_This may be wrong_, _but something of the kind seems necessary to explain why Butler should have called the Sonnet an Academic Exercise_. _No one who has read_ Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered _will require to be told that he disagreed contemptuously with those critics who believe that Shakespeare composed his Sonnets as academic exercises_. _It is certain that he wrote this_, _as he wrote his other Sonnets_, _in imitation of Shakespeare_, _not merely imitating the form but approaching the subject in the spirit in which he believed Shakespeare to have approached his subject_. _It follows therefore that he did not write this sonnet as an academic exercise_, _had he done so he would not have been imitating Shakespeare_. _If we assume that he was presenting his story as he presented the dialogue in_ “_A Psalm of Montreal_” _in a form_ “_perhaps true_, _perhaps imaginary_, _perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other_,” _it would be quite in the manner of the author of_ The Fair Haven _to burlesque the methods of the critics by ignoring the sincerity of the emotions and fixing on the little bit of inaccuracy in the facts_. _We may suppose him to be saying out loud to the critics_: “_You think Shakespeare’s Sonnets were composed as academic exercises_, _do you_? _Very well then_, _now what do you make of this_?” _And adding aside to himself_: “_That will be good enough for them_; _they’ll swallow anything_.” xii. _A Prayer_ _Extract from Butler’s Note-Books under the date of February or March_ 1883: “‘_Cleanse thou me from my secret sins_.’ _ I heard a man moralising on this and shocked him by saying demurely that I did not mind these so much_, _if I could get rid of those that were obvious to other people_.” _He wrote the sonnet in_ 1900 _or_ 1901. _In the first quatrain_ “_spoken_” _does not rhyme with_ “_open_”; _Butler knew this and would not alter it because there are similar assonances in Shakespeare_, _e.g._ “_open_” _and_ “_broken_” _in Sonnet LXI_. xiii. _Karma_ _I am responsible for grouping these three sonnets under this heading_. _The second one beginning_ “_What is’t to live_” _appears in Butler’s Note-Book with the remark_, “_This wants much tinkering_, _but I cannot tinker it_”—_meaning that he was too much occupied with other things_. _He left the second line of the third of these sonnets thus_: “_Them palpable to touch and view_.” _I have_ “_tinkered_” _it by adding the two syllables_ “_and clear_” _to make the line complete_. _In writing this sonnet Butler was no doubt thinking of a note he made in_ 1891: “_It is often said that there is no bore like a clever bore_. _Clever people are always bores and always must be_. _That is_, _perhaps_, _why Shakespeare had to leave London—people could not stand him any longer_.” xiv. _The Life after Death_