The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-08-10
HEROINE OF THE SONNETS
TIE IDENTITY OF THE WOMAN
sHAK ESPEARG LOVED.
The sonnets no Longer a Mystery

In an article in Belford's Magazine Rich
ard Henry Stoddard discusses in his delight
full way the personality of the youthful
friend aud of the dark woman" whom
| Shakespeare's nnets have set like stars IN
the heaven OF lyric Immortality. The re-
searches Of the R.v. W. a Harrison, an
| Euglish clergyman, have thrown mnch
light on this obscure question, and wolf
nigh satisfied Snakespeareal tudeatS, that
the double mystery # the sonnets, ''the
cream Of the whole wOrli's poetry" is solved
at last. We append extracts from the aged
poets articl.:
The history Of English sonne'ry began
with Wyatt and Surrey-a strange circum-
! stance when ore remembers that Chaucer
| Travelled In Italy and stopped at Padua,
| where he met that learned clerk" Petrarch.
There are no sonnets IN Chaucer. They
budded, as we before remarked, with Wyatt
| ujO3 l542), and b0urge1ned in Surrey
| (circa l5I7-1540, but were not full blown
until ten years later than the last date.
Passing for time over minor celeb rites,
who were as thick as flies about infinites-
imal deposits OF sugar and more plentiful
than butterflies in spring hours or bees in
| summer days, 1t Is certain that Sidney was
| the third, Spencer the fourth and Raleigh
b'ib HlLu u Iub IdCC VI I@uSliSu hbuAeLteIs.
| What can |, what can any man say, write
| or think, that IS new concerning Sidney
Q554l, son of high parentage, companion of
| noble persons, favOrite of Elizabeth,
scholar, p 1et, knight, courtier,
| The rose and expectancy of the fair state!
Or what Of Spencer lcirca 1853 1890, poet
of poets, creator of Una, soul of simplicity
aud sincerity; or Of Raleigh Q552l61S,
soldier, sailor, dis coverer, conqueror, rest
nI,,,, 4
umphant on land and ocean, the strand of
whose life was interviewer in two worlds
with the glorious destiny of EDgland A
| great poet perishel on the scatfo d in Sir
| Walter One may say of Eliza beth's
| England that it was a nest of singing birds,
amorlsts who warbled, or struggled to
MARBLE, the music OF Petrach and Surrey
aud Wyatt.
| There were pirates in those days as in
ours. They conveyed" into their dngy
| little quarters fifteen Of Shakespeare's plays,
| and one, Thomas Thorpe, contrived to pro-
cure the 'Sonnets" and publish the same in
1909. Eleven years before this date their
existence was revealed by Francis Meres,
who, in paying their writer many precious
compliments, called these priceless qua
| tOrZalns sugared sDnnetS that were clrcu-
latlng among the private friends of Shake
| speare Thorpe dedicated them to Mr. w.
| H. Who was "W. HH There have been
as many theories about him as there are
days in a twelve-month. He was Will
Hews; he was VIII Hart; he was
Queen Elizabeth; he was South
ampton; he was Herbert; he was
| William Himself Only a German could
have devised the last angle of this hexagon
The latest belief is that "W. H." was
William Herbert, Earl Of Pembroke, son of
! Sidney's sister Mary-'the subject of all
| verse" MIR. Charles Armitage Brown, i'm
mortal as the friend of Kelts. sOeculated in
this direction 50 far as to carry Shakespeare
away to Italy, and so near as to split his
''Sonuets" into sections. They puzzled an
| American general of distinction, no dis
| covered that they were alegorical symbols
| of Christian virtues. And George Stevens
| (wisest of all Georges who pretended TO
| help DR.. Johnson in his edition of Shak es-
| peare-tnis Puck of comm antators the
| temerlty to declare that u powerful act of
| Parliament would be necessary to compel
| their perusal
Herbert is known to have possessed the
loneliness of all the Sydneys; to have de-
| cined marriage as long a. he dared to; to
have been little prCdIgate, and to have
| loved dark woman. We have discovered
who she was. and that, like Pembroke. she
was not so good as, she should have been
certainly 70 better than Beatrice Cenci,
| Jean Armour, Claire Cairmont and Mary
| ~
my masters But who uaearthed thi
tawny beauty9 Only a parson. w. A
Harrison made this lucky-unlucky find.
She was one of Queen Ellzabeth's dishonor-
able maids of honor, a Mistress Mary
| Fitton. She was the dark gentlewoman
who cast her gloom over Pembroke aud
Shakespeare, who returned it with unending
notoriety.
There were three performers in this tragi-
comedy of ours. William Shakespeare, Apri
| %, 1854: William Herbert, April S, 1880
and Mary Fitton, June 81, 1878 | begin
with the younger, continue with the elder
and end with the youngest. "Mr. w. H. ;
was spoiled child and spoiled man. Oh
illustrlous lineage, his parents urged hi:
marriage TO Mistress Bridget We're $500
daughter OF the Earl of Oxford and grand
daughter of Cecil, Lord Bureigh. Both
houses favored the match, but it came t.
nothing. Why, it is useless now to inquire
We di cover young Pembroke III London as
early as 1898, when he wa
pretending to study law, and whes
he would seem to have met Shakes
peare for the first time a statement con-
corning which | am incredulous Claren-
don, who was not fool, even if he was 6
stanch royalst, gives him a bad character
lie was lmmoderately given up to women
But there II he retained such a power anC
jurisdiction over his very appetite that be
was not so much transported with beauty
and outward allurements as with those adj
vantageS of the mi I'D as manifested in ar
extraordinary wit, and spirit, and knowl-
edge, and administered great pleasure in the
conversation. To these he sacrificed him
self, his precious time and much of hi
fortune" In his Gath year he was in the
Fleet, with close prospect of committal t
the Tower, and his paramour, Mistress
Mary, was in trouble.
Son OF butcher, glover, wool-stapler
and what not besides, his mother an Arden
of that ancient family at Stafford and else
where, our Gentle Willy" went up K
London in his oath or 18th year. One,
there he was holder of horses Lefore tn,
doors of the Blnkside or the Globe, mayfair
the Linz boy also to the nobility and gentry
of Elizabeth Regina.
He Is thought to have met Mistress Mary
as early as 1892, when she wa, IA or Is, an(
when Loves Labor Lost" was played
before Queen Elizabeth; but in spit
of all the facts produced, 1 doub
this statement. That th,
first century and quarter of tn,
sonnets SAY, l to 1851 were addressed tC
Pembroke, and were written at the reques
of his mother l have no doubt. That il
others Shakespeare bewailed his fate as
player is more certain. Ii anything coulc
be more dramatic, more human, more in
tense in fesling than the PLAYS of Shakes
peare 1t will be found in these sonnets O
his. - But who can hope to prais,