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First Notice of the Sonnets-Purchase of New Place. careful search found, Shakspeare is noticed five times under different heads. First, generally, and then specially, as among the best English lyric poets, the best English tragic dramatists, the best English comic dramatists, and the best English elegiac poets. The Discourse,' while important as giving us the names of Shakespeare's known plays-for none had as yet been published with his name-is most valuable, as supplying us with the first hint respecting his sonnets. 'As the soul of Euphorbus,' says he, was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey'tongued Shakespeare: witness his "Venus and Adonis," his "Lucrece," his sugared sonnets among his private friends.' We think the term 'private friends' here refers to the sonnets being circulated among his friends in manuscript, rather than their being addressed to private friends. Unfortunately Meeres supplies no hint whereby we might learn how many, and which of these sonnets were then in circulation. Thus much is certain, that Shakespeare was already known and admired for his sonnets, and that neither he nor his friends felt there was aught in them that needed palliation or excuse. It is curious, as the same writer remarks, that immediately after Meeres' very laudatory mention of him, Shakespeare's name first appears on the title-page of one of his plays, 'Love's Labour Lost,' and from henceforth, those which had been published anonymously were printed with his name.

Meanwhile repairs went on at New Place, although Shakespeare does not seem to have wholly resided there till some time later. Some of the entries which refer to him are very homely. Thus, a load of stone is purchased of him, for which 10d. is paid; an inquiry is made as to the quantity of 'corn and malte' possessed by the chief inhabitants, and Shakespeare is returned as having ten quarters. He also seems to have still done a little in money-lending. Truly, our great dramatist was neither idle nor unthrifty. His singular business habits have been frequently remarked, and much surprise has been expressed by some writers how the most powerful of dramatists, the sweetest of poets, should have condescended'! to things of every-day life. Now the case really is, that we may find many parallels-some in very recent times. The writer of this article was told, on the best possible authority, that the poet who sang the 'little lowly celadine,' and so felt the witchery of the clear blue sky,' was as thorough a man of business as any one in London. The ease with which he would run over a long account, the quickness with which he would detect a mistake, would have done honour to the sharpest bookseller in the Row.'

Shakespeare was now high, both in literay fame and in worship,' among his townsmen. In 1599 and 1600 many of his plays were published-all with his name-and also that well-known collection of small poems, the Passionate Pilgrim ;' while in 1602, in a deed of purchase of land, as he is styled 'William Shakespere, of Stratforde-upon-Avon,' we perceive that, although not wholly retired from the stage, he now looked upon New Place as his home. John Shakespeare ended his long life in 1601, apparently under his son's roof, and the mother in 1605. It was in the comparative retirement of Stratford that Shakespeare's latest, and some of his finest tragedies were produced. Lear,' 'Othello,' probably Macbeth'-although this was not published in his lifetime-and, among others, those delightful plays, 'As you Like It,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'The Tempest.' In 1607, we find his eldest daughter married to 'John Hall, gentleman, physician.' In that age of early marriages, it seems strange that the daughter of a really wealthy man should not have married until she had reached the age of twenty-four. Now the helpless state of her mother would supply a reason; for the affectionate daughter would be unwilling to leave her. And thus we find that the Halls resided at New Place, and Shakespeare takes Dr. Hall with him on his visits to London, as though he had been his own son. Every glimpse we obtain of Shakespeare after his return ot Stratford exhibits him as a worthy family man.

In the year 1609, a neat little quarto was published by Thomas Thorpe, simply entitled, 'Shakespeare's Sonnets.' As the reader knows, they were published without Shakespeare's sanction; and how they came before the world, and who the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr. W, H.' really was, have been fruitful sources of controversy. Mr. Gerald Massey considers William Herbert to have been the 'Mr. W. H.,' but he was never 'Mr. W. H.'; he was first Lord Herbert, and then Earl of Pembroke; nor were noblemen in those days willing to masquerade as 'plain Misters'. Indeed, the notion that Southampton, Pembroke, Lady Rich, and Lady Southampton could be called, under any circumstances, Shakespeare's 'private friends,' argues an utter ignorance of society in his days. The 'private friends' seem to us to mean those friends among whom copies had circulated, and from whom Mr. W. H.'-whoever he might be-had obtained them. The book was published, and all these sonnets, in which Mr. Armitage Brown, more than two hundred years after, discovered so disgracful a history, were exhibited to the world. But we do not find Shakespeare taking any notice; surely the great dramatist thought that in

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his sonnets, as in his plays, he might represent scenes and characters with which he had no sympathy. Singularly enough, two years before Lear' had been published, and a few months previous to the sonnets, a second edition, which bore the unusual title, Mr. William Shakespeare: His true Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear.' It was, therefore, evidently very popular. Now, the reader will recollect that in this play the horrible scene of blinding the Earl of Glo'ster occurs. Glo'ster had been guilty of the same sin, which, we are told on the mere testimony of the sonnets, Shakespeare committed. The Gods are just,' says Edgar, and of our pleasant vices 'Make instruments to scourge us.'

But had Shakespeare been scourged? Can we believe that he would have dared to point thus to the vengeance of Heaven, had he been the breaker of his marriage vow, even as Glos❜ter?

