SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.* FOB, saying that an Act of Parliament would
not be strong enough to compel the perusal of Shakespeare's sonnets, Words-
worth smote George Stevens on the right cheek, and Coleridge smote him on the left. The unfortunate critic deserved his punishment, no doubt ; but an Act of Parliament would clearly not be strong enough to compel the perusal of the mountains of trash which since his day have been piled on these poems. An attentive perusal of the second part of Mr. Dosvden's Introduc- tion will make this plain, although he has, of course, only glanced at the absurder theories. Yet enough is given to justify Mr. Swinburne's vigorous expressions. "Upon the Sonnets," he says, "such a preposterous pyramid of presumptuous commen- tary has long since been reared by the Cimmerian speculations and Boeotian brain-sweat' of Sciolists and Scholiasts, that no modest man will hope, and no wise man will desire, to add to the structure, or subtract from it one single brick of proof or dis- proof, theorem or theory." We are a little surprised, therefore, to find Mr. Dowden still asking for more. It is true that he does so from courtesy, and not from any expectation that there is more to be said worth saying on the subject. And indeed, since the last theory which he notices surpasses in absurdity anything which could be found in Count Smaltork's Note-book, it may well be concluded that the field is worked out. For the amusement, if not for the edification, of our readers, we shall quote a portion of this theory. It is from the pen of an Ameri- can lady, and it is plain that she could give odds to Mrs. Leo Hunter. This lady holds that Bacon wrote the" Shakespeare" plays ; that he expressed in them an "Enigma," under a" veiled allegory ;" and that the key to the running allegory is contained lathe mystery of the Sonnets. An "absolute divineness of ideality 'underlies their mere outward form, as well as a plaintive auto- b lographical information of the poet's consciousness." She illustrates her discovery by the play of Oymbeltne, when Post- humus symbolizes the posthumous fame of Bacon, Cloten (cloth- ing) his living bodily personality, and Morgan (my organ) the Novum Organum; and so forth. Now, as Mr. Dowden conde- scends to print such a theory as this, it is difficult to imagine what he will exclude. We trust, therefore, he will let Part II stand as it is, in future editions. For all that can be seriously said for one or other of the main hypotheses which have been formed ..about the sonnets has already been said sufficiently. Nor must it, for a moment, be supposed that we make this remark to dis- parage Mr. Dowden and his work. He is a splendid Shake- spearianscholar ; a critic of taste and insight; a gentleman who writes with a thorough knowledge of his subject, and with sobriety, sense, and judgment. His edition of the sonnets is incomparably the best that has been published ; and he has left us The Somieta of Maim Shubospeare, Edited by Edward Dowden. London: Kogan Paul, Trench, and CO.
little to do, except to praise it. Of his explanatory notes, we can and need say but little. We do not agree with him at all, when he says that notes are an evil. Certainly not when they are relegated to the end of the volume, as they are here ; and still more certainly not when they are so terse, and unpretending, and to the point as Mr. Dowden's are.
