with Boaden, Armitage Brown, and Hallam, with Furnivall, Spalding, Rossetti, and Palgrave,

I believe that Shakspere's Sonnets own feelings in his own person. they were addreffed is unknown.

express his

To whom

We shall

never discover the name of that woman who for a season could found, as no one elfe, the inftrument in Shakspere's heart from the lowest note to the top of the compafs. To the eyes of no diver among the wrecks of time will that curious talisman gleam. Already when Thorpe dedicated these poems to their 'only begetter', fhe perhaps was loft in the quick-moving life of London, to all but a few in whose memory were stirred as by a forlorn, fmall wind the

As to the name

grey ashes of a fire gone out. of Shakfpere's youthful friend and patron, we conjecture on flender evidence at the best. Setting claimants aside on whose behalf the evidence is absolutely none, except that their Christian name and furname begin with a W and an H, two remain whose pretenfions have been fupported by accomplished advocates. Drake

C

(1817), a learned and refined writer, was the first to suggest that the friend addressed in Shakfpere's Sonnets was Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, to whom Venus & Adonis was dedicated in 1593, and in the following year Lucrece, in words of ftrong devotion resembling thofe of the twenty-fixth Sonnet.1 B. Heywood Bright (1819), and James Boaden (1832), independently arrived at the conclusion that the Mr. W. H. of the dedication, the 'begetter' or infpirer of the Sonnets, was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, to whom with his brother, as two well-known patrons of the great dramatift, his fellows Heminge and Condell dedicated the First Folio. Wriothesley was born in 1573, nine years after Shakfpere; Herbert in 1580. Wriothesley at an early age became the lover of Elizabeth Vernon, needing therefore no entreaties to marry (I.-XVII.); he was not beautiful; he

1 Drake did not, as is fometimes ftated, fuppofe that Mr. W. H. was Southampton. He took begetter' to mean obtainer; and left Mr. W. H. unidentified. Others hold that 'W. H.' are the initials of Southampton's names reversed as a blind to the public.

bore no resemblance to his mother (ш. 9); his life was active, with varying fortunes, to which allufions might be looked for in the Sonnets, fuch as may be found in the verses of his other poet, Daniel. Further, it appears from the punning Sonnets (CXXXV. and CXLIII., fee Notes), that the Christian name of Shakspere's friend was the fame as his own, Will, but Wriothesley's name was Henry. To Herbert the punning

Sonnets and the 'Mr. W. H.' of the dedication can be made to apply. He was indeed a nobleman in 1609, but a nobleman might be styled Mr.; Lord Buckhurst is entered as M. Sackville in England's Parnaffus' (Minto); or the Mr. may have been meant to disguise the truth. Herbert was beautiful; was like his illuftrious mother; was brilliant, accomplished, licentious; 'the most universally beloved and esteemed', fays Clarendon, of any man of his age'. Like Southampton he was a patron of poets, and he loved the theatre. In 1599 attempts were unfuccefffully made to induce him to become a fuitor for the hand of the Lord Admiral's

daughter. So far the balance leans towards Herbert. But his father lived until 1601 (fee XIII. and Notes); Southampton's father died while his fon was a boy; and the date of Herbert's birth (1580), taken in connection with Meres's mention of Sonnets, and the Two loves' of the Paffionate Pilgrim Sonnet (1599), CXLIV., may well cause a doubt.

A clue, which promises to lead us to clearness, and then deceives us into deeper twilight, is the characterisation (LXXVIII.-LXXXVI.) of a rival poet who for a time fupplanted Shakfpere in his patron's regard. This rival, the 'better spirit' of LXXX., was learned (LXXVII.); dedicated a book to Shakspere's patron (LXXXII. and Notes); celebrated his beauty and knowledge (LXXXII.); in 'hymns' (LXXXV.); was remarkable for the full proud fail of his great verfe' (LXXXVI., LXXX.); was taught by spirits' to write above a mortal pitch', was nightly visited by 'an affable familiar ghost' who 'gulled him with intelligence' (LXXXVI.). Here are allufions and characteristics which ought to lead to identifica

tion. Yet in the end we are forced to confefs that the poet remains as dim a figure as the patron.

Is it Spenfer? He was learned, but what ghoft was that which gulled him? Is it Marlowe? His verfe was proud and full, and the creator of Fauftus may well have had dealings with his own Mephistophelis, but Marlowe died in May 1593, the year of Venus & Adonis. Is it Drayton, or Nash, or John Davies of Hereford? Perfons in fearch of an ingeniously improbable opinion may choose any one of these. Is it Daniel? Daniel's reputation ftood high; he was regarded as a master by Shakspere in his early poems; he was brought up at Wilton, the feat of the Pembrokes, and in 1601 he inscribed his Defence of Ryme to William Herbert; the Pembroke family favoured aftrologers, and the ghoft that gulled Daniel may have been the fame that gulled Allen, Sandford, and Dr. Dee, and through them gulled Herbert. Here is at leaft a clever guess, and Boaden is again the gueffer. But Profeffor Minto makes a guess