To whom can this sonnet, or indeed all the passages which we have quoted apply, if not to Lord Southampton, the bosom-friend, the munificent patron of Shakspeare, the noble, the elegant, the brave, the protector of literature and the theme of many a song. And let it be remembered, that if the hundreth and first sonnet be justly ascribed to Lord Southampton, or if any one of the passages which we have adduced, be fairly applicable to him, the whole of the hundred and twenty-six sonnets must necessarily apply to the same individual, for the poet has more than once affirmed this to have been his plan and object: "Why write I still _all one, ever the same_— That every word doth almost tell my name." Son. 76. —— "_all alike my songs, and praises be_ To _one_, of _one_, still such and ever so." Son. 105. It may be objected, that the opening and closing sonnet of the collection which we conceive to be exclusively devoted to Lord Southampton, admit neither of reconcilement with each other, nor with the hypothesis which we wish to establish. This discrepancy, however, will altogether vanish, if we compare the import of these sonnets with that of two others of the same series. It will be allowed that the expressions, "_the world's fresh ornament_," the "_only herald to the gaudy spring_," and the epithets "_tender churl_," in the first sonnet, may with great propriety be applied to a young nobleman of twenty-one, just entering on a public and splendid career; but, if it be true, that these sonnets were written at various times, between the years 1594 and 1609, how comes it, that in the hundred and twenty-sixth, the last addressed to his patron, he still uses an equally youthful designation, and terms him "_my lovely boy_," an appellation certainly not then adapted to His Lordship, who, in 1609, was in his thirty-sixth year? That the sonnets _were_ written at different periods, he tells us in an apology to his noble friend for not addressing him so frequently as he used to do at the commencement of their intimacy, assigning as a reason, that as he was now the theme of various other poets, such addresses must have lost their zest: "Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild musick burdens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song." Son. 102.