great mind never retrograded. Another reason for thinking that his sonnets were written after 1593, is that at that time the Sonnet was just beginning to be popular in England. There were three causes for this popularity, or rather three poets who contributed to it-Sydney, Daniel, and Drayton, whose sonnets, the reader will remember, were published in 1591, '92, and '93. The fashion was set by them, and Shakespeare was not long in adopting it. His model was Daniel, the linked sweetness of whose versification was in harmony with his own taste. He commenced with "THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM "-admitting it to be his work, which many critics doubt-and finding his studies, so to speak, successful, tried his hand at a poetical portrait of the enigmatical Mr. W. II. As his touch became firmer and more assured, he painted himself and his Delilah. Would that we could know who she was, that dallied with the invincible locks of this greater than Samson! But we can not. What song the sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture; but Shakespeare's mistress is.

Gone like a wind that blew
A thousand years ago.

"I fear," says Mr. Brown, at the conclusion of his dissertation on Shakespeare's sonnets, "I fear some readers may be surprised that I have not yet noticed a certain fault in Shakespeare, a glaring one-his having a wife of his own, perhaps, at Stratford. May no persons be inclined, on this account, to condemn him with a bitterness equal to their own virtue! For myself, I confess I have not the heart to blame him at all-purely because he so keenly reproaches himself for his own sin and folly. Fascinated as he was, he did not, like other poets similarly guilty, directly, or by implication, obtrude his own passions on the world as reasonable laws. Had such been the case, he might have merited our censure, possibly our contempt. On the contrary, he condemned and subdued his fault, and may therefore be cited as a good rather than as a bad example. Should it be contended that he seems to have quitted his mistress more on account of her unworthiness than from conscientious feelings, I have nothing to answer beyond this: I will not seek after questionable motives for good actions, well knowing by experience, that when obtruded on me, they have been nothing but a nuisance to my better thoughts."

So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse;
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse;
Making a complement of proud compare

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in his huge rondure hems.

O let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

Let them say more that like of hear-say well;
I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How then can I be elder than thou art?
O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary,
As I not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head,

To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see;

Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo! thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

How careful was I when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That, to my use, it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou may'st come and part;

And even thence thou wilt be stolen I fear,
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer's time!
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose:
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet, seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemnéd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath;
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth,
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red :

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I on her cheeks;

And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground; And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blesséd wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain;