Page images
PDF
EPUB

TO THE ONLY BE GETTER OF THESE ENSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H'.

ALL HAPPINESS,

AND THAT ETERNITY PROMIS BY OUR EVER-LIVING POET,

[ocr errors]

WISHETH THE

WELL-WISHING ADVENTURE
IN SETTING FORTH,

T.

Dr. Farmer fuppofes that many of thefe Sonnets a dreffed to our authour's nephew Mr. William Harte this, I think, may be doubted. Shakspeare's fifter, Harte, was born in April, 1569. Suppofing her to married at fo early an age as fixteen, her elde William could not have been more than twelve yea in 1598, at which time thefe Sonnets were com though not publifhed for feveral years afterwards. of them are written to fhow the propriety of mar and therefore cannot well be fuppofed to be addre a fchool-boy.

Mr. Tyrwhitt has pointed out to me a line in the tieth Sonnet, which inclines me to think that the in W. H. ftand for W. Hughes. Speaking of this p the poet fays he is

A man in hew all Hews in his controllingfo the line is exhibited in the old copy. The name I was formerly written Hews. When it is confidered th of thefe Sonnets is formed entirely on a play on o thour's Chriftian name, this conjecture will not appea probable. To this perfon, whoever he was, one hu and twenty fix of the following poems are addreffed remaining twenty-eight are addreffed to a lady. MA

2 i. e. Thomas Thorpe. See the extract from the tioners' books in the next page. MALONE.

I have here fuppofed our authour's eldeft nephew to have been years old in 1598, but perhaps he was not then even born. 1 fervable, that Shakspeare, when he had occafion in his Will to n the children of his fifter Joan Harte, did not recollect the Chritia of her fecond fon; from which circumftance we may infer, 1616 they were all young.

F

I.

ROM faireft creatures we defire increase,
That thereby beauty's rofe might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'ft thy light's flame with felf-fubitantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyfelf thy foe, to thy fweet felf too cruel.
Thou, that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy fpring,
Within thine own bud burieft thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'ft wafte in niggarding.
Pity the world, or elfe this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee 5.

II. When

3 Shakspeare's Sonnets were entered on the Stationers' books by Thomas Thorpe, on the 20th of May, 1609, and printed in quarto in the fame year. They were, however, written many years before, being mentioned by Meres in his Wit's Treasury, 1598: "As the foul of Euphorbus (fays he) was thought to live in Pythagoras, fo the fweet witty foul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare. Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his fugred SONNETS among his private friends," &c.

The general style of thefe poems, and the numerous paffages in them which remind us of our authour's plays, leave not the fmallest doubt of their authenticity.

In thefe compofitions, Daniel's Sonnets, which were published in 1592, appear to me to have been the model that Shakspeare followed.

An edition of Shakspeare's Sonnets was published in 1640, in ímall octavo, which, though of no authority or value, was followed by Dr. Sewell, and other modern editors. The order of the original copy was not adhered to, and according to the fashion of that time, fantastick titles were prefixed to different portions of thefe poems: The glory of beauty; The force of love; True admiration, &c. Heywood's tranflations from Ovid, which had been originally blended with Shakspeare's poems in 1612, were likewife reprinted in the fame volume. MALONE. 4 And, tender churl, mak'it wafte in niggarding.]So, in Romeo and Juliet: "Then he hath fworn that she will ftill live chafte?

"Rom. She hath and in that sparing makes huge wafte." C. 5 —this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.] The ancient editors of Shakspeare's works, deferve at leaft the praife of impartiality. If VOL. X.

they

II.

When forty winters fhall befiege thy bro
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's fie
Thy youth's proud livery, fo gaz'd on no
Will be a tatter'd weed, of Imall worth
Then, being afk'd where all thy beauty li
Where all the treasure of thy lufty days;
To fay, within thine own deep-funken eye
Were an all-eating fhame, and thriftless
How much more praise deferv'd thy beauty
If thou could't answer-"This fair child
Shall fum my count, and make my old excufe,
Proving his beauty by fucceffion thine.

This were to be new made, when thou a
And fee thy blood warm, when thou feel
they have occafionally corrupted his nobleft fentiment
wife depraved his moft miferable conceits; as, perhap
I read (piteous conftraint, to read such stuff at all!)
-this glutton be;

To eat the world's due, be thy grave and thee. i. e. be at once thyfelf, and thy grave. The letters t words were probably tranfpofed. I did not think t had fuch example for the contrivance of making Harle his own throat. STEEVENS.

I do not believe there is any corruption in the text. daily thinned by the grave, the world could not fubfift thofe who are taken off by death were not filled up by t dren. Hence Shakspeare confiders the propagation of world's due, as a right to which it is entitled, and v mand from every individual. The fentiment in the li must be owned, is quaintly expreffed; but the obfcurity think, from the aukward collocation of the words for rhime. The meaning feems to me to be this.-Pity th is daily depopulated by the grave, and beget children, in the lofs; or, if you do not fulfil this duty, acknowledge, t fwallows and confumes more than is fufficient for bis ow (wbo by the course of nature muft die, and by your ow likely to die childless) thus " fume and deftroy the world's due; to the defolation of a living and dying in fingle b doubly contribute; 1. by thy death, 2. by thy dying child

Our authour's plays, as well as the poems now befor a fufficient number of conceits, it is rather hard that h fwerable for fuch as can only be obtained through the m ration; that he fhould be ridiculed not only for what h what he has not written. MALONE.

a taller'd weed,-] A torn garment. MALONE.

« PreviousContinue »