Each day seems long, and longs for long-staid night; With these lines we may compare the following of Shakspeare's, which are uttered by a speaker in his absence from the person addressed "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired, To work my mind, when body's work's expired: And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new : Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.”—Sonnet 27. "How can I then return in happy plight That am debarred the benefit of rest? When day's oppression is not eased by night, But day by night and night by day oppressed."-Sonnet 28. "But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger."-Sonnet 28. Each Poet also writes a Sonnet on seeing the beloved one imaged by night in sleep. The following lines are spoken by Sidney in absence and on horseback "I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love, And now man's wrongs in me, poor beast! descry: Are humbled thoughts, which bit of reverence move, My horse, he spurs with sharp desire my heart; And now hath made me to his hand so right, That in the manage myself take delight."-Sidney's Sonnets, 49. Again, Sidney speaks on horseback "High-way! since you my chief Parnassus be, To her, where I, my heart safe left, shall meet." Compare with these the 50th and 51st of Shakspeare's Sonnets. This will suffice to demonstrate the fact that Shakspeare did also copy from or imitate Sidney in his Astrophel and Stella. But this was in Sonnets that follow the first 13. Here then is further evidence to show that Shakspeare's Sonnets were begun as early as 1590, and therefore they were in time for the writer to be the New Sonneteer aimed at by Nash as a Player and a man of "little Country Grammar knowledge." Now there was a scheme afoot as early as the year 1590 for capturing the young Earl of Southampton in marriage. After the death of his father he became the ward of Lord Burleigh, who designed him to marry the Lady Vere, his own grand-daughter. It is noticeable that some years later the old diplomatist seems to have been bent on marrying William Herbert to another of his grand-daughters, Bridget de Vere. In both instances, however, the intention was thwarted. In regard to Southampton and his contemplated marriage, we learn from a letter written by Sir Thomas Stanhope to Lord Burleigh on July 15th, 1590, that he had never sought the young Earl in marriage with his own daughter as he knew of Burleigh's intended marriage between that nobleman and the Lady Vere. On the 19th of September, 1590, Southampton's grandfather, Viscount Montague, tells Lord Burleigh that he has been talking with the Earl of Southampton respecting his engagement with Burleigh's grand-daughter. At this time the Countess of Southampton is not aware of any alteration in the mind of her son. The son's mind, however, did change, and the engagement was broken off. The Lady Vere only played the part of Rosaline before young Romeo met his fate in Juliet. As 1 Calendar of State Papers Domestic Series of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1581-1590, p. 688. Southampton was the "Child of State," and one of those to whom the Queen was a sort of god-mother because he was fatherless, and as he was Burleigh's Ward of State, and Burleigh was a favourite servant of Elizabeth's, it appears probable that she resented this backing out on the part of Southampton, and thus the long series of his troubles and misfortunes began; this being the primary cause of his finding himself in "disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes." It was not a matter of imprisonment or banishment, but Elizabeth had other means of making the frown of her wonted displeasure most profoundly felt. Here then we find that Shakspeare's young friend, his "Sweet Boy," was actually engaged to be married before he was 17 years old. It being early to bed and early to wed in the Elizabethan age. And thus we can recognize the time in Southampton's life when Shakspeare's argument for marriage is a reflex from the external history. Southampton being indubitably identified as the "Sweet Boy" in his comely beauty; the "Tender Heir," the Fatherless Youth, the "World's fresh Ornament" addressed and described in the earliest Sonnets, we are now able to apprehend the motive, the theme, the true subject, or passion of these first poems. At so early an age there does not seem to have been sufficient warrant for all the urgency of Shakspeare in the matter of marriage generally, nor for its immediate application to the youngster of 17 years. But we must learn to think less of the direct object and dwell more on the subjects of the Sonnets. The circumstances and position of Southampton supplied this subject, whoever suggested its being treated in verse. The suggestion may have been made by that mother who is complimented in the lines "Thou art thy Mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime," the mother from whom he derived his "beauty's legacy" (Sonnets 3 and 4). Or, Shakspeare may have backed the intended marriage with Burleigh's granddaughter, thinking it would be a good thing if the noose were applied as soon as possible to the neck of the headstrong youth, especially under such fortunate auspices for one who was so literally the "Child of State." Being desirous of breaking off this engagement the youth might naturally declaim against marriage altogether, like the Lords in Love's Labour's Lost, vow that he was not going to marry, and pose as an inveterate opponent of matrimony. It is the very young who are the most pronounced mysogonists. That is the standpoint which would supply Shakspeare with a sufficient motive for his argument. Thus, suggestion for the theme of the first Sonnets is made apparent by the fact that the young Earl was so averse to marriage that he would not and did not consent to the family arrangement; and by the further fact that he was fatherless, and the sole heir of his house and name. The Poet says we derive increase from nature's fairest creatures to preserve the Race of Beauty, or to propagate the flower of the Race, and you, the World's "fresh ornament" and "Only Herald to the gaudy Spring," declare you will not marry! But your beauty will fade, the flower wither as a weed, and there will be nothing to show for it. Your glass will tell you now is the time to till some maiden garden with your husbandry