But it cannot, and the plea is sheer hypocrisy.  There is evidence absolutely incontrovertible, proof positive, that neither the poet nor the initiated private friends saw the Sonnets through the press.  There are from forty to fifty errors which could not have passed if they had been submitted to Shakspeare.  In Sonnet 46 the word "thy" occurs four times, and three times out of the four it is printed "their;" it being the custom to abbreviate those words in writing, and the reader for the press did not know which word was intended; "ruined" is spelled "rn'wd" (73); "disposed" "dispode," Sonnet 88.  "Shall" is "stall" (90).  Sonnet 116 is numbered 119.  Line 14 in Sonnet 112 reads—"That all the world besides me thinks y' are dead"—a most ingenious printer's correction of the original, "That all the world besides methinks are dead."  That is printer's proof of what I state.  And such is the nature of our poet's promises made to Southampton, so careful was he in correcting his other poems, that we must conclude he would have superintended the publication, and not subjected his promises of immortality to all the ills of printer's mortality, had he given his sanction to it as it comes to us. Had he authorized the printing, Thorpe would have said so; therefore he did not.  That is publisher's proof.  We get no guarantee, then, from the author as to the arrangement, and it is useless to talk about the duty of sacredly accepting them exactly as they have been handed down to us.  At least we have the right to test the arrangement of an unauthorized work by an appeal to internal evidence; for it is only by that the author himself f can speak to us.  If I could show that one single sonnet had got out of place, there would be good cause to suspect they had not reached us in perfect order, and that a part of the problem was hidden in their dislocation.  Whereas, I can give plenty of proof that the printed is not always the written order. [28]  No one can justly doubt that I have identified the subject matter of Sonnet 107 as a congratulation to Southampton on his release from prison, at the time of Elizabeth's death, in the year 1603.  At that date Shakspeare must have known the Earl some eleven or twelve years.  The Venus and Adonis had been dedicated to him ten years before.  Yet this Sonnet is printed next but two to the one (Sonnet 104) which speaks of his having seen the youth for the first time three pears before the date of writing it!  Again: Sonnet 126 is a fragment, and printed last of the Southampton series.  In this the Earl is called a "boy," and this comes after the sonnet of 1603, at which time Southampton was thirty years of age, married, father of a family, and a renowned war-captain.  Of necessity the Sonnet belongs to that earlier time when Shakspeare did salute him as "sweet boy," and has got displaced. Indeed, it is not a Sonnet at all, but consists of six rhyming couplets.  The idea of growing by waning has been re-wrought in Sonnet 11.  Sonnet 57 is one of those that contain puns on the name of "Will," which are addressed to a woman of loose character.  This fact had been overlooked from the time of the first edition till pointed out by me.  By the original printing, as well as from internal evidence, it is identified as belonging to the latter series of Sonnets which are spoken by "Will" (not to "Will"!), and yet it is printed with 76 Sonnets between it and its congeners!  So with Sonnets 43 and 61: the second is a palpable continuation of the first. The group to which these belong is spoken by some one on a journey.  We may fairly assume that they would be written with some sort of sequence to be intelligible to the reader for whom they were intended, yet those Sonnets which are spoken by the person when at the remotest distance from the stay-at-home are numbered 44 and 45, whereas the first of this series spoken at STARTING on the journey is number 50.  We have but to turn to Sonnet 61 to see that it is one of those that are spoken on the journey, or far from home, and has no connection with the two Sonnets which precede and follow it.  In fact, the greatest confusion of all begins with Sonnets 27 and 28, following the 26 Sonnets which are plainly personal.  These two pertain to the journey and the absence abroad that are spoken of in Sonnets later on.  The toil, of which the speaker is so weary, is travel, hence the other journey that goes on in sleep.  Like Sidney, he is "Tired with the dusty toils of busy day" (A. S. 89), [29] and each day he is "further off" from the person addressed, who remains at home.  These two Sonnets have strayed out of their place, and must be restored before they can be understood.  These are facts—facts in Shakspeare's own handwriting, which tell us the Sonnets were printed with no key to the written arrangement, and that no restriction can be imposed on any such account.  There is ample evidence to prove that some of the Sonnets are out of place; there is ample warrant for me to collate them by the internal evidence.  Although I am bound, for my own sake, to alter as little as ever I can.

    In at least three instances the Sonnets have got out of place, two by two.  It is so with numbers 57 and 58, which belong by nature and by the pun on the name of "Will" to the Latter Series.  So is it with numbers 27 and 28, which seems to show that in each instance they were written on the two sides of the same leaf, and thus one loose leaf, in going astray, would carry two Sonnets with it.  On the whole the groups have held together; but a few loose riderless horses may make dire confusion in the ranks.

    As already seen, there is a change of sex in the imagery, which in a writer so true to nature as Shakspeare is known to be implies, or at least suggests, a change of sex in the person addressed!  That, as before said, is now done which was previously denied whilst the writer was speaking to a man.  This change in the imagery, in the spirit of the Sonnets, in the circumstantial evidence, and in the personal character, which is obvious to all who are not characteristic-blind, also suggests that there may be a change of speaker in Sonnet 27 and others that follow.

