anced and confined, that the Sonnets
portray.

Considering that the Sonnets were so written, there is no need of any
other than a literal and natural reading or interpretation. Commencing
in expressions of gratulation and implied flattery, as they proceed,
they appear to have been written as the incidents, fears and griefs
which they indicate from time to time came; and it may well be that
they were written not for publication, but as vents or expressions of
a surcharged heart. With such a view of the situation of the poet and
of his patron, we may not only understand much that otherwise is
inexplicable, but we may understand why so much and such resplendent
poetry is lavished on incidents so bare, meagre, and commonplace, and
why they present both poet and patron with frailties and faults naked
and repellant; and we can the better palliate and forgive the weakness
and subjection which the Sonnets indicate on the part of their author.
With such a reading the Sonnets become a chronicle of the modes and
feelings of their author, resembling in this respect the _In Memoriam_
of Tennyson; and their poetry becomes deeper and better, often
equalling, if not surpassing in pathos and intensity anything in the
greater Shakespearean plays.

Such is the result or conclusion to which the discussion which follows
is intended to lead. I shall not, however, ask the reader to accept
any such conclusion or result merely because it removes difficulties
or because it makes or rather leaves the poetry better; but I shall
present--that the Sonnets contain direct testimony, testimony not
leading to surmise or conjecture, but testimony which would authorize
a judgment in a court of law, that the Sonnets were not written by
Shakespeare, and that they very strongly indicate that Shakespeare
was the friend or patron to whom so many of them are addressed.

How such a conclusion from such testimony may be affected by arguments
drawn from other sources I shall not discuss, contenting myself if
into the main and larger controversy I have succeeded in introducing
the effect and teaching of this, certainly, very valuable and
important testimony.

TESTIMONY OF THE SONNETS AS TO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN
PLAYS AND POEMS

CHAPTER I

OF THE CHARACTER OF THE SONNETS AND THEIR RELATION TO THE OTHER WORKS
OF THE SAME AUTHOR

In these pages I propose an examination and study of the Shakespearean
Sonnets, for the purpose of ascerta