When I behold thee, blameless Williamson,
Wreck'd like an infant on a savage shore;
While others round on borrow'd pinions soar,
My busy fancy calls thy thread misspun;
Till Faith instructs me the deceit to shun,
While thus she speaks: "Those wings that from the store
"Of virtue were not lent, howe'er they bore
"In this gross air, will melt when near the sun.
"The truly ambitious wait for nature's time,
"Content by certain though by slow degrees
"To mount above the reach of vulgar flight:
"Nor is that man confin'd to this low clime,
"Who but the extremest skirts of glory sees,
"And hears celestial echoes with delight."

The character of the Italian Sonnet has been given. I subjoin, from the preface to Miss Seward's Sonnets, Mr. White's masterly definition of the nature and perfection of this kind of verse in our own language.

"Little Elegies consisting of three stanzas and a couplet, are no more Sonnets than they are Epick poems. The Sonnet is of a particular and arbitrary construction; it partakes of the nature of blank verse, by the lines running into each other at proper intervals. Each line of the first eight, rhymes four times; and the order in which those rhymes should fall is decisive. For the ensuing six there is more licence; they may, or may not, at pleasure, close with a couplet. Of Milton's English Sonnets, only that to Oliver Cromwell ends with a couplet, but the single instance is a sufficient precedent; however, in three out of his five Italian ones, the concluding lines rhyme to each other.

"The style of the Sonnet should be nervous, and, where the subject will with propriety bear elevation, sublime; with which, simplicity of language is by no means incompatible. If the subject be familiar and domestick, the style should, though affectionate, be nervous; though plain, be energetick. The great models of perfection, for the sublime and domestick Sonnet, are those of Milton's, To the Soldier to spare his dwelling-place, and To Mr. Lawrence. The Sonnet is certainly the most difficult species of poetick composition; but difficulty, well subdued is excellence. Mrs. Smith says, she has been told that the regular Sonnet suits not the nature or genius of our language.

Surely this assertion cannot be demonstrated, and therefore was not worth attention.

"Out of eighteen English Sonnets, written by Milton, four are bad. The rest, though they are not free from certain hardnesses, have a pathos and greatness in their simplicity, sufficient to endear the legitimate Sonnet to every reader of just taste. They possess a characteristick grace, which can never belong to three elegiack stanzas, closing with a couplet."

The concluding lines of our ancient Sonnets, however, often rhyme to each other. I must also observe that some of Constable's Sonnets consist of lines of six feet, but with the usual order of rhymes; as in a Sonnet " To his Mistresse, &c."

"Miracle of the world, I never will denye

"That former poets prayse the beauties of theyre days; "But all those beauties were but figures of thy prayse, "And all those poets did of thee but prophecye. "Thy coming to the world hath taught us to descrie "What Petrarch's Laura meant, &c." TODD.

SONNETS.

I.

To the Nightingale.

O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray

Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still; Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.

Ver. 1. O Nightingale, &c.] See the Note on Par. Lost, B. vii. 435, where Milton's frequent mention of this bird is noticed. Marino, I should add, delights to dwell upon the Nightingale he addresses three pleasing Sonnets to her, in his Rime Boscherecce, Ven. 1602, pp. 70, and 100. See also ibid. p. 69. TODD.

Ver. 3. Thou with fresh hope &c.] This address to the nightingale is founded upon the same notion or tradition as Chaucer's verses of the Cuccoo and the Nightingale :

"But as I lay this òthir night waking,
"I thought howe lovirs had a tokining,

"And amonge 'hem it was a commune tale,

"That it were gode to here the nightingale

"Moche rathir than the luedè cuccoo sing." Newton.

Ver. 4. While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.] Because the nightingale is supposed to begin singing in April. So Sidney, in England's Helicon, edit. 1614.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay,

"The nightingale, so soon as Aprill bringeth
"Vnto her rested sense a perfect waking,

5

"While late bare earth proud of new clothing springeth,

66

Singes out her woes, &c." T. WARTON.

The application of jolly to the hours might be suggested by Spenser's epithet, Faer. Qu. Canto of Mutabilitie, vii. 29. "Then came the iolly Sommer." Again, ib. 35. “And after her came iolly June." And thus Crashaw, Poems, ed. 1670, p. 107.

"An everlasting spring the jolly year
"Led round in his great circle." TODD.

Ver. 5.

that close the eye of day,] So, in

Fairfax's Tasso, edit. 1600, p. 21.

"When Phebus next vnclos'd his wakefull eie."

"Does day

And in Crashaw's Weeper, Poems, 1648, st. xxiii. close his eyes?" Compare also a beautiful couplet, in his verses addressed To the Morning:

"And the same rosie-finger'd hand of thine,

"That shuts night's dying eyes, shall open mine."

It is the same phrase in Comus, v. 978.

"Where day never shuts his eye." TODD.

Ver. 6. First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, &c.] That is, if they happen to be heard before the cuckoo, it is lucky for the lover. But Spenser calls the cuckoo the messenger of spring, and supposes that his trumpet shrill warns all lovers to wait upon Cupid, Sonn. xix. Jonson gives this appellation to the nightingale, in the Sad Shepherd, A. ii. S. vi.

"But best, the dear good angel of the spring,
"The nightingale."

Angel is messenger. And the whole expression seems to be lite