His pure women, like those of Spenser, are drawn after a queenly model.

It is known that Elizabeth was very susceptible to admiration, but did not wish to be considered so; and Shakspeare paid the most delicate and courtly tribute to her vanity, in those exquisite lines from the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, showing how powerless Cupid was to touch her heart: A certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts: But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon; And _the imperial votaress passed on_, In maiden meditation, fancy free.
SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS .-- Before his time, the sonnet had been but little used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton.

Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four, which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W.H.
Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been penetrated.

They were printed in 1609.

"Our language," says one of his editors, "can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth--so severe and so majestic." It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern languages, in whole or in part.