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"Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which proves more short than waste or ruining."

On a careful consideration of the context it may be seen that Shakespeare thus implicitly denies that he had been. unfaithful. He had never been on terms of close intimacy with Essex or Southampton. He had merely "borne the canopy," as in a public pageant, "honouring the outward with his extern." And the same thing also is implied in the lines which follow, and which speak of the mere "gazing" of the "dwellers on form and favour." Moreover, bearing in mind the dedication to the Lucrece, with its "love without end," we need have no difficulty in understanding what is meant by the "eternity which proves more short than waste or ruining." In 1601 but seven years had elapsed since that dedication was published. Editors have been wont to alter in the Sonnet "proves" into "prove." But the singular "proves," as given in the First Quarto, is certainly correct. This becomes clear when we see the meaning. Shakespeare had not expected that a breach between Southampton and himself would ever occur, but the event had shown how erroneous was his anticipation. The "love without end" had proved of briefer duration than even seven years. As to the plural "great bases," there is very probably an allusion to the two poems dedicated to Southampton.1

1 It is not by any means denied that, with an antecedent plural noun, Shakespeare employs after the relative a verb ending in s, as also after a plural nominative, though in these cases editors have not uncommonly altered the verb (see Abbott, Shakesp. Gram., §§ 247, 333). In Sonnet 125 the verb has evidently been changed to bring it into apparent agreement with "great bases." But, apart from grammatical considerations, we can scarcely regard Shakespeare as intending that he had laid "great bases," which bases, however, had proved too short, shorter than waste or ruining."

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CHAPTER V.

THE RIVAL POET.

It may be convenient to consider here, also, as connected with the chronology, the question relating to the rival poet of 86 and preceding Sonnets. It is needless to discuss the claims of Marlowe, Drayton, and Daniel, with respect to neither of whom has any probable case been presented. To Professor Minto (Characteristics of English Poets, 2nd edit., p. 221 seq.) is due the identification of the rival poet of the Sonnets with George Chapman, an identification so complete as to leave no reasonable doubt on the matter. This identification will be found also to agree entirely with the chronological results which we have already attained. Professor Minto justly contends that the 86th Sonnet gives ample materials for determining the question:

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"Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night,
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors, of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

But when your countenance fil'd up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine."

Chapman," says Professor Minto, "was a man of overpowering enthusiasm, ever eager in magnifying poetry, and

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advancing fervent claims to supernatural inspiration. In 1594 he published a poem called The Shadow of Night, which goes far to establish his identity with Shakespeare's rival. In the Dedication, after animadverting severely on vulgar searchers after knowledge, he exclaims, 'Now what a supererogation in wit this is, to think Skill so mightily pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely show them her secrets, when she will scarce be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching, yea, not without having drops of their souls like a heavenly familiar." With the last words of this quotation should be compared Shakespeare's line,

"He, nor that affable familiar ghost."

As to what is said, in the Sonnet, of the "compeers by night" and the being "nightly gulled with intelligence,' these expressions are clearly connected with Chapman's consecration of himself to Night :

"To thy blacke shades and desolation

I consecrate my life;"

and with his invitation to his "compeers:

"All you possesst with indepressed spirits,
Indu'd with nimble and aspiring wits,
Come consecrate with me to sacred Night
Your whole endeavours and detest the light:"

"No pen can anything eternall wright

That is not steept in humor of the Night."

Then as to "the proud full sail of his great verse," of which the first line of Sonnet 86 speaks, the language used suits entirely the grand fourteen-syllable metre in which Chapman wrote his translation of the Iliad. The date when Chapman first published seven books of the Iliad, 1598, is especially noteworthy. The Sonnets 100 to 126 we have placed in 1601. From the commencement of 100,—

"Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long," &c.,

taken together with the lines of 102,

"Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days,"

it seems probable that when 100 seq. were written a considerable interval had elapsed since the composition of the larger number of the Sonnets 1 to 99. Thus it would be more likely that 78 and 86 were written in 1598 or 1599 than in 1600. The latter date would seem scarcely to leave a sufficient interval for the "so long" of 100. Supposing, then, that the Sonnets referring to the rival poet were written in 1599, Chapman's "Seaven Iliades" would have been at the time a new book, and so would be likely to attract the notice of Mr. W. H., and excite his interest in Chapman. Shakespeare's apprehensions, therefore, can scarcely be regarded as altogether unreasonable, especially if we remember the effect which a first acquaintance with Chapman's Homer produced on a great poet more than two hundred years afterwards. I allude, of course, to Keats, who tells us that on "hearing Chapman speak out loud and bold,"

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes,
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

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CHAPTER VI.

TWO OTHER CONTEMPORARY POETS.

§ 1. Marston's "In Praise of his Pygmalion."-In his 32nd Sonnet Shakespeare says that if, after his death, his friend should chance to "re-survey" his "poor rude lines;" when compared with "the bettering of the time," they may seem "outstripp'd by every pen." The product of Shakespeare's muse, "exceeded by the height of happier men," may be left far behind. But Shakespeare has still one request to make :—

"O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
'Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died, and poets better prove,

Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.""

Professor Dowden, in commenting on this Sonnet, suggests whether Shakespeare might not have "had a sense of the progress of poetry in the time of Elizabeth." There is reason, however, to recognise an allusion more special than Professor Dowden suggests. Moreover, this special allusion not only enables us to account for what Shakespeare says as to "the bettering of the time;" it is also entirely in accordance with, and confirmatory of, the chronology of the Sonnets already set forth. The metaphor in the line I have italicised is drawn pretty obviously from the march of successive ranks of soldiers in military equipment. There appears, however, some incongruity when this line is compared with that preceding. The "bringing a dearer birth"

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