But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain?
Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain."
Son. 49.
There is reason to suppose that none of Shakspeare's sonnets were written before the appearance of Daniel's "Delia." A few in the Passionate Pilgrim seem, as hath been observed, to have been suggested during the composition of the Venus and Adonis, and were probably penned in the interval elapsing between the publication of the Delia in 1592, and of the Venus and Adonis in 1593; for, though the earliest of his sonnets, they are still cast in the very mould which Daniel had constructed.
The difficulties, however, which attend the ascertainment of Shakspeare's model in these compositions, are nothing when compared to those which surround the enquiry as to the person to whom they are addressed. An almost impenetrable darkness rests on the question, and no effort has hitherto, in the smallest degree, tended to disperse the gloom.
When Thomas Thorpe published our author's sonnets in 1609, he accompanied them with the following mysterious dedication:—
"To The Only Begetter
Of These Ensuing Sonnets,
Mr. W. H.
All Happiness
And That Eternity Promised
By Our Ever-Living Poet
Wisheth The
Well-Wishing Adventurer
In Setting Forth,
T. T."
On the first perusal of this address, the import would seem to be, that Mr. W. H. had been the sole object of Shakspeare's poetry, and of the eternity promised by the bard. But a little attention to the language of the times in which it was written, will induce us to correct this conclusion; for as a part of our author's sonnets is most certainly addressed to a female, it is evident that W. H. could not be the only begetter of them in the sense which primarily suggests itself. For the true meaning of the word we are indebted to Mr. Chalmers, who observes, on the authority of Minsheu's Dictionary of 1616, that one
sense of the verb to beget is there given to bring foorth. "W. H.," he continues, "was the bringer forth of the Sonnets. Beget is derived by Skinner from the A. S. begettan, obtinere. Johnson adopts this derivation, and sense: so that begetter, in the quaint language of Thorpe, the Bookseller, Pistol, the ancient, and such affected persons, signified the obtainer; as to get, and getter, in the present day, means obtain, and obtainer, or to procure, and the procurer."
We must, infer, therefore, from this explanation of the word, that Mr. W. H. had influence enough to obtain the manuscript from the poet, and that he lodged it in Thorpe's hands for the purpose of publication, a favour which the bookseller returned, by wishing him all happiness and that eternity which had been promised by the bard, in such glowing colours, to another, namely, to one of the immediate subjects of his sonnets.