Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems

n when his friend has supplanted him in the favors of his mistress. They are replete with compliment and adulation. Little side views or perspectives are introduced with a marvellous facility of inv

of, or relating to one person of his own sex. Who that person was critics have not agreed. But t

purpose of the Sonnets, a

eclared without periphrasis and without disguise to be a patron of the poet's verse (Nos. XXIII., XXVI., XXXII., XXXV

I invoked th

fair assistan

ien pen hat

ee their poe

ss to accept the homage of other poets seemed to be thrusting hi

rsons whose relations with the poet are defined so explicitly. The problem presented b

to the ear that d

both skill and a

ther pass m

and your gifts to

re that is known to biographical research. No contemporary document or tradition gives the

kespearean plays. Research and ingenuity have been taxed to ascertain who was the unnamed and mysterious friend at whose feet are laid so many poetic wreaths, woven by such a master. All discussion has assumed

dedicated) has been very generally assumed to be the person intended. Lor

they were not addressed to either of these peers,

" etc., it has been inferred that his friend's beard or hair was auburn, and from Sonnets CXXXV. and CXXXVI. it has been inferred that his friend was familiarly called "Will," or at any rate that his name was William. Obviously he was in some way a patron or helper to our poet, and to another poet as well[33]; he superseded the poet in the favors of his mistress; he was beautiful, attractive, genial, and sunny in di

CXXIV. the

e were but the

rtune's bastard

that his friend was of the

they contain any indication as to the station of his friend, the indication is

or certain deduction either way, but have called atten

XIII. occu

air a house f

d and unusual interpretation should not be adopted unless clearly indicated. And the context clearly indicates that the phrase "so fair a house" is used as a metaphor for the poet's fa

ountenance fill

n actor. I do not think, however, that either of the two lines last cited are entitled to any weight as argument, but they illustrate the distinction between lines or Sonnets w

peared in the lists at a tournament in honor of the Queen; in 1596 and 1597 he joined in dangerous and successful naval and military expeditions; in 1598 he was married.[35] Is it conceivable that two thousand lines of adulatory poetry could have been written to and of him, and no hint appea

comparing the harmony of music to a

ring, sweet hus

in each by mu

e and child an

e, one pleasin

s song, being m

ee: "Thou single

ndon? How would a tracing of a mother, nobly born, or of a lordly but deceased father, of some old castle, of some fair eminence, of some grand forest, or of ancestral oaks shading fair waters, have lightened the picture! And could the poet who gave us the magnificent pictures of English kings and queens, princes and lords-could that poet, writing to and of one of

te a member of the nobility. Could our great poet in so many lines of extreme compliment and adulation have always omitted any reference to the insignia of rank which were almost a part of the young Earl; a

t they were addressed to Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] I think is exploded, if it ever had substance.[36] Lord Pembroke did not come to London

er that claim I would ask the reader to turn back to Sonnet II., page 23. That certainly is one of the very earliest of the Sonnets, almost certainly written when Shakespeare was not older than thirty and Southampton not over twenty-one years of age. With these facts in mind, the assumption that those lines were addressed to the Ea

der the author of the

intercourse not consistent with the theory that they were addres

dignities of the Earl. I will quote no particular Sonnet on this point; but the impression which the entire series seems to me to convey, is that the poet

he indications that he had little love for his wife are regrettably clear.[39] When the earlier Sonnets were written he must have been living there about nine years, and must have had an income sufficient easily to have maintained his family in the city.[40] That he led a life notoriously free as to women cannot be questioned. Traditions elsewhere referred to so indicate[41]; and whether the Sonnets were written by or to him they equally so testify. Under such circumstances his friends or acquaintances would not be led to presume that he was married, but would assume the contrary. They would have done or considered precisely as we do, classing our friends as married or unmarried, as th

ower class were published as his. Those most strenuous in supporting the claims of authorship for Shakespeare, have, I think, generally conceded that the plays, as we now have them, reveal in various parts the work of more than one author. And from that it has been suggested that Shakespeare must have had a fellow-worker,-a collaborator. Lee's Shakespeare, Brandes's Critical Study of Shakespeare, and the Temple edition of Shakespea

tes such waiting and watching as would come to him had their relations been

nets are

ve, what shoul

s and times o

cious time at

to do, till

de the world-w

ereign, watch th

bitterness o

bid your serva

stion with my

be, or your af

slave, stay an

are how happy

l is love tha

anything, he

that made me f

ht control your t

the account of

al, bound to st

ffer, being

d absence of

me to sufferance

cusing you

ist, your char

self may priv

ill; to you i

ardon of self

though waiti

pleasure, be

ght together by some common purpose, and that hours and seasons of communication and perhaps of kindred labor were frequent to them. Our affections or friendships do not blossom in untilled fields; it is the comradeship of common effort, mutually helpful and beneficial, that more th

y would have had frequent interviews and hours of labor, and how Shakespeare might have had all the relations to the poet, which the Sonnets imply of the poet's friend. But if Shakespeare, then well advanced both to fame and fortune, was the poet it is very d

f Titus Andronicus? That is a play which seems to have been attractive from its plot and the character of its incidents. In it, however, there are but few lines that seem to be from the same author as the Sonnets and the greater of the recognized Shakespearean plays. The remainder of the play has no poetic merit which raises it far above the rustic poetry which is handed down by tradition as Shakespeare's. And if we give the unknown student all credit for authorship of the finer poetry of the greater dramas, may we not still assume that Shakespeare labored with him, assisting in moulding into form adapted to

y believe that Shakespeare from friend became patron, and that this employment, coming as the poet was passing to life's "steepy night," gave him the means and the leisure for those dreams of lovers, of captains and of kings, so visioned on his brain that he wrote of them as of persons real and living. So regarding the author of the Sonnets, we ap

o the poet and his work was, is a riddle still unsolved; but if they were written by some unk

eve he did not write the Sonnets; and if the Sonnets are the work of another, I think it fairly follows that the great dramas, considered as mere poet

force of the argument resting on report or tradition is destroyed; because report or tradition is about equally satisfied and equally ant

e lesser, or one of the lesser, rather than the greater of the collaborators; and that his knowledge of the stage and his talent for conceiving proper dramatic effects or situations, made his labors valuable to the greater poet, aiding him to give to his works a dramatic form and movement which

hence immortal

gone, to all th

yield me but a

bed in men's e

es won the undying love of the greatest of lovers and of poets, and whose assistance and support made possible the dreaming hours and days

tno

III., LXXIX., LXX

ets XCV.

hakespeare,

Shakespea

n granted on the application of the son, and to have been allowed, in part at least, because his wife, the mother of William, was the d

Life of Shakespeare, p. 133; Grant White's

kespeare, pp.

peare, p. 172, Lee's Sh

pp. 68-

IV. relevant to this point i

ve been made had Shakespeare been a stranger to their composition. In As You Like It, the forest has his

be made on this assumption,-that the poet was born about twenty years before Shakespeare and died soon after the production of the plays ceased, or when about sixty-five or seventy years of age; that he had reverses and disappointments, perhaps humiliations; that his name was William, and that he had written

rse so barren

variation of

time do I not

thods and to co

till all one,

entions in a

rd doth almos

rth and where th