FOR no chapter of the autobiography of Shakspeare are the materials so abundant as for the present. We possess, as most persons acquainted with Elizabethan literature are well aware, an inestimable treasure in the shape of 154 Sonnets, written by the ...
FOR no chapter of the autobiography of Shakspeare are the materials so abundant as for the present. We possess, as most persons acquainted with Elizabethan literature are well aware, an inestimable treasure in the shape of 154 Sonnets, written by the poet, as some critics suppose, early in youth, but, as we should rather believe, at various periods of his life; some of them addressed to his friends and patrons, but the smallest part to a lady--probably Anne Hathaway. They evince all degrees of mental maturity, from the quibbling, flashing genius of "Love's Labour Lost" to the deep passion of Macbeth.