stanza of "In Memoriam"[1] quoted above, which leads me to the subject of the present paper.
"In Memoriam" has often been compared with Shakespeare's Sonnets and with "Lycidas;" but the lines that stand at the head of this paper always seemed to me to point to a closer relation with Shakespeare than has yet been noticed. The transcendent love for a beautiful soul, "passing the love of women," of which the soul of Shakespeare was capable, is hinted at, and the poet declares that even this love cannot surpass his for his friend. The allusion appeared to indicate a deep and probably recent study of the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
On examining these poems anew, which I did with great minuteness and attention, I found my supposition fully corroborated. I discovered a large number of coincidences of idea and even of expression not exactly to be called imitations, and still less plagiarisms, in the later, but which seemed to me to prove that his mind was at the time so imbued with the spirit of the elder poet as to render some unconscious echoes almost unavoidable.
The most important of these parallel passages I will
- ↑ lxi. 3.
