Page:The portrait of Mr. W. H (IA portraitofmrwh01wild).pdf/53

 "Ah, wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should receive, And lace itself with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeing of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?"

It may seem strange that so great a dramatist as Shakespeare, who realised his own perfection as an artist and his full humanity as a man on the ideal plane of stage-writing and stage-playing, should have written in these terms about the theatre; but we must remember that in Sonnets CX and CXI, Shakespeare shows us that he too was wearied of the world of puppets, and full of shame at having made himself "a motley to the view." Sonnet CXI is especially bitter:—

"O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,