he sonnets to rank
as autobiographical documents, but I have felt bound, out of respect to
writers from whose views I dissent, to give in detail the evidence on
which I base my judgment. Matthew Arnold sagaciously laid down the maxim
that 'the criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a
criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and artistic
{vii} purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and
working to a common result.' It is criticism inspired by this
liberalising principle that is especially applicable to the vast
sonnet-literature which was produced by Shakespeare and his
contemporaries. It is criticism of the type that Arnold recommended that
can alone lead to any accurate and profitable conclusion respecting the
intention of the vast sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan era. In
accordance with Arnold's suggestion, I have studied Shakespeare's sonnets
comparatively with those in vogue in England, France, and Italy at the
time he wrote. I have endeavoured to learn the view that was taken of
such literary endeavours by contemporary critics and readers throughout
Europe. My researches have covered a very small portion of the wide
field. But I have gone far enough, I think, to justify the conviction
that Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has no reasonable title to be
regarded as a personal or autobiographical narrative.

In the Appendix (Sections III. and IV.) I have supplied a memoir of
Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, and an account of the
Earl's relations with the contemporary world of letters. Apart from
Southampton's association with the sonnets, he promoted Shakespeare's
welfare at an early stage of the dramatist's career, and I can quote the
authority of Malone, who appended a sketch of Southampton's history to
his biography of Shakespeare (in the 'Variorum' edition of 1821), for
treating a knowledge of Southampton's life as essential to a full
knowledge of Shakespeare's. I have also printed in the Appendix a
detailed statement of the precise circumstances under which Shakespeare's
sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 (Section V.), and a
review of the facts that seem to me to confute the popular theory that
Shakespeare was a friend and _protege_ of William Herbert, third Earl of
Pembroke, who has been put forward quite unwarrantably as the hero of the
sonnets (Sections VI., VII., VIII.) {ix} I have also included in the
Appendix (