tice of wearing wigs. According to Stow, the custom of wearing them began in England in 1572.
69. 14. soil. The N. E. D. explains the word in this line as 'The solution of the problem.'
70. If this sonnet is addressed to the youth of sonnets 34–35, 40–42, it is plainly out of place, for here the youth's life is pronounced blameless.
71. 2, 3. This alludes to the custom of tolling the church bell when a member of the parish died, one stroke for each year of the deceased.
73. 12. Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. The wood which fed the fire is now turned to ashes and extinguishes the flame.
77. Apparently this sonnet was either written in a blank book sent to the unknown friend, or else it accompanied such a gift. It is out of place between sonnets 76 and 78 which discuss Shakespeare's own writings.
77. 4. And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. Dowden makes the following comment: 'Beauty, Time, and Verse formed the theme of many of Shakespeare's sonnets; now that he will write no more, he commends his friend to his glass, where he may discover the truth about his beauty; to the dial, where he may learn the progress of time; and to this book, which he himself—not Shakespeare—must fill.'
77. 11, 12. Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. The meaning of these lines may be expressed: Your thoughts, written in the pages ('waste blanks') of this book, will seem new when you reread them, as children, sent out to nurse, are grown and changed when brought back to their parents.
77. 13. These offices. The habitual use, in the manner suggested by the poet, of the dial and mirror.
78. This begins a series of nine sonnets in which Shakespeare laments that his friend has turned from
