If we read these three stanzas without any impression of their connexion with something that has gone before, we shall irresistibly feel that they are addressed to a female. They point at repeated absences; and why may they not then be addressed to the poet's first love? The Earl of Southampton, or the Earl of Pembroke, to whom the series of Sonnets are held all to refer, except when they specially address a dark-haired lady of questionable character, would not have been greatly pleased to have been complimented on the sweetness of his breath, or the whiteness of his hand. The Sonnets which are unquestionably addressed to a male, although they employ the term "beauty" in a way which we cannot easily comprehend in our own days, have always reference to manly beauty. The comparisons in the above Sonnets as clearly relate to female beauty. They are precisely the same as Spenser uses in one of his Amoretti,—the 64th; which thus concludes: "Such fragrant flowers do give most odorous smell, But her sweet odour did them all excel." It appears to us that in both the poems on Absence, in the stanzas which anticipate neglect and coldness, and in others which we have given and are about to give, we must not be too ready to connect their images with the person who is addressed in the first seventeen Sonnets; or be always prepared to "seize a clue which innumerable passages give us," according to Mr. Hallam," and suppose that they allude to a youth of high rank as well as personal beauty and accomplishment."* The chief characteristic of those passages which clearly apply to that "unknown youth" is, as it appears to us, extravagance of admiration conveyed in very hyperbolical language. Much that we have quoted offers no example of the justice of Mr. Hallam's complaint against these productions:-" There is a weakness and folly in all excessive and misplaced affection, which is not redeemed by the touches of nobler sentiments that abound in this long series of Sonnets." It would be difficult, we think, to find more forcible thoughts expressed in more simple, and therefore touching language, than in the following continuous verses. They comprise all the Sonnets numbered from 109 to 125, with the exception of 118, 119, 120, 121, three of which we have already printed as belonging to another subject than the poet's constancy of affection; and one of which we shall give as an isolated fragment: O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify! As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: * Literature of Europe, vol. iii., p. 503. Alas, 't is true, I have gone here and there, Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Most true it is that I have look'd on truth A God in love, to whom I am confin'd. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.-110. O, for my sake do you with fortune chide, Than public means, which public manners breeds. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Your love and pity doth the impression fill So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? You are my all-the-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of other's voices, that my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: :- You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the world besides methinks are dead.-112. Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; And that which governs me to go about Doth part his function, and is partly blind, For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch; Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; ILLUSTRATION OF THE SONNETS. For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favour, or deformed'st creature, The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.-113. Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, If it be poison'd, 't is the lesser sin That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin.-114. Those lines that I before have writ, do lie, Might I not then say, "Now I love you best," When I was certain o'er incertainty, Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? Love is a babe; then might I not say so, To give full growth to that which still doth grow?-115. Let me not to the marriage of true minds 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. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. Accuse me thus; that I have scanted all Forgot upon your dearest love to call, That I have frequent been with unknown minds, Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change : Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old; And rather make them born to our desire, Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past; This I do vow, and this shall ever be, I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee:-123. If my dear love were but the child of state, As subject to time's love, or to time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls: It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, But all alone stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime.-124. Were it aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul, When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.-125. Dr. Drake, in maintaining that the Sonnets, from the 1st to the 126th, were addressed to Lord Southampton, has alleged, as “one of the most striking proofs of this position," the fact that the language of the Dedication to the Rape of Lucrece,' and that of the 26th Sonnet, are almost precisely the same." If the reader will turn to this Dedication, he will at once see the resemblance. "The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end," shows that, in the Sonnets as in the works of contemporary writers, the perpetually recurring terms of love and lover were meant to convey the most profound respect as well as the strongest affection. In that age friendship was not considered as a mere conventional intercourse for social gratification. There was depth and strength in it. It partook of the spiritual energy which belonged to a higher philosophy of the affections than now presides over clubs and dinner-parties. "My friend," or "my lover," meant something more than one who is ordinarily civil, returns our calls, and shakes hands upon great occasions. Lord Southampton, in a letter of introduction to a grave Lord Chancellor, calls Shakspere "my especial friend." To Lord Southampton Shakspere dedicates "love without end." This 26th Sonnet, we have little doubt, is also a dedication, accompanying some new production of the mighty dramatist, in accordance with his declaration, "What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours:" Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it; But that I hope some good conceit of thine To show me worthy of thy sweet respect : Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee, Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.-26. |