4. Adion. Is this word ufed here in a legal sense? suggested perhaps by 'hold a plea' of 1. 3. 6. Wreckful fiege. See Sonnet LXIII. 9, and note. 10. Time's chest. Theobald proposed 'Time's queft'. Malone shows that the image of a jewel in its cheft or cafket is a favourite one with Shakfpere. See Sonnet XLVIII., King Richard 11., A& 1. fc. 1, 1. 180; King John, Act v. fc. 1, 1. 40. 12. Of beauty. The Quarto has or, a manifest error. LXVI. From the thought of his friend's death Shakspere turns to think of his own, and of the ills of life from which death would deliver him. 1. All these. The evils enumerated in the following lines. 4. Unhappily, evilly. See in Schmidt's Shakefpeare-Lexicon the words, unhappied, unhappily, unhappiness, and unhappy. 9. Art made tongue-tied by authority; art is commonly used by Shakspere for letters, learning, science. Can this line refer to the censorship of the stage? 11. Simplicity, i.e. in the sense of folly. LXVII. In close connexion with LXVI. Why should my friend continue to live in this evil world? 4. Lace, embellish, as in Macbeth, A& 11. sc. 3, 1. 118. 6. Dead feeing. Why should painting steal the lifeless appearance of beauty from his living hue? Capell and Farmer conjecture feeming. 12. Proud of many lives, etc. Nature, while fhe boasts of many beautiful persons, really has no treasure of beauty except his. 13. Stores. See note on Sonnet xI. 9. LXVIII. Carries on the thought of LXVII. 13, 14; compare the last two lines of both fonnets. 1. Map of days out-worn, compare Lucrece, 1. 1350, 'this pattern of the worn-out age'. 'Map', a picture or outline. King Richard 11., A& v. sc. I, 1. 12, Thou map of honour'. 3. Fair, beauty. Born. The Quarto prints borne, and so Malone. But the Quarto borne probably is our born, the word 'bastard' suggesting the idea of birth. 5, 6. Malone notes that Shakspere has inveighed against the practice of wearing falfe hair in The Merchant of Venice, A&t 11. fc. 2, ll. 92-96, and again in Timon of Athens, A& iv. fc. 3, 1. 144. 10. Without all ornament, all, i.e. any, as Sonnet LXXIV. 2, without all bail'. Itfelf. Malone propofed himself. LXIX. From the thought of his friend's external beauty Shakspere turns to think of the beauty of his mind, and the popular report against it. 3. Due. The Quarto has end, which, Malone obferves, arose from the printer tranfpofing the letters of due, and inverting the u; but more probably the printer's eye caught the end of 'mend' 1. 2, and his fingers repeated it in the next line. 5. Thy outward. The Quarto has Their out ward; Malone read Thine, but thy is fometimes found before a vowel, and the mistake their' for 'thy' is of frequent occurrence in the Quarto. 14. The foil is this. The Quarto has folye. Malone and Dyce read folve. Caldecott conjectures foil. The Cambridge editors write: 'As the verb "to foil" is not uncommon in Old English, meaning "to folve", as for example: "This question could not one of them all foile" (Udal's Erasmus, Luke, fol. 134 b), fo the substantive "foil" may be used in the sense of "folution". The play upon words thus fuggefted is in the author's manner'. LXX. Continues the fubject of the last Sonnet, and defends his friend from the suspicion and slander of the time. 3. Sufped, fufpicion, as in 1. 13, and Venus & Adonis, 1. 1010. 6. Thy worth. The Quarto has their. Being woo'd of time. • Time is used by our early writers as equivalent to the modern expreffion, the times'.- Hunter, New Illuftrations of ShakeSpeare, vol. ii. p. 240. Hunter quotes King Richard III., A& iv. sc. 4, l. 106, where, however, the proposed meaning feems doubtful. Steevens quotes from Ben Jonson, Every Man out of His Humour, Prologue, 'Oh, how I hate the monftrousness of time,' i.e. the times. Being woo'd of time' feems, then, to mean being folicited or tempted by the present times. Malone conjectured and withdrew 'being void of crime'. C. [probably Capell] fuggested 'being wood of time,' i.e. flander being wood or frantic. Delius proposes 'weigh'd of time', Staunton, 'being woo'd of crime'. 7. For canker vice, etc. So The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A& 1. fc. 1, l. 43 :- In the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells. 14. Owe, own, possess. LXXI. Shakspere goes back to the thought of his own death, from which he was led away by LXVI. 14, 'to die, I leave my love alone'. The world in this fonnet is the vile world' defcribed in LXVI. 2. The furly fullen bell. Compare 2 King Henry iv., A& 1. fc. 1, 1. 102: A fullen bell, Remember'd knolling a departed friend. 10. Compounded am with clay. 2 King Henry IV., A& IV. fc. 5, 1. 116: Only compound me with forgotten duft. LXXII. In close continuation of LXXI. 'When I die let my memory die with me'. LXXIII. Still, as in LXXI.-LXXII. thoughts of approaching death. 2. Compare Macbeth, A&t v. fc. 3, 1. 23 My way of life Is fall'n into the fear, the yellow leaf. 3. Bare ruin'd choirs. The Quarto has 'rn'wd quiers'. The edition of 1640 made the correction. Capell proposed Barren'd of quires'. Malone compares with this paffage Cymbeline, А& ш. fc. 3, 11. 60-64 : Then was I as a tree Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night, Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves, and Timon of Athens, A&t iv. fc. 3, 11. 263-266. And by and by a cloud takes all away. 12. Confumed, etc. Wafting away on the dead ashes which once nourished it with living flame. LXXIV. In immediate continuation of LXXIII. Had I but time-as this fell fergeant, death, 11. The coward conqueft, etc. Does Shakspere merely speak of the liability of the body to untimely or violent mifchance? Or does he meditate fuicide? Or think of Marlowe's death, and anticipate fuch a fate as poffibly his own? Or has he, like Marlowe, been wounded? Or does he refer to diffection of dead |