    Till now the feeling was one of repose in the affection which the Poet celebrated.  Here the feeling has all a lover's restlessness.  In the previous Sonnets we have not been left in doubt as to the sex of the person addressed; there were many allusions to its being that of a man.  We now meet with Sonnet after Sonnet, and series after series, in which there is no mention of sex.  The feeling expressed is more passionate, the phrase has become more movingly tender; far closer, more inward relationship is indicated, and yet the object to whom these Sonnets are written never appears in person.  There is neither "man" nor "boy," "him" nor "his."   How is this?  Surely it is not the wont of stronger feeling and a greater warmth of affection to fuse down all individuality and lose sight of sex.  That is not the way of Nature's or of Shakspeare's working.  Here is presumptive evidence that the speaker is not addressing a man.  The internal evidence and poetic proof derivable from Shakspeare's other work, are in favour of its being a woman.  There is a spirit too delicate for the ear of a man.  The imagery is essentially feminine.  There is a fondness in the feeling, and a preciousness in the phrase that tell of "Love's coy touch."  There are secret stirrings of nature which influence us as they might if we were in the presence of a beautiful woman disguised: little tell-tales of consciousness and whisperings in the air.  Some of the Sonnets addressed by Shakspeare to the Earl are as glowing with affection, and tender in expression as could well be written from man to man, but there is a subtle difference betwixt these and others that, as will be shown, are addressed to a woman.  The conditions under which the Poet created did not permit of his branding them with all the outward signs of sex; but the difference exists in the secret spirit of them.  We continually catch a breath of fragrance, as though we were treading upon invisible violets, and are conscious of a perfusive feminine grace; whilst a long and loving acquaintanceship brings out the touches and tendernesses of difference, distinct as those notes of the unseen nightingale that make her song so peerless amongst those of other birds.  There is a music here such as could only have found its perfect chord in a woman's heart.  Once we shut our eyes to the supposition that all these Sonnets were meant for a man, we shall soon feel that in numbers of them the heart of a lover is going forth with thrillings ineffable towards a woman, and, in the unmistakable cry, we shall hear the voice of that love which has no like—the absorbing, absolute, all containing Love that woman alone engenders in the heart of a man.  Not that Shakspeare is here wooing a woman in person.  He would not have done that and left out the sex if he were addressing his own mistress.  My proposed solution of the problem here is, that many of the Southampton Sonnets were written dramatically or vicariously, and cannot be read as personal utterances of the Poet.  My endeavour will be to show that the first of these dramatic ones were written upon Southampton's courtship after he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Vernon; and that it is not Shakspeare who speaks at times, but Southampton to his lady.

    This will account for the impassioned tenderness, and, at the same time, for the absence of all mention of the sex of the person addressed, which would be a natural result arising from the Poet's delicacy of feeling.  In such a case "Bondage is hoarse" or somewhat muffled, "and may not speak aloud."  It will likewise explain one of the most remarkable characteristics of many Sonnets, that glancing allusiveness to which the Poet was limited whilst writing for another!  Moreover, it may shed light on the noteworthy fact that in the personal Sonnets the terms of "my love" or "lover" occur 24 times in 18 Sonnets.  In the more impassioned ones they occur only 5 or 6 times in 50 Sonnets, and that when the person addressed has become the speaker's "best of dearest," his "only care," his "home of love," his "cherubin," his "God in love," his "Rose," his "All": that is when Shakspeare is the writer for another and is not speaking for himself!

    There should be nothing very incredible or surprising in making the proposition that the greatest dramatic writer in the world may also have written dramatic Sonnets in the service of his friend Southampton!  In a letter just received, Howard Furness, the American Editor, says, "Shakspeare was as much a dramatist in his Sonnets as in his Plays, and wherein you acknowledge and enforce this you have the whip-hand over all the Theorisers."  But there are English readers who seem unable to think even tentatively that the most essentially dramatic-minded and objective of all our Poets could have written Sonnets to represent any other character than his own; readers who cannot rise to the conception that he may have worn the player's mask at times when writing Sonnets for his friends. Such a suggestion makes the Autobiographists become Autobiographobists.  People who fancy they hold a diamond in their grasp, naturally object to your wrenching their hand open for the purpose of demonstrating that it is but charcoal!  And that is precisely what has to be done with those who imagined they had grasped the facts of Shakspeare's biography in the revelations of the Sonnets.  I tell them the jewel is elsewhere; show them the live sparkles of it (by aid of my dramatic interpretations), and they insist on keeping the hand closed all the more strenuously on their bit of charcoal, and will not look on the real gem for fear their treasure should prove to be only graphite after all and not the precious diamond.

    People who can build the "fabric of his folly, whose foundation is piled upon his faith," will become the fanatical opponents of those who found upon facts; whilst those who can rest on a basis of false belief are beyond the reach of evidence.  The capacity to follow and comprehend the greatest of all dramatic Poets; the ear to distinguish his voice from others where faces are concealed behind the dramatic mask; the perception and sense of dramatic fitness; the insight for recognizing Shakspeare's truth to nature within and without us,—these have now to be put to the test.  It is the supreme characteristic of Shakspeare's mind that it was so essentially dramatic he never was his own very self excepting when he wore the mask, and assumed the character of somebody else.  His was the direct opposite of the autobiographic nature.  Self-exhibition was most foreign to him.  Outside the Sonnets he has shown no single sign of tendency to write personal poems of an elegiac, a melancholy, or confessional character.  The Sonnet was not adopted by him as a sort of droning spinning-wheel by the sound of which he lulled his own personal sorrows; it was not taken up for himself at all.  When he does speak for himself in the early personal Sonnets he says the least possible about himself.  His friend and not himself was his subject.  Hence he begins by borrowing the matter of his argument for marriage from Sidney.  He could hardly be original when limited to the personal standpoint! and so he imitates some one else.  But when we come to the Sonnets in which he represents the feelings, the thoughts, the circumstances and characteristics of his friend Southampton or others, the moment he gets on the mask, he is as freely and fully himself as is the Shakspeare of the Plays.

    Shakspeare can only be adequately known in his Sonnets by those that are dramatic.  In these alone does his energy reach the full height, and his poetry attain the perfect flower.  He seems to have been unable to do justice to his genius when speaking in his own person; this is shown conclusively in his two Poems.  It is as if his modesty required a mask and a complete detachment from the consciousness of self for the free, full play of his intellectual powers.  The Sonnets are richer, stronger, more vital and inspired precisely in proportion as they are dramatic.  The impersonal Sonnets have twice the force of the personal ones, and ten times the perplexity on account of their matter not being personal.  If Shakspeare had been speaking of and for himself in such lines as the following, the nearer we might think we were getting to the profoundest realities of his life and character, the more remotely would the man recede from us in this unlikeness to all we know of him from his other writings, or can learn of him from contemporary history.  The more definite these realities are to the writer the more indefinite they become for the reader so long as we assume that Shakspeare is speaking of or for himself, and thus fail to penetrate the dramatic mood in which he speaks from behind the mask.

    In many of the Sonnets the speaker is certainly under a cloud, the shadow of which is more or less to be felt over all the hundred that follow No. 26.  But this cloud did not arise from his own evil fortunes, nor was it created by his own bad character, nor by his disreputable public manners.  He is simply under the cloud of the dramatic mask that he wears in his Sonnets as well as in the Plays.

    As we shall demonstrate, two different speakers with entirely distinct characters are to be heard in various series of the Sonnets.  It is impossible for both to be Shakspeare.  This fact will enable me to get in the thin end of the wedge that will rive the personal theory in twain.  We shall then have to ascertain which of the Sonnets are personal to Shakspeare himself, and which of them are spoken by Southampton or other of the "Private Friends."

