If the opinion be sound that so far as any locality is predicated in these Sonnets it is that of London, its river and its neighbourhood; it would therefore appear that few, if any of them, were anterior to March 1581: and as SIDNEY left England finally in November 1584; the hypothetical dates for their composition, in default of any positive evidence, must be the years 1581-1584.
IV.
We have here to confess our manifold ignorance of many points
at this period of the story, upon which we should be glad to
inform our readers.
The date when the misery began, has eluded our search; that is, the day when Lord RICH contracted his unlawful though legal marriage with Lady PENELOPE DEVEREUX. Now-a-days we could not think it possible that a young English nobleman could —even if surrounding circumstances permitted it—have the audacity, the effrontery, the heartlessness to marry against her will a beautiful young English lady of high rank; who, from her very soul, detested him.
Yet this befell SIDNEY'S STELLA.
The revolting story of the misery, extending over many years, that this bad man brought upon the Lady he thus legally appropriated, was written by him who was, in truth and reality, her second husband CHARLES BLOUNT Earl of DEVONSHIRE, to JAMES I., and must be told here; if we would understand—though he only saw the beginning of it—SIDNEY'S agony, his continued love for STELLA, and the scorn which he has thus ably expressed for that man RICH.
<poem> Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow: And damning their own selves to TANTAL'S smart, Wealth breeding want; more blest, more wretched grow.
Yet to those fools, heaven such wit doth impart, As what their hands do hold, their heads do know; And knowing, love and loving lay apart, As sacred things, far from all dangers show:
But that rich fool, who by blind Fortune's lot, The richest gem of love and life enjoys;
- <poem>
