, that the lines allow any clear or certain
deduction either way, but have called attention to them because they
are often cited on this point.

In Sonnet XIII. occurs the line,

Who lets so fair a _house_ fall to decay.

The word "house" as there used has been interpreted as though used in
the sense of the House of York, and so made an implication that his
friend was of a lordly line. Such a far-fetched and unusual
interpretation should not be adopted unless clearly indicated. And the
context clearly indicates that the phrase "so fair a house" is used as
a metaphor for the poet's fair and beautiful body. If this inquiry
were to be affected by far-drawn or even doubtful interpretations, I
might quote from Sonnet LXXXVI. There the poet, referring to his
rival, says:

But when your _countenance_ fill'd up his line.

By merely limiting the word _countenance_ to its primary meaning, we
may have the inference that his rival's verse was spoken or _acted_ by
his friend, and so that his friend was an actor. I do not think,
however, that either of the two lines last cited are entitled to any
weight as argument, but they illustrate the distinction between lines
or Sonnets which may be the basis of surmise or conjecture, and those
elsewhere cited, to which two different effects cannot be given
without rending their words from their natural meaning.

* * * * *

The Earl of Southampton was born in 1573. He bore an historic name;
fields, forests, and castles were his and had come to him from his
ancestors; all of England that was most beautiful or most attractive
was in the circle in which he moved and to which his presence
contributed. In 1595 he appeared in the lists at a tournament in honor
of the Queen; in 1596 and 1597 he joined in dangerous and successful
naval and military expeditions; in 1598 he was married.[35] Is it
conceivable that two thousand lines of adulatory poetry could have
been written to and of him, and no hint appear of incidents like
these? It is simply incredible. What is omitted rather than what is
said clearly indicates that the life of the poet's friend presented no
such incidents,--indeed no incidents which the poet chronicler of
court and camp would interweave in his garlands of loving compliment.

Urging his friend to marry, the poet, comparing the harmony of music
to a happy marriage, in Sonnet VIII. says:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
S