"Sonnets on the Sonnet". Criticism and Aftermath

Irish Jesuit Province

"Sonnets on the Sonnet". Criticism and AftermathAuthor(s): M. R.Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 304 (Oct., 1898), pp. 513-523, 561-563Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20499340 .

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OCTOBER, I898.

" SONNETS ON THE SONNET."

CRITICISM AND AFTERMATH.

IT is many a year since Father Joseph Farrell (God rest his soul!) remarked to me with surprise and pleasure the large

number of separate works reprinted from the pages of this Magazine. They number now some thirty or forty volumes issued by various publishers on both sides of the Atlantic-novels, essays, poems, histories, and biographies. To this miscellaneous collection we have sometimes given the name of " The IRIsH MONTHLY Library." It has, last of all, received a curious addition in the volume named at the head of this article-a volume whicl could never have been put together without the complicity of this

Magazine. This "' IRIsH MONTHLY Library" embraced such solid work as

Father Edmund O'Reilly's valuable essays on " The Relations of

the Church to Society," such brilliant work as Father Joseph Farrell's " Lectures of a Certain Professor," such exquisite work as Lady Gilbert's "M Marcella Grace," and " The Wild Birds of

Killeevy," such admirable work as Mrs. Atkinson's "Essays chiefly on Irish subjects." Even of volumes of verse like Alice

Esmonde's " Songs of Remembrance " every line had first

appeared in TH E IRTSH MONTHLY. As we have said, the newest volume of the series, "c Sonnets on

the Sonnet," could hardly have come to maturity if it had not first been printed tentatively by instalments in these pages. It is

VOL. xxvI. No, 304. 37



514 The Irish Monthly.

fitting therefore that in these pages also its after fate should be chronicled, as it has been our custom to do for the books just enumerated and for many others.

So far it has fared exceedingly well. In the short time that has elapsed since the old historic firm of Longmans, Green and Company sent it forth into the world, it has received very favour able noLice from The Times, Scotsman, Academy, Illustrated London News, Lzteraturc, Notes and Queries, Tablet, Weekly Register,

T'he Speaker, St. James's Gazette, Glasgow Herald, Daily Express,

Independent, Irtsh Figaro, Cork Examiner, The Month, and many

others. Some of these critical remarks may be repeated here; and these prose extracts may be separated by one or other of the half-dozen sonnets on the sonnet which came into our hands too late to be included in the book that bears that name. The first of these is signed P. A. S., which our readers will recognise as the initials of an eloquent priest of the diocese of Cloyne to whom our

Magazine owes such prose as " The Two Civilizations" and such verse as Sentan the Culdee."

I rut my trembling bird, with down-drooped wing,

Within a golden cage that hung before

The Temple of the Muses; closed tho door,

And stept aside, silent and wondering Whether the captive minstrel-soul would sing

She, whose aspiring fancy fain would soar

To the far Pisgah-heights, whose altars bore

Traces of the lordliest poets' ministering.

And lo! the fourteen prison-bars did glow

Into a golden lyre, serenely strung,

And o'er the quivering chords did sweetly flow

The wavelets of an echo, swiftly sprung

From the contagious rage, the frenzied glow:

For here had Milton, here had Petrarch sung.

The Times delivers its verdict in gentler accents than one has been used to associate with The Thunderer. It begins with what seems to be a mistake, remarking that this anthology of Sonnets on the Sonnet "is not the first of its kind but is perhaps the most

complete and the best." Is it not the first that gathers together all the sonnets that have the sonnet itself for its theme ? For suxely even the amiable critic of lhe 7imes cannot mean that, as a general sonnet-anthology, it is better than those that had their ohoioe amongst the sonnets of all subjects and of all centuries.



Sonnets on the Sonnet. 515

It rray be a surprise to some to find such a book bearing the signature of a

learned Jesuit, but they should remember that the Society of Jesus has alw piqued itself on keeping abreast with all the legitimate interests of manInd, poetry included; and certainly Father Russell shows himself not only appreciativ of serious poetry, but gifted with a decidedly humorous vein, and with no little

power of himself writing sonnets. Dividing his subject into " The Structure of the

Sonnet," "IThe Nature of the Sonnet," " The MIasters of the Sonnet," " The

Sonnet's Latest Votaries," and " The Sonnet's Kindred Self-Described," the compiler

gives us verses from many authors great and small, and in more languages than

one, while as examples of "I The Sonnet's Kindred " we have triolets, rondeaux,

villanelles, and many more varieties. In the first part we open with a 10th century

Spanish sonnet, and pass to Thbophile Gautier in French, and Augustus Schlegel

in German; later we have the famous sonnets of Wordsworth (" The Sonnet's

Scanty Plot of Ground ")' of Keats, and of Rossetti, with many less celebrated but

sometimes excellent in their way; and lastly, we have some very admirable

sonnets by Carducei and other foreign writers with good translations attached.

The reader may exclaim with Biron "I Tush ! none but min4trels like of sonneting, "

but certainly Mr. Russell's anthology shows us that the minstrels themselves

regard their craft and its results with an enthusiasm which is very likely to prove

infectious.

A s we promised to make this paper resemble streaked bacon by inserting a silver streak of verse between every two layers of prose, we shall give next a sonnet that came to us from an English parsonage when the book was already in print. The writer, being unaware of our objection to anonymity, uses the signature "Cresandia," in which we detect an anagram of her abode.

The sonnet is a dainty gem of rhyme,

Where ten sweet syllables may smoothly flow

Through fourteen lines, all neatly set a-row,

And linked together with harmonious chime;

Where some grave poet, with a thought sublime,

May teach a thotusand listening hearts to glow,

Or, word by word, as fancies come and go,

A lighter muse may charm the flight of time.

Will Shakespere wrought it, all in purest gold;

Austerer beauty grew 'neath Milton's hand;

'Mid Wordsworth's bays it glittered like a star.

And thou, presumptuous pen, dar'st thou ?-withhold

Nor dream to mingle with that deathless band

But humbly follow thou, afar-afar.

T he Scotsman begins by saying that our book " is probably the fullest collection yet made of self-conscious sonnets." But is it not the first? Ought not "certainly" be substituted here for " probably " and cc only " for " fullest




Every reader of poetry knows one or two sonnets, such as the famous one by

the Spaniard Mendoza, or Rossetti's " A Sonnet is i Moment's Monurnent," in

which the point is made by some felicitous harmonisink of the formal perfections

of the soinet with thoughts about it as a verse-form. But Mr. Russell has got

together no less than a hundred and fifty-seven pieces of this kind, drawn from

merlieval and modern literature. The poems, which include French, German, and

Italian soninete, are classified according to an intelligent scheme. Some thirty of

them have been written specially for the compilation, and an appendix gives a

choice of similar poems in other forms, triolets which discourse about the formal

difficulties of the triolet, villanelles that extol the beauties of villanelle, and soforth.

Then there is a selection of critical dicta in prose about the sonnet. The boDk is a

little late. It is no longer the fashion, as it was ten years ago, for every young

poet to try his 'prentice hand upon the sonnet or the old French forms. Nowadays the object is to be as formally formless as possible But a metrical craftsman in

search of "1 styles " or a critic interested in the sonnet-form, could not find a richer

book of its kind; and as the sonnet seems bound to go on for ever, while the rondel,

triolet, and the villanelle can only come and go, the collection should be welcome

to no narrow circle of readers.

Notes anid Queries savs that in this collection " an agreeable idea is agreeably carried out," and calls it " a volume which the lover of poetry will gladly put on his shelves." This periodical itself contributed to the completeness of our collection, as we indeed mentioned in a sonnet which we thought it well to suppress.

But though suppressed sonnets are not quite as bad as suppressed gout, there is a great deal of force in that question of one of

Job's comforters: " Conceptum sermonem quis continere potest ?"

Let's build a book, we said, whereof each page,

Spacious withal, shall nought display upon it

Save introspective, egotistic sonnet,

The sonnet's form to fix, its worth to gauge.

With such a theme the Muse may shock the sage

As if a bee had crept within her bonnet;

Yet shall our book find readers keen to con it,

E'en in this prosy, sonnet-hating age.

0 InISH MONTHLY! thy October Number

ln '87 first this quest begain,

Next that receptacle of learned lumber,

Hight Notes anid Quertes, to our succour ran. A few originals the book encumber:

The rest are pilfered whencesoe'er we can.

The reader by referring to the postscript of the volume that is the subject of the present discussion will probably be able to conjeoture a reason why any utterance of The Weekly Register on the poetio art is likely to be instructive. After some intro



Sonnets on the Sonzet. 517

ductory remarks, this critic speaks thus of our book:

It is a eurprisingly various bouquet. From the jesting essays in which

Mendoza aud Lope count their lines, to Wordsworth's and Rossetti's protestations

of delightful bondage, and to more unfamiliar praises of the sonnet in various

languiages, Father Russell shows a comprehensive acquaintance with all that has

been said in prose or verse upon bis theme. Catholic writers are remarkably

conspicuous among the cultivators of this narrow corner in the " scanty plot of

ground." But that somewhat sterile and bleak quotation is less appropriate to

the genius of the sonnet than Milton's description of strict Eden, inexhaustible in

enclosed felicities :

To all delight of humani sense exposed,

In narrow room Nature's whole wealth; yea, more!

There are three French sonnets on the Sonnet which seem to have a fair claim to be included in this aftermath. One of them, by Louis Guibert, ought to have been grouped with several that rang the changes upon Boileau's famous line about the faultless sonnet and the long poem and their comparative worth

Oui, certe, un beau sonnet vaut soul tout un poeme,

M1ais c'est fortune exquise et bien rare vraiment

Que de mettre la main sur un tel diamant:

Le sonnettiste heureux est I'artiate supreme.

Ballade ou madrigal, romance, epitre rnme,

Rien d'un cadre aussi fin n'entoure un compliment.

TrouvEz, s'il est possible, un ecrin plus ch,amant

Pour pr6senter son coeur 'i la femme quon aime?

Le coflret tout d'abord plailt et seduit les yeux

Par son dtrange eclat, son travail inerveilleux

Mais plus riche il paralt, plus, quand votre main l'ouvre,

La perle, en son nid d'or, brille aux regards turpris.

Ainsi, dans les splendeurs du vers qui la recouvre,

La pensae ingdnue acquiert un nouveau prix.

Another by Louis Goujon, is addressed to a lady who had expressed her sovereign contempt for sonnets of every kirnd

Pourquoi ce fier mdpris pour le sonnet, Madame?

Ce moule de P6trarque est cher aux amoureux;

Dans cette coupe d'or tout breuvage est de flamme,

Et le caprice emplit ses contours rigoureux!

C'est un splendide ecrin pour les joyaux de l'ame;

Lui seul peut recevoir dsna ses vers peu nombreux

Les rimes de la joie et les sanglots d'un drame,

Tout ce que l'art ancien a de plus savoureux.

La Muse lui confie,-encor mieux qu'au p&ome,

Le sujet qui rdelame une forme supreme,

Le tour ingenieux qui s6duit l'avenir.




.Jettez done aux buissons votre erreur insensde I

Ce iabe de oiistal eiftinte Ia pensee,

Cette fille de Dieu que nul ne peut baunir.

Finally a third Frenchman, M. Gleize, will furnish the last example of an old trick, pretending to describe, line by line, the

mechanical construction of a sonnet:

Je voudrais bien faire un sonnet,

Mais jo ne sais comment m'y prencie

MIon cerveau cherche 'a le comprencdre,

Mais ma Muse refuse net.

Quol ' m'avouer vainou ! me rendie '

Entrons vito en mon cabinet

Alignons de rimes en et

Avee d'autres faites en cndt e,

En voila huit d6ja', coest sar.

Le stx le n'en est pas bien pur,

3tais qa fait onze tout de menlo.

Un petit effort, pllis, voila

Que j'en ai douze , et jo vois la

Venir bientOt le quatorzibme.

The weekly literary journal, Liter ature, which has been started by The Times, is considered to be now so firmly established that the "Vagabond Club " lately entertained in its honour Mr. H. D.

Traill, its editor. Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins (of " The Dolly Dialogues ") was chairman, and Mr. Andrew Lang (of many things) was one of the speakers. The reason why we chronicle this event is that Literature has had the discrimination to recognise the merits of a certain " very interesting anthology "-the subject, namely, of the present paper. The Reviewer, however, blames the Anthologist for having included, in an appendix of " The Sonnet's Kindred Self-described," hexameters that describe the nature and structure of the Hexameter. He adds that, if English verses in classical metres are to be given, the very interesting "Experiments" of Tennyson ought not to have been ignored:

These lame hexameters the strong-winged music of Homer!

No, but a most burlesque barbarous experiment

And we should have also his

"' I ny poem

AR composed in a metre of Catullus."



Sotnnets on the Sonnet. N

There is one section of the volume which might have bee extended indefinitely, the catena of pronouncements in prose abet the nature and functions of the sonnet and its most stringent laws. To these I should certainly have added the following weighty dictum from ThlAe Guardian of August 25, 1897, if it had come under my notice in time:

" The creation of the Sonnet is perhaps the greatest achieve

ment of Christian literature in the field of pure art. The metrical forms employed by Greek and Roman poets for the epic, for the drama, for the ode, are at least as successful as our own; but for

the expression of a single thought, fused into poetic life by the warmth of a single emotion, a single imagination, they had nothing which approaches the sonnet of Petrarch, Ronsard, and

Wordsworth." Another shortcoming was our forgetting to avail ourselves of

a permission given by Mr. Theodore Watts Dunton to make use of a letter in which he was so good as to explain his view of the

sonnet as put forward in his famous sonnet called " The Sonnet's

Voice: a Metrical Lesson by the Sea-shore." The following is an extract from a letter which gave me his kind permission, and also Mr. Swinburne's, to have them represented in my volume.

" With regard to my sonnet 'The Sonnet's Voice' a wide spread misunderstanding seems to prevail which, should you append notes to your selection, you might do me the service of correcting. I send the cutting from the proof of an article on the sonnet which will appear in about a week in Chamber's Encyclopwdia. The truth of the matter is this: years ago, when

the late D. GE. Rossetti and I were staying at the seaside together (at Bognor, I think) we agreed to write each a sonnet on the

sonnet. He was to express the poetical spirit of the sonnet; I was to state and describe its metrical form. Eis sonnet beginning 'A sonnet is a moment's monument,' now prefixed to the ' House

of Life,' was one of the results of this undertaking. I soon found that the sonnet of octave and sestet divided itself into four distinct varieties and thatjI must write four sonnets to Rossetti's one. These were all written, and Rossetti years afterwards urged me to print them in the Atheneum or in some other literary journal. In 1881 I did print one of them in the A thenmum- -the sonnet you are enquiring

about-and it attracted more attention than I at all expected, and more attention than I think it deserved. It got reprinted first in




Mr. Hall Caine's Anthology, then in Mr. Sharp's, then by Karl Lentzner in Germany, then in ' Popular Poets of the Period,' and then in America several times. From this has resulted the

misunderstandiog to which I would draw your attention. It is erroneously assumed that the movement of the 'Sonnet's Voice' is meant to exemplify the movement of each of the four varieties of the Petrarchan sonnet, whereas it exemplies the movement of one variety ouly. The only critic, as far as I know, who saw that ' The Sounet's Voice ' was meant to formulate the metrical scheme of one variety only of the Petrachan sonnet was Mr. Mackenzie Bell in his essay on ' Some Aspects of Contemporary Poetry' prefixed to Popular Poets of the Period (Griffith Farren & Co., 1889) in which, referring to my article ou the sonnet in the Eneyclvpwdia Brittaewa, he says: ' Mr. Watts is very far from

asserting that all sonnets of octave and sestet move, or ought to move, by way of flow and obb. On the contrary he contends that

some of the best Petrarchan sonnets do not move by way of flow

and ebb, but after the octave is finished go on and achieve a

climacteric effect in the sestet. This is why in making my selection from his poems for the present volume I was careful to give an example of each of his own methods of writing sonnets*"'

