[14]Page 28,supra.
[15]In Lee'sLife of Shakespeare, p. 143, appear some statements so relevant to this discussion that I cannot forbear quoting them:
"Octavius Cæsar at thirty-two is described by Mark Antony after the battle of Actium as the 'boy Cæsar' who 'wears the rose of youth' (Antony and Cleopatra, III., ii., 17seq.). Spenser in hisAstrophelapostrophizes Sir Philip Sidney on his death near the close of his thirty-second year as 'oh wretched boy' (l. 133) and 'luckless boy' (l. 142)."
"Octavius Cæsar at thirty-two is described by Mark Antony after the battle of Actium as the 'boy Cæsar' who 'wears the rose of youth' (Antony and Cleopatra, III., ii., 17seq.). Spenser in hisAstrophelapostrophizes Sir Philip Sidney on his death near the close of his thirty-second year as 'oh wretched boy' (l. 133) and 'luckless boy' (l. 142)."
I was at a public dinner given some years ago, at which General Henry W. Slocum and Colonel Fred Grant were both speakers. In his remarks, the General, having stated that his friend the Colonel spoke to him about being a candidate for an office, continued, "I said to him, 'Why, Fred, you are a mere boy,' and his answer to me was, 'Why, General, I am as old as my father was when he took Vicksburg.'" General Grant was then forty years old.
[16]Post., pp. 68-70.
[17]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 19-22.
[18]Post., pp. 66-68.
[19]Post., pp. 60-66.
[20]Post., p. 66.
[21]Lee'sShakespeare, p. 85.
Sonnets LV. and LXXXI. are as follows:
Not marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;Butyoushall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.When wasteful war shall statues overturn,And broils root out the work of masonry,Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burnThe living record ofyour memory.'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmityShallyoupace forth; your praise shall still find roomEven in the eyes of all posterityThat wear this world out to the ending doom.So, till the judgment that yourself arise,Youlive in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.Or I shall live your epitaph to make,Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;From henceyourmemory death cannot take,Although inmeeach part will be forgotten.Yourname from hence immortal life shall have,Though I, once gone,to all the world must die:The earth can yieldmebut a common grave,Whenyouentombed in men's eyes shall lie.Your monumentshall bemy gentle verse,Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;And tongues to beyourbeing shall rehearse,When all the breathers of this world are dead;Youstill shall live—such virtue hathmypen—Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
In all the plays and poems of Shakespeare, including these Sonnets, there is no mention of any man or woman then living. The only mention of a person then living made by our poet, either in prose or verse, is in the dedication of the two poems to the Earl of Southampton. To Shakespeare, to Shakespeare alone, have the Shakespearean poems and plays been a monument; and for him have they done precisely that which the poet says his "gentle verse" was to do for his friend; and they have not done so in any degree for any other.
An anonymous writer in Chambers'sEdinburgh Journal, in August, 1852, seems to have been one of the first to suggest the doubt asto the authorship of the Shakespearean plays. His suggestion was that their real author was "some pale, wasted student ... with eyes of genius gleaming through despair" who found in Shakespeare a purchaser, a publisher, a friend, and a patron. If that theory is correct, the man that penned those Sonnets sleeps, as he said he would, in an unrecorded grave, while his publisher, friend and patron, precisely as he also said, has a place in the Pantheon of the immortals.
Very many of these Sonnets seem to be evolved from, or kindred to, the thought so sharply presented in Sonnets LV. and LXXXI. I would refer the reader particularly to Sonnets XXXVIII., XLIX., LXXI., LXXII, and LXXXVIII. The last two lines of Sonnet LXXI. are as follows:
Lest thewiseworld should look into your moan,And mock you with me after I am gone.
The first lines of Sonnet LXXII. are as follows:
O! lest the world should task you to reciteWhat merit lived in me, that you should loveAfter my death, dear love, forget me quite,For you in me can nothing worthy prove;Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,To do more for me than mine own desert,And hang more praise upon deceased IThanniggardtruth wouldwillinglyimpart:
Many of these Sonnets, which otherwise seem entirely inexplicable, and which have for that reason been held to be imitations or strange and unnatural conceits, become true and genuine and much more poetic, if we conceive them to be written, not by the accredited author of the Shakespearean dramas, but by the unnamed and unknown student whose connection with them was carefully concealed. I suggest that the reader test this statement by carefully reading the four Sonnets last mentioned.
The claim for a literal reading of Sonnet LXXXI. is greatly strengthened by its context, by reading it with the group of Sonnets of which it forms a part. Sonnets LXXVII. to XC. all more or less relate to another poet, who, the author fears, has supplanted him in the affection, or it may be, in the patronage ofhis friend. That particularly appears in Sonnet LXXXVI.:
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,Bound for the prize of all too precious you,That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?Was ithisspirit, by spirits taught to writeAbove a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?No, neither he, nor his compeers by nightGiving him aid, my verse astonished.He, nor that affable familiar ghostWhich nightly gulls him with intelligence,As victors, of my silence cannot boast;I was not sick of any fear from thence:But when your countenance fill'd up his line,Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.
That what is there stated as to another poet refers to an actual transaction, and is to be read literally, is recognized, I think, by all critics; and many have thought that the description contained in the Sonnet quoted indicates Chapman, who translated theIliadabout that time. It is in this group of Sonnets, referring to another poet, that we find Sonnet LXXXI. The thought of the entire group iscomplaint, perhaps jealousy, of a rival poet; and running through them all are allusions or statements which seem to have been intended to strengthen the ties between him and his friend,—to hold him if he meditated going, and to bring him back if he had already strayed. It was obviously for that purpose that Sonnet LXXXI., one of the central Sonnets of that group, was written; and, considered as written for that purpose, how apt and true its language appears! The poet, asserting that his verse is immortal, says to his friend, the immortality it confers is yours; "your name from hence immortal life shall have," but I shall have no share in that fame; "in me each part will be forgotten," and "earth can yield me but a common grave." Though the Sonnet is in the highest degree poetic, as a bare statement of fact it is perfectly apt and appropriate to that which was the obvious purpose of this group of Sonnets.
It is sometimes claimed that the author of the Shakespearean plays was a lawyer. Certainly he was a logician and a rhetorician. The clash of minds and of speech appearing inJuliusCæsar, inAntony and Cleopatra, inHenry IV., and in many other plays, shows a most wonderful facility for stating a case, for presenting an argument. Let us then assume that the poet was simply stating his own case against a rival poet, presenting his own appeal,—and the verse at once has added dignity and passion, and we almost feel the poet's heart throb. Of course the final question—whether or not the two Sonnets printed at the head of this chapter were founded on the conditions and situations they state, and whether or not they express actual feelings and emotions—must be answered by each from a careful reading of the Sonnets themselves. To me, however, their message of sadness, loneliness, and implied appeal seems as clear and certain as the portrayal of agony in the marble of Laocoön.
That Sonnet LV., and perhaps in some degree Sonnet LXXXI., are moulded after verses of Ovid or Horace, is often mentioned. And it is mentioned as though that somehow detracted from their meaning or force. That fact seems to me rather to reinforce that meaning. The words of Ovid are translated as follows:
Now have I brought a work to an end which neither Jove's fierce wrath,Nor sword nor fire nor fretting age with all the force it hath,Are able to abolish quite.[22]
The Ode of Horace has been translated as follows:
A monument on stable base,More strong than Brass, my Name shall grace;Than Regal Pyramids more highWhich Storms and Years unnumber'd shall defy.My nobler Part shall swiftly riseAbove this Earth, and claim the Skies.[23]
Agreeing that the poet had in mind the words of Ovid and of Horace and believed that his productions would outlast bronze or marble, we see that, so far following their thoughts, by a quick transition he says that not he, but his friend, is to have the immortality that his poetry will surely bring. While this comparison with the Latin poems may not much aid an interpretation that seemed clear and certain without it, at least its sudden rending fromtheir thought does not weaken, but strengthens the effect of the statement that the writer was to have no part in the immortality of his own poetry.
It may be said that it is entirely improbable that the author of the greater of the Shakespearean plays should have allowed their guerdon of fame and immortality to pass to and remain with another. But if we accept the results of the later criticism, we must then agree,—that there were at least three poets who wrought in and for the Shakespearean plays, that two of the three consented that their work should go to the world as that of another, and that at least one of the two was a poet of distinctive excellence. At that time the publication and sale of books was very limited and the relative rights of publishers and authors were such that the author had but little or none of the pecuniary results. The theatre was the most promising and hence the most usual market for literary work, and it seems certain that poets and authors sold their literary productions to the managers of theatres, retaining no title or interest in them.However the poet of the Shakespearean plays may have anticipated the verdict of posterity, the plays bear most abundant evidence that they were written to be acted, to entertain and please, and to bring patrons and profit to the theatres which were in the London of three hundred years ago.
Boucicault was the publisher and accredited author of one hundred and thirty plays. But no one would deem it improbable that in them is the work of another, or of many other dramatists.
I submit that the argument from probabilities is without force against the clear and unambiguous statements of the Sonnets quoted in this chapter.
Footnotes:
[22]Ovid's Metamorphoses, xv., 871-9.
[23]Horace, Book III., Ode XXX.
The Sonnets certainly reveal their author in an attitude of appeal, more or less open and direct, for the love or favor of his friend. No fervor of compliment or protestation of affection allows him to forget or conceal this purpose. When, as is indicated by Sonnets LXXVII. to XC., he feared that his friend was transferring his favor or patronage to another poet, his anxiety became acute, and in that group he compared not only his poetry, but his flattery and commendation with that of his rival. In Sonnets XXXII. to XXXVII., portraying his grief at his friend's unkindness, he hastens to forgive; and, as already stated, in Sonnets XL. to XLIII. and CXXVII. to CLII., chiding his friend for having accepted the love of his mistress, he crowns him withpoetic garlands of compliment and adulation. Smitten on one cheek, not only does he turn the other, but he bestows kisses and caresses on the hand that gave the blow.
All we know of the character of Shakespeare indicates that he was neither meek and complacent, nor quick and eager in forgiving; but that his character in those aspects was quite the reverse of the character of the author of the Sonnets.
