of our disinterested sympathy." What, then, did the English Government say to France at the time when this "enormous and unblushing crime was committed"? Simply Nothing. Not one word of protest was uttered against this " grasping iniquity" by the British Ministry or Parliament. When the crime was fully consummated, and when, according to Lord Palmerston (May 6, 1856), 66 one of the best Governments which Rome had ever had had been overthrown, and an intolerably bad one re-established," he was questioned on the subject (oddly enough) by Mr. Tom Duncombe, who expressed a hope that Her Majesty's Government did not concur in the "continued occupation of Rome," Lord Palmerston did not use one word of disapprobation. He declared that England "had no particular right to interfere by treaty or otherwise. France had exercised her own rights." If France, then, had "rights," why brand her act as "a grasping iniquity"? The greater iniquity consisted in admitting that she had rights.

This was all that passed on the subject; this was how England displayed "her disinterested enthusiasm and delight"!

It is difficult to over-estimate the amount of mischief which arises from able but careless writers thus beguiling the British people into feelings of selfsatisfaction, and into thanking God that they are not as other nations are, when the fitting language for the people to hold is, “Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners."

Let "Rocks Ahead learn wisdom from Tacitus, who tells us

Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes. It is the misfortune of the existing generation that it devotes itself too exclusively to the future, and too much neglects the contemplation of the past; albeit on that past the future mainly depends. History is philosophy teaching by example; but when an event is once over, it is now generally considered as gone by, and done with; it may have produced great permanent mischief, but there is no time with most people for examining into the causes in which the mischief originated. It is viewed as a fait accompli, and the wisdom which experience furnishes is despised. Time and events, it is to be hoped, may correct this failing: it is not good for a nation that it should long endure.

A. G. STAPLETON.

THE first question that occurs to one on attacking this difficult problem is almost sufficient to prevent the prosecution of any complete researches in so complicated an investigation. I at any rate could not forbear to ask myself: "Is it possible, and if possible, is it likely, that I can solve a difficulty which has been given up as insoluble by so many careful and sober critics, and which has certainly not added to the reputation of those who have attempted its solution?" Up to the present time no such attempt can be deemed successful, scarcely any can be regarded as plausible. The different interpretations that have been given to the mysterious initials "W. H." in the dedication of these SonnetsWilliam Hart, William Hughes, William Herbert, Henry Wriothesley, and William Himself-are some of them absurd, some inconsistent with other evidence, and none satisfactory. Nor are the conjectures as to the person addressed more reassuring-it was a woman, it was a a man, it was Queen Elizabeth, it was Shakspere's genius, it was no individual, but many persons: such are some of the conjectures that have already been published. Nor has it been decided whether these Sonnets form one complete poem, like Tennyson's In Memoriam, or are a collection of many poems written on various occasions. It is equally doubtful whether Shakspere wrote them in his own person, or for some one else, or for several people, or some in his own person and others not. Only one thing is certain in this matter that no hypothesis has yet commended itself as proven, or even as probable, either to the general reader or to the literary critic. And this, along And this, along with the limitations of space inseparable from a magazine article, must serve as

of the theories of my predecessors. Many of them show much ingenuity and much research, but none of them seem natural; they all savour of special pleading, and seem rather to belong to the category of speeches of an advocate than to that of decisions of a judge after careful review of evidence so voluminous and so conflicting.

And if the first question be answered in the affirmative, a second immediately follows: Is it desirable to draw attention to a series of poems, which, whether written by Shakspere for himself or for others, have been generally held to contain a dark story of adultery mingled with unwholesome jealousy and disgusting flattery? Is it to be wished that Shakspere should be exhibited as either himself the accepted lover of a married woman, or as pleading the cause of such a one for friendship or for lucre?

To this I answer, that it was precisely because I did not believe such theories to be possible that I undertook this task. That Shakspere was imma culate I do not believe; that he may even have been led into an intrigue with another man's wife is possible; but that in such a case he should write about it, that he should boast of it in "eternal lines" that should "live so long as men can breathe," would be a proceeding so utterly shameless, that the mere statement of the supposition would more than suffice to display its consummate absurdity.

I felt, then, that although the solution had not yet been attained, it must notwithstanding be attainable. Poets often write obscurely, seldom unintelligibly. Accordingly, after many careful readings, and much thought, I seized on what I take to be the central idea of the Sonnets. I then, with as diligent in

out the conclusions, one by one, which I here present in a connected form.

Immediately on gaining my central standpoint, I decided, as I hope others will decide-Firstly, that Sonnets 1 to 125 form a complete poem, written on a single subject; secondly, that this is distinctly indicated in the original arrangement by the placing of the six couplets wrongly called Sonnet 126 at the end of this continuous poem; thirdly, that we have therefore no right to disturb the arrangement of these 125 Sonnets; fourthly, that they were addressed to a youth by Shakspere in his own person. It is needless to prove these four statements-they are patent on the surface, and from their very nature are such as to throw the onus probandi on their opponents rather than on their advocates.

I therefore proceed at once to state some minor propositions, which it seems advisable to treat previously to enunciating the central theory, in order that such proofs and explanations may be appended as each of them may require.

1. Firstly, the "shame" which Shakspere speaks of as attaching to him is nothing more than the feeling produced by unfavourable critical opinions concerning his productions; such, for instance, as that the Romeo and Juliet or Richard II. was inferior to the contemporaneous poem of Venus and Adonis, or that the Lucrece was far superior in kind and quality to the dramatic works that succeeded it, probably Richard III., if not the refashioned Henry VI. See, for instance, Sonnet 112 :--

"Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow:
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'ergreen 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 others' 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

It is clear that "shame" in this Sonnet is merely dispraise and so in Sonnet

72

"For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,"

merely means, "My later (dramatic) works are beneath criticism, and therefore

"So should you [be shamed] to love things nothing worth.”

We must remember that Shakspere's poems were for a considerable time

thought superior to his plays; a point

to which we shall have to recur when we quote the opinion of Gabriel Harvey hereafter. But to return. This word "shame" has the same meaning all through these Sonnets: thus, in Sonnet

95, "the shame," also called "ill report," caused by certain "sins and vices," is merely the low opinion that would be formed of one who should openly express praise of these later and, for the nonce, inferior works of Shakspere. In Sonnet 61 the meaning is quite clear: "To find out shames and idle hours in me." Here shame is the same thing as the dis grace of not producing good poems. But the expression "idle hours" brings me to my second proposition, that the person addressed was Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton a proposition quite distinct from that alluded to in my first page, that Henry Wriothesley was the "W. H." of the dedication. That the first seventeen Sonnets, urging marriage on the person to whom these Sonnets were written, allude to this nobleman's passion for Elizabeth Vernon has been argued at length by one of our greatest and best-read critics of Shakspere, Dr. Bernard Drake, who has also pointed out the correspondences between. the passages I am going to quote. These are essential to our argument, and I must give them here; for the historical evidence I can refer to Mr. Gerald Massey's volume on this subject.

2. In the Epistle to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, prefixed to the Venus and Adonis, Shakspere says: "I vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some

ment prefixed to the Rape of Lucrece, he says: "What I have done is yours' (that is, the two poems just mentioned); "what I have to do is yours: being part in all I have, devoted yours." And he never dedicated any work to any other person. Hence Southampton was the only person who had a right to have any "jealousy" as to Shakspere's idleness to "pry into his deeds," to "find out in him shames and idle hours." Shakspere had promised him. another poem, and had not fulfilled his promise; he had been writing for the theatre instead. So, again, the "duty" expressed in Sonnet 26 to the

"Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit," implies a previous bond. What else can this bond be than the "duty" in the Lucrece epistle, in which he also says, "The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end"? I do not think that any one would ever have doubted on this point had it not been for the initials "W. H." and the interpretation usually assigned to the word begetter" in the dedication of the Sonnets by "T. T." Now as to "W. H.," I observe that the authority of Mr. Thomas Thorpe the publisher is by no means conclusive, even if he meant to give the true initials and not to deceive his customers; and also that beget certainly did often mean no more than get, in Elizabethan English. Shakspere himself has

66

multitude instead. After the fashion of those days, Shakspere calls himself Southampton's lover, talks of his passion for him, compares their love to that of husband and wife (Sonnet 93); says to him "Thou gavest me thy heart not to give back again;" and, in fact, writes the whole of these poems, or rather this poem, under the allegory of the "Marriage of true minds" (Sonnet 116), in which he admits that there has been a separation, but denies a divorce: the absence has been temporary, the divorce would be permanent. As to the meaning of the "absence," compare Sonnet 117

"I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your sight,"

which is explained by the previous lines

"Forgot upon your dearest love to call,”— that is, have dedicated no new poem to you; and

"I have frequent been with unknown minds;" that is, have produced plays for a miscellaneous public audience of strangers; and Sonnet 110

"I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley;"

which must mean, "I have acted at (as well as written for) various theatres; hence my lowered status in the eyes of the critics." I shall try to confirm this presently, by the existence of Shakspere's work in some of the so-called spurious plays produced in the interval between the publication of the Venus and Adonis and the writing of the Sonnets. So in another passage, Sonnet 109

"As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love: if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again," which is immediately connected with. the preceding extract.

In the series from Sonnet 97 to 104 the meaning is, if possible, clearer. He speaks of having been absent in a time of "rich increase;" of "abundant issue;" yet, he says, this was all "hope of

not in that period "any summer's story tell;" he could produce only dreary histories and tragedies. He bids his truant Muse return from worthless song, and redeem in gentle numbers "time so idly spent;" redeem it in praise of his "fair friend," his "truth and beauty." So in Sonnet 89

"I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange,

Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell."

There can be no doubt of the meaning of this, nor can there be in the "absence" of Sonnet 39, or the phrase "absent from thy heart" in Sonnet 41. In Sonnets 50 and 51, however, all commentators seem to agree that an actual journey is spoken of, because "miles are mentioned, and "the beast that bears me" is commented on at length. To me, on the contrary, nothing can appear plainer than that the "absence here means the same as in all the other passages, and that the "jade, horse, or beast," ridden by the poet is only the animal usually employed in carrying such burdens, Pegasus-who would certainly, under the circumstances, behave as here described. Similar remarks apply to Sonnets 43-46, and other places where journeys, &c., are spoken of. In the 44th Sonnet, indeed, if an actual journey were meant, it would seem rather to be a journey of Southampton's than of Shakspere's--

"To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone."

The most important of all the passages that bear on this point, however, I take to be that in Sonnet 27:

"I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travail tired; But then begins a journey in my head," &c.

Here the double meaning of "travel," as then spelt, is clearly played on by the poet, and no "journey" except an imaginary one is alluded to; the specific reference in the word "travel" will be made clearer by the annexed extracts.

find the following :- -"1622, Feb. 17. For a certificate for the Palsgrave's servants to travel into the country for six weeks, 10s." In Ben Jonson's Poetaster these words are addressed to a player:-" If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel any more after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet." Travelling is clearly what we should call strolling. And in our author's own Hamlet, Act. ii. Sc. 2, "How chances it they" (the tragedians of the city) “travel? Their residence both in reputation and profit was better both ways." The reputation of these actors was injured just as Shakspere says in the Sonnets his had been, and for the same reason. The "travelling" with the company of the theatre cannot be separated in sense from the "absence" from Southampton. Of this double allusion in one word we shall find further instances by and by.

The external facts corresponding to these allusions, as far as we can now make them out, seem approximately to be as follows:

-

an

But

At the date 1596 (when I suppose these Sonnets to have been written), Shakspere had certainly been actor some years. During this time the company to which he belonged acted regularly at the theatre in Shoreditch, which they occupied until Burbadge senior built the Globe in 1599. in 1594, 1595, and the first half of 1596, the exact period with which we are concerned, this company, the Lord Chamberlain's men, were acting, at least occasionally, at the Rose Theatre in Southwark, then under the management of Philip Henslowe. It was at this same date that Shakspere made alterations or additions to Edward III. and other old plays, as I have tried to prove elsewhere; and Edward III. we know was "sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London" before 1596. I infer from all these circumstances that the Lord Chamberlain's men were travelling during these three years, the very time, as we shall presently see, that is men