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ADDITIONAL NOTES TO SONNETS 86 TO 126.

SONNET 86.
Lines 5 to 9.

"They say thou hast a familiar spirit,
By whom thou cans't accomplish,
What thou wilt."-Marlowe.

Lines 5 to 10.

SATIRE TO A BAD POET.

"Great famous wit, whose rich and easy vein,
Free and unus'd to drudgery or pain,

Has all Apollo's treasury at command."-Butler.
Lines 13, 14.

"Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have
Lost his argument."-Troilus and Cressida.

SONNET 87.

Lines 13, 14.

"Or to live

But in a dream of friendship."-Timon of Athens.

SONNET 88.

Lines 6, 7.

"I have exchanged a real innocence,

To gain a mere fantastical report."-Fletcher.

SONNET 89.
Line 3.

"For you shall find she will outstrip all praise,

And make it halt behind her."—Tempest.

"But words came halting forth.”—Sidney's Arcadia.

"And straight leaps forth a poet, but as lame

As Vulcan or the founder of Cripplegate."-Jonson.

Line 3.

CEL.

"Come, lame me with reasons."

Ros.

"Then there were two cousins* laid up;

When the one should be lamed with reasons,

And the other mad without any."—As you Like it.

Line 14.

"I will never love that which my friend hates."

SONNET 90.

Lines 1 to 4.

ON ACTORS.

Much Ado about Nothing.

"They forget they are i̇' th' statutes, the rascals,

They are blazoned there, there they are tricked :

They and their pedigrees, they need no other herald, Sirs;
Methinks if nothing else, yet this alone, the

Very reading of the public edicts, should

Fright thee from commerce with them, and give thee
Distaste enough of their actions."— The Poetaster.

SONNET 93.

Lines 1 to 2.

"Hearts that are tied together with these consecrated bonds, are like man and wife, joined together inseparable; no encomiums could be too lavish for them: certainly there is nothing more ravishing upon earth than a friendship thus entertained. It is indeed that which surmounts the possibility of an exact description, and reserves its full discovery to the prize of experience." The Gentleman's Calling, 1682,

By the Author of the " Whole Duty of Man.”

Lines 1 to 12.

"The vow of marriage may be properly considered as a vow of perpetual indissoluble friendship. It is easy by pursuing the parallel between friendship and marriage to show how exact a conformity there is between them; to prove that all the precepts laid down with respect to the contraction, and the maxims advanced with regard to the effects of friendship are true of marriage, in a more literal sense and a stricter interpretation."

66

*

Sermon by J. Taylor, LL.D., 1790.

Lines 1 to 14.

SONNET OF FRIENDSHIP.

'Friendship on earth, we may as easily find

As he, the North East Passage, that is blind!
Sophistical affection is the best

This age affords, no friend abides the test :

Two cousins, meaning also two cozens, i.e., cheats.

They make a glorious show a little space,
But tarnish in the rain like copper lace.
So by degrees when we embrace so many,
We courted are like whores, not lov'd of any.
Choose one of two companions of thy life,
Then be as true as thou woulds't have thy wife;
Though he live joyless that enjoys no friend,
He that hath many pays for't in the end."

William Earl of Pembroke.

Lines 12, 13.

"Bear a fair presenee, although your heart be tainted."

Lines 1 to 14.

"Two pictures of a married life,

Comedy of Errors.

I look on thee, and thought of thee,

In vastness and in mystery;

And of thy spirit as of a wife."--In Memorian.

SONNET 95.
Line 14.

"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."-Edward III., 1597.

SONNET 96.
Lines 13, 14.

Shakespeare elsewhere repeats himself, using word for word. Thus in the "Taming of the Shrew," the line "Pisa renowned for grave citizens," is repeated in the 1st and 4th acts.

SONNET 97.

Lines 1 to 4.

"If, as I say, I compare it all unto the four years, I so happily enjoyed the sweet company and dear, dear society of that worthy man, it is nought but a vapour; nought but a dark and irksome night, since the time I have lost him, which I shall ever hold a bitter day."-Montaigne's Essays, Edit. 1603.

SONNET 98.
Lines 1 to 6.

"Then came fair May, the fairest maid on ground.
Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spied,
And leap'd and danced as they had ravished been."

Fairy Queen.

Lines 5 to 14.

"What art thou then? I cannot guess :

But though I seem in star and flower
To feel thee-some diffusive power,

I do not therefore love thee less."-In Memorian.

SONNET 99.

Lines 1 to 5.

"The rose and expectancy of the fair state,
A violet in the youth of primy nature;
Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting."Hamlet.

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"My ladie's presence makes the roses red,
Because to see her lips they blush for shame;
The lilies' leaves, for envy, pale become,
And her white hands in them this envy bred;
The marigold abroad the leaves doth spread,
Because the sun's and her power is the same;
The violet of purple colour came,

Dy'd with the blood she made my heart to shed :
In brief-all flowers from her their virtue take:

From her sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed."

SONNET 100.

Lines 1 to 4.

Constable's Diana.

In a conversation between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, recorded in Lansdowne's "Essays on Poetry" (1721), Ben is said to have asked Shakespeare why he wrote historical plays. He replied, that finding the people generally very ignorant of history, he wrote them in order to instruct them in that particular, which this Sonnet seems to confirm.

"I thought all words were lost that were not spent on thee."
Sidney's Sonnets.

Line 7.

"Our Shakespeare wrote, too, in an age as blest,

The happiest poet of his time, and best ;

A gracious prince's favour cheer'd his Muse,

A constant favour he ne'er fear'd to lose."-Otway.

Lines 1 to 8.

"Elizabeth to his lays open'd her royal ear,
Yet he does not drop from his honied verse
One sable tear."-Chettle of Shakespeare, 1603.

SONNET 102.

Lines 7 to 12.

"The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

When every goose is cackling, would be thought

No better a musician than the wren."-Merchant of Venice.

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SONNET 103.

Lines 9, 10.

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.”—King Lear.

SONNET 104.

Lines 9 to 12.

"The fixure of her eye hath motion in it."-Winter's Tale.

SONNET 105.
Lines 1, 2.

"Thy image should be sung, for thou that goddess art
Which only we without idolatry adore."-Constable's Diana.

66

Lines 1 to 4.

"TO MY MUSE.

Away and leave me, thou thing most abhorred,

That hast betrayed me to a worthless lord,

Made me commit most fierce idolatry

To a great image through thy luxury.

Extract from an Epigram by Jonson, evidently levelled at
Shakespeare, his patron lord, and Muse.

Line 4.

"Only in you my song begins and endeth."-Sidney's Sonnets.

"One will I serve."-Motto of the Pembroke Family.

"Man praises man; and Garrick's memory next,
When time hath somewhat mellowed it, and made
The idol of our worship while he lived
The god of our idolatry once more,
Shall have an altar."-Cowper.

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