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Testimony of the Sonnets
as to the Authorship
of the Shakespearean
Plays and Poems


By Jesse Johnson



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1899


Copyright, 1899

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London


The Knickerbocker Press, New York



DEDICATED TO
ALBERT E. LAMB

PARTNER AND FRIEND FOR TWENTY YEARS
OF THE ROYAL LINE OF LOYAL GENTLEMEN




CONTENTS

Introductory
  Scope and effect of the discussion                                1-5

Chapter I
  The Sonnets contain a message from their author; they
  portray his real emotions, and are to be read and
  interpreted literally                                            7-18

Chapter II
  They indicate that the friend or patron of the poet was a
  young man, and of about the age of Shakespeare;
  and that their author was past middle life, and considerably
  older than Shakespeare                                           19-48

Chapter III
  Direct statements showing that the Sonnets were not
  written by their accredited author--were not written
  by Shakespeare                                                   49-58

Chapter IV
  The known facts of Shakespeare's history reveal a character
  entirely inconsistent with, and radically different
  from, the revelations of the Sonnets as to the character
  of their author                                                  59-72

Chapter V
  The general scope and effect of the Sonnets inconsistent
  with the theory that they were written by Shakespeare            73-96

Chapter VI
  The results of the discussion summarized                         97-99




INTRODUCTORY


The Shakespearean Sonnets are not a single or connected work like an
ordinary play or poem. Their composition apparently extended over a
considerable time, which may be fairly estimated as not less than four
years. Read literally they seem to portray thoughts, modes or
experiences fairly assignable to such a period. Though variable and
sometimes light and airy in their movement, the greater portion appear
to reveal deep and intense emotion, the welling and tumultous floods
of the inner life of their great author. And their difficulty or
mystery is, that they indicate circumstances, surroundings,
experiences and regrets that we almost instinctively apprehend could
not have been those of William Shakespeare at the time they were
written, when he must have been in the strength of early manhood, in
the warmth and glow of recent and extraordinary advancement and
success.

It is this difficulty that apparently has caused many to believe that
their literal meaning cannot be accepted, and that we must give to
them, or to many of them, a secondary meaning, founded on affectations
or conceits relating to different topics or persons, or that at least
we should not allow that in them the poet is speaking of himself.
Others, like Grant White, simply allow and state the difficulty and
leave it without any suggestion of solution.

Before conceding, however, that the splendid poetry contained in the
Sonnets must be sundered or broken, or the apparent reality of its
message doubted or denied, or that its message is mysterious or
inexplicable--we should carefully inquire whether there is not some
view or theory which will avoid the difficulties which have so baffled
inquiry.

I believe that there is such a view or theory, and that view is--that
the Sonnets were not written by Shakespeare, but were written to him
as the patron or friend of the poet; that while Shakespeare may have
been the author of some plays produced in his name at the theatre
where he acted, or while he may have had a part in conceiving or
framing the greater plays so produced, there was another, a great
poet, whose dreamy and transforming genius wrought in and for them
that which is imperishable, and so wrought although he was to have no
part in their fame and perhaps but a small financial recompense; and
that it is the loves, griefs, fears, forebodings and sorrows of the
student and recluse, thus circumstanced and confined, that the Sonnets
portray.

Considering that the Sonnets were so written, there is no need of any
other than a literal and natural reading or interpretation. Commencing
in expressions of gratulation and implied flattery, as they proceed,
they appear to have been written as the incidents, fears and griefs
which they indicate from time to time came; and it may well be that
they were written not for publication, but as vents or expressions of
a surcharged heart. With such a view of the situation of the poet and
of his patron, we may not only understand much that otherwise is
inexplicable