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SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
well be disputed. It was probably a literary exercise on a very common theme by some second-rate poet, which was circulating like the sonnets in written copies, and was assigned to Shakespeare by an enterprising transcriber. The reference to—
Deep-brained sonnets, that did amplify
Each stone’s dear nature, worth, and quality,
(ll. 209-10.)
combines with the far-fetched conceits to suggest that the writer drew much of his inspiration from that vast sonnet literature, which both in France and England abounded in affected allusions to precious gems.¹ The typography of the poem has much the same defects as the sonnets. Among the confusing misprints are the following:—‘a sacred *Sonne*’ for ‘nun’ (260); ‘*Or* cleft effect’ for ‘O’ (293); ‘all *straing* formes’ for ‘strange’ (303); ‘*sounding* palenesse’ for ‘swounding’ or ‘swooning’ (305); ‘*sound*’ for ‘swound’ or ‘swoon’ (308).
¹ Ronsard, and all the poets of the Pléiade, were very generous in their comparison of their mistress’ charms to precious stones. The practice, which was freely imitated by Elizabethan sonneteers, received its most conspicuous illustration in the work of Remy Belleau, in his *Les Amours et nouveaux exchanges des pierres précieuses, vertus et propriétés décibles*, which was first published at Paris in 1576, and figuratively describes, with amorous application, the amethyst, the diamond, the loadstone, the ruby, onyx, opal, emerald, turquoise, and many other precious stones. Shakespeare proves his acquaintance with poems of the kind, when he refers in his sonnets to the sonneteers’ habit of
Making a complement of proud compare,
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems.
(Sonnet XXI.)
In *Sonnet* CXXX he again derides the common convention:—
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
*Coral* is far more red than her lips’ red.
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