The conclusion of these editors remained undisputed for more than half a century, when Mr. Malone, in 1780, published his Supplement to the Edition of Shakspeare's Plays of 1778, which includes the Sonnets of the poet, accompanied by his own notes, and those of his friends. Here, beside the opinion which he has himself avowed, he has given the conjectures of Dr. Farmer, and Mr. Tyrwhitt, and the decision of Mr. Steevens. All these gentlemen concur in believing, that more than one hundred of our author's sonnets are addressed to a _male object_. Dr. Farmer, influenced by the _initials_ in the dedication, supposes that Mr. William Harte, the poet's nephew, was the object in question; but a reference to the Stratford Register completely overturns this hypothesis, for it there appears, that William, eldest son of William Harte, who married Shakspeare's Sister Joan, was baptized August 28th, 1600, and consequently could not be even in existence when the greater part of these compositions were written. Mr. Tyrwhitt, founding his conjecture on a line in the twentieth sonnet, which is thus printed in the old copy, "A man in _hew_ all _Hews_ in his controlling," conceives that the letters W. H. were intended to imply _William Hughes_. If we recollect, however, our bard's uncontrollable passion for playing upon words; that _hew_ frequently meant, in the usage of his time, _mien_ and _appearance_, as well as _tint_, and that Daniel, who was probably his archetype in these pieces, has spelt it in the same way, and once, if not oftener, for the sake of emphasis, with a capital[60:A], we shall not feel inclined to place such reliance on this supposition. When Mr. Steevens, in 1766, annexed a reprint of the sonnets to Shakspeare's plays, from the quarto editions, he hazarded no observations on their scope or origin; but in Malone's Supplement, he ventured, in a note on the twentieth sonnet, to declare his conviction that it was addressed to a _male object_.[60:B] Lastly, Mr. Malone, in the Supplement just mentioned, after specifying his concurrence in the conjecture of Mr. Tyrwhitt, adds—"To this person, whoever he was, one hundred and twenty of the following poems are addressed; the remaining twenty-eight are addressed to a lady."[61:A] Thus the matter rested on the decision of these four celebrated commentators, who were uniform in assorting their belief, that Shakspeare had addressed the greater part of his sonnets to a man, when Mr. George Chalmers in 1797, in his "Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers," attempted to overturn their conclusion, by endeavouring to prove that the whole of the Sonnets had been addressed by Shakspeare to Queen Elizabeth; a position which he labours to strengthen, by additional research, in his "Supplemental Apology" of 1799!