Mr. Lee states the effect or result of the various traditions as to Shakespeare's poaching experiences, and his resentment of the treatment he had received, as follows[24]:
'And his [Shakespeare's] sporting experiences passed at times beyond orthodox limits. A poaching adventure, according to acredible[25] tradition, was the immediate cause of his long severance from his native place. "He had," wrote Rowe in 1709, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and among them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engagedhim with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman,as he thought, somewhat too severely; and,in order to revengethat ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost,yet it is said to have been so very bitterthat it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire and shelter himself in London." The independent testimony of Archdeacon Davies, who was vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershire, late in the seventeenth century, is to the effect that Shakespeare "was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oft whipt, and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native county to his great advancement." The law of Shakespeare's day (5 Eliz., cap. 21) punished deer-stealers with three months' imprisonment and the payment of thrice the amount of the damage done.The tradition has been challenged on the ground that the Charlecote deer-park was of later date than the sixteenth century. But Sir Thomas Lucy was an extensive game-preserver, and owned at Charlecote a warren inwhich a few harts or does doubtless found an occasional home. Samuel Ireland was informed in 1794 that Shakespeare stole the deer, not from Charlecote, but from Fulbroke Park, a few miles off, and Ireland supplied in hisViews on the Warwickshire Avon, 1795, an engraving of an old farmhouse in the hamlet of Fulbroke, where he asserted that Shakespeare was temporarily imprisoned after his arrest. An adjoining hovel was locally known for some years as Shakespeare's "deer-barn," but no portion of Fulbroke Park, which included the site of these buildings (now removed), was Lucy's property in Elizabeth's reign, and the amended legend, which was solemnly confided to Sir Walter Scott in 1828 by the owner of Charlecote, seems pure invention.The ballad which Shakespeare is reported to have fastened on the park gates of Charlecote, does not, as Rowe acknowledged, survive. No authenticity can be allowed the worthless lines beginning, "A parliament member, a justice of peace," which were represented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old man who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. Butsuch an incident as the tradition reveals has left a distinct impress on Shakespearean drama. Justice Shallow is beyond doubt areminiscence of the owner of Charlecote.[26] According to Archdeacon Davies of Saperton, Shakespeare's "revengewas so great" that he caricatured Lucy as "Justice Clodpate," who was (Davies adds) represented on the stage as "a great man" and as bearing, in allusion to Lucy's name, "three louses rampant for his arms." Justice Shallow, Davies's "Justice Clodpate," came to birth in the Second Part ofHenry IV.(1598), and he is represented in the opening scene of theMerry Wives of Windsoras having come from Gloucestershire to Windsor to make a Star-Chamber matter of a poaching raid on his estate. The "three luces hauriant argent" were the arms borne by the Charlecote Lucys, and the dramatist's prolonged reference in this scene to the "dozen white luces" on Justice Shallow's "old coat" fully establishes Shallow's identity with Lucy.The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585, but it may be questioned whether Shakespeare, on fleeing from Lucy's persecution, at once sought an asylum in London.'
'And his [Shakespeare's] sporting experiences passed at times beyond orthodox limits. A poaching adventure, according to acredible[25] tradition, was the immediate cause of his long severance from his native place. "He had," wrote Rowe in 1709, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and among them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engagedhim with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman,as he thought, somewhat too severely; and,in order to revengethat ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost,yet it is said to have been so very bitterthat it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire and shelter himself in London." The independent testimony of Archdeacon Davies, who was vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershire, late in the seventeenth century, is to the effect that Shakespeare "was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oft whipt, and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native county to his great advancement." The law of Shakespeare's day (5 Eliz., cap. 21) punished deer-stealers with three months' imprisonment and the payment of thrice the amount of the damage done.
The tradition has been challenged on the ground that the Charlecote deer-park was of later date than the sixteenth century. But Sir Thomas Lucy was an extensive game-preserver, and owned at Charlecote a warren inwhich a few harts or does doubtless found an occasional home. Samuel Ireland was informed in 1794 that Shakespeare stole the deer, not from Charlecote, but from Fulbroke Park, a few miles off, and Ireland supplied in hisViews on the Warwickshire Avon, 1795, an engraving of an old farmhouse in the hamlet of Fulbroke, where he asserted that Shakespeare was temporarily imprisoned after his arrest. An adjoining hovel was locally known for some years as Shakespeare's "deer-barn," but no portion of Fulbroke Park, which included the site of these buildings (now removed), was Lucy's property in Elizabeth's reign, and the amended legend, which was solemnly confided to Sir Walter Scott in 1828 by the owner of Charlecote, seems pure invention.
The ballad which Shakespeare is reported to have fastened on the park gates of Charlecote, does not, as Rowe acknowledged, survive. No authenticity can be allowed the worthless lines beginning, "A parliament member, a justice of peace," which were represented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old man who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. Butsuch an incident as the tradition reveals has left a distinct impress on Shakespearean drama. Justice Shallow is beyond doubt areminiscence of the owner of Charlecote.[26] According to Archdeacon Davies of Saperton, Shakespeare's "revengewas so great" that he caricatured Lucy as "Justice Clodpate," who was (Davies adds) represented on the stage as "a great man" and as bearing, in allusion to Lucy's name, "three louses rampant for his arms." Justice Shallow, Davies's "Justice Clodpate," came to birth in the Second Part ofHenry IV.(1598), and he is represented in the opening scene of theMerry Wives of Windsoras having come from Gloucestershire to Windsor to make a Star-Chamber matter of a poaching raid on his estate. The "three luces hauriant argent" were the arms borne by the Charlecote Lucys, and the dramatist's prolonged reference in this scene to the "dozen white luces" on Justice Shallow's "old coat" fully establishes Shallow's identity with Lucy.
The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585, but it may be questioned whether Shakespeare, on fleeing from Lucy's persecution, at once sought an asylum in London.'
Halliwell gives the following traditions of Shakespeare's sharp encounters or exchanges of wit[27]:
Mr. Ben Jonson and Mr. Wm. Shakespeare being merry at a tavern, Mr. Jonson having begun this for his epitaph,—
Here lies Ben Jonson, that was once one,
he gives it to Mr. Shakespeare to make up, who presently writes,
Who while he lived was a slow thingAnd now being dead is nothing.
Another version is:
Here lies Jonson,Who was one's sonHe had a little hair on his chin,His name was Benjamin!
an amusing allusion to his personal appearance, as any one may see who will turn to Ben's portrait.
Jonson.If but stage actors all the world displaysWhere shall we find spectators of their plays?Shakespeare.Little or much of what we see we do;We are all both actors and spectators too.Ten in the hundred lies here ingrav'd;'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved;If any man ask, Who lies in this tomb?Oh! oh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.Who lies in this tomb?Hough, quoth the devil, 'tis my son, John-Combe.
The tradition is that the subject of the last six lines having died, Shakespeare then composed an epitaph as follows:
Howe'er he lived, judge not,John Combe shall never be forgot,While poor hath memory, for he did gatherTo make the poor his issue; he their father,As record of his tilth and seed,Did crown him, in his latter need.
