confine our attention to the accounts rendered by those who may be considered as public officers. The most important of this class of accountants was that ancient officer the sheriff, or vicecomes. The accounts rendered by sheriffs occupy considerable space in the volume before us, and throw much light upon the duties which anciently belonged to their office. Their appointments were derived from the crown, to whom they paid large fines on that account, thus: 'The same Robert owes 400 marks of silver of his fine for having the county [Oxfordshire].'-p. 2. 'Baldwin Fitz Clare owes 287. 6s. 8d. of his fine for the county [Berks.]' p. 122. 'Fulchered Fitz Walter owes 120 marks of silver of his fine for the shrievalty of London.'-p. 144. All these are amongst the old accounts and are balances of larger fines. The sheriffs were probably appointed for one year, but occasionally purchased a longer tenure of office. Thus: 'Robert de Stanlega owes 20 marks of silver for having the county [Staffordshire] for five years.'-p. 73. Hugh de Warelville renders account of 200 marks of silver of his fine to have the counties [Northamptonshire and Leicestershire] for five years. Paid into the Exchequer 20 marks of silver. And by a pardon to the same Hugh one hundred and four score marks of silver, because he only held it half a year.'-p. 85. 'Maenfinin owes 10 marks of silver for his fine, for having the counties [Bucks and Bedfordshire] for four years.'-p. 100. Although it appears from these entries that the office was occasionally granted for a term of years, we imagine it was notwithstanding dependent upon the good behaviour of the grantee. Whether the instance of Hugh de Warelville was one of voluntary secession or of discharge, does not appear. The following entry shows that the office could not be given up without the king's consent, and its usual accompaniment, a fine : 'William Lelutre and Geoffrey Bucherelle, and Ralph Fitz Herlewin render account of six marks of gold, that they may be discharged from the shrievalty of London. Paid into the Exchequer 3 [marks of gold] and they owe 3 marks of gold.'-p. 149. 'William de Balio owes 2 marks of gold that he may be discharged from the shrievalty of London.'-p. 149. In the account for Oxfordshire is a curious statement of the amerciaments to which a late sheriff was subjected in consequence of misconduct in his office. We have not room to quote the entries, but they intimate that Restoldus, the late sheriff, accounted for several large sums in which he was indebted, on account of certain deficiencies in various enumerated articles; also for waste done in the royal forests; for moneys unjustly taken from the villeins and burgesses' of the king's demesne manors, for certain lands which he had held without paying any firm for them, and for the forfeitures of the county.' It would seem that, upon a change of sheriff, a sort of survey was made of the condition of the lands committed to him to farm, and in the present instance Restoldus was charged with the value of various deficiencies upon this survey. One sheriff for each county was the ancient number, but there are upon this Roll many instances of two persons exercising the office jointly, and in London the account was rendered by the four sheriffs.' This number in London was of recent date and of short continuance. Fulchered Fitz Walter accounted alone for the balance of the previous year, and according to the entry we have before quoted above, fined for the office. The four sheriffs fined, it will be remarked, to be permitted to relinquish their office, and in this year also the men of London' paid the king 100 marks of silver that they might have a sheriff of their own electing (p. 148). We have quoted one instance of a sheriff holding two counties, and the Roll affords several others. Osbert Sylvanus held Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire (p. 7); Warinus, Dorsetshire and Wiltshire (p. 12); Bertram de Bulemer, Yorkshire and Northumberland (p. 24); William de Pontearch, Hampshire and Berkshire (p. 36); Milo of Gloucester, Staffordshire and Gloucestershire (p. 72); and Geoffrey de, Furnell, Devonshire and Cornwall (p. 152, 158). But the most singular instance of monopoly of office which the Roll exhibits, is that of Richard Basset and Alberic de Ver, who were joint sheriffs and farmers of no less than eleven counties at one time. The former of these gentlemen was Chief Justicier and the latter High Chamberlain to Henry I. It is evident that the emoluments rather than the duties of the office were considered in their appointments, which may be regarded as marks of personal favour from the king, inasmuch as we do not find that they paid any fines for their numerous offices. At the time to which this Roll belongs, all the counties were let to farm to the sheriffs, at a certain annual rent or 'firm,' the account for which and its arrears, generally stands first upon the Roll. The arrears were accounted for under the title of vetus firma,' and the firm of the year of the account under that of firma,' or more generally nova firma.' Out of the firm the sheriffs were permitted to deduct all payments made by them on account of the king, either in salaries to his officers, for repairs of his houses, goods furnished for his household, or the support of state prisoners in their custody. After the settlement of that account, the sheriff accounted in like manner for the firm of all lands let to him by the king, and this, it may be remarked, was the usual mode of disposing of lands forfeited to the crown, until they were either restored to their former owners or granted out to other persons. Cities and burghs were also occasionally committed to the sheriff, but there are not many instances upon this Roll. The practice of committing the burghs to the townsmen to firm, had then commenced, and we find the burgesses of Lincoln paying a large fine that they might hold of the king in capite (p. 114). Canterbury and Dover are mentioned as let to the sheriff in firm (p. 63); and Malmesbury as held by its burgesses. The firm of the latter was paid by Hugo, the bailiff (p. 16). The sheriff was also the collector for the crown for all fines assessed upon hundreds for murders, and accounted for them in two forms. In the first part of his account he accounted for fines and balances which had been either entered as debts, or partly paid at the time of his last accounting; and amongst the 'nova placita,' he accounts in like manner for the fines for murders assessed during the past year. We shall have occasion hereafter to remark upon the light which this portion of the account throws upon the state of crime in England. The sheriff also accounted, amongst the nova placita, for danegeld, which was still maintained as an annual impost, and produced a considerable sum from every county. He was also the collector of the aids' levied upon the cities and burghs within his jurisdiction, with, as far as we have noticed, only one exception, which is York. That city was accounted for by Turgis, who is termed 'the collector for York.'