and Cressida," in which a character so accused is denounced with the bitterest reproaches. But I contend, and can prove beyond doubt, that the entire Sonnets are a satire upon the reigning custom of mistress-sonnetting, and by a curious coincidence they were penned just at the time Cervantes was writing his inimitable satirical burlesque on the romancists.

In conclusion, and to support this view relative to the purity of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Dryden, when drawing a comparison between Shakespeare and Fletcher, observes:"He excelled in the more manly passions, Fletcher in the softer; Shakespeare writ better betwixt man and man, Fletcher betwixt men and women; consequently the one described friendship better, the other love. Yet Shakespeare taught Fletcher to write love, and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. It is true the scholar had the softer soul, but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a passion and a virtue essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident; good nature makes friendship, but effeminacy love."

With these hints of explanation we are brought to the unfolding of the Sonnets, which is the aim and end of these pages. Before commencing, the reader is requested never to lose sight of the poet's ultimate drift in his progress through the lengthened chain of conceits and hyperbolical metaphors with which these poems abound. It will be found there are three different sections or undercurrents of purpose:

First, that the whole set of Sonnets are satires upon mistress-sonnetting, and upon the sonnetteers of Shake

speare's day, and that Drayton first, but afterwards Davies, were more directly the subjects of his sportive musings and feignings.

Second, and more important, that they are autobiographical, containing much that is valuable.

Third, and which is of itself the key that unlocks the heart of the mystery, is the conceit of Shakespeare having united his muse to his friend by marriage of verse and mind; by which means and for which favour his youth and beauty are immortalised, but which theme does not fully commence till the friend had declined the invitation to marriage, which refusal begets the mystic melody.

The inference from the Sonnets and Dedication is that they were written at the especial request of the friend who, in spite of all expostulation, was so self-willed as not to be denied. Hence Shakespeare poured his whole soul into the task of developing the romantic youth's fantastic caprice, and the whole turns upon this pivot. The youth sought and obtained Shakespeare's friendship ; for reasons before stated the poet persuades him to marry, but without effect. The Comedy of "Much Ado about Nothing" was then (1599) written to show how such another military-minded, self-willed bachelor was trapped at last. Returning to the Sonnets, we find the youth declining the invitation to marry and preserve his youth and beauty by children. To effect this object, Shakespeare marries the youth to his immortal verse, which binds them together in wedded friendship, so that the poet, in his unadulterous love, permits him to become "the onlie begetter of these insuing Sonnets," which perpetuate his youth and beauty and their loving friendship in ever

living verse. Finally, the poet viewed his lengthy chain of Sonnet stanzas as his masterpiece, upon which to build his reputation and undying fame, exclaiming :

"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme."

Which he himself fully believed, though the vaunt was a strain beyond his usual humility, his object being to ape the bombast of the sonnetteers, and at the same time. excel them.

38

THE ARGUMENT.

"Some critics, or I'm much deceiv'd, will ask,
What means this wild, this allegoric masque ?
Beyond all bounds of truth this author shoots
"Tis idle stuff!-And yet I'll prove it true."

Epilogue spoken at a revival of Comus.

"Choose one of two companions for thy life,
Then be as true as thou would'st have thy wife;
Though he lives joyless that enjoys no friend,
He that hath many pays for't in the end.”

William, Earl of Pembroke's poems.

"I never mean to wed,

That torture to my bed;

My muse is she,

My love shall be.”

"If I a poem have, that poem is

my son."

Randolph's poems.

The poem opens with the praise of a beautiful youth and the desire that that youth should speedily marry and beget offspring. The poet at once strikes at the root of human existence, as a tendency to farther the operation of that law which the Creator impressed on our first parents, "Be fruitful and multiply." Shakespeare's wish was fulfilled, for within a few months after the final Sonnet (the 126th) was penned, his dear friend, Lord Herbert, was married. This took place on the 17th of September, 1603, and was not like the ensuing, an allegorical verse marriage, but a matter of fact reality.

The poet had an especial purpose in commencing with these persuasions, they are a plea for much of the singular writing which follows. For, had Herbert complied, and Shakespeare still addressed his young friend, the theme, as the poet denotes, would have taken a different turn. The young friend is to alter his single state in the prime of youth, and his beauty is thus to be preserved for the admiration of posterity. This theme occupies the first seventeen Sonnets. The two following promise to preserve the youth ever youthful, in case this counsel may fail to effect the desired purpose. Nature is said to have become enamoured of the youth as she wrought him, and, as if by her example, Shakespeare becomes so too. In this ecstacy of platonic love, and as a conclusion to the foregoing Argument, Sonnet 20 is composed, in the vein in which the sportive Mercutio would have indulged. Master Herbert is styled his "master mistress" in the sense of the more than mistress of his love. This and the five following complete the declaration. As verse is used in Sonnets 18 and 19 for the aid of the youth, it is now used for the poet's own purpose. By it a mutual alliance is formed between friend and friend; and against all impediments this marriage of true minds remained inviolate (Sonnets 105 and 116). Shakespeare had a high, even a religious opinion of friendship. This is seen in all his writings. Friendship he conceived a kind of marriage, and marriage a kind of friendship, both as being made for life, and being subject to the same laws. In this particular he but entertains the same notion as philosophers of all ages and countries, both sacred and secular, both ancient and