not have permitted all of these latter sonnets to accompany the Southampton ones and thus defile the sanctities of love and friendship. Is it not most damnable in us says one of his characters, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents?' And is it to be credited that he would not feel and act up to the level of that thought in such a matter of personal import as this? he who must have had the supremest sense of fair fame and unstained reputation, a perfect loathing of that which should bear a 'hateful memory upon record.' The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation,' says Mowbray. 'Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls,' says Iago. Prince Harry prays over his slain enemy Hotspur, that his praise may ascend to heaven, his ignominy sleep in the grave, and not be remembered in his Epitaph. I have offended repu tation,' exclaims Antony, 'a most unnoble swerving.' The thought of his lost reputation sobers Cassio on the instant, and the remembrance of his infamy gives the death-sting to Enobarbus. But, if it be a sin to covet Honour, I am the most offending soul alive!' cries his darling hero, Harry V.

A most sensitive feeling of honour is associated with all his nearest touches of nature, his greatest moments of action-his proudest thoughts of life-his deepest apprehensions of death,-and I will not believe that in this regard he was careless for himself alone in a work which was to be published with his name. It is not possible to think that a man who cared so little about gathering up his best works could have been party to the careful treasuring up of his worst! With Herbert the sonnets were left: from Herbert they were obtained by Thorpe, and To Herbert belongs the responsibility of printing all that we find under the title of Shakspeare's Sonnets, and the onus of their being inscribed to himself as Mr. W. H.' This is to all intents and purposes ac

THE ONUS OF PRINTING RESTS WITH HERBERT.

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knowledged, and even pointed out by Thorpe. If the Poct expressed any wishes on the subject they were not implicitly obeyed; more was included as 'Shakspeare's Sonnets' than had been authorised. This is shown in an artistic point of view by the insertion of three pieces which are not 'sonnets,' and two fragments on a subject that has nothing to do with the work. And in the moral aspect it is assuredly the most just to conclude that a want of discretion. was far more in keeping with the character of Herbert than with that of a man who was so full of self-respect, domestic prudence, practical sagacity, wise reserve, and canny discreetness as was our Shakspeare; he who had passed his London-life without blemish of his honour, stain on his reputation, or suspicion of his morality, and who, when the sonnets were printed, had more incentives than ever for observing the decencies of life, and the respectabilities of personal character.

OF THE NEW READING

AND

ARRANGEMENT.

THE reading of Shakspeare's Sonnets now presented affords the only theory yet adventured that is not full of perplexity and bewilderment. It is the only one that surmounts the obstacles, disentangles the complications, resolves the discords, and out of various voices draws the one harmony. It ignores no difficulty, violates no fact, strains no point for the sake of making extremes meet; it gathers up every possibility, and is consistent from beginning to end. We cannot but feel a degree of certitude that the central magnet of the meaning must be grasped when all things surrounding thus fall into place, and obey their compelling law of gravitation; cannot but think we have reached the heart of the Maze when standing where so many probabilities converge, and we see, as in a map, the beginning of each; the blending of all.

The personal interpretation is a real rendering of darkness visible. The story breaks off suddenly after the first twenty-six sonnets: it will not run or unravel autobiographically. To borrow an illustration from the silkwinders, it takes a world of trouble to find the 'end' each time there is a snap; and, when found, it is continually a start and then a stand-still.

It is utter folly to talk of a self-revelation made by Shakspeare so inward that we cannot reach it. There are

CURRENT THEORIES.

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fifty1 plain facts to be met-facts of outer life, of character, of sex,—on the surface of the sonnets, all opposed to the Autobiographic view, before anyone need have dived into the deeps of their own subjectivity for the supposed dreadful secrets of the Poet's heart. Nor will the theory work which holds that the sonnets are mere fantastic exercises of ingenuity, having no root in reality-no relation to Shakspeare's own life. They are intensely real from first to last through a wide range of varying feelings, whatsoever their meaning. Although they were published as sonnets, and the stories they once told have passed out of sight when the Poet withdrew into his cloud, they refuse to be read singly, even if we give separate titles to every one. The life cannot be pulverised out of them by any such process. The story will not come to a full stop at the sonnet's end. It will continue its course out of sight, lurking underground, like the river Mole, where it cannot run visibly on the surface, and reappear a little farther on. Those who take so shallow a view must, of necessity, be exceedingly dull readers of poetry, or very

1 'Fifty ?' In one sonnet alone, the 124th, there are at least a dozen :—

1. The speaker's affection has been the 'Child of State.'

6

2. It is no longer the Child of State.'

3. Had it continued to be merely so it would now have likewise become the unfathered bastard' of Fortune!

4. It no more suffers in the smiling pomp' of a Court.

5. It has heretofore so suffered.

6. The speaker is hindered by what has occurred from joining the young men of his own rank ('OUR Fashion') who are going to help put down Rebellion, or facing the threatened blow of 'thralled Discontent.'

7. Such speaker must be a possible servant of the State; obviously a Soldier.

8. He fears not 'Policy' the heretic! which has worked against him. 9. His affection now stands all alone in its own policy of independence. 10. Something has occurred which dignifies the speaker with danger, and makes fresh appeal to his steadfastness.

11. He rejoices in having beforehand broken the power of accident by making his 'love' secure, come what might.

12. To the truth of his assertions he calls as present witnesses the spirits of those that suffered an ignominious death in connexion with affairs of State.

often startled by the strange passion in the expression, the unaccountable force of the pleadings, the depths of feeling sounded which make the sonnets perplexing as a dance of many figures to a spectator who is so deaf that he does not hear the music to which the motions are timed. Keats found the sonnets to be full of fine things said unintentionally, in the intensity of working out conceits.1 It must be felt that the writer has a singular way of saying nothing. Of the two readings this is the shallowest. Shakspeare could write nonsense; no man better; but it was the rich overflow of an irrepressible humour, never the sheddings of a maudlin sentimentality. He never wept on the tearful pretence of a sham sorrow. He was not the man to discourse fustian with his own shadow." The other theory does rest on some natural ground-a belief in his earnestness when he was writing-this theory is absolutely baseless. It is likewise in direct contradiction. to his own assertion, for he tells us, with all emphasis, that it is not with him as with that Muse-stirred by a painted beauty to his verse.' Not a creation of fancy, but creatures of flesh and blood are his objects; his reliance is on truth and reality; he is no mere fancy-monger or vender of similes! But the crowning absurdity that tops extremity is the third theory, which holds the sonnets to be symbolic;2 a mere bubble-world of transcendentalism, in which the most richly objective of poets is the most mystically subjective.

1 Life, vol. i. p. 70.

2 When writing of the German-subjective-transcendental-symbolic view of the sonnets in the first chapter of this work, I did not know that it had been out-Herauded in our country by a writer in 'Temple Bar.' (See No. 17 for A new View of Shakspeare's sonnets.') Had this been written as a burlesque on the German book, it would have made an excellent jest. But Mr. Heraud is as absurdly serious as his cousin-German. 'After a careful reperusal (he remarks), I have come to the conclusion that there is not a single sonnet which is addressed to any individual at all.' He maintains that the Two Loves' of sonnet 144 are the Celibate Church on the one hand, and the Reformed Church on the other! And in the latter sonnets, our poet is reading his