striving, even in private life, to be inviolably true, discerning, in truth alone-eternity (Sonnet 123); and, consequently, driving from himself and friends all flatterers, sycophants, and "suborned informers," (Sonnets 125, 82, 85, 86) and asking of himself, in surprise,

"Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and compounds strange ?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed?''

SONNET 76.

We see him, in general, pervaded by a free and fresh energy of life, but that, nevertheless, there were yet hours in which he fell into melancholy and painful despondency, during which he felt utterly wretched, and complained

"The sun one early morn did shine, With all triumphant splendour on my brow; But out! alack! he was but one hour mine."

SONNET 33.

(See also Sonnets 30, 29, &c.)-times in which he wept over the transitoriness of all human grandeur, beauty, and nobleness (64). We see that, in like manner, he was generally, it is true, elevated by a calm consciousness of his own greatness and immortal mastership (Sonnets 55, 60, 63, 65, 81, 101, 107); while there were yet times at which his works appeared to him empty, mean, and worthless, and, giving way to a "dream of self-contempt," wished to be

"Like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope."

SONNET 29.

and when he complained that his muse had not "grown in a growing age to bring a dearer birth," when in short he "in himself could nothing worthy prove" (32, 71, 72.)

Highly interesting are the three sonnets which I quote entire, because they not only vouchsafe to us a deep insight into the

inmost feelings of Shakspeare's soul, but likewise throw considerable light upon the mode and manner in which he regarded his position as a poet and actor.

110.

"ALAS, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affection new.

Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now all is done, save what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

111.

"O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,

Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdu'd,
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand :
Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd ;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.

Pity me, then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even your pity is enough to cure me.

112.

"Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow ?

You are my all-the-world, and I must strive

To know my shame and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong.

In the profound abysm I throw all care

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense :-

You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

That all the world besides methinks are dead."

The first two of these sonnets are in the printed edition of Jaggard, which appeared in 1599. They therefore may be probably assigned to the year 1595-7-8, and to the same period, without doubt, belongs also the third, since it is evidently the tranquillizing conclusion to the other two, and suggested, seemingly, by the remonstrance of a friend. The second sonnet alludes distinctly to Shakspeare's position as a player, and clearly proves that the profession was already hateful to him, and on that account he at that early period meditated upon quitting it. The same sonnet, moreover, furnishes a ready explanation of the fact, that after this date he rarely appeared as an actor, and when he did so he undertook merely subordinate parts, such as that of Adam, in "As You Like It," and of the Ghost in "Hamlet." The two others, on the other hand, demonstrate that even subsequently to 1592, his compositions were still exposed to unfriendly remarks and criticism. The admission, however, which he makes in the first, that he had "looked on truth askance and strangely,' can only refer to his earliest works, in which unquestionably there is much exaggeration and incompleteness. But that he should "have gone here and there" before he could discover the right path-whether he is alluding to the indiscretions, or to some unknown unsuccessful essays of his youth-that is the common fate of all great minds, who, in truth, can only go their own way, while that he "should have made himself a motley to the view," "gored his own thoughts," and "sold cheap what is most dear," is the confession of a poetic genius, who was well aware that his heart's best blood was flowing in his poems, but that the world was incapable of appreciating the rare excellence that was therein presented to them, and so corrupt as to tread under foot whatever is most

precious and most exalted. Such a mind, however, would feel itself endued with fresh vigour by its many essays, wanderings, and false steps: "These blenches," he says, "gave my heart another youth;" the eternal youth of art and love would live in his heart, his spirit would feel itself raised at once above the praise or blame, the flattery or censure, of the blind multitude. Having found the right path, he pursues it, and nothing can move his "steeled sense" but the judgment of the noblest and most learned. In their love and friendship he finds the true anchor of his life.

In fact, the love and friendship of the great and noble appears to have been the most invigorating and refreshing spring of comfort for Shakspeare's heart. It was his substitute for the happiness of domestic life, which either his own fault or his misfortunes had embittered. Of no other poet, of any age or nation, is such ardent warmth of love and friendship recorded as that which finds utterance in Shakspeare's sonnets. They abound in the tenderest and most touching proofs of self-sacrifice and devotion. I scarcely deem it necessary to observe, although their object was a man of high distinction like the Earl of Pembroke, that the feeling on Shakspeare's part was perfectly pure, and wholly unmixed with any ulterior motive or interest. This is so apparent, that the slightest doubt of it were an offence against the truth and nobleness of man's nature.

Shakspeare seems, indeed, to have possessed in an eminent degree a capacity for friendship-a gift which is far from being as common as is often thought. Among hundreds, who to-day call themselves friends, scarcely one could be found in whom the name is not a hollow phrase or an actual cheat. Genuine friendship is in all times the most perfect and thoroughly infallible proof of genuine nobility of soul. Besides the Earl of Pembroke, who of all appears to have been his most intimate and familiar friend, Shakspeare enjoyed the friendship of many others, who, so far as they are known to us, appear in every respect worthy of him. Of Southampton, and of Pembroke's brother, the Earl of Montgomery, we have already spoken. Besides these, he lived on the most familiar and friendly terms with his fellow actors, Burbage, Hemynge, and Cundell, as is proved by his will, and by their publication of his collected works. Augustus Philips, too, who was also one

of the company at the Globe, left him in his will a 30s. gold piece as a testimony of his esteem; and John Fletcher, although a poet of a very different school, and the zealous adherent of Ben Jonson, was nevertheless on such terms of intimacy with him, that it was thought not unreasonable, as Skottowe informs us, to fix upon them as the joint authors of the "Two Noble Kinsmen.' It is no doubt absolutely impossible that Shakspeare could have had any hand in this piece of Fletcher's, which in some of its parts looks like a parody on his own "Ophelia," and of others of his dramatic characters; still, the old tradition, (to which Schlegel most unaccountably gives credit,) like other myths, possesses a good significance, as it implies the close intimacy of the two poets as the only source to which it could owe its origin. Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Jonson, were in short the leading members of the literary circle, the so-called club at the Mermaid, which reckoned among its members most of the wits and scholars of the day-such as Beaumont, Selden, Cotton, Carewe, Martin, and Donne. Beaumont, in his letter to Ben Jonson, mentions with pleasure and wonder "the words he had heard at the Mermaid, so nimble, so full of etherial fire, as if each had cast all his wit on a single jest." It cannot, indeed, be maintained, that all the persons just named were Shakspeare's friends in the fullest sense of the term; his friends, however, they were; this fact is unquestionable, however singular it may seem, that he should not have deigned to one of them, with the single exception of the Earl of Pembroke, a word of memory or commendation. Jonson is, indeed, alluded to by him in some lines among the additional poems to Chester's "Love's Martyr." To compensate for this, however, he has raised the noblest monument to friendship in several of his dramatic characters-e. g. Horatio, in "Hamlet," and Kent and the Fool in "Lear"-but especially in "The Merchant of Venice." Moreover, from the words of Meres already quoted, we may safely assume that he frequently addressed to his friends little pieces which unfortunately are now lost.

Shakspeare's position with regard to Ben Jonson has been the subject of much critical investigation, since naturally, the right understanding of this matter is of considerable importance for the due appreciation of the characters of both these remarkable men.