“Each day she wrote a letter to her lover--each day he wrote to her. These messages were often in verse, and part of them are preserved in the sonnets of Shakespeare, one hundred and fifty-four in number. These sonnets, it will be noticed, have no special relation one to the other. Part, it can be seen, are written by a woman to her lover. Mixed in with these are others written by a man. You will notice that in those written by the woman she entreats the young man to marry, and expresses much regret and surprise that though he loves her well he will not wed. “These sonnets were first published in 1609, and were dedicated-- “‘_To Mr. W. H. Their onlie begetter._’ “The W stands for William, the H for Harriette. The prefix of ‘Mr.’ is a mere whimsicality, (a thing all lovers are guilty of, yet which we are ever ready to forgive), simply to mystify the world. The first twenty-six of these sonnets were written by Harriette during the years 1585 and 1586, before she knew that Shakespeare was already married; and the perplexity in her ignorance of the real facts of his life can be imagined. “Long years after these letters were written, Shakespeare turned those which were not already in rhyme into verse for his and her amusement, and now that they had come to know each other perfectly and the oneness was complete, many was the laugh they had over their youthful trials. Anyone who will read the Sonnets, _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Passionate Pilgrim_, and read them carefully in the light of what I now tell, will get a clear idea of the first few years’ relations of Shakespeare and this beautiful and accomplished young woman. I do not attempt to defend the style or wording of these poems. They are written in all the hot restless desire of youth where flesh is not ruled by soul--where the earthy is not yet transmuted into the spiritual. “Said ‘rare Ben Jonson’--‘I loved the man, and do reverence his memory on this side of idolatry as much as any! He was honest and of an open and free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions and excellent expressions, wherein he flowed with such facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power--would the rule of it had been so too! but he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was in him ever more to be praised than pardoned. The players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that in his writing whatsoe’er he penned he never blotted out a line. My answer has been, Would he had blotted out a thousand.’ “So with Ben Jonson I say, Oh would that these two had left unwritten a thousand lines!--but who shall dictate to genius?