and bless some mother. If you die single your image dies with you. But do not let this flower of youth and beauty wither. Distil it rather and make sweet some vial in which the precious essence shall be preserved. The more repetitions of your likeness the better "Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times re-figured thee.” In the first Sonnet he is called a "tender churl," who threatens to "make waste" by his "niggarding;" he is a "beauteous niggard" and a "profitless usurer" in Sonnet 4. He is pleaded with in Sonnet 6, "Be not self-willed;" he is charged with self-love; with being beloved by many and with loving none (Sonnet 10). The writer urged in this Sonnet, "Oh change thy thought," i.e. respecting marriage, and reminds him that if all were like-minded the race would come to an end with the present generation. The last plea in Sonnet 13 is on behalf of the Ancestral House "Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, Which Husbandry in honour might uphold?" You HAD a Father; Let your Son say so!" This subject was continued in the Venus and Adonis; and as his Poet proclaims that Southampton was the original of this "Counterfeit" then his shying at the proposed marriage becomes the shyness of Adonis to the invitations of Venus. "Love he laughed to scorn," is said of young Adonis and illustrated by the boy Southampton. "Nature that made thee with herself at strife" (stanza 2) is the summary of Sonnet 20 in a single line. It has already been shown how the Poem was a repetition and continuation of the early Sonnet theme, with a warmer wooing on account of Venus,-Southampton being in his twentieth year when the Poem was presented to him! And we now see the reason for this repetition of the same argument in the Poem, both Sonnets and Poem being portions of his work that was pre-dedicated to Southampton. 66 Shakspeare did not look on the Sonnets as he did on the Poem, which he cal's the "first heir of my Invention." The Sonnets were written on subjects suggested or supplied by the private friend or friends. Thus the poem as first heir of his own invention shows that he made no claim to originality in the Sonnets where the Ideas had been adopted from Sidney. And most probably his adoption of the matter was the result of a request that he should try his hand in turning Sidney's prose into Sonnets. It certainly was no result of unconscious imitation or mere assimilative sympathy. He knew what he was about, and may have looked upon the prose as matter for his private verse. The Arcadia and Sonnets of Sidney were as well-known to Southampton as to Shakspeare, and I now argue that this was the result of deliberate adoption. He was not borrowing from Sidney by any right of royalty or "Sovereignty of nature. Sidney's writings would furnish one of those "precedents of high excellence" which were followed by beginners and allowed in those days. The "Pupil Pen " was copying from a well-known master, consequently it could hardly be considered plagiarism. Others are found to have honoured Shakspeare by the same form of flattery; and returned to him the same kind of compliment that he paid to Sidney. Shakspeare, I take it, only wrote in the Sonnet form because Sidney had done so. Most assuredly he did NOT take to the Sonnet as one might catch up a handmirror to reflect one's self, nor to make it his form of confessional when, as Schlegel puts it, he "had feelings intense and secret to express." He became the master who perfected Sidney's model on behalf of his subject matter, moulded for the delight of his dear friend. Otherwise it may well be doubted whether Shakspeare himself had any great love for the Sonnet. He humorously satirizes the sonneteers in Love's Labour's Lost "This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity: A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. "Tush! none but minstrels like of sonneting." These first Sonnets are sent to Southampton to "Witness duty," not to show the Poet's wit (Sonnet 26). Such duty implies that they were written by request or upon subjects suggested, as intimated by the public statement "what I have to do is yours." This duty was so great that Shakspeare fears his wit may prove inadequate in showing his sense of it. But he sends the Sonnets, his "Books" of them, as in duty bound, to serve until he has written something better which he hopes to dedicate publicly. They are essentially private and not to be thought of as intended for the eye of the public. In Sonnet 21 the writer sayɛ "I will not praise that purpose not to sell.” They are Southampton's Sonnets. They are to stand against his sight, and remain in his keeping; and the writer looks forward to his paper becoming "yellow with age." This should put us on our guard against bringing in the public where the Sonnets were composed solely for the "Private Friends," and the matter was meant for privacy. Here the ground is felt to be firm underfoot at starting. Nor does this beginning detract from the interest or the beauty of these particular Sonnets. As we study them with their rootage thus revealed, it is like looking at the fibres of a hyacinth-bulb held up in a water-glass against the light; we can see the life in embryo; see what a quickening womb was this man's nature to every germ, and particle or monad of life; see the wonder wrought, the transformation effected-creation caught in the act, and learn that creation with a Shakspeare is not ex nihilo. Such is the enrichment of his re-touch, such the freshness of new life he breathes into the work that the idea comes out perfectly pristine, and looks as if it had been reclaimed rather than borrowed. Our study will serve to show us that others contributed to the making of Shakspeare, and that his immense range was not any mere result of a personal originality, and absolute invention, nor of a begettal on himself! In truth the greatest of all pcets and supremest literary man was the one to whom human nature contributed most, including matter from the printed as well as the unwritten book. That made his range so universal. The direct indebtedness in this case was undoubtedly exceptional on account of his private purpose, but it is to some extent typical of his mind and method, and the charge of purloining made by Greene was not entirely without warrant. So unconscionable is this borrowing and adapting, however, G |