For fince each hand hath put on nature's power, "Yet I fhall ne'er find rhymes enough by half, "Said I, and found myself i' the midft o' the second. "I should turn back on th' hardest part, and laugh. "Thus far, with good fuccefs, I think i've fcribled, Sweet "And of the twice feven lines have clean got o'er ten. "Thanks to thee, Mufe, my work begins to fhorten: 'Tis done. Count how you will, I warr'nt there's four- Let those who might conceive this fonnet to be unpoetical, if compared with others by more eminent writers, perufe the next, being the eleventh in the collection of Milton. "A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon, "And woven clofe, both matter, form, and ftyle; "Stand fpelling falfe, while one might walk to Mile- "Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Gallasp? "Thofe rugged names to our like mouths grow fleek, "Hated not learning worse than toad or afp, "When thou taught'ft Cambridge, and king Edward Greek." The reader may now proceed to more pieces of the fame ftructure, which the friends of the late Mr. Edwards were willing to receive as effufions of fancy as well as friendship. If the appetite for fuch a mode of writing be even then unfatisfied, I hope that old Joshua Sylvefter, (I confefs myfelf unacquainted with the extent of his labours) has likewife been a fonneteer; for furely his fuccefs in this form of poetry muft have been tranfcendent indeed, and could not fail to afford complete gratification to the admirers of a stated number of lines compofed in the highest strain of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution, and nonfenfe. In the mean time, let inferior writers be warned against a fpecies of compofition which has reduced the most exalted poets to a level with the meanest rhimers; has almoft cut down Milton and Shakspeare U 4 Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour, Therefore Shakspeare to the standards of Pomfret and, but the name of Pomfret is perhaps the lowest in the scale of English verfifiers. As for Mr. Malone, whose animadverfions are to follow mine, "Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flow'd in." Let me however borrow fomewhat in my own favour from the fame speech of Mercutio, by obferving that "Laura had a better love to be-rhyme her." Let me adopt also the fentiment which Shakspeare himself, on his amended judgment, has put into the mouth of his favourite character in Love's abour's Loft: "Tut! none but minstrels like of Sonneting." STEEVENS. I do not feel any great propenfity to ftand forth as the champion of these compofitions. However, as it appears to me that they have been fomewhat under-rated, I think it incumbent on me to do them that juftice to which they feem entitled. Of Petrarch (whofe works I have never read) I cannot speak; but I am flow to believe that a writer who has been warmly admired for four centuries by his own countrymen, is without merit, though he has been guilty of the heinous offence of addreffing his mistress in pieces of only that number of lines which by long ufage has been appropriated to the fonnet. The burlesque ftanzas which have been produced to depretiate the poems before us, it must be acknowledged, are not ill executed; but they will never decide the merit of this fpecies of compofition, until it fhall be established that ridicule is the teft of truth. The fourteen rugged lines that have been quoted from Milton for the fame purpose, are equally inconclufive; for it is well known that he generally failed when he attempted rhyme, whether his verfes affumed the shape of a fonnet or any other form. Thefe pieces of our authour therefore muft at laft ftand or fall by themselves. When they are defcribed as a mafs of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution, and nonfenfe, the picture appears to me overcharged. Their great defects feem to be, a want of variety, and the majority of them not being directed to a female, to whom alone fuch ardent expreflions of esteem could with propriety be addrefled. It cannot be denied too that they contain fome far-fetched conceits; but are our authour's plays entirely free from them? Many of the thoughts that occur in his dra matick productions, are found here likewife; as may appear from the numerous parallels that have been cited from his dramas, chiefly for the purpofe of authenticating thefe poems. Had they therefore no other merit, they are entitled to our attention, as often illuftrating obfcure paffages in his plays. I do not perceive that the verfification of these pieces is lefs fmooth and harmonious than that of Shakspeare's other compofitions. Though many of them are not to fimple and clear as they ought to be, yet some of ! Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, At of them are written with perfpicuity and energy. A few have been already pointed out as deferving this character; and many beautiful lines, fcattered through these poems, will, it is fuppofed, ftrike every reader who is not determined to allow no praife to any species of poctry except blank verfe or heroick couplets. MALONE. The cafe of thefe Sonnets is certainly bad, when fo little can be advanced in fupport of them. Ridicule is always fuccefsful where it is juft. A burlesque on Alexander's Feaft would do no injury to its original. Some of the rhime compofitions of Milton (Sonnets excepted,) are allowed to be eminently harmonious. Is it neceffary on this occafion to particularize his Allegro, Penferofo, and Hymn on the Nativity? I muft add, that there is more conceit in any thirty-fix of Shakspeare's Sonnets, than in the fame number of his Plays. When I know where that perfon is to be found who allows no praise to any species of poetry, except blank verfe and beroic couplets, it will be early enough for me to undertake his defence. STEEVENS. That ridicule is generally fuccessful when it is juft, cannot be denied; but whether it be just in the prefent inftance, is the point to be proved. It may be fuccefsful when it is not juft; when neither the Itructure nor the thoughts of the poem ridiculed, deserve to be derided. No burlefque on Alexander's Feaft certainly would render it ridiculous; yet undoubtedly a fuccefsful parody or burlefque piece might be formed upon it, which in itself might have intrinfick merit. The fuccess of the burlesque therefore does not neceflarily depend upon, nor afcertain, the demerit of the original. Of this Cotton's Virgil Traveflie affords a decifive proof. The most rigid muscles muft relax on the perufal of it; yet the purity and majesty of the Eneid will ever remain undiminfhed. With refpect to Milton, (of whom I have only faid that he generally, not that he always, failed in rhyming compofitions,) Dryden, at a time when all rivalry and competition between them were at an end, when he had ceafed to write for the ftage, and when of course it was indifferent to him what metre was confidered as best fuited to dramatick compofitions, pronounced, that he compofed his great poem in blank verfe," becaufe rhyme was not his talent. He had neither (adds the Laureate) the eafe of doing it, nor the graces of it; which is manifest in his Juvenilia or Verfes written in his youth; aubere bis rhyme is always conftrained, and forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the foul is most pliant, and the paflion of love makes almost every man a rhymer, though not a poet." One of the moft judicious criticks of the prefent, I might, I believe, with truth fay of any, age, is of the fame opinion: "If his English poems, (fays Dr. 2 Her eyes jo tuited,-] Her eyes of the fame colour as those of the MALONE. raven. At fuch, who, not born fair, no beauty Slandering creation with a false esteem Dr. Johnfon, fpeaking of all his smaller pieces,) of others, they differ for the worse, for they are by repulfive barfonefs: the combinations of wor are not pleafing, the rbymes and epithets feem to and violently applied. All that bort compofitions is neatness and elegance. Milton never learned t things with grace." Life of Milton. MALONE. Cotton's work is an innocent parody, was defig the neid, and confequently will not operate to that immortal poem. The contrary is the cafe imitation of the Spaniard. He wrote it as a ridic not the words of a Sonnet; and this is a purpose pletely answered. No one ever retired from a peru vourable opinion of the species of compofition it wa The decifions of Dryden are never lefs to be tr treats of blank verfe and rhime, each of which he preciated in its turn. When this fubject is before is rarely fecure from the feductions of convenience, and Gildon has well obferved, that in his prefaces h dence enough to defend and support his own mot cies and felf-contradictions. What he has faid of th dife Loft, is with a view to retaliation. Milton hac ed that Dryden was only a rbymift; and therefore Dr. regard to truth, has declared that Milton was no my other fentiments fhift for themfelves. Here I f troverly. STEEVENS. In justice to Shakspeare, whofe caufe I have und nequal to the task, I cannot forbear to add, Procruftes may as well be called the inventor of the re or the ode, as of the Sonnet. They are all in a c ftraints on the writer; and all poetry, if the object= carried to its utmost extent, will be reduced to blank ver of that inferior kind of metre have remarked with tri couplet the first line is generally for fenfe, and the next this certainly is often the cafe in the compofitions of but is fuch a redundancy an effential property of a coup works of Dryden and Pope afford none of another c bondage to which Pindar and his followers have f ftructure of trophé, antiftophé, and epode, is much g which the Sonnet impofes. If the fcanty thought be tated, or luxuriant ideas unnaturally compreffed, wha furely that it is impoffible to write good Odes, or goo that the poet was injudicious in the choice of his fubjeć how to adjust his metre to his thoughts. Yet fo they mourn, becoming of their woe, CXXVIII. How oft, when thou, my mufick3, musick play'st, Whilft Suppofing that Shakspeare meant to deliver his own fentiment in the paffage quoted from Love's Labour's Left, (for which there does not feem to be any authority,) whether his judgment was amended or not, can not be ascertained, until it fhall be proved that these poems were composed before that play was written.-If however his opinion is to determine the merit of this fpecies of poetry, it may be urged in favour of it, as well as against it, for in A Lover's Complaint he has honour'd it with the title of the " deep-brain'd Sonnet." MALONE. 3 and they mourners feem At fuch, who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Slandering creation with a falfe efteem:] They feem to mourn that those who are not born fair, are yet poffeffed of an artificial beauty, by which they pafs for what they are not, and thus difhonour na ture by their imperfect imitation and false pretenfions. MALONE. 4-becoming of their woe,] So, in Antony and Cleopatra : "Fye, wrangling queen! "Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, "To weep." MALONE. 5 when thou, my mufick,-] So, in Pericles: "You are a viol, and your fense the strings, "Which, finger'd to make man bis lawful musick," &c. STELY. 6 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,] We had the fame expreffion before in the eighth Sonnet : "If the true concord of well-tuned founds, "By unions married, do offend thine ear." MALONE. 7 Dolenvy thofe jacks,-] This word is accented by other ancient writers in the fame manner. So, in Marlowe's Edward II. 1598: "If for thefe dignities thou be envy'd." Again, in Sir John Davies's Epigrams, printed at Middlebourg, no date : "Why doth not Ponticus their fame envy'?" MALONE. 8 -thofe jacks that nimble leap To kifs the tender inward of thy band ?] So, in Chronenbotontbo Jogus: "-the |