the conclusion will be come to even from this limited anthology that the pure moulds are the best, and that the so-called arbitrary restrictions of this poetic vehicle should be strictly preserved.

My second principle in selection was-Individuality, with distinct poetic value and in accordance with this I endeavoured to choose. For the selection of nine-tenths of the sonnets I am alone responsible, but in a few instances I have yielded to the special request of a contributor and substituted some other for the one already chosen, or have inserted a sonnet which I could not honestly endorse as specially excellent. Instances of the latter are so extremely rare, however, that the matter need scarcely have been mentioned.

My third principle was-Adequacy of sonnetmotive. As out of every five hundred sonnets there are at most one hundred genuinely in conformity therewith, it may be imagined that I do not claim that each of the two hundred and sixty-five following examples have this characteristic-but I certainly think that the majority has.

Surely it is not extravagant to entertain the hope that this collection will enlighten many as to the great beauty of the sonnet as a poetic vehicle-that it will make manifest how well it is fitted for the enshrinement of the noblest as well as the most passionate or tender emotion-that it will prove how large a quantity of the finest poetic work of this century is therein embodied-and that it will serve to convince of the great future the sonnet still has before it?

For a poem does not require to be an epic to be

great, any more than a man need be a giant to be noble. Sonnets are like waves of the sea, each on a small scale that which the ocean is on a large. In the words of an early sonnet-commentator—“like the small statue by the chisel of Lysippus, they demonstrate that the idea of greatness may be excited independently of the magnitude of size." Look at the majesty of this imagery

"Even as, heavy-curled,

Stooping against the wind, a charioteer
Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair,
So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled
Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world:
Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air.

It shall be sought and not found anywhere." (p. 192.) or at the splendid amplitude of that magnificent sonnet, 'The Sun-God' (p. 58) or at the spaciousness of that entitled 'The Sublime' (p. 21).

Only those who have undertaken some task similar to this that I have accomplished, know the great labour that is entailed. Hundreds of sonnets have to be read and judged ere a good selection be made, and then this selection has to be sifted, and sonnet weighed against sonnet, and a score of contrarieties to be considered ere the final choice be made. Then the correspondence, and illustrative notes, and variorum readings, and other matters conspire to make the editorial lot an eminently unenviable one for the time being. It is, therefore, with genuine gratitude that I acknowledge in this place my indebtedness to all the living writers who are here represented, for their

uniform courtesy in leaving me freedom to make my own selection, and for various other methods of welcome assistance. If there are any who have not had direct communication with me, I trust they will attribute my negligence not to any indifference or discourtesy, but either to ignorance of the omission, or to some special urgency.

As to the arrangement of the sonnets: it will be seen at a glance that they are placed according to the alphabetical sequence of authors' names. My first intention was to print them in groups as they corresponded to this or that type, but after several tentative experiments, I discarded this scheme as inappropriate. It then occurred to me that the novelty of an alphabetical arrangement, as here presented, would be agreeable, and on trial I speedily discovered that a greater variety and freshness could so be given to the collection than by any other means—hence its adoption.

When it is fully realised that a sonnet must be the complete development of a single motif, and that it must at once be reticent and ample, it will be understood how true is that line of Boileau which is quoted on the title-page. When a fine thing is adequately and completely stated, it does not gain by being embedded in an environment too great for it, like an amethyst in a great boulder of quartz. A sonnet is a moment's moment," wrote Rossetti, in one of his own compositionsnot improbably unconsciously reproducing that line of De Musset, in his Impromptu en réponse à cette question: Qu'est-ce que la poésie ?- Eterniser peut-être un rêve d'un instant. And it is no mere

metaphysical subtlety to say that life can be as ample in one divine moment as in an hour, or a day, or a year. And there is a wide world of sensation open to the sonneteer if he will but exercise not only a wise reticence, but also vivid perception and acute judgment. As the writer in the Quarterly Review has well said, 'the sonnet might almost be called the alphabet of the human heart, since almost every kind of emotion has been expressed, or attempted to be expressed in it.' And in this, more than in any other poetic form, it is well for the would-be composer to study, not only every line and every word, but every vowel and every part of each word, endeavouring to obtain the most fit phrase, the most beautiful and original turn to the expression—to be, like Keats, misers of sound and syllable.' Nor in no form is revision more advisable and less likely to be harmful, for pre-eminently a sonnet is a form embodying emotion remembered in tranquillity, as Wordsworth defined poetry generally. We know that Petrarca has himself recorded how he passed the file athwart his handiwork over and over again, and but rarely even then saw the gem leave his cabinet without reluctance-how he wrote not hurriedly, and issued with still greater circumspection, letting each sonnet, as Leigh Hunt expresses it, lie polishing in his mind for months together, like a pebble on the sea shore. And not less enamoured of perfection for perfection's sake, was the greatest sonneteer of our own time, every one of whose sonnets was passed again and again through the white-heat of imaginative and critical comparative study: in

Rossetti's own words, the first and highest quality of finish in poetic execution, "is that where the work has been all mentally 'cartooned,' as it were, beforehand, by a process intensely conscious, but patient and silent-an occult evolution of life."

Some score or more of essential rules might well be formulated on behalf, not only of those who wish to write in the sonnet-form, but also of those who do not even yet fully realise how many things go to the making of a really good sonnet. These regulations, main and minor, are to be found fully set forth by Leigh Hunt and the late Mark Pattison, but a complete statement of points to be observed is here now unnecessary. It will suffice if I set forth the ten absolutely essential rules for a good sonnet-what I may call the Ten Commandments of the Sonnet :

I. The sonnet must consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines.

II. Its octave, or major system, whether or not this be marked by a pause in the cadence after the eighth line, must (unless cast in the Shakespearian mould) follow a prescribed arrangement in the rhyme-sounds—namely, the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines must rhyme on the same sound, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh on another.

III. Its sestet, or minor system, may be arranged with more freedom, but a rhymed couplet at the close

is only allowable when the form is the English, or Shakespearian.

IV. No terminal should also occur in any portion of any other line in the same system; and the rhyme-sounds (1) of the octave should be harmoniously at variance, and (2) the rhyme-sounds