already said concerning the pauses at the quatrains and tercets : Tanto gentile, e tanto onesta pare La donna mia, quand' ella altrui saluta, Ella sen va, sentendosi laudare, E par che sia una cosa venuta Di cielo in terra a miracol mostrare. Mostrasi si piacente a chi la mira, Che dà per gli occhi una dolcezza al core, E par, che dalla sua labbia si mova Che va dicendo all'anima; sospira. I need not here enter into detail concerning all the variations that have been made upon the normal type in Italian these are very numerous, as also in French. In Germany the model type (where, bythe-by, the sonnet was first known by the name of Klang-gedicht, a very matter-of-fact way of rendering sonetto in its poetic sense!) has always been the Petrarcan, as exemplified in the flawless statuesque sonnets of Platen. The following six Italian variations represent those most worthy of notice. (1) Versi sdruccioli, twelve-syllabled lines, i.e., (Leigh Hunt) slippery or sliding verses, so called on account of their terminating in dactylstēnĕrĕ- Vēnĕrě. (2) Caudated, or Tailed Sonnets, i.e., sonnets to which as it were an unexpected augmentation of two or five or more lines was made: an English example of which will be found in any edition of Milton's works, under the title "On the New Forcers of Conscience." (3) Mute Sonnets on one-syllable terminals, but generally used only for satirical and humorous purposes-in the same way as we, contrariwise, select dissyllabic terminals as best suited for badinage. (4) Linked, or Interlaced Sonnets, corresponding to the Spenserian form, which will be formulated shortly. (5) The Continuous or Iterating Sonnet, on one rhyme throughout, and (6) the same, on two rhymes throughout. French writers (who, speaking generally, are seen to less advantage in the sonnet than in any other poetic vehicle) have delighted in much experimentalising: their only genuine deviation is a frequent commencement of the sestet with a rhymed couplet (a mould into which Mr. Swinburne is fond of casting his impulsive speech)—but their octosyllabic and dialogue sonnets, and other divergencies, are nothing more than more or less interesting and able experiments. The paringdown system has reached its extreme level in the following clever piece of trifling by Comte Paul de Resseguier-a 'sonnet' of single-syllable lines: EPITAPHE D'UNE JEUNE FILLE. Quelle Rose Close La Brise L'a Among English sonnets the chief variations are the rhymed-couplet ending added to the preceding twelve lines cast in the regular form: the sonnet ending with an Alexandrine (vide No. civ.): the sonnet with an Alexandrine closing both octave and sestet (vide No. xxxiii.): the Assonantal Sonnet, i.e., a sonnet without rhymes, but with the vowellation of the words so arranged as to produce a districtly harmonious effect almost identical with that of rhyme-music. Of this form Mr. Wilfrid S. Blunt, among others, has given a good example in his Love-Sonnets of Proteus: the octosyllabic (mere experiments), written by Mr. E. Cracroft Lefroy and Mr. S. Waddington and others: and the sonnet constructed on two rhyme-sounds throughout. Among the last named I may mention Mr. William Bell Scott's 'Garland for Advancing Years,' Mr. Gosse's 'Pipe-Player,' and Lord Hanmer's 'Winter.' The latter I may quote as a fine but little-known example of this experimental variation. WINTER. To the short days, and the great vault of shade, There is no colour in the faded grass, Save the thick frost on its hoar stems arrayed. Cold is it as a melancholy maid, The streams shall breathe, along the orchards laid, the This interesting and poetic experiment would have been still better but for the musical flaw in the first line (days-shade) and those in the 13th-14th (crevasse-past)-though of course in this instance the repetition of maid as a terminal is intentional, and is a metrical gain rather than a flaw. In the Appendix will be found a sonnet by Mr. J. A. Symonds constructed on three rhymes throughout. Dialogue-sonnets are not an English variation: I am only aware of two in our language, one written by Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1580-1640) and the other by Mr. Gosse, in an inspiration manifestly of French origin. There are one or two sonnets in French with octaves where the first three lines rhyme, and therewith also the fifth, sixth, and seventh. The following is the only example of the kind in English, and is certainly not a model to be copied. THE MANSIONS OF THE BLEST. One who through waiting years of patient pain Nay, with a joyous, an adoring strain And of the promised pathway was no trace ;- We may now pass to the consideration of the five standard formal types, thereby closing the first section of this Introduction, that on sonnetarchitecture.' These formal types are (1) The Petrarcan The Spenserian. (3) The Shakespearian. The Miltonic and (5) The Contemporary. (2) (4) The Guittonian, or Petrarcan, sonnet has already structurally been explained: but its formal characteristics may be summarised again. (1) It, like all sonnets, must primarily consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines. (2) It must be made up of a major and minor system: the major system consisting of eight lines, or two quatrains, to be known as the octave; the minor consisting of six lines, or two tercets, to be known as the sestet. (3) Two rhyme-sounds only must pervade the octave, and their arrangement (nominally arbitrary, but in reality based on an ascertainable melodic law, the latter in turn deriving from an equally ascertainable law of nature) must be so that the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth terminals rhyme, while the second, third, sixth, and seventh do so also on a different note. (4) What is generally looked upon as completing the normal type is a sestet with the tercet divisions clearly |