Browning's England: A Study in English Influences in Browning. Helen Archibald Clarke

Must in death your daylight finish?

       My sun sets to rise again.

      XI

      What, like you, he proved—your Pilgrim—

       This our world a wilderness,

       Earth still grey and heaven still grim,

       Not a hand there his might press,

       Not a heart his own might throb to,

       Men all rogues and women—say,

       Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to,

       Grown folk drop or throw away?

      64

      XII

      My experience being other,

       How should I contribute verse

       Worthy of your king and brother?

       Balaam-like I bless, not curse.

       I find earth not grey but rosy,

       Heaven not grim but fair of hue.

       Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.

       Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

      XIII

      Doubtless I am pushed and shoved by

       Rogues and fools enough: the more

       Good luck mine, I love, am loved by

       Some few honest to the core.

       Scan the near high, scout the far low!

       "But the low come close:" what then?

       Simpletons? My match is Marlowe;

       Sciolists? My mate is Ben.

      XIV

      Womankind—"the cat-like nature,

       False and fickle, vain and weak"—

       What of this sad nomenclature

       Suits my tongue, if I must speak?

       Does the sex invite, repulse so,

       Tempt, betray, by fits and starts?

       So becalm but to convulse so,

       Decking heads and breaking hearts?

      XV

      Well may you blaspheme at fortune!

       I "threw Venus" (Ben, expound!)

      65 Never did I need importune

       Her, of all the Olympian round.

       Blessings on my benefactress!

       Cursings suit—for aught I know—

       Those who twitched her by the back tress,

       Tugged and thought to turn her—so!

      XVI

      Therefore, since no leg to stand on

       Thus I'm left with—joy or grief

       Be the issue—I abandon

       Hope or care you name me Chief!

       Chief and king and Lord's anointed,

       I?—who never once have wished

       Death before the day appointed:

       Lived and liked, not poohed and pished!

      XVII

      "Ah, but so I shall not enter,

       Scroll in hand, the common heart—

       Stopped at surface: since at centre

       Song should reach Welt-schmerz, world-smart!" "Enter in the heart?" Its shelly Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft! Such song "enters in the belly And is cast out in the draught."

      XVIII

      Back then to our sherris-brewage!

       "Kingship" quotha? I shall wait—

       Waive the present time: some new age …

       But let fools anticipate!

      66 Meanwhile greet me—"friend, good fellow,

       Gentle Will," my merry men!

       As for making Envy yellow

       With "Next Poet"—(Manners, Ben!)

      The first stanza of "House"—

      "Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?

       Do I live in a house you would like to see?

       Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?

       'Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?'"—

      brings one face to face with the interminable controversies upon the autobiographical significance of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As volumes upon the subject have been written, it is not possible even adequately to review the various theories here. The controversialists may be broadly divided into those who read complicated autobiographical details into the sonnets, those who scout the idea of their being autobiographical at all, and those who take a middle ground. Of the first there are two factions: one of these believes that the opening sonnets were addressed to Lord William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the other that they were addressed to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton. The first theory dates back as far as 1832 when it was started by James Boaden, a journalist and the biographer of67 Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This theory has had many supporters and is associated to-day with the name of Thomas Tyler, who, in his edition of the Sonnets published in 1890, claimed to have identified the dark lady of the Sonnets with a lady of the Court, Mary Fitton and the mistress of the Earl of Pembroke. The theory, like most things of the sort, has its fascinations, and few people can read the Sonnets without being more or less impressed by it. It is based, however, upon a supposition so unlikely that it may be said to be proved incorrect, namely, that the dedication of the Sonnets to their "Onlie Begettor, Mr. W. H." is intended for "Mr. William Herbert." There was a Mr. William Hall, later a master printer, and the friend of Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of the Sonnets, who is much more likely to be the person meant. Lord Herbert was far too important a person to be addressed as Mr. W. H. As Mr. Lee points out, when Thorpe did dedicate books to Herbert he was careful to give full prominence to the titles and distinction of his patron. The Sonnets as we have already seen were not published with Shakespeare's sanction. In those days the author had no protection, and if a manuscript fell into the hands of a printer he could print it if he felt68 so disposed. Mr. William Hall was in the habit of looking out for manuscripts and before he became a printer, in 1606, had one published by Southwell of which he himself wrote the dedication, to the "Vertuous Gentleman, Mathew Saunders, Esquire W. H. wisheth, with long life, a prosperous achievement of his good desires." "There is little doubt," writes Mr. Lee, "that the W. H. of the Southwell volume was Mr. William Hall, who, when he procured that manuscript for publication, was an humble auxiliary in the publishing army." To sum up in Mr. Lee's words his interesting and convincing chapter on "Thomas Thorpe and Mr. 'W. H.'" "'Mr. W. H.,' whom Thorpe described as the 'only begetter of these ensuing sonnets,' was in all probability the acquirer or procurer of the manuscript, who, figuratively speaking, brought the book into being either by first placing the manuscript in Thorpe's hands or by pointing out the means by which a copy might be acquired. To assign such significance to the word 'begetter' was entirely in Thorpe's vein. Thorpe described his rôle in the piratical enterprise of the 'Sonnets' as that of 'the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth,' i.e., the hopeful speculator in the scheme. 'Mr. W. H.' doubtless69 played the almost equally important part—one as well known then as now in commercial operations—of the 'vender' of the property to be exploited."

      The Southampton theory is reared into a fine air-castle by Gerald Massey in his lengthy book on the Sonnets—truly entertaining reading but too ingenious