own power. Here, then, we have it that whereas when sonnet 96 was written Shakespeare had no other argument than Mr. W. H., he had now found other things to write about, but it was songs and not a play on which his Muse had been expending her fury. Mr. Lee says, I have no doubt correctly, that Shakespeare's first essays as a playwright "have been with confidence allotted to 1591. To Love's Labour's Loft may reasonably be assigned priority in point of time of all Shakespeare's productions" (Life of Shakespeare, p. 50).

In a note on p. 52 Mr. Lee very justly says that the name Armado for the Spanish pedant in Love's Labour's Lost was doubtless suggested by the Armada-the defeat of which was first publicly proclaimed in London 15th August 1588, but must have been commonly known a full week earlier. I would remind the reader that in the literature of the time the Armada was generally, if not universally, called the Armado. Love's Labour's Lost, then, which has more affinity with the Sonnets than any other of Shakespeare's plays, though .some of the other earliest ones run it close, must have been written between 1588 and 1591, and hence–if I am right (as I shall argue in my next chapter) in supposing the defeat of the Armada to be referred to in 127not long after the Sonnets. Probably, therefore, Shakespeare was accurate when in 120 he describes himself as having been occupied with lyrical, not dramatic composition, and the introduction of sonnets into Love's Labour's Lost, as well as of passages which at once recall the Sonnets, must be taken not as a foreshadowing of these poems, but as an overflow from them.

Sonnet 124 throws no direct light upon Shakespeare's age at the date when the earlier sonnets were written, but as I have already insisted, it assures us that that

date must be fixed about three years earlier; for we have three recurrences of each of the four seasons, expressly Stated as having intervened between sonnet 124 and Shakespeare's first acquaintance with Mr. W. H.; therefore, we should be, roughly, at the same part of the year as when we started. The question then is, whether or no I was right in starting with spring for sonnet 1.

I think so. For supposing sonnet 1 to have been written in 1585, 1st January 1585-6 may be taken as a fairly certain date for sonnet 97; and it is impossible to crowd sonnets 1-96, with all the various incidents and absences therein indicated, into a less space than three quarters of a year; furthermore the lines,

"Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring,"

do after all suggest spring with some force as the most appropriate season at which to date sonnet 1; I feel fairly confident, therefore, in dating sonnet 124 as written in April, or thereabouts-but whether the April in question be that of 1588 or no, and hence whether my initial hypothesis of April 1585 for sonnet 1 may stand, will depend on what we think concerning sonnet 127.

I have said in chapter 9 that I take sonnets 120-126 to be closely connected. It is in evidence that there was a long interval between sonnets 119 and 120; it is also, as we have just seen, in evidence that sonnet 124 was written about April; 125 and 126 strongly suggest peace-offering as an amende after long silence; I therefore date all the sonnets 120-126 as written in the spring-whenever that spring was-that preceded the writing of 127.

In the following chapter I shall attempt to show that this last-named sonnet was written early in August 1588.

From sonnet 125 we gather that whatever may have been the songs on which his muse had been expending the fury referred to in sonnet 120, they can hardly have been of great importance in Shakespeare's opinion, for in 125 we find him saying that his songs and praises were all alike "To one, of one, still such and ever so.' But these words, it would seem, must be taken cum grano.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: ON THE DATES OF SONNET 127 (107 Q)

AND THE REMAINING SONNETS

HAVE SHOWN IN THE PRECEDING CHAPter that there are many reasons for holding the Sonnets to have been the first poems that Shakespeare wrote; indeed I know of nothing that points in any other direction, except his own attempts to make himself out old-and these I believe I have sufficiently shown to fail. If, then, the Sonnets were Shakespeare's earliest essays in literature, there is nothing strange, when we look at Chatterton whose career ended when he was only eighteen, in supposing that the first sonnets may have been written when Shakespeare was only twenty-one years old; for such a prolific genius as his was little likely to be long in finding expression of some sort.

This is the utmost that I can pretend so far to have established. Whether or no the dates which I have provisionally assigned to the various sonnets, or groups of sonnets, may be allowed to stand must depend on what we conclude concerning 127 (107 Q). If we can date this, we can date the whole series, much as I have done; otherwise we can date nothing with precision.

It is agreed on all hands that the sonnet in question refers to an event in contemporary history-and it is the only one in which such reference can be detected. It is surprising, therefore, that neither Malone, nor Steevens, nor any of the earlier students of the Sonnets, should have sought to discover what the event was which so powerfully deflected Shakespeare from his habitual reticence about current national events. Let me repeat the sonnet in full:

"Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom:
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now, with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent."

Never was time of universal apprehension more graphically portrayed; who but Shakespeare could have brought so vividly and concisely before us the relief of a nation on finding its fears groundless after having delivered itself over to the gloomiest forebodings? Not England only, but the whole civilized world was in suspense; no one knew what might happen; a shadow overhung the throne, and who could say whether it would pass away, or prove to be the doom and date of all things? Shakespeare feared the worst, and as part of that worst he and Mr. W. H. would probably never see one another again-and lo! the shadow had passed; the prophets of evil were now laughing at their own fears; every one was breathing freely, for security seemed permanently assured; Shakespeare and his friend were to be drawn together as closely as in the early days of their acquaintance, and while death is insulting over dull and speechless tribes, Mr. W. H. will find a monument in Shakespeare's verse which shall outlive the crests of tyrants.