NOTES.

I. The theme of this and other early fonnets is
fimilarly treated in Venus & Adonis, ll. 162-174:-
Forches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to tafte, fresh beauty for the use,
Herbs for their fmell, and fappy plants to bear:
Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:
Seeds Spring from feeds and beauty breedeth beauty;
Thou waft begot; to get it is thy duty.

Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed ?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead:
And fo, in spite of death, thou doft furvive,
In that thy likeness ftill is left alive.

6. Self-fubflantial fuel, fuel of the fubftance of

the flame itself.

12. Makef wafte in niggarding. Compare Romeo Juliet, A& 1. fc. 1, 1. 223 :—

BEN. Then he hath sworn that she will still live chafte ? ROM. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste.

13, 14. Pity the world, or else be a glutton devouring the world's due, by means of the grave

(which will fwallow your beauty-compare Sonnet LXXVII. 6, and note), and of yourself, who refuse to beget offfpring. Compare All's Well, A& 1. fc. 1, Parolles fpeaking, 'Virginity confumes itself

to the very paring, and fo dies with feeding his own ftomach'. Steevens propofed 'be thy grave and thee', i.e. be at once thyself and thy grave.

II. In Sonnet I. the Friend is 'contracted to his own bright eyes'; fuch a marriage is fruitlefs, and at forty the eyes will be ' deep-funken'. The 'glutton' of 1. reappears here in the phrase 'all-eating shame'; the 'makest wafte' of 1. reappears in the 'thriftless praise' of II. If the youth addressed were now to marry, at forty he might have a fon of his present age, i.e. about twenty.

8. Thriftless praise, unprofitable praise.

II. Shall fum my count and make my old excufe, shall complete my account, and serve as the excuse of my oldness. Hazlitt reads whole excuse.

II.

III. A proof by example of the truth fet forth in Here is a parent finding in a child the excuse for age and wrinkles. But here that parent is the mother. Were the father of Shakfpere's friend living, it would have been natural to mention him ; XIII. 14 'you had a father' confirms our impression that he was dead.

There are two kinds of mirrors-firft, that of glafs; fecondly, a child who reflects his parent's beauty.

5. Unear'd, unploughed. Compare the Dedica

tion of Venus & Adonis, 'I fhall . . . never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest'.

5, 6. Compare Measure for Measure, A& 1. fc. 4, 11. 43, 44:—

Her plenteous womb

Expreffeth his full tilth and husbandry.

7, 8. Compare Venus & Adonis, 11. 757-761:—
What is thy body but a fwallowing grave
Seeming to bury that pofterity,

Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?

9, 10. Compare Lucrece, 11. 1758, 1759 (old Lucretius addreffing his dead daughter):-

Poor broken glass, I often did behold

In thy fweet femblance my old age new-born. 11. Compare A Lover's Complaint, 1. 14: Some beauty peep'd through lattice of fear'd age.

12. Golden time. So King Richard III., A& 1. fc. 2, 1. 248, the golden prime of this fweet prince'. 13. If thou live; Capell fuggefts love.

IV. In Sonnet II. Shakfpere has viewed his friend as an inheritor of beauty from his mother; this legacy of beauty is now regarded as the bequeft of nature. The ideas of unthriftinefs (1. 1) and niggardliness (1. 5) are derived from Sonnets I. II.; the audit' (1. 12) is another form of the 'fum my count' of I. II. The new idea introduced in this

L

fonnet is that of ufury, which reappears in VI. 5, 6.

3. So Meafure for Measure, A& 1. fc. 1, ll. 36-41.
Spirits are not finely touch'd

But to fine iffues, nor Nature never lends
The Smalleft fcruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddefs, fhe determines
Herfelf the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

Compare with this fonnet the arguments put into the mouth of Comus by Milton: Comus, 679-684 and 720-727.

4. Free, liberal.

8. Live, fubfift. With all your usury you have not a livelihood, for, trafficking only with yourself, you put a cheat upon yourself, and win nothing by fuch ufury.

14. Th' executor, Malone reads 'thy executor'.

V. In Sonnets v. VI. youth and age are compared to the seasons of the year: in VII. they are compared to morning and evening, the seasons of the day.

1. Hours, a diffyllable, as in The Tempest, A& v. 1. 4.

2.

Gaze, object gazed at, as in Macbeth, A& v. fc. 8, 1. 24.

4. Unfair, deprive of beauty; not elsewhere used by Shakspere, but in Sonnet CXXVII. we find 'Fairing the foul'.

9. Summer's distillation, perfumes made from flowers. Compare Sonnet LIV. and A Midsummer Night's Dream, A& 1. fc. 1, ll. 76, 77:—

Earthlier happy is the rofe diflill'd,

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in fingle blessedness.

14. Leefe, lofe.

VI. This fonnet carries on the thoughts of IV. and v.-the diftilling of perfumes from v., and the interest paid on money lent from IV.

5. Use, intereft. Compare with this fonnet the folicitation of Adonis by Venus, ll. 767, 768.

Foul cankering ruft the hidden treasure frets, But gold that's put to use more gold begets. And Merchant of Venice, A& 1. fc. 3, 11. 70-97.

The medieval theologians argued against requiring interest on money on the ground that all money is fterile by nature', an abfurdity of Aristotle. 6 The Greek word for intereft (rókos, from TíкTW, I beget) was probably connected with this delusion.'

Lecky: Hift. of Rationalism in Europe, chap. VI.

note.

13. Self-will'd, Delius conjectures, ‘self-kill'd'.

VII. After imagery drawn from summer and winter, Shakspere finds new imagery in morning and evening.

3. Each under eye. Compare The Winter's Tale, A& iv. fc. 2, 1. 40:-'I have eyes under my fervice'.

5. Steep-up heavenly. Mr. W. J. Craig fuggefts that Shakspere may have written 'fteep up-heavenly". 7, 8. Compare Romeo & Juliet, A& 1. sc. 1, ll.

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125, 126: