Footnotes:
[[8]] Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 87; Preface to Sonnets, Temple Edition.
[[9]] In a [note] to page 30 is the poet's familiar expression or statement of the Seven Ages of man. It clearly places the decade from forty to fifty as past the middle arch of life, and next to the age of the slippered pantaloon and shrunk shank; from thirty to forty he describes as the age of the soldier, and from twenty to thirty that of the lover.
[[10]] It is generally considered that the first of the Shakespearean plays was produced in 1591. If they were written by an unknown poet and brought out or published by Shakespeare, the time between their first joint venture and the earlier date assumed for these Sonnets, would be three years.
[[11]] The phrase "mine eye may be deceived," may also throw some light on another subject discussed in this chapter,—the age of the poet. Such an expression would seem much more natural to a person above, than to a person below, forty years of age.
[[12]] See discussion of claim that this Sonnet was addressed to Cupid, [pages 14, 15].
[[13]] As You Like It, Act II., Sc. VII.:
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing."
[[15]] In Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 143, appear some statements so relevant to this discussion that I cannot forbear quoting them: