ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth. T. T." No other edition of the Sonnets appeared until the year 1640, when they were published, along with other poems purporting to be by Shakespeare, under the heading: "Poems: written by Wil. Shakespeare. Gent. Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are to be solde by John Benson, dwelling at St. Dunstan's Churchyard. 1640." Several of the Sonnets in Thorpe's collection are omitted from this edition, and those that appear are prefixed with titles of the publisher's own invention. Whatever personal touches there may be in the Sonnets were quite lost sight of by this date. Thorpe, in his dedication, plainly recognizes their personal nature when he wishes "Mr. W. H." "that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet," yet it is very probable that Thorpe was quite in the dark as to their full history, and believed the medium through whom he received them to be their true begetter. It may be that he was purposely deceived, and allowed to use the term "Mr. W. H." in order to hide their private nature and to shield the real begetter from the public eye.

I shall prove later on that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was not the patron addressed in these Sonnets, and shall, I believe, give very convincing evidence that Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, was that figure, yet I do not think it at all improbable that Pembroke was the "Mr. W. H." addressed by Thorpe, nor unlikely that the Sonnets were published through his influence and with

his cognizance. It is reasonable to assume that the favor of Pembroke and his brother Montgomery, mentioned by Hemminge and Condel in the folio dedication as having been shown to Shakespeare, had commenced before the year 1609, and it is also quite possible that this favor was the result of Southampton's influence with these noblemen. We know that Southampton and Pembroke were friends, or at least very intimate acquaintances; we also know that they both, at some period, gave their countenance and patronage to Shakespeare; that he and his poems should then be a topic of common interest with them is most likely, and also, that Southampton should bring these Sonnets in manuscript to the notice of Pembroke; they having all, or nearly all, been written previous to his advent at Court in 1598, as I shall prove.

Shakespeare was already famous, and openly acknowledged as a literary star of no small magnitude by this year. Between the end of 1598 and 1601, Southampton, then out of favor with the Court, owing to his marriage with Elizabeth Vernon in defiance of the Queen's wishes, was, through his friendship with the Earl of Essex, drawn into the political vortex which ended in the death of Essex and his own imprisonment in the latter year, he remaining in prison until March, 1603. By this time the Sonnets in manuscript had, no doubt, ceased to be read, and it may be that Pembroke had never seen them till they were brought to his notice by Southampton, in or about the year 1609. Pembroke, recognizing their worth, may have

brought about their publication, and in this way have become their begetter. I offer this merely as a plausible suggestion. In the light of the evidence which I shall hereafter adduce as to the identity of Southampton as the patron, this theory as to the “Mr. W. H.” of Thorpe's dedication is much more reasonable than that set forth by Mr. Sidney Lee in his "Life of Shakespeare," where he endeavors to prove a claim for a certain printer and publisher named William Hall.

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If William Hall was the procurer of these Sonnets, as suggested by Mr. Lee, why should he donate them to a rival publisher? for so Mr. Lee leads. us to infer: if he had sold them, Thorpe would not have felt himself under any obligation to flatter him with a dedication. Thomas Thorpe undoubtedly uses the word begetter" in the sense of inspirer; no quibbling will do away with this fact. The words, "To the onlie begetter of the insuing sonnets, Mr. W. H. all happinesse, and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet," plainly show that Thomas Thorpe fully believed "Mr. W. H. " to be the inspirer of the Sonnets and also the person who in certain of them is promised eternity; he certainly would not look upon the publisher's hack, William Hall, in this light.

Neither publishers nor writers, at that date, made free with the names and titles of noblemen to usher their wares to the world, without having first secured that right, or being fully assured, by a previous experience, of their liberty to do so.

One year later than the date of the publication

of the Sonnets, we find that Thorpe dedicated Healey's translation of St. Augustine's "Citie of God" to the Earl of Pembroke, in language which strongly suggests a previous similar connection with that nobleman.

It has been suggested that a publisher would not dare to take the liberty of addressing a titled nobleman as "Mr."; and I have no doubt that Thorpe would much more willingly have published the Sonnets with a flourish of titles, but was probably prevented from doing so by Pembroke himself, for the reasons I have already suggested. The fact that Thorpe issued the Sonnets with a dedication is fair proof that he had not come by them dishonestly.

Mr. Lee assumes that Thorpe was a piratical publisher of no standing, but the fact that he published matter by Ben Jonson and Chapman, who were both very careful of their literary wares, and fully realized their value, proves that he was a fairly reputable publisher.

Mr. Lee goes rather out of his way to abuse the Elizabethan publishers' profession. There were, no doubt, dishonest publishers in those days, but the lack of definite copyright laws at that date makes it difficult to judge what was dishonesty. Publishers then, no doubt, compared quite as favorably as in this day with men in other channels of trade; but we do not find them, either then or now, presenting each other with valuable copyrights gratis, nor writing fulsome dedications to one another.

In working out my theory I have left Thorpe and his dedication out of the question, and searched in the Sonnets themselves for light; I have discussed it here, principally, to show that Thorpe in 1609 recognized their personal tone. This personal idea was quite lost sight of by the year 1640, when Benson published them, and was not revived until about a hundred years after their first issue. During that period they were read, when read at all, as impersonal literature.