wide.-140.

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
(As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know ;)
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I, against myself, with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;

go

Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.-149.

And yet the tyranny is meekly borne by the lover :—

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought,
Save, where you are how happy you make those:
So true a fool is love, that in your will
(Though you do anything) he thinks no ill.-57.

That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O, let me suffer (being at your beck)

The imprison'd absence of your liberty,

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check
Without accusing you of injury.

Be where you list; your charter is so strong,
That you yourself may privilege your time :
Do what you will, to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;

Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.-58.

The Sonnets last given are the 57th and 58th. These are especially noticed by Mr. Brown as evidence that the person to whom he considers the Sonnets are addressed-W. H.-was "a man of rank." He adds, "Reproach is conveyed more forcibly, and, at the same time, with more kindness, in their strained humility, than it would have been by direct expostulation." The reproach, according to Mr. Brown, is for the "coldness" which the noble youth had evinced towards his friend. The "coldness" is implied in these stanzas, and in that which precedes them :

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted-new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more bless'd may be the view;
Or call it winter, which, being full of
Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.-56.

care,

We believe, on the contrary, that the three Sonnets are addressed to a female. It appears to us that a line in the 57th is decisive upon this:

"When you have bid your servant once adieu."

The lady was the mistress, the lover the servant, in the gallantry of Shakspere's time. In Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Scornful Lady' we have," Was I not once your mistress, and you my servant?" The three stanzas, 56, 57, 58, are completely isolated from what precedes and what follows them; and therefore we have no hesitation in transposing them to this class.

We are about to give a Sonnet which Mr. Brown thinks "should be expunged from the poem." We should regret to lose so pretty and playful a love-verse :—

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breath'd forth the sound that said I hate,
To me that languish'd for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet:
I hate she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day

Doth follow night, who like a fiend

From heaven to hell is flown away.

I hate from hate away she threw,

And sav'd my life, saying-not you.-145.

It is, however, strangely opposed to the theory of continuity; for it occurs between the Sonnet which first appeared in 'The Passionate Pilgrim

"Two loves I have, of comfort and despair"—

and the magnificent lines beginning

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth.”

This sublime Sonnet Mr. Brown would also expunge. This is a hard sentence against it for being out of place. We shall endeavour to remove it to fitter company.

We have now very much reduced the number of stanzas which Mr. Brown assigns to the Sixth Poem, entitled by him, 'To his Mistress, on her Infidelity.' There are only twenty-six stanzas in this division of Mr. Brown's Six Poems; for he rejects the Sonnets numbered 153 and 154, as belonging "to nothing but themselves." They belong, indeed, to the same class of poems as constitute the bulk of those printed in The Passionate Pilgrim.' But, being printed in the collection of 1609, they offer very satisfactory evidence that "the begetter" of the Sonnets had no distinct principle of connexion to work upon. He has printed, as already mentioned, two Sonnets which had previously appeared in 'The Passionate Pilgrim.' But if they were taken out from the larger collection, no one could say that its continuity would be deranged. There are other Sonnets, properly so called, in The Passionate Pilgrim,' which, if they were to be added to the larger collection, there would be no difficulty in inserting them, so as to be as continuous as the two which are common to both works. We have no objection to proceed with our analytical classification without including the two Sonnets on "the little lovegod;" because, if we were attempting here to present all Shakspere's love-verses which exist in print, not being in the plays, we should have to insert six other poems which are in The Passionate Pilgrim.'

What, then, have we left of the Sonnets from the 127th to the 152nd which may warrant those twenty-six stanzas being regarded (with two exceptions pointed out by Mr. Brown himself) as a continuous poem, to be entitled, To his Mistress, on her Infidelity?' We have, indeed, a “leading idea,” and a very distinct one, of some delusion, once cherished by the poet, against the power of which he struggles, and which his better reason finally rejects. But the complaint is not wholly that of the infidelity of a mistress; it is that the love which he bears towards her is incompatible with his sense of duty, and with that tranquillity of mind which belongs to a pure and lawful affection. This "leading idea" is expressed in ten stanzas, which we print in the order in which they occur. They are more or less strong and direct in their allusions; but, whether the situation which the poet describes be real or imaginary-whether he speak from the depth of his own feelings, or with his wonderful dramatic power-there are no verses in our language more expressive of the torments of a passion based upon unlawfulness. Throes such as these were somewhat uncommon amongst the gallants of the days of Elizabeth :—

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad :
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof,—and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream;

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.-129

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold, and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,

Which my heart knows the wide world's common place ?

Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,

To put fair truth upon so foul a face?

In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,

And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.—137.

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies;
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told :
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.-138.

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But 't is my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote.

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin awards me pain.-141.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine;
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!-142.

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.-147.

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight?
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.-148.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might,

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds