Chapter 15

It was characteristic of Rossetti that he addressed me in the following terms probably before I had left his house: for the letter was, no doubt, written in that interval of sleeplessness which he had spoken of as his nightly visitant:

I forgot to say--Don’t, please, spread details as to story of _Rose Mary_. I don’t want it to be stale or to get forestalled in the travelling of report from mouth to mouth. I hope it won’t be too long before you visit town again,--I will not for an instant question that you would then visit me also.

Six months or more intervened, however, before I was able to visit Rossetti again. In the meantime we corresponded as fully as before: the subject upon which we most frequently exchanged opinions being now the sonnet.

By-the-bye [he says], I cannot understand what you say of Milton’s, Keats’s, and Coleridge’s sonnets. The last, it is true, was _always_ poor as a sonnetteer (I don’t see much in the _Autumnal Moon_). My own only exception to this verdict (much as I adore Coleridge’s genius) would be the ludicrous sonnet on _The House that Jack built_, which is a masterpiece in its way. I should not myself number the one you mention of Keats’s among his best half-dozen (many of his are mere drafts, strange to say); and cannot at all enter into your verdict on those of Milton, which seem to me to be every one of exceptional excellence, though a few are even finer than the rest, notably, of course, the one you name. Pardon an egotistic sentence (in answer to what you say so generously of _Lost Days_), if I express an opinion that _Known in Vain_ and _Still-born Love_ may perhaps be said to head the series in value, though _Lost Days_ might be equally a favourite with me if I did not remember in what but too opportune juncture it was wrung out of me. I have a good number of sonnets for _The House of Life_ still in MS., which I have worked on with my best effort, and, I think, will fully sustain their place. These and other things I should like to show you whenever we meet again. The MS. vol. I proposed to send is merely an old set of (chiefly) trifles, about which I should like an opinion as to whether any should be included in the future.

I had spoken of Keats’s sonnet beginning

To one who has been long in city pent,

with its exquisite last lines--

E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear That falls through the clear ether silently,

reminding one of a less spiritual figure--

Kings like a golden jewel Down a golden stair.

After his bantering me, as of old he had done, on the use of long and crabbed words, I hinted that he was in honour bound to agree at least with my disparaging judgment upon _Tetrachordon_, if only because of the use of words that would “have made Quintillian stare.”

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 pass 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 impassioned sonnet (_Avenge, O Lord_), the two most nobly 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 Noble published an essay on _The Sonnet in England_ in _The Contemporary Review_, and relating thereto Rossetti wrote:

I have just been reading Mr. Noble’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 passage 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. Noble 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 noblest, and very noble 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 passage 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 unsurpassed quality (in my opinion) of her best sonnets, my sister has proved her poetic importance by solid and noble 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. Noble 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. Noble 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 title 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 assuredly not such as would all take the rank of classics 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 appetite 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 entitled,

THE ENGLISH CASTALY: A QUINTESSENCE:

BEING A COLLECTION OF ALL THAT IS BEST IN ALL ENGLISH POETS,

EXCEPTING WORKS OF GREAT LENGTH.

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 title for your book. What think you of this?

A SONNET SEQUENCE

FROM ELDER TO MODERN WORK,

WITH FIFTY HITHERTO UNPRINTED SONNETS BY

LIVING WRITERS.

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

THE ENGLISH SONNET MUSE

FROM ELIZABETH’S REIGN TO VICTORIA’S.

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 titles for such gatherings. _Treasury_ has been sadly run upon.

I did not like _Sonnet Sequence_ for such a collection, and relinquished the title; moreover, I had had from the first a clearly defined scheme in mind, carrying its own inevitable title, 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-assertion 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 title 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

ENGLISH SONNET’S

PRESENT AND PAST, WITH--ETC.,

would be a good title. I think I prefer _Present and Past_, or _of the P. and P.,_ to _New and Old_ for your purpose; but I own I am partly influenced by the fact that I have settled to call my own vol. _Poems New and Old_, and don’t want it to get staled; but I really do think the other at least as good for your purpose--perhaps more dignified.

Again, in reply to a proposal of my own, he wrote:

I think _Sonnets of the Century_ an excellent idea and title. I must say a mass of Wordsworth over again, like Main’s, is a little disheartening,--still the _best_ selection from him is what one wants. There is some book called _A Century of Sonnets_, but this, I suppose, would not matter....

I think sometimes of your sonnet-book, and have formed certain views. I really would not in your place include old work at all: it would be but a scanty gathering, and I feel certain that what is really in requisition is a supplement to Main, containing living writers (printed and un-printed) put together under their authors’ names (not separately) and rare gleanings from those more recently dead.

