Much Ado about Sonnets [pp. 212-222]

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOVNETS.
insists, or compose a nuptial poem to Southampton in cipher, as
Mr. Mackay * would have us believe!
As to the group of sonnets lxxviii., lxxxvi. (from which the
existence of a rival poet to Shakspere is evolved), it seems to me
more involution than evolution-as if this" other poet" was conjured into, instead of being conjured out of, the text. Would an
average reader-that is, an average of those who read these sonnets all-notice, in passing to that group, a sudden change in the'
"you" addressed? that, whereas it has been a "dark beauty,"
a "lovely boy," a patron, a successful rival in his lady's favor, it
all of a sudden becomes a "rival poet "? Why not test it?
Would this average reader ever extract, for example, from the
lines (lxxxii.),
"I grant thou wert not married to my Muse.
And therefore may'st without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book,"
that this poet had "dedicated a book to Shakspere's patron," or
pick out of other lines in the group such clues as that this poet
"had a familiar spirit," was "visited by a ghost," and the like?
We urge once more, why not test it? For, while commentators
might quarrel with the proposition that the less one studies writings as isolated as these sonnets are (of which we cannot find
author, subject, date, circumstance, or occasion) the more one
knows; it appears to be yet scarcely a figure of speech to so assert
in this particular instance. To the myriads of other suggestions
as to the study of these sonnets I respectfully add this one. The
reverse has led to all sorts of theories. The particular theory advanced in that ponderous paper in Blackwood's appears to me
no more extravagant than hundreds that have preceded it. If
any poet is alluded to in the course of thirty-nine of the sonnets
and then abruptly dismissed, it is, to my mind, quite as likely or
unlikely to be Dante as to be Chapman or Spenser. (Why not
Tennyson or Longfellow?-for we must remember Shakspere's
"prophetic soul.") Perhaps Dante may have written these very
sonnets. Somebody must have written them. Perhaps, if these
sonnets are a record of Southampton's love-affairs, his lordship
himself may be the "poet" meant. The language of compliment
is always rather under than over guarded. To be a poet one
need not write verses (or perhaps Southampton, like most noble
* A Tangled Skein Unravelled: The Mfystery of Shakeseare's Sonnets. By Charles Mackay. The Nineteenth Century, August, 1884.
[Nov.,
220