Nos. xxxii.-xxxiii. ROBERT BUCHANAN. These sonnets are from the section of The Book of Orm entitled "Coruisken Sonnets." Of all Mr. Buchanan's poetic productions The Book of Orm is certainly the most individual, and is in some ways the most remarkable. It has unmistakable faults, but its beauties are equally unmistakable— and it certainly never has been done justice to. There is no living poet who has a keener eye for nature than has Mr. Buchanan-in this he is a true northerner. In dealing with natural aspects he is never or seldom the mere literary man, but the poet working from knowledge and familiarity as well as with insight. He has, however, written very few good sonnets as sonnets. No. xxxiv. SIR S. EGERTON BRYDGES (1762-1837). This sonnet, like those of Bowles, owes much of its reputation to the warm praise it received from certain eminent contemporaries of its author, including Wordsworth and Coleridge. It has, of course, genuine merit, though this is not one of those instances where we are likely to be induced to consider the Alexandrine at the close an unexpected charm (an Alexandrine also ends the octave). The somewhat pompous author never, however, wrote anything better, though that he had some faculty for his art will be evident to anyone who glances through his Poems (1807). Nos. xxxv.-xxxvi. LORD BYRON (1788-1824). The genius of Byron was not one from which we might have expected good sonnet-work. He is greater in mass than in detail, in outlines than in delicate sidetouches-in a word, he is like a sculptor who hews a Titan out of a huge block, one whom we would never expect to be able, or to care, to delicately carve a cameo. That Byron could write sonnets, and that he could even write an exceptionally fine one, is evident from the two I have quoted. No. xxxv. is an essentially noble sonnet in the Miltonic mould, recalling indeed Milton's famous sonnet on the Piedmontese massacre, and having some affinity to Wordsworth's equally noble sonnet on Toussaint (No. cclx.). It is hardly necessary to call to the reader's remembrance that Bonnivard, Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon," was, on account of his daring patriotism, interned in the first half of the 17th century in the dungeons of the Castle of Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, by the tyrannical orders of the Duke of Savoy. He was ultimately released—not through the mercy of his enemy-but not until after long years of wretchedness, wherein his feet are said to have left traces on the worn stones of his prison-floor. The sonnet To Ginevra here given is the second of two so entitled, the same that are referred to by Byron in his Diary, 17th December, 1813:-"Redde (read) some Italian, and wrote two sonnets. I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions." It was subsequent to this, however, that he wrote, inter alia, his Chillon sonnet. To return to the latter: by comparing the octave with the same in the original draft, we see that Byron could not only write a sonnet, but that he could, notwithstanding the "puling, petrifying, and stupidly platonic" characteristics of that poetic vehicle, revise and polish his lines. The octave of the first draft is as follows: "Beloved Goddess of the chainless mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom.” This original octave affords striking proof that Byron was by no means the heedless artist he has been represented; not only are individual lines greatly strengthened, but the unsatisfactory structure of the second part of the octave is markedly improved. Nos. xxxvii.-xxxviii. HALL CAINE. It is with pleasure that I print these fine sonnets. There is no writer of the younger generation who has come more rapidly to the fore than Mr. Hall Caine, though as a poet he has not yet sought the opinion of the public. These sonnets appeared in The Athenæum, and are interesting not only from their intrinsic merit, but as evidence that Mr. Caine can himself compose a sonnet as well as write about sonnets and sonneteering. I have already, in the introductory note, referred to his valuable Sonnets of Three Centuries (Stock, 1882). Since then Mr. Caine has further confirmed his reputation by his Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and by his highly successful romance, The Shadow of a Crime. Mr. Caine has also written a striking onevolume story entitled She's all the World to Me. No. xxxix. WILLIAM M. W. CALL. This impressive, if structurally unsatisfactory sonnet, is from Mr. Call's Golden Histories (Smith, Elder & Co., 1871). Mr. Call has written much, but has not succeeded in attracting wide notice. He has certainly, however written no other sonnet so fine as this. Glancing at it again, I find that the lines "I watch'd the great red sun, in clouds, go down, suggests an equally fine image, which I must quote from memory, Nos. xl.-xli. JOHN CLARE (1793-1864). Clare's sonnets are irregular in structure, and in a sense they are only fourteen-line poems. They might as well as not be better, or worse, for being two or three lines shorter or longer. There is no inevitableness about them: one feels that the choice of vehicle has been purely arbitrary,-in a word, that they have not that essential characteristic-adequacy of sonnet-motive. Like all his work, however, they are characterised by the same winsome affection for and knowledge of the nature amidst which he spent his life. Clare's poetry is often like a sunny and windy day bursting through the gloom of late winter. No. xl. The last word is printed by Clare "drest," but as Mr Main has pointed out, and corrected in his Treasury, this is an obvious misprint for "deckt." Nos. xlii.-xliii. HERBERT E. CLARKE. "The Assignation" is from Mr. Clarke's latest volume, Storm Drift; and "King of Kings" from its predecessor, Songs in Exile (Marcus Ward, 1879). Mr. Clarke has written many excellent sonnets. Nos. xliv.-xlix. HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796-1849). Hartley Coleridge now ranks among the foremost sonneteers in our language: as in the case of Charles Tennyson-Turner, his reputation rests solely on his sonnet-work. Notwithstanding the reverent admiration he had for his more famous father, Hartley's work betrays much more the influence of Wordsworth than of S. T. Coleridge. In this a wise instinct indubitably guided him. His father was not a sonneteer. There is a firmness of handling, a quiet autumnal tenderness and loveliness about Hartley's sonnets that retain an endless charm for all who care for poetic beauty. Students should consult the notes in Mr. Main's Treasury and the highly interesting ana in Mr. Caine's Sonnets of Three Centuries. Of the sonnets I have quoted, the first two are specially noteworthy. A friend has recorded the interesting fact that Hartley Coleridge's sonnets were all written impulsively, and never occupied more than ten minutes in composition. Probably, however, they were carefully revised at the author's leisure. A sonnet is not like a lyric proper-best in its very spontaneity and unguardedness. The impulse should be as keen, but the shaping power of the artist should come more into play. A sonnet is also the least likely of any poetic vehicle to be spoilt by discriminative revision; in nine cases out of ten it is greatly improved thereby. Nos. 1.-li. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). There is no one of Coleridge's sonnets which can be pronounced distinctly satisfactory. The two I have given seem to me on the whole the best. The famous one on Schiller's Robbers has been much overrated-though Coleridge himself had a high opinion of it. Wordsworth showed his critical faculty when, on receipt of Dyce's Sonnet-Anthology he referred to the insertion of "The Robbers" as a mistake, on the ground of "rant." I print it here: TO THE AUTHOR OF 'THE ROBBERS." Ah! bard tremendous in sublimity! Then weep aloud in a wild ecstacy. There are probably few readers of mature taste who would not consider Wordsworth's epithet "rant as literally applicable. One learns with a sense of uncomfortable wonder that Coleridge himself—this supreme master of metrical music-considered the last six lines strong and fiery"! What a difference between this Schiller sonnet and the beautiful poem in fourteen lines entitled "Work without Hope." If these lines had only been adequately set in sonnet-mould, the result would have been a place for this poetic gem among the finest sonnets in the language. WORK WITHOUT HOPE. All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, No. lii. SARA COLERIDGE (1803-1852). This sonnet is from the author's fairy-romance, Phantasmion, published in 1837. As, so far as I recollect, it has found a place in no previous anthology, nor even been referred to in appendices, I presume it has altogether escaped my brother-editors' notice. Sara Coleridge had not less genius than her brother Hartley, but she had nothing like the same gift of expression. She resembled her famous father in her tendency to lyric music, while Hartley's |