1100 1300050 ie frends" without the Bus 177 ensin aur i wold be regarded as an exposition LA TUTTE MELNES TË TV: persis sepanted in mok as they 5-1-F LANTHI HALLS — of very different ages, 117 indige by, the other a matured man. I was 300 actiune the idea that the poet had 1 maret i ne sme measure, other necy is 10ml be with Dothing inLIL. Derferit Bore ni mm cfering praise, 9′′E U 18 km. Ients the langage of the time, swag ma senza inating unkindness, These are also imalated amongst Et soles bem together, ten, ries live my bare been written; and a drone, simi u gre n the wind any productions 1 = 5 Er is Silisert. But vic amnged them? If te eet Lost Lese who bellove in their conES ÞAK II DHE IN PINs which it is impossible to Il me sine villine with these Sonnets Sel 1 Is arts me poem. A Lover's ComThe im denne series 7 amempt to consider The Sames on the roatrary, are personal in I :: : » da merulle n be assumed that they are all naume and I is impossible to be mmg been proned with the consent of the

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kv værts of a modemon, either in prose or verse—

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in at me possibe more of realy. The same slight m the aer in are classed amongst the real,

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Dr #VANJE, WI bout it 11 presuming to think that we hare a scound any mal vele la which these extraordinary proParicus may be aged n de bem to the reader upon a prinSile a cuscher tee, which to the one hand, does not attempt to weer te der her accet roots poem, or rather several continuous poons, my be teed Sharbot the serios, nor adopt the belief that the whoe can be broken up into fragments; but which, on

the other hand, does no violence to the meaning of the author by a pertinacious adherence to a principle of continuity, sometimes obvious enough, but at other times maintained by links as fragile as the harness of Queen Mab's chariot :—

"Her traces of the smallest spider's web,

Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams."

The reader will have the text of the first edition before him; and he will be enabled at every step to judge whether the original arrangement, to which we must constantly refer, was a systematic or an arbitrary one.

I.

THE earliest productions of a youthful poet are commonly Love-Sonnets, or Elegies, as they were termed in Shakspeare's time. The next age to that of the schoolboy is that of

"the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

We commence our series with three Sonnets which certainly bear the marks of juvenility, when compared with others in this collection, as distinctly impressed upon them as the character of the poet's mind at different periods of his life is impressed upon Love's Labor's Lost and Macbeth:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
And will to boot, and will in overplus;
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine ?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in thy will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

135.

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
In things of great receipt with ease we prove;
Among a number one is reckoned none.
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in my stores' account I one must be ;
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lov'st me - for my name is Will.

-

Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind :

So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.

143.

136.

The figures which we subjoin to each Sonnet show the place which it occupies in the collection of 1609. If the reader will turn to our reprint of that text, he will see where these Sonnets, through each of which the same play upon the poet's name is kept up with a boyish vivacity, are found. The two first follow one of those from which Mr. Brown derives the title of what he calls

"The Sixth Poem," being "To his Mistress on her Infidelity." Mr. Brown, however, qualifies the dissimilarity of tone by the foling admission: "All the stanzas in the preceding poems (to Stanza 126) are retained in their original order; the printers, without disturbing the links, having done no worse than the joining together of five chains into one. But I suspect the same attention has not been paid to this address to his mistress. Indeed, I further suspect that some stanzas, irrelevant to the subject, have been introduced into the body of it." The stanzas to which Mr. Brown objects are the 135th and 136th, just given. But let us proceed. The poet now sings the praise of those eyes which so took his brotherpoet, Phineas Fletcher:

"But most I wonder how that jetty ray,

Which those two blackest suns do fair display,

Should shine so bright, and night should make so sweet a day.”

We know not the color of Anne Hathaway's eyes; but how can we affirm that the following three Sonnets were not addressed to her?

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame :
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited; and they mourners seem
At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

127.

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel :

Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems, p. 96

For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan :
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to myself alone.
And, to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
One on another's neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain;
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O, let it then as well bescem thy heart

131.

To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.

Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

132.

But the two last immediately precede the Sonnet beginning

"Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;"

and so the lady of the "mourning eyes" is associated with a tale of treachery and sin. The line of the 131st Sonnet

"In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds -

may be held to imply something atrocious. The two first lines, however, show of what the poet-lover complains :