NOTES. SONNET. No. i. DEAN ALFORD (1810-1871). The poems of the late Dean Alford are characterised by refinement and depth of feeling. No. iv. WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. This sonnet first appeared in a little book edited by Mrs. Isa Knox Craig, published in 1863, and entitled Poems: An offering to Lancashire. Mr. Allingham's several volumes are all noteworthy for the same keenness of vision as regards the aspects of nature and I may draw special attention to his charming sonnet-transcripts from nature that have lately, at intervals, appeared in The Athenæum. Nos. v.-vii. MATTHEW ARNOLD. These sonnets adequately represent the work of Mr. Arnold in this direction. They are to be found in the volumes entitled Poems: Narrative and Elegiac, and Poems: Dramatic and Lyric, published by Macmillan & Co. Familiar portions of the familiar work of one of the leading poets of our time, they thus call for no special comment. Nos. viii.-xi. ALFRED AUSTIN. This accomplished writer and genuine poet has written some fine sonnets, his preferred form evidently being the Shakespearian. Mr. Austin's work is mostly purely lyric and dramatic, though he shows such unmistakable faculty for sonnet-writing that he might well publish a short volume of poetic work in this form and thus enter more directly into the lists with acknowledged masters of the craft. His earlier volumes are entitled The Human Tragedy, The Tower of Babel, Interludes, The Golden Age, and The Season (Blackwood & Sons); and his later, Savonarola, Soliloquies in Song, and At the Gate of the Convent (Macmillan & Co.)—the last-named published in 1885. One of Mr. Austin's pleasantest characteristics as a poet is his intense love of nature, more especially of nature in her spring aspects: also, I may add, a very ardent love of Country and pride therein. The four sonnets I have selected seem to me among the best, but here is another excellent one representing Mr. Austin in his last-named characteristic it is one of three addressed to England. : TO ENGLAND. (Written in Mid Channel.) Now upon English soil I soon shall stand, Homeward from climes that fancy deems more fair; For sensuous slopes that bask 'neath Southern skies, And, gazing through the mist with misty eyes, Blesses the brave bleak land where he was born. Since the above note was written the following fine sonnet has appeared in The Athenæum : When acorns fall, and swallows troop for flight, Her brightening gaze, though day and dark have met, Just as it owns the edict of decay And Fancy's fires should pale and pass away, BENJAMIN D'ISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONsfield. Lord Beaconsfield, even his most ardent admirers would admit, gave no evidence that he was possessed of the creative faculty in verse; an ardent imagination he undoubtedly had. He wrote, so far as I am aware, only two sonnets, one of which-that on Wellington—certainly deserves a place in any sonnet-anthology. I do not insert it in the body of this book, however, as its composition was fortuitous, and as its author has no broader claim to appear among genuine poets. There is a certain applicability to himself, in Lord Beaconsfield's words addressed to Wellington, for even the most bigoted opponent of the great statesman would hardly deny his possession of "a continuous state of ordered impulse," or his "serenity" when all were troubled.' WELLINGTON. Not only that thy puissant arm could bind The tyrant of a world; and, conquering Fate, But that in all thy actions I do find Exact propriety: no gusts of mind Fitful and wild, but that continuous state In some benignant and enriching wind,- When all are troubled; in the utmost need Prescient; thy country's servant ever seen, Yet sovereign of thyself, whate'er may speed. No. xii. H. T. MACKENZIE BELL. From Old Year Leaves: A Volume of Collected Verse (1883). Mr. Mackenzie Bell is also the author of an interesting biography of Charles Whitehead (q.v.) published in 1885 (Fisher Unwin) under the title A Forgotten Genius. No. xiii. LOUISA S. BEVINGTON (GÜGGENBERGER). From Poems and Sonnets (Stock, 1882). Probably Miss Bevington's-to call her by the name she is publicly known by-highest poetic accomplishment is the piece in lyrical measures entitled "In the Valley of Remorse," printed in the same volume. No. xiv. S. L. BLANCHARD (1804-1845). From Lyric Offerings, 1828. The poems of this writer as a rule have a certain delicacy of sentiment rather than any robuster qualities. "Wishes and Youth " is one of his strongest. No. xv. MATHILDE BLIND. Miss Blind, well known through her admirable translation of Strauss, her edition of Shelley's Poems in Baron Tauchnitz's series, her genuinely romantic novel, Tarantella, her interesting monograph of "George Eliot” and her highly sympathetic study of Madame Roland, both in the Eminent Women series, and various miscellaneous writings, has not published much in verse, but what she has given to the public is of no ordinary quality. Her slight first volume, entitled St. Oran: and other Poems, had a deserved success on its appearance two or three years ago. and at once gave her high rank as a poet. This year (1886) she published a narrative poem entitled The Heather on Fire, an eloquent protest against the wrongs inflicted on the crofters of the West Highlands. (No. xv.) This very beautiful sonnet has an interesting history. I have heard that, shortly after the death of the late Bishop of Manchester, it was reprinted without the author's knowledge and sent in the name of 1000 operatives to Mrs. Fraser, the muchesteemed Bishop's widow. It is the lot of few authors to have so genuine, unsolicited, and unexpected a compliment paid to them, in this case all the more remarkable from the fact of Miss Blind having been quite unknown to those who at once paid this compliment to poetry and showed a fine and noble sympathy. No. xvi. is interesting, as the author's first sonnet. It certainly does not read like a tentative effort. Nos. xviii.-xxii. WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT. These sonnets are excerpted from the third edition of that remarkable volume, The Love Sonnets of Proteus. They have more of the Shakespearian ring than perhaps any sonnets of our time. That "Proteus" can at times touch a very high note indeed will be understood by anyone who reads the sonorous and majestic sonnet on The Sublime" (xxii.). Structurally they cannot be considered satisfactory. No. xxiii. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES (1762-1850). The sonnets of the Rev. W. L. Bowles are now more interesting historically than intrinsically. Graceful, with an air of plaintive melancholy, as they |