-(p. 31,34.) The sheriff was not the only person who held lands in firm. Grants were occasionally made to other persons, who all consequently became public accountants, and appear in that character upon the Pipe Rolls. Burghs also were committed in firm to private persons, of which there are the instances of Northampton (p. 135); and the city' of Colchester (p. 138). Manors, which formed part of the royal demesnes, were sometimes granted in firm to the king's men,' that is, 'his tenants,' within the manor (p. 6). The royal forests were not granted in firm, but a census was collected from them, which is accounted for in these Rolls; and it is worthy of remark, that from the census of the forests there was always deducted one-tenth under the head of customary tithes,' an allowance which does not appear to have prevailed in any other account. We must reserve our notice of the accounts rendered by private persons, and also the extracts we had selected in order to exhibit the manner in which the Pipe Rolls are calculated to illustrate the general state of society, until our next paper. ON SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS, THEIR POETICAL MERITS, AND ON THE QUESTION TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED, BY D. L. RICHARDSON. (Concluded from p. 257.) IT has been erroneously asserted by inany writers on Shakspeare, that he was not conscious of his mighty faculties, and had no anticipation of his future fame. The following extract we think may settle this question: "Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal line to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." The following magnificent sonnet, which also bears unanswerably on this point, we shall give entire. The dignity of the thoughts, the vigorous and appropriate expression, and the majestic force, freedom, and harmony of the verse, are beyond all praise. "Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents, [time. Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish When wasteful wars shall statues overturn, And broils root out the works of masonry, Nor Mars's sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. "Gainst Death and all oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all posterity, That wear this world out to the ending doom. Some of the Sonnets, however, that appear to have been written in his youth, and before he had gained his reputation, are as full of graceful humility and a reverent regard for others, as his later productions are of a just and noble confidence in his own pretensions. "If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey Compare them with the bettering of the time; This "better spirit" is supposed by some to be Spenser; but though Spenser is also alluded to by name in the Passionate Pilgrim, and with great praise, "the better spirit "is thought by other critics, and with some reason, GENT. MAG. VOL. IV. to be Daniel, who had then a great reputation. Leigh Hunt thinks that we may gather from the Sonnets that Shakspeare was lame. I suppose he alludes to the following passage, but it is perhaps doubtful whether it should be interpreted literally or not: "As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, There is a line in another sonnet, of a similar description to the one above marked in italics. "Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, The fortieth Sonnet shows that he was accustomed to travel on horseback, and that, when vexed by his steed's dulness, notwithstanding his own sweetness and gentleness of nature, he could not help" provoking him on" with "the bloody spur," "That sometimes anger thrust into his side." These Sonnets also prove that he was a warm friend and a passionate lover. Indeed, considering that he was a married man and a father, it must be confessed that his extravagant love for a notoriously low and licentious woman (Campbell calls her a married woman, though I recollect no passage in the Sonnets that exactly justifies him in so describing her,) certainly throws a shade upon his moral character; his thinking it necessary to publish and immortalize the matter, makes it a thousand times worse. Shakspeare married at eighteen : his wife was eight years older. It is supposed that she did not contribute to his domestic happiness. One of his biographers imagines that he was jealous, but this is scarcely probable, I think, considering that he did not take her with him to London, but lived at a distance from her for many years. 3 A It is certain that he neglected her in his will, in which her name was at first wholly omitted, and subsequently inserted with the bequest of "his second best bed." That he was unfaithful to her, is, I fear, pretty clearly proved by some of these "Confessional Sonnets," which seem to correspond in their character with a scandalous anecdote lately discovered by Mr. Payne Collier. Burbidge, the actor, while playing Richard the Third, struck the fancy of a fair citizen, who appointed him to call upon her under the name of Richard the Third. Shakspeare overheard the assignation, and forestalled poor Burbidge. When the latter arrived and sent in his name, Shakspeare sent word back that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third. Such gossiping and doubtful anecdotes as these, are perhaps scarcely worth repeating; but such is our eager interest in the slightest details connected with Shakspeare, that one cannot help treating them with more consideration than they really merit. Various other glimpses into the poet's feelings and circumstances are scattered over the Sonnets, that I should like well enough to bring to the notice of my readers, but I have not room at present to pursue this portion of our subject any further. I now come to the consideration of the question of, to whom are these Sonnets addressed? a mystery which has puzzled the critics as much as that of the authorship of Junius. Dr. Drake, though he afterwards urges, with considerable confidence, an hypothesis of his own, observes that, an almost impenetrable darkness rests on the question, and no effort has hitherto, in the smallest degree, tended to disperse the gloom.' Hazlitt acknowledges, in his occasionally familiar way, that of the "ultimate drift" of the Sonnets he can make neither head nor tail. Thomas Campbell is also puzzled, and remarks, "that it seems almost impossible to make out to whom they are addressed. Even the Schlegels have not attended, I believe, to this point, though so indignant at the contemptuous neglect with which the Sonnets have been treated by the poet's various biographers. The question might seem of less importance, if it were not for the very character of several of these little poems, which from the want of some positive information in this respect are perfectly riddles. It is well known that the smaller collection of Sonnets and other short lyrical pieces, which first appeared in 1599, was published by an ignorant and unprincipled bookseller of the name of Jaggard, without the author's sanction. In a published letter of Thomas Heywood's, to his own bookseller, Mr. Nicholas Okes, he alludes to this surreptitious publication, and observes, "the author, I know, is much offended with Mr. Jaggard, that (altogether unknown to him) presumes to make so bold with his name." Now, though we have no direct evidence that the larger collection of Sonnets, respecting the object of which there has been so much conjectural criticism, was also published in defiance or without the knowledge of the author, I cannot help thinking there is every reason for supposing this to have been the case, when we consider the imperfect and unsatisfactory manner in which the work has been edited. The poems of Venus and Adonis ("the first heir of his invention'), published in 1593, and the Rape of Lucrece, published in 1594, were evidently superintended by the author, who dedicated both of them to his celebrated patron, the Earl of Southampton; but it is difficult to imagine that Shakspeare himself had anything to do with the first edition of the larger collection of Sonnets, which are dedicated with singular inelegance and ambiguity by the publisher to no one knows whom. is strange that no critic (at least none with whom I am acquainted) has looked upon the publication in this point of view; for though this hypothesis does not enable us to reconcile or explain the many contradictions and mysteries with which the collection abounds as it now stands, yet it is reasonable in itself, and suggests the justice and propriety of our attributing much that is confused or objectionable in the selection and arrangement of the contents to a want of judgment in the publisher. The dedication, to which we have already alluded, is printed as follows, in the first edition: Meres in The commentators have taxed their utmost ingenuity to discover who this W. H. can be. Dr. Farmer supposes that the Sonnets are addressed to William Harte, the poet's nephew; but this has since been discovered to be impossible, as he was not born before the year 1600, and the Sonnets were published in 1609, and some of them are known to have been written and circulated amongst the author's private friends eleven years before. praises these sugred Sonnets his "Wit's Treasury," published in 1598. The first seventeen were written to persuade the object of them to marry, and it is absurd to suppose they were addressed to a little child, as Harte must then have been. Besides which, he was of humble birth and pretensions, whereas there are innumerable passages in the Sonnets that plainly allude to a patron and friend of distinguished rank and influence. Mr. Tyrwhitt once pointed out to Mr. Malone a line in the 20th sonnet, which induced the latter to believe that W. H. stands for William Hughes. "A man in hew, all hews in his controlling." The name of Hughes was formerly written Hews. To this person Mr. Malone says, that it is probable the first 126 sonnets are addressed, and the remaining 28 to a lady. The play upon the author's own Christian name, in the 135th and 143d sonnets, seems in accordance with this notion :"Let no unkind, no fair beseeches kill, Think all but one, and me in that one Will." "So will I pray that thou may'st have thy Will." It may be observed by the way, that these truly contemptible puns and equivoques, in a species of composition that was not addressed to a fixed circle, like the author's dramas, of which the occasional bad taste has hitherto been thought an unwilling sacrifice to the "groundlings," seem to prove an early and innate propensity to sins of this description. But no poet is perfect. The 20th sonnet, in which the word Hews occurs, is the most puzzling and inexplicable of the whole series. I would extract it entire, if it did not appear objectionable on the score of decency. If I understand it rightly, of which I am very far from being certain, it is in every respect a disgrace to the name of Shakspeare. (And yet how can we know that it is really his?) The Reverend Mr. Dyce, the editor of a new edition of these poems, praises Mr.Tyrwhitt's "ingenuity" in the conjectures concerning Mr. Hughes, but without much cause. It is not certain that Shakspeare in this case intends to commit a pun on a name, because the word HEW, in Shakspeare's time, as Dr. Drake observes, meant mien and appearance, as well as tint. And it is possible that the poet is playing on the different meanings. Who is W. Hughes? "A Mr. Hughes," as Mr. Dyce calls him; he seems created for the occasion. He is a name and nothing else. Is it likely that such a person, of whom no one has heard, was the great patrician patron of our immortal Bard? And is it possible that he should have been addressed by Shakspeare in such lines as the following? "Thou, that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring." pass, And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye; When love converted from the thing it was, Shall reasons find of settled gravity." The following passages evidently allude to one "who was the observed of all observers," the object of more than one complimentary muse, and the patron of the learned. "So oft have I invoked thee for my muse, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, "And having thee, of all men's pride I boast." |