complete and fawning submission to her every caprice. His self-respect is dead. The more he ought to hate, the more he loves her, yet wins her not. He has sold his conscience and abjured truth and reason for her sake. They are both perjured, but he the most, for he has sinned against light. He has worshipped an idol, and forsaken the only good. "For I have sworn thee fair, more perjured I To swear against the truth so foul a lie" (152). Thus his downward steps had led him to the Inferno, and leave him there, Sonnets 153, 154, being probably only an appendix, as was 126 at the conclusion of the first series. A careful inspection shows that both series proceed upward and downward by analogous steps to their respective term; and that the whole collection exhibits the three great divisions of love as stimulated by the presentation of good through the senses, imagination and reason. Such then, summarised, is Mr. Simpson's interpretation of the sonnets. We fully admit that only after repeated readings can the allegory be discovered, and that they must be studied in the light of that philosophy which gave them birth. That philosophy forms the basis alike of the dramas as of the sonnets, and read in conjunction they will be found to repeat the same teaching and to illustrate the same common principles. The ideal of true love is presented in Isabella in "Measure for Measure" on the same lines as in the portraiture of the better AGREEMENT OF SONNETS AND PLAYS 241 angel of the sonnets. Cleopatra or Cressida are counterparts of "the woman coloured ill." The alliance of sin with sin, of impurity and murder (129), is repeated in Pericles. "One sin I know another doth provoke, Murder's as near to lust, as flame to smoke ; The sacrificial requirement of the higher love, the law that the flesh must die that the soul may live, as expressed in Sonnet 146, "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Why feed'st the rebel powers that thee array ?" this same truth forms the moral of "Love's Labour's Lost," and is enforced in the penitential exercises imposed on the three lovers. The inferiority of imaginative love to that of reason, shown in the ascending scale of the first series, is the lesson taught in the playful satire of "Midsummer-Night's Dream." And so we might go on, finding every maxim of the sonnets confirmed in the poet's other works. This identity of teaching we think shows that the philosophical interpretation we have followed is neither fanciful nor arbitrary, but has a solid foundation. We prefaced this chapter with the statement that the sonnets alone of Shakespeare's works furnish a clue to his own feeling, and we would here observe that in them we learn, as nowhere else in his writings, his intense antagonism to his times. Sonnet 66, already quoted, is a solemn impeachment of the government of his day, of its oppression, falsehood, and treachery. All this invective finds additional force and significance when we remember in whose house and among what private friends "the sug'red sonnets" were read, circulated, and discussed. Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, whether or no he was "W. H.," was undoubtedly Shakespeare's one literary patron, for there is not the slightest evidence of his having been in similar relations to any other distinguished personage. To Southampton he dedicated his "Venus and Adonis" in 1593, and his "Lucrece" in 1594, at the very time the sonnets were, according to our computation, in course of composition. Both dedications are in terms of exclusive devotion. That to "Lucrece" is indeed recast in verse in Sonnet 26.1 There is then every reason for believing that it was under Southampton's roof and among the earl's friends that the sonnets first appeared. Now Southampton's town house, "Drury House," was as 1 Lee, "Life of Shakespeare," 127. 2 Southampton House was never apparently the residence of the poet's patron. This mansion, situated in Holborn, was one of the chief resorts of Catholics and priests in London, and was repeatedly searched for recusants. It was leased to Mr. Swithun Wells in 1591. Here F. Edmund Jennings was apprehended in his vestments by Topcliffe after saying Mass, and with him were taken Polydore Plasden and Eustachius White, also priests; Brian Lacy, John Mason, and Sydney Hodgson, laymen; and Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells died in prison. The rest were martyred at Tyburn. Mr. Swithun Wells was hanged in Gray's Inn, opposite Southampton House, for having allowed Mass to be said there. we have seen the meeting-place of the Essex conspirators, amongst whom were so many of the poet's country-folk and friends. Shakespeare's friendship with Southampton may then, we think, throw some light on the political allusions in the sonnets, though we look upon the whole collection, as has been said, as intended primarily to illustrate the course and circumstances of love. The laments over his time speak of "Bare ruined choirs, where once the sweet birds sang," of of 66 'Unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. "Lofty towers down-razed, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage." -Sonnet lv. ; -Sonnet lxiv.; an imagery singularly applicable to the sanctuaries violated, and the brasses and images destroyed by the Tudor rule. Such metaphors, as well as that of the vestments and feasts already quoted, form a fitting framework to the Catholic line of thought traceable throughout the series. Lastly, to return to Southampton. To what library could a playwright have had access, suggestive of the following lines: and "Show me your image in some antique book, "When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme -Sonnet cvi. Mr. S. Lee tells us that the collection of books presented by the Earl of Southampton to St. John's College, Cambridge, "largely consisted of illuminated manuscripts, books of hours, legends of the saints, and medieval chronicles." 1 1 "Life of Shakespeare," 382. |