high regard of those who had noticed and admired the thin little volume that made its modest appearance in 1830. Charming, even permanently beautiful as many of these sonnet-stanzas are, their form cannot be admired: if we have been correct in considering the so-called pure types to be the true expression of certain metrical laws, then certainly these compositions of his are not sonnets, but only (to repeat Mr. Ashcroft Noble's appropriate term for similar productions) sonnet-stanzas. The rhythm is much broken up, and the charm of assured expectancy is destroyed, greatly to the detriment of the musical value. But a greater poet than Tennyson-Turner, true singer as the latter was, came into the world about the same time. No sweeter soul ever found expression in rhythmical speech than Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and there is nothing in her life-work that is finer than that famous loverecord, the so-called 'Sonnets from the Portuguese.' Impetuous as was her genius, hasty and frequently careless as she was in production, she never found the archetypal sonnet too circumscribed for her, moving in it as freely as a fish in a deep pool, as a bird in the windless air. The pathetic beauty, the fascinating personality, the pure poetry displayed in these sonnets have touched many and many a heart since the tired singer was laid to rest under the cypresses not far from that beloved river whose flow she had so often followed in thought down to the far-off Pisan sea: as they will do to those who come after us, when our oblivious dust also will be committed to 'the places of sleep,' as I have heard graveyards beautifully called in the Celtic speech. Only those who have thoroughly studied contemporary poetry, and not only the poetry that is familiar to many but that also which is quite unknown, and by minor writers of no reputation or likelihood of reputation, can be aware of how great Mrs. Browning's influence has been and still is-more especially, as is natural, among women. Even to mention by name all those who have charmed, or interested, or transiently attracted us by their sonnet-work throughout the last fifty years, would take up much more space than I have to spare, nor can I even refer in detail to those who are no longer with us. One name, however, stands out from all others since Wordsworth and Mrs. Browning, like a pine-tree out of a number of graceful larches. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is not only one of the great poets of the century, but the one English poet whose sonnet-work can genuinely be weighed in the balance with that of Shakespeare and with that of Wordsworth. No influence is at present more marked than his, though not superficially immediately evident as that of Tennyson and Browning: the stream is narrower, but the current is deep, and its fertilising waters have penetrated far and wide into the soil. The author of The House of Life holds a remarkable place in the literary and artistic history of the second Victorian period, and no critic of his work will have any true grasp of it who does not recognise that "Rossetti" signifies something of far greater import even than the fascinating work of, personally, the most dominant and fascinating man of his time-even as the historian of the brilliant period in question will work in the dark if he is unable to perceive one of the chief well-springs of the flood, if he does not recognise the relationship between certain radical characteristics of the time and the man who did so much to inaugurate or embody them. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, Rossetti. Italy herself cannot present a finer body of pure poetic work in the mould of this form than is to be found in the collective sonnets of these great English writers. As to the vexed question of priority among these sonneteers, I need not attempt the endeavour to guage the drift of capable opinion. For myself and this I set forward the less reluctantly as I know the opinion is shared by so many better judges than I claim to be-I would simply say (1) that the three greatest sonneteers of our language seem to me to be Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Rossetti; (2) that the two greatest, regarding their work en masse and not by this or that sonnet, or this or that group of sonnets, seem to me to be Shakespeare and Rossetti : and (3) that no poet of our own or any language could show ten sonnets equal in breadth of thought, verity of poetry, and beauty of expression to the ten greatest of Wordsworth. fundamental brain-work," to use Rossetti's phrase, or in the composition of 'Deep-brained sonnettes,' to quote Shakespeare's, these two poets stand above Wordsworth; but in impersonal humanity Shakespeare rarely, Rossetti a little less rarely, approach the highest reach of one who in general is their poetic inferior. For what great poet at his poorest is so poor as Wordsworth : In in what other great poetic nature has there ever been so abundant a leaven of the prosaic? One of the chief poets of our country, his garden has more desert-spaces in it than any other, and the supreme beauties are almost lost to all who have no guide to the labyrinth. But these super-excellent treasures, when once found, how we are carried away by their exquisite perfume, their extreme beauty we forget the sand and the many weeds and for a time believe that in no other of the many gardens of verse blooms there such loveliness, breathes there such fragrance. But in one thing Rossetti is greater than Wordsworth, greater even than Shakespeare, and that is in weight and volume of sound. As a wind-swayed pine seems literally to shake off music from its quivering branches, so do his sonnets throb with and as it were palpitatingly disperse sonorous harmonies. What sonority of pure poetic speech there is in this from 'The Dark Glass' (p. 186) :- Not I myself know all my love for thee: How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; or in this from 'Lovesight' (p. 185):— O love, my love! If I no more should see How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope How transcendently Shakespearian this beautiful opening of the sestet of the sonnet on page 188 : The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth On the sonnet-work of living writers I need not dwell, especially as a short note accompanies the name of each writer as sequently referred to in the appendix: but I may here add a few general remarks thereupon as represented in this collection. When I first thought of making this anthology, it was my intention to strictly exclude any sonnet not belonging to one of the pure types, Petrarcan, Shakespearian, or Miltonic (the regular and not the illegitimate Miltonic, of course), but erelong I discovered that this aim, admirable in a collection covering the whole reach of our sonnet literature would not at all adequately represent all that is worthy in that portion of contemporary or 19thcentury poetry which is cast in the 14-line mould. So I came to the conclusion that it would be as well, not only for the reason just stated, but also that each reader might be placed in a position for individual judgment, to include a large number of irregular sonnets: and that I have been catholic enough in selection I do not think even the most ardent controversialist opponent would deny! Moreover, it seems to me that after careful comparison, allowing the brain and the ear to act conjointly, |