sentences:  While this interpretation is valid, other critics have interpreted the phrase "child of state" differently.Beeching, in his introduction to "The Sonnets of Shakespeare", also understands "state" to refer to circumstance and accident; another critic, Dowden, in his work "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare", believes it to mean "born of place and power".In his notes to Shakespeare's Sonnets, editor Gollanz believes it to refer to the earl of Southampton having been a ward of Lord Burghley and therefore a "child of state".