and courtship, as it does to suppose the poet wrote sonnets to proclaim their mutual disgrace, and perpetuate his own sin and shame. In truth it is the sense of that nearness which I advocate, which, working blindly, has given some show of likelihood to the vulgar interpretation; the tender feeling passing the love of woman which, carried into the interpretation of the impersonal sonnets by prurient minds, has made the intimacy look one of which any extravagance might be believed.

The personal sonnets all tend to show and illustrate this nearness of the two friends, only they prove it to have been on Shakspeare's part of the purest, loftiest, most manly kind. There is not one of those wherein Shakspeare is the speaker for certain, that can possibly be pressed into showing that the friendship had the vile aspect into which it has been distorted.

Southampton being identified as the person addressed, and the object of Shakspeare's personal affection, the intimacy must have been one that was perfectly compatible with the earl's love for a woman. For it is certain that he was in love, and passionately wooing Elizabeth Vernon, during some years of the time over which the sonnets extend. And it would be witlessly weak to suppose that Shakspeare wrote sonnets upon a disgraceful intimacy to amuse a man who was purely in love; out of all nature to imagine that he pursued Southampton in the wooing amorous way more fondly and tenderly than ever, after the earl had become passionately enamoured of Elizabeth Vernon. He would neither thrust himself forward as the lady's rival for the earl's love, nor appear in her in her presencechamber covered with moral mire to remind them both of the fact that he and the earl had rolled in the dirt together; and the intimacy must have been such as to recommend Shakspeare to Elizabeth Vernon, as a friend of the earl, not brand him as an enemy to herself. Again, Boaden is of opinion that the sonnets do not at all apply

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105

to Lord Southampton, either as to age, character, or the bustle and activity of a life distinguished by distant and hazardous service, to something of which they must have alluded had he been their object. He argues that there was not sufficient difference in their ages for Shakspeare to have called the earl 'sweet boy.'

The difference was 9 years and 6 months. Our poet was born April, 1564, and his friend October, 1573. Now if the two men had been of like mental constitution that difference in years would have made considerable disparity in character when the one was thirty and the other but twenty years of age. But one man is not as old as another at the same age, nor are men constituted alike. Shakspeare's mental life, and ten years' experience in such a life, were very different things to the life and experience of his young friend. He may have been quite warranted by this difference in age in calling the earl 'sweet boy,' but his expression did not depend on age alone. When a priest says 'my child,' he does not first stop to consider whether the person so addressed is some twenty years younger than himself. He is presumed to be speaking from a feeling that is not exactly governed or guided chronologically. So with Shakspeare. He is taking the liberty and latitude of affection. He uses the language of a love that delights to dally with the wee words and dainty diminutives of speech, and tries as it were to express the largeness of its feeling in the smallest shape, on purpose to get all the nearer to nature, it being the way of all fond love to express itself in miniature. It is one of Shakspeare's ways of expressing the fulness and familiarity of his affection rather than any difference in age. He speaks by virtue of that protecting tenderness of spirit which he feels for the youth-the prerogative of very near friendship-an authority which no age could necessarily confer. And it is also his way of expressing the difference of rank and position, as the world would

have it, that existed betwixt them; the distance at which he is supposed to stand is turned to account in the shape of an elder brotherhood. It is of set purpose that Shakspeare paints himself older than he was, as most obviously he has done; it is intended as a framework for his picture. He deepens the contrast and gives to his own years a sort of golden gloom, and mellow background, with the view of setting forth in more vernal hues the fresh ruddy youth of his friend. He puts on an autumnal tint and exaggerates his riper years on purpose to place in relief that image of youth which he has determined to perpetuate in all its spring-tide beauty, and the 'yellow leaf' throws out the ratheness of the green. This does not show that there were not sufficient years betwixt them, but that the intimacy of friendship was such as to permit the poet to obey a natural law which has served to finish his picture with a more artistic touch, and to further illustrate the familiarity of his affection.

It may be that to the dear and generous friendship of the earl, the world is to a large extent indebted for those beautiful delineations of loving friendship betwixt man and man which Shakspeare has given us, excelling all other dramatists here as elsewhere. There is a sacred sweetness in his manly friendship; fine and fragrant in its kind, as is the delicate aroma breathed by his most natural and exquisite women. No one, like him, in secular literature, has so tenderly shown the souls of two men in the pleasant wedlock of a delightful friendship. The rarest touch being reserved for the picture in which one friend is considerably older than the other. Then the effect is gravely-gladsome indeed; the touch is one of the nearest to nature. This we may fairly connect with his own affectionate feeling for the young earl, and see how that which was subjective in the sonnets has become objective in the plays. Thus, behind Bassanio and Antonio we may identify Southampton and Shakspeare. How much Shakspeare may have

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adventured for his young friend who was bound up in the Essex bond, how far he lent himself, in spite of his better judgment, we shall probably never know, but we may be sure that his love, like that of Antonio, was strong enough to surmount all selfish considerations. And so, at the pressing solicitations of Southampton, the drama of King Richard II. was altered by Shakspeare on purpose to be played seditiously, with the deposition scene newly added! This patent fact is my concluding proof of the personal intimacy of peer and poet, and of the force and familiarity of their friendship.'

1 For a fact I hold it to be in spite of the squeamish assertion made by Mr. Collier to the contrary. The known friendship of Southampton for the poet is better evidence than anything in the recollections of Forman. The reply of Coke to Southampton's question as to what he thought they would have done with the Queen had they gained the Court points directly to Shakspeare's play. Mr. Attorney said the 'pretence was alike for removing certain councillors, but it shortly after cost the King his life.' Then, if it were not Shakspeare's drama, which was some years old at the time, revived, with additions for Essex' purpose, what is the meaning of the advertisement prefixed to the edition of 1608 The Tragedy of King Richard the 2nd, with new additions of the Parliament scene and the deposing of King Richard. As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Majesties servants, at the Globe'? Plainly enough it is the play altered for the purpose which excited curiosity, and had a long run in consequence. The same advertisement is printed in the edition of 1615, and it is perfectly absurd to suppose that any other King Richard the Second' was being played at Shakspeare's Theatre in the year 1611. This is going against the tide, and seeking to catch at a straw (Forman's Jack Straw!) most vainly.

6

PERSONAL SONNETS.

1592.

SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL, WISHING HIM TO
MARRY.

WE may now look upon the dear friend of Shakspeare as sufficiently identified, and the nearness of the friendship as sufficiently established. In the first group of his sonnets the poet advises and persuades his young friend the Earl of Southampton to get married. A very practical object in writing the sonnets! This of itself shows that he did not set out to write after the fashion of Drayton and Daniel, and dally with Idea' as they did. Here is a young noble of nature's own making; a youth of quick and kindling blood, apt to take fire at a touch, whether of pleasure or of pain; likely enough to be enticed into the garden of Armida and the palace of sin. He is left without the guidance of a father, and the poet feels for him an affection all the more protecting and paternal. We may easily perceive that underneath the pretty conceits sparkling on the surface of these earlier sonnets there lies a grave purpose, a profound depth of wisdom. This urgency on the score of marriage is no mere sonneteering trick, or playing with the shadows of things. The writer knows well that there is nothing like true marriage, a worthy wife, the love of children, and a happy home, to bring the exuberant life into the keeping of the highest, holiest law. Nothing like the wifely influence, and the clinging