“To the onlie begetter of | these insuing Sonnets | Mr. W. H. all happinesse | and that eternitie | promised by | our everliving poet | wisheth | the well-wishing | adventurer in | setting forth | T. T.” [14] Some have believed that “Mr. W. H.” was William Herbert; and a German critic supposes the initials to signify “William Himself.” But the American Cyclopedia says: “To whom they were written, and in whose person is among the most difficult of unsolved literary problems.... Who this ‘onlie begetter’ was no man has yet been able satisfactorily to show.”(1) (1) Dr. Charles Mackay attempts to solve the problem in an elaborate article in the Nineteenth Century, August, 1884, entitled “A Tangled Skein Unravelled.” He claims only to have found indications of mixed authorship. But this only makes the tangle worse, which began with Shakspere’s ostensible authorship; and the last despairing words of the astute un-raveller are: “All is supposition, the mystery is insoluble.” In regard to the hypothesis that “W. H.” was William Herbert, the same authority says there is almost as much ground for the notion that the person addressed was Queen Elizabeth in doublet and hose. In 1872 we first read Nathaniel Holmes’s “Authorship of Shakspere;” since then we have never entertained a reasonable doubt that Bacon was the author of the Plays. In 1882 we reread them all in the light of that discovery; but until July 31, 1883, we had never read a page of the “Sonnets,” nor when we began to read them on that day did we remember to have heard who “W. H.” was supposed to be. But coming to the twenty-fifth sonnet, we suspected that the poem was addressed to the Earl of Essex, and subsequent research confirmed that suspicion. Herbert was sixteen years younger than Shakspere, and nineteen years younger than Bacon. If, therefore, the poem was written in 1590, which we purpose to show, it is impossible for Herbert to have been the [15] “onlie begetter of these Sonnets,” for he was then only ten years old. Of course no one will date their composition as late as 1609, when Shakspere was forty-five and Bacon forty-eight. At that time the former had retired from the stage, and Bacon had been for six years King’s counsel and three years a married man. And certainly two sonnets (138 and 144) were composed as early as 1599, for they are repeated at the beginning of “The Passionate Pilgrim,” which was first published in that year. All the internal and external evidence points to the year 1590 as the date, Francis Bacon as the writer, and the Earl of Essex as the person addressed. It is said that Bacon made the acquaintance of Essex about 1590, but it would be remarkable if he did not know him years before. In sonnet 104 the poet says: