Part 23 (1/2)

[18] Mr Beeching's illustration of the friendshi+p of the sonnets froes of argument

[19] In 125 the poet repudiates the accusation that his friendshi+p is too much based on beauty

[20] This does not imply that the Sonnets are as early as the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and much less that they are earlier

[21] This seems to be referred to in lines by John Davies of Hereford, reprinted in Ingleby's _Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse_, second edition, pp 58, 84, 94 In the first of these passages, dated 1603 (and perhaps in the second, 1609), there are signs that Davies had read Sonnet 111, a fact to be noted with regard to the question of the chronology of the Sonnets

[22] 'Mistress Tearsheet' too 'would fain hear some music,' and 'Sneak's noise' had to be sent for (2 _Henry IV_, II iv 12)

[23] It is tereat passage in _Pericles_ that Shakespeare must have been in a storm at sea; but that he felt the poetry of a sea-stor of his works arenot without difficulty to the writer of the first two Acts of _Pericles_, suddenly, as the third opens, one hears the authentic voice:

Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges That wash both heaven and hell The seaman's whistle Is as a whisper in the ears of death, Unheard

Knowing that this is coh I believe Shakespeare wrote it How it can be iined that he did more than touch up Acts I and II passes my comprehension

I may call attention to another point Unless Iin Shakespeare's authorities, as known to us, which corresponds with the feeling of Tiain: but say to Athens, Tie of the salt flood:

a feeling made more explicit in the final speech of Alcibiades

[24] The lily seems to be in almost all cases the Madonna lily It is very doubtful whether the lily of the valley is referred to at all

[25] But there is so, in Sonnet 50, which, pro to show a real sy that the fact has any personal significance, that the words about 'the poor beetle that we tread upon' are given to a woman (Isabella), and that it is Marina who says:

I trod upon a worainst my will, But I wept for it

[26] Three times in one drama Shakespeare refers to this detestable trait See _Shakespearean Tragedy_, p 268, where I should like to qualify still further the sentence containing the qualification 'on the whole' Good judges, at least, assure

[27] Nor can I recall any sign of liking, or even approval, of that 'prudent, _cautious_, self-control' which, according to a passage in Burns, is 'wisdom's root'

[28] The _locus classicus_, of course, is _Troilus and Cressida_, I

iii 75 ff

[29] Of all the evils inflicted by e in _Cyreat, the tyrant's stroke, slander, censure rash

[30] Having written these paragraphs, I should like to disclaim the belief that Shakespeare was habitually deeply discontented with his position in life

[31] Allusions to puritans show at ranted, that he did not like precisians or people hostile to the stage

[32] In the Sonnets, for exaious thought or feeling The nearest approach to it is in Sonnet 146 ('Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth'), where, however, there is no allusion to a divine law or judge

According to Sonnet 129, lust in action is

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame;

but no word shows that it is also felt as alienation from God It must be added that in 108 and 110 there are references to the Lord's Prayer and, perhaps, to the First Coious Christian would perhaps have shrunk Of course I a that we can draw any _necessary_ inference from these facts

[33] It is only this 'quiet but deep sense' that is significant No inference can be drawn from the fact that the mere belief in powers above seems to be taken as a ood and bad alike On the other hand theresymptomatic in the apparent absence of interest in theoretical disbelief in such powers and in the immortality of the soul I have observed elsewhere that the atheism of Aaron does not increase the probability that the conception of the character is Shakespeare's