SONNETS. Preface. The First Edition. On May 20th, 1609, “ a book called Shakespeares Sonnettes was entered on the Stationers' Register, and soon after was published, in quarto, with. the following title-page: "SHAKE-SPEARES | SONNETS. | Neuer before Imprinted. | AT LONDON | By G. ELD for T. T. and are | to be solde by William Aspley. 1609. | fac-simile on opposite page.) (cp. At the end of the Sonnets was printed, for the first time, the poem entitled “A LOVERS COMPLAINT.” The text of the Sonnets was, on the whole, carefully printed, but evidently without the author's supervision; thus, e.g. Sonnet CXXVI., a twelve-line Envoi, was marked by parentheses at the end, as though two lines were missing; similarly, the final couplet of Sonnet XCVI. may have been borrowed from Sonnet XXXVI. In 1640 Shakespeare's Sonnets, re-arranged under various titles (with the omission of XVIII., XIX., XLIII., LVI., LXXV., LXXVI., XCVI., CXXVI.), were included in "POEMS: WRITTEN BY WIL. SHAKESPEARE, Gent. Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and * Some copies have the name of "John Wright, dwelling at Christ Church gate," as the bookseller, instead of "William Aspley." 66 A facsimile of the "Sonnets" was issued among the Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles" (No. 30). The original selling price of the "Sonnets" was 5d. A perfect copy would, probably, now fetch £500. are to be sold by John Benson, dwelling in St. Dunstanes Churchyard 1640." It is strange that there should have been no edition between 1609 and 1640; perhaps Benson's protestation that "the Reader" will find them "Seren, cleere, and eligantly plain, such gentle straines as shall recreate and not perplexe the brain, no intricate or cloudy stuffe to puzzell intellect, but perfect eloquence," best explains the prevailing opinion on the subject of the poems. Mr. Publisher "protests too much" against the alleged obscurity of the Sonnets.* One hundred years after the appearance of the First Edition, the Sonnets were first republished, by Lintot, as originally printed; about the same time Gildon issued a new edition of the 1640 version, under the heading of "Poems on several occasions." The Sequence of the Sonnets. The Sonnets, as printed in 1609, present on the whole an orderly arrangement, though here and there it is somewhat difficult to find the connecting links. If it could be proved that any one Sonnet is out of place, the whole chain would perhaps be spoilt, but no such "broken link" can be adduced.† The Sonnet-Sequence consists of three main sections: -A. Sonnets I.-CXXVI.; B. Sonnets CXXVII.-CLII.; 66 * Probably no weight is to be attached to Benson's statement that the poems are of the same purity the Author himself then living avouched." Mr. Rolfe, in his Addenda to the " Sonnets," contrasts Sonnet LXX. with Sonnets XXXIII.-XXXVI. (to say nothing of XL.XLII.); if these Sonnets, he observes, are addressed to the same person, Sonnet LXX. is unquestionably out of place. This seems so at first sight; but surely the faults referred to in the earlier Sonnets are not only forgiven, but here (in LXX.) imputed to slander; or, as Mr. Tyler puts it, "such an affair as that with the poet's mistress was not regarded, apparently, as involving serious moral blemish." Anyhow the statement in the Sonnet is somewhat too flattering, but its position dare not be disturbed. |