of flow and ebb, 'Natura Benigna' (p. 243) of ebb and flow.

It is thus evident that the contemporary type is no variation from the Petrarcan, but is simply a scientifically understood development thereof.

Readers will already have gathered that there can thus only be three genuine sonnet-types.

THE PETRARCAN or NATURAL SONNET (comprehending the Contemporary).

THE ENGLISH, or SHAKESPEARIAN SONNET.

THE MILTONIC SONNET (any sonnet, whether in the Petrarcan or Shakespearian mould, with unbroken continuity, metrically and otherwise, in its presentation).

In the wide scope thus afforded no poet can with justice complain of too rigid limitations: such objection-making must simply be an exemplification of the well-known saying as to the workman and his tools. To these moreover may be addressed Capel Lofft's words (who, however, adapted them from Menzini)-' No Procrustes has obliged you to be lopped to the measure of this bed: Parnassus will not be in ruins even if you should not publish a sonnet.'

To those curious in arithmetical statements the same writer's remarks concerning the combinations possible in the sonnet-form will be interesting. As Lofft points out, if in the possible combination of fourteen lines the lines were considered simply as lines, the question would be solvable in the same way as the changes in fourteen bells, by continued multiplication of the fourteen terms of the series into each other-the resultant being 87,078,291,200,

But, as the calculator goes on to state, many of these are excluded by the laws of the sonnet and the nature of Rhyme; and that the independence of the rhymes of the major and minor system, were the distinction invariably observed, would reduce the possible alternations within each system within the limits of the continued separate multiplication of the series of 3 and 6=40320) respectively, or

740 together, 41.020.

Out of these, however, the greater portion become either coincident or otherwise excluded. In Lofft's own words, 'the real alternation of admissible rhymes, according to the laws of the sonnet and of poetic harmony [thus] comes within a moderate compass. They give, however, a great and beautiful variety.'

I will not here attempt any adequate survey of the history of the sonnet in England from Milton to the present day. A cursory glance must be sufficient. Doubtless many a reader may by this time feel inclined (as often has felt the Editor during selection and proof-correction) to cry out with Armado in Love's Labour's Lost-"Assist me for I am sure I shall turn sonnet!"

With Milton the Italian influence in our literature waned, and that of France (inaugurated by Dryden) took its place. A corresponding change in the poetic temperament rapidly took place. Those clever, formal, prosaic years so beloved by one or two of our younger living writers, how dreary they seem to those who thankfully congratulate themselves in not having lived in the reign of good Queen Anne! The 18th-century apologists

e

would have us believe much concerning the poetic taste of the time :-and it is of course natural that brother should advocate brother. The less original a poet's genius, the surer he is to turn with delight to the 18th-century formalists.

After Milton the sonnet almost languished out of existence in this country. Many years after the great Puritan poet was laid in his grave Gray wrote an often-praised (but to me, I must confess, a very indifferent) sonnet on the death of Mr. Richard West,' and Mason and Warton several of fair quality. Cowper, who died as may be remembered in the first year of the 19th century, wrote one fine poem of this class to Mary Unwin. Gradually the sonnet began to awake from its poetic hibernation, and though one or two female poets had not altogether unworthily handled it, and though William Roscoe and Egerton Brydges had even used it with moderate success, the first real breath of spring came in the mild advent of William Lisle Bowles. His sonnets move us now hardly at all, but when we remember the season of their production we may well regard them with more kindly liberality. Bowles was born just eight years before William Wordsworth, to whom, more than any one else, is due the great revival and increasing study and appreciation of the sonnet. Coleridge wrote no fine sonnets, though he just missed writing one of the finest in the language (pp. 278-9: Notes). Blanco White concentrated all his poetic powers in one great effort, and wrote a sonnet that will live as long as the language, as in French literature Felix Arvers will be remembered always for

his unique example, that beautiful sonnet commencing 'Mon âme a son secret, ma vie a son mystère. Leigh Hunt, true poet in his degree as he was, did truer service by his admirable efforts in critical literature towards the popularisation of the sonnet; and after him (by 'after' reference is made to birth-sequence) came a constantly increasing number, the chief of whom will be found represented in this volume-among the most important being Sir Aubrey De Vere, little known, but a true poet and fine sonneteer, Byron (who wrote some half-dozen compositions of this class, and wrote them well too, notwithstanding his real or pretended dislike of the form), Barry Cornwall, Shelley (whose 'Ozymandias' is a fine poem but not a fine sonnet), and Keats. Though Keats has never been and probably never will be a really popular poet, his influence on other poets and on poetic temperaments generally has been very marked. Some of

his sonnets are remarkable for their power and beauty, while others are indifferent and a few are poor. With all his love for the beauty of isolated poetic lines-music condensed into an epigram more concise than the Greeks ever uttered-a example, his own splendid verse,

- as, for

There is a budding morrow in mid-nightand with all that sense of verbal melody which he manifested so remarkably in his odes, it is strange that in his sonnets he should so often be at fault in true harmony. Even the beautiful examples which are included in this anthology afford instances of this; as in 'Ailsa Rock' (cxv.)

:

where the penultimate word of the ninth line and the penultimate word of the tenth (not forming part of the rhyme-sound, the two terminals indeed being antagonistic) are identical: as in the 'Elgin Marbles' (cxvi.) where 'weak' midway in the first line has an unpleasing assonantal relation with 'sleep,' the terminal of the second line: as in 'To Homer,' where after the beautiful eleventh line already quoted, ending in 'mid-night' there succeeds 'sight' midway in the twelfth. These are genuine flaws, not specks seen through hypercritical vision those who are unable to perceive them simply prove their deficiency in ear. Born a year later than Keats, Hartley Coleridge, the poetic son of a greater father, finely fulfilled the impulse that had come to him from Wordsworth, making an abiding name for himself through his sonnet-work alone. His 'Birth of Speech '-as I have styled one of his best known but unnamed sonnets-is a fine example of a sonnet in the Miltonic mould. Thomas Hood, that true poet-so little understood by the public generally-not only wrote some fine sonnets, but wrote two of special excellence, one of them 'Silence' (cvi.), constituting one of the finest in the language. years younger than Hood was Charles Tennyson, a brother of the present Laureate, but generally known as Tennyson - Turner, from his having adopted the latter surname in early life. A very true poet, an admirable writer of irregular sonnets, Tennyson-Turner was a remarkable example of a man's retaining through an exceptionally prolonged period of silence the very

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