Mr. Massey's conviction that Marlowe is the rival poet of whose "great verse" Shakespeare was jealous depends upon Southampton, and not Herbert, being acknowledged to be the friend addressed, for Marlowe died in 1593, when Herbert was but thirteen years old, and five years before we have the first mention of Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets. Certainly, a writer who had died five years before we find any mention of the Sonnets can hardly be the living poet of whom Shakespeare distinctly speaks in Sonnets 80 and 86. Also in Sonnet 82 he makes mention of the "dedicated words" this rival addresses to his friend. Now, we have no evidence that Marlowe ever dedicated anything to Southampton, although Mr. Massey tries to bolster up a desperate case by saying that "there is nothing improbable in supposing that Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_ was intended to be dedicated to Southampton" had the poet lived to finish it! A stronger chain of evidence (still conjectural, it must be remembered) points to Ben Jonson as this rival poet. His _Epigrams_, which contain a eulogy upon Pembroke, and his _Catiline_, were both dedicated to this earl, although neither of them was published till after the Sonnets. We find the earl of Pembroke's name among the actors in Ben Jonson's masques, and Falkland's eclogue testifies to their intimacy. And in the 80th Sonnet, Shakespeare uses the same comparison of himself and his rival, to two ships of different bulk, which Fuller used to describe Shakespeare and Ben Jonson as they appeared at the Mermaid Tavern. As for the name of the false woman who ensnared two such noble hearts, it is lost for ever, let us hope, in a deserved oblivion. The scanty data that we have given here are about all that can be accepted without wrenching history and poetry from their proper sphere. But so long as the spirit is more than the letter, so long will the Sonnets of Shakespeare be read by all true lovers of true poetry, whether their historical significance ever be known or not. They are the saddest and the sweetest story of friendship that we have in all literature; and while one faithful friend remains possessed of that fine wit that can "hear with eyes what silent love hath writ," his heart will beat in answer to the perfect love of the greatest of all poets and the noblest of all friends. KATE HILLARD. OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. ARTISTS' MODELS IN ROME.