Part 13 (2/2)

There should be an essential reform in the printing of Shakspeare's sonnets. After sonnet 125 should occur the words _End of Part I_. The couplet-piece, numbered 126, should be called _Epilogue to Part I._. Then, before 127, should be printed Part II. After 152, should be put End of Part II.--and the two last sonnets should be called Epilogue to Part II. About these two last I have a theory of my own.

Did you ever see the excellent remarks on these sonnets in my brother's _Lives of Famous Poets?_ I think a simple point he mentions (for first time) fixes Pembroke clearly as the male friend. I am glad you like his own two fine sonnets. I wish he would write more such. By the bye, you speak with great scorn of the closing couplet in sonnets. I do not certainly think that form the finest, but I do think this and every variety desirable in a series, and have often used it myself. I like your letters on sonnets; write on all points in question. The two last of Shakspeare's sonnets seem to me to have a very probable (and rather elaborate) meaning never yet attributed to them. Some day, when I see you, we will talk it over. Did you ever see a curious book by one Brown (I don't mean Armitage Brown) on Shakspeare's sonnets? By the bye, he is not the source of my notion as above, but a matter of fact he names helps in it. I never saw Ma.s.sey's book on the subject, but fancy his views and Brown's are somewhat allied. You should look at what my brother says, which is very concise and valuable. I hope I am not omitting to answer you in any essential point, but my writing-table is a chaos into which your last letters have, for the moment, sunk beyond recovery.

I consider the foregoing, perhaps, the most valuable of Rossetti's letters to me. I cannot remember that we ever afterwards talked over the two last sonnets of Shakspeare; if we did so, the meaning attached to them by him did not fix itself very definitely upon my memory.

In explanation of my alleged dislike of the closing couplet, I may say that a rhymed couplet at the close of a sonnet has an effect upon my ear similar to that produced by the couplets at the ends of some of the acts of Shakspeare's plays, which were in many instances interpolated by the actors to enable them to make emphatic exits.

I must now group together a number of short notes on sonnets:

I think Blanco White's sonnet difficult to overrate in _thought_--probably in this respect unsurpa.s.sable, but easy to overrate as regards its workmans.h.i.+p. Of course there is the one fatally disenchanting line:

While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed.

The poverty of vision which could not see at a glance that fly and insect were one and the same, is, as you say, enough to account for its being the writer's only sonnet (there is one more however which I don't know).

I'll copy you overpage a sonnet which I consider a very fine one, but which may be said to be quite unknown. It is by Charles Whitehead, who wrote the very admirable and exceptional novel of _Richard Savage_, published somewhere about 1840.

Even as yon lamp within my vacant room With arduous flame disputes the doubtful night, And can with its involuntary light But lifeless things that near it stand illume; Yet all the while it doth itself consume, And ere the sun hath reached his morning height With courier beams that greet the shepherd's sight, There where its life arose must be its tomb:-- So wastes my life away, perforce confined To common things, a limit to its sphere, It gleams on worthless trifles undesign'd, With fainter ray each hour imprison'd here.

Alas to know that the consuming mind Must leave its lamp cold ere the sun appear!

I am sure you will agree with me in admiring _that_. I quote from memory, and am not sure that I have given line 6 quite correctly....

I have just had Blanco White's only other sonnet (_On being called an Old Man at 50_) copied out for you. I do certainly think it ought to go in, though no better than so-so, as you say. But it is just about as good as the former one, but for the leading and splendid thought in the latter. Both are but proseman's diction.

There is a sonnet of Chas. Wells's _On Chaucer_ which is not worthy of its writer, but still you should have it. It occurs among some prefatory tributes in _Chaucer Modernised_, edited by E. H. Home. I don't know how you are to get a copy, but the book is in the British Museum Reading Room. The sonnet is signed C. W. only.

The sonnet by Wells seemed to me in every respect poor, and as it was no part of my purpose (as an admirer of Wells) to advertise what the poet could not do, I determined--against Rossetti's judgment--not to print the sonnet.

You certainly, in my opinion, ought to print Wells's sonnet.

Certainly nothing so disjointed ever gave itself the name before, but it ought to be available for reference, and I do not agree with you in considering it weak in any sense except that of structure.

There is a sonnet by Ebenezer Jones, beginning ”I never wholly feel that summer is high,” which, though very jagged, has decided merit to warrant its insertion.

As for Tennyson, he seems to have given leave for a sonnet to appear in Main's book. Why not in yours? But I have long ceased to know him, nor is any friend of mine in communication with him.... My brother has written in his time a few sonnets. Two of them I think very fine-- especially the one called _Sh.e.l.ley's Heart_, which he has lately worked upon again with immense advantage.... You do not tell me from whom you have received sonnets. The reason which prevents my coming forward, in such a difficulty, with a new sonnet of my own, is this:--which indeed you have probably surmised: I know nothing would gratify malevolence, after the controversy which ensued on your lecture, more than to be able to a.s.sert, however falsely, that we had been working in concert all along, that you were known to me from the first, and that your advocacy had no real spontaneity.... When you first entered on the subject, and wrote your lecture, you were a perfect stranger to me, and that fact greatly enhanced my pleasure in its enthusiastic tone. I hope sincerely that we may have further and close opportunities of intercourse, but should like whatever you may write of me to come from the old source of intellectual affinity only. That you should think the subject worthy of further labour is a pleasure to me, but I only trust it may not be a disadvantage to your book in unfriendly eyes, particularly if that view happened to be the proposed publisher's, in which case I should much prefer that this section of your work were withdrawn for a more propitious occasion.... I am very glad Brown is furthering your sonnet- book--he knows so many bards. Of course if I were you, I should keep an eye on the mouths even of gift-horses; but were a creditable stud to be trotted out, of course I should be willing; as were I one among many, the objection I noted would not exist. I do not mean for a moment to say that many very fine sonnets might not be obtained from poets not yet known or not widely known; but known names would be the things to parry the difficulty.

Later he wrote:

As you know, I want to contribute to your volume if I can do so without fear of the consequences hinted at in a former letter as likely to ensue, so I now enclose a sonnet of my own. If you are out in March 1881, you may be before my new edition, but I am getting my stock together. Not a word of this however, as it mustn't get into gossip paragraphs at present. _The House of Life_ is now a hundred sonnets--all lyrics being removed. Besides this series, I have forty-five sonnets extra. I think, as you are willing, I shall use the t.i.tle I sent you--_A Sonnet Sequence_. I fancy the alternative t.i.tle would be briefer and therefore better as

OUR SONNET-MUSE

PROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA

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