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
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 Massey’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 unsurpassable, but easy
to overrate as regards its workmanship. 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 Shelley’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 assert, 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
title I sent you — A Sonnet Sequence. I fancy the
alternative title would be briefer and therefore better as
OUR SONNET-MUSE PROM ELIZABETH TO VICTORIA
I could not be much concerned about the unwillingness to give me a new sonnet which Rossetti at first exhibited, for I knew full well that sooner or later the sonnet would come. Not that I recognised in him the faintest scintillation of the affectation so common among authors as to the publication of work. But the fear of any appearance of collusion between himself and his critics was, as he said, a bugbear that constantly haunted him. Owing to this, a stranger often stood a better chance of securing his ready and open co-operation than the most intimate of friends. I frequently yielded to his desire that in anything that I might write his name should not be mentioned — too frequently by far, to my infinite vexation at the time, and now to my deep and ineradicable regret. The sonnet-book out of which arose much of the correspondence printed in this chapter, contains in its preface and notes hardly an allusion to him, and yet he was, in my judgment, out of all reach and sight, the greatest sonnet-writer of his time. The sonnet first sent was Pride of Youth, but as this formed part of The House of Life series, it was withdrawn, and Raleigh’s Cell in the Tower was substituted The following hitherto unpublished sonnet was also contributed but withdrawn at the last moment, because of its being out of harmony with the sonnets selected to accompany it:
ON CERTAIN ELIZABETHAN REVIVALS.
O ruff-embastioned vast Elizabeth,
Bush to these bushel-bellied casks of wine,
Home-growth, ’tis true, but rank as turpentine, —
What would we with such skittle-plays at death %
Say, must we watch these brawlers’ brandished lathe,
Or to their reeking wit our ears incline,
Because all Castaly flowed crystalline
In gentle Shakspeare’s modulated breath!
What! must our drama with the rat-pit vie,
Nor the scene close while one is left to kill!
Shall this be poetry % And thou — thou — man
Of blood, thou cannibalic Caliban,
What shall be said to thee? — a poet? — Fie!
“An honourable murderer, if you will”
I mentioned to you [he says] William Davies, author of
Songs of a Wayfarer (by the bye, another man has since
adopted his title). He has many excellent sonnets, and is a
valued friend of mine. I shall send you, on his behalf, a
copy of the book for selection of what you may please.... It
is very unequal, but the best truly excellent. The sonnets
are numerous, and some good, though the best work in the
book is not among them. There are two poems — The Garden,
and another called, I think, On a dried-up Spring, which
are worthy of the most fastidious collections. Many of the
poems are unnamed, and the whole has too much of a Herrick
air. . . .
It is quite refreshing to find you so pleased with my good
friend Davies’s book, and I wish he were in London, as I
would have shown him what you say, which I know would have
given him pleasure. He is a man who suffers much from moods
of depression, in spite of his philosophic nature. I have
marked fifty pieces of different kinds throughout his book,
and of these twenty-nine are sonnets. Had those fifty been
alone printed, Davies would now be remembered and not
forgotten: but all poets now-a-days are redundant except
Tennyson. ...
>
I am this evening writing to Davies, who is in Rome, and
could not resist enclosing what you say, with so much
experimental appreciativeness of his book, and of his
intention to fill it with moral sunshine. I am sure he ‘ll
send a new sonnet if he has one, but I fancy his bardic day
is over. I should think he was probably not subject to
melancholy when he wrote the Wayfarer. However, he tells
me that his spirits have improved in Italy. One other little
book of Herrickian verse he has written, called The
Shepherd!s Garden, but there are no sonnets in it. Besides
this, he published a volume containing a record of travel of
a very interesting kind, and called The Pilgrimage of the
Tiber. This is well known. It is illustrated, many of the
drawings being by himself, for he is quite as much painter
as poet. He also wrote in The Quarterly Review an article
on the sonnet (I should think about 1870 or so), and, a
little later, one which raised great wrath, on the English
School of Painting. These I have not seen. He “lacks
advancement,” however; having fertile powers and little
opportunity, and being none the luckier (I think) for a
small independence which keeps off compulsion to work,
though of willingness he has abundance in many directions.
There is an admirable but totally unknown living poet named
Dixon. I will send you two small vols, of his which he gave
me long ago, but please take good care of them, and return
them as soon as done with. I value them highly. I forgot
till to-day that he had written any sonnets, but I see there
are three in one vol. and one in another. I have marked my
two favourites. He should certainly be represented in your
book. If I live, I mean to write something about him in some
quarter when I can. His finest passages are as fine as any
living man can do. He was a canon of Carlisle Cathedral, and
at present has a living somewhere. If you wanted to ask him
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 74