I fear I did not attach importance to this decision, for I now knew my correspondent too well to rely upon his being entirely in the same mind for long. Hence I was not surprised to receive the following a day or two later:

I lately had a conversation with Watts about your sonnet- book, and find his views to be somewhat different from what I had expressed, and I may add I think now he is right. He says there should be a very careful selection of the elder sonnets and of everything up to present century. I think he is right.

The fact is, that almost from the first I had taken a view similar to Mr. Watts’s as to the design of my book, and had determined to call the anthology by the title it now bears. On one occasion, however, I acted rather without judgment in sending Rossetti a synopsis of certain critical tests formulated by Mr. Watts in a letter of great power and value.

In the letter in question Mr. Watts seemed to be setting himself to confute some extremely ill-considered remarks made in a certain quarter upon the structure of the sonnet, where (following Macaulay) the critic says that there exists no good reason for requiring that even the conventional limit as to length should be observed, and that the only use in art of the legitimate model is to “supply a poet with something to do when his invention fails.” I confess to having felt no little amazement that one so devoid of a perception of the true function of the sonnet should have been considered a proper person to introduce a great sonnet-writer; and Mr. Watts (who, however, made no mention of the writer) clearly demonstrated that the true sonnet has the foundation of its structure in a fixed metrical law, and hence, that as it is impossible (as Keats found out for himself) to improve upon the accepted form, that model--known as the Petrarchian--should, with little or no variation, be worked upon. Rossetti took fire, however, from a mistaken notion that Mr. Watts’s canons, as given in the letter in question, and merely reported by me, were much more inflexible than they really proved.

Sonnets of mine _could not appear_ in any book which contained such rigid rules as to rhyme, as are contained in Watts’s letter. I neither follow them, nor agree with them as regards the English language. Every sonnet-writer should show full capability of conforming to them in many instances, but never to deviate from them in English must pinion both thought and diction, and, (mastery once proved) a series gains rather than loses by such varieties as do not lessen the only absolute aim--that of beauty. The English sonnet too much tampered with becomes a sort of bastard madrigal. Too much, invariably restricted, it degenerates into a Shibboleth.

Dante’s sonnets (in reply to your question--not as part of the above point) vary in arrangement. I never for a moment thought of following in my book the rhymes of each individual sonnet.

If sonnets of mine remain admissible, I should prefer printing the two _On Cassandra to The Monochord_ and _Wine of Circe_.

I would not be too anxious, were I you, about anything in choice of sonnets except the brains and the music.

Again he wrote:

I talked to Watts about his letter. He seems to agree with me as to advisable variation of form in preference to transmuting valuable thought. It would not be afc all found that my best sonnets are always in the mere form which I think the best. The question with me is regulated by what I have to say. But in truth, if I have a distinction as a sonnet-writer, it is that I never admit a sonnet which is not fully on the level of every other.... Again, as to this blessed question, though no one ever took more pleasure in continually using the form I prefer when not interfering with thought, to insist on it would after a certain point be ruin to common sense.

As to what you say of _The One Hope_--it is fully equal to the very best of my sonnets, or I should not have wound up the series with it. But the fact is, what is peculiar chiefly in the series is, that scarcely one is worse than any other. You have much too great a habit of speaking of a special octave, sestette, or line. Conception, my boy, _fundamental brainwork_, that is what makes the difference in all art. Work your metal as much as you like, but first take care that it is gold and worth working. A Shakspearean sonnet is better than the most perfect in form, because Shakspeare wrote it.

As for Drayton, of course his one incomparable sonnet is the _Love-Parting_. That is almost the best in the language, if not quite. I think I have now answered queries, and it is late. Good-night!

Rossetti had somewhat mistaken the scope of the letter referred to, and when he came to know exactly what was intended, I found him in warm agreement with the views therein taken. I have said at an earlier stage that Rossetti’s instinct for what was good in poetry was unfailing, whatever the value of his opinions on critical principles, and hence I felt naturally anxious to have the benefit of his views on certain of the elder writers. He said:

I am sorry I am no adept in elder sonnet literature. Many of Donne’s are remarkable--no doubt you glean some. None of Shakspeare’s is more indispensable than the wondrous one on _Last_ (129). Hartley Coleridge’s finest is

“If I have sinned in act, I may repent.”

There is a fine one by Isaac Williams, evidently on the death of a worldly man, and he wrote other good ones. To return to the old, I think Stillingfleet’s _To Williamson_ very fine....

I would like to send you a list of my special favourites among Shakspeare’s sonnets--viz.:--

15, 27, 29, 30, 36, 44, 45, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102, 107, 110, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 129, 135, 136, 138, 144, 145.

I made the selection long ago, and of course love them in varying degrees.

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