A LOVER'S ANXIETY.

229

for the lady. For her peace he is at such strife with his thoughts and feelings as may be found betwixt the miser and his wealth. One moment he is rich beyond everything as he looks at his treasure, and the next minute he is doubting whether a filching age' may not steal it, whilst he is not near enough for her protection. The sonnet felicitously expresses the alternations of the lover's feelings, the sudden change from glow to gloom, the tender trouble that continually ripples over the smiling surface of his inner life :

Sweet love,' renew thy force; be it not said,
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes e'en till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness:
Let this sad interim, like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more bless'd may be the view:
Or call it winter, which, being full of care,
Makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more

rare.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

(56.)

Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife.

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found:

Now proud as an enjoyer and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure ;'

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure:

1 The 'love' here addressed is not a person, but a passion; and it is dis

tinctly enough stated to be the love that precedes marriage.

2 This sad interim' is marked in the original copy by italics.

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure.' The age of Elizabeth

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean-starvéd for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight

Save what is had or must be from you took :
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

(75.)

was not a man-stealing age, so far as history records. Of necessity it must be a woman here spoken of, and the jealous lover is fearful lest the 'filching age' should rob him of his mistress by that seduction which is only too

common.

DRAMATIC SONNETS.

ELIZABETH VERNON REPAYS THE EARL BY A FLIRTATION OF HER OWN: HIS REPROACH.

In these sonnets the Earl still pleads, but his mistress is determined to vex him with her wilful humours and signs of inconstancy. They continue the love-quarrel which, as I suppose, followed the Earl's flirtation with Lady Rich. The lady is bent on punishing her lover, apparently, by a flirtation of her own. The speaker stands on the knowledge of his own desert, in spite of appearances that gave rise to scandal. He says that if his lady shall frown on the defects and faults of his character, if her love shall have been tried to the uttermost-cast its utmost sum --and is called to a reckoning by wiser reflections and warier considerations to find nothing further in his favour, and she shall strangely pass him by, and hardly give him greeting, and love shall be converted from the thing it once was, for reasons sufficiently grave - against that time he will fortify himself with the knowledge that he does not deserve such treatment. He admits her right to leave him, for he can allege no cause why she should love him. And if she be really disposed to make light of his love, and scorn his merit, he will fight on her side against himself, for he is best acquainted with his own weaknesses and the injuries which he does to himself. Such is his

love, and so much does he belong to her, that for her right he will bear all wrong. Some glory in their birth, others in their skill, their wealth, their rich raiment. But all such particulars of possession he betters in one general best.' Her love is better than high birth, wealth, or treasures. Having her, he has the sum total of all that men are proud of. He is only wretched in the thought that she may take all this away if she takes away herself from him. But she may do her worst to steal herself away from him: she is his for life. His life is bound up with her love, and both will end together. Therefore he need not trouble himself about other wrongs when, if he loses her love, there is an end of all. On this fact he will plant himself firmly, and not let her wilful humours and signs of inconstancy vex him further. He is happy to have her love, and will be happy to die should he lose her. That is the position he takes. Still, his philosophy does not supply him with armour of proof. The darts of a lover's jealousy will pierce. He cannot rest in his conclusions, however final. With a lover it is not only Heaven or Hell; there is the intermediate Purgatorial state. After the magnanimity of feeling will intrude this mean thought!

'But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot?

Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not.'

If she were false to him he could not know it, he should live on like a deceived husband; her looks might be with him, her heart elsewhere. For Nature has so moulded her, and given her such sweetness and grace that, whether loving him or not, she must always look lovely, and her looks would not show her thoughts, or set the secret of her heart at gaze, even if both were false to him. Pray God it be not so, his feeling cries! How like is thy beauty to that Apple of Eve, smiling so ripely on the outside, and so rotten within, if thy sweet virtue correspond

SELF-ABNEGATION.

233

not to the promise of that fair face!' His thoughts have the yellow tinge of a lover's jealousy. Apparently, he is not yet paid out' according to the lady's thinking. In the last of these sonnets she has not ceased to punish him. And, just as apparently, her artifice is so far successful. The lover grows more earnest, more anxious than ever. She has flirted enough to set the gossips gadding on the subject. The story has been told to him with ample additions and coarse comments. He concludes his reproach to her with a heart-felt warning:

2

Against that time-if ever that time come-
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast its utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects; '

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity-
Against that time do I esconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand against myself uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:

To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love I can allege no cause.

When thou shalt feel disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side against myself I'll fight

And prove thee virtuous, tho' thou art forsworn: 2

(49.)

1 Advised respects;' 'advised respect' occurs in 'King John,' act iv. sc. 2.

'And prove thee virtuous tho' thou art forsworn.'

Having broken her oath or troth-plight to be true to him. Thus in 'Venus and Adonis':

'So do thy lips

Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,

Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.'

Having broken her oath of virginity. With Shakspeare, forswearing is oath-breaking. But what oath could Southampton have taken to be true to