CRIME WINKED AT.

53

In the 29th and 30th we fall into fresh difficulties and are tantalised by momentary insights into a heart that seems to have felt the pangs of Othello's, and a brain that had been fevered like Hamlet's. They are maturer poems than any of the rest, and are more finished both in metre, style, and wording. They breathe a certain weariness of life, and have a tone of regret and restlessness. The line

"And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,"

seems to imply some family alienation.

The 32nd, again, is a very early poem, and has the character of the Love's Labour Lost metre.

"rude poor lines," refers to himself as

It speaks of

young, and

promises his friend better eulogies if life is spared him. In the 55th he paraphrases Horace, and says

"Not marble, or the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme."

An arrogant self-assertion which is never to be found in any but his earliest poems.

The 33rd and 34th are the first of a new series of sonnets, which seem to refer, yet in a conventional and not very heartfelt way, to some sin committed by a friend whom he still determines to love. The writer alludes to his own youth and to the short duration of their attach

ment. It seems uncertain whether crime or misfortune had been the cause of this eclipse. There seems no reason to suppose, as some do, that it refers to the seduction of his wife by the Earl of Pembroke, a wild and licentious youth.

This supposition is doubtless grounded on the story of Posthumus and Imogen, as it is supposed Shakspere's wife did not follow him to London, though there is no proof that she did not, and there is merely a tradition that the poet visited Stratford once a-year.

"My sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendour on my brow;

But oh! alas, he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath masked him from me now;

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth,

Suns of the world may stain whom Heaven's sun staineth."

Seduction of one's wife is not a thing about which the most complaisant and forgiving husband could write :

"No more be grieved at that which thou hast done."

The 35th sonnet follows up the same obscure thoughts, and through their twilight loom faint outlines of the great man's inner life, unless we are to suppose him always the actor, always the dramatist, and writing under the character of Ariadne or one of the mourning lovers of Ovid's Epistles.

The 36th sonnet is still more confusing: here the tables seem turned, and now the poet speaks of himself as the offender and his friend as the injured one. talks of separation:

"Let us confess that we two must be twain.

I may not ever more acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name."

He

Had the poet's going on the stage alienated some richer patron, or is this all hyperbole and mere acted sorrow?

In the 38th, again, he speaks of some stain on his character.

"Altho' our undivided loves are one,

So shall this blot that doth with me remain,
Without thy help by me be borne alone."

Upon the 39th some found a theory that the sonnets alluding to separation were addressed by Shakspere to his wife left behind (perhaps deserted) at Stratford.

It runs mysteriously thus:—

"E'en for this let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one,

That by this separation I may give

That one to thee which thou deserv'st alone:
And absence what a torment thou would prove,
Were it not thy sure leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love

(Which time and thoughts so sweetly do deceive)."

The 42nd appears to lament the seduction not of a wife but of a mistress by a friend, and the writer seems evidently prepared to bear the loss with equanimity :—

"That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly."

He prefers the friend to the mistress.

The 49th expresses a continued fear of alienation from a friend, promises to avoid his walks, and prays him if he will desert him to chose the present time when other misfortunes assailed the poet. In the 110th he laments his inconstancies to one

"Whose worst essays had proved the best of love."

We must remember that one of Shakspere's earliest plays, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, sketches a false friend, and that, in fact, the plot itself turns upon a false friendship.

The 112th contains fresh lamentations for the degraded profession of an actor, and speaks of the brand

"Which vulgar scandal stampt upon my brow."

VOWS OF AFFECTION.

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Perhaps some false story of early deer-stealing had been already propagated and exaggerated by the ready tongue of slander. The 129th alludes to a reconciliation and to some past crime of the friend to whom the poet writes:

"For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime."

The 123rd, 124th, and 125th contain vows of renewed affection for the "lovely boy" mentioned in the 126th. The 132nd, 133rd, and 134th pursue the same strain, and refer to a friend attached to the same mistress as himself:

--

"It's not enough to torture me alone,

But slave to slaving my sweetest friend must be.

Of him, myself, and thee, am I forsaken."

In the 137th he speaks of his love as fixed unworthily, and talks of his days as "past best," although we have already heard him alluding to his youth - a distinct, incontrovertible proof of the different periods at which these fugitive poems were written.

In the 142nd he speaks again, detractingly, of his perjured mistress: