Note 421c — APPENDIX (continued 2)

Professor Dowden says ‘will to boot’ is a reference to the Christian name of Shakespeare’s friend, ‘William [? Mr. W. H.]’ (Sonnets, p. 236); but in my view the poet, in the second line of the sonnet, only seeks emphasis by repetition in accordance with no uncommon practice of his. The line ‘And will to boot, and will in over-plus,’ is paralleled in its general form and intention in such lines of other sonnets as