CHAPTER II.

THE PERSONAL THEORY.

FOR about two hundred years now critics and students have given more or less thought and research to the Sonnets as personal documents, hoping to find therein some light on the poet's personality and life.

Early in the eighteenth century attention was called to their personal tone, by Gildon, who conjectured that they were all written by Shakespeare to his mistress. Dr. Sewall, in 1728, reached the same conclusion. Their examination of the Sonnets, however, must have been of a most cursory nature. In 1781 Malone first suggested that the Sonnets were written to two persons, a patron and a mistress; dividing them as they are usually divided by critics at this day; from 1 to 126 to the patron, and the remaining twenty-eight to the mistress. Since that period various critics have delved into them, seeking the hidden story; all sorts of theories have been propounded; some with a slight show of foundation, and some with none.

The "Mr. W. H." of Thorpe's dedication has been a fruitful source of conjecture, and has led many students away on a wild-goose chase, and from far richer grounds of research.

Nothing in the Sonnets or plays will ever posi

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tively reveal this enigma; outside evidence may; this is quite a different thing, however, from proving the identity of the patron. It is very evident that Thorpe was quite in the dark on that point, and that he believed the " Mr. W. H." to whom he dedicated them to be the patron indicated. Shakespeare certainly had no hand in their publication; several of the Sonnets are plainly incorrect in places; one Sonnet-No. 145-is undoubtedly the work of another hand, and the canzonette, as L'Envoi to the first series, is mistaken for a sonnet, and is marked as incomplete, with brackets for the supposedly missing lines. These blemishes show that Shakespeare was not consulted as to their arrangement for publication; besides which, we have his own plain statement, in the Sonnets themselves, that they were not written for sale.

He

After Malone's suggestion for the division of the Sonnets into two series, the next conjecture of any value was made by Dr. Drake, in 1817, when he proposed Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, as the patron, offering no other proof, however, than the palpable fact that "Venus and Adonis," and "Lucrece," were dedicated to that nobleman. would not believe that the Sonnets 127 to 154 were addressed to a real woman, and supposes that they were written, as were many other sonnets of that day, to an imaginary mistress. Dr. Drake has had many followers in this theory; in his recent book Mr. Sidney Lee voiced the same ideas.

In 1818 a Mr. Bright conceived the idea that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was the patron

addressed in the Sonnets, taking the "W. H." of Thorpe's dedication for his grounds, coupled with the fact that Shakespeare's fellow actors, Hemminge and Condel, in 1623, dedicated the first folio to this nobleman. Mr. Bright, while nursing his idea in the hope of finding further light, was forestalled in the public announcement of it by Dr. Boaden in 1832. Since that date students of the Sonnets have been divided into two camps, viz.: Southamptonites and Pembrokites. There are some few free lances who attach themselves to neither side; believing that the Sonnets are mere poetical exercises, composed at different times, in an assumed character, by the poet for the amusement of his friends. Much interesting work has been done by the champions of both the former theories. The most voluminous writer on the side of Southampton was Mr. Gerald Massey (1864): on the side of Pembroke, Mr. Thomas Tyler is at this date the undoubted leader. Mr. Sidney Lee has recently espoused the Southamptonite cause, but has not adduced any new nor definite proof in support of the theory. Mr. Lee, in his excellent and painstaking book, makes the mistake, common with many critics who have written on the Sonnets, of neglecting the Sonnets themselves, and adducing all his proof from outside sources. The dark lady" and her influence he dismisses as a trivial incident, which, while possibly an actual fact in Shakespeare's life, was of so small moment, and such short duration, that it cannot have affected the tenor of his work,

The story or stories of the Sonnets, as they rest to-day, are built altogether upon inference and conjecture. Both conjecture and inference are of course valuable, if they work from settled data or known fact, but, so far, little actual fact or conclusive data have been adduced.

The interesting story which Mr. Tyler builds around the Pembroke theory seemed to me most conclusive; the only things which appeared to render it doubtful were the mistiness of his chronology for the Sonnets and the imputation of ingratitude towards Southampton, with which it inferentially charges Shakespeare. I can much more readily believe a story of even grosser sensuality than that revealed in the "dark lady " Sonnets, on the part of Shakespeare, than believe him capable of the ingratitude to his early patron with which the Pembroke theory necessarily charges him, and which, it also would show us, that he himself in the Sonnets has the baseness to extenuate. To Mr. Tyler's excellent book, however, I owe my interest in the Sonnets, and must admit that, for a long time after reading it, I was a confirmed Pembrokite. Of all the arguments used by Mr. Tyler, the one that most interested me was that suggested by Professor Minto in his "Characteristics of the English Poets" (1885), identifying George Chapman as the "rival poet." This, while merely inference, was of a stronger and more olausible nature than any other theory regarding that figure, and seemed to me to offer a good basis for further investigation.

For the last ten years I have, in a haphazard way, and at odd moments, pursued this theory, seldom being without a copy of the Sonnets in my pocket; reading them in my moments of leisure, searching for evidence of their history, till I have come to have them by heart, though never having made any set effort to memorize them. I have also, during these years, read most of Chapman's poems very thoroughly, with the same object in view, though not, I may say, with the same pleasure; and in the case of Chapman also, I have unconsciously memorized many passages. This habit, or trick of memory, has stood me in good stead, in revealing to me parallels which otherwise might have passed unnoticed. It was not long till I made one or two discoveries, which, to my mind, demolished the basis of the Pembroke theory. To this, then, I gave no more thought, and pursued my investigations irrespective of the claims of Southamptonite or Pembrokite.

The Pembroke theory is based upon the suggestion that the Sonnets to the patron were all written in and after the year 1598; consequently, if conclusive evidence be adduced of their earlier production, the theory straightway falls to the ground.

I have not wrought with the idea of supporting the contention of either the Southamptonites or Pembrokites. Having steeped my mind in the Sonnets, I was forced to a belief in their personal nature and their autobiographical value, and set myself the task of giving, if possible, a definite date for their production; feeling assured that this would be the