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which would naturally result from the poet's delicacy of feeling, or, from a reticence agreed upon.

There will be nothing very startling in the proposition that our Poet devoted sonnets to his friend's love for Elizabeth Vernon, if we think for a moment of his words. addressed in public to Southampton, in the year 1594. "What I have to do is yours; being part in all I have devoted yours.' Now, if he alluded 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, 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 the Earl's suggestion, he had then agreed to write dramatic sonnets on the subject of Southampton's courtship. And as they were in hand when he dedicated his second poem to Southampton, I infer that they were commenced in 1593.

If my theory of the sonnets be true, the sonnets themselves ought to yield the most convincing proof that it is so. They should tell their own tale, however marvellous it may be; nay, they should speak with a more certain sound because of the mystery. The voice should be all the clearer if it comes from the cloud. This they will do. Only we must have the courage to believe that Shakspeare knew what he was writing about, and that he was accustomed to use the English language in its plainest sense, except where words would flower double on account of the fulness of his wit. We must not lose sight of the literal truth and substance of his meaning in following the figurative shadow, or we shall quite miss the palpable

A CHANGE IN THE POET'S MODE OF WRITING.

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facts, and find ourselves in the position of others who have had to make all sorts of excuses for Shakspeare's indefiniteness. Let us only remember that these sonnets are by the writer who got nearest to nature through the closeness of his grasp of reality; and a false interpretation has hitherto hindered our seeing that his grip was as close,. his feeling as true, his language as literal here as in his dramas. Then we shall find that they do in very truth tell their own story according to the theory now proposed and set forth. Not merely in the underlying evidence the inner facts which can only be paralleled in the outer life of the different speakers, the distinct individuality of the characters pourtrayed-but it actually stares us in the face on the surface, so close to us that we have overlooked it by being too far-sighted.

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I purpose showing that after our Poet had written a certain number of personal sonnets to the Earl, his dear friend, advising him to marry, and the Earl had met and fallen in love with the faire Mistress Vernon,' Shakspeare then began, at the Earl's own request, to write sonnets dramatically on the subject of the Earl's passion, and the trials, tiffs,' and misadventures of a pair of starcrossed lovers, with the view of enhancing their pleasures and enriching their pains by his poetic treatment of their love's tender and troublous history. The intimacy, as we have seen from the sonnets which are personal, was of the nearest and dearest kind that can exist between man and man. 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 fairly 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 there is proof.

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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 is no further need of advising the Earl to marry when he is doing all he can 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 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 Shakspeare'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 out this a new leaf is turned over in the Book 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. Thus, accepting the Earl's suggestion of writing dramatically on the subject 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 him dramatically, he exclaims be thou the tenth Muse!' And if his new sonnets should please the Earl and his friends, who are curious in such matters, his be the pain, the labour; the Earl's shall be the praise.

THE NEW THEME.

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The reader will see how consistently the thought of this sonnet follows the series in which the Poet has expressed his jealousy of the adulation of insincere rivals. He has now stepped into the inner circle of the Earl's private friendship, where they cannot pass. They may stand on the outside and address him, but the Earl has taken our poet into the inmost place of his private confidence, and whispered into his ear and breathed into his verse the argument of his love for Elizabeth Vernon, too excellent for every common paper or ordinary method to rehearse. The other sonnets contain a lover's querulousness, this has the secret satisfaction of the chosen one who has been favoured above all others.

SHAKSPEARE IS ABOUT TO WRITE SONNETS UPON THE EARL'S LOVE FOR ELIZABETH VERNON.

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.)

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

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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 foolish theory. The precedent that we find 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 composed 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, may not he have had Shakspeare and Southampton in his eye? "Absolute Castilio' is characteristic of the Earl, especially in the mouth of an envious poet whom he did not patronise.

Drayton also tells us in his 21st sonnet that he knew

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