s antiquity for aye his page_;
Finding the _first_ conceit of love there bred,
Where _time_ and _outward form_ would show it dead.

Hardly could any argument for extreme youth be made from any of these
lines, except as based on the term "boy." The term "youth" obviously
has a broader significance, and by no strained construction,
especially if coming from a man of advanced years, may be applied to
persons on the morning side of life without any precise or clear
reference to, or indication of, their age. We should therefore turn to
the lines containing the appellation "boy" for whatever of force there
is in the claim for the extreme youth of the poet's friend. Doing so,
the context in each case clearly indicates that no such inference can
be fairly drawn. In the Sonnet last quoted (CVIII.), the poet, saying
that there is nothing new to register of his love for his friend, and
that he counts nothing old that is so used, then says that his eternal
love

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place.

Hardly could he have said plainer that his loving appellation, "sweet
boy," is made because he can allow neither his friend, nor his love
for him, nor his own frequent recurring expressions of it, to grow
old; the last two lines of the Sonnet, referring to the indications
of time and outward form, seem to be a continuance and enlargement of
the same thought.

So interpreting his verse it is fresh, sparkling, and complimentary;
but deeming that the person addressed was sixteen or twenty years old,
indeed a mere boy, at least half of the portion of the Sonnet
following the term "sweet boy" is inappropriate and useless. This
Sonnet, I think, might be cited as indicating that, except to the eye
of love, that is in sober fact, the poet's friend was no longer a boy.

Sonnet CXXVI., is quoted at page 28, and discussed, and presented as
clearly stating that his friend was termed a boy only because, as to
him, Time had been hindered and delayed.

There is, however, a further consideration which I think should
effectually dispose of any doubts that may remain on account of the
use of the words "youth" or "boy." In the succeeding portions of this
chapter I shall quote Sonnets indicating, indeed saying, that the poet
was on the sunset side of life--probably fifty years of age or older,
and so at least twenty years older than is indicated of his friend,
except in the Sonnets now bein