Many Americans are represented among the contributors ti) "Sonnets on the Sonnet;" and perhaps on this account many American critics have been very generous in their appreciation of the collection. One of these is the editor of The American Ecclesiastical Review, the most varied perhaps, and most entertain ing, and at the same time most solidly learned of the periodicals that appeal to priestly readers.* This critique embodies the following sonnet upon our " Sonnets on the Sonnet," written by

Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, "whose name (says the American editor) stands highest on our list of American Catholic poetesses."

These Sonnets on the Sonnet please me well,

Brilliant as diamonds on a golden chain

With, here, a raby Rondeau: there, again,

A pearl-like Triolet or Villanelle,

Each seems the tongue of some enchanted bell,

Ringing the changes on one pleasant tune,

Amid the roses of a grassy dell,

Where it is always summer-always June.

No-ne of these can boast of so attractive and yet so thoroughly appropriate an

item a the serial story, "i My New Curate," now running through this IlciRew.



Sonnets on the Sonnet. 521

Sweet-syllabled, they echo, far and near,

MIeasures of rare and honeyed harmony:

As if to instance (from both quick and dead)

How much of art and loveliness austere,

Of grace and ingenuity can be,

In fourteen polished lines, incasketed.

A poet nearer home, Mr. Thomas Auld of Belfast, has also written a sonnet on the " Soqinets on thle Sonnet."

How hath the sonnet flow'r within our ground

Flourished since first Sir Philip Sidney brought From warmer clime the tender bloom, and taught

This foreign plant to shed its fragrance round

Our English garden.! Those in shackles bound

Of love have ease within the sonnet sought;

And wiser men, in fourteen lines well wrought,

A vehicle for piety have found.

Now is the sonnet loved; but love is blind

Much is it loved but little understood:

But here, where taste and learning jointly sway,

The sonnet-lover may the sonnet find

Explained; as if, witbin a garden good,

A rose should speak and all her secrets say.

Among the mistakes pointed out by various critics, we may notice that Edith Thomas is a married lady, and Mr. Henley's first baptismal name is William, not Walter. The sonnet given by mistake as anonymous at page 16 was in reality written by the

R1ev. Dr. Frederick C. Kolbe, whose name is attached to it at p. 73.

Though there are many Irish names amongst the contributors to this " unique anthology " as Miss Donnelly calls it in the title

of her sonnet-it is only of late years that the sonnet form has

been much used by Irish writers of verse. " In the Irish language

itself," Dr. Douglas Hyde informs us in a private letter, " a few

sonnets have been written, but they are of modern date and no

particular merit. Despite their acquaintance with French, Spanish, and often Italian, from which they translated much, the

seventeenth-centurv Irish do not seem to have taken over the

sonnet-form-which seems curious." Mr. Quiller Couch honoured our collection by making it the

subject of a very interesting " Literary Causerie " in The Speaker.

But a still greater favour was bestowed on the modest volume by

The Saturday Review-namely a full column of its best sneers anid

most elaborate abuse. This criticism is headed very happily ' The

Sonnet in the Gutter," liquid mud being liberally supplied on




the Sabbatarian premises. If plodding medioority could (like genius) be " snuffed out by an article," this gush of gutter would have settled for ever the herein-before-so-often-named " Sonnets on the Sonnet," whereas this cleverly disguised puff has served only to circulate a few additional copies of the book-a result no doubt desired by the critic, who probably is not at all ferocious in private life.

One of the most brilliant achievements of recent years in sonnet craft is the beautifully illustrated volume " At the Gates of Song " by Mr. Lloyd Mufflin of Pennsylvania, which ran into a second edition in a few months, and has received the warm praise of critics of high authority. He, too, has written a sonnet on the Sonnet:

Still let a due reserve the Muse attend

Who threads the Sonnet's labyrinth. As some bell

That tolls for vespers in a twilight dell,

So in the octave, let her voice suspend

Her pomp of phrase. 'I he sestet m ry ascendI

Slowly triumphant, like an organ-swell In opulent grandeur rising-pause, and dwell

With gathering glories to its dolphin end:

So, oft at eve around the sunset doors,

From up-piled splendors of some crimson clou(d

Storm-based with dark-unrolling like a scr oll

Forth,thb accumulated thunder pours Across the listening valleys, long and loud,

With low reverberations roll on roll

Some have objected to the section entitled the 'The Sonnet's Kindred Self-described " as a mere intrusion, while others have welcomed it as specially interesting. There is indeed one little item that has no right to be included. " My First Rondeau" has a locus standi, for it describes the construction of a rondeau; but "My last Rondeau " is in reality a serious poem on death.

Strange to say, this page appears to have been connected with the " dying hour " of Gladstone. In the " London Correspondence" of The Daily Expcress of May 20, 1898, this paragraph occurs:

" Apparently almost the last book to which Mr. Gladstone gave ear was a little

volume of yeligious poems compiled by the Rev. Matthew Russell, in which occurs the verse:

My dying hour, how near art thou?

Or near or far my head I bow

Before God's ordinance supreme. 'The book reached Hawarden within the last few weeks. One of the reliefs of

the dying statman was to hear favourite hymns read."



Sonnetes on the Sonnet. 523

As a rondeau takes up almost as little space as a sonnet, let us quote "Land! Land !" from TaHE IRISH MONTHLY of February, 1891.

My dying hour, how near art thou?

Or near or far, my head I bow

Before God's ordinance supreme; But ah, how priceless then will seem

Each moment rashly squandered now!

Teach me, fo-r thou canst teach me, how

These fleeting instants to endow

With worth that may the past redeem,

My dying hour!

My barque, that late with buoyant prow

The sunny waves did gaily plough,

Now through the sunset's fading gleam

Drifts dimly shoreward in a dream.

I feel the land-breeze on my brow,

My dying hour!

The statement which we have quoted from the London correspondent of The Daily Express, and which, as he added subsequently, he made on the authority of a gentleman who had just returned from a visit to Hawarden during the last days of

Mr. Gladstone's life-these almost sacred associations lend a special interest and value to the 88th page of the volume to which we have now directed the attention of our readers more than long enough. M.R.



( 561 )

NOTE ON PAGE 523.

Additional Sonnets onJ the Sonnet.

IN the account that we have elsewhere given of the criticisms passed on that somewhat notorious book, " Sonnets on the

Sonnet," we supplied, under the name of " Aftermath," certain samples of that peculiar species of composition which had reached us too late to be included in the volume. Even this supplement did not exhaust all our resources; and we think it well to return to the subject in this same Number, so as to have done with it for ever. For instance, among the sonnets which were expressly inspired by our volume, we did not appropriate from " The Stonyhurst Magazine "' this sonnet on Shakespeare's Sonnets " which H. G. M. says he composed " After reading 'S onnets on the Sonnet' by the Rev. M. Russell, 8J." I give with some

misgiving the Stonyhurst punctuation of the tercets.

Are Shakespeare's sonnets " sonnets? Who shall say P

While some deny, some white with heat affirm.

'Twixt him and Petrarch here behold the germ

Of deep dispute, protracted many a day.

The answer might be had without delay

As quickly as to " Is this snake a worm P"

Would they define the essence of the term,; But such, alas, is not a poet's way.

" Three quatrains, six alternate rhymes'in pairs,

With epigrammic couplet to conclude." " Two quatrains, tercets two, and rhymes but four."

As either form with views accepted squares, Cease, shades of Petrarch, Shakespeare, cease your feud! The essence is just "IFourteen Lines "-no more.

Miss Charlotte Grace O'Brion, who was well represented in our volume, offered the following as an an epilogue or L'Envoi:

*In the book under the notice a dainty triolet is attributed to this Magazine,

because we did not then know that its author was the Rev. J. W. Atkinson, S.J.

