ENGLISH CLASSICS THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE EDITED BY EDWARD DOWDEN NEW YORK D. APPLETON & COMPANY i, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET MDCCCLXXXVII TO THE. ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF. THESE . INSVING . SONNETS . M r . W. H. ALL . HAPPINESSE . AND. THAT. ETERNITIE PROMISED. BY. OVR EVER-LIVING POET. WISHETH . THE WELL-WISHING. ADVENTVRER IN SETTING . FORTH . T.T. CONTENTS. i. From faireft creatures we defire increafe . i I. When forty winters (hall bcfiege thy brow . a H r. Look in thy glafs, and tell the face thou vieweft 3 IV. Unthrifty lovelinefs, why doft thou fpend . 4 V. Thofe hours, that with gentle work did frame 5 vi. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface . 6 vii. Lo, in the orient when the gracious light . 7 Vin. Mufic to hear, why hear'ft thou mufic fadly . 8 ix. Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye ... 9 x. For fhame ! deny that thou bear'ft love to any 10 xi. As faft as thou flialt wane, fo faft thou grow'ft it xn. When I do count the clock that tells the time 12 xin. O, that you were yourfelf ! but, love, you are 13 Xiv. Not from the ftars do I my judgment pluck . 14 xv. When I confider every thing that grows . 15 xvi. But wherefore do not you a mightier way . 16 xvn. Who will believe my verfe in time to come . 17 xvin. Shall I compare thee to a fummer's day . 18 xix. Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws . 19 xx. A woman's face, with Nature's own hand painted 20 xxi. So is it not with me as with that Mufe . . 21 xxn. My glafs ftiall not perfuade me I am old . 22 xxai. As an unperfect actor on the ftage . . .23 iv CONTENTS. PAGE XXIV. Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath ftell'd 24 xxv. Let thofe who are in favour with their ftars . 25 xxvi. Lord of my love, to whom in vaflalage . . 26 xxvii. Weary with toil, I hafte me to my bed . . 27 xxvin. How can I then return in happy plight . . 28 xxix. When, in difgrace with fortune and men's eyes 29 xxx. When to the feflions of fweet filent thought . 30 xxxi. Thy bofom is endeared with all hearts . . 31 xxxii. If thou furvive my well-contented day . . 32 XXXIIL Full many a glorious morning have I feen . 33 xxxiv. Why didft thou promife fuch a beauteous day 34 xxxv. No more be grieved at that which thou haft done 35 xxxvi. Let me confefs that we two muft be twain . 36 xxxvii. As a decrepit father takes delight ... 37 xxxviii. How can my Mufe want fubject to invent . 38 xxxix. O, how thy worth with manners may I fmg . 39 XL. Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all 40 XLI. Thofe pretty wrongs that liberty commits . 41 XLII. That thou haft her, it is not all my grief . 42 XLIII. When moft I wink, then do mine eyes beft fee 43 xuv. If the dull fubftance of my flefti were thought 44 XLV. The other two, flight air and purging fire . 45 XLVI. Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war . 46 XLVII. Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took 47 XLVIII. How careful was I, when I took my way . 48 XLIX. Againft that time, if ever that time come . 49 L. How heavy do I journey on the way . . 50 Li. Thus can my love excufe the flow offence . 51 LII. So am I as the rich, whofe blefled key . . 52 Lin. What is your fubftance, whereof are you made 53 LIV. O, how much more doth beauty beauteous feem 54 CONTENTS. v PAGE LV. Not marble, nor the gilded monuments . . 55 LVI. Sweet love, renew thy force ; be it not faid . 56 LVII. Being your flave, what (hould I do but tend . 57 LVIII. That God forbid that made me firft your flave 58 LIX. If there be nothing new, but that which is . 59 LX. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled ihore 60 LXI. Is it thy will thy image fhould keep open . 6x LXII. Sin of felf-love poflefleth all mine eye . . 62 LXIII. Againft my love (hall be, as I am now . . 63 LXIV. When I have feen by Time's fell hand defaced 64 LXV. Since brafs, nor (tone, nor earth, nor bound- lefsfea 65 LXVI. Tir'd with all thefe, for reftful death I cry 66 LXVII. Ah, wherefore with infection (hould he live . 