"subject." Mr. Sidney Lee, however, has recently contended that it means procurer," and interprets it of the person by whose instrumentality the Sonnets were obtained for publication, whom he plausibly identifies with a certain William Hall. "Begetter" may be used in this sense, but that this is not its signification here is shown by the circumstance that the "begetter has the poet's, not the publisher's, promise of immortality, no fiction of Thorpe's but made repeatedly in the Sonnets themselves. Granted that the appropriation' involving the publication, of the MS. of the Sonnets was a laudable action, deserving undying fame, how could Shakespeare, writing between 1590 and 1600,

foreknow that Mr. William Hall would entitle himself to this renown in 1609? Nothing, to our apprehension, can be clearer than that, since "begetter" cannot denote the writer, it denotes the cause and subject of the poems, the person for whom and upon whom they were written, and but for whom they would not have been written. at all; the person to whom Shakespeare made that promise which Thorpe is now about to enable him to redeem. For the identification of "Mr. W. H." we have no other clue than the internal evidence of the Sonnets themselves. Five circumstances appear incontestable : that he was a very young mar; that he was greatly Shakespeare's superior in rank; that he was a patron of poets, and himself endowed with literary accomplishments; that he was of attractive personal appearance; that his friends greatly desired him to marry. It further appears to us that, with the exception of the group evidently addressed to a woman, all or nearly all were addressed to the same person-a conclusion established, in our opinion, by the prevalent unity of tone, and by the consideration that, had they been inscribed to a number of different persons, no one could have brought them together but Shakespeare himself. In this case they must have been published with his sanction, and he would never have allowed the misdescription of " Mr. W. H." as their "only begetter." Most of the circumstances above named concur in two persons, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of South

Macklin and Miss Pope as Shylock and Portia in "The Merchant of Venice"

This has been made an objection to the identification of the subject of the Sonnets with "Mr. W. H.," it being contended that a person of title would not be addressed as "Mr." Certainly not, if his identity was to be disclosed; but if concealment was desired, such additional disguise would be natural. And if concealment was not intended, why use initials at all?

SOUTHAMPTON AND PEMBROKE

215

ampton (born 1573), Shakespeare's especial patron, and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (born 1580), " the greatest Mæcenas to learned men of any peer of his time." The initials "W. H." would serve equally well for either, for, if Southampton were the man, they might well have been transposed for the sake of disguise. It seems almost impossible to doubt that either

Southampton or Pembroke is indicated when the poet addresses his friend
as one who has reason to rejoice at the death of Elizabeth. Both lay under
her displeasure: Southampton was in prison, Pembroke banished from Court:
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,

Sonnet on the death of Eliza

beth.

Southampton's claim.

Since, spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

The "mortal moon" is evidently Elizabeth, the Cynthia of the poets

of her day. That the

SHAKE-SPEARES respecting the unfixed suc

SONNETS.

Neuer before Imprinted.

cession; the "incertainties" that so significantly crown themselves relate to the accession of James; and the "olives of endless age" are a compliment to his pacific policy, which soon brought about peace with Spain. In Elizabeth's time there had been neither peace nor the prospect of it. It seems marvellous that there should have been any question about what is so absolutely transparent. A slighter circumstance not devoid of weight may be pointed out. Elizabeth died on March 24. The "drops of this most balmy time" indicate that the sonnet was written in April. Southampton was liberated from the Tower on April 10, and Pembroke made haste to return to Court. "James," says Mr. Lee, "came to England in a springtide of rarely rivalled clemency, which was reckoned of the happiest augury." We may therefore feel sure that Shakespeare's sonnet is a felicitation to a friend on the new reign, and no possible person but Southampton or Pembroke has been suggested.

AT LONDON

By G. Eld for T. T. and are
to be folde by John Wright,dwelling
at Christ Church gate.

1609.

