I further instanced--

"Harry whose tuneful and well-measured song;" and "Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,"

as examples of Milton at his weakest as a sonnet-writer. He replied:

I am sorry I must still differ somewhat from you about Milton's sonnets. I think the one on _Tetrachordon_ a very vigorous affair indeed. The one to Mr. H. Lawes I am half disposed to give you, but not altogether--its close is sweet. As to _Lawrence_, it is curious that my sister was only the other day expressing to me a special relish for this sonnet, and I do think it very fresh and wholesomely relishing myself. It is an awful fact that sun, moon, or candlelight once looked down on the human portent of Dr.

Johnson and Mrs. Hannah More convened in solemn conclave above the outspread sonnets of Milton, with a meritorious and considerate resolve of finding out for him "why they were so bad." This is so stupendous a warning, that perhaps it may even incline one to find some of them better than they are.

Coming to Coleridge, I must confess at once that I never meet in any collection with the sonnet on Schiller's _Robbers_ without heading it at once with the words "unconscionably bad." The habit has been a life-long one.

That you mention beginning--"Sweet mercy," etc., I have looked for in the only Coleridge I have by me (my brother's cheap edition, for all the faults of which _he_ is not at all answerable), and do not find it there, nor have I it in mind.

To pa.s.s to Keats. The ed. of 1868 contains no sonnet on the Elgin Marbles. Is it in a later edition? Of course that on Chapman's _Homer_ is supreme. It ought to be preceded {*} in all editions by the one _To Homer_,

"Standing aloof in giant ignorance," etc.

which contains perhaps the greatest single line in Keats:

"There is a budding morrow in midnight."

* I pointed out that it was written later than the one on Chapman's Homer (notwithstanding its first line) and therefore should follow after it, not go before.

Other special favourites with me are--"Why did I laugh to- night?"--" As Hermes once,"--"Time's sea hath been," and the one _On the Flower and, Leaf_.

It is odd that several of these best ones seem to have been early work, and rejected by Keats in his lifetime, while some of those he printed are absolutely sorry drafts.

I had admired Coleridge's sonnet on Schiller's _Robbers_ for the perhaps minor excellence of bringing vividly before the mind the scenes it describes. If the sonnet is unconscionably bad so perhaps is the play, the beautiful scene of the setting sun notwithstanding. Eventually, however, I abandoned my belligerent position as to Milton's sonnets: the army of authorities I found ranged against the modest earth-works within which I had entrenched myself must of itself have made me quail. My utmost contention had been that Milton wrote the most impa.s.sioned sonnet (_Avenge, O Lord_), the two most n.o.bly pathetic sonnets (_When I consider_ and _Methought I saw_), and one of the poorest sonnets (_Harry, whose tuneful_, etc.) in English poetry.

At this time (September 1880) Mr. J. Ashcroft n.o.ble published an essay on _The Sonnet in England_ in _The Contemporary Review_, and relating thereto Rossetti wrote:

I have just been reading Mr. n.o.ble's article on the sonnet.

As regards my own share in it, I can only say that it greets me with a gratifying ray of generous recognition. It is all the more pleasant to me as finding a place in the very Review which years ago opened its pages to a pseudonymous attack on my poems and on myself. I see a pa.s.sage in the article which seems meant to indicate the want of such a work on the sonnet as you are wishing to supply. I only trust that you may do so, and that Mr. n.o.ble may find a field for continued poetic criticism. I am very proud to think that, after my small and solitary book has been a good many years published and several years out of print, it yet meets with such ardent upholding by young and sincere men.

With the verdicts given throughout the article, I generally sympathise, but not with the unqualified homage to Wordsworth. A reticence almost invariably present is fatal in my eyes to the highest pretensions on behalf of his sonnets. Reticence is but a poor sort of muse, nor is tentativeness (so often to be traced in his work) a good accompaniment in music. Take the sonnet on _Toussaint L'Ouverture_ (in my opinion his n.o.blest, and very n.o.ble indeed) and study (from Main's note) the lame and fumbling changes made in various editions of the early lines, which remain lame in the end. Far worse than this, study the relation of the closing lines of his famous sonnet _The World is too much with us_, etc., to a pa.s.sage in Spenser, and say whether plagiarism was ever more impudent or manifest (again I derive from Main's excellent exposition of the point), and then consider whether a bard was likely to do this once and yet not to do it often. Primary vital impulse was surely not fully developed in his muse.

I will venture to say that I wish my sister's sonnet work had met with what I consider the justice due to it. Besides the unsurpa.s.sed quality (in my opinion) of her best sonnets, my sister has proved her poetic importance by solid and n.o.ble inventive work of many kinds, which I should be proud indeed to reckon among my life's claims.