This is said to have been composed of a brother of John-a-Combe:
Thin in beard, and thick in purse,Never man beloved worse,He went to the grave with many a curse,The devil and he had both one nurse.
A blacksmith is said to have accosted Shakespeare with,—
Now, Mr. Shakespeare, tell me, if you can,The difference between a youth and a young man?
To which the poet immediately replied,—
Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple,The same difference as between a scalded and a coddled apple.
An old tradition reports that being awakened after a prolonged carouse, and asked to renew the contest, he refused, saying, I have drunk with
Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,Haunted Hillborough, and Hungry GraftonWith Dadging Exhall, Papist WixfordBeggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.
The lines inscribed on the slab above his grave, preventing the removal of his bones, according to the custom of that time, to the adjacent charnel-house, are as follows:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeareTo dig the dust enclosed heare;Bleste be the man that spare these stones,And curst be he that moves my bones.[28]
Mr. Lee gives a statement as to Shakespeare's propensity to litigation as follows[29]:
'As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he bought for £440 of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of £17 to the Corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease's expiration, and of £5 to John Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most favorable circumstances, no more than an annuity of £38; and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to the Corporation led that body to demand from the poet payments justly due from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard Lane of Awston, and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all the tithe-owners, and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is unknown. His acquisition of a part ownership in the tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation, and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business relations.In March, 1600, he recovered in London a debt of £7 from one John Clayton. In July, 1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom he had supplied since the preceding March malt to the value of £1 19s.10d., and had on June 25th lent 2s.in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, £1 15s.10d.During 1608 and 1609 he was at law with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke. On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was apparently represented by his solicitor and kinsman, Thomas Greene, obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of £6 and £1 5s.costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby, who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail.'
'As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he bought for £440 of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of £17 to the Corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease's expiration, and of £5 to John Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most favorable circumstances, no more than an annuity of £38; and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to the Corporation led that body to demand from the poet payments justly due from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard Lane of Awston, and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all the tithe-owners, and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is unknown. His acquisition of a part ownership in the tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.
Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation, and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business relations.In March, 1600, he recovered in London a debt of £7 from one John Clayton. In July, 1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom he had supplied since the preceding March malt to the value of £1 19s.10d., and had on June 25th lent 2s.in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, £1 15s.10d.During 1608 and 1609 he was at law with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke. On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was apparently represented by his solicitor and kinsman, Thomas Greene, obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of £6 and £1 5s.costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby, who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail.'
The same author gives the following statement as to his reputation forsportive adventure[30]:
'Hamlet, Othello, and Lear wererôlesin which he [Burbage] gained especial renown.But Burbage and Shakespeare were popularly credited with co-operation in less solemn enterprises. They were reputed to be companions in manysportiveadventures. The sole anecdote of Shakespeare that ispositively known to have been recorded in his lifetimerelates that Burbage, when playing Richard III., agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that "William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third."Such gossip possibly deserves little more acceptance than the later story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William D'Avenant. The latter was baptized at Oxford, on March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story of Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant was long current in Oxford, and was at times complacently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare is known to have been a welcome guest at John D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, boasted of the kindly notice which the poet took of him as a child. It is safer to adopt the less compromising version whichmakes Shakespeare the godfather of the boy William instead of his father.But the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the assumption that Shakespeare was known to his contemporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue.'
'Hamlet, Othello, and Lear wererôlesin which he [Burbage] gained especial renown.But Burbage and Shakespeare were popularly credited with co-operation in less solemn enterprises. They were reputed to be companions in manysportiveadventures. The sole anecdote of Shakespeare that ispositively known to have been recorded in his lifetimerelates that Burbage, when playing Richard III., agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that "William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third."
Such gossip possibly deserves little more acceptance than the later story, in the same key, which credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William D'Avenant. The latter was baptized at Oxford, on March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story of Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant was long current in Oxford, and was at times complacently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare is known to have been a welcome guest at John D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, boasted of the kindly notice which the poet took of him as a child. It is safer to adopt the less compromising version whichmakes Shakespeare the godfather of the boy William instead of his father.But the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the assumption that Shakespeare was known to his contemporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue.'
All the extracts I have here quoted are from writers who admit no question as to the authorship of the Shakespearean plays. And there is nothing which they or any biography or tradition bring to us which presents any act or characteristic at all at variance with the indications of these quotations. And it is very remarkable how strong is the concurrence of indications, from the slab above his grave, from old, musty, and otherwise forgotten records of court proceedings, and from traditions, whether from the hamlet of his birth or the city where he wrought and succeeded.
I have not quoted the lines which have been variously handed down as those which the young Shakespeare affixed to the gate of the wealthy and powerful Sir Thomas Lucy. Their authenticity is doubtful.[31] But that theboy Shakespeare, weak and helpless for such a struggle, resented his treatment and answered back with the only weapon he had, risking and enduring being driven from his home and birthplace, and kept good the grudge in the days of his success, I think cannot be doubted. The records of court proceedings, the imprecation above his grave, both indicate a man of strong will and not unaccustomed to mastery. We may reject one or another of the retorts or sallies in verse, but we must, I think, agree, that the fact that they are brought to us by recorded and very old traditions, indicates a character or repute in accordance with their implication; and especially must this be so, when we find that they agree with the indications of other evidence not in any degree in question. These various indications support each other like the bundle of sticks which together could not be broken. From them I think we learn that Shakespeare, however pleasant or attractive at times, was not a man yielding or complacent to opposition or injury; but that he was a man of fighting blood or instincts, quick in wit and repartee, apt andinclined for aggressive sally, ready to slash and lay about him in all encounters,—in short, a very Mercutio in temperament, and in the lively and constant challenges of his life.
