are to blame if you deceive yourself by an unlawful union while you refuse loyal wedlock.

11. And yet love knows it, etc. Printed by many editors, "And yet, love knows, it."

XLI. The thought of XL. 13, "Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows," is carried out in this sonnet. 1. Pretty wrongs. Bell and Palgrave read petty. 5, 6. Compare 1 King Henry VI., Act v. sc. 3, 11. 77, 78:

She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;

She is a woman, therefore to be won.

8. Till she have prevail'd. The Quarto has "till he," which may be right.

9. Thou mightst my seat forbear. Malone reads "Thou mightst, my sweet, forbear; " but "seat" is right, and the meaning is explained by Othello, Act II. sc. 1, 1. 304, (Iago jealous of Othello):—

I do suspect the lusty Moor

Hath leap'd into my seat.

Dr. Ingleby adds, as a parallel, Lucrece, 412, 413:—

Who [Tarquin], like a foul usurper, went about
From this fair throne to heave the owner out.

XLII. In XLI. 13, 14, Shakspere declares that he loves both friend and mistress; he now goes on to say that the loss of his friend is the greater of the two.

10, 12. The "loss" and " cross of these lines are spoken of in XXXIV.

11. Both twain. This is found also in Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. sc. 2, 1. 459:

PRINCESS. What, will you have me, or your pearl again? BIRON. Neither of either; I remit both twain.

XLIII. Does this begin a new group of Sonnets? 1. Wink, to close the eyes, not necessarily for a moment, but as in sleep. Compare Cymbeline, Act II. sc. 3, 11. 25, 26:

And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.

2. Unrespected, unregarded.

4. And darkly, etc. And illumined, although closed, are clearly directed in the darkness. It is strange that no one of the officious emenders has proposed " right in dark directed."

5. Whose shadow shadows, etc. Whose image makes bright the shades of night.

6. Shadow's form, the form which casts thy shadow. 11. Thy. The Quarto has their.

13, 14. All days are nights to see, etc. Malone proposed "nights to me." Steevens, defending the Quarto text, explains it, "All days are gloomy to behold, i.e., look like nights." Mr. Lettsom proposed:

All days are nights to me till thee I see,

And nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.

"To see till I see thee," is probably right in this sonnet, which has a more than common fancy for doubling a word in the same line, as in lines 4, 5, 6.

XLIV. In XLIII. he obtains sight of his friend in dreams; XLIV. expresses the longing of the waking hours to come into his friend's presence by some preternatural means.

4. Where thou dost stay. I would be brought where (i.e., to where) thou dost stay.

9. Thought kills me. Perhaps "thought" here means melancholy contemplation, as in Julius Cæsar, Act II. sc. 1, 1. 187, "Take thought and die for Cæsar."

10. So much of earth and water wrought. So large a proportion of earth and water having entered into my composition. Twelfth Night, Act II. sc. 3, 1. 10. "Does not our life consist of the four elements?" Compare Julius Cæsar, Act v. sc. 5, 1. 73:—

The elements

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up,
to all the world, " This was a man."

And

say

Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. sc. 2, 1. 292:—

I am air and fire; my other elements
I give to baser life.

And King Henry V., Act III. sc. 7, 1. 22, "He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness," etc.

XLV. Sonnet XLIV. tells of the duller elements of earth and water; this sonnet, of the elements of air and fire.

9. Recured, restored to wholeness and soundness. Venus

and Adonis, 1. 465. King Richard III., Act III. sc. 7, 1. 130.

12. Thy fair health. The Quarto has their for thy.

XLVI. AS XLIV. and XLV. are a pair of companion sonnets, so are XLVI. and XLVII. The theme of the first pair is the opposition of the four elements in the person of the poet; the theme of the second is the opposition of the heart and the eye, i.e., of love and the senses.

3. Thy picture's sight. The Quarto has their; so also in lines 8, 13, 14.

10. A quest of thoughts. An inquest or jury. King Richard III., Act I. sc. 4, 1. 189:

What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge?

12. Moiety, portion.

XLVII. Companion sonnet to the last.

3. Famished for a look. Compare Sonnet LXXV. 10. So Comedy of Errors, Act II. sc. 1, 1. 88:

Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.

10. Art present. The Quarto has are.

11, 12. Not. Quarto nor. The same thought which appears in XLV.

Compare with these sonnets-XLVI. and XLVII.—Sonnets 19, 20, of Watson's Tears of Fancie, 1593 (Watson's Poems, ed. Arber, p. 188) :

My hart impos'd this penance on mine eies,

(Eies the first causers of my harts lamenting :)

That they should weepe till loue and fancie dies,
Fond love the last cause of my harts repenting.
Mine eies upon my hart inflict this paine
(Bold hart that dard to harbour thoughts of loue)
That it should loue and purchase fell disdaine,
A grievous penance which my hart doth proue,
Mine eies did weepe as hart had them imposed,
My hart did pine as eies had it constrained, etc.

Sonnet 20 continues the same:—

My hart accus'd mine eies and was offended,

Hart said that loue did enter at the eies,
And from the eies descended to the hart;

Eies said that in the hart did sparkes arise, etc.

Compare also Diana (ed. 1584), Sixth Decade, Sonnet 7 (Arber's English Garner, vol. ii. p. 254); and Drayton, Idea, 33.

XLVIII. Line 6 of XLVI., in which Shakspere speaks of keeping his friend in the closet of his breast:

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,

suggests XLVIII.; see lines 9-12. I have said he is safe in my breast; yet ah! I feel he is not.

5. I locked up my trifles, much more my jewels; but my jewels are trifles compared with you.

11. Gentle closure of my breast. So Venus and Adonis, 1. 782, "the quiet closure of my breast."

14. Does not this refer to the woman, who has sworn