I have a great weakness myself for many of Tennyson-Turner's sonnets, though of course what Mr. n.o.ble says of them is in the main true, and he has certainly quoted the very finest one, which has a more fervent appeal for me than I could easily derive from Wordsworth in almost any case.

Will you give my thanks to Mr. n.o.ble for his frank and outspoken praise?

Let me hear of your doings and intentions.

Ever sincerely yours.

Three names notably omitted in the article are those of Dobell, W. B.

Scott, and Swinburne.

The allusion in the foregoing letter to the work on the Sonnet which I was aiming to supply, bears reference to the anthology subsequently published under the t.i.tle of _Sonnets of Three Centuries_. My first idea was simply to write a survey of the art and history of the sonnet, printing only such examples as might be embraced by my critical comments. Rossetti's generous sympathy was warmly engaged in this enterprise.

It would really warm me up much [he writes] to know of _your_ editing a sonnet book You would have my best cooperation as to suggesting examples, but I certainly think that English sonnets (original and exceptionally translated ones, the latter only _perhaps_) should be the sole scheme.

Curiously enough, some one wrote me the other day as to a projected series of living sonneteers (other collections being only of those preceding our time). I have half committed myself to contributing, but not altogether as yet.

The name of the projector, S. Waddington, is new to me, and I don't know who is to publish.... Really you ought to do the sonnet-book you aspire to do. I know but of one London critic (Theodore Watts) whom I should consider the leading man for such a purpose, and I have tried to incite him to it so often that I know now he won't do it; but I have always meant _a complete_ series in which the dead poets must, of course, predominate. As to a series of the living only, I told you of a Mr. Waddington who seems engaged on such a supplementary scheme. What his gifts for it may be I know not, but I suppose he knows it is in requisition. However, there need not be but one such if you felt your hand in for it. His view happens to be also (as you suggest) about 160 sonnets. In reply to your query, I certainly think there must be 20 living writers (male and female--my sister a leader, I consider) who have written good sonnets such as would afford an interesting and representative selection, though a.s.suredly not such as would all take the rank of cla.s.sics by any means. The number of sonnets now extant, written by poets who did not exist as such a dozen years ago, I believe to be almost infinite, and in sufficiently numerous instances good, however derivative. One younger poet among them, Philip Marston, has written many sonnets which yield to few or none by any poet whatever; but he has printed such a large number in the aggregate, and so unequal one with the other, that the great ones are not to be found by opening at random. "How are they (the poets) to be approached?--" you innocently ask. Ye heavens! how does the cat's-meat-man approach Grimalkin?--and what is that relation in life when compared to the _rapport_ established between the living bard and the fellow-creature who is disposed to cater to his caterwauling appet.i.te for publicity? However, to be serious, I must at least exonerate the bard, I am sure, from any desire to appropriate an "interest in the proceeds." There are some, I feel certain, to whom the collector might say with a wink, "What are you going to stand?"

I do not myself think that a collection of sonnets inserted at intervals in an essay is a good form for the purpose. Such a book is from one chief point a book of instantaneous reference,--it would only, perhaps, be read _through_ once in a lifetime. For this purpose a well-indexed current series is best, with any desirable essay prefixed and notes affixed.... I once conceived of a series, to be ent.i.tled,

I still think this a good idea, but, of course, it would be an extensive undertaking.

Later on, he wrote:

I have thought of a t.i.tle for your book. What think you of this?

That would not be amiss. Tell me if you think of using the t.i.tle _A Sonnet Sequence_, as otherwise I might use it in the _House of Life_.... What do you think of this alternative t.i.tle:

I think _Castalia_ much too euphuistic, and though I shouldn't like the book to be called simply still I have a great prejudice against very florid t.i.tles for such gatherings. _Treasury_ has been sadly run upon.

I did not like _Sonnet Sequence_ for such a collection, and relinquished the t.i.tle; moreover, I had had from the first a clearly defined scheme in mind, carrying its own inevitable t.i.tle, which was in due course adopted. I may here remark that I never resisted any idea of Rossetti's at the moment of its inception, since resistance only led to a temporary outburst of self-a.s.sertion on his part. He was a man of so much impulse,--impulse often as violent as lawless--that to oppose him merely provoked anger to no good purpose, for as often as not the position at first adopted with so much pertinacity was afterwards silently abandoned, and your own aims quietly acquiesced in. On this subject of a t.i.tle he wrote a further letter, which is interesting from more than one point of view:

I don't like _Garland_ at all C. Patmore collected a _Children's Garland._ I think