deep as that of the secrets of Nature, never once knew interruption. The moment, however, we regard the Sonnets as autobiographical, we find ourselves in the presence of doubts and difficulties, exaggerated, it is true, by many writers, yet certainly real.
If we must escape from them, the simplest mode is to assume that the Sonnets are "the free outcome of a poetic imagination" (Delius). It is an ingenious suggestion of Delius that certain groups may be offsets from other poetical works of Shakspere; those urging a beautiful youth to perpetuate his beauty in offspring may be a derivative from Venus and Adonis; those declaring love for a dark complexioned woman may rehandle the theme set forth in Berowne's passion for the dark Rosaline of Love's Labour's Lost; those which tell of a mistress resigned to a friend may be a nondramatic treatment of the theme of love and friendship presented in the later scenes of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Perhaps a few sonnets, as no and in, refer to circumstances of Shakspere's life (Dyce); the main body of these poems may still be regarded as mere exercises of the fancy.
Such an explanation of the Sonnets has the merit of simplicity; it unties no knots, but cuts all at a blow; if the collection consists of disconnected exercises of the fancy, we
Shelley's feeling with reference to the Sonnets may be guessed from certain lines to be found among the Studies for Epipsychidion and Cancelled Passages (Poetical Works: ed. Forman, vol. ii. pp. 392, 393), to which my attention has been called by Mr. E. W. Gosse:
"If any should be curious to discover
Whether to you I am a friend or lover,
Let them read Shakspeare's sonnets, taking thence
A whetstone for their dull intelligence
That tears and will not cut, or let them guess
How Diotima, the wise prophetess,
Instructed the instructor, and why he
Rebuked the infant spirit of melody
On Agathon's sweet lips, which as he spoke
Was as the lovely star when morn has broke
The roof of darkness, in the golden dawn,
Half-hidden and yet beautiful."
