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30 no advantage, surrounded as both were by that bevy of smiling ladies, ready to flout and mock his too great timidity. It is much more reasonable to suppose that the trick played upon him went no further than an innocent conspiracy to introduce him suddenly into the presence of the object of his fanciful adoration. That he should be completely overcome by love and awe and shamefacedness is quite natural, and in keeping with the delicacy of his passion, and especially that any appearance on the part of Beatrice of joining in the laugh against him should have cut him to the quick. When he is back again in the "chamber of tears," he knows very well, poor lover, what to say, and pours forth another sonnet full of impassioned remonstrance:—

In the explanation which follows, and which is attached to every sonnet with quaint force and iteration, he thus, with luminous mystical irradiation of commentary, makes clear, or thinks he makes clear, the dimness of the text:—

"In the passage where I explain the circumstance which gave rise to this sonnet, there are some ambiguous expressions—those, I mean, where I say that Love slays all my spirits, and that those of vision remain in life, though extraneously to their organs.