to the poetical notions of that day, would not have warranted the adaptation of a line from a drama "sundry times played about the city of London," as the title-page tells us this was; but the play, without any injury to its poctical reputation, (to which, indeed in the matter of plays, little respect was paid,) might take a line from the Sonnet. Our reasoning may be defective, but our impression of the matter is very strong. The play was published in 1596, after being "sundry times played" in different theatres. William Herbert must have begun his career of licentiousness unusually early, and have had time to make a friend and abuse his confidence before he was fifteen-if the line is original in the Sonnet. The Passionate Pilgrim contains a Sonnet, not in the larger collection not forming, it would be said, any part of that continuous poem: "If music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, As, passing all conceit, needs no defer.ce. Thou lov'st to hear the sweet, melodious sound Whenas himself to singing he betakes. One god is god of both, as poets feign; One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.” Now, poor Spenser died, heart-broken, in January, 1599. The first three books of the " Fairy Queen," to which the words "deep conceit" are supposed to allude, were printed in 1590, the three other books in 1596. Spenser, pressed down by public duties and misfortunes, published nothing after. The Sonnet speaks of a living composer, Dowland, who was in repute as early as 1590; and it was probably written during the first burst of the glory which a living poet derived from his greatest work. The getter-up of The Passionate Pilgrim found it, as he found others, circulating amongst Shakspeare's "private friends." But how did it part company with many in the larger collection which resembles it in tone? Why was it not transferred to the larger collection, as two other Sonnets were transferred? Because, in 1598, it was published in a collection of poems written by Richard Barn ་ field, and the "getter-up" of the Sonnets knew not whether to assign it to Shakspeare or not. That it bears the mark of Shakspeare's hand we think is unquestionable. And this leads us to the last point to which we shall very briefly draw the reader's atten tion - the doubt which has been stated whether the hundred and fity-four Sonnets published in 1609 were the same as Meres mentione, in 1598, as amongst the compositions of Shakspeare, and familiar to his "private friends." Mr. Hallam thinks they are not the same, both on account of the date, and from the peculiarly personal allusions they contain." One of the strongest of the personal allusions is contained in the 144th, originally printed in The Passionate Pilgrim. Where could the printer of the Passionate Pilgrim have obtained that Sonnet, except from some one of Shakspeare's" private friends"? If he so obtained it, why might not the collector of the volume of 1609 have obtained others of a similar character from a similar source? Would such productions have been circulated at all if they had been held to contain “peculiarly personal allusions"? If these are not the Sonnets which circulated amongst Shakspeare's "private friends," where are those Sonnets? Would Meres have spoken of them as calling to mind the sweetness of Ovid if only those published in The Passionate Pilgrim had existed, many of which were "Verses to Music," afterwards printed as such? Why should those Sonnets only have been printed which contain, or are supposed to contain, "peculiarly personal allusion"? The title-page of the collection of 1609 is "Shake-speare's Sonnets." We can only reconcile these matters with our belief that in 1609 were printed, without the cognizance of the author, all the Sonnets which could be found attributed to Shakspeare; that some of these formed a group of continuous poems; that some were detached; that no exact order could be preserved; and that accident has arranged them in the form in which they first were handed down to us. If we have succeeded in producing satisfactory evidence that many of the Sonnets are not presented in a natural and proper order in the original edition, —if we have shown that there is occasionally not only a digression from the prevailing train of thought, by the introduction of an isolated Sonnet amongst a group, but a jarring and unmeaning interruption to that train of thought, — we have established a case that the original arrangement is no part of the poet's work, because that arrangement violates the principles of art, which Shakspeare clings to with such marvellous judgment in all his other productions. The inference, therefore, is, that the author of the Sonnets did not sanction their publication — certainly did not superintend it. This, we think, may be proved by another course of argument. The edition of 1609, although, taken as a whole, not very inaccurate, is full of those typographi cal errors which invariably occur when a manuscript is put into the hands of a printer to deal with it as he pleases, without reference to the author, or to any competent editor, upon any doubt ful points. Malone, in a note upon the 77th Sonnet, very truly says, "This, their, and thy are so often confounded in these Sonnets, that it is only by attending to the context that we can discover which was the author's word." He is speaking of the origi nal edition. It is evident, therefore, that in the progress of the book through the press there was no one capable of deciphering the obscurity of the manuscript by a regard to the context. The manuscript, in all probability, was made up of a copy of