and precise limits of the sonnet. How, it is asked, can the free spirit of poetry breathe in such bondage,—the certain bounds of fourteen lines, never to be passed over, yet always to be reached? How can fancy or imagination survive? If the sentiment be expansive or the imagery abundant, all must be cramped or curtailed. If, on the other hand, it can touch the reader's heart in an expression more brief, it must, notwithstanding, be stretched out to the standard. Such is the argument; and, as a matter of course, Procrustes' bed is usually rolled in by way of illustration. Richness of thought and fancy must be reduced, and poverty must be eked out. Now, all of this, if true, is very objectionable, and that it is often true there is many, a luckless sonnet on record to testify. But what does it prove? Not that the sonnet is an inappropriate form of poetry, but only that it is often employed upon subjects that are not adapted to it, and by writers who are unequal to it. The objection establishes nothing more than that there may be an incompetent poet or an injudicious selection of the topic,—an objection surely not peculiar, but which would form an equally reasonable prejudice against the ode, the drama, or the epic. But the complaint does not stop here. One fault, it is alleged, leads to another,—violations of literary propriety, like breaches of veracity, being of a very social tendency. Unnatural forms of expression are traced as a necessary consequence of an unnatural form of composition. The poet, unable, by reason of his artificial restraints, to give sufficient development to his feeling or his imagery, finds himself obliged to produce his impression by resorting to points and antitheses, and all the devices of artificial expression. Hence, it is said, the conceits for which the Italian sonnet is signally noted, and which may be observed also in no inconsiderable degree in so many of those of other nations. Again, we might resist this attack by charging the fault upon the individual poet it proves his weakness and nothing else. But we are willing to take the burden of proof upon ourselves. We maintain that these faults are not naturally or necessarily inherent in the sonnet; and how can the question be better settled than by reference to what has actually been accomplished by it? Let us conceive, proposed as a topic for a sonnet, a vindication of the form of poetry itself, to be effected by an enumeration of the famed poets of various countries who have made use of it, with allusions to their general character, the prominent circumstances of their lives, and their several purposes in writing; this to be done adequately, without restraint or prolixity, in language at once poetical and natural, and with a strict regard to the requisitions of versification. The conception would be surely ample enough for a poem of fourteen

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lines, under peculiar metrical laws. Whether the sonnet be equal to it may be best ascertained by the perusal of another of Wordsworth's, in which the reader will recognise the execution of the conception which we have just sketched in a very lifeless paraphrase :

"Scorn not the sonnet; critic, you have frown'd,

Mindless of its just honours: with this key
Shakspeare unlock'd his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief;
The sonnet glitter'd a gay myrtle-leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd
His visionary brow; a glowworm lamp,

It cheer'd mild Spenser, call'd from fairy-land

To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains,-alas, too few!"

What could be more finished, more perfect, whether you regard it for its mere fancy, or as a piece of eulogy or criticism? What more natural in the expression, more free from everything like false effect, more varied in its harmonies ? What melody could be sweeter than the fall of its close? Is there a word that could be taken away, or one that could be added? Well would it alone sustain the fine illustration which has been given of Wordsworth's sonnets, and which is also in a great measure applicable to all the best sonnets in the language: "Wordsworth's sonnet never goes off, as it were, with a clap or repercussion at the close but is thrown up like a rocket, breaks into light, and falls in a soft shower of brightness." Another, very characteristic of his general manner, may serve to show that a very simple sentiment -that of local association-may be gracefully amplified to the space of the sonnet, without any of the insipid dilution which distinguishes so many of them :

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:

There is a little unpretending rill

Of limpid water, humbler far than aught
That ever among men or naiads sought
Notice or name! It quivers down the hill,
Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will;
Yet to my mind this scanty stream is brought
Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought
Of private recollection sweet and still!

Months perish with their moons; year treads on year;
But, faithful Emma, thou with me canst say

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ENGLISH SONNETS.

That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear,
And flies their memory fast almost as they,
The immortal spirit of one happy day

Lingers beside that rill, in vision clear."

365

I am tempted to add another sonnet, as a happy specimen of art,—a singular instance of secondary description, illustrating clearly the frequent analogy between poetry and painting, or, to describe it more philosophically, between fancy and the bodily eye :

"UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE,

PAINTED BY SIR G. H. BEAUMONT, BART.

"Praised be the art whose subtle power could stay
Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape,
Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,
Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;
Which stopp'd that band of travellers on their way,
Ere they were lost within the shady wood;
And show'd the bark upon the glassy flood
For ever anchor'd in her sheltering bay.
Soul-soothing art; which morning, noontide, even,
Do serve with all their changeful pageantry;
Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,
Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given
To one brief moment caught from fleeting time
The appropriate calm of blest eternity."

There is also great merit in the following as a piece of landscape description, illuminated with a very rich moral light, the imagery of the closing lines, especially, evincing admirable taste:

"A PARSONAGE IN OXFORDSHIRE.
"Where holy ground begins, unhallow'd ends,
Is mark'd by no distinguishable line;
The turf unites, the pathways intertwine;
And, wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends,
Garden, and that domain where kindred, friends,
And neighbours rest together, here confound
Their several features, mingled like the sound

Of many waters, or as evening blends

With shady night. Soft airs from shrub and flower
Waft fragrant greetings to each silent grave;

And, while those lofty poplars gently wave

Their tops, between them comes and goes a sky
Bright as the glimpses of eternity

To saints accorded in their mortal hour."

The complaint of the narrowness of the limits of the sonnet appears indicative more of the character of the mind of him who makes it than

of anything else. Writers vary wonderfully in the room they require : some can breathe freely in no space narrower than a modern state paper, while others are more considerate. The former are not the men to write sonnets: we commend them to the epic. But is there not in this craving for space something that does not accord very well with true poetic temperament ? If a writer be indeed worthy of his calling, if he do indeed belong to that creative class who make the world they inhabit, what need has he of calling for more ground? Is it not enough that he has a spot to rise from? The peak of a broken crag, or the point of a blasted branch, would be sorry quarters indeed for a bear or a buffalo; but the majesty of the eagle claims no wider sovereignty for his footing, when he is springing from the earth to bathe his wings in the floods of the sun. Or, when the lark soars, like a sick man's hope, to meet the coming dawn, the home he leaves is wrapped in the little circumference of a tuft of grass. To these the spirit of true poetry is kindred. The insatiate demand for room is the symptom of a restless and licentious intellect,―of feelings undisciplined. If we should hear it from the lips of one in whom we could discern a trace of poetic promise, we would address him in the language of affectionate entreaty :-Get thee to thy study, and there, seeking the writings of those who adorned our literature in that happy age when authors had not yet become part of a printer's stock in trade,—when men wrote from the fulness of the heart and not the emptiness of the purse,-and, communing with their pages, chasten thine own heart. There are doubtless many who are unable, and many who are unwilling, to brook the restraints of the sonnet; but that proves only that there are many faint-hearted and many false-hearted poets. All that we contend for is that the difficulty, the existence of which we freely admit, is not insuperable; that there is no quality of poetry which may not be brought within its bounds. When a poet repudiates it, he is the unconscious witness to convict himself of a licentiousness which he mistakes for the indignant spirit of true freedom. But, again, let the sonnet speak its own vindication :

"Nuns fret not at their convents' narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees, that soar for bloom
High as the highest peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove-bells:
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence to me,

ENGLISH SONNETS.

In sundry moods, 't was pastime to be bound

Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground:

Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty

Should find brief solace there, as I have found."

367

It is to the narrow bounds of the sonnet that we may safely ascribe its frequent want of popularity, and the countless failures of many who have attempted it. For its most perfect conception and execution, it demands, I have little hesitation in saying, powers as great and varied as the epic itself. In addition to the qualifications for the usual forms of poetry, the poet must bring to the sonnet a profound judgment and a command of language that never fails; his power for condensation of thought must be irresistible; he must possess that suggestive talent in writing, by no means a common one, by which the reader may be set upon trains of thought or feeling. His heart must be under equal discipline. On the part of the reader, too, much is required. There is, as we all know, one state of mind for prose, and another for poetry. The former may correspond with many of the states of feeling in which men happen to be; the latter differs essentially from most of them. It varies with the constitution; it may be felt in different degrees at different times; often it requires a process of preparation. It was one of Charles Lamb's observations-deep-dyed as they all were in truth and the tints of his own peculiar humour-that "Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listens had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears.' It was a fine philosophical thought, entitled to more consideration, as coming from one whose heart, if ever the heart of man was, was in a state of perpetual susceptibility to all that is true and beautiful in nature. Now, this process of preparation is usually part of the poet's own work: much of every poem of any length may be devoted to the mere purpose of elevating the reader's feelings to the required pitch: the world is too much with us for us to dispense with the poet's chastening. But the brevity of the sonnet precludes it. The consequence is, that the reader, perusing it with feelings not sympathetic or not susceptible enough, may, with great injustice, impute to the poem a want of impression which really is the result only of his own mood. Every reflective reader of poetry must have noticed how differently he has been affected at different times by the same piece. The sonnet, therefore, while it requires a writer of peculiar ability, needs a reader of somewhat more than ordinary readingcapabilities. These are causes abundantly sufficient to account for