1 50 SJiakspeare 



exquisite variations on the central thought ; these 

 for the most part wonderfully devised and 

 executed, now and then overstrained to an irritat- 

 ing excess, two or three of distinctly unworthy 

 artifice. 



That Shakspeare was actually consumed by the 

 passion which he metes out elaborately in line 

 streams of melodious wail is nowise probable ; 

 had his feelings been more deep they would have 

 been more simple and more simply uttered ; of 

 set purpose he made each sonnet a finished piece 

 of clever art, using his plaints deliberately as 

 material for his poetic compilation, and pleasing 

 and easing himself by such outward embodiment 

 of them. The sonnets are not, therefore, the 

 single outpourings of much moved feeling, the 

 smooth flow of a deep stream, they are rather 

 exquisitely laboured exercises of the finest imagin- 

 ative art to which some real feeling lent motive ; 

 just skilfully infused with such essence of per- 

 sonal experience as could be utilised for the best 

 artistic effects. That he never went at all 

 through such experiences and emotions as he 

 depicts, but evoked wholly out of his own con- 

 sciousness by forced poetic aspiration a tissue of 

 purely abstract conceits and sentiments, is a 

 theory which, besides being contrary to the 

 known facts of his life, is psychologically absurd. 

 Because his richly productive imagination was 

 rooted in realities and grew into its opulent 

 splendour organically, as flower from stem and 