copies; so that the printer even was not responsible for those errors which so clearly show the absence of a presiding mind in the conduct of the printing. Malone has suggested that these constantly recurring mistakes in the use of this, their, thy, and thine, probably originated in the words being abbreviated in the manu script, according to the custom of the time. But this species of mistake is by no means uniform. For example: from the 43d to the 48th Sonnet these errors occur with remarkable frequency: in one Sonnet, the 46th, this species of mistake happens four times. But we read on, and presently find that we may trust to the printed copy, which does not now violate the context. What can we infer from this, but that the separate poems were printed from different manuscripts, in which various systems of writing were employed, some using abbreviations, some rejecting them? If the one poem, as the first hundred and twenty-six Sonnets are called, had been printed either from the author's manuscript, or from a uniform copy of the author's manuscript, such differences of systematic error in some places, and of systematic correctness in others, would have been very unlikely to have occurred. If the poem had been printed under the author's eye, their existence would have been impossible. The theory that the first hundred and twenty-six Sonnets were a continuous poem, or poems, addressed to one person, and that a very young man — and that the greater portion of the remaining twenty-eight Sonnets had reference to a female, with whom there was an illicit attachment on the part of the poet and the young man involves some higher difficulties, if it is assumed that the publication was authorized by the author, or by the person to whom they are held to be addressed. Could Shakspeare, in 1609, authorize or sanction their publication? He was then living at Stratford, in the enjoyment of wealth; he was forty-five years of age; he was naturally desirous to associate with himself all those circumstances which constitute respectability of character. If the Sonnets had regard to actual circumstances connected with his previous career, would he, a husband, a father of two daughters, have authorized a publication so calculated to degrade him in the eyes of his family and his associates, if the verses could bear the construction now put upon them? We think not. On the other hand, did the one person to whom they are held to be addressed sanction their publication? Would Lord Pembroke have suffered himself to be styled "W. H., the only begetter of these ensuing Sonnets"-plain Mr. W. H.-he, a nobleman, with all the pride of birth and rank about him—and represented in these poems as a man of licentious habits, and treacherous in his licentiousness? The Earl of Pembroke, in 1609, had attained great honors in his political and learned relations. In the 1st year of James I. he was made a Knight of the Garter; in 1605, upon a visit of James to Oxford, he received the degree of Master of Arts; in 1607 he was appointed Governor of Portsmouth; and, more than all these honors, he was placed in the highest station by public opinion; he was, as Clarendon describes, "the most universally beloved and esteemed of any man of that age." Was this the man, in his mature years, distinctly to sanction a publication which it was understood recorded his profligacy? He was of "excellent parts, and a graceful speaker upon any subject, having a good proportion of learning, and a ready wit to apply to it," says Clarendon. Is there in the Sonnets the slightest allusion to the talents of the one person to whom they are held to be addressed? If, then, the publication was not authorized, in either of the modes assumed, we have no warrant whatever for having regard to the original order of the Sonnets, and in assuming a continuity because of that order. What, then, is the alternative? That the Sonnets were a collection of Sibylline leaves" rescued from the perishableness of their written state by some person who had access to the high and brilliant circle in which Shakspeare was esteemed; and that this person's scrap-book, necessarily imperfect, and pretending to no order, found its way to the hands of a bookseller, who was too 66 happy to give to that age what its most distinguished man had written at various periods, for his own amusement, and for the gratification of his "private friends." We subjoin, for the more ready information of those who may be disposed to examine for themselves the question of the order of Shakspeare's Sonnets, (and it really is a question of great interest and rational curiosity,) the results of the two opposite theories - of their exhibiting almost perfect continuity, on the one hand; and of their being a mere collection of fragments, on the other. The one theory is illustrated with much ingenuity by Mr. Brown; the other was capriciously adopted by the editor of the collection of 1640. MR. BROWN'S DIVISION INTO SIX POEMS. First Poem.-Stanzas i. to xxvi. To his Friend, persuading him to Marry. Second Poem.-Stanzas xxvii. to lv. To his Friend, who had robbed him of his Mistress- forgiving him. Third Poem.-Stanzas lvi. to lxxvii. To his Friend, complaining of his Coldness, and warning him of Life's Decay. Fourth Poem.Stanzas lxxviii. to ci. To his Friend, complain. ing that he prefers another Poet's Praises, and reproving him for faults that may injure his character. Fifth Poem. -Stanzas cii. to cxxvi. To his Friend, excusing himself for having been some time silent, and disclaiming the charge of Inconstancy. Sixth Poem. - Stanzas cxxvii. to clii. To his Mistress, on hor Infidelity. |