al torments of a lover (cf. xxvii. xxviii.
xliii. lxi.) and on his blindness to the beauty of spring or summer when
he is separated from his love (cf. xcvii. xcviii.) At times a youth is
rebuked for sensual indulgences; he has sought and won the favour of the
poet's mistress in the poet's absence, but the poet is forgiving
(xxxii.-xxxv. xl.-xlii. lxix. xcv.-xcvi.) In Sonnet lxx. the young man
whom the poet addresses is credited with a different disposition and
experience:

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd!

At times melancholy overwhelms the writer: he despairs of the corruptions
of the age (lxvi.), reproaches himself with carnal sin (cxix.), declares
himself weary of his profession of acting (cxi. cxii.), and foretells his
approaching death (lxxi.-lxxiv.) Throughout are dispersed obsequious
addresses to the youth in his capacity of sole patron of the poet's verse
(cf. xxiii. xxxvii. c. ci. ciii. civ.) But in one sequence the friend is
sorrowfully reproved for bestowing his patronage on rival poets
(lxxviii.-lxxxvi.) In three sonnets near the close of the first group in
the original edition, the writer gives varied assurances of his constancy
in love or friendship which apply indifferently to man or woman (cf.
cxxii. cxxiv. cxxv.)

Main topics of the second 'group.'

In two sonnets of the second 'group' (cxxvi.-clii.) the poet compliments
his mistress on her black complexion and raven-black hair and eyes. In
twelve sonnets he hotly denounces his 'dark' mistress for her proud
disdain of his affection, and for her manifold infidelities with other
men. Apparently continuing a theme of the first 'group,' the poet
rebukes the woman, whom he addresses, for having beguiled his friend to
yield himself to her seductions (cxxxiii.-cxxxvi.) Elsewhere he makes
satiric reflections on the extravagant compliments paid to the fair sex
by other sonnetteers (No. cxxx.) or lightly quibbles on his name of
'Will' (cxxx.-vi.) In tone and subject-matter numerous sonnets in the
second as in the first 'group' lack visible sign of coherence with those
they immediately precede or follow.

It is not merely a close study of the text that confutes the theory, for
which recent writers have fought hard, of a logical continuity in
Thorpe's arrangement of the poems in 1609. There remains the historic
fact that readers a