CHAPTER III.

AN ANALYSIS OF THORPE'S ARRANGEMENT OF THE

SONNETS.

THE order which Thorpe used in his issue of the Sonnets, in 1609, is still generally recognized as correct by Shakespearean critics. I may, therefore, be deemed presumptuous in assailing that which has been so long accepted without question; however, after many years of interested and analytic study of the Sonnets, I am forced to take issue against the infallibility of Thorpe's arrangement. The regard in which this arrangement has been held has arisen largely from the fact that Thorpe issued the Sonnets during the poet's life, and, therefore, possibly with his cognizance or under his supervision. I am fully convinced, and believe I can give fairly conclusive proof, that Shakespeare had no hand in their arrangement or publication.

Someone has said that, if one Sonnet can be shown to be out of its place and away from its context, the whole value of Thorpe's order is at once destroyed.

I shall adduce several very plain instances where this is the case, and yet I admit a very great sequential value for his arrangement. In order to properly estimate this value, it is necessary to understand the conditions under which Thorpe produced his edition.

I believe I shall clearly show that many of the Sonnets were written previous to 1595, and that the period of the production of the whole series antedates 1601. As the Sonnets were not published till 1609, they were, then, held in manuscript for from ten to fifteen years. We know that the Sonnets were produced at different times during a period of at least three years.

In the 108th Shakespeare says:

'What's in the brain that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name."

This plainly proves that Sonnets were written in the earlier, as well as the later periods of the friendship revealed in the Sonnets.

Sonnet 104 says:

"To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumns turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green."

This extract shows that the sonnet-writing had at the date of its production lasted for three years. We may then assume that the manuscripts from which Thorpe worked were detached books or sequences, and not one large manuscript containing the whole of the Sonnets as we know them. Though they were written as private epistles to the poet's patron, and mistress, they were evidently shown by their recipients to their friends, and passed amongst them to be read. In 1598 Meres mentions Shakespeare's "Sugred sonnets amongst his private friends," and I believe I shall show that Chapman had read some of them in manuscript many years before their eventual publication. We see, then, that the Sonnets were passed among Southampton's friends as they were written.

If we can get any idea of the number of the groups or sequences, we will begin to understand Thorpe's difficulties in chronologically arranging the whole series: to get any such idea, we must necessarily go to Thorpe's edition. We will, therefore, begin at the beginning and seek for palpable

sequences.

We see very clearly that the first seventeen Sonnets are closely connected and plainly of the same group; the 18th and 19th Sonnets, while differing somewhat in subject, are also very evidently connected with the first group, but neither the 20th, 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, or 25th are in any way related, either in sense or figure; the 26th Sonnet, however, is very similar in tone, and is plainly the last Sonnet of a sequence. In nearly all of the later Sonnets

we find a most distinct avowal of the poet's love for his friend, and also a plain record of that friend's avowal of love for the poet; we find hopes, fears, and even jealousy, and the clearest proofs of a very intimate friendship and close personal relations. In the first group we find none of this; friendship is not once mentioned, the poet's love for the patron is alluded to, but in a most conventional manner, and only two or three times in the whole sequence.

There can be little doubt, then, that these were the earliest Sonnets of the whole series. We find only nineteen Sonnets which show continuity: now sequences were not written of this number; twenty, however, was a very common number for sonnet-sequences at that period; this, then, was very evidently such a sequence: where is the missing Sonnet? Certainly not either 20 or 21; I shall prove this couple to be detached and topical, having no connection whatever with the first sequence, nor even with any succeeding Sonnets which come anywhere near them. These two Sonnets were written as an attack upon Chapman and a poem which he published in 1595, called "The Amorous Zodiac"; this will be proved in a later chapter. A very casual reading will show that neither the 22d nor 23d Sonnet is connected with the first group, and also that they have no connection with each other; they evidently belong elsewhere. The 24th Sonnet is not connected with this group; its proper context will be found in Sonnets 46 and 47. I shall give these three Sonnets at length, to prove their connection.

SONNET 24.

"Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stell'd
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill.
To find where your true image pictured lies;
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
They draw but what they see, know not the
heart."

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SONNET 46.

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar.
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanneled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part: