As to beauty, among several claimants, it is difficult to say which should be preferred. There is remarkable beauty in Sonnet 116, especially in the first eight lines :—

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."

Then there is the 33rd Sonnet, with its magnificent description of a brilliant morning, whose splendour becomes darkened by dense and threatening clouds :—

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace."

In neither case, however—though for different reasons— do the six lines concluding the Sonnet seem equal to those which have preceded. I may omit some Sonnets deserving mention, but there are two (29, 30) which must not be passed over. In the second of these (30), the poet declares that the disappointments he has endured and the grievous bereavements which death has inflicted are all compensated for by the love of his friend :—

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste :
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end."

The reader should remark in passing the frequent use of alliteration, of which, however, he may find plenty of examples elsewhere in these poems. The chief fault of this Sonnet is in the concluding couplet, which seems somewhat disappointing and inadequate. The 29th Sonnet may not be in all respects quite equal to that last given, but it certainly has not in its conclusion the fault just alluded to:

"When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least ;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee; and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."1

1 Wordsworth selected on account of "the various merits of thought and language in Shakespeare's Sonnets" the following, adding, however, that there are 66 many others":-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 54, 64, 66, 68, 73, 76, 86, 91, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 107, 108, 109, III, 113, 114, 116, 117, 129. Mr. T. Hall Caine, in his Sonnets of Three Centuries, gives 29, 30, 33, 55, 64, 66, 70, 71, 73, 90, 94, 97, 107, 116, 129, 138, 146. Mr. J. Dennis, English Sonnets, gives 8, 17, 18, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 38, 54, 55, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 71, 73, 76, 87, 91, 92, 98, 104, 106, 116, 129, 139, 146. Mr. S. Waddington, English Sonnets by Poets of the Past, selects 30, 33, 54, 66, 71, 73, 98, 99, 106, 139, 143, 146. It will thus be seen that, with regard to the excellence of certain Sonnets, as 30, 33, 116, there is a remarkable consensus of opinion. Mr. Swinburne, however (quoted by Dowden), speaks of the Sonnets 127 to 154 as "incomparably the more important and altogether precious division of the Sonnets." Mr. F. T. Palgrave, in his Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, prints the whole, with the exception only of 20, 151, 153, 154.

§ 6. Concerned with Fact.-But it is neither from beauty and sweetness, nor majestic strength, that the Sonnets derive their chief attractiveness. Rather-in accordance with what was said at the commencement of this chaptermust we attribute the keen interest with which they are investigated to the hope of gaining some additional knowledge with regard to Shakespeare and his surroundings, or of making a nearer approach to the poet's personality. But are the Sonnets concerned with actual facts? Are they not rather to be regarded as mere exercises in verse? If this question could be answered in the affirmative, still the interest and value of the Sonnets would be great, as showing the themes on which Shakespeare elected to discourse. But that any competent critic should have looked on the Sonnets as mere exercises in verse can scarcely be other than surprising. The intensity of feeling which they display is not to be mistaken, and the incidents alluded to cannot be conceived of as fictions. Are we to suppose Shakespeare urging in seventeen Sonnets an ideal youth to beget ideal offspring? Then, as to the incident alluded to in the 40th and various other Sonnets, is it in the least degree probable that the poet speaks of a purely imaginary offence and grievance? Or, if this be thought not incredible, take the Sonnets relating to the rival poet (86 al.). Fortunately it has become possible to indicate the person actually intended. But if this had not been the case, the evidence of jealous feeling would have been sufficiently clear. It has been suggested, however, that though in relation to the first series of Sonnets the evidence of fact and reality is not to be denied, yet the case is otherwise with the later Sonnets concerned with the dark lady (127 to 152). In all probability this suggestion had its origin in the wish to free Shakespeare's moral character from certain possible imputations. But however commendable the motive, such a view must be rejected. The impress of reality is stamped on these Sonnets with unmis

takable clearness; and besides, several of them are linked indissolubly to the first series (as 40 to 144). We must therefore maintain-whatever may be the consequences resulting from this position-that the Sonnets as a whole are concerned with actual fact. At the same time we must beware of treating them as though they were mere prosaic history. Their language is the language of poetry, sometimes of compliment, and as such it should certainly be interpreted.

CHAPTER II.

THE DEDICATION.

To the original edition of the Sonnets was prefixed the following Dedication:

TO.THE.ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF.

THESE. INSVING. SONNETS.

Mr. W. H. ALL. HAPPINESSE.

AND. THAT. ETERNITIE.

PROMISED.

BY.

OVR. EVER-LIVING. POET.
WISHETH.

THE. WELL-WISHING.

ADVENTVRER. IN.

SETTING.
FORTH.

T. T.

With respect to the initials, it may be remarked that on the titles of books the representation of names by initial letters was formerly much more common than is the case at present. As to who was intended by the final "T. T." there need be no question, since under date "20 Maij," 1609, "Shakespeares sonnettes were entered in the Stationers' Register to Thomas Thorpe :—

"Thomas Thorpe Entred for his copie vnder th[e h]andes of master WILSON and master Lownes Warden

a Booke called SHAKESPEARE'S sonnettes vjd."

1 Arber's Transcript, vol. iii. 183b.