Mr. William Archer says of Mr. Watson's political sonnets, that the form becomes in his hands "a weapon like the sling of David. In the octave he whirls it round and round with evergathering momentum, and in the sestet sends his scorn or rebuke singing through the air, arrow-straight to its mark." (Poets of the Younger Generation, p. 503.) B. — THE ENGLISH (SHAKSPERIAN) SONNET From Tuskane came my Ladies worthy race: (EARL OF SURREY: Description and praise of his love Geraldine. Surrey experimented with the Italian sonnet as it had been introduced into England by his master Wyatt, but soon devised a variation from the Italian form, and wrote a majority of his sonnets in the new English form (nine out of the sixteen which are printed in Tottel's Miscellany). This new form is divided, not into octave and sestet, but into three quatrains, with alternate rime, and a couplet. It produces, therefore, an effect quite different from that of the legitimate Italian sonnet, the couplet at ⚫the end giving it a more epigrammatic structure. Surrey's form seems more consonant with common English taste for simplicity of rime-structure, and, besides being honored by its adoption by Shakspere, has remained a favorite side by side with the more "correct" original.* Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. (SIDNEY: Astrophel and Stella, xxxix. ab. 1580.) *In 1575, when Gascoigne wrote his Notes of Instruction, he found it necessary to say: "Some thinke that all Poemes (being short) may be called Sonets, as in deede it is a diminutive worde derived of Sonare, but yet I can beste allowe to call those Sonnets whiche are of fouretene lynes, every line conteyning tenne syllables. The firste twelve do ryme in staves of foure lines by crosse meetre, and the last two ryming togither do conclude the whole." (Arber's Reprint, pp. 38, 39.) It is, of course, the English sonnet which Gascoigne thus describes. And let the day be time enough to mourn (SAMUEL DANIEL: Care-charmer Sleep. 1592.) Daniel was one of the most skilful of the Elizabethans in the use of the English form of the sonnet. The greater number of his Sonnets to Delia are of this type. The subject of the present sonnet was a fashionable one in the sixteenth century (compare Sidney's, quoted above). Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, – Nay I have done, you get no more of me ; Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, And innocence is closing up his eyes, Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover! (DRAYTON: Love's Farewell. 1594.). Rossetti called this sonnet "perhaps the best in the language." Drayton's sonnet-sequence, the Idea, follows the Shaksperian form; and the present specimen illustrates how the important division of this type of sonnet is between the quatrains and the final couplet. One day I wrote her name upon the strand; But came the tide and made my pains his prey. For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise. (SPENSER: Amoretti, lxxv. 1595.) The sonnets in Spenser's collected poems number 177, of which fifty-six are in the common English (Surrey) form, the remainder — like the present specimen — riming ababbcbccdcdee. This order of rimes reminds us of that in the Spenserian stanza, and must have been devised by Spenser at about the same time. It has never been adopted by other poets. When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; (SHAKSPERE: Sonnet xxix. 1609.) That time of year thou may'st in me behold As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by: This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. (SHAKSPERE: Sonnet lxxiii. 1609.) These two specimens, perhaps the favorites of as many readers as any which could be chosen, must serve to represent the sonnets of Shakspere. The whole number of these is 154, and all are in the English form. Slight irregularities in the rime-scheme will be found in about fifteen. Number 99 has fifteen lines |