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To her my thoughts I daily dedicate,
To her my heart I nightly martyrize:
To her my love I lowly do prostrate,

To her my life I wholly sacrifice :

My thought, my heart, my love, my life is she,

And I hers ever only, ever one :

One ever I all vowed hers to be,

One ever I, and others never none."

Let these lines be read with those from 330 to 351 of Colin Clouts, as Spenser's picture of a divine object, and then let them be compared to the 80th, 86th, and 105th Sonnets of Shakespeare:

80. "O, how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit [that of Spenser ?] doth use

your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive, and I be cast away,

The worst was this,-my love was my decay."

That is, his love of truth, goodness, God; and to

fall in that service was deemed an honor.

86. "Was it the proud full sail of his great verse

no doubt referring to Spenser—

Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inherse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

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I was not sick of any fear from thence:

But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine."

It was not, as we understand this Sonnet, that Shakespeare stood in fear of any mortal man, as a rival in doing honor to Love; but when he saw, in the lines of Spenser, the evidence of a direct inspiration from Love itself, by seeing in the poet's lines the countenance of Love, then he felt himself abashed, or overawed; not in a spirit of rivalry about a mortal being, as many suppose, but because he knew that without divine aid, or that direct in

spiration invoked in his own 16th Sonnet, he would not be able to approach the perfection of Spenser's lines. Yet he even surpassed Spenser in the declaration of the One, in the unity of the beautiful, the good, and the true, as his 105th Sonnet will show.

Notwithstanding the unexpected length of these remarks, we must notice the fact that most of the lovers, whilst pursuing their inquiries, make very free accusations of infidelity against their mistresses. This only means, in reality, that Nature, according to her ancient name of Proteus, is exceedingly difficult to hold in any one position long enough to permit examination; for while the student, after much devotion, fancies he has obtained a true view, presto all is changed and nothing appears as it did, nothing seems to have been accomplished.

This character of Nature is perfectly represented in the story of The Man of Fifty, in the 12th chapter of Meister's Travels, Carlyle's translation, in which the widow represents Nature; the major, intellect; and Hillario, faith. When the young intellect, the major's son, acquaints the father with the state of the question between himself and the widow, and the father intimates doubts calculated

to calm the enthusiasm of the son, the answer is precisely true of Nature:

"That is just her soft, silent, half-concealing, half-discovering way, by which you become certain of your wishes, and yet can never altogether get rid of doubt."

And then the son describes, in transports, the beauty of the widow as she walked to and fro through the open doors, along the whole suite of chambers (or wherever Nature is seen), and adds:

"If she was beautiful while moving under the blaze of the lusters [i. e., in open day], she was infinitely more so when illuminated by the soft gleam of the lamp,"

(To wit, the conscience), which is described as at the end of the hall in a small cabinet (the heart).

Every page of Meister's Travels is hermetic, and as that style of writing is now but little known, it might be useful to have an edition of that wonderful work just sufficiently annotated to awaken attention.

The editors of the poets seem to attach much importance to the sonnets, as illustrating the biographies of the writers. This is a grievous mistake, if the sonnets are taken literally, as they universally

are. A shocking consequence appears in the case of Shakespeare, under the handling of nearly all of his editors, including Hallam himself.

The inferences from Shakespeare's 144th Sonnet are well known, nearly all of the editors accepting and repeating them to his disadvantage. Of course, we mean to the disadvantage of the reader; for Shakespeare is beyond the reach of mistakes with regard to himself. But the very same inferences may be made from Spenser's Sonnets: for example, the 10th, in which the poet accuses his lady of luxuriating

"in licentious bliss,

Of her freewill-"

calling her a "tyrannesse, rejoicing in the huge massacres which her eyes do make," &c.; and in numerous Sonnets similar language is met with. Can the reader suppose this was addressed by Spenser to a lady whom he sought in marriage ? Surely not; and how would a lady receive a Sonnet in which she is compared to a "panther," using the arts detailed in the 53d Sonnet, and for the purpose therein set forth?

It was Nature that Spenser compared to a

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