ining what information may be
derived from them as to the authorship of the Shakespearean plays and
poems. I am aware that any question or discussion as to their
authorship is regarded with objection or impatience by very many. But
to those not friendly to any such inquiry I would say, let us at least
proceed so far as to learn precisely what the author of these great
dramas says of himself and of his work in the only production in
which he in any manner refers to or speaks of himself. Certainly an
inquiry confined to such limits is appropriate, at least is not
disloyal. And if we study the characters of Hamlet, Juliet or
Rosalind, do we not owe it to the poet whose embodiments or creations
they are, that we should study his character in the only one of his
works in which his own surroundings and attachments, loves and fears,
griefs and forebodings, appear to be at all indicated?

From the Homeric poems, Mr. Gladstone undertook to gather what they
indicate as to the religion, morals and customs of the time; of the
birthplace of the poet, and of the ethnology and migrations of the
Hellenic peoples. Those poems were not written for any such purpose;
they were for a people who, in the main, on all those subjects knew or
believed as did their author. And it is both curious and instructive
to note how much information as to that distant period Mr. Gladstone
was able to gather from the circumstances, incidents, and implications
of the Homeric poetry. The value of such deductions no one can
question. We may reject as myths the Trojan War or the wanderings or
personality of Ulysses, but from these poems we certainly learn much
of the method of warfare, navigation, agriculture, and of the social
customs of those times.

So reading these Sonnets, we may perhaps not believe that the grief or
love of the poet or the beauty of his friend was quite as great as the
poetry indicates. But we may fairly take as correct what he says of
his friend or of himself, as to their relations and companionship, the
incidents and descriptions, which were but the framework on which he
wove his poetic wreaths of affection, compliment, or regret.

But before entering on this inquiry, it is quite relevant to ascertain
what relation these Sonnets bear to the Shakespearean plays and poems.
The works of Shakespeare, as published, contain thirty-seven separate
plays. Most of them are of the highest order, and rank with the most
consummate products of poe