67 LXVUI. Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn . 63 LXIX. Thofe parts of thee that the world's eye doth view 69 LXX. That thou art blam'd (hall not be thy defect . 70 LXXI. No longer mourn for me when I am dead . 71 LXXII. O, left the world (hould taflc you to recite . 72 LXXIII. That time of year thou mayft in me behold . 73 LXXIV. But be contented : when that fell arreft . 74 LXXV. So are you to my thoughts as food to life . 75 LXXVI. Why is my verfe fo barren of new pride . 76 LXXVII. Thy glafs will (how thee how thy beauties wear 77 LXXVIII. So oft have I invok'd thee for my Mufe . 78 LXX ix. Whilft I alone did call upon thy aid . . 79 LXXX. O, how I faint when I of you do write . . 80 LXXXI. Or I (hall live your epitaph to make . . 81 LXXXII. I errant thou wert not married to my Mufe . 82 LXXXIII. I never faw that you did painting need . . 83 vi CONTENTS. PAGE LXXXIV. Who is it that fays moft ? which can fay more 84 LXXXV. My tongue-tied Mufe in manners holds her ftill 85 LXXXVI. Was it the proud full fail of his great verfe . 86 LXXXVII. Farewell ! thou art too dear for my poflefling 87 LXXXVIII. When thou flialt be difpofd to fet me light . 88 LXXXIX. Say that thou didft forfake me for fome fault 89 xc. Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now . 90 xci. Some glory in their birth, fome in their (kill 91 xcn. But do thy worft to fteal thyfelf away . . 92 xciii. So fhall I live, fuppofing thou art true . . 93 xciv. They that have power to hurt and will do none 94 xcv. How fweet and lovely doft thou make the fhame 95 xcvi. Some fay, thy fault is youth, fome wantonnefs 96 xcvu. How like a winter hath my abfence been . 97 xcvm. From you have I been abfent in the fpring . 98 xcix. The forward violet thus did I chide . 99 c. Where art thou, Mufe, that" thou forget'ft fo long ........ 100 Ci. O truant Mufe, what fhall be thy amends . 101 en. My love is ftrengthen'd, though more weak in feeming .,.... 102 cm. Alack, what poverty my Mufe brings forth 103 civ. To me, fair friend, you never can be old 104 cv. Let not my love be call'd idolatry . . . 105 cvi. When in the chronicle of wafted time . . 106 cvn. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic foul . 107 cvm. What 's in the brain that ink may character . 108 cix. O, never fay that I was falfe of heart . . 109 ex. Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there . 1 10 cxi. O, for my fake do you with Fortune chide in cxii. Your love and pity doth the impreflion fill . 112 cxm. Since I left you, mine eye is in my miud . ^13 CONTENTS. vii PAGE cxiv. Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you 214 cxv. Thofe lines that I before have writ do lie . 115 cxvi. Let me not to the marriage of true minds . 116 cxvii. Accufe me thus : that I have fcanted all . 117 cxvui. Like as, to make our appetites more keen . 118 cxix. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears . 119 cxx. That you were once unkind befriends me now 120 cxxi. 'Tis better to be vile than vile efteem'd . 12 1 cxxn. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain . iaa CXXHI. No, Time, thou flialt not boaft that I do change , . 223 cxxiv. If my dear love were but the child of ftate . 124 cxxv. Were't aught to me I bore the canopy , . 125 cxxvi. O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power . 126 cxxvu. In the old age black was not counted fair . 127 cxxvin. How oft, when thou, my mufic, mufic play 'ft 128 cxxix. The expenfe of fpirit in a wafte of fhame . 129 cxxx. My miftrefs' eyes are nothing like the fun . 130 cxxxr. Thou art as tyrannous, fo as thou art . . 131 CXXXH. Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me . 133 cxxx n i. Befhrew that heart, that makes my heart to groan 133 cxxxiv. So now I have confeff'd that he is thine . 134 cxxxv. Whoever hath her wifti, thou haft thy Will . 135 cxxxvi. If thy foul check thee that I come fo near . 