THE MIND OF SHAKESPERE
critics who have found in them some of Shakspere's happiest phrases; whatever else they are, they are born of a nature in love with fine speech. If we study the style of the sonnets at all, however, it is only fair to reckon with the style of all of them—not simply to dwell upon the most felicitous, in the habit of the Shaksperian fanatics. At least, it is only fair to reckon with them all if we are to use them as indications of the poet's mind. The series has had its fame from a bare dozen of really splendid sonnets, much helped by the dramatic story which seems to be their background, and which may or may not be autobiography. It is hard not to think that the noblest of these poems are direct reflections of life; yet it does not follow that the whole story is. On the contrary, there are rather more sonnets of an artificiality so great as to raise the
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