d of the literary producers of the day. When
Thorpe had the luck to acquire surreptitiously an unprinted manuscript by
'our ever-living poet,' it was not in the great man's circle of friends
or patrons, to which hitherto he had had no access, that he was likely to
seek his own patron. Elementary considerations of prudence impelled him
to publish his treasure-trove with all expedition, and not disclose his
design prematurely to one who might possibly take steps to hinder its
fulfilment. But that Thorpe had no 'inspirer' of the 'Sonnets' in his
mind when he addressed himself to 'Mr. W. H.' is finally proved by the
circumstance that the only identifiable male 'inspirer' of the poems was
the Earl of Southampton, to whom the initials 'W. H.' do not apply.

Of the figurative meanings set in Elizabethan English on the word
'begetter,' that of 'inspirer' is by no means the only one or the most
common. 'Beget' was not infrequently employed in the attenuated sense of
'get,' 'procure,' or 'obtain,' a sense which is easily deducible from the
original one of 'bring into being.' Hamlet, when addressing the players,
bids them 'in the very whirlwind of passion acquire and beget a
temperance that may give it smoothness.' 'I have some cousins german at
Court,' wrote Dekker in 1602, in his 'Satiro-Mastix,' '[that] shall beget
you the reversion of the Master of the King's Revels.' 'Mr. W. H.,' whom
Thorpe described as 'the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets,' was in
all probability the acquirer or procurer of the manuscript, who,
figuratively speaking, brought the book into being either by first
placing the manuscript in Thorpe's hands or by pointing out the means by
which a copy might be acquired. To assign such significance to the word
'begetter' was entirely in Thorpe's vein. {405} Thorpe described his
_role_ in the piratical enterprise of the 'Sonnets' as that of 'the
well-wishing adventurer in setting forth,' _i.e._ the hopeful speculator
in the scheme. 'Mr. W. H.' doubtless played the almost equally important
part--one as well known then as now in commercial operations--of the
'vendor' of the property to be exploited.

VI.--'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT.'

Origin of the notion that 'Mr. W. H.' stands for 'Mr. William Herbert.'

For fully sixty years it has been very generally assumed that Shakespeare
addressed the bulk of his sonnets to the young Earl of Pembroke. This
theory owes its origin to a speciously lucky gue