LXXXIV. Who is it that fays moft? which can fay more XCIII. So fhall I live, supposing thou art true XCIV. They that have power to hurt and will do none xcv. How sweet and lovely doft thou make the shame XCVI. Some fay, thy fault is youth, some wantonnefs XCVII. How like a winter hath my absence been CIII. Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth CIV. To me, fair friend, you never can be old cv. Let not my love be call'd idolatry CVI. When in the chronicle of wafted time CVII. Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic foul cxv. Those lines that I before have writ do lie CXVI. Let me not to the marriage of true minds CXVII. Accufe me thus: that I have scanted all CXVIII. Like as, to make our appetites more keen CXIX. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears cxx. That you were once unkind befriends me now CXXI. 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd CXXII. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain CXXIV. If my dear love were but the child of state CXXV. Were't aught to me I bore the canopy CXXVI. O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power CXXVII. In the old age black was not counted fair CXXVIII. How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st CXXIX. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame CXXX. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the fun CXXXI. Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art CXXXIV. So now I have confeff'd that he is thine cxxxv. Whoever hath her wish, thou haft thy Will CXLII. Love is my fin, and thy dear virtue hate CXLIII. Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch CXLIV. Two loves I have of comfort and despair CXLV. Those lips that Love's own hand did make CXLVI. Poor foul, the centre of my finful earth. CXLVII. My love is as a fever, longing still . CXLVIII. O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head CXLIX. Canft thou, O cruel! fay I love thee not CL. O, from what power haft thou this powerful CLI. Love is too young to know what confcience is CLII. In loving thee thou know'ft I am forfworn INTRODUCTION. No edition of Shakfpere's Sonnets,1 apart from his other writings, with fufficient explanatory notes, has hitherto appeared. Notes are an evil, but in the case of the Sonnets a neceffary evil, for many paffages are hard to understand. I have kept befide me for several years an interleaved copy of Dyce's text, in which I fet down from time to time anything that seemed to throw light on a difficult paffage. From these jottings, and from the Variorum Shakspeare of 1821, my annotations have been chiefly drawn. I have had before me in preparing this volume the 1 The poet's name is rightly written Shakespeare; rightly alfo Shakspere. If I err in choofing the form Shakfpere, I err with the owner of the name. To which this general reference may fuffice. I often found it convenient to alter flightly the notes of the Variorum Shakspere, and I have not made it a rule to refer each note from that edition to its individual writer. editions of Bell, Clark and Wright, Collier, Delius, Dyce, Halliwell, Hazlitt, Knight, Palgrave, Staunton, Grant White; the tranflations of François-Victor Hugo, Bodenftedt, and others, and the greater portion of the extenfive Shakspere Sonnets literature, English and German. It is forrowful to confider of how fmall worth the contribution I make to the knowledge of these poems is, in proportion to the time and pains bestowed. To render Shakspere's meaning clear has been my aim. I do not make his poetry an occasion for giving leffons in etymology. It would have been eafy, and not useless, to have enlarged the notes with parallels from other Elizabethan writers; but they are already bulky. I have been sparing of such parallel paffages, and have illuftrated Shakfpere chiefly from his own writings. Repeated perusals have convinced me that the Sonnets ftand in the right order, and that fonnet is connected with fonnet in more instances than have been obferved. My notes on each fonnet commonly begin with an attempt to point |