I submit that the records we have of the life of William Shakespeare concur in indicating a man who could not have written the Sonnets under the circumstances and with the motives which they reveal.
It should not be overlooked that at the time these Sonnets were written, certainly as early as 1597 or 1598, Shakespeare was above pecuniary want, and had begun to make investments, and apparently regarded himself and was regarded as a wealthy man.[32]
Footnotes:
[24]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 27-29.
[25]The italics in this and all the following quotations are my own.
[26]As I have said elsewhere, I do not contend that Shakespeare did not have a part and a large part in the production of the Shakespearean plays. My insistence is only that he was not the transcendent genius to whom we owe their wonderful and unrivalled poetry.
[27]Halliwell'sShakespeare, pp. 186, 187, 232, 241-245.
[28]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 272, 273.
[29]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 205, 206.
[30]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 264-266.
[31]The different versions of those lines are printed in the appendix.
[32]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 193-196.
As has been said before, the Sonnets obviously have a common theme. They celebrate his friend, his beauty, his winning and lovable qualities, leading the poet to forgive and to continue to love, even when his friend has supplanted him in the favors of his mistress. They are replete with compliment and adulation. Little side views or perspectives are introduced with a marvellous facility of invention; and yet in them all, even in the invocation to marry, in the jealousy of another poet, in the railing to or of his false mistress, is the face or thought of his friend, apparently his patron. No other poet, it seems to me, could have filled two thousand lines of poetry with thoughts to, of, or relating to one person of his own sex. Who that person was criticshave not agreed. But that he was a person who was somehow connected with the life-work of the poet seems beyond dispute.
Mr. Lee, speaking of the purpose of the Sonnets, at pages 125 and 126, says:
'Twenty Sonnets, which may for purposes of exposition be entitled "dedicatory" Sonnets, are addressed to one who is declared without periphrasis and without disguise to be a patron of the poet's verse (Nos. XXIII., XXVI., XXXII., XXXVII., XXXVIII., LXIX., LXXVII.-LXXXVI., C., CI., CIII., CVI.). In one of these,—Sonnet LXXVIII.,—Shakespeare asserted:So oft have I invoked thee for my MuseAnd found such fair assistance in my verseAs every alien pen hath got my useAndunder thee their poesy disperse.Subsequently he regretfully pointed out how his patron's readiness to accept the homage of other poets seemed to be thrusting him from the enviable place of pre-eminence in his patron's esteem.Shakespeare's biographer is under an obligation to attempt an identification of the persons whose relations with the poet are defined soexplicitly. The problem presented by the patron is simple. Shakespeare states unequivocally that he has no patron but one.Sing [sc. O Muse!] to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,And gives thy pen both skill and argument (C. 7-8).For to no other pass my verses tendThan of yourgraces and your gifts to tell(CIII. 11-12).The Earl of Southampton, the patron of his narrative poems, is the only patron of Shakespeare that is known to biographical research. No contemporary document or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shakespeare was the friend or dependent of any other man of rank.'
'Twenty Sonnets, which may for purposes of exposition be entitled "dedicatory" Sonnets, are addressed to one who is declared without periphrasis and without disguise to be a patron of the poet's verse (Nos. XXIII., XXVI., XXXII., XXXVII., XXXVIII., LXIX., LXXVII.-LXXXVI., C., CI., CIII., CVI.). In one of these,—Sonnet LXXVIII.,—Shakespeare asserted:
So oft have I invoked thee for my MuseAnd found such fair assistance in my verseAs every alien pen hath got my useAndunder thee their poesy disperse.
Subsequently he regretfully pointed out how his patron's readiness to accept the homage of other poets seemed to be thrusting him from the enviable place of pre-eminence in his patron's esteem.
Shakespeare's biographer is under an obligation to attempt an identification of the persons whose relations with the poet are defined soexplicitly. The problem presented by the patron is simple. Shakespeare states unequivocally that he has no patron but one.
Sing [sc. O Muse!] to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,And gives thy pen both skill and argument (C. 7-8).For to no other pass my verses tendThan of yourgraces and your gifts to tell(CIII. 11-12).
The Earl of Southampton, the patron of his narrative poems, is the only patron of Shakespeare that is known to biographical research. No contemporary document or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shakespeare was the friend or dependent of any other man of rank.'
This quotation has been made because it is fair and accurate, because of the high authority of the book, but principally because it is the view of one who has no doubt that Shakespeare was the author of the Shakespearean plays. Research and ingenuity have been taxed to ascertain who was the unnamed and mysterious friend at whose feet are laid so many poetic wreaths, woven by such a master.All discussion has assumed that this friend was a patron, who somehow greatly aided the poet, and to whom the poet felt himself greatly indebted. And so it was at once suggested that his friend was one of the nobility or peers of that age.
The Earl of Southampton (to whom by nameVenus and AdonisandLucrecewere dedicated) has been very generally assumed to be the person intended. Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] has also been presented as the unnamed friend.
I think the Sonnets contain internal evidence that they were not addressed to either of these peers,and were not addressed to any one of their class.
It is very remarkable how narrow is the range of these Sonnets,—how little they say, convey or indicate as to the person to whom they were addressed. From the first seventeen Sonnets we infer that the poet understood that his friend was unmarried; a line in Sonnet III. perhaps indicates a peculiar pride in his mother, and that it pleased him to be told that he resembled her; from a line in Sonnet XX., "Aman in hue," etc., it has been inferred that his friend's beard or hair was auburn, and from Sonnets CXXXV. and CXXXVI. it has been inferred that his friend was familiarly called "Will," or at any rate that his name was William. Obviously he was in some way a patron or helper to our poet, and to another poet as well[33]; he superseded the poet in the favors of his mistress; he was beautiful, attractive, genial, and sunny in disposition; that he was not infrequently responsive to lascivious love is indicated.[34] We have already fully considered what the Sonnets indicate as to his age. And now I put the inquiry: Is there anything else as to the poet's friend that these two thousand lines of poetry state or indicate? With diligent search I can find in all those lines no other fact indicated or stated as to this mysterious friend or patron.