    If it can be demonstrated that there is more than the one speaker who is the writer of the Sonnets, then the need for a dramatic interpretation will be established.  This can only be done scientifically by the comparative method.  Our base, or point d'appui, is that rock of reality found in the Personal Sonnets where the speaker is the writer.  To this we must cling like the limpet to the rock.  That speaker is Shakspeare when he repudiates applying effeminate imagery to his male friend (Sonnet 21); thence we argue that the speaker is not intended for Shakspeare in other Sonnets where this very thing is done, and, as would seem, somewhat extravagantly overdone.  Shakspeare is the speaker (Sonnet 105) who pleads that he may not be looked upon as an idolator if he does religiously say the same things over and over again like daily prayers.  But in a later Sonnet the speaker does the precise thing here repudiated, and calls the person addressed "A God in love to whom I am confined."  This, according to Shakspeare, shows a change of sex as when Juliet calls the "gracious self" of her Romeo the God of her Idolatry; or when Queen Katharine had "loved him (the king) next heaven," and "been, out of fondness, superstitious to him" (King Henry VIII., III. ii.). "I prythee be my god!  I'll kiss thy feet; I'll swear myself thy subject."  This is the language that Caliban drunk addresses to a drunken man, when it is from male to male; and we have been asked to believe in sober earnest that Shakspeare addressed the same to his friend.  In Sonnet 21 Shakspeare says he will not compare his friend with the sun or moon.  But the speaker in Sonnet 33 does use this lovers' language, and calls the person addressed "My Sun!"

    It is Shakspeare for certain who sums up his total lifetime as a "'well-contented day" in Sonnet 32, which immediately follows the sudden startling ejaculations of unhappiness and hopelessness.  He is happy in his life, his lot, his love; whereas the other speaker is unhappy in most things and discontented with everything; he is in disgrace with fortune and his disgrace is public.  He is an outcast in exile; a lonely, discontented, and dejected man.

    We shall find there is an enforced absence caused by some "separating spite" that has parted two different persons, and that Shakspeare as the writer stayed at home whilst writing about, of, and for his friend who had been banished and driven abroad.  Now there must be two speakers where one is wandering abroad who speaks amongst foreigners on distant shores, whilst the other stays at home and writes Sonnets about him here who doth "hence remain."

    The man who is the speaker of Sonnet 29 is an outcast, desolate and in disgrace publicly in the eyes of men—and so is driven apart as a lonely banished man.  That, as will be shown, is not Shakspeare.  This outcast banished man is the speaker of Sonnet 44, who is on distant shores at "limits far remote."  That is not Shakspeare, who is then writing at home.  "We may be sure," says Dr. Nicolson, "that Shakspeare never was at sea for any length of time." [30]  In which dictum I cordially concur. But the speaker in at least two different groups of Sonnets has often been at sea, "frequent been with unknown minds," or abroad amongst foreigners.  Again and again has he "hoisted sail to all the winds" that would blow him the farthest away from England.  In Sonnet 44 he is on distant shores, at "limits far remote," with vast spaces of earth and water between him and home.  This cannot be Shakspeare according to the external circumstances any more than it is Shakspeare in personal character.  The speaker of Sonnet 124 can speak of himself as one of the nobility, the fashion, "our fashion," as he says, and as a soldier.  That is not Shakspeare.  In Sonnet 125 he is a person who has borne the Canopy of state, as a Lord in Waiting.  That is not Shakspeare.  He is one who can speak of his love or affection as having been the child of state, subject to its policy, but as suffering from it no longer.  That is not Shakspeare.  But it is the same speaker who gives expression to the cries over a wasted youth, to the complaints against a pursuing evil fortune, to the confessions of weaknesses, of lapses, of blenches, and sensual sins, and who bewails the guilt that has been attributed blindly to Shakspeare.  The simple explanation is that such Sonnets are not personal to the writer, but are spoken in a character which can be otherwise identified.  These therefore are dramatic Sonnets.  We have another mode of proof or evidential illustration by comparison with the Plays.  For instance, when Demetrius in the Midsummer Night's Dream has recovered his true sight once more, and thrown off the glamour of illusion under which he had strayed from Helena in pursuit of Hermia, he says—

This is the speaking likeness of a repentant lover who has been beguiled and misled.  With the perverted taste of sickness he had false longings for Hermia.  But with the recovery of his natural taste he returns to health and Helena.  The sex and situations in the play will help to show that it must be lovers' language in Sonnet 118. Here the speaker has been astray after other women; or at least he pleads that "false adulterate eyes" have given salutation to his "sportive blood"; he has visited the "isles of error," listened to the "sea-maid's music," and been deluded by the siren's tears to dally on the wrong shore, and he now returns to the one true love "rebuked" to his "content."  He urges à la Demetrius—

Here, as so often, the autobiographists assume that Shakspeare would take the same situation but reverse the sex in the Sonnet, and apply the same language, images, and expressions to a male that he had previously applied to a female in the plays, just as if there were no such thing as sex to be recognized in poetry, and males could be given in marriage to males when Shakspeare is the writer!  I say no.  My contention is that the practice in the Plays offers some guidance for our interpretation of the Sonnets; I maintain that Shakspeare was masking in his Sonnets as well as in his Plays, and it is only by lifting the mask where he speaks in other characters that we can read the true expression of his own face, or find his very self in the Sonnets.  Here are a few illustrations presented in accordance with the comparative method—

    Here there are at least two different persons involved who are as identifiably engaged in a dramatic dialogue as any two characters talking at or to each other in the Plays.  These two are not to be set down as Shakspeare making faces at his own face in the mirror of the Sonnets.  They are not to be explained as Shakspeare himself and the Double of himself, nor as Shakspeare himself and Shakspeare beside himself.

    The same charges are made by one Speaker that are acknowledged and replied to word for word by the other.  These charges are formulated by the Speaker who stays at home, and they are admitted and answered by the Speaker who is or has been the frequent wanderer abroad, the dweller in infectious society, the Remover who has hoisted sail to every wind that would blow him farthest from his home of love, to wander hither and thither as chance or fortune might determine.

    A very important repetition of two lines occurs in Sonnet 96. When the lovers were parting (Sonnet 36) because an absence was enforced upon them by some "separating spite," the Speaker says the friend must not honour him with any "public kindness," or she (?) will be dishonouring herself.

These lines were doubled in their pathos by repetition in Sonnet 96. For this time they are spoken by the person to whom they were previously addressed. That person refers to the gossip that is abroad, and the reports which are current, and says—

The repetition would be meaningless in Shakspeare's mouth, but is a pathetic reminder of the lover's declaration of protective love that was made in the earlier Sonnet.

    It has now been shown conclusively that (1) both sexes are addressed in the Sonnets devoted to Southampton—the Latter series being purposely excluded for the time being; that (2) there are two speakers, the one being at home as the Writer, the other abroad as the Speaker; that (3) these two speakers are the opposite of each other in character, one being the accuser of another person, that other person being the excuser of himself.  Also the precise charges advanced by one Speaker are the very sins which are confessed and bewailed by the other.   And in the first two quotations we have the charge and counter-charge between the, two speakers.  When once we have thus demonstrated that the Sonnets are spoken by two or more speakers the Personal Theory must go, because the dramatic hypothesis is made actual, and concrete, and matter-of-fact for ever.

    And now we are ready to apply the KEY-SONNET quoted at the commencement of the present chapter.

    It is my intention to show that after our Poet had written a certain number of personal Sonnets to the Earl, his dear friend, advising him to marry, and for the purpose of perpetuating his portrait in verse, he, the Earl, did afterwards fall in love with the "faire Mistress Vernon," as she was called, and that Shakspeare then began to write Sonnets for Southampton as well as to him on the subject of the Earl's love, and at his friend's own suggestion.  The intimacy, as we have seen from the Sonnets which are personal, was of the nearest and dearest kind that could exist between the two men.  Were there no proof to be cited it would not be so great a straining of probability to imagine the intimacy close and secret enough for Shakspeare to write Sonnets on Southampton's love, in this impersonal, indirect way, as it is to suppose it was close enough for them to share one mistress, and for Shakspeare to write Sonnets for the purpose of proclaiming the mutual disgrace and perpetuating the sin and shame.  It might be argued also that the intimacy being of this secret and sacred sort, would naturally take a greater delight in being illustrated in the unseen way of a dramatic treatment.  It would be sweeter to the Earl's affection; more perfectly befitting the Poet's genius; the celebration of the marriage of two souls in the most inner sanctuary of friendship.  But, independently of this consideration, the dramatic method of treatment would be imposed on the Poet by the impersonal nature of the subject.  Moreover, the only way in which Shakspeare could devote Sonnets to Southampton's affairs, when he said in his dedication to Lucrece, "What I have to do is yours," would be by his adoption of the dramatic method.  If he referred to his Sonnets in that dedication of Lucrece, as I maintain he did, there is but one way in which the allusion could apply.  He would not have promised to write a book, or a series of Sonnets, and speak of them as a part of what he had to do for the Earl if they were to be mere poetical exercises or personal to himself.  Such must have been altogether fugitive—the subjects unknown beforehand.  Whereas he speaks of the work as devoted to the Earl's service—something that is fixed, and fixed, too, by or with the knowledge of the person addressed. This I take to refer to the fact that, at his friend's suggestion, he had then agreed to write dramatic Sonnets on the subject of Southampton's courtship; the secret method being selected on account of the secret nature of the argument.

    For all who have eyes to see, the 38th Sonnet tells us most explicitly that the writer has done with the subject of the earlier Sonnets.  There was no further need of advising the Earl to marry when he was doing all he could to get married.  But, says the Poet, he cannot be at a loss for a subject so long as the Earl lives to pour into his verse his own sweet argument.  The force of the expression "pour'st into my verse," shows that this is in no indirect suggestive way, but that the Earl has now begun to supply his own argument for Shakpeare's Sonnets.  This argument is too "excellent," too choice, in its nature for "every vulgar paper to rehearse."  Here is something "secret, sweet and precious," not to be dealt with in the ordinary way of Personal Sonnets.  This excelling argument calls for the most private treatment, and to carry it out a new leaf is turned over in the Books of Sonnets.  If the result be in any way worthy, the Earl is to take all credit, for it is he who has suggested the new theme, supplied the fresh argument, and struck out a new light of invention; he has "given Invention light," lighted the Poet on his novel path, tells him what and how he is to write.  Thus, accepting the Earl's suggestion of writing vicariously on the subjects given, the Poet calls upon him to be, to become the tenth Muse to him.  Obviously he had not so considered him whilst writing to the Earl; but as he is about to write of or for him dramatically, he exclaims, "Be thou the tenth Muse!"  Shakspeare actually creates another Muse to call upon in describing this new mode of being inspired by the friend's invention, or imagination, and "own sweet argument."  This is echoed in Sonnet 76, where he tells his friend that "You and love are still my argument."  It is re-echoed in Sonnet 79, when he writes—

The argument is the subject-matter, and this in Sonnet 38 is to be furnished by the friend himself as something "too excellent for every vulgar paper to rehearse," the friend being treated by Shakspeare as the veritable author of future and forthcoming Sonnets that are to be presented to him, or "stand against his sight," when written in his own Book.  Here we affirm that the statements are as plain as the matter is important.  And yet this Key-Sonnet is passed over by the Autobiographists as if it contained nothing particular, or as if its significance could be suppressed by their non-recognition.

    Moreover, Shakspeare himself distinguishes between his Personal and Dramatic Sonnets in a manner not to be mistaken if we do but listen to his words.  He distinguishes betwixt those that are the result of his friend's invention and his own.  He tells us (Sonnet 105) that his own invention is spent on one subject, that being the constancy of his friend.  He writes to one of one who is constant in relation to him, and therefore his verse, his invention, is confined to celebrating that constancy!  Whereas several groups are devoted to the theme of inconstancy.  How is that?  These are claimed to be dramatic Sonnets; and the inconstancy is in relation to some other person or persons than Shakspeare.  This writing vicariously involves other characters, and it is identifiably the result of Southampton's suggestion when he began to supply the subject-matter, his "own sweet argument," and "give invention light" for Sonnets that the Poet does not attribute to his own invention, but to that of Southampton, who had become the tenth muse in this 38th Sonnet—

The new matter is not only to be manipulated, it is likewise to be recorded in another way, and not to be written on common paper. The Dramatic Sonnets are to be inscribed in the friend's own book, where they are to "stand against" his sight.  Also the "Private Friends" who are mentioned by Meres are evidently alluded to in the two last lines—

because he had supplied the invention of the method and the subject-matter for Dramatic Sonnets.

