discoveries afresh to the world, that modern writers might be inspired with their love of wisdom and learning, and lead to new triumphs in the development of truth.

In the semblance of a young man whom he wishes to persuade into an early marriage, that he may thereby perpetuate himself in his posterity, the author urges Thou (Truth) to perform some labor for the world of enduring value. These impersonations of Thou as Truth, and Thy as Thought, continued to the close of the poem, are first alternated with "You," the impersonation of "Beauty," in the thirteenth stanza. That and the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth are addressed to You (Beauty), changing the attributes to suit the office he is expected to perform in conjunction with Thou and Thy. Indeed, so closely is the leading idea of marriage, for the purpose of perpetuity, pursued through the first seventeen Sonnets, that the distinction between Thou, Thy, and You (Truth, Thought, and Beauty) has escaped for centuries the careful observation of the most accomplished critics. The opinion generally entertained is, that the object of the author was to persuade a young nobleman to marry. However the Sonnets, as a whole, might be divided to suit the theories formed of them, this with most writers is deemed the leading object.

Mr. Richard Grant White, in his introduction to the Sonnets, gives the following concise state

ment of some of the many conjectures of writers concerning their object:

"Farmer thought, or rather guessed, that they were written to William Hart, the poet's nephew. Tyrwhitt suggested that the line,

'A man in Hue, all Hewes in his controlling,'

in the twentieth Sonnet, indicates William Hughes, or Hews, as their subject. George Chalmers argued that the recipient of impassioned adulation which pervades so many of them was no other than the virgin Queen Elizabeth herself. Dr. Drake supposed that in W. II. we have the transposed initials of Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton; and lastly, Mr. Bowden brought forward William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, as the beautiful youth, the dearly loved false friend, whose reluctance to marry, and whose readiness to love lightly the wanton and alluring woman whom the poet loved so deeply, were the occasion of these mysterious and impressive poems.

"Mr. Armitage Brown divides the Sonnets into six poems, and thus designates their subjects:"First poem,Sonnets 1 to 26. To his friend, persuading him to marry.

"Second poem,-Sonnets 27 to 55. To his friend, forgiving him for having robbed him of his mistress.

"Third poem,-Sonnets 56 to 77. To his friend, complaining of his coldness, and warning him of life's decay.

"Fourth poem,-Sonnets 78 to 101. To his friend, complaining that he prefers another poet's praises, and reproving him for faults that may injure his character.

"Fifth poem,-Sonnets 102 to 126. To his

friend, excusing himself for having been some time silent, and disclaiming the charge of inconstancy.

"Sixth poem,-Sonnets 127 to 152. To his mistress, on her infidelity."

Mr. White advances the opinion that "some of them are addressed to a woman, others to a lad, others to a man; in three Shakespeare speaks unmistakably of himself and upon subjects purely personal, and the last two are merely fanciful and independent productions."

It was the opinion of Mr. Dyer that the Sonnets were composed "in an assumed character, on different subjects and at different times."

"Five of the Sonnets, Nos. 80, 83, 85, 86, and 121," Mr. White thinks were "evidently written to be presented to some lady who had verses addressed to her by at least one other person than the supposed writer of these, for the praises of another poet are explicitly mentioned in them." No. 78, in his opinion, was addressed to one "who was the theme of many pens, for it contains these lines:

"So oft have I invok'd Thee for my Muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse.
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse;;

in others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.""

Not only these lines, but the entire one hundred and fifty-four stanzas, are, as I think, perfectly comprehensible when the Key is used to unfold their meaning. Consider Thee as the impersonation of Thought in the foregoing lines, and we learn

simply that the writer has been so successful in the delineation of Truth, that the other writers of the age ("every alien pen") are emulous of similar success, and are adopting Thought as a basis for their poetry,

"Under Thee their poesy disperse."

In the last two lines he intimates that in this attempt at imitation they only "mend the style" of their composition. It is too artificial to be true to nature, but is nevertheless graced or made better by the attempt,

"And arts with Thy (Thought's) sweet graces graced be."

All the incongruities, entanglements, and intricacies of the poem, by application of the Key, become consistent, and in proper sequence, from opening to close, with the wonderful history they have so long concealed. The poem is an entire history.

SONNET 2.

When forty winters shall beseige Thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in Thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held;
Then being ask'd where all Thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of Thy lusty days,
To say, within Thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv'd Thy beauty's use,
If Thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession Thine!

This were to be new made when Thou art old,
And see Thy blood warm when Thou feel'st it cold.

The meaning sought to be conveyed by the poet in this stanza is, that if he should delay revealing his conception of Truth until he was forty years old, Time would then have destroyed the freshness and exuberance of his thoughts, and impaired his power to delineate beauty as he saw it in early life. The "proud livery" of that dawning period would be faded and worn, with the "deep trenches" of age and care, and the "sunken eye" of a careless. life would tell of the "all-eating" effects of neglect and misuse. "Thriftless praise" (barren reward and a useless life) would be the result. If, instead of this, he could show by his work some "fair child of mine" (that he had produced some evidence of his genius), that would "sum his count" (affirm the promises of his youth), "and make my old excuse" (the works would be substituted for the "old excuse" he had habitually given for his negligence), and they would prove also his power of delineation. In these works he would be recreated in his age, and witness the effect of his labors, after his powers were exhausted.

"Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held."

The "Promus of Lord Bacon," compiled by Mrs. Pott, and published a few years ago, is but one of several commonplace books found among his papers after his decease. It is composed of aphorisms, trite sayings, wise mixims, and parts of passages, selected without any apparent object,