Or I shall live your Epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; You still shall live-such virtue hath my Pen- men. (81.) Thus the Poet speaks of his own death and the death of his friend, with a soul brimful of tender love as the summer dew-drop is of morning sun. No image of disgrace darkens the retrospect of life; all is purity and peace. The sonnets treasure up his better part, and they are to blossom in the dust' with a breath of sweetness and memorial fragrance, when he lies in the ground. Here also is proof, I think, that he did not contemplate being known to the world as the writer of these sonnets when he composed this group. The work was a cherished love-secret on his part, all the dearer for the privacy. He thought of doing it, and he believed it would live, and that his friend and all the love between them should live on in it, but he himself was to steal off unidentified. In the last sonnet, he says : 'Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Clearly the sonnets were to be nameless, so far as the author was concerned, or Shakspeare must have been a NOT TO BE PUBLISHED AS SHAKSPEARE'S. 295 sharer with his friend in both the immortal life and monument! Again, he says, when he is dead 'Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, My name be buried where my body is.' And in Sonnet 76 (p. 254), there is a kind of 'hush!' He speaks of his friend so plainly, that every word doth almost tell my name,' and from whom the Sonnets proceeded, as if that were self-forbidden. He assures his friend of immortality, he speaks of having an interest in the verses, for they contain the better part' of himself consecrated to his friend, but he does not contemplate living in them by name. These sonnets have the authority of parting words, and that in a double sense; for not only are they written when Shakspeare was ill, as I understand him, but they are written when he fancied the Southampton series was just upon finished. How, then, was the immortality to be conferred ? How was the monument erected by Shakspeare to be known as the Earl of Southampton's ? How were the many proud boasts to be fulfilled? In this way I imagine. Sidney had called his prose work 'The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia,' and in all likelihood, when these sonnets were written, it was Shakspeare's intention, if they ever were published, to print them as the Earl of Southampton's. The fact of his having written in the Earl's name points to such a conclusion. This view serves to explain how it was that the Poet could care so little for fame; seem so unconscious of the value of his own work, and yet make so many proud boasts of immortality. It is whilst fighting for his friend that we have this escape of consciousness, if it amounts to that, not whilst speaking of himself, nor whilst contemplating living by name, and the sonnets are to be immortal because they are the Earl of Southampton's, rather than on account of their being William Shakspeare's. DRAMATIC SONNETS. 1601-1603. SOUTHAMPTON, IN THE TOWER, TO HIS COUNTESS. ALSO SHAKSPEARE TO THE EARL IN PRISON, AND UPON HIS RELEASE. THIS is the story of the next group of sonnets :-The Earl of Southampton was, as is well known, tried for treason, along with the Earl of Essex, and condemned to die. His share in the wild attempt at rebellion was undoubtedly owing to his kinship, and to his friendship for the Earl. His youth, his friends, pleaded for him, and his life was spared. He was respited during the Queen's pleasure, after having been left for some weeks under sentence of execution. The sentence being at length commuted, he was kept a close prisoner until her Majesty's death. These three sonnets give us a dramatic representation of the situation. They are spoken by the Earl to his Countess; and they illustrate the facts and circumstances of the time with the most literal exactness, the utmost truth of detail. The Earl is in the Tower, and the shadow of the prison-house creeps darkly over the page as we read. The imprisonment is personified as Time. Time holds the Earl tightly in his grip. Time has the THE TOWER OF LONDON. 297 speaker in his keeping for a while-is absolute master for the moment. This is a very perfect image of imprisonment. But, safely as Time holds him, surely as he has got him, the Earl defies Time still, and says, in spite of this newest, latest, strongest proof of his power, Time shall not boast that he changes. He will still be true to his love. Thy pyramids built up with newer might, to me are nothing novel, nothing strange!' That is, this latest proof of Time's power-he has had many in the course of his love-shall not impose on him in spite of its new shape and its arguments drawn from remote antiquity. 6 "Thy pyramids'-the various towers of which the Tower is composed-built-up anew over my head, with this display of might which has shut me up within them, are only a former sight freshly dressed: I recognise my old foe in a novel mask. You are my old enemy, Time, the tyrant! You have given me many a shrewd fall; you have chafed my spirit sorely; but I still defy your worst. In vain you hold me as in a chamber of torture, and show me the works you have done, the ruin you have wrought. In vain you point with lean finger to all these emblems of mortality and proofs of change, and foist upon me these signs of age. I see the place is rich in Records of times past, and the Registers of bygone things. I know our dates are brief compared with these of yours, but your shows and shadows do not intimidate me; they will not make my spirit quail. I shall not waver or change in my love, however long my imprisonment may last. I defy both yourself and your taunts of triumph. I am not the slave of Time, and it is useless to show me your dates. I wonder neither at the present nor the past. I stand with a firm foot on that which is eternal, and can look calmly on these dissolving views of time. Whatsoever you may cut down, I shall be true, despite thy scythe and thee!' Thus the Earl meditates, shut up in the Tower of London, the grey gloom and ghostly atmosphere of which may be felt in the first sonnet. The reader will perceive how perfect is this interior of the prison-house-this garner of Time's gleanings if it be remembered that the Tower was then the great depository of the public Records and national Registers; the Statute Rolls, Patent Rolls, Parliament Rolls, Bulls, Pardons, Ordinances, Grants, Privy Seals, and antique Charters, dating back to the time of William the Norman. In no place could Time look more imposing and venerable, or be dressed with a greater show of authority, than in the old Tower, standing up grey against the sky; full of strange human relics, and guilty secrets, and awful memories, and the dust of some who are noblest, some who are vilest among our England's dead. The Poet makes only a stroke or two-the 'pyramids' or turrets without; the Registers,' Records,' and ancient dates within; but there we have the Tower, and no picture could possess more truth of local hoary colour. It will give an added force to the speaker's tone of defiance if we remember what a grim reality the Tower was in those days, and what a lively terror to the Elizabethan imagination. A personification of living death! The meditation of the next sonnet is very express. The Earl had endeavoured to marry Elizabeth Vernon for some years before he succeeded. He was compelled to marry her secretly at last. And in this sonnet he rejoices that they were married before his imprisonment occurred. If, he says, he had not effected his purpose in spite of the Queen, and his beloved were now unmarried to him, if his 'love' had remained merely the 'child of state,' the creature of a Court, subject to its policy or the Queen's intention, it would, now he is taken away, have been the veriest bastard of Fortune-a child without a father. If we bear in mind the condition of Elizabeth Vernon previous to the stolen marriage, we shall see the dual meaning of this illustration! Had it been so, he A |