1 36 cxxxvn. Thou blind fool, Love, what doft thou to mine eyes 137 cxxxvui. When my love fwears that (he is made of truth 138 cxxxix. O, call not me to juftify the wrong . , 139 CXL. Be wife as thou art cruel ; do not prefs . . 140 CXLI. In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes , 141 viii CONTENTS. PAGE CXLII. Love is my fin, and thy dear virtue hate . 14* CXLIII. Lo, as a careful houfewife runs to catch . 143 CXLIV. Two loves I have of comfort and defpair . 144 CXLV. Thofe lips that Love's own hand did make . 145 CXLVI. Poor foul, the centre of my fmful earth . . 146 CXLVII. My love is as a fever, longing ftill . . . 147 CXLVIII. O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head . 148 CXLIX. Canft thou, O cruel ! fay I love thee not . 149 CL. O, from what power haft thou this powerful might . 150 en. Love is too young to know what confcience is 151 CLII. In loving thee thou know'ft I am forfwora . 152 CLIII. Cupid laid by his brand, and fell afleep . . 153 CLIV. The little Love-god lying once afleep . . iS4 INTRODUCTION. No edition of Shakfpere's Sonnets, 1 apart from his other writings, with fufficient explanatory notes, has hitherto appeared. Notes are an evil, but in the cafe of the Sonnets a neceflary evil, for many paflages are hard to underftand. I have kept befide me for feveral years an inter- leaved copy of Dyce's text, in which I fet down from time to time anything that feemed to throw light on a difficult paflage. From thefe jottings, and from the Variorum Shakfpeare of 1821,* my annotations have been chiefly drawn. I have had before me in preparing this volume the 1 The poet's name is rightly written Shakefpeare ; rightly alfo Shakfpere. If I err in choofing the form Shakfpere^ I err with the owner of the name. a To which this general reference may fuffice. I often found it convenient to alter (lightly the notes of the Variorum Shakfpere, and I have not made it a rule to refer each note from that edition to its individual writer. x INTRODUCTION. editions of Bell, Clark and Wright, Collier, Delius, Dyce, Halliwell, Hazlitt, Knight, Pal- grave, Staunton, Grant White; the tranflations of Franois-Vi&or Hugo, Bodenftedt, and others, and the greater portion of the extenfive Shakfpere Sonnets literature, Englifh and German. It is forrowful to confider of how fmall worth the contribution I make to the knowledge of thefe poems is, in proportion to the time and pains beftowed. To render Shakfpere's meaning clear has been my aim. I do not make his poetry an occafion for giving leffons in etymology. It would have been eafy, and not ufelefs, to have enlarged the notes with parallels from other Elizabethan writers ; but they are already bulky. I have been fparing of fuch parallel paffages, and have illuftrated Shakfpere chiefly from his own writ- ings. Repeated perufals have convinced me that the Sonnets {land in the right order, and that fonnet is connected with fonnet in more inftances than have been obferved. My notes on each fonnet commonly begin with an attempt to point INTRODUCTION. xi out the little links or articulations in thought and word, which conned it with its predeceffor or the group to which it belongs. I frankly warn the reader that I have pufhed this kind of criticifm far, perhaps too far. I have perhaps in fome inftances fancied points of connexion which have no real exiftence ; some I have fet down, which feem to myfelf conjectural. After this warning, I alk the friendly reader not to grow too foon impatient ; and if, going through the text care- fully, he will confider for himfelf the points which I have noted, I have a hope that he will in many inftances fee reafon to agree with what I have faid. The text here prefented is that of a conferva- tive editor, oppofed to conjecture, unlefs con- jecture be a neceflity, and defirous to abide by the Quarto (1609) unlefs ftrong reafons appear for a departure from it. The portrait etched as frontifpiece is a living face reftored by Mr. L. Lowenftam from the celebrated death-mafk found by Ludwig Becker. The artift clofely follows his original. The xii INTRODUCTION. evidence in fupport of the opinion that this mafk was caft from a wax-mould taken from Shak- fpere's face is ftrong enough to fatiffy a good many careful inveftigators ; not ftrong enough to fatiffy all. The portrait, then, may be viewed as poffeffing a real and curious intereft, while yet of doubtful authenticity. 1 Sonnets by Shakfpere are firft mentioned in Meres's Palladis Tamia, 1598: * The fweete wittie foule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony- tongued Shakefpeare, witnes . . . his fugred Sonnets among his private friends'. In the following year, 1599, Sonnets cxxxvm. and CXLIV. were printed in the bookfeller Jaggard's furreptitious mifcellany The PaJJionate Pilgrim (fee Notes, p. 239 and p. 242). Both of thefe 1 ' I muft candidly fay I am not able to fpot a (ingle fufpicious fac"r. in the brief hiftory of this moft curious relic '. C. M. Ingleby, Shakefpeare the Man and the Book, Part i. p. 84. See on the death-maflc articles by J. S. Hart in Scribner's Monthly r , July 18745 by Dr. Schaff- haufen in Shakefpeare Jahrbucb 18755 and by Lord Ronald Gower in The Antiquary, vol. ii., all of whom accept it as the veritable death-mafk of Shakfpere. INTRODUCTION. xiii refer to a woman beloved by the writer; the fecond is that remarkable poem beginning Two loves I have of comfort and defpair. For ten years we hear no more of the Son- nets. On May 20, 1609, 'a book called Shake- fpeares Sonnettes ' was entered on the Stationers' Regifter by Thomas Thorpe, and in the fame year the Quarto edition appeared : ' Shake- fpeares Sonnets. Never before Imprinted. At London by G. Eld for T. T. [Thomas Thorpe] and to be folde by William Apfley. 1609'. 1 Edward Alleyn notes in that year that he bought a copy for fivepence. The Sonnets had not the popularity of Shakfpere's other poems. No fecond edition was publifhed until 1 640 (printed 1639), when they formed part of 'Poems: written by Wil. Shake-fpeare. Gent', a volume containing many pieces not by Shakfpere. Here the Sonnets are printed with fmall regard to their order in the edition of 1609, in groups, with the poems of The PaJJionate Pilgrim inter- 1 Some copies inftead of ' William Apfley ' have ' lohn Wright dwelling at Chrift Churchgate \ xiv INTRODUCTION. fperfed, each group bearing a fanciful title. The bookfeller Benfon introduced the Poems with an addrefs to The Reader, in which he aflerts that they are ' of the fame purity the Authour then living avouched', and that the reader will find them 'feren, clear and elegantly plain*. The titles given to the groups carry the fuggeflion that the Sonnets, with few exceptions, were ad- drefled by a lover to his lady. This edition of 1640 was reprinted feveral times in the eighteenth century ; the text of the quarto 1 609, by Lintott 1711, in Steevens's ' Twenty Plays', 1766, and by Malone. Gildon and Sewell, editors of the firft half of the cen- tury, having the 1 640 text before them, aflumed that the Sonnets were addrefled to Shakfpere's miflrefs. It remained for the editors and critics of the fecond half of the century to difcover that the greater number were written for a young man. To a careful reader of the original it needed fmall refearch to afcertain that a friend is addrefled in the firft hundred and twenty-five fonnets, to which the poem in twelve lines, INTRODUCTION. xv numbered cxxvi., is an Envoy ; while the Sonnets CXXVII.-CLIV. either addrefs a miftrefs, or have ,. reference to her and to the poet's paffion for her. The fludent of Shakfpere is drawn to the Sonnets not alone by their ardour and depth of feeling, their fertility and condenfation of thought, jheir exquifite felicities of phrafe, and their fre- quent beauty of rhythmical movement, but in a peculiar degree by the poffibility that here, if nowhere elfe, the greateft of Englifh poets may as Wordfworth puts it have 'unlocked his heart'. 1 It were ftrange if his filence, deep as 1 Poets differ in the interpretation of the Sonnets as widely as critics : < Wth thh fame key Shakefpeare unlocked hh heart ' once more ! Did Shakefpeare ? If fo the lefs Shakefpeare he ! " So, Mr. Browning ; to whom replies Mr. Swinburne, ' No whit the lefs like Shakefpeare, but undoubtedly the lefs like Browning.' Some of Shelley's feeling with reference to the Sonnets may be guefled from certain lines to be found among the ' Studies for Epipfychidion and Cancelled Paflages* (Poetical Works: ed. Forman, vol. ii. pp. 392, 393), to which my attention has been called by Mr. E. W. Gofle: If any fliould be curious to difcover Whether to you I am a friend or lover, xvi INTRODUCTION. that of the fecrets of Nature, never once knew interruption. The moment, however, we regard the Sonnets as autobiographical, we find our- felves in the prefence of doubts and difficulties, exaggerated, it is true, by many writers, yet certainly real. If we muft efcape from them, the fimpleft mode is to affume that the Sonnets are * the free outcome of a poetic imagination ' (Delius). It is an ingenious fuggeftion of Delius that certain groups may be offfets from other poetical works of Shakfpere ; thofe urging a beautiful youth to perpetuate his beauty in offfpring may be a derivative from Venus & Adonis ; thofe declaring love for a dark complexioned woman may re- Let them read Shakfpeare's sonnets, taking thence A whetftone for their dull intelligence That tears and will not cut, or let them guefs How Diotima, the wife prophetefs, Inftrufted the inftru&or, and why he Rebuked the infant fpirit of melody On Agathon's fweet lips, which as he fpoke Was as the lovely ftar when morn has broke The roof of darknefs, in the golden dawn, Half-hidden and yet beautiful. INTRODUCTION. xvii handle the theme fet forth in Berowne's paflion for the dark Rofaline of Love's Labour's Lojl ; thofe which tell of a miftrefs refigned to a friend may be a non-dramatic treatment of the theme of love and friendfhip prefented in the later fcenes of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Per- haps a few fonnets, as ex. cxi., refer to circum- ftances of Shakfpere's life (Dyce) ; the main body of thefe poems may ftill be regarded as mere exercifes of the fancy. Such an explanation of the Sonnets has the merit of fimplicity ; it unties no knots but cuts all at a blow; if the collection confifts of dif- conneded exercifes of the fancy, we need not try to reconcile difcrepancies, nor ftiape a ftory, nor afcertain a chronology, nor identify perfons. And what indeed was a fonneteer's paflion but a painted fire ? What was the form of verfe but an exotic curioufly trained and tended, in which an artificial fentiment imported from Italy gave perfume and colour to the flower ? And yet, in this as in other forms, the poetry of the time, which poflefles an enduring vitality, 3 xviii INTRODUCTION. was not commonly caught out of the air, but however large the conventional element in it may have been was born of the union of heart and imagination ; in it real feelings and real experience, fubmitting to the poetical faftiions of the day, were raifed to an ideal expreffion. Spenfer wooed and wedded the Elizabeth of his Amoretti. The AJlropM 6- Stella tells of a veritable tragedy, fatal perhaps to two bright lives and paflionate hearts. And what poems of Drummond do we remember as we remember thofe which record how he loved and lamented Mary Cunningham ? Some ftudents of the Sonnets who refufe to trace their origin to real incidents of Shakfpere's life, allow that they form a connected poem, or at moft two connected poems, and thefe, they affure us, are of deeper fignificance than any mere poetical exercifes can be. They form a flupendous allegory ; they exprefs a profound philofophy. The young friend whom Shakfpere addrefles is in truth the poet's Ideal Self, or Ideal Manhood, or the Spirit of Beauty, or the INTRODUCTION. xix Reafon, or the Divine Logos ; his dark miftrefs, whom a profaic German translator (Jordan) takes for a mulatto or quadroon, is indeed Dramatic Art, or the Catholic Church, or the Bride of the Canticles, black but comely. Let us not fmile too foon at the pranks of Puck among the critics ; it is more prudent to move apart and feel gently whether that fleek nole with fair large ears, may not have been flipped upon our own fhoulders. When we queftion faner critics why Shak- fpere's Sonnets may not be at once Dicbtung und Wahrheity poetry and truth, their anfwer amounts to this : Is it likely that Shakfpere would fo have rendered extravagant homage to a boy patron ? Is it likely that one, who fo deeply felt the moral order of the world, would have yielded, as the poems to his dark lady acknow- ledge, to a vulgar temptation of the fenfes ? or yielding, would have told his fliame in verfe ? Objections are brought forward againft identify- ing the youth of the Sonnets with-Southampton or with Pembroke; it is pointed out that the writer fpeaks of himfelf as old, and that in a xx INTRODUCTION. fonnet publifhed in Shakfpere's thirty-fifth year ; here evidently he cannot have fpoken in his own perfon, and if not here, why elfewhere ? Finally, it is aflerted that the poems lack internal harmony ; no real perfon can be, what Shakfpere's friend is defcribed as being true and falfe, conftant and fickle, virtuous and vicious, of hopeful expecta- tion and publicly blamed for carelefs living. Shakfpere fpeaks of himfelf as old ; true, but in the fonnet publifried in The Pafflonate Pilgrim (cxxxvm.), he fpeaks as a lover, contrafting himfelf (killed in the lore of life with an inex- perienced youth ; doubtlefs at thirty-five he was not a Florizel nor a Ferdinand. In the poems to his friend, Shakfpere is addreffing a young man perhaps of twenty years, in the frefh bloom of beauty ; he celebrates with delight the floral grace of youth, to which the firft touch of time will be a taint ; thofe lines of thought and care, which his own mirror (hows, bear witnefs to time's ravage. It is as a poet that Shakfpere writes, and his ftatiftics are thofe not of arith- metic but of poetry. INTRODUCTION. xxi That he fliould have given admiration and love without meafure to a youth highborn, brilliant, accomplifhed, who fmgled out the player for peculiar favour, will feem wonderful only to thofe who keep a conftant guard upon their affections, and to thofe who have no need to keep a guard at all. In the Renafcence epoch among natural products of a time when life ran fwift and free, touching with its current high and difficult places, the ardent friendfhip of man with man was one. To elevate it above mere perfonal regard a kind of Neo-Platonifm was at hand, which reprefented Beauty and Love incarnated in a human creature as earthly vice-gerents of the Divinity. * It was then not uncommon', obferves the fober Dyce, ' for one man to write verfes to another in a ftrain of fuch tender affection as fully warrants us in terming them amatory'. Montaigne, not prone to take up extreme pofitions, writes of his dead Eftienne de la Boetie with paflionate tendernefs which will not hear of moderation. The haughtieft fpirit of Italy, Michael Angelo, does homage to xxii INTRODUCTION. the worth and beauty of young Tommafo Cava- lieri in fuch words as thefe : Heavenward your fpirit Jlirreth me to flrain ; E'en as you will I blujb and blanch again, Freeze in the fun, burn 'neath a frofly fky y your will includes and is the lord of mine. The learned Languet writes to young Philip Sidney : * Your portrait I kept with me fome hours to feaft my eyes on it, but my appetite was rather ihcreafed than diminifhed by the fight'. And Sidney to his guardian friend: * The chief object of my life, next to the ever- lafting bleflednefs of heaven, will always be the enjoyment of true friendfhip, and there you (hall have the chiefeft place'. 