From this Magazine also we took in our August paper " All about the Robin "

some graceful and tender verses which we are now glad to assign to the Rev.

Alban Gfoodier, S.J.

VOL. XXVI. No 304 40



562 The Irish Montbly.

Well, we have seen of divers men the thought,

Of women too, anent the Sonnet's laws

And of its grace and power the subtle cause,

How it was born, how to perfection brought.

Now I behold a silent glen unsought,

A tock-bouncl pool, that from earth's centre draws

Its ever-springing freshness without pause, All things around to one sweet picture wrought.

Even so the Sonnet: see it where it springs,

Strong with the passionate pulse of Shakespeare's heart,

And garlanded with all the loveliest things.

Even so the Sonnet : Milton sWLeps the strings,

Draws heaven's light down through his own Heaven-born art

O'er the dark waters touched by angels' wings.

Mr. Edward Robeson Taylor dates the following address to the Sonnet from San Francisco, August 4th, 1898.

Bound in the fetters of thy narrow frame,

What souls have conquered song! Here Dante's woe,

As Petrarch's, swells to joy; here Angelo

Heightens the glory of his mighty name.

'Tis here.that Shakespeare bears his breast to blame,

And Milton here his solemn strains doth blow;

Here Wordsworth's notes with rapturous music blow

While Keats divinely glows with quenchless flame.

Yea, all the rhymesters of our petty day

Crowd round thy shrine and beg thee to enring

Their brows with leaves of thy immortal bay.

Such crown is not for me, but prithee fling

Thy spell upon me so at least I may

Yet dream of beauties I can never sing.

A certain dignitary, whose name would add interest and value to his playful work, condescended to return in kind the homanzage de 1'aiteur, the votive copy laid rekverently at his feet. Mooking genially an arrangement which occurs frequently in the book, he set down first the " Original" of his "First Type-written Sonnet," paying sundry dainty compliments to

" Those w

ondrous rhymes

That fall like harmony from village chimes

O'er flowery fields and violet-scented banks."

But next came " The Same Translated," in which the com

pliments were turned awry in very mordant fashion which does not lend itself to quotation.



Notes onz New Books. 563

Some of the reviewers of "Sonnets on the Sonnet" have committed a fault not very common among their craft: they have taken the collection quite too seriously and judged it by too lofty a standard and yet very kindly. Confining our choice to sonnets

with such a peculiar limitation of subject, at first it seemed necessary not to be very squeamish about literary merit; and it has really been a surprise to those most familiar with the subject to discover such a number of these egotistic sonnets, examples of the Sonnet de Seipso, very many of them displaying, great technical skill and (within such narrow bounds of form and theme) great variety of thouaht and fancy. The collection, whicb has in divers ways obtruded itself too often on the readers of this Magazine and must now be dismissed finally with a parting blessing, is at all events a perfectly unique compliment to the Sonnet. Nothing of the sort has ever before been attempted in any language, or probably ever will be.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

1. We are glad to see that the Benzigers are not to have a

monopoly of the publication of Catholic books in America. A firm of

Catholic publishers whose name we have never noticed before Marlier, Callanani & Co., 172 Tramont Street, Boston-aunounce an important work by the Very Rev. John B. Hogan, the learned

Sulpician, President of Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary. The remark however that we have beoun with was suggested by the arrival of a

parcel of six new books issued by Mr. B. Herder of Freiburg, Vienna, Munich and Strassburg in the Old World; and in the New World,

St. Louis, Missouri. Every one of the half dozen has a special worth and interest of its own, and has evidently not been printed merely because the writer was rich enough to pay the printer. We shall put first the latest of AMr. Maurice Francis Egan's books which are now so numerous as to form a dainty little library by themselves. The Professor of English Literature in the Catholic University of

Washington seems to have been sojourning in Normandy, and it is there that he has laid the scene of his thirteen "Sketches of French and

American Life " which he calls "' From the Land of St. Laurence." The doings and sayings of Mr, George Morse and other Americans,



Documents

"Sonnets on the Sonnet". Criticism and Aftermath