justify the peculiar rumours about his private life. He held the opinion,
which was universal at that time, that Shakespeare had been abnormally vicious.
He believed with the majority of critics that Lord William Herbert was addressed
in the first series of Sonnets; but his fine sensibility or, if you will, his
peculiar temperament, led him to question whether Thorpe's dedication to
"Mr. W. H." could have been addressed to Lord William Herbert. He preferred
the old hypothesis that the dedication was addressed to a young actor named
Mr. William Hughes, a supposition which is supported by a well-known sonnet.
He set forth this idea with much circumstance and considerable ingenuity in an
article which he sent to me for publication in "The Fortnightly Review". The
theme was scabrous; but his treatment of it was scrupulously reserved and adroit
and I saw no offence in the paper, and to tell the truth, no great ability in
his handling of the subject. (confer Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross.")

He had talked over the article with me while he was writing it, and I told him
that I thought the whole theory completely mistaken. Shakespeare was as sensual
as one could well be; but there was no evidence of abnormal vice; indeed, all
the evidence seemed to me to be against this universal belief. The assumption
that the dedication was addressed to Lord William Herbert I had found it
difficult to accept, at first; the wording of it is not only ambiguous but
familiar. If I assumed that "Mr. W. H." was meant for Lord William Herbert,
it was only because that seemed the easiest way out of the maze. In fine, I
pointed out to Oscar that his theory had very little that was new in it, and
more that was untrue, and advised him not to publish the paper. My conviction
that Shakespeare was not abnormally vicious, and that the first series of
Sonnets proved snobbishness and toadying and not corrupt passion, seemed to
Oscar the very madness of partisanship.

He smiled away my arguments, and sent his paper to the "Fortnightly" office when
I happened to be abroad. Much to my chagrin, my assistant rejected it rudely,