an active personality, has
temporarily vanquished Time, but will soon obtain the full audit. If
the Sonnet is addressed to the god of love it reduces him to the
limitations of mortality; if it is addressed to his friend, it
indicates that, though but for a little while, Nature has lifted him
to an attribute of immortality. The latter interpretation makes the
poet enlarge and glorify his subject; the former makes him belittle
it, and bring the god of love to the audit of age and the ravage of
wrinkles. This is the last sonnet of the first series; with the next
begins the series relating to his mistress. Reading it literally,
considering it as addressed to his friend, it is sparkling and poetic,
a final word, loving, admonitory, in perfect line and keeping with the
central thought of all that came before. From this Sonnet, interpreted
as I indicate, I shall try to find assistance in this study. But if it
is a mere poetical ascription to Cupid, it, of course, tells us
nothing except that its author was a poet.

I should not, however, leave this subject without stating that the
fanciful interpretation of these Sonnets does not seem to be favored
by more recent authors. I find no indication of such an interpretation
in Taine's _English Literature_, or in Grant White's edition of
Shakespeare. Professor Edward Dowden, universally recognized as a fair
and competent critic, says: "The natural sense, I am convinced, is the
true one."[4] Hallam says: "No one can doubt that they express not
only real but intense emotions of the heart."[5] Professor Tyler, in a
work relating to the Sonnets, says: "The impress of reality is
stamped on these Sonnets with unmistakable clearness."[6] Mr. Lee,
while regarding some of these as mere fancies, obviously finds that
many of them treated of facts.[7] Mr. Dowden, in a work devoted to the
Sonnets, states very fully the views which have been expressed by
different authors in relation to them. His quotations occupy sixty
pages and, I think, clearly show that the weight of authority is
decidedly in favor of allowing them their natural or primary meaning.

There are one hundred and fifty-four of these Sonnets. The last two
are different in theme and effect from those which go before, and may
perhaps not improperly be considered as mere exercises in poetizing.
They have no connection with the others, and I would have no
contention with those who regard them as suggested by Petrarch, or as
complaisan