Title-page of the "Sonnets," 1609

The sonnet would certainly appear to fit the imprisoned Southampton better than the merely disgraced Pembroke, though it would suit either. There are, nevertheless, serious objections to the identification of Southampton

RIVAL THEORIES OF THE "SONNETS"

217 with the subject of the poems. It is an almost fatal impediment to his claim that there is no record of his having been urged to marry, except at seventeen, which would correspond to 1590, an impossible date for the Sonnets. After 1594 there could be no question, at least no question raised by an intimate friend, of his marrying any one but Elizabeth Vernon, with whom he had an amour, and the poet's arguments are not of the kind that could be used to persuade a man to marry his mistress. The entire tone of the Sonnets, indeed, is so inconsistent with the probable relations of Shakespeare and Southampton after 1594 that the advocates of the Southampton theory are obliged to assign to them a date

too early for their reach of thought
and poetical power. Even thus a
formidable difficulty arises. There is
a remarkable difference between the
tone of the dedications of the two
poems inscribed by Shakespeare to
Southampton. The formality of the
dedication of Venus and Adonis (1593)
is inconsistent with the feeling dis-
played in the Sonnets, with which the
warmth of the dedication of The Rape
of Lucrece (1594) would accord very
well. It is therefore maintained that
the majority of the Sonnets were com-
posed in 1594; but it seems impossible
that either so much could be written
in so short a time, or so much variety
of psychical experience lived through.
Shakespeare, moreover, says (Sonnet
CIV.) that he had first seen his friend
three years previously, and implies,
though he does not expressly state, that their attachment had kept pace with
their acquaintance. If it had been formed in 1591, the formality of the dedica-
tion of 1593 remains unexplained. Sonnet LV., moreover, apparently alludes
to a passage in Meres's Palladis Tamia, in which case it must be later than
September 1598, when Meres's book was registered for publication.

claim.

No such difficulties beset Pembroke, whose friends were in August 1597 Pembrokes most desirous to marry him to a grand-daughter of the all-powerful Burleigh. It must be supposed that Shakespeare became acquainted with his friend, whoever he was, at the time when marriage was being pressed upon him, for the stream of thought in the Sonnets, beginning with half-earnest conceits and gaining volume and intensity as it proceeds, shows the order to be mainly chronological, and the note of marriage is struck in the very first line :

From fairest creatures we desire increase.

Indications

of dates.

General conclusion.

As has been stated, this pressure was put upon Pembroke in August, and was, no doubt, continued for some time. Shakespeare appears to say that his acquaintance with his friend commenced at the beginning of winter, for he puts the fall of the leaf first among the natural phenomena which succeeded it :

Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned

In process of the seasons have I seen;

Three April p.rfumes in three hot Junes burned

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

In Sonnet XCVII. he deplores his absence from his friend in the autumn, and in Sonnet XCVIII. another absence in April. If these sonnets were

addressed to Southampton in 1594, Southampton must have been absent from town. in the spring and autumn, but of this there is no evidence, and it would reduce the time available for the composition of the Sonnets, upon this theory too short already. But we have positive proof of the absence of Pembroke at both these seasons-in September 1599, when he was called into the country by the illness of his father, and in April 1601, when he was imprisoned for his transgression with Mistress Fitton; though we do not p ess this latter circumstance, as Shakespeare himself appears to have been the absentee. One further indication may be given of the Sonnets not having been composed earlier than 1597. In Sonnet LXVI. Shakespeare, among the miseries that make him wish for death, enumerates "Art made tongue-tied by Authority." What art? Clearly his own, Poetry, especially dramatic poetry. Painting, Sculpture, and Music are evidently out of the question. In 1597 there had been two interferences of Authority with this art which must have touched Shakespeare very nearly. In August 1597 a brother dramatist, Thomas Nash, was visited with a long imprisonment for political allusions in a play entitled The Isle of Dogs, and Henslowe's theatre was closed for a time. In the same year Shakespeare's own Richard II. had to be printed without the deposition scene, which must be supposed to have been omitted from the performance also. The special occasion which extorted the complaint in the sonnet may have been the destruction of Marlowe's translation of Ovid's Amores, and of Marston's Pygmalion, by order of the Archbishop in 1599.

We, therefore, conclude that, while the Sonnets were certainly addressed for the most part either to Southampton or to Pembroke-and Southampton is not entirely out of the question-the evidence derived from dates and the