"For riches strew'd her pelf even in the streets." Jackson once in a while ventures a successful conjecture; and contemptible as nearly every page of his book is, it should not be entirely disregarded by any editor, as we have seen by more important instances than the present. ACT III. SCENE 3. "Per. Unscissor'd shall this hair of mine remain, Plainly, Mr. Dyce is right in reading, BOSWELL. "Though I show ill in't." ACT IV. SCENE 6. 46 Lys. If she'd do the deeds of darkness, thou would'st say.” Mr. Dyce suggests "the deed of darkness," which is unquestionably the correct reading. CORRECTION. When writing the remarks on page 468 upon the hopelessly corrupted passage in Act V. Sc. 4, of Cymbeline, I had entirely forgotten that the last four leaves of that play are wanting in Mr. Collier's folio. We of course cannot know whether the passage was corrected or not. But other similar passages are left unchanged in quite sufficient numbers to preserve the validity of this strong argument against the authority of the volume. SONNETS. THE question, who was the person to whom Shakespeare addressed his Sonnets, has long been considered one of the most obscure and interesting in the history of literature. But it seems to me, that a single attentive perusal of them should set all doubt at rest. Nearly all of them were evidently written for some other person or persons, according to the fashion of that day for lovers and others to seek assistance from those gifted by the Muse. Among other evidences of the existence of this custom, is the following amusing one in Drayton's Sonnets. "A Witlesse Gallant a young Wench that woo'd To write him but one Sonnet to his Loue: * But with my Verses he his Mistres wonne, In this way, perhaps, Shakespeare made the money by which he first got a footing in the theatre. The person, for whom most of these poems were written, may have been Mr. W. H., to whom the publisher wishes happiness and immortality, as their "only begetter." This supposition with regard to their origin, seems to me so natural, and so consistent with Meres' phrase, "his sugared sonnets among his private friends," that I wonder not to have met it in my Shakesperian reading. A few of these Sonnets may have expressed his own feelings, and may have been addressed to his wife, whom I am persuaded he loved, and often saw. The allusions to the old age of the writer, or supposed writer, in some of the Sonnets, the 62d and 63d, for instance, show plainly that Shakespeare could not have written them in his own person at any time of his life, at least before 1609, when they were first published, and certainly not before 1598, when it is quite evident that they were well known among his private friends; for then he was but thirty-two years old. In some, the 71st and 72d, for instance, the self-degradation is sufficient to prove that Shakespeare spoke not for himself. Nos. 80, 83, 86 and 121, were evidently written to be presented to some lady, who had verses addressed to her by at least one other person than the supposed writer of these; for the praises of another poet are explicitly mentioned in them. No. 78 was addressed to one who was the theme of many pens, for it contains these lines: In other's works thou dost but mend the style, The reiteration of the immortality secured for the subject of the Sonnets, supposing them to have been addressed to one person or written by Shakespeare in his own name, would be entirely inconsistent with such a character as his must needs have been. He might possibly have uttered such a sentiment once, but never could have put it into verse written in his own person again and again and again. But if we suppose the Sonnets to have been addressed to different persons, on the part of different persons, the difficulty does not exist; as it was the fashion of the day to claim immortality for the subject of laudatory poetry. I cannot but think that No. 111 was written as an expression of his own feeling. The supposition that Shakespeare's Sonnets were written in his own person, involves also the ridiculously absurd and inconsistent supposition, that the man who could be indifferent to the fate of A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Lear, Othello, and Hamlet, saw the promise of immortal fame in the Sonnets; and that he who, when he became rich, did not think it worth his while to obtain from his fellow proprietors the right of issuing correct editions of plays already published surreptitiously, regarded these Sonnets as a sure passport to undying fame both for the subject and the writer. It is also important to notice, that inferior as the Sonnets are to the Plays, they are as much superior to Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece; and yet Shakespeare did not publish either of the former, eager as the public of that day was for any production of his pen, while he did publish the latter. Now why did he thus carefully put his most unworthy performances before the public, and allow his Dramas, and his Sonnets, only inferior to his Dramas, to "lie in cold obstruction and to rot," until they were brought out entirely without his agency or aid ? We know the cause as far as his Plays were concerned: they were not his: they belonged to the stock of the theatre. An actor of no eminence, he rapidly rose to be one of the two largest proprietors in the theatre; his contribution to the stock being those matchless plays, which, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, continually filled "cockpit, galleries, boxes," so that "you would scarce find room" with the same public which was indifferent to the works of other dramatists. He had sold these plays, and had no power over them; and so also he had sold the Sonnets; else he certainly would have published what the public would so eagerly have bought. For Shakespeare, be it remarked, was a prudent, thrifty man. He went to London penniless, and without profession or friends, except in the theatre; and yet he retired at forty-five with a real and personal estate, the yearly income of which was equal to $8000. As the author of thirty-seven such plays as he produced between 1588 and 1612, as one of the principal managers and shareholders of the theatre, and as an actor besides, he had little time or occasion to write one hundred and fifty-four Sonnets; and we have the testimony of Meres that these Sonnets were well known among his private friends in 1598, when their author was but thirty-four years old, although some of them allude to the age and decay of their supposed writer. Could it be more clearly established, except by direct testimony, that Shakespeare did not write these Sonnets in his own person; but that, as the custom was, he furnished them to those who, though no poets, were good paymasters, and thus obtained a part of the money which made him, when only twenty-six years old, an important shareholder in the theatre, as appears by the well known remonstrance from the Company dated Nov. 1589, and now in the possession of Lord Ellesmere? Again, it is possible to think of Shakespeare in early youth writing such a sonnet as No. 151 for another, but impossible to admit that he would, in his own person, address to any woman such gross double entendres as are contained in its last seven lines. [Since writing the above I have read Mr. Charles Armytage Brown's very interesting book upon Shakespeare's Sonnets, in which he sets forth the extraordinary theory |