We have spoken of the two main hypotheses which have been made concerning the Sonnets. The expression is perhaps scarcely accurate. The first, which is the one held by Mr. Dowden, in common with so many distinguished critics, is that Shake- speare's Sonnets express his own feelings in his own person. The second, supported by Delius and Mr. Dyce, is that they are merely poems of the fancy, in which the writer treats non-dramatically some of the themes treated in the plays, and in Venus and Adonis. "The swede wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey- tongued Shakespeare, witness his sugred sonnets among his private friends," wrote Mere, in 1598, and it has been conjectured that some, at least, of them may have been com- posed for the use of these "private friends." Of course, as Mr. Bowden remarks, such an explanation as this has the merit of simplicity ; it unties the knots, but cuts all at a blow ; for if the collection consists of disconnected exercises of the fancy, we need not try to reconcile discrepancies, nor shape a story, nor ascertain a chronology, nor identify persons. We quite agree with him, too, in thinking such an explanation untenable. None the less we recommend it as the one which nine readers out of ten of the Sonnets will do well to accept. And for two reasons- - First, because they will be able to enjoy the poetry more, if they are not troubled by a succession of conundrums. Secondly, and this consideration is of far greater importance, because nine readers out of ten, and we readily rank ourselves with the majority, will run the chance of wronging the " heart " of "Nature's sweetest child," if they try to "unlock it with this key." " With this same key,' writes Mr. Browning, 'Shakespeare unlocked his heart,' once more I Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare be." Mr. Swinburne answers, "No whit the less like Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning." And so the game goes on. But, after all, the subject.matter of the Sonnets is far too nebulous, so far as we are concerned, to make it possible for us to infer from it with certainty anything at all about the " heart " of Shakespeare. It is admitted that we must be content to remain for ever in ignorance as to the identity of "Mr. W. H." and of the "dark lady." Or if this consideration be dismissed as irrelevant, it must, we think, be granted that some, at least, of the Sonnets may have been composed "in an assumed character, and probably at the suggestion of the author's intimate associates." Above all, it is clear that in the event of Wordsworth's suggestion being correct—and it must be remembered that Wordsworth went no further than suggesting that in the Sonnets the greatest of English poets may have "unlocked his heart "—Shakespeare may, and we can never say how often, have wilfully inserted lines and whole sonnets purely in the way of mystification. Of one thing we may be sure, he, of all men, was the last to wear his heart upon his sleeve, for every daw to peck at. However, we can say no more on this point, and remembering Mr. Swinburne's slashing rebuke, we feel that we have already said too much.
It is curious that in addition to the endless diversity of opinion which exists as tothe scope and meaning of these Poems, a diversity almost as great exists, as to their literary merit. No competent judge, of course, does otherwise than admire them, but few indeed are agreed as to what it is in them which challenges admiration. Few also are agreed as to the amount of admiration which is due to that something which all agree to admire. Landor—and as that able critic is oftener talked about than read, we shall quote his opinion—says, "In the poems of
Shakespeare which are printed as sonnets, there is sometimes a singular strength and intensity of thought, with little of that imagination which was afterwards to raise him highest in the uni- verse of poetry. Even the interest we take in the private life of this miraculous man cannot keep the volume in our hands long
together. We acknowledge great power, but we experience great weariness." Wordsworth says that "in no other part of the writings of Shakespeare is found, in an equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed." Archbishop Trench says, "Shakespeare's Bonnets are BO heavily laden with meaning—so double.shotted, if one may so speak—with thought,
so penetrated and pervaded with a repressed passion, that, packed as all this is into narrowest limits, it sometimes imparts no little obscurity to them." (One cannot help wondering what
men would have thought of this, and of the old bookseller Benson's description of his wares : "Soren, ulcer, and eligantiy plain°, such gentle straines as shall recreate and not perplex° the brain°, no intricate or cloudy stuff to puzzell intellect, but perfect eloquence.") Hallam says, "The obscurity is often such as only conjecture can penetrate ; the strain of tender- ness and. adoration would be too monotonous, were it less unpleasing ; and so many frigid conceits are scattered around, that we might almost fancy the poet to have written with- out genuine emotion, did not such a host of other passages attest the contrary." It is well known that Hallam wished that Shakespeare had never written the Sonnets. The reason of his wish is equally well known ; and Mr. Palgrave, in his edition of the Sonnets, expresses a pleasure in the belief that the phase of feeling which they represent was transient, and that the sanity which, not lees than ecstasy, is an especial attribute of the great poet, returned to Shakespeare. As there is also an expression in Wordsworth's criticism which is liable to misinterpretation, we mean the passage where he speaks of the "too common pro- pensity of human nature to exult over the supposed fall into the mire of a genius," we think it right to finish this notice with a sentence from Coleridge. We should be the last to quote . Coleridge's opinion as authoritative on a'vexed point in theology or politics. But in all that relates to intercourse between the • sexes, his opinion ie invaluable, Here he was the purest of the pure; and speaking" with reference to Shakespeare's Sonnets," "I believe," he says," it possible that a man may, under certain states of the moral feeling, entertain something deserving the name of love towards a male object,—an affection beyond friend- ship, and wholly aloof from appetite."
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