With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted,'
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too:

For binding all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,2

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me-
Such is my love, to thee I so belong

That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.

(88.)

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
Some in their garments, tho' new-fangled ill,

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse :
And every Humour hath his adjunct pleasure
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best:
Thy love is better than high birth to me,3
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost;
Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast;
Wretched in this alone, that thou may'st take
All this away, and me most wretched make.

(91.)

him? The antithesis of the line is only possible when spoken to a woman. In a previous sonnet we have two lovers newly affianced, which I take to be a literal fact, not a mere image.

1 'I can set down a story,' &c. So Hamlet says, 'I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.'

3 Had Shakspeare been speaking, he would not have looked down upon high birth whilst addressing a peer of the realm. The speaker is of high birth, and possesses the 'particulars' enumerated; but they do not fill the measure of his joy; all these he betters in the best of all, his lady's love.

A LOVER'S JEALOUSY.

But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assuréd mine;
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine!
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end;
I see a better state to me belongs

Than that which on thy humour doth depend:
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie;
O, what a happy title do I find,

Happy to have thy love, happy to die!

But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot ?-
Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not!

(92)

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceivéd husband: so love's face

May still seem love to me, though altered new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place :
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:

In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
But Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell:
How like Eve's Apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!!

(93.)

235

'A goodly apple rotten at the heart :

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.'

In a note on this sonnet, Malone writes, 'Mr. Oldys observes, in one of his manuscripts, that this and the preceding sonnet seem to have been addressed by Shakspeare to his beautiful wife on some suspicion of her infidelity!' Poor Mrs. Shakspeare! The Personal Theory has not even spared her!

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant Rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise :
Naming thy name blesses an ill report:
O, what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee!
Where Beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

(95.)

PERSONAL SONNETS.

SHAKSPEARE IS SAD FOR THE EARL'S HARMFUL DEEDS.

ALTHOUGH Shakspeare had, in a sonnet already quoted, replied to a slander on the Earl, made the best of some cause of quarrel betwixt the lover and his mistress, and spoken handsomely of his young friend's character in general, yet there came a time when the opposition to the marriage, the bickerings with Elizabeth Vernon, and the kindling temperament of the headstrong youth led to his living a somewhat loose life for a while. This we shall find most penitently confessed in some later sonnets when he comes to sue for pardon. In the present group of Personal Sonnets, Shakspeare mourns for the wild courses of his friend. He would rather die than see it with his eyes, only his heart is so much with the Earl that he could not leave him in such a world alone. The first sonnet is somewhat general, but the others will point the meaning and expound the feeling. He is sad for many things that he sees, but most of all on account of his friend. Ah! why should he live with persons who are morally infectious, he asks, and with his presence grace the society of the impious? Why dwell with sinners, and give them the advantage of his company by allowing them to decorate their foulness with his fairness? Why should he, as it were, give colour to their faded complexion, freshness to their pallor, and himself lose more in reality than he

can impart to others in appearance? Every one is willing to give his outward beauty its meed of praise, but they are quick to judge of his mental gifts by these wild doings of his, and though their eyes look kindly on him, yet they smell the rankness of the weed, whilst seeing the fairness of the flower. The odour does not match the show, because he has grown common; the flower has been vulgarly handled. In the next sonnet, the Earl is reminded that the rotting lily smells far worse than the withering weed; the higher the organisation the deeper the degradation. And if the beautiful flower meet with infection, the basest weed is at once a worthier thing. The sonnet implies that the Earl is not one of those who rightly inherit the graces of Heaven, husband Nature's gifts, and are careful stewards of their ten talents, being slow to temptation, and lords and owners of their faces;' on the contrary, he is a prodigal spendthrift, and will do great harm to himself because he has great power. Then, as it seems to me, the Poet suggests that his friend should try his hand at writing. Why not exercise his mind in that way? It would profit him and much enrich his book :

And of this book this learning may'st thou taste.'

That is, he will find in it many reflections and moralisings on the subject of youth's transiency and Time's fleetness.

Readers who are troubled with any lingering misgivings that the Poet had lived a loose life in the companionship of his patron and friend should pause over these sonnets until the mental mist passes away. The fifth, which sets before the young lavish nature such a sensible sober ideal of the wisely-ordered life and disciplined manhood, is a remarkable study. It has been called the life without passion,' and supposed to contain an ironical comment on those whose blood is 'very snow-broth' for coldness! But it is the simple earnest of a serious man, who offers the faithful admonition of an elder friend. A genuine man,