In Sonnet CXXIV. the poet says:
Ifmy dear love were butthe child of state,It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd.
From that it has been argued that his friend was of the nobility, a "child of state."
Reading those two lines, or reading the entire Sonnet, it seems clear that if they contain any indication as to the station of his friend, the indication is rather against than in favor of his being of the nobility, "a child of state."
I do not think, however, that the lines allow any clear or certain deduction either way, but have called attention to them because they are often cited on this point.
In Sonnet XIII. occurs the line,
Who lets so fair ahousefall to decay.
The word "house" as there used has been interpreted as though used in the sense of the House of York, and so made an implication that his friend was of a lordly line. Such a far-fetched and unusual interpretation should not be adopted unless clearly indicated. And the context clearly indicates that the phrase "so fair a house" is used as a metaphor for the poet's fair and beautiful body. If this inquiry were to be affected by far-drawn or even doubtful interpretations, I might quote fromSonnet LXXXVI. There the poet, referring to his rival, says:
But when yourcountenancefill'd up his line.
By merely limiting the wordcountenanceto its primary meaning, we may have the inference that his rival's verse was spoken oractedby his friend, and so that his friend was an actor. I do not think, however, that either of the two lines last cited are entitled to any weight as argument, but they illustrate the distinction between lines or Sonnets which may be the basis of surmise or conjecture, and those elsewhere cited, to which two different effects cannot be given without rending their words from their natural meaning.
The Earl of Southampton was born in 1573. He bore an historic name; fields, forests, and castles were his and had come to him from his ancestors; all of England that was most beautiful or most attractive was in the circle in which he moved and to which his presence contributed. In 1595 he appeared in the lists at a tournament in honor of the Queen; in 1596 and 1597 he joined in dangerous and successful naval and military expeditions; in 1598 he was married.[35] Is it conceivable that two thousand lines of adulatory poetry could have been written to and of him, and no hint appear of incidents like these? It is simply incredible. What is omitted rather than what is said clearly indicates that the life of the poet's friend presented no such incidents,—indeed no incidents which the poet chronicler of court and camp would interweave in his garlands of loving compliment.
Urging his friend to marry, the poet, comparing the harmony of music to a happy marriage, in Sonnet VIII. says:
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;Resembling sire and child and happy mother,Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."
But is it not a little strange that the pen that drew Rosalind and Juliet should have gone no farther, when by a touch he could have filled it with suggestions of the fair, thestately and the titled maidens who were in the court life of that day, and whose names and faces and reputed characters must have been known to the poet, whatever his place or station in London? How would a tracing of a mother, nobly born, or of a lordly but deceased father, of some old castle, of some fair eminence, of some grand forest, or of ancestral oaks shading fair waters, have lightened the picture! And could the poet who gave us the magnificent pictures of English kings and queens, princes and lords—could that poet, writing to and of one of the fairest of the courtly circle of the reign of Elizabeth, so withhold his pen that it gives no hint that his friend was in or of that circle, or any suggestion of his most happy and fortunate surroundings? Surely, in painting so fully the beauties of his friend, the poet would have allowed to appear some hint of the beauty of light and color in which he moved.
I have before me in the book of Mr. Lee, a copy of the picture of the Earl of Southampton painted in Welbeck Abbey. The dress is of the court; and the sword, the armor, the plumeand rich drapery all indicate a member of the nobility. Could our great poet in so many lines of extreme compliment and adulation have always omitted any reference to the insignia of rank which were almost a part of the young Earl; and would he always have escaped all reference to coronet or sword, to lands or halls, or to any of the employments or sports, privileges or honors, then much more than now, distinctive of a peer of the realm?
And all that is here said equally repels the inference that these Sonnets were addressed to any person connected with the nobility. The claim that they were addressed to Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] I think is exploded, if it ever had substance.[36] Lord Pembroke did not come to London until 1598 and was then but eighteen years old. There is not a particle of evidence that he and Shakespeare had any relations or intimacy whatever.
While I regard the view that the Sonnets were addressed to Southampton as entirely untenable, it nevertheless has this basis,—two of the Shakespearean poems were dedicated to Southampton. At least we may say that, if they were addressed to any person of that class, there is a strong probability in his favor. And in order to consider that claim I would ask the reader to turn back to Sonnet II.,page 23. That certainly is one of the very earliest of the Sonnets, almost certainly written when Shakespeare was not older than thirty and Southampton not over twenty-one years of age. With these facts in mind, the assumption that those lines were addressed to the Earl of Southampton becomes altogether improbable. Can we imagine a man of thirty, in the full glow of a vigorous and successful life, saying to a friend of twenty-one,—you should marry now, because when you areforty yearsold (about twice your present age and ten years above my own) your beauty will have faded and your blood be cold?
We should not so slander the author of the Shakespearean plays.
The language of the Sonnets implies a familiarity and equality of intercourse not consistent with the theory that they were addressedto a peer of England by a person in Shakespeare's position.[37]
The dedication ofLucrece, which apparently was written in 1593, omits no reference to title, and envinces no disposition or privilege to ignore the rank or dignities of the Earl. I will quote no particular Sonnet on this point; but the impression which the entire series seems to me to convey, is that the poet was addressing a friend separated from him by no distinction of rank. Sonnets XCVI. and XCVII. are instances of such familiarity of address and communication.
