Then, as if conscious upon how unstable a foundation he had built his love, he expresses his fear lest he should be betrayed, yet remain unconscious of the wrong. For there can live no hatred in thine eye, In many looks, the false heart's history Is writ in moods and frowns, and wrinkles strange. That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell, He bitterly reproaches her with her levity and falsehood, and himself that he can be thus unworthily enslaved,What potions have I drunk of Syren tears, &c. Then, with lover-like inconsistency, excuses her, As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteemed; So are those errors that in thee are seen To truths translated, and for true things deem'd. And the following are powerfully and painfully expressive: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! And what a mansion have those vices got, And all things turn to fair that eyes can see! "Who taught thee," he says in another Sonnet, to make me love thee more The more I hear, and see just cause for hate? He who wrote these and similar passages was certainly under the full and irresistible influence of female fascination. But who it was that thus ruled the universal heart and mighty spirit of our Shakspeare, we know not. She stands behind him a veiled and a nameless phantom. Neither dare we call in Fancy to penetrate that veil; for who would presume to trace even the faintest outline of such a being as Shakspeare could have loved? I think it doubtful to whom were addressed those exquisites lines, Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now! &c.* but probably to this very person. The Sonnets in which he alludes to his profession as an actor; where he speaks of the brand, "which vulgar scandal stamped upon his brow," and of having made himself "a motely to men's view,"t are undoubtedly addressed to Lord Southampton. O, for my sake, do you with fortune chide Than public means, which public manners breeds; To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd. The last I small remark, perhaps the finest of all, and breathing the very sout of profound tenderness and melancholy feeling, must, I think, have been addressed to a female. No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell From this vile earth, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, O if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay The period assigned to the composition of these Sonnets, and the attachment which inspired them, is the time when Shakspeare was living a wild and irregular life, between the court and the theatre, after his flight from Stratford. He had previously married, at the age of seventeen, + Sonnets 110, 111. * Sonnet 172. Judith Hathaway, who was eight or ten years older than himself: he returned to his native town, after having sounded all depths of life, of nature, of passion, and ended his days as the respected father of a family, in calm, unostentatious privacy. One thing I will confess:-It is natural to feel an intense and insatiable curiosity relative to great men, a curiosity and interest for which nothing can be too minute, too personal. And yet when I had ransacked all that had ever been written, discovered, or surmised, relative to Shakspeare's private life, for the purpose of throwing some light upon his Sonnets, I felt no gratification, no thankfulness to those whose industry had raked up the very few particulars which can be known. It is too much, and it is not enough: it disappoints us in one point of view-it is superfluous in another: what need to surround with common-place, trivial associations, registers of wills and genealogies, and I know not what,-the mighty spirit who in dying left behind him not merely a name and fame, but a perpetual being, a presence and a power, identified with our nature, diffused through all time, and ruling the heart and the fancy with an uncontrollable and universal sway! I rejoice that the name of no one woman is popularly identified with that of Shakspeare. He belongs to us all! -the creator of Desdemona, and Juliet, and Ophelia, and Imogen, and Viola, and Constance, and Cornelia, and Rosalind, and Portia, was not the poet of one woman, but the POET OF WOMANKIND. CHAPTER XVI. SYDNEY'S STELLA. Ar the very name of Sir Philip Sydney,-the generous, gallant, all-accomplished Sydney,-the roused fancy wakes, as at the sound of a silver trumpet, to all the gay and splendid associations of chivalry and romance. He was in the court of Elizabeth, what Surrey had been in that of her father, Henry the Eighth; and like his prototype, Sir Calidore in the Fairy Queen, Every look and world that he did say Was like enchantment, that through both the ears And as Surrey had his Fair Geraldine, Sydney had his Simplicity was not the fashion of Elizabeth's age in any particular; the conversation and the poetry addressed by her stately romantic courtiers to her and her maids of honour, were like the dresses they wore,-stiff with jewels and standing on end with embroidery, gorgeous of hue and fantastic in form; but with many a brilliant gem of exceeding price, scattered up and down, where one would scarce think to find them; losing something of their effect by being misplaced, but none of their inherent beauty and value. The poetry of Sir Philip Sydney was extravagantly admired in his own time, and it has since been less read than it deserves. It contains much of the pedantic quaintness, the laboured ornament, the cumbrous phraseology, which was the taste, the language of the day: but he had elegance of mind and tenderness of feeling; above all, he was in earnest, and accordingly, there are beautiful and brilliant things scattered through both his poetry and prose. If his "Phoenix-Stella" be less popularly celebrated than the Fair Geraldine,-her name less intimate with our fancy, it is not because her poet lacked skill to immortalize her in superlatives: it is the recollection of the mournful fate and darkened fame of that beautiful but illstarred woman, contrasted with the brilliant career and spotless glory of her lover, which strikes the imagination with a painful contrast, and makes us reluctant to dwell on her memory. The Stella of Sydney's poetry, and the Philoclea of his Arcadia, was the Lady Penelope Devereux, the elder sister. of the favourite Essex. While yet in her childhood, she was the intended bride of Sydney, and for several years they were considered as almost engaged to each other: it was natural, therefore, at this time, that he should be accustomed to regard her with tenderness and unreproved admiration, and should gratify both by making her the object of his poetical raptures. She was also less openly, but even more ardently, loved by young Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, who seems to have disputed with Sydney the first place in her heart. She is described as a woman of exquisite beauty, on a grand and splendid scale; dark sparkling eyes; pale brown hair; a rich vivid complexion; a regal brow and a noble figure. Sydney tells us that she was at first "most fair, most cold;"—and the beautiful sonnet, With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the sky!* refers to his earlier feelings. He describes a tilting-match, held in presence of the Queen and Court, in which he came off victor— Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance, "Stella looked on," he says, " and from her fair eyes sent forth the encouraging glance that gave him victory." These soft and brilliant eyes are often and beautifully touched upon; and it must be remarked, never without an allusion to the modesty of their expression. * Sonnet 31. + Sonnet 41. |