'Some', faid Jeremy Taylor, ' live under the line, and the beams of friendfhip in that pofition are imminent and per- pendicular '. ' Some have only a dark day and a long night from him [the Sun], fnows and white cattle, a miferable life and a perpetual harveft of Catarrhes and Confumptions, apo- plexies and dead palfies ; but fome have fplendid fires and aromatick fpices, rich wines and well INTRODUCTION. xxiii . digefted fruits, great wit and great courage, becaufe they dwell in his eye and look in his face and are the Courtiers of the Sun, and wait upon him in his Chambers of the Eaft ; juft fo it is in friendship'. Was Shakfpere lefs a cour- tier of the fun than Languet or Michael Angelo ? If we accept the obvious reading of the Son- nets, we muft believe that Shakfpere at fome time of his life was fnared by a woman, the reverfe of beautiful according to the conven- tional Elizabethan ftandard dark-haired, dark- eyed, pale-cheeked (cxxxn.) ; (killed in touching the virginal (cxxvm.) ; flailed alfo in playing on the heart of man ; who could attract and repel, irritate and foothe, join reproach with carefs (CXLV.) ; a woman faithlefs to her vow in wed- lock (CLII.). Through her no calm of joy came to him ; his life ran quicker but more troubled through her fpell, and (he mingled flrange bitter- nefs with its waters. Miftrefs of herfelf and of her art, (he turned when it pleafed her from the player to capture a more diftinguiflied prize, his friend. For a while Shakfpere was kept in the xxiv INTRODUCTION. torture of doubt and fufpicion; then confeffion and tears were offered by the youth. The wound had gone -deep into Shakfpere's heart: Love knows it is a greater grief To "bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. But, delivering himfelf from the intemperance of wrath, he could forgive a young man beguiled and led aftray. Through further difficulties and eftrangements their friendship travelled on to a fortunate repofe. The feries of Sonnets, which , is its record, climbs to a high funlit refting- place. The other feries, which records his paf- fion for a dark temptrefs, is a whirl of moral chaos. Whether to difmifs him, or to draw him farther on, the woman had urged upon him the claims of confcience and duty ; in the lateft fon- nets if this feries be arranged in chronological order Shakfpere's paflion, grown bitter and fcornful (CLI., CLII.), ftrives, once for all, to defy and wreftle down his better will. Shakfpere of the Sonnets is not the Shakfpere ferenely victorious, infinitely charitable, wife with INTRODUCTION. xxv all wifdom of the intelled and the heart, whom we know through The Tempejl and King Henry vm. He is the Shakfpere of Venus & ^Adonis and Romeo & Juliet, on his way to acquire fome of the dark experience of Meafure for Meafure, and the bitter learning of Troilus & CreJJlda. Shakfpere's writings aflure us that in the main his eye was fixed on the true ends of life ; but they do not lead us to believe that he was in- acceffible to temptations of the fenfes, the heart, and the imagination. We can only guefs the frailty that accompanied fuch ftrength, the rifles that attended fuch high powers; immenfe de- mands on life, vaft ardours, and then the void hour, the deep dejedion. There appears to have been a time in his life when the fprings of faith and hope had almoft ceafed to flow; and he recovered thefe not .by flying from reality and life, but by driving his fhafts deeper towards the centre of things. So Ulyfies was tranfformed into Profpero, worldly wifdom into fpiritual in- fight. Such ideal purity as Milton's was not poffeffed nor fought by Shakfpere ; among thefe xxvi INTRODUCTION. Sonnets, one or two might be fpoken by Mer- cutio, when his wit of cheveril was ftretched to an ell broad. To compenfate Shakfpere knew men and women a good deal better than did Milton, and probably no patches of his life are quite as unprofitably ugly as fome which dif- figured the life of the great idealift. His daughter could love and honour Shakfpere 's memory. Lamentable it is, if he was taken in the toils, but at lead we know that he efcaped all toils before the end. May we dare to conjecture that Cleopatra, queen and courtefan, black from 'Phoebus' amorous pinches', a