That Shakspeare was, at the same time, attached by _friendship_, and by _love_; that, according to the fashion of his age, he employed the same epithet for both, though, in one instance, at least, he has accurately distinguished the sexes, positively appears from the opening stanza of a sonnet in the _Passionate Pilgrim_ of 1599:— "_Two loves_ I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still; The _better angel_ is a _man_ right fair, The worser spirit a _woman_, coloured ill."[63:A] That this _better angel_ was _Lord Southampton_, and that to him was addressed the number of sonnets mentioned above, we shall now endeavour to substantiate. Perhaps one of the most striking proofs of this position, is the hitherto unnoticed fact, that the language of the _Dedication to the Rape of Lucrece_, and that of part of the _twenty-sixth sonnet_, are almost precisely the same. The _Dedication_ runs thus:—"The _love_ I dedicate to your Lordship is without end;—The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would shew greater." The _Sonnet_ is as follows: "_Lord of my love_, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit. Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it." Here, in the first place, it may be observed, that in his _prose_, as well as in his _verse_, our author uses the same _amatory_ language; for he opens the dedication to His Lordship with the assurance that _his love for him is without end_. In correspondence with this declaration, the sonnet commences with this remarkable expression,—_Lord of my love_; while the residue tells us, in exact conformity with the prose address, his high sense of His Lordship's merit and his own unworthiness. That no doubt may remain of the meaning and direction of this peculiar phraseology, we shall bring forward a few lines from the 110th sonnet, which, uniting the language of both the passages just quoted, most incontrovertibly designates the sex, and, at the same time, we think, the individual to whom they are addressed:— ———————————— "My best of love, Now all is done, _save what shall have no end_: Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an _older friend_, _A God in love_, to whom I am confin'd."