    It has been said that such amorous wooings as these of Shakspeare's Sonnets, when personally interpreted, were common betwixt man and man with the Elizabethan sonneteers.  But where is the record of them?  In whose Sonnets shall we find the illustration?  Not in Spenser's nor Sidney's, Drayton's nor Daniel's, Constable's nor Drummond's.  Warton instanced the Affectionate Shepherd; but Barnefield, in his address "To the curteous Gentlemen Readers" prefixed to his Cynthia, &c., expressly forbids such an interpretation of his "conceit," and states that it was nothing else than "an imitation of Virgil in the 2nd Eclogue of Alexis."  There is no precedent whatever, only an assumption, a false excuse for a baseless theory.  The precedent that we should find if we sought for one is for such Sonnets being written dramatically.  It was by no means uncommon for a Poet to write in character on behalf of a Patron, and act as a sort of secretary in his love affairs, the letters being put into the shape of Sonnets.  In Shakspeare's plays we meet with various allusions to courting by means of "Wailful Sonnets, whose composèd rhymes should be full-fraught with serviceable vows."  Thurio, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, goes into the city to seek a gentleman who shall set a Sonnet to music for the purpose of wooing Sylvia.  Gascoigne, who died 1577, tells us, many years before Shakspeare wrote in this way for his young friend, he had been engaged to write for others in the same fashion.  The author of the Forest of Fancy (1579) informs us that many of the poems were written for "persons who had occasion to crave his help in that behalf."  Marston in his Satyres (1598) accuses Roscio (Burbage), the tragedian, of having written verses for Mutio, and he tells us that "absolute Castilio had furnished himself in like manner in order that he might pay court to his Mistress."  And as he is glancing at the Globe Theatre, it is more than likely that by "absolute Castilio" he meant Southampton, who was well known in the Spanish wars, and who could be as high-heeled and haughty as any Spanish Don.  Drayton tells us in his 21st Sonnet that he knew a gallant who wooed a young girl, but could not win her.  He entreated the poet to try and move her with his persuasive rhymes.  And such was the force of Poesy, whether heaven-bred or not, that he won the Mistress for his friend with the very first Sonnet he wrote; that was sufficient to make her dote on the youth beyond measure.  So that in showing Shakspeare to have written dramatic Sonnets for the Earl of Southampton, to express his passion for Mistress Vernon, we are not compelled to go far in search of a precedent for the doing of such a thing; it was a common custom when he undertook to honour it by his observance, and carried it indefinitely farther than others had done.  In the Sonnet just quoted Shakspeare accepts the Earl's suggestion that he should write dramatic Sonnets upon subjects supplied by Southampton, who has thus "GIVEN INVENTION LIGHT."

    It is enough for the present to establish the fact that when the change occurred in the mode of writing Sonnets thus dictated or suggested by Southampton, who became the Tenth Muse that inspired the Poet, and so gave invention light, this new departure from the earlier practice of writing the Personal Sonnets implied the dramatic mode of treatment, the result of which must be Sonnets that are not personal to Shakspeare.

    Moreover, the Sonnets now to be written under the changed conditions suggested by the inspirer of the subject-matter and inventor of the new method are not to be entrusted to common paper, but are to be recorded in the lover's own Book, as befits the nature of the subjects.  We shall find this same Book again referred to.

    Shakspeare writes the 77th Sonnet in the Book that belongs to his friend.  He calls it "Thy Book."  Whilst in the act of writing in it he invites Southampton to enrich it by writing in it himself.  Moreover, this book is a register in which the lapse of time may be read; therefore it must have chronicled in its course the various stories told by the Sonnets.  "And of this Book this learning mayst thou taste," because it shows "time's thievish progress."  The stealth seen on the dial and in the face of youth is likewise reflected by group after group of the Sonnets.

    In going through the Sonnets we shall find that numbers of them are strung upon some historical thread, but that the historical matter cannot be made personal to Shakspeare as the speaker, whereas it can be identified with the life, the circumstances, and character of the man who was to "give invention light" and breathe his "own sweet argument" into Shakspeare's verse.

    It will be shown that whether the Sonnets be addressed to the object of them by Shakspeare himself, or spoken dramatically, it is the character of Southampton and that alone, with its love of change, its inconstancy, its shifting hues, its passionate impetuosity, its spirit restless as flame, its tossings to and fro, its hurrying here and there to seek in strife abroad the satisfaction denied to him in peace at home, that we shall find reflected through a large number of them, and Southampton only who is congratulated in Sonnet 107 on having escaped his doom of imprisonment for life, through the death of the Queen; for, the present interpretation of the Sonnets themselves will be corroborated all through by the history of the time.

    And I contend that there is not a character in the Plays more fully portrayed from the heart of it, more definitely outlined in the face of it, no more speaking likeness than this of Southampton in love, in "disgrace with Fortune," in enforced absence, in being with his beloved whilst far away from her, and finally in being a prisoner "impeached" for treason, for the part he took in Essex's attempt at rebellion.

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-VII-


DRAMATIC SONNETS.

Southampton when in "disgrace with Fortune" solaces himself
with
thoughts of his new love, Elizabeth Vernon.

    Leaving the two stray Sonnets, Nos. 27 and 28, for the moment to be gathered up in their proper place a little further on, we now come to the opening act of the "Secret Drama."  These three Sonnets are amongst the most beautiful that Shakspeare ever wrote.  A greater depth of feeling is sounded in them; a new and most natural stop is drawn, which has the power to "mitigate and suage with solemn touches troubled thoughts," and make the measure dilate into its stateliest music.  The poetry grows graver and more sagely fine.  Point by point, note by note, the most special particulars are touched, and facts fresh from life and of the deepest significance are presented to us, yet we are unable to identify one of them as belonging to the life and character of Shakspeare.  The music is full of meaning—the slower movement being necessary because of the burden it bears—but we do not know what it means.  If we suppose Shakspeare to be speaking, the more pointed the verity, the greater the vagueness. We cannot tell what he is talking about in so sad a tone.  It is possible that he may have lost dear friends, although, so far as we know, when these Sonnets were written he had not even lost a child.  Also, it is possible that, full of winning cheerfulness and sunny pleasantness, and "smiling government" of himself as he was, he had his night-seasons of sadness and depression; that he experienced reverses of fortune at his theatre, and sat at home in the night-time whilst his fellows were making merry after work, and nursed his hope and strength with cordial loving thoughts of his good friend.  But we cannot picture Shakspeare turned malcontent and miserable; looking upon himself as a lonely Outcast, bewailing his wretched condition; nursing his cankering thoughts prepensely, and rocking himself, as it were, over them persistently.  This cannot be the man of proverbial sweetness and smoothness of disposition, the incarnation of all kindliness, the very spirit of profound and perennial cheerfulness, who in Sonnet 32 calls his life a "well-contented day!"  If Shakspeare had at times felt depressed and despondent for want of sympathy, it was surely most unlike him to make such dolorous complaints to this dear friend whom he had just addressed as being more to him than all the world beside, and whose love had crowned him with a crown such as Fortune could not otherwise confer.  In making the Poet his friend, he had honoured Shakspeare (his own words) beyond the power of the world's proudest titles; enriched him with a gift of good that Fortune could not paragon. How then, into whatsoever "disgrace" he had fallen, could he pour forth his selfish sorrow to this friend who was his supremest source of joy?  How could he talk of being friendless and of envying those who had friends when he was in possession of so peerless a friend?  How should he speak of "troubling deaf Heaven with his bootless cries," when Heaven had heard him and sent him such a friend, and his was the nature to straightway apprehend the Giver in the gift?  How could he "curse his fate," which he held to be so blessed in having his friend?  How should he speak of being "contented least" with what he enjoyed most when he had said this friend was the great spring of his joy?  How should he exclaim against Fortune when he had received and warmly acknowledged the best gift she had to bestow? Whence came this wretchedness, and the right to express it in this way to the man who alone had a true cause of complaint against Fortune, and a real right to utter every word that has been ascribed to Shakspeare himself in these exclamatory Sonnets, with their wistful looks, and dolorous ejaculations, and tinge of lover's melancholy?  We may rest assured that Shakspeare was the last man to have made any such mistake in Nature and in Art.  He had too keen a perception of appropriateness, and was too refined in feeling.  If he had his sorrows he would have kept them out of sight whilst his friend was suffering; he who has nearly kept himself out of sight altogether, and who comes the closest to us just for the sake of smiling up into the face of this friend, and of showing us that this was the man whom he once loved, as he told us, the only times he ever spoke in prose, and proclaimed that his love for him was without end.

    Milton had good cause to complain when he stated with much dignity in his desolate condition that he had fallen upon "evil days and evil tongues."  Not so Shakspeare.  Nothing is known of evil days befalling him; and the worst tongues that assailed him were those of Nash and Greene, which only elicited a laughing reply.  Supposing he had a failure or two with his Plays, his was not the nature to turn Byronic or abuse the public, or, like Ben Jonson, curse his fate, or moan over the disgrace.  He was not the man to turn malcontent and sit with folded arms frowning back at Fortune's frown.  He was buoyant with inspiration, full of hope, overflowing with energy, and power of retrieval.

    Instead of magnifying his trifling misfortune into a great misery, or sitting down to bewail his "dear time's waste," he would be up and at it again, writing another new play or possibly two.  Precious little time did Shakspeare waste when he once got to work in London!  He was not at all this beclouded moody kind of man.  If he were the speaker here he would lay himself open to the reproof of Friar Laurence, or rather to his own rebuke—

    This same Play will furnish us with a test.  In the original story of Romeo and Juliet as told by Brooke there is no Mercutio except the mere name.  This character is entirely created and added by Shakspeare.  Mercutio with his rapier wit and radiant vivacity, as the vitalizing soul of the Play, is pure Shakspeare, the plus or overplus that he gave to it of his own abounding life and quickening spirit.  Again Jacques says "Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress, the world, and all our misery."  Orlando replies, "I will chide no breather in the world but myself: against whom I know most fault."  That speaks for Shakspeare, who was no melancholy-sucking Jacques. Moreover, Fortune appears to have smiled very steadily on Shakspeare's labours for the theatre by which he made his fortune!

    We may safely assume, in accordance with the Poet's sense and use of the word "Fortune" in his Plays, that he never could have considered himself to be in disgrace with her ladyship, much less subject to her deadliest, extremest, bitterest spite.  He positively exults in Sonnet 25 that he is beyond the reach of Fortune in any such sense.  He lives and loves, does his work, and is "well-contented" with his life and lot.  He "loves and is beloved where he may not remove nor be removed."

    Shakspeare was not crippled by the grievances or excessive spite of a pursuing evil Fortune. Neither was he poor or despised.  And if he had been he was not the man to complain and whine about it in Sonnets to his dear generous friend, for whose pleasure and delight the Sonnets were written.  The word "outcast" is very exceptional and strong!  Shakspeare has only employed it twice throughout the Plays.  In this Sonnet it is used as if to be an "outcast" were the common condition for him who is in such disgrace with Fortune and the eyes of men.  The sentiment of the speaker is not that of Shakspeare envying the superior art of any rival writer for the stage.  After the death of Marlowe in the middle of 1593 he reigned supreme.  It is the feeling expressed by Cordelia, who says—

The personal reading is altogether wrong; it does not touch these Sonnets at any one point, much less fathom the depth of their full meaning.  The character expressed is in heart and essence, as well as in every word, that of a youthful spirit who feels in "disgrace with Fortune," and the averted eyes of men, and whose tune is "Fortune, my Foe, why dost thou frown," because for the present he is condemned to sit apart inactive, or in disgrace.

    This talk about "Fortune" was to some extent a trick of the time, and a favourite strain with Sidney and Essex.  Perez, the flashy foreign friend of this Earl, also indulged much in it, calling himself "Fortune's Monster," which was the motto he inscribed on his portrait.  It is the young man of action doomed to be a mere spectator.  He has seen his fellow-nobles, the "choicest buds of all our English blood," go by to battle with dancing pennons and nodding plumes (as Marston describes them), floating in feather on the land as ships float on the sea, or, as Shakspeare may have described them—

Some are off to the aid of the French King; others to the Low Countries to help the Dutch; others are away with Raleigh and Hawkins, going to do good work for England, and strike at the Spaniard a memorable stroke.  The land has rung from end to end with the fame of Grenville's last great deed and glorious death.  A few years before Cavendish had come sailing up the river Thames with his merry mariners clad in silk; his sails of damask, and his top-masts cloth of gold; thus symbolling outwardly the richness of the prize they had wrested from the enemy.  The spirit of adventure is everywhere in motion, sending

    The hearts of the young burn within them at the recital of their fathers' deeds, the men who conquered Spain in 1588, when all her proud embattled powers were broken.  The after-swell of that high heaving of the national heart catches them up and sets them yearning to do some such work of noble note.

    He, too, is anxious for active service and warlike "chevisaunce," wearying to mount horse and away.  The stir of the time is within him, and here he is compelled to sit still.  He shares the feeling of his friend Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, who, twice or thrice, stole away from Court, without the Queen's leave, to join Sir John Norris in Bretagne, and was reproached by her Majesty for trying to get knocked on the head as "that inconsiderate fellow Sidney had done."  He hears the sounds of the strife, the trumpet's golden cry, the clash and clangour of the conflict, and his spirit longs to be gone and in amidst the din and dust of the arena—he who is left by the wayside, out of harness and out of heart.  He feels it as a dishonour to sit there alone doing nothing but wasting precious time, and looks upon himself as a lonely Outcast.  He wishes that he were of a more hopeful disposition, so that he could look on the bright side of things and see the silver lining to his cloud. But, his love being the "Child of State," he can neither be married nor get leave to go away.  He must not quit without the Queen's permission—

If he only had friends like this one at Court to get the ear of the Queen; or if he had but the Courtier's art of that one who seems to obtain all he asks for; or if he shared but the other's scope and free-play for his sword to clear a space for himself and win a prouder name for his beloved to wear!  For he is deeply in love, which makes his spirit more than ever restless, and doubles his sadness with its delicious pain.  The thought of her is a spur to his eager spirit; for her sake he would be earning name and fame, and here he is compelled to wait wearily, watch wistfully, wish vainly, and weep over this "dear waste" of his best time.  Yet he almost despises himself for having such thoughts, when he thinks of her whose love he has won.  However poor his prospect, he has the love of her within his soul, and is really richer than the whole world's wealth could make him.  She is a prize precious above all those that glitter in imagination, and, however out of luck, self-tormented, and inclined to read "his own fortune in his misery" of the moment, he sits in her heart; that is his throne, and he would scorn to change condition with kings.

    It is the time, too, of the lover's life when sweet thoughts bring a feeling of sadness, and he is apt to water his wine of love a little with tears, and find it none the less sweet.  The heart, being so tender to this new present of love, grows more tender in thinking of the past, and seems to feel its old sorrows truly for the first time.  The transfiguring touch of this fresh spring of love adds a new green to the old graves of the heart; this precious gain of the lover's enriches also his sense of loss, and to the silent sessions of sweet thought it calls up the remembrance of things past, the old forms of the loved and the lost rise from their grave of years in "soft attire," and he can weep who is unaccustomed to shed tears.  All his troubles come gathering on him together, and he grieves over "grievances foregone;" wails over the old long-since cancelled woes anew, and pays once more the sad account of by-gone sorrows.  Like another of Shakspeare's characters who speaks of

the speaker here is one who has been bereaved of his dearest and most precious friends, friends in the closest kinship.  Their loss is the sorrow of a life-time, the relationship the nearest to nature, and the deaths occurred years ago.  They are friends whom the speaker has greatly lacked and needed in his life.  His love for them is "dear religious love," the tenderness and tears are reverential, the affection is high and holy.  We cannot attach these friends or this feeling to Shakspeare himself by any known facts of his life.  And had there been any such facts in his experience, to sing of which would interest his patron, we also are concerned to know them.  In Southampton's life alone can we identify the facts and find the counterpart to these Sonnets.  In that we have the fullest and most particular confirmation; it matches the Sonnets perfectly, point by point, through all the comparisons; it accounts for the feeling, and sets the story sombrely aglow, as if written in illuminated letters on a ground of black; gives it the real look of life and death.  The Earl's father had died October 4th, 1581, when Henry Wriothesley was two days short of eight years old; and about four years afterwards his elder brother died. Here are the precious friends whom he lacked so much; here is the "dear religious love" that made him weep such "holy" and funeral tears; here is the precise lapse of time.  And in this new love of the Earl for Elizabeth Vernon he finds his solace.  She comes to restore the old, to replace what he has lost, to reveal all that Death had hidden away in his mortal night.  She is the heaven of his departed "loves;" in her they shine down on him starrily through a mist of tears.  "Love's long-since cancelled woe" is something very expressive but hardly applicable to this new love.  How can such a loss, such a woe, have been cancelled at all?  I answer, only in one sense, which warrants the legal expression, and only in Southampton's case.  The "woe" was the loss of his father, who died when Southampton was eight years old, and it was "cancelled" "long since" by the re-marriage of Lady Southampton to Sir Thomas Heneage, who became an affectionate stepfather to the young Earl, and, as such, as well as from his relationship to the players, was thought worthy of the allusion.

    In applying the comparative method we shall find the likeness to these Sonnets, the dramatic position, the personal relationships of the speaker reflected in the Play of All's Well that ends Well, where Bertram, like Southampton, is left fatherless.  In the opening words of the Play the Countess says—"In delivering my son from me I bury a second husband."  Bertram replies, "And I in going, Madam, weep o'er my Father's death anew, but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am NOW IN WARD, EVERMORE IN SUBJECTION."  And in speaking to the king Bertram says of his dead father—

Helena also writes—

and one of the lords remarks—"How mightily, sometimes, we make us comforts of our losses: and how mightily, some other times, we drown our gain in tears!" which paints the very replica of Sonnets 30 and 31, now assigned to young Southampton as speaker.

    Leigh Hunt had the Poet's true perception of nature in these Sonnets without knowing they were written vicariously when he observed that "the gladdening influences of a lover's thoughts, the cheering light of a pure affection, were never depicted with truer feeling than in this Sonnet" (30).

    In these Sonnets we may perceive a touch of Shakspeare's art, which peeps out in his anxiety to see his friend married.  How steadily he keeps in view of the Earl, this star of his love that tops the summit and gilds the darkest night; this calm influence that is to clear his cloudy thoughts; this balm of healing for his troubled heart; this crown and comfort of his life.  Also in these, the first Sonnets spoken by the Earl, the Poet gives us a suggestive hint of his friend's character, and reveals a presaging fear that fortune has a spite against him, of which we shall hear mere yet, and which was amply illustrated in his after life.  A proof that the love of Shakspeare for his friend was tender enough to be tremulous with a divining force.

