Anon permit the basest clouds to ride Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth." LIV. "O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, For that sweet odour which doth in it live. As the perfumed tincture of the roses, When summer's breath their masked buds discloses : They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth." In reading through the sonnets of Shakespeare, we cannot help being struck repeatedly with the sense which he appears to have had of his own immortality. There is no vaunting in this. It is merely a confidence in his own surpassing intellect, which seems to shine through all the mists of sorrow and evil fortune which surrounded him, and to cheer him on his way. "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme," he says, in Sonnet 55; and again, in the 81st and others, he speaks to the same effect. The next which we shall extract will be the 68th. "Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn, Before the golden tresses of the dead, To shew false art what beauty was of yore." The divine humanity which shines through the following (the 71st) Sonnet was worthy even of Shakespeare himself. It fixes us his lovers and admirers more than either Hamlet or Lear. How delightful is it to be thus admitted to the innermost recesses of the great poet's mind. He was undoubtedly one of the best as well as wisest of men. LXXI. "No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Give warning to the world that I am fled That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, The next which we shall select has great pathos. XC. “ Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; And do not drop in for an after-loss : Ah! do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, At first the very worst of Fortune's might." &c. We hope that we shall not fatigue our readers by adding a few more specimens from this store. Our object is, if possible, to enrich our pages with all that is best in the poems of Shakespeare. They are worthy of study. If they appear harsh or quaint to the reader at the first glance, let him be assured, that they contain high poetry and striking sense. He will like them better on a second reading, we think, and better still on a third. If, after all, he shall dislike them, the fault will be-(we must be candid, where Shakespeare is concerned)-in him-ay, even in her, though it be a lady. We are exceedingly disposed to quote the 94th Sonnet, if it be only for the sake of two beautiful lines— "The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, But we must pass on, at once, to the 98th and the 102nd, which we cannot leave behind us. They are as follows. XCVIII. "From you have I been absent in the spring, Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose ; CII. "My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; When I was wont to greet it with my lays; And sweets, grown common, lose their dear delight. CXVI. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd." We will now enable the reader to draw his own comparisons between Shakespeare and some others of our famous Sonneteers. As poets and as profound writers, not even Milton can be placed by his side, and the others are far apart; but as writers of the Sonnet, they may, with less hazard, be brought into competition with him We will begin with a Sonnet of Drummond. 66 Alexis, here she stay'd, among these pines, Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair: Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines; Here sat she by these musked eglantines; The happy flowers seem yet the print to bear: To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend an ear. Here first I got a pledge of promised grace; The next is one of Sir Philip Sidney. We transcribe it almost at random from the Astrophel and Stella. LXIV. "No more, my dear, no more these counsels try, Nor do aspire to Cæsar's bleeding fame, The reader may take a Sonnet, said to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh. It is occasionally prefixed to editions of the Faerie Queen of Spenser, and is entitled a "Vision upon the conceipt of Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; We now come to Milton. There is a high tone of dignity |