tic genius. But criticism seems to have
established, and critics seem to agree, that in the works accredited
to him are plays of a lower order, which certainly are not from the
same author as the remainder, and especially the greater plays. In
this widely different and lower class, criticism seems to be agreed in
placing the greater portion of _Pericles_, _Titus Andronicus_,
_Timon of Athens_, two parts of _Henry VI._, and _Henry
VIII._[1] In addition to those, there are at least ten plays not now
published as Shakespeare's, that are conceded to be of a lower order and
by a different author, but which, apart from internal evidence, can be
almost as certainly shown to be his work as many of the greater of the
recognized Shakespearean plays. In the same high class of poetry as
the greater of these dramas are the Sonnets; and they are
unmistakably, and I think concededly, the work of the author of those
greater plays.

It is of our poet, as the author of these greater dramas as well as of
the Sonnets, that we would seek to learn in the study of the Sonnets.
It is only in the Sonnets that the poet speaks in the first person, or
allows us any suggestion of himself. His dramas reveal to us the
characters he has imagined and desires to portray; but they reveal
nothing of the author. His two great poems are dramatic in substance
and equally fail to give us any hint of their creator; but in the
Sonnets his own is the character whose thoughts and emotions are
stated. There we come nearest to him; and there it would seem that we
should be able to learn very much of him. Perhaps we shall find that
they do not present him at his best; it may be that they were intended
only for the eye of the friend or patron to whom they are addressed.
Perhaps they reveal the raveled sleeve, the anxieties of a straitened
life and of narrow means. Certainly, while they reveal the wonderful
fertility, resource, and fancy of the poet, they do not indicate that
in outward semblance, surroundings or history their author was either
fortunate or happy; and as we read them, sometimes we may feel that we
are entering the poet's heart-home unbidden and unannounced. But if we
have come there when it is all unswept and ungarnished, may we not the
more certainly rely on what it indicates?

Before entering on the study of the Sonnets we may inquire what, if
anything, there is, distinctive of our great poet, the recognition of
which may aid us in their interpret