were addressed to a man, it is equally certain that others were addressed to a woman. But the word begetter is found to have been sometimes used in the sense of obtainer or procurer; and such is the only sense which, in Thorpe's affected language, it will bear, consistently with the internal evidence of the Sonnets themselves. As for the theories, therefore, which have mainly grown from taking Thorp's only begetter to mean only inspirer, I set them all aside as being irrelevant to the subject. I have no doubt, that "the only begetter of these ensuing Sonnets" was simply the person who made or procured transcripts of them, and got them all together, either for his own use or for publication, and to whom Thorpe was indebted for his copy of them. But Thorpe wishes to his Mr. W. H. that eternity promised by our ever-living Poet." Promised by the Poet to whom? To "Mr. W. H." or to himself, or to some one else? For aught appears to the contrary, it may be to either one, or perhaps two, of these; for in some of the Sonnets, as the 18th and 19th, the Poet promises an eternity of youth and fame both to his verse and to the person he is addressing. Here may be the proper place for remarking that the 20th has the line, "A man in hue all hues in his controlling." Here the original prints hues in Italic type and with a capital, Hews, just as Will is printed in the 135th and the 136th, where the author is evidently playing upon his own name. Tyrwhitt conjectured that a play was intended on the name of Hughes, and that one W. Hughes may have been the "Mr. W. H." of Thorpe's dedication, and the person addressed in the Sonnets. It is indeed possible that the 20th, and perhaps some others, may have been addressed to a personal friend of the Poet's so named, who was the procurer of the whole series for publication: I say possible, and that seems the most that can be said about it. Great effort has been made, to find in the Sonnets some deeper or other meaning than meets the ear, and to fix upon them, generally, a personal and autobiographical character. It must indeed be owned that there is in several of them an earnestness of tone, and in some few a subdued pathos, which strongly argues them to be expressions of the Poet's real feelings respecting himself, his condition, and the person or persons addressed. This is particularly the case with a series of ten, beginning with the 109th. Something the same may be said of the 23d, 25th, and 26th, where we find a striking resemblance to some expressions used in the dedications of the Venus and Adonis and of the Lucrece. But, as to the greater part of the Sonnets, I have long been growing more and more convinced that they were intended mainly as exercises of fancy, cast in a form of personal address, and perhaps mingling an element of personal interest or allusion, merely as a matter of art; whatever there is of personal in them being thus kept subordinate and incidental to poetical beauty and effect. For instance, in the 138th, than which few have more appearance of being autobiographical, the Poet speaks of himself as being old, and says his "days are past the best"; yet this was printed in 1599, when he was but thirty-five. Surely, in this case, his reason for using such language must have been, that it suited his purpose as a poet, not that it was true of his age as a man. Much light is thrown on these remarkable effusions by the general style of sonneteering then in vogue, as exemplified in the Sonnets of Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel. In these too, though unquestionably designed mainly as studies or specimens of art, the authors, while speaking in the form of a personal address, and as if revealing their own actual thoughts and inward history, are continually using language and imagery that clearly had not and could not have any truth or fitness save in reference to their purpose as poets. In proportion to the genius and art of the men, these Sonnets have, as much as Shakespeare's, the appearance of being autobiographical, and of disclosing the true personal sentiments and history of the authors; except, as already mentioned, in some few cases where Wordsworth is probably right in saying of the Sonnet, that with this key Shakespeare unlock'd his heart." For, indeed, it was a common fashion of the time, in sonnet-writing, for authors to speak in an ideal or imaginary character as if it were their real one, and to attribute to themselves certain thoughts and feelings, merely because it suited their purpose, and was a part of their art as poets, so to do. And this, I make no doubt, is the true key to the mystery which has puzzled so many critics in the Sonnets of Shakespeare. In writing Sonnets, he naturally fell into the current style of the age; only, by how much he surpassed the others in dramatic power, by so much was he better able to express ideal sentiments as if they were his own, and to pass out of himself into the characters he had imagined or assumed. Taking this view of the matter, I of course do not search after any thread or principle of continuity running through the whole series of Sonnets, or any considerable portion of them. I hold them to have been strictly fragmentary in conception and execution, written at divers times and from various motives; addressed sometimes, perhaps, to actual persons, sometimes to ideal; and, for the most part, weaving together the real and the imaginary sentiments of the author, as would best serve the end of poetical beauty and effect. In fine, I think he wrote them mainly as an artist, not as a man, though as an artist acting more or less upon the incidents and suggestions of his actual experience. Doubtless, too, in divers cases, several of them have a special unity and coherence among themselves, being run together in continuous sets or clusters, and forming separate poems. This avoids the endless tissue of conflicting theories that has gathered about them, and also clears up the perplexity and confusion which one cannot but feel while reading them under an idea or persuasion of their being a continuous whole. I give the Sonnets in the same order and arrangement which they have in the original edition, believing that this ought not to be interfered with, until the question shall be better settled as to the order in which they should be printed. Nevertheless, I am far from thinking this order to be the right one: on the contrary, I hold it to be in many particulars altogether disordered. It seems quite evident that there is much misplacement and confusion among them; sometimes those being scattered here and there, which belong together, sometimes one set being broken by the thrusting-in of a detached member or portion of another set. For instance, the three playing upon the author's name clearly ought to stand together; yet they are printed as the 135th, 136th, and 143d; the last of the trio being thus separated from the rest by the interposition of six jumbled together, apparently, all out of their proper connection in other sets. So, again, the 127th, 131st, and 132d clearly ought to stand together, being continuous alike in the subject and in the manner of treating it. Numerous other cases of like dislocation might easily be pointed out. Touching the merit of the Sonnets, there need not much be said. Some of them would hardly do credit to a school-boy, while many are such as it may well be held an honour even to Shakespeare to have written; there being nothing of the kind in the language approaching them, except a few of Milton's and a good many of Wordsworth's. That in these the Poet should have sometimes rendered his work excessively frigid with the euphuistic conceits and affectations of the time, is far less wonderful than the exquisite beauty, and often more than beauty, of sentiment and imagery that distinguishes a large portion of them. Many might be pointed out, which, with perfect clearness and compactness of thought, are resplendent with the highest glories of imagination; others are replete with the tenderest pathos; others, again, are compact of graceful fancy and airy elegance; while in all these styles there are specimens perfectly steeped in the melody of sounds and numbers, as if the thought were born of music, and the music interfused with its very substance. Wordsworth gives it as his opinion, that "there is no part of the writings of this Poet, where is found, in an equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed." SONNETS. I. FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. And only herald to the gaudy Spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.1 2. When forty Winters shall besiege thy brow, 1 To eat what is due to the world, by burying thyself, that is, by leaving no posterity, seems to be the meaning. |