THE ART OF EULOGY.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'!] Sia,—Your correspondent Mr. H. Wignall, whose letter appears in the last number of the Spectator on "The Art of Eulogy," attributes to Shakespeare a claim for immortality for his verse, and quotes the sonnets in support of his opinion; but surely he has misunderstood the claim entirely. It seems quite clear that Shakespeare claimed immortality through the beauty and perfec- tion of the subject of the sonnets, and that his verse was merely
the channel through which her beauty was to be conveyed to all ages. In Sonnet XXXII. he says :— "These poor rude lines . . .
. . . though they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme."
In LX., perhaps the most beautiful of all, the same thoug/.' is evident, and through the whole of LXXII.; and in LXX VII I. s- " But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance "; and in LXXXI. :— " Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die," &c. In Michael Angelo's XVII. Sonnet, "The Artist and his Work," appears the same thought—immortality through the beauty. of the subject, of the statue or picture, not from the work itself :— "Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown, And men shall say, For her 'twas wise to pine.'" Whatever Shakespeare's estimate of his own powers may have been, and it was probably very just, his good taste and his sent*, of humour would have prevented him from claiming anything so elusive and erratic as the praise of posterity.—I am, Sir, &e.,
Hook Cottage, Horndean, Hants. M. G. PATERSON.
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