ment we learn,
that among the spectacles and fireworks witnessed on the occasion was
one of a singing mermaid on a dolphin's back gliding over smooth water
amid shooting stars. The "love-shaft" which was aimed at the "fair
vestal," that is, the Priestess of Diana, whose bud has such
prevailing might over "Cupid's flower," glanced off; so that "the
imperial votaress passed on, in maiden meditation, fancy-free."

Thus far, all is clear enough. But Halpin further interprets that the
"little western flower" upon whom "the bolt of Cupid fell" refers to
Lettice Countess of Essex, with whom Leicester carried on a secret
intrigue while her husband was absent in Ireland. The Earl of Essex,
on being apprised of the intrigue, set out to return the next year,
but died of poison, as was thought, before he reached home. So Halpin
understands the "western flower, before milk-white," that is,
innocent, but "now purple with love's wound," as referring to the
lady's fall, or to the deeper blush of her husband's murder. And the
flower is called "love-in-idleness," to signify her listlessness of
heart during the Earl's absence; as the Poet elsewhere uses similar
terms of the pansy, as denoting the love that renders men pensive,
dreamy, indolent, instead of toning up the soul with healthy and noble
aspirations. The words of Oberon to Puck, "that very time I saw--but
thou could'st not," are construed as referring to the strict mystery
in which the affair was wrapped, and to the Poet's own knowledge of
it, because a few years later the execution of Edward Arden, his
maternal relative, was closely connected with it, and because the
unfortunate Earl of Essex, so well known as for some time the Queen's
favourite, and then the victim of her resentment, was the son of that
Lettice, and was also the Poet's early friend and patron.

Such is, in substance, Halpin's view of the matter; which I give for
what it may be worth; and freely acknowledge it to be ingenious and
plausible enough. Gervinus regards it as "an interpretation full of
spirit," and as "giving the most definite relation to the innermost
sense of the whole piece." And I am very willing to believe that
Shakespeare often took hints, perhaps something more than hints, for
his poetry from the facts and doings of the time: nevertheless I
rather fail to see how any real good is to be gained towards
understanding the Poet from such interpretations of his scenes, or
from tracing out such "def