and one of which we shall give as an isolated fragment:

O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify!
As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time ex-
changed,-

So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my
all.-109.

Alas, 't is true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is
most dear,

Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, save what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A God in love, to whom I am confined.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the
best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.-110.

O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means, which public manners
breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.

Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

-111.

Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your
tongue;

None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sense or changes, right or
wrong.

In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of other's voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:-
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
That all the world besides methinks are
dead.-112.

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch;

Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour, or deformed'st crea-
ture,

The mountain or the sea, the day or night, The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.-113.

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery,
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchymy,
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubims as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best,
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O, 't is the first; 't is flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is
'greeing,

And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin

That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin.-114.

Those lines that I before have writ, do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer;

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;

Alas! why, fearing of time's tyranny,
Might I not then say, "Now I love you best,"
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

Love is a babe; then might I not say so, To give full growth to that which still doth grow?-115.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height
be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.-116.

Accuse me thus; that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay; Forget upon your dearest love to call, Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchased

right;

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your

sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And, on just proof, surmise accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate:
Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.-117.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or at the least so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more;
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,
Were to import forgetfulness in me.-122.

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire,
Than think that we before have heard them

told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past;
For thy records and what we see do lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
This I do vow, and this shall ever be,
I will be true, despite thy scythe and
thee:-123.

If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for fortune's bastard be unfather'd,
As subject to time's love, or to time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers
gather'd.

No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.-124.

Were 'taught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring.

Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet foregoing simple savour,
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 mix'd with seconds, knows no
art,

But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou suborn'd informer
soul,

66

a true

When most impeach'd, 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 Shakspere "my especial friend." To Lord Southampton Shakspere dedicates "love without end." This 26th Sonnet, we have little doubt, is also a dedication, accompanying some new production of the mighty dramatist, in accordance with his declaration, "What I have done is yours, what I 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
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 aspect,
And puts apparel on my tatter'd 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

mayst 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 favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites 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 famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove, nor be removed.
-25.

Again, the 23rd 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

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 presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love, and look for recompence, More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.

O learn to read what silent love hath writ : To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.-23.

Between the 23rd 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 play'd the painter, and hath stell'd

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 't is 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 impannelled

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

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.-46.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd 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 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

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 nurs'd, deliver'd 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 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

66

"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?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds
strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did
proceed?

O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:

For, as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.—76.

So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to

sing,

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,

And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
In others' works thou dost but mend the
style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

-78.

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth