OF THE PERSONAL THEORY AS INTERPRETED BY CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN. Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, THERE has never yet been any genuine, honest attempt to grapple with, and truly interpret, the sonnets. A theory has sprung up in the mind of a reader here and there, and straightway all the effort and the energy have been devoted to the theory; the sonnets being left to shift for themselves. There has been no prolonged endeavour to grasp the reality. No one has yet wrought at the sonnets with the amorous diligence and sharpened insight and painful patience of an Owen at his work; sought out the scattered and embedded bones of fact, and put them together again and again, until they should fit with such nicety that the departed spirit which once breathed and had its being in these remains, should stir with the breath of life, and clothe itself in flesh once more, and take its original shape. There has been nothing done, except a little surface work. Thorpe's Inscription has afforded a delightful bone of contention, most savoury and satisfactory to the critical wranglers who love to worry each other most over the point that is of least importance, and who, when they have even got a good bone, will eagerly drop the reality, like the fabulist's dog, and spend all their might in trying to grasp its shadow. its shadow. Give them such a question for debate as this: 'Did Shakspeare call Cleopatra a gipsy because she was an Egyptian?' or was an Elizabethan necessarily a cripple because he spoke of being lamed by Fortune?' and there will forthwith be a vast display of learned folly; the most shallow device will serve to show their deepest profundity. So that the subject of all Shakspearian subjects, being of such vital interest and so personal to the poet of whom the world is anxious to hear the least whisper of authentic fact, has been left almost untouched, and there is no opposition theory to take five minutes' labour in demolishing; no opponent worthy of steel; no antagonist that calls forth the respectful sword-salute. The most considerable attempt hitherto made that of Messrs. Boaden and Brown-is about equal in value to the work of those painters, whose art consists solely in the knack they have of disguising all the difficulties of a subject, not of their skill in conquering them. In dealing with the sonnets they both adopted a policy old as that of the hunted ostrich. And yet it is of great importance to have this question of the sonnets settled. We must be ignorant hypocrites to continue talking as we do on the subject of our great poet's character, and believe what we do of his virtues and moral qualities, if these sonnets are personal confessions. And if they be not, then all lovers of Shakspeare will be glad to get rid of the uncomfortable suspicions, see the skeleton' taken to pieces, and have the ghost of the poet's guilt laid at once and for ever; so that wise heads need no longer be shaken at those sonnets,' and fools may not wag the finger with comforting reflections upon the littleness of great men. The poet's bio MR. BROWN'S SHORTSIGHTEDNESS. 21 graphy cannot be satisfactorily built, with this shifting sand of the sonnets at the foundations. To illustrate and enforce his theory of the sonnets, Mr. Brown has appended a prose version of their contents. And it is interesting to compare the two; for, in order to make ends meet, he has been compelled to slur over or leave out all the most important matters; all the literalities and italicised meanings of the poetry. These did not concern him, apparently, because not necessary to his theory. Nor does he appear to have suspected that, whilst marching forward in such easy triumph to his conclusions, he was leaving in his rear many a masked battery, any one of which would be able to sweep his forces from the field. He could not have seen the drift of what he was leaving out, or he would surely have attempted to paraphrase it in some specious way. His reading is rendered utterly worthless, and the theory is invalidated, by the suppressed evidence, He has not noticed that the youth addressed is fatherless, and that in consequence of this the roof of his house is going to decay, and the poet urges him to marry on purpose to repair this roof, and uphold his house by husbandry in honour.' He has left out the personal allusion to the poet's pupil' pen, and the promise to show his head' in public print, when he had written something that should worthily prove his great respect, and enable him to 6 boast,' as he afterwards did in his dedications, how much he loved the earl. All these things have been overlooked and omitted, because they are opposed to the Herbert theory in every particular. Then the tender history of lost friends, who were so near and dear, and whose love was of the most sacred kind, with all the special revelation of sonnets 30, 31, is passed over. Brown dare not touch it. Yet these precious friends who are buried were most intimately related to the speaker; the memory of them moves him intensely, and the music Mr. grows grave and slow with the burden of feeling, the weight of gathered tears; it sounds like a dead-march heard in the distance. If these losses had been Shakspeare's, such facts should have had some interpretation. Mr. Brown thus summarises the two sonnets : 30. When I grieve at past misfortunes, the thinking of you restores my losses and ends my sorrows. 31. All those friends whom I have supposed dead, lie hidden in you. All that they had of me is yours, and I view their beloved images in you. A theory which requires this sort of support must be in a perilous way! Again, in the Sonnets on Absence, Mr. Brown does not suspect that there are and must be two speakers: one who is a traveller abroad on a distant shore, at limits far remote,' and who speaks most of these sonnets when he is from home and away from his love; whilst the other, in sonnet 39, speaks of the absence of this speaker, and says what a torment his absence would be, but that the sour leisure gives sweet leave' to write about him, and make one person twain by 'praising him here who doth hence remain.' Thus, we have the writer who speaks at home, and another person who speaks abroad from over sea. Again, this is Mr. Brown's rendering of sonnet 70: The slander of others shall not harm you. On the contrary, while you remain good, it will but prove your worth the more. Your having long escaped censure is no security for the future; and your power in the world might be too great, were you believed faultless. Which reading has not the least likeness to what Shakspeare wrote. This sonnet is one of the most valuable of the whole series. The anchorage of personality in it is assured. And it gives the lie point-blank to the supposition that the earl had robbed the poet of his mistress. If this had been so, he could not have been MR. BROWN'S SUPPRESSIONS. 23 the 'Victor, being charged.' And as Shakspeare is able to congratulate the earl in this way, that fully disproves Mr. Brown's reading of the story; something had occurred; the earl had been blamed for his conduct; slander had been at work. Shakspeare takes part with his friend, and says, the blame of others is not necessarily a defect in him. The mark of slander has always been 'the fair,' just as the cankers love the sweetest buds. Suspicion attaches to beauty, and sets it off;-it is the black crow flying against the sweet blue heaven. It is in the natural order of things, that one in the position of the earl and having his gifts and graces, should be slandered. But, so thou be good,' he says, 'Slander only proves thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time.' What does that mean? but that the earl has met with opposition in his love; has had to wait for its full fruition; and Slander, in talking of him without warrant, will but serve to call attention to his patient suffering and heroic bearing under this trial and tyranny of Time. So Shakspeare did think the earl was slandered, and he accounts for it on grounds the most natural. He then offers his testimony as to character And thou present'st a pure unstained prime! A singular thing to say, if Mr. Brown's version of the earlier sonnets were true. Very singular, and so Mr. Brown has omitted it! Further, the sonnet is a striking illustration of the mutual relationship of poet and peer--a most remarkable thing that Shakspeare should congratulate the earl for his Joseph-like conduct, and call him a 'victor.' Very few young noblemen of the time, we think, would have considered that a victory, or cared to have had it celebrated. Yet this fact, which Shakspeare says is to the earl's praise, will not be sufficient to tie up |