very great and very rare at any time.'

There is no difficulty in detecting the lineaments of the Earl of
Southampton in those of the man who is distinctively greeted in the
sonnets as the poet's patron. Three of the twenty 'dedicatory' sonnets
merely translate into the language of poetry the expressions of devotion
which had already done duty in the dedicatory epistle in prose that
prefaces 'Lucrece.' That epistle to Southampton runs:

The love {127} I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof
this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The
warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my
untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is
yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted
yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime,
as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life,
still lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Sonnet xxvi. is a gorgeous rendering of these sentences:--

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written ambassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then not show my head where thou may'st prove me. {128}

The 'Lucrece' epistle's intimation that the patron's love alone gives
value to the poet's 'untutored lines' is repeated in Sonnet xxxii., which
doubtless reflected a moment of depression:

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time,
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O