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“_Come, bright_ IMAGINATION _come, relume Thy orient lamp._”
PRINTED FOR G. SAEL, NO. 192, STRAND; AND SOLD BY MR. SWINNEY, BIRMINGHAM, AND MR. MORGAN, LICHFIELD.
Whatever other excellence may be wanting in the ensuing Poems, they are, with only nine exceptions out of the hundred, strictly Sonnets. Those nine vary only from the rules of the legitimate Sonnet in that they rhime _three_, instead of _four_ times in the _first_ part. The pause is in _them_, as in the _rest_, variously placed through the course of the verses; and thus they bear no more resemblance than their associates, to those minute Elegies of twelve alternate rhimes, closing with a couplet, which assume the name of Sonnet, without any other resemblance to that order of Verse, except their limitation to fourteen lines. I never found the quadruple rhimes injurious to the general expression of the sense, but in the excepted instances. When it is considered how few they are in so _large_ a number, I flatter myself the idea will vanish that our language is not capable of doing justice to the _regular_ Sonnet.
From the Supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786, I shall insert Mr. White's definition of the nature and perfection of this species of Verse, because I think it explains them with justness and precision.
“Little Elegies, consisting of four stanzas and a couplet, are no more Sonnets than they are Epic 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, rhimes four times, and the order in which those rhimes 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 rhime 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 is familiar and domestic, the style should, though affectionate, be nervous; though plain, be energetic. The great models of perfection, for the sublime and domestic Sonnet, are those of Milton's, ‘To the Soldier to spare his Dwelling-place,’ and ‘To Mr. Laurence.’