That Mr. Chalmers, however, notwithstanding all his industry and ingenuity, has failed in establishing his point, must be the acknowledgment of every one who has perused the sonnets with attention. Indeed the phraseology of Shakspeare so positively indicates a _male object_, that, if it cannot, in this respect, be reposed on, we may venture to assert, that no language, however explicit, is entitled to confidence. Nothing but extreme carelessness could have induced Gildon and Sewell to conceive that the prior part of these sonnets was directed to _a female_, and even Mr. Chalmers himself is compelled to convert his Queen into _a man_, before he can give any plausibility to his hypothesis. That Elizabeth, in _her capacity of a sovereign_, was frequently addressed in language strictly applicable to the _male_ sex, is very true, and such has been the custom to almost every female _sovereign_; but that she should be thus metamorphosed, for the express purpose of wooing her by amatory sonnets, is a position which cannot be expected to obtain credit. The question then returns upon us, _To whom are these sonnets addressed?_ We agree with Farmer, Tyrwhitt, Steevens, and Malone, in thinking the object of the greater part of the sonnets to have been of the _male_ sex; but, for the reasons already assigned, we cannot concede that either Harte or Hughes was the individual. If we may be allowed, in our turn, to conjecture, we would fix upon LORD SOUTHAMPTON as the subject of Shakspeare's sonnets, from the first to the hundredth and twenty-sixth, inclusive. Before we enter, however, on the quotation of such passages as are calculated to give probability to our conclusion, it will be necessary to show that, in the age of Shakspeare, the language of _love_ and _friendship_ was mutually convertible. The terms _lover_ and _love_, indeed, were as often applied to those of the same sex who had an esteem for each other, as they are now exclusively directed to express the love of the male for the female. Thus, for instance, Ben Johnson subscribes himself the _lover_ of Camden, and tells Dr. Donne, at the close of a letter to him, that he is his "ever true _lover_;" and with the same import, Drayton, in a letter to Drummond of Hawthornden, informs him, that Mr. Joseph Davis is in _love_ with him. Shakspeare, in his _Dramas_, frequently adopts the same phraseology in expressing the relations of friendship: Portia, for example, in the _Merchant of Venice_, speaking of Antonio, says, ————————————— "this Antonio, Being the bosom _lover_ of my lord:" and in _Coriolanus_, Menenius exclaims, —————— "I tell thee, fellow, Thy general is my _lover_:"[62:A] but it is to his _Poems_ that we must refer for a complete and extensive proof of this perplexing ambiguity of diction, which will gradually unfold itself as we proceed to quote instances in support of Lord Southampton's being the subject of his muse.