group of sonnets, we shall find the young earl of Southampton's age precisely reckoned up in sonnet 16,

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

which shows us that the youth has sprung lightly up the ladder of his life, and now stands on the last golden round of boyhood; he is at the top of his teens.' The Earl of Southampton was born October 6th, 1573, consequently in 1592 he was nineteen years of age.

6

The very first sonnet addresses one who is the 'world's fresh ornament,'-that is, the budding favourite at Court, the fresh grace of its circle, the latest representative there of youthful spring; the expectancy and rose of the fair State!' Southampton was, in truth, the child of State,' under the special protection of the Court. He was recommended to Her Majesty's notice by the loss of his father at so early an age, and by the quiet service of his stepfather, who was an old servant of the Queen's, as well as favoured with the best word of his guardian, Burleigh, who at one time hoped to bring about a marriage betwixt Southampton and his own granddaughter. We shall see further, that such was his place in Her Majesty's regards, that an endeavour was made by Sir Fulke Greville and others, to get the Earl of Southampton installed as royal favourite in the stead of Essex. There was a time,' says Sir Henry Wotton,' sometime secretary to the Earl of Essex, 'when Sir Fulke Greville (Lord Brook), a man intrinsically with him (Essex), or at the least, admitted to his melancholy hours, either belike espying some weariness in the Queen, or perhaps (with little change of the word, though more in the danger), some wariness towards him, and working upon the present matter (as he was dexterous and close), had almost superinduced into favour the Earl of Southampton, which yet being timely discovered, my

SOUTHAMPTON AS FAVOURITE

45

Lord of Essex chose to evaporate his thoughts in a sonnet (being his common way), to be sung before the Queen (as it was) by one Hales, in whose voice she took some pleasure; whereof the couplet, methinks, had as much of the Hermit as of the Poet.' I suspect that Wotton has not gone quite to the root of the affair, and that the real ground on which the motion of Sir Fulke Greville was made, was a strong feeling of personal favour on the part of Her Majesty towards the young Earl of Southampton; this to some extent is implied in the fact recorded, but there was more in it than Wotton had seen from the one side. It is difficult to define what this royal favour meant, or what was the nature of Her Majesty's affection, but it most assuredly existed, and was shown, and Essex manifested his jealousy of it, as in the cases of Southampton and Mountjoy. Perhaps it was an old maid's passion for her puppies! In judging of Elizabeth's character, we must remember that some of her richest, most vital feelings had no proper sphere of action, though their motion was not necessarily improper. She did not live the married life, and Nature sometimes plays tricks when the vestal fires are fed by the animal passions, that are thus covered up, but all aglow; these will give an added warmth to the imagination, a sparkle to the eye, and a youth to the affections in the later years of life, such as may easily be misinterpreted. I am not raising any scandal against Elizabeth, when, supported by the suggestive hint of Wotton, I conjecture that the persistent opposition of the Queen to Southampton's marriage may have had in it a personal feeling which, under the circumstances, could have no other expression than in thwarting the wedded happiness of others.

It is in this sense of the new favourite at Court, that I read

The World's fresh ornament

And only herald of the gaudy spring,

and find in it another feature whereby we can identify the Earl of Southampton as the person addressed.

Next-and here we feel an endearing touch of Shakspeare's nature—the youth is so evidently fatherless, that it seems strange it should have been hitherto overlooked. The plea all through the first sonnets is to one who is the sole prop of his house, and the only bearer of the family name; hence the importance of marrying, on which the poet lays such stress. It seems to me that the first sonnet opens with an allusion to the early death of the earl's father :

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby Beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory!

In sonnet 10 he is charged with not inclining his ear to the advice given to him that he should marry. Thus :

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate,

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

We find the same use made of the verb to ruinate in Henry VI., part iii. act 5 :—

I will not ruinate my father's house.

And in the absence of Pericles one of the lords saysThis kingdom is without a head,

Like goodly buildings left without a roof.

Of course the roof would not need repairing if it were not going to decay. Accordingly we find that Southampton's father-head of the house-died in 1581, ere the young earl was quite eight years old, and within four years of that time his elder brother died. Again in sonnet 13 the poet urges―

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold?

THE PERSON ADDRESSED IS FATHERLESS.

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And, although aware that the lines may not be confined to the literal reading, I cannot avoid thinking that the underlying fact was in the poet's mind when in the same sonnet he wrote

Dear my love, you know

You had a father; let your son say so.

Also in sonnet 3 he tells the earl

Thou art thy Mother's glass, and she, in thee,
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.

6

There is no mention of his having a father; there is an allusion to his having had one, and the mother is referred to as though she were the only living parent. Shakspeare could not speak of the earl's likeness to his father, who had died before the poet came to London; he is forced to make use of the mother's glass,' when the father, had there been one in existence, is demanded by the hereditary nature of the argument. Also, it makes greatly in favour of my reading that some of the arguments taken from Sidney's prose have been altered precisely to suit the case as put by me. The speaker in the Arcadia' says, 'Nature made you child of a mother' (Philoclea's mother Lettice Knollys' was then living), but Shakspeare says, 'you had a father' (the Earl of Southampton's father being dead). The description is also differentiated by the ' tender heir,' who, as the riper should by time decease,' might bear his memory,' and by the house-roof going to decay, which to repair' by husbandry in honour,' should be the chief desire of the person addressed. Thus, we have the Earl of Southampton identified as the lord of Shakspeare's love, and the object of these early sonnets by his exact age at the time when Shakspeare speaks of appearing soon in print, by his position as the ⚫ fresh ornament' of the Court world and Court society, and by the fatherless condition which gave a weightier

emphasis to the poet's argument for marriage, a more paternal tone of anxious interest to his personal affection. To revert for a moment to the words of Meres, it is obvious that the 'private friends' of Shakspeare alluded to must have had as much to do with the critic's mention as the poet had; it would be made on their account as much as on Shakspeare's. Who else could prove the opinion recorded? And certainly there was no living patron of literature at the time more likely to elicit the public reference of Meres than Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.

6

On going a little further afield we may glean yet more evidence that the Earl of Southampton is the object of these sonnets. Thy poet,' Shakspeare calls himself in sonnet 79, and one of the earl's two poets in sonnet 83. Whose poet could he have been but Southampton's either before or after the dedication of his two poems? Of whom, save Southampton, should he say—

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,

Sonnet 100.

when it was that earl who had so esteemed the poet's lays? To whom, except this noble fellow and personal friend, could he speak of his sonnets as the poor returns,

The barren tender of a poet's debt?

Sonnet 83.

which is a most palpable acknowledgement of the earl's munificence-good, even for a thousand pounds. Moreover, we have in sonnet 78, the recognition of the earl after publishing, just as we have him pointed out in sonnet 26, before the poet had printed. Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing!' These must have belonged to the man who caused the poet to speak aloud for the first time in public. In sonnet 108 he says. his love is great, even as when first I hallowed thy fair