and a better subject; and here, Master Shakspeare," he continued, taking up a small volume which lay upon the library table, "is one upon which you, and you only, I apprehend, can throw the light I wish for." As he said this, he placed in the poet's hands his own Collection of Sonnets, which had been published about six years before. "Much as I admire these sonnets,” he proceeded, “and I do assure you I think very highly of many of them in a poetical light, I cannot with any certainty ascertain to whom they are addressed. The point has puzzled sorely both myself and Helen; her curiosity, indeed, is particularly alive on the occasion, and as I promised her to interrogate you on the subject the first favourable opportunity, I left the volume on the table as a memento for that purpose; but I will now, with your permission, call her in, that she may, if you feel no repugnancy to the disclosure, hear the secret from your own lips.”

“And so, my fair Helen," cried the poet jocosely, as she re-entered the room with her father, "you are determined, I find, to bring me to confession. I am afraid, however, the dis

covery will be accompanied with some disappointment, when I tell you that, with the exception of about thirty sonnets at the close of the collection, the rest, amounting to more than one hundred, are dedicated to my dearest friend, and earliest patron, my Lord Southampton."

"There, Helen," exclaimed Montchensey, with an air of triumph, " did I not tell you that if to any person more than another these sonnets might be conjectured to have a reference, his Lordship had the best claim ?"

"It is very true, my father," answered Helen, who had by this time recovered her spirits, "but I trust, notwithstanding, Master Shakspeare will allow me to enquire, why the first seventeen of these little poems should be employed as dissuasives against a premature vow of celibacy, when we all know that Lord Southampton married, and at the age of five and twenty, the object of his first attachment, Elizabeth Vernon?"

"You will recollect," said the poet, "that this connection was begun without the knowledge of the Queen, about whose person Lord Southampton then was; that as soon as she dis

covered it, she became extremely irritated, and, in fact, issued her mandate against the union. Indignant at this unjustifiable interference, it cannot be a matter of surprise that Southampton, who was then but just of age, and ardent in his disposition, should declare, in the phrensy of disappointed passion, that if he married not Elizabeth Vernon, he would die a bachelor. It was shortly after this period, at a time when the wished-for union seemed hopeless, without incurring disgrace at court, and when some of his friends, and myself amongst the number, were desirous both of combating this hasty resolution of celibacy, and of fixing his affections elsewhere, that these early sonnets were written."

"Excuse me, my dear Sir," replied Helen, "if I venture to ask, why, under such circumstances, you have dropped not the smallest allusion in these little poems, which might lead to a knowledge of the individual you were addressing, not a word as to the wounded feelings or disappointed hopes of his lordship; but, confining yourself to a general reprobation of celibacy, left the peculiar object of your anxiety

to be detected, as in my father's instance, only by a subtile comparison of passages scattered through a numerous and succeeding series of sonnets ?"

"I cannot but feel honoured, my fair hostess," returned the bard, "by the attention which you and your worthy father have paid to these trifles, and will freely confess, in reply to your question, that prudential motives alone induced the obscurity of which you complain. I was then but just rising into public notice; and had these Sonnets, which were extensively circulated in manuscript, as well among the friends of Lord Southampton as my own, ever reached the Queen, as in the slightest manner reflecting on her conduct by sympathising with the injuries of the Earl, the consequence might have been not only ruinous to myself, but, as I then thought, highly prejudicial to my friend. I, therefore, found it necessary, avoiding all direct application to his lordship, to restrict myself to a more general invective against the resolution he had formed, despairing, as he then did, of ever possessing the object of his affections, well knowing that

he for whom they were intended would understand me. Need I add, that within little more than four years from the commencement of this amour, the impetuosity of the Earl, breaking through all restraint, set the Queen at defiance by marrying his mistress?—a daring which I had not even ventured to contemplate, and which, as your father may recollect, was followed by the temporary imprisonment of both the parties."

"I must say," observed Montchensey, anticipating the remark of Helen, "that you have, in my opinion, sufficiently accounted for the obscurity which hangs over this part of your early poetry; but pardon my observing further, that one of the principal obstacles I had to encounter, in cherishing my belief of Lord Southampton being the object you had in view, arose from the terms of familiarity with which you addressed him, and on a topic, too, which required the utmost delicacy of management.. Now, considering the great disparity of rank which subsisted between you and your patron, it seemed difficult to conceive that you would venture, or that he would suffer you, to re

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