Part 12 (1/2)

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 relis.h.i.+ng 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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.