    Let me sketch the position now with Southampton as the speaker.  In glancing forward for a moment to Sonnet 124, the speaker there says—

This it has been; this it is no longer.  The "love" of the speaker had also been subject to state-policy, which it has at last defied by a policy of its own, and thus has made itself independent.  My explanation is that Southampton is also the speaker of that Dramatic Sonnet.  His love was the Child of State.  In consequence of his being left fatherless, he was made the ward of the wily old statesman Burleigh, and brought up under the Queen.  The fatherlessness is glanced at allusively.  Having no father, his affairs were taken in hand, his love included, by the diplomatist, acting under the Queen.  The match was made which Southampton broke, because his heart was not in it, and consequently the young Earl fell into "disgrace with fortune and men's eyes."  Sooner or later he was in love, but this was with Elizabeth Vernon, and not with the Lady de Vere.  The Queen opposed his wish to marry her cousin.  If he would not have the one chosen for him he should not possess the one he had wilfully chosen for himself.  This opposition was long and bitterly determined.  It was the curse of his early life.  Southampton persisted and fought it out to the end.  In this long struggle Shakspeare stood beside him, and tried to help him man the gap. He sides with him and does battle for him all through the fight against the persecution of outrageous fortune and the prolonged and potent tyranny of Time.

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,"

the thwarted lover sits alone bewailing his outcast state, "troubling deaf heaven" with his "bootless cries," cursing his fate, and then despising himself for his own weakness in wishing himself like others who have friends at Court, desiring the scope of this one, the art of the other, i.e.—

Shakspeare is with him, whispering at the heart of him with comforting words of good cheer, and thinking happier thoughts for him; looking through his eyes to see things a little brighter and more hopeful than he could see them for himself.  When the Earl is in love, and his wretchedness is doubled on behalf of the beloved, because of the "spite" which separates them and will not let him marry, Shakspeare tries to keep his look directed toward the fulfilment and fruition of this love.  Busy as a bee that will suck and secrete some honey even from most bitter flowers, the Poet extracts all the sweetness he can from the lover's bitter lot.  To give him solace and to light and lead him on, he kindles starry thoughts of his lady and her love, with which he glorifies the darkest heaven overhead.  What are all his losses when compared with this great gain?  Her love is not only precious and blessed in itself, all the love that he has ever lost and lacked has its resurrection now.  In her "all losses are restored, and sorrows end."  The remembrance of her ought to bring such wealth to him that he would scorn to change his outcast state with kings.  Then as the proud, impetuous spirit of the thwarted and ill-treated lover gets wilful and devil-may-care, and breaks out more and more to make him the subject of public scandal, we find the affection of Shakspeare grows more fatherly in its graver mood.  When he is wasting his youth in bad company and infectious society, Shakspeare expresses profound regret—

"Ah, wherefore with infection should he live."

Keep your youth, O young man, he says, for love of me, and for love's sake,—for her sake, if not for your own.

    He portrays himself as looking far older than he is whilst playing this paternal part, and assuming the right of paternal affection to protect, to warn and to admonish.  When Southampton wades deeper and deeper in the dividing stream that gets wider and wider between him and his mistress, he paints her standing with her lamp of love as the beacon shining on the far shore, to keep his heart heaving high above the biggest billows.  He is with him in spirit amid the deepest waters on the darkest night, trying to aid the strength of the swimmer.  All through the courtship he is the living link unbroken betwixt the two lovers.

    It is here, and here only, in the Dramatic Sonnets that we can get to the heart of the whole matter; the heart of the friendship; the honeyed heart of the poetry; the true and tried and trusty heart of the man Shakspeare.  All true lovers of the Poet, especially women, who enter the secret inner presence-chamber opened with this key, will indeed want to lay down my book and "love him over again," as if they had not held him half dear enough till now.  Those who can give up the personal reading where the Sonnets are dramatic will find the nature of the poetry incalculably enriched, and themselves amply rewarded for letting go the untrue interpretation.

    As before said, our foundations are laid in the Personal Sonnets, where the speaker is the writer.  The 25th is personal to Shakspeare.  In this he tells us indirectly that his young friend is not in favour.  He says—

Clearly the person addressed was not one of these, or the comparison would have been most personally inappropriate. This is Shakspeare's recognition, made in his allusive manner, of the fact that his friend is not in favour with Fortune, nor the recipient of public honours; and at the time of writing he has no reason to boast of being a man of title. The context shows that the loss of favour and good fortune is in relation to the Court, where he had been saluted as the "World's fresh Ornament." The Poet, in solacing himself with the great honour conferred on him by this friendship, also tries to solace his friend with the reflection that those who are in favour may soon come to their fall:

    Southampton had already lost the royal favour, his conflict with fortune had begun, and the Poet comes all the closer to him. The same position is here most delicately indicated by Shakspeare in a personal Sonnet that Southampton occupies as the speaker of Sonnet 29, who is in "disgrace with Fortune" and the eyes of men, where the language becomes perplexing in its decisiveness because of its dramatic character.  The personal and the dramatic treatment, however, present the obverse and reverse of the same historic fact.

    The Sonnet next to the three that head this chapter is personal to Shakspeare (No. 32).  It divides two groups of the dramatic ones as it stands in Thorpe's Collection.  It is in this that the Poet calls his life a "Well-contented day," in direct opposition to the Malcontent who speaks in Sonnet 29.

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Footnotes.

[28.](page 90)   Sonnet 81 is demonstrably out of place.

[29.](page 91)   The Herbertists never scruple to upset the arrangement when it suits their purpose.  Mr. Tyler places Sonnets 90 to 96 later than the groups to which Nos. 138 and 144 belong!  Such a dislocation being necessary to give even a look of possibility to Shakepeare's having known "Will" Herbert for 3 years when Sonnet 104 was written!

[30.](page 95)   Trans.  New Shakspere Society, 1881, pp. 42-3.

[31.](page 103)   Southampton's lather had been dead some twelve years; his brother eight years.

[32.](page 103)   "Hung with the trophies."  An allusion to the ancient custom of hanging wreaths upon monumental statues.  Here the dead have bequeathed their crowns to adorn this present image of past love.

[33.](page 110)   The Sunflower.