66 writes, "It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach, &c." upon which expression Mr. Chalmers exclaims, "Who but a boy from Antrim would write originally is ?" "And (is) originally the cause of every reproach and distress which has, &c." Who, again, (says that critic) but a youth who had been taught English by an Irish woman at Antrim, would make the singular verb has, agree with the plural nominatives reproach and distress?" To these questions, so decently urged, a proper answer may be implied in two other questions. Who but a petulant hypercritic would make such comments? The cause is stated, not of what was, or had been, but with much more sense and animation, of what is now actually existing." It is the misfortune of your life, and the original cause, &c." Again, who but such a philologer as Mr. C. would not perceive that " every reproach and distress," (i. e. each, distinctly) is properly connected with the singular verb, and also that the nominative noun is not either reproach or distress, which are both in the objective case, (the result or effect of the cause) but the relative which, (every or each reproach, &c.) that assumes the nominative government of has? 66 66 were Again, Junius says, "If England was sold to France,"-" If resentment still prevails;" which Mr. C. would correct to sold," and "prevail," but he should go to school again, and learn his grammar better: he should be taught that "if," is not always, or necessarily, a sign of the subjunctive mood: it is only so when a condition or doubt is implied; but whenever, as in this instance, as, or since, may take the place of if, the mood is indicative. Again, Mr. Chalmers quotes the following passage as egregiously defective. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, but could not consume." "The object him, (says Mr. C.) is wanting;" but it is not so; consume is given in its neuter sense, with much more force and elegance, and without any defect. "Another blunder, (cries Mr. C.) of the same kind is contained in the following passage." 'He will soon fall back into his natural station, a silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly eloquence of a newspaper:' which Mr. C. would emend thus, "A silent senator, and the feeble supporter of a weekly newspaper.” I believe it will be sufficient here to remark, that this is a most feeble attempt to amend what needs no emendation.-but enough of this. VINDEX. MELANCHOLY HOURS. NUMBER V. Un Sonnet sans defaut vaut seul un long poeme. peut-on admirer deux ou trois entre mille: Boileau. THERE is no species of poetry which is better adapted to the taste of a melancholy man than the sonnet. While its brevity precludes the possibility of its becoming tiresome, and its full and expected close accords well with his dejected and perhaps somewhat languid tone of mind, its elegiac delicacy and querimonious plaintiveness come in pleasing consonance with his feelings. This elegant little poem has met with a peculiar fate in this country: half a century ago it was regarded as utterly repugnant to the nature of our language, while at present it is the popular vehicle of the most admired sentiments of our best living poets. This remarkable mutation in 'the opinions of our countrymen may, however, be accounted for on plain and common principles. The earlier English sonnetteers confined themselves, in general, too strictly to the Italian model, as well in the disposition of the rhymes as in the cast of the ideas. A sonnet, with them, was only another word for some metaphysical conceit, or clumsy antithesis, contained in fourteen harsh lines, full of obscure inversions and ill-managed expletives. They bound themselves down to a pattern, which was in itself faulty, and they met with the common fate of servile imitators, in retaining all the defects of their original, while they suffered the beauties to escape in the process. Their sonnets are like copies of a bad picture: however accurately copied, they are still bad. Our contemporaries, on the contrary, have given scope to their genius in the sonnet without restraint, sometimes even growing licentious in their liberty, setting at defiance those rules which form its distinguishing peculiarity, and, under the name of sonnet, soaring or falling into ode or elegy. Their compositions, of course, are impressed with all those excellencies which would have marked their respective productions in any similar walk of poetry. It has never been disputed that the sonnet first arrived at celebrity in the Italian: a language which, as it abounds in a musical similarity of terminations, is more eminently qualified to give ease and elegance to the legitimate sonnet, restricted as it is to stated and frequently-recurring rhymes of the same class. As to the inventors of this little structure of verse, they are involved in impenetrable obscurity. Some authors have ascribed it singly to Guitone D'Arezzo, an Italian poet of the thirteenth century, but they have no sort of authority to adduce in support of their assertions. Arguing upon probabilities, with some slight co-incidental corroborations, I should be inclined to maintain that its origin may be referred to an earlier period; that it may be looked for amongst the Provençals, who left scarcely any combination of metrical sounds unattempted; and who, delighting as they did in sound and jingle, might very possibly strike out this harmonious stanza of fourteen lines. Be this as it may, Dante and Petrarch were the first poets who rendered it popular, and to Dante and Petrarch therefore we must resort for its required rules. In an ingenious paper of Dr. Drake's "Literary Hours," a book which I have read again and again with undiminished pleasure, the merits of the various English writers in this delicate mode of composition, are appreciated with much justice and discrimination. His veneration for Milton however has, if I may venture to oppose my judgment to his, carried him too far in praise of his sonnets. Those to the Nightingale and to Mr. Lawrence are, I think, alone entitled to the praise of mediocrity, and, if my memory fail me not, my opinion is sanctioned by the testimony of our late illustrious biographer of the poets. The sonnets of Drummond are characterised as exquisite. It is somewhat strange, if this description be just, that they should so long have sunk into utter oblivion, to be revived only by a species of black-letter mania, which prevailed during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and of which some vestiges yet remain; the more especially as Dr. Johnson, to whom they could scarcely be unknown, tells us, that "The fabric of the sonnet has never suc ceeded in our language." For my own part, I can say nothing of them. I have long sought a copy of Drummond's works, and I have sought it in vain; but from specimens which I have casually met with, in quotations, I am forcibly inclined to favour the idea, that, as they possess natural and pathetic sentiments, clothed in tolerably harmonious language, they are entitled to the praise which has been so liberally bestowed on them. Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella consists of a number of sonnets, which have been unaccountably passed over by Dr. Drake, and all our other critics who have written on this subject. Many of thein are eminently beautiful. The works of this neglected poet may occupy a future number of iny lucubrations. Excepting these two poets, I believe there is scarcely a writer who has arrived at any degree of excellence in the sonnet, until of late years, when our vernacular bards have raised it to a degree of eminence and dignity, among the various kinds of poetical composition, which seems almost incompatible with its very circumscribed limits. Passing over the classical compositions of Warton, which are formed more on the model of the Greek epigram, or epitaph, than the Italian sonnet, Mr. Bowles and Charlotte Smith are the first modern writers who have met with distinguished success in the sorinet. Those of the former, in particular, are standards of excellence in this department. To much natural and accurate description, they unite a strain of the most exquisitely tender and delicate sentiment; and, with a nervous strength of diction, and a wild freedom of versification, they combine an euphonious melody, and consonant cadence, unequaled in the English language. While they possess however, the superior merit of an original style, they are not unfrequently deformed by instances of that ambitious singularity which is but too frequently its concomitant. Of these the introduction of rhymes long since obsolete is not the least striking. Though, in some cases, these revivals of antiquated phrase have a pleasing effect, yet they are oftentimes uncouth and repulsive. Mr. Bowles has almost always thrown aside the common rules of the sonnet; his pieces have no more claim to that specific denomination than that they are confined to fourteen lines. How far this deviation from established principle is justifiable, may be disputed; for if, on the one hand, it be alledged that the confinement to the stated repetition of rhymes, so distant and frequent, is a restraint which is not compensated by any adequate effect; on the other, it must be conceded, that these little poems are no longer sonnets than while they conform to the rules of the sonnet, and that the moment they forsake them, they ought to resign the appellation. The name bears evident affinity to the Italian sonáre, “to resound"---“ sing around," which originated in the Latin sonans,sounding, jingling, ringing: or, indeed, it may come immediately from the French sonner, to sound, or ring, in which language, it is observable, we first meet with the word sonnette, where it signifies a little bell, and sonnettier a maker of little bells; and this derivation affords a presumption, almost amounting to certainty, that the conjecture before advanced, that the sonnet originated with the Provençals, is well founded. It is somewhat strange that these contending derivations have not been before observed, as they tend to settle a question which, however intrinsically unimportant, is curious, and has been much agitated. But, wherever the name originated, it evidently bears relation only to the peculiarity of a set of chiming and jingling terminations, and of course can no longer be applied with propriety where that peculiarity is not preserved. The single stanza of fourteen lines, properly varied in their correspondent closes, is, notwithstanding, so well adapted for the expres sion of any pathetic sentiment, and is so pleasing and satisfactory to the ear, when once accustomed to it, that our poetry would suffer a material loss were it to be disused through a rigid adherence to mere propriety of name. At the same time, our language does not supply a sufficiency of similar terminations, to render the strict observance of its rules at all easy or compatible with ease or elegance. The only question, therefore, is, whether the musical effect produced by the adherence to this difficult structure of verse overbalance the restraint it imposes on the poet, and, in case we decide in the negative, whether we ought to preserve the denomination of sonnet, when we utterly renounce the very peculiarities which procured it that cognomen. In the present enlightened age, I think it will not be disputed that mere jingle and sound ought invariably to be sacrificed to sentiment and expression. Musical effect is a very subordinate consideration; it is the gilding to the cornices of a Vitruvian edifice; the colouring to a shaded design of Michael Angelo. In its place it adds to the effect of the whole, but when rendered a principal object of attention, it is ridiculous and disgusting. Rhyme is no necessary adjunct of true poetry. Southey's Thalaba is a fine poem, with no rhyme, and very little measure or metre; and the production which is reduced to mere prose by being deprived of its jingle, could never possess, in any state, the marks of inspiration. So far, therefore, I am of opinion that it is advisable to renounce the Italian fabric altogether. We have already sufficient restrictions laid upon us by the metrical laws of our native tongue, and I do not see any reason, out of a blind regard for precedent, to tie ourselves to a difficult structure of verse, which probably originated with the Troubadours, or wandering bards, of France and Normandy, or with a yet ruder race; one which is not productive of any rational effect, and which only pleases the ear by frequent repetition, as men who have once had the greatest aversion to strong wines and spirituous liquors, are, by habit, at last brought to regard them as delicacies. |