We really can see no other solution to this much vexed question' than what has been called 'the dramatic view:' that the sonnets are a collection of poems, some addressed to Lord Southampton, some struck off in the mere exercise of fancy,perhaps intended for insertion in his plays,—many 'written to order,' but not the less beautiful on that account; and Meeres' phrase, sugared sonnets,' is suitable enough. The exquisite sweetness, both of thought and diction, abundantly warrants this phrase, while those that hint at a darker story, if viewed also as mere exercises of skill-perhaps they are fragments of an unfinished tragic poem-most forcibly bring out to our view that wide and marvellous range of imagination which, while it has charmed us with an Imogen, a Perdita, a 'little dainty Ariel,' has appalled us with a Lady Macbeth and an Iago.

Shakespeare's last days seem to have been spent in the bosom of a happy family. His regard to his eldest daughter and her husband is forcibly shown in his will. His younger daughter Judith, of whom there are few records, did not marry until two months before her father's death; and Thomas Quiney, son to the Puritan Richard Quiney beforementioned, became her husband. There seems great reason to believe that both Shakespeare's daughters were Puritans, and the singular entry in the accounts of the chamberlain of Stratford in 1614, Item, for one quart of sack, and one quart of clarett winne, given to 'a preacher at the Newe Place XXd,' proves that Puritan ministers were accustomed to visit Shakespeare's family-an incidental corroboration this of our belief that his wife was a helpless invalid. In Puritan memoirs we find frequent instances of ministers, especially while 'silenced,' going on pastoral visits among those of their friends who, from age or sickness, were

unable to avail themselves of their public ministrations. The present of the wine shows that the corporation were favourable to Puritanism, but we think it was purchased rather on the occasion of a sermon being preached before the high bailiff and aldermen, when wine and cakes were always provided, than as a gift. Surely the owner of New Place would himself supply his guest with wine.

We have little information respecting the last years of Shakespeare's life, save that they were prosperous and honoured. Although no longer personally connected with the stage, he still continued to write for it; and his fine plays on Roman history, and his 'Timon of Athens,' belong to this his latest period. It is a great error to suppose that the early Puritans denounced Shakespeare. Milton, among his earliest poems, has inscribed a most laudatory one to his memory; and we have found quotations from his works in many religious treatises. It was not until some twenty or thirty years after, and then, probably, irritated by Ben Jonson's rabid abuse, the Puritans denounced stage plays,' and among them those of a poet who never made a mock at religion, never wrote a syllable against them. It were greatly to be wished that some additional information respecting our chief poet might be found; meanwhile, rejoiced should we be if these remarks might do some service in rescuing his memory from the unmerited charges so recklessly cast upon it, and aid in proving that in his domestic relations, the gentle Shakespeare,' like the knight of chivalrous romance, was not only above reproach, but beyond suspicion.

ART. VI.-Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D., late Archbishop of Dublin. By E. J. WHATELY. 2 Vols. 8vo. Longmans and Co. 1866.

MISS WHATELY has performed the task to which filial piety prompted her, with great tact and judgment. A more difficult or delicate one can hardly be imagined; as is too clearly proved by the numberless failures in biography written under similar conditions; by those who loved too well to be impartial, and were too near the transactions they relate, to judge of them aright. The number of the wrecks mark the danger of the coast.

The writers are usually so exigeant and clamorous in their demands on sympathy and applause, even when these are not

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unreasonable, that the reader gets weary, just as the Athenian who knew no harm of Aristides, got tired of perpetually hearing him called the 'Just.' Every fresh incident is made an occasion of renewed applause and a challenge of our admiration. Often such books are little more than a tissue of vague or hyperbolic eulogy, the sincere utterance, no doubt, of an idolatrous affection, and amiable, at least venial, in the writer, though utterly incapable of moving sympathy in the reader. Our authoress has kept herself clear of these and similar faults, by what may appear a very easy-and yet for a daughter, and a daughter of a father so honoured and so beloved,-must have been a most difficult method; she has learned that 'silence is golden,' and modestly keeps herself in the background. She contents herself, for the most part, with stating facts, leaving the reader to form his own judgment upon them; or rather, as far as possible, she has allowed her father to tell his own story and portray his own character in his letters and journals, with the least possible cement of explanation, or comment of her own. In a word, she has exercised a wise self-diffidence and reticence, almost unique in biographies written under such circumstances. And her conduct, after all, has been as natural as it has been wise; deep affection has made her self-oblivious; she has been simply occupied with holding up her father's picture to the public eye, and is herself almost hidden behind the canvas. Doubtless, she desired to be so hidden, and that the public gaze might be fixed upon him alone. And from the way in which the book is written, it is so fixed; her own interwoven remarks, and those of her coadjutor, Mr. Merivale, are comparatively few, and are studiously moderate in tone. It is the Archbishop himself who speaks almost all the way through, and the work might perhaps be as truly called an autobiography as a biography. It is not so much the 'Life' of Archbishop Whately, as his 'Life illustrated by his Remains.'

For this, as well as for other reasons, equally obvious considering that it is a daughter who writes, the work can hardly be considered as a full portrait; it is at best a profile, though a deeply interesting one. There are many aspects of Whately's very various nature which are here hardly touched; many traits and anecdotes of his earlier and somewhat eccentric career which a daughter's reverence would pass by, or but lightly advert to; and many racy witticisms and repartees, which would probably seem unworthy of archiepiscopal dignity, or which filial love or feminine delicacy would rather forget than remember. Yet these would be not only a very piquant element of his biography, but essential to the full comprehension