Look, what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to thefe wafte blanks 7, and thou fhalt find
Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, fo foft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.
LXXVIII.

So oft have I invok'd thee for my mufe,
And found fuch fair affiftance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poefy difperfe.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to fing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing *,
And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee.
In others' works thou doft but mend the ftile,
And arts with thy fweet graces graced be;

7 Commit to thefe wafte blacks,-] What meaning does blacks convey here? Let us examine a few of the verses that precede these, and fee if from thence we may borrow any instruction :

"hy glafs will fhew thee how thy beauties wear, "Thy dial, how thy precious minutes waste; "The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, "And of this book this learning may'st thou taste." Our poet must have written in the place firit quoted-waste blanks; i. e. thefe vacant leaves, as he calls them in the other quotation. THEOBALD.

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,] So, in Othello: "✪ heavy ignorance! thou praifeft the worst, beft." Does not this line feem to favour a conjecture, proposed by Dr. Johnfon, in The Merry Wives of Windfor,- "Ignorance itself is a plummet over me-" where he would read- "has a plume o' me?" He has indeed given a different interpretation; but if plume be right, the prefent line might lead one to think that Falflaff meant to fay, that even ignorance, however heavy, could foar above him. MALONE. * Have added feathers to the learned's wing,] So, in Cymbeline:

66

your lord,

"(The best feather of our wing)" STEEVENS.

But

But thou art all my art, and doft advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

LXXIX.

Whilft I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verfe alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my fick mufe doth give another place.
I grant, fweet love, thy lovely argument
Deferves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live,

Then thank him not for that which he doth fay,
Since what he owes thee thou thyself doft pay.

LXXX.

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better fpirit doth ufe your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-ty'd, fpeaking of your fame!
But fince your worth (wide, as the ocean is,)
The humble as the proudeft fail doth bear',

My

• Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,] Spirit is here, as in many other places, ufed as a monofyllable Curiofity will naturally endeavour to find out who this better spirit was, to whom even Shakspeare acknowledges himfelf inferior. There was cer tainly no poet in his own time with whom he needed to have fear ed a comparifon; but thefe Sonnets being probably written when his name was but little known, and at a time when Spenfer was in the zenith of his reputation, I imagine he was the perfon here alluded to. MALONE.

1

The humble as the proudeft fail doth bear,] The fame thought occurs in Troilus and Creffida:

66

-The fea being smooth,

"How many fhallow bauble boats dare fail

Tt3

"Upon

My faucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your fhallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your foundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive, and I be caft away,
The worst was this ;-my love was my decay.
LXXXI.

Or I fhall live your epitaph to make,
Or you furvive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life fhall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world muft die.
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes fhall lie.
Your monument fhall be my gentle verfe,
Which eyes not yet created fhall c'er-read;
And tongues to be, your being fhall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You ftill fhall live (fuch virtue hath my pen,)
Where breath moft breathes,-even in the mouths
of men.

LXXXII.

I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
And therefore may'it without attaint o'er-look
The dedicated words which writers ufe
Of their fair fubject, blefling every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit paft my praise;

"Upon her patient breaft, making their way "With thofe of nobler bulk? - where's then the fancy boat ?" See note on Troilus and Creffida, last edit. Vol. IX. p. 28.

STERVENS.

And

And therefore art enforc'd to feek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do fo, love; yet when they have devis'd
What ftrained touches rhetorick can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly fympathiz'd
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;
And their grofs painting might be better us'd
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.
LXXXIII.

I never faw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting fet.
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt2:

And therefore have I flept in your report 3,-
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too fhort",
Speaking of worth, what worth in
you doth
This filence for my fin you did impute,
Which shall be moft my glory, being dumb;

grows.

2 The barren tender of a poet's debt :] So, the poet in Timon:

3 And therefore have I flept in your report,] And therefore I have not founded your praifes. MALONE.

The fame phrafe occurs in K. Henry VIII:

Heaven will one day open

"The king's eyes, that fo long have fept upon
"This bold, bad man."

Again, in K. Henry IV. P. I:

"hung their eyelids down,

"Slept in his face." STEEVENS.

• How far a modern quill doth come too fkort,] Modern seems to have formerly fignified common or trite. So, in As you like it: "Full of wife faws and modern inftances." MALONE.

See note on K. John, p. 76. last edit. STEEVENS.

-

what worth in you doth grow.] We might better read: that worth in you doth grow. i, e, that worth, which &c. MALONE.

1

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb. Their lives more life in one of your fair eyes, Than both your poets can in praise devife.

LXXXIV.

Who is it that fays moft? which can fay more,
Than this rich praise,-that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store

Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his fubject lends not fome small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, fo dignifies his ftory,
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made fo clear,
And fuch a counter-part fhall fame his wit,
Making his ftile admired every where.

You to your beauteous bleffings add a curfe, Being fond on praife, which makes your praises worse 7.

LXXXV.

My tongue-ty'd mufe in manners holds her ftill,
While comments of your praife, richly compil'd,
Referve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrafe by all the mufes fil'd.
I think good thoughts, whilft others write good words,
And, like unletter'd clerk, ftill cry Amen

• When others would give life, and bring a tomb.] When others endeavour to celebrate your character, while in fact they disgrace it by the meanness of their compofitions. MALONE.

Being fond on praife, which makes your praifes evorse.] i. e. being fond of fuch panegyrick as debafes what is praifeworthy in you, inftead of exalting it. On in ancient books is often printed for of. It may mean, "behaving foolishly on receiving praife." STEEVENS.

8

Referve their character with golden quill,] Referve has here the sense of preserve. See p. 607. Hote3. MALOne.

To