That what is there stated as to another poet refers to an actual transaction, and is to be read literally, is recognized, I think, by all critics; and many have thought that the description contained in the Sonnet quoted indicates Chapman, who translated the _Iliad_ about that time. It is in this group of Sonnets, referring to another poet, that we find Sonnet LXXXI. The thought of the entire group is complaint, perhaps jealousy, of a rival poet; and running through them all are allusions or statements which seem to have been intended to strengthen the ties between him and his friend,--to hold him if he meditated going, and to bring him back if he had already strayed. It was obviously for that purpose that Sonnet LXXXI., one of the central Sonnets of that group, was written; and, considered as written for that purpose, how apt and true its language appears! The poet, asserting that his verse is immortal, says to his friend, the immortality it confers is yours; "your name from hence immortal life shall have," but I shall have no share in that fame; "in me each part will be forgotten," and "earth can yield me but a common grave." Though the Sonnet is in the highest degree poetic, as a bare statement of fact it is perfectly apt and appropriate to that which was the obvious purpose of this group of Sonnets. It is sometimes claimed that the author of the Shakespearean plays was a lawyer. Certainly he was a logician and a rhetorician. The clash of minds and of speech appearing in _Julius_ _Cæsar_, in _Antony and Cleopatra_, in _Henry IV._, and in many other plays, shows a most wonderful facility for stating a case, for presenting an argument. Let us then assume that the poet was simply stating his own case against a rival poet, presenting his own appeal,--and the verse at once has added dignity and passion, and we almost feel the poet's heart throb. Of course the final question--whether or not the two Sonnets printed at the head of this chapter were founded on the conditions and situations they state, and whether or not they express actual feelings and emotions--must be answered by each from a careful reading of the Sonnets themselves. To me, however, their message of sadness, loneliness, and implied appeal seems as clear and certain as the portrayal of agony in the marble of Laocoön. That Sonnet LV., and perhaps in some degree Sonnet LXXXI., are moulded after verses of Ovid or Horace, is often mentioned. And it is mentioned as though that somehow detracted from their meaning or force. That fact seems to me rather to reinforce that meaning. The words of Ovid are translated as follows: Now have I brought a work to an end which neither Jove's fierce wrath, Nor sword nor fire nor fretting age with all the force it hath, Are able to abolish quite.[22] The Ode of Horace has been translated as follows: