even more fortunate. No Elizabethan poet wrote ampler verse, none scorned 'ignorance' more, or more haughtily afferted his learning than Chapman. In The Tears of Peace (1609), Homer as a spirit vifits and infpires him; the claim to fuch inspiration may have been often made by the tranflator of Homer in earlier years. Chapman was pre-eminently the poet of Night.The Shadow of Night', with the motto Verfus mei habebunt aliquantum Noctis, appeared in 1594; the title-page defcribes it as containing two poeticall Hymnes'. In the dedication Chapman affails unlearned ' paffion-driven men', 'hide-bound with affection to great men's fancies', and ridicules the alleged eternity of their 'idolatrous platts for riches'. 'Now what a fupererogation in wit this is, to think Skill fo mightily pierced with their loves, that she should prostitutely fhow them her fecrets, when she will fcarcely be looked upon by others, but with invocation, fafting, watching; yea not without having drops of their fouls like a heavenly famiiar'. Of Chapman's Homer a part appeared

in 1596; dedicatory fonnets in a later edition are addreffed to both Southampton and Pembroke.

Mr. W. H., the only begetter of the Sonnets, remains unknown. Even the meaning of the word 'begetter' is in difpute. 'I have fome coufin-germans at court', writes Decker in Satiromaftix, 'fhall beget you the reversion of the master of the king's revels', where beget evidently means procure. Was the 'begetter' of the Sonnets, then, the person who procured them for Thorpe? I cannot think fo; there is special point in the choice of the word 'begetter', if the dedication be addressed to the perfon who inspired the poems and for whom they were written. Eternity through offfpring is what Shakspere most defires for his friend; if he will not beget a child, then he is promised eternity in verfe by his poet,-in verfe 'whose influence is thine, and born of thee' (LXXVIII.). Thus was Mr. W. H. the begetter of these poems, and from the point of view of a complimentary dedication he might well be termed the only begetter.

I have no space to confider fuggestions which seem to me of little weight,-that W. H. is a misprint for W. S., meaning William Shakspere; that W. H. all' should be read W. Hall'; that a full stop should be placed after 'wisheth', making Mr. W. H., perhaps William Herbert or William Hathaway, the wisher of happiness to Southampton, the only begetter (Ph. Chasles and Bolton Corney); nor do I think we need argue for or against the fuppofition of a painful German commentator (Barnstorff), that Mr. W. H. is none other than Mr. William Himself. When Thorpe ufes the words 'the adventurer in fetting forth,' perhaps he meant to compare himself to one of the young volunteers in the days of Elizabeth and James, who embarked on naval enterprises, hoping to make their fortunes by discovery or conqueft; fo he with good wishes took his risk on the sea of public favour in this light venture of the Sonnets.1

The date at which the Sonnets were written, like their origin, is uncertain. In Willobie's 1 See Dr. Grofart's Donne, vol. ii. pp. 45-46.

Avisa, 1594, in commendatory verse prefixed to which occurs the earliest printed mention of Shakspere by name, H. W. (Henry Willobie) pining with love for Avisa bewrays his disease to his familiar friend W. S., 'who not long before had tried the curtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered of the like infection'. W. S. encourages his friend in a paffion which he knows must be hopeless, intending to view this loving Comedy' from far off, in order to learn whether it would fort to a happier end for this new actor than it did for the old player'. From Canto XLIV. to XLVIII. of Avisa, W. S. addreffes H. W. on his love-affair, and H. W. replies. It is remarkable that Canto XLVII. in form and fubftance bears resemblance to the ftanzas in The Paffionate Pilgrim' beginning 'When as thine eye hath chose the dame'. Affuming that W. S. is William Shakspere, we learn that he had loved unwifely, been laughed at, and recovered from the infection of his paffion before the end of 1594. It seemed impoffible to pafs by a poem which has been described as

But

'the one contemporary book which has ever been supposed to throw any direct or indirect light on the mystic matter' of the Sonnets. although the reference to W. S., his passion for Avifa fair and chafte, and his recovery, be matter of intereft to inquirers after Shakspere's life, Willobie's Avisa seems to me to have no point of connexion with the Sonnets of Shakfpere.1

Individual fonnets have been indicated as helping to ascertain the date:

I. It has been confidently stated that CVII. containing the line

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured

must refer to the death of Elizabeth (1603), the poets' Cynthia; but the line may well bear another interpretation. (See Notes.)

II. Mr. Tyler (Athenæum, Sept. 11, 1880) ingeniously argues that the thought and phraf

1 The force of the allufion to tragedy and comedy is weakened by the fact that we find in Alcilia (1595) the courfe of love spoken of as a tragi-comedy, where no reference to a real actor on the ftage is intended: Sic incipit ftultorum Tragicomoedia.