10 SEPTEMBER 1927, Page 19

Samuel Butler's preface to Shakespeare's Sonnets Recon- sidered (Cape, 7s.

6d.) raises ghosts of Victorian controversies. Writing in 1899, he mentions that he himself has been taxed with writing a poem in the Spectator, signed S.B., of which he knows nothing ! The Sonnets will probably' remain a mystery to the end of time, but whoever Mr. W. H. was, there is no doubt that he evoked some of the most beautiful lines, some of the deepest thought in our language : we see here (and here only) the soul of Shakespeare and the lightnings of his intimate mind.

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