On the other hand, there is not a single indication which the Sonnets contain as to the poet's friend which in any manner disagrees with what we know of Shakespeare. It may be said that being married the invocation to marry could not have been addressed to him.But the test is,—how did he pass, how was he known in London, as married or unmarried? He is supposed to have come to London in 1586, or when he was twenty-two years of age, and he was then married and had three children. He remained in London about twenty-five years, and there is no indication that any member of his family ever resided there or visited him, and the clear consensus of opinion seems to be that they did not.[38] The indications that he had little love for his wife are regrettably clear.[39] When the earlier Sonnets were written he must have been living there about nine years, and must have had an income sufficient easily to have maintained his family in the city.[40] That he led a life notoriously free as to women cannot be questioned. Traditions elsewhere referred to so indicate[41]; and whether the Sonnets were written by or to him they equally so testify. Under such circumstances his friends or acquaintances would not be led to presume that he was married, but would assume the contrary. They would have done or considered precisely as we do, classing our friends as married or unmarried, as their mode of life indicates. Hence the invocation to marry is entirely consistent with the theory that the Sonnets were addressed to Shakespeare. When Sonnet CIV. was written, the poet had known his friend but three years[42]; the Sonnets referring to marriage are printed first, and very probably were written much earlier than Sonnet CIV., and perhaps when their acquaintance was first formed. The fact that the appeal ceases with the seventeenth Sonnet, and that after that there is not even a hint of marrying, or of female excellence and beauty, perhaps indicates that the first seventeen Sonnets had provoked a disclosure which restrained the poet from further reference to those subjects.
The starting point in this chapter is the fact stated by Mr. Lee, and I think conceded or assumed by all writers on these Sonnets,—that they were written to some one intimately connected with the Shakespearean plays, either as a patron or in some other manner. Many, perhaps all, of the plays were produced, and in that way published, at the theatre where Shakespeare acted. Those of the higher class or order as well as those of the lower class were published as his. Those most strenuous in supporting the claims of authorship for Shakespeare, have, I think, generally conceded that the plays, as we now have them, reveal in various parts the work of more than one author. And from that it has been suggested that Shakespeare must have had a fellow-worker,—a collaborator. Lee'sShakespeare, Brandes'sCritical Study of Shakespeare, and the Temple edition of Shakespeare's works, are practically agreed on this fact in relation toHenry VI.,Henry VIII.,Titus Andronicus, and some other plays. There must have been a very considerable degree of intercourse between the two persons who worked together even on a single one of these plays. And there are Sonnets which at least suggest adegree and kind of intercourse and communication between the poet and his friend which such a relation would require.
Chiding his friend for absence in Sonnets LVII. and LVIII., the poet indicates such waiting and watching as would come to him had their relations been very intimate, and perhaps indicates that he and his friend lodged together.
Those Sonnets are as follows:
Being your slave, what should I do but tendUpon thehoursand times of your desire?I have no precious time at all to spend,Norservicesto do,till you require.Nor dare I chide theworld-without-end hourWhilst I, my sovereign,watch the clock for you,Nor think the bitterness of absence sourWhen you have bid your servant once adieu;Nor dare I question with my jealous thoughtWhere you may be, or your affairs suppose,But,like a sad slave, stayand think of noughtSave,where you are how happyyou make those.So true a fool is love that in your will,Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.That God forbid that made me first your slave,I shouldin thought control your times of pleasure,Or at your hand the account ofhoursto crave,Being your vassal,bound to stay your leisure!O, let me suffer, being at your beck,The imprison'd absence of your liberty;And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,Without accusing you of injury.Be where you list, your charter is so strongThatyou yourself may privilege your timeTo what you will; to you it doth belongYourself to pardon of self-doing crime.I am towait, though waiting so be hell,Notblame your pleasure, be it ill or well.
I am not unaware that there are other Sonnets which indicate that they lived apart, though it is of course quite possible that they lived apart at one time and together at another. But whether or not they at any time lodged together, these Sonnets indicate that their lives were brought together by some common purpose, and that hours and seasons of communication and perhaps of kindred labor were frequent to them. Our affections or friendships do not blossom in untilled fields; it is the comradeship of common effort, mutually helpful and beneficial, that more than often determines the impalpable garmentsand coverings of our lives. Certainly we may believe that the two characters that fill these two thousand lines of poetry did not live and move so far apart as were the busy actor at a theatre and the courted and adventurous peer of England.
If the friend to whom the Sonnets were addressed was Shakespeare, and if the author of the Sonnets and of the accredited Shakespearean plays was some "pale, wasted," and unknown student who sold his labors and his genius to another, we may perhaps see how they would have had frequent interviews and hours of labor, and how Shakespeare might have had all the relations to the poet, which the Sonnets imply of the poet's friend. But if Shakespeare, then well advanced both to fame and fortune, was the poet it is very difficult to imagine any one person who could have borne to him all the relations which the Sonnets indicate—patron or benefactor and familiar associate and companion; a rival and successor in the favors of his mistress, and a loved or at least cherished friend.
While I present the view that some unknownstudent wrote, and Shakespeare adopted and published, the Shakespearean plays, I do not deny to Shakespeare a part, perhaps a large part, in their production. As I have said, there are many plays attributed to Shakespeare, some or the greater portions of which are distinctively of a lower class than the greater plays or the Sonnets. The theory of collaboration affects at least six plays commonly classed as Shakespearean, and perhaps others classed as doubtful plays. Why is not the situation satisfied if we ascribe to Shakespeare a capacity equal to the composition ofTitus Andronicus? That is a play which seems to have been attractive from its plot and the character of its incidents. In it, however, there are but few lines that seem to be from the same author as the Sonnets and the greater of the recognized Shakespearean plays. The remainder of the play has no poetic merit which raises it far above the rustic poetry which is handed down by tradition as Shakespeare's. And if we give the unknown student all credit for authorship of the finer poetry of the greater dramas, may we not still assume that Shakespeare laboredwith him, assisting in moulding into form adapted to the stage the poetry that burst from his friend with volcanic force; or that he perhaps sometimes suggested the side lights and sudden transitions which appear so often,—for instance, in the grave scene inHamletor the nurse's part inRomeo and Juliet?[43] And if some great unknown was the sole author and Shakespeare was the publisher and was to take part in the representation of these plays, may we not still, however they lodged, find ample occasion for the waiting hours of the poet, which would be entirely unexplained if the person addressed was the Earl of Southampton or some other member of the nobility?
Such a view explains very much which is otherwise inexplicable. If into that series of publications came the genius of the unknown author of the Sonnets, touching some of the plays like stray sunbeams, and as the workprogressed absorbing and filling all their framework,—it must yet be assumed that he did not labor without recompense. And so we may believe that Shakespeare from friend became patron, and that this employment, coming as the poet was passing to life's "steepy night," gave him the means and the leisure for those dreams of lovers, of captains and of kings, so visioned on his brain that he wrote of them as of persons real and living. So regarding the author of the Sonnets, we appreciate his jealousy, when (as perhaps inHenry VIII.) another and almost equal poet was employed, and may understand how he could blame his false mistress and yet forgive his friend. His poetry and the opportunity and leisure for its enjoyment was his real mistress, like the love of Andromache for Hector displacing and absorbing all other loves.
If the Sonnets were written by Shakespeare, who the friend and patron so intimately related to the poet and his work was, is a riddle still unsolved; but if they were written by some unknown poet, the obvious and reasonable inference is that they were addressed to Shakespeare.[44]
It may be asked why I would leave anything as the work of Shakespeare, if I deny to him the authorship of the greater plays. My answer is this: I believe he did not write the Sonnets; and if the Sonnets are the work ofanother, I think it fairly follows that the great dramas, considered as mere poetry, are so clearly in the same class as the Sonnets, that we must ascribe the authorship of the greater Shakespearean dramas to the same great unknown.
When it is once agreed that any considerable portions of the plays credited to Shakespeare are from different authors, almost the entire force of the argument resting on report or tradition is destroyed; because report or tradition is about equally satisfied and equally antagonized by ascribing to him the authorship of either section into which the admission of dual authorship concedes that they are divided.
That Shakespeare must have had a genius for dramatic work,—though not necessarily for poetry,—his success as a reputed dramatist and as a manager, all his history and traditions, very clearly indicate. And conceding him that, why is not the situation fully satisfied by considering that he was the lesser, or one of the lesser, rather than the greater of the collaborators; and that his knowledge of the stage and his talent for conceiving proper dramatic effectsor situations, made his labors valuable to the greater poet, aiding him to give to his works a dramatic form and movement which many other great poets have entirely failed to attain. So considering, the Shakespearean plays will in some degree still seem to us the work of the gentle Shakespeare, although in large part the product of the older and more mature mind, the dreaming and loving recluse and student, who could say,—
Your namefrom hence immortal life shall have,ThoughI, once gone, to all the world must die:The earth can yieldmebut a common grave,Whenyouentombed in men's eyes shall lie.
And so believing, may we not still go with reverent feet to that grave upon the Avon? For there, as I conceive, sleeps he whose sunny graces won the undying love of the greatest of lovers and of poets, and whose assistance and support made possible the dreaming hours and days in which were delivered from his loving friend's overburdened brain the marvellous and matchless creations of the Shakespearean anthology.
Footnotes:
[33]Sonnets LXXVIII., LXXIX., LXXX., LXXXV., LXXXVI.
[34]Sonnets XCV. and XCVI.
[35]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 377-380.
[36]Lee'sShakespeare, p. 406.
[37]It was not until 1596 or 1599 that a coat of arms was granted to John Shakespeare, the father of William. That appears to have been granted on the application of the son, and to have been allowed, in part at least, because his wife, the mother of William, was the daughter of Robert Arden, gentleman. The grant gave the father the title of Esquire and not of Gentleman. Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 187-190.
[38]Lee'sShakespeare, p. 26; Halliwell'sLife of Shakespeare, p. 133; Grant White'sIntroductory Life of Shakespeare, pp. 25, 42.
[39]Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 22-26, 273, 274.
[40]Halliwell'sShakespeare, p. 172, Lee'sShakespeare, pp. 193-196.
[41]See pp. 68-70,supra.
[42]The portion of Sonnet CIV. relevant to this point is printed atpage 26,supra.
[43]These plays contain names of places and persons, and allusions and references, which could hardly have been made had Shakespeare been a stranger to their composition. InAs You Like It, the forest has his mother's family name, "Arden"; the allusion to Sir Thomas Lucy, has already been noticed.Page 63,supra.
[44]While I speak of the poet of the Sonnets and of the greater plays as unknown, I can but believe that the Sonnets, when carefully studied in connection with contemporaneous history and chronicles, will yet afford an adequate clew to his identification. It occurs to me that a promising line of inquiry might be made on this assumption,—that the poet was born about twenty years before Shakespeare and died soon after the production of the plays ceased, or when about sixty-five or seventy years of age; that he had reverses and disappointments, perhaps humiliations; that his name was William, and that he had written other works before he wrote the Shakespearean plays. It is also possible, although I think not probable, that the initials, W. H., appearing in the introduction to these Sonnets may refer to him. That he had produced earlier works, I think is shown by Sonnet LXXVI. The first lines of that Sonnet are as follows:
"Why is my verse so barren of new pride,So far from variation of quick change?Why with the time do I not glance asideTo new-found methods and to compounds strange?Why write I still all one, ever the same,And keep inventions in a noted weed,That every word doth almost tell my name,Showing their birth and where they did proceed?"