My saucy bark, inferior far to his, Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, The worst was this;-my love was my decay.-80. I grant thou wert not married to my muse, In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend; And their gross painting might be better us'd Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.-82. I never saw that you did painting need, How far a modern quill doth come too short, Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. This silence for my sin you did impute, Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in praise devise. -83. Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise,-that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.-84. My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly com Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write But, when your countenance fil'd up his line, -86. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate: The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. -87. We cannot trace the connexion of the 121st Sonnet with what precedes and what follows it. It may stand alone-a somewhat impatient expression of contempt for the opinion of the world, which too often galls those most who, in the consciousness of right, ought to be best prepared to be indifferent to it : "T is better to be vile, than vile esteem'd, No.-I am that I am; and they that level I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown, Unless this general evil they maintain,— reign.-121. Lastly, of the Sonnets entirely independent of the other portions of the series, the following, already mentioned, furnishes one of the many proofs which we have endeavoured to produce that the original arrangement was in many respects an arbitrary one :— Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.-146. III. We have thus, with a labour which we fear may be disproportionate to the results, separated those parts of this series of poems which appeared to be manifestly complete in themselves, or not essentially connected with what has been supposed to be the "leading idea" which prevails throughout the collection. It has been said, with great eloquence, "It is true that, in the poetry as well as in the fictions of early ages, we find a more ardent tone of affection in the language of friendship than has since been usual; and yet no instance has been adduced of such rapturous devotedness, such an idolatry of admiring love, as the greatest being whom nature ever produced in the human form pours forth to some unknown youth in the majority of these Sonnets."* The same accomplished critic further speaks of the strangeness of "Shakspere's humiliation in addressing him (the youth) as a being before whose feet he crouched, whose frown he feared, whose injuries, and those of the most insulting kind-the seduction of the mistress to whom we have alluded-he felt and be wailed without resenting." We should agree with Mr. Hallam, if these circumstances were manifest, that, notwithstanding the frequent beauties of these Sonnets, the pleasure of their perusal would be much diminished. But we believe that these impressions have been, in a great degree, produced by regard*Hallam, Literature of Europe,' vol. iii. p. 502. ing the original arrangement as the natural | have therefore left us no regret that he had and proper one-as one suggested by the dependence of one part upon another, in a poem essentially continuous. Mr. Hallam, with these impressions, adds, somewhat strongly, "it is impossible not to wish that Shakspere had never written them." Let us, however, analyze what we have presented to the reader in a different order than that of the original edition :— Sonnets. 3 3 1 2 23 2 3 2 1 1 2 10 3 6 3 written them. If we are to regard a few of these as real disclosures, with reference to a "dark-haired lady whom the poet loved, but over whose relations to him there is thrown a veil of mystery, allowing us to see little except the feeling of the parties—that their love was guilt,”'—we are to consider, what is so justly added by the writer from whom we quote, that "much that is most unpleasing in the circumstances connected with those magnificent lyrics is removed by the air of despondency and remorse which breathes through those which come most closely on the facts."* But it must not be forgotten that, in an age when the Italian models of poetry were so diligently cultivated, imaginary loves and imaginary jealousies were freely admitted into verses which appeared to address themselves to the reader in the personal character of the poet. Regarding a poem, whether a sonnet or an epic, essentially as a work of art, the artist was not careful to separate his own identity from the sentiments and situations which he delineated-any more than the pastoral poets of the next century were solicitous to tell their readers that their Corydons and Phyllises were not absolutely themselves and their mistresses. The Amoretti' of Sonnets. Spenser, for example, consisting of eightyeight Sonnets, is also a puzzle to all those who regard such productions as necessarily autobiographical. These poems were published in 1596; in several passages a date is somewhat distinctly marked, for there are lines which refer to the completion of the first six Books of the 'Fairy Queen,' and to Spenser's appointment to the laureatship— "the badge which I do bear." And yet they are full of the complaints of an unrequited love, and of a disdainful mistress, at a period when Spenser was married, and settled with his family in Ireland. Chalmers is here again ready with his solution of the difficulty. They were addressed, as well as Shakspere's Sonnets, to Queen Elizabeth. We believe that, taken as works of art, having a certain degree of continuity, the Sonnets of Spenser, of Daniel, of Drayton, of Shakspere, although *Edinburgh Review,' vol. lxxi. p. 466. 3 43 4 4 Absence 9 9 A second absence Fidelity. Dedications The picture The note-book Rivalry. 3 13 3 3 1 10 1 1 61 We have thus as many as 104 Sonnets which, if they had been differently arranged upon their original publication, might have been read with undiminished pleasure, as far as regards the strangeness of their author's humiliation before one unknown youth; and in many instances they might shadow forth | cellence at which they aimed consisted in From fairest creatures we desire increase, Making a famine where abundance lies, When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, Biographia Literaria,' vol. ii. p. 27. Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest, Now is the time that face should form another; For where is she so fair, whose unear'd womb see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives thy executor to be.-4. Those hours, that with gentle work did frame For never-resting time leads summer on Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere: Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.-5. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd. Leaving the living in posterity? Be not self-will'd for thou art much too fair To be Death's conquest, and make worms thine heir.-6. Lo, in the orient when the gracious light Resembling strong youth in his middle age, car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy, Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly? Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? |