II.

11. Defeated, defrauded, disappointed; fo A MidSummer Night's Dream, A& iv. fc. 1, ll. 153-155:

They would have ftolen away; they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you and me,

You of your wife and me of my consent.

XXI. The first line of xx. suggests this fonnet. The face of Shakspere's friend is painted by Nature alone, and fo too there is no false painting, no poetical hyperbole in the description. As containing examples of such extravagant comparisons, amorous fancies, far-fetched conceits of Sonnet-writers as Shakfpere here speaks of, Mr. Main (Treasury of English Sonnets, p. 283) cites Spenfer's Amoretti, 9 and 64; Daniel's Delia, 19; Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Sonnet XLVIII.; compare alfo Griffin's Fidessa, Sonnet XXXIX.; and Conftable's Diana (1594), the sixth Decade, Sonnet 1.

5. Making a couplement of proud compare, joining in proud comparisons.

8. Rondure, circle, as in King John, A& 11. fc. 1, 1. 259, the roundure of your old-faced walls'. Staunton proposes 'vault' in place of 'air' in this line.

12. Gold candles, compare 'These blessed candles of the night'. The Merchant of Venice, A& v. 1. 220; alfo Romeo and Juliet, А& ш. fc. 5, 1. 9; Macbeth, Act II. fc. 1, 1. 5.

13. That like of hearsay well. To like of' meaning to like' is frequent in Shakfpere. Schmidt's explanation is that fall in love with what has been

praised by others'; but does it not rather mean, 'that like to be buzzed about by talk'?

14. Compare Love's Labour's Loft, A& iv. fc. 3, II. 239, 240:-

Fie, painted rhetoric! O, fhe needs it not:

To things of fale a feller's praife belongs.

XXII. The praise of his friend's beauty fuggefts by contraft Shakspere's own face marred by time. He comforts himself by claiming his friend's beauty as his own. Lines 11-14 give the first hint of poffible wrong committed by the youth against friendship.

4. Expiate, bring to an end. So King Richard III., А& ш. fc. 3, l. 23:

Make hafte: the hour of death is expiate

(changed in the fecond Folio to 'now expired '). In Chapman's Byron's Confpiracie, an old courtier fays he is

A poor and expiate humour of the court.

Steevens conjectures in this fonnet expirate, which R. Grant White introduces into the text.

10. As I, etc., as I will be wary of myself for thy fake, not my own.

XXIII. The fincerity and filent love of his verses; returning to the thought of XXI.

1, 2. So Coriolanus, A& v. sc. 3,

11. 40-42:

Like a dull actor now,
I have forgot my part, and I am out,
Even to a full disgrace.

5. For fear of trust, fearing to trust myself. Schmidt explains doubting of being trufted', but the comparison is to an imperfect actor, who dare not truft himself. Obferve the construction of the first eight lines; 5, 6, refer to 1, 2; 7, 8, to 3, 4. 9. Books. Sewell has ‘O, let my looks'. But

the Quarto text is right; fo l. 13.

O learn to read what filent love hath writ.

The books of which Shakspere speaks are probably the manuscript books in which he writes his fonnets. In fupport of looks H. Isaac cites Spenser : Amoretti, 43.

12. More than, etc., more than that tongue (the tongue of another) which hath more fully expreffed more ardours of love, or more of your perfections.

XXIV. Suggested by the thought, XXII. 6, of Shakspere's heart being lodged in his friend's breast, and by the conceit of XXIII. 14; there eyes are able to hear through love's fine wit; here eyes do other fingular things, play the painter.

1. Stell'd, fixed: fleeld, Quarto. crece, 1444::

Compare Lu

To find a face where all diftrefs is ftell'd.

2. Table, that on which a picture is painted. Compare All's Well that Ends Well, A& 1. fc. 1, 11. 104-106:

To fit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table.

4. Perspective. Perspective meant a cunning picture, which feen directly feemed in confufion and feen obliquely became an intelligible compofition; also a glafs fo cut as to produce optical illufion. See King Richard I., A& 11. sc. 2, l. 18. But here does it not fimply mean that a painter's highest art is to produce the illusion of distance, one thing feeming to lie behind another; you must look through the painter (my eye or myself) to see your picture, the product of his fkill, which lies within him (in my heart).

The ftrange conceits in this sonnet are paralleled in Constable: Diana (1594); Sonnet 5, (p. 4, ed. Hazlitt):

-

Thine eye, the glasse where I behold my heart,

Mine eye, the window through the which thine eye May fee my heart, and there thyfelfe espy In bloody colours how thou painted art.

Compare alfo Watfon's The Teares of Fancie', (1593), Sonnets 45, 46 (p. 201, Thomas Watson, Poems, ed. Arber, p. 201):

:

My Mifres feeing her faire counterfet
So fweetelie framed in my bleeding breft

But it fo faft was fixed to my heart, etc.

XXV. In this fonnet Shakspere makes his first complaint against Fortune, against his low condition. He is about to undertake a journey on fome needful business of his own (XXVI. XXVII.), and rejoices to think that at least in one place he has a fixed abode, in his friend's heart (l. 14).

Thoughts of the cruelty of Fortune reappear and become predominant in XXIX.-XXXI.

6. The marigold: Compare Conftable: Diana; Sonnet 9:

The marigold abroad his leaves doth Spread Because the fun's and her power are the fame, and Lucrece, 1. 397.

There are three plants which claim to be the old Marigold: 1. The marsh marigold; this does not open and clofe its flowers with the fun. 2. The corn marigold; there is no proof that this was called marigold in Shakspere's day. 3. The garden marigold or Ruddes (calendula officinalis); it turns its flowers to the fun, and follows his guidance in their opening and shutting. The old name is goldes; it was the Heliotrope, Solfequium, or Turnefol of our forefathers. (Condensed from 'Marigold', in Ellacombe's' Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare'.)

9. Famoused for fight. The Quarto reads for worth. The emendation is due to Theobald, who 'likewise proposed if worth was retained to read razèd forth'.- Malone. Capell fuggested for might.

XXVI. In xxv. Shakspere is in disfavour with his stars, and unwillingly-as I suppose-about to undertake fome needful journey. He now fends this written embassage to his friend (perhaps it is the Envoy to the preceding group of fonnets), and dares to anticipate a time when the 'star that guides his moving', now unfavourable, may point on him graciously with fair aspect (1. 10).