5. Whose shadow shadows, etc. makes bright the shades of night.

Whose image

6. Shadow's form, the form which cafts thy fhadow.

11. Thy. The Quarto has their.

13, 14. All days are nights to fee, etc. Malone proposed nights to me'. Steevens defending the Quarto text explains it 'All days are gloomy to behold, i.e. look like nights'. Mr. Lettsom proposed:

[thee.

All days are nights to me till thee I fee,
And nights bright days when dreams do fhow me

To fee till I fee thee', is probably right in this sonnet, which has a more than common fancy for doubling a word in the fame line, as in lines 4, 5, 6.

XLIV. In XLIII. he obtains fight of his friend in dreams; XLIV. expreffes the longing of the waking hours to come into his friend's prefence by fome preternatural means.

4. Where thou doft ftay. I would be brought where (i.e. to where) thou dost stay.

9. Thought kills me. Perhaps thought' here means melancholy contemplation, as in Julius Cæfar A& II. fc. 1, 1. 187, 'Take thought and die for Cæfar'.

10. So much of earth and water wrought. So large a proportion of earth and water having entered into my compofition. Twelfth Night, A& II. fc. 3, 1. 10, 'Does not our life confift of the four elements?" Antony & Cleopatra, A& v. fc. 2, 1. 292; King Henry v., Act III. fc. 7, 1. 22;

'He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient ftillness, etc.'

XLV. Sonnet XLIV. tells of the duller elements of earth and water; this fonnet, of the elements of air and fire.

9. Recured, reftored to wholeness and foundness. Venus & Adonis, 1. 465.

12. Thy fair health. The Quarto has their for thy.

XLVI. As XLIV. and XLV. are a pair of companion fonnets, so are XLVI. and XLVII. The theme of the first pair is the opposition of the four elements in the person of the poet; the theme of the second is the oppofition of the heart and the eye, i.e. of love and the senses.

3. Thy pidure's fight. fo alfo in lines 8, 13, 14.

10.

The Quarto has their,

10. A queft of thoughts, an inquest or jury.
12. Moiety, portion.

XLVII. Companion sonnet to the last.

3. Famifhed for a look. Compare Sonnet LXXV. So Comedy of Errors, A&t 11. fc. 1, 1. 88:-

Whilft I at home ftarve for a merry look.

10. Art present. The Quarto has are.

II, 12. Not. Quarto nor. The fame thought which appears in XLV.

Compare Sonnets XIX., XX. of Watson's Tears of Fancie, 1593 (Watson's Poems, ed. Arber, p. 188):—

My hart impof'd this penance on mine eies,
(Eies the firft caufers of my harts lamenting):
That they should weepe till loue and fancie dies,
Fond love the laft caufe of my harts repenting.
Mine eies upon my hart infli& this paine
(Bold hart that dard to harbour thoughts of loue)
That it should loue and purchafe fell difdaine,
A grieuous penance which my heart doth proue,
Mine eies did weep as hart had them impofed,
My hart did pine as eies had it conflrained, etc.

Sonnet xx. continues the fame :

Hart faid that loue did enter at the eies,

And from the eies defcended to the hart;

Eies faid that in the hart did Sparkes arise, etc. Compare alfo Diana (ed. 1584), Sixth Decade, Sonnet VII. (Arber's English Garner, vol. ii. p. 254); and Drayton, Idea, 33.

XLVIII. Line 6 of XLVI., in which Shakspere speaks of keeping his friend in the closet of his breast:A clofet never pierced with cryfal eyes, fuggefts XLVIII.; fee lines 9-12. I have faid he is safe in my breast; yet ah! I feel he is not.

II. Gentle closure of my breast. So Venus & Adonis, 1. 782, 'the quiet closure of my breast'. 14. Does not this refer to the woman, who has fworn love (CLII. 1. 2), and Shakfpere (fpoken of in XLI.

whofe truth to 13) now proves

thievish? Compare Venus & Adonis, 1. 724, 'Rich preys make true men thieves'.

XLIX. Continues the fad ftrain with which XLVIII. closes.

3. Caft his utmost fum, closed his account and cast up the sum total.

4. Advised respects, deliberate, well-confidered reasons. So King John, A& iv. fc. 2, 1. 214.

8. Reasons, i.e. for its converfion from the thing

it was.

9. Enfconce, 'protect or cover as with a conce or fort'.-DYCE.

10. Defert. Quarto desart, rhyming with part.

L. This fonnet and the next are a pair, as XLIV. XLV. are, and XLVI. XLVII. The journey 1. I is that spoken of in XLVIII. 1. 1.

6. Dully. The Quarto has duly, but compare LI. 2, 'my dull bearer', and 1. II, 'no dull flesh'.

LI. Companion to L.

6. Swift extremity, the extreme of swiftness. So Macbeth, A& 1. fc. 4, l. 17:—

Swifteft wing of recompence is flow.

7. Mounted on the wind. So 2 King Henry IV. Induction, 1. 4, 'Making the wind my pofl-horse'. Compare Cymbeline, А& ш. fc. 4, 1. 38; Macbeth, A& 1. fc. 7, 11. 21-23.

10. Perfeft. The Quarto has perfects.
11. Malone and other editors print:—

Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in, etc.

i.e. Defire shall neigh, being no dull flesh, etc. But does it not mean, Defire, which is all love, shall neigh,

there being no dull flesh to cumber him as he rushes forward in his fiery race? Compare the neighing ftallion of Adonis, Venus & Adonis, ll. 300-312,

14. Go, move ftep by step,

Tempest, А& ш. sc. 2, 1. 22.

walk, as in The

STEPHANO.-We'll not run, Monfieur Monfler.
TRINCULO.- Nor go neither.

I have placed the last two lines, spoken, as I take it, by Love, within inverted commas.

LII. The joy of hope, the hope of meeting his friend spoken of in the last sonnet (LI.).

So The

4. For blunting, because it would blunt. Two Gentlemen of Verona, A& 1. fc. 2, 1. 136, 'Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold'. 7-12. So I King Henry IV., A& ш. fc. 2, 11. 55-59

Thus did I keep my perfon fresh and new;
My prefence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'r feen but wonder'd at: and fo my state,
Seldom but fumptuous, bowed like a feast
And won by rareness fuch folemnity.

8. Captain, chief. So Timon of Athens, A&t III. fc. 5, 1. 49 (Dyce; but qu.? captain fubftantive) :-'The afs more captain than the lion'.

Carcanet, necklace, or collar of jewels. Comedy of Errors, A& II. fc. 1, 1. 4.

LIII. Not being able, in abfence, to poffefs his friend, he finds his friend's fhadow in all beautiful things.

N