Now
this is not a common or easily invented story. No one would guess that
Shakespeare could be so foolish as to send his friend to plead his love
for him. That's a mistake that no man who knows women would be likely to
make: but the unlikelihood of the story is part of the evidence of its
truth--
credo quia incredibile has an element of persuasion in it.
No one has yet noticed that the story of the sonnets is treated three
times in Shakespeare's plays. The first time the story appears it is
handled so lightly that it looks to me as if he had not then lived
through the incidents which he narrates. In the "Two Gentlemen of
Verona" Proteus is asked by the Duke to plead Thurio's cause with
Silvia, and he promises to do so; but instead, presses his own suit and
is rejected. The incident is handled so carelessly (Proteus not being
Thurio's friend) that it seems to me to have no importance save as a
mere coincidence. When the scene between Proteus and Silvia was written
Shakespeare had not yet been deceived by his friend.
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