'poem.' A proper sonnet in Clement Robinson's poetical anthology, _A
Handefull of Pleasant Delites_, 1584, is a lyric in ten four-line
alternatively rhymed stanzas. Neither Barnabe Googe's _Eglogs_,
_Epyttaphes_, _and Sonnettes_, 1563, nor George Turbervile's _Epitaphes_,
_Epigrams_, _Songs and Sonets_, 1567, contains a single fourteen-lined
poem. The French word 'quatorzain' was the term almost as frequently
applied as 'sonnet' to the fourteen-line stanza in regular sonnet form,
which alone falls within my survey. Watson is congratulated on 'scaling
the skies in lofty _quatorzains_' in verses before his _Passionate
Centurie_, 1582; cf. 'crazed quatorzains' in Thomas Nash's preface to his
edition of Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, 1591; and _Amours in
Quatorzains_ on the title-page of the first edition of Drayton's
_Sonnets_, 1594.
{428a} See p. 103 _supra_.
{428b} All Watson's sonnets are reprinted by Mr. Arber in Watson's
_Poems_, 1895.
{429a} In a preface to Newman's first edition of _Astrophel and Stella_
the editor, Thomas Nash, in a burst of exultation over what he deemed the
surpassing merits of Sidney's sonnets, exclaimed: 'Put out your
rushlights, you poets and rhymers! and bequeath your crazed quatorzains
to the chandlers! for lo, here he cometh that hath broken your legs.'
But the effect of Sidney's work was just the opposite to that which Nash
anticipated. It gave the sonnet in England a vogue that it never enjoyed
before or since.
{429b} With collections of sonnets of the first kind are occasionally
interspersed sonnets of the second or third class, but I classify each
sonnet-collection according to its predominant characteristic.
{429c} Daniel reprinted all but nine of the sonnets that had been
unwarrantably appended to Sidney's _Astrophel_. These nine he
permanently dropped.
{431} It is reprinted in Arber's _Garner_, ii. 225-64.
{432a} Arber's _Garner_, v. 333-486.
{432b} Ben Jonson developed the same conceit in his masque, _The Hue and
Cry after Cupid_, 1608.
{433a} Dekker's well-known song, 'Oh, sweet content,' in his play of
'Patient Grisselde' (1599), echoes this sonnet of Barnes.
{433b} Arber's _Garner_, viii. 413-52.
{433c} There is a convenient reprint of Lodge's _Phillis in Elizabethan
Sonnet-Cycles_ by Martha Foote Crow, 1896.
{435a} See p. 110, note.
{435b} Arber's _Garner_, vi. 135-49.
{435c} _Ib._ v. 61-86.
{435d} Reprinted in Arber's _English Scholars' Library_, 1882.
{435e} It was licensed for the press on November 19, 1594.
{436a} Reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in _A Lamport Garland_, 1881,
edited by Mr. Charles Edmonds.
{436b} Sir John Davies's _Complete Poems_, edited by Dr. Grosart, i.
52-62.
{436c} See p. 128, note.
{437a} Arber's _Garner_, vii. 185-208.
{437b} _Ib._ v. 587-622.
{437c} Cf. Brydges's _Excerpta Tudoriana_, 1814, i. 35-7. One was
printed with some alterations in Rosseter's _Book of Ayres_ (1610), and
another in the _Third Book of Ayres_ (1617?); see Campion's Works, ed. A.
H. Bullen, pp. 15-16, 102.
{437d} Arber's _Garner_, viii. 171-99.
{438a} See p. 390 and note.
{438b} Practically to the same category as these collections of sonnets
belong the voluminous laments of lovers, in six, eight, or ten lined
stanzas, which, though not in strict sonnet form, closely resemble in
temper the sonnet-sequences. Such are _Willobie's Avisa_, 1594;
_Alcilia_: _Philoparthen's Loving Folly_, by J. C., 1595; _Arbor of
Amorous Deuices_, 1597 (containing two regular sonnets), by Nicholas
Breton; _Alba_, _the Months Minde of a Melancholy Lover_, by Robert
Tofte, 1598; _Daiphantus_, _or the Passions of Love_, by Anthony
Scoloker, 1604; Breton's _The Passionate Shepheard_, _or The Shepheardes
Loue_: _set downe in passions to his Shepheardesse Aglaia_: _with many
excellent conceited poems and pleasant sonets fit for young heads to
passe away idle houres_, 1604 (none of the 'sonets' are in sonnet metre);
and John Reynolds's _Dolarnys Primerose_ . . . _wherein is expressed the
liuely passions of Zeale and Loue_, 1606. Though George Wither's similar
productions--his exquisitely fanciful _Fidelia_ (1617) and his
_Faire-Virtue_, _the Mistresse of Phil' Arete_ (1622)--were published at
a later period, they were probably designed in the opening years of the
seventeenth century.
{439a} They were first printed in 1656, seven years after the author's
death, in _Poems by that famous wit_, _William Drummond_, London, fol.
The volume was edited by Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew. The best
modern edition is that edited by Mr W. C. Ward in the 'Muses' Library
(1894).
{439b} Cf. William Browne's _Poems_ in 'Muses' Library (1894), ii. 217
et seq.
{440} Chapman imitated Spenser by appending fourteen like sonnets to his
translation of Homer in 1610; they were increased in later issues to
twenty-two. Very numerous sonnets to patrons were appended by John
Davies of Hereford to his _Microcosmos_ (1603) and to his _Scourge of
Folly_ (1611). 'Divers sonnets, epistles, &c.' addressed to patrons by
Joshua Sylvester between 1590 and his death in 1618 were collected in the
1641 edition of his _Du Bartas his divine weekes and workes_.
{441a} Remy Belleau in 1566 brought out a similar poetical version of
the Book of Ecclesiastes entitled _Vanite_.
{441b} There are forty-eight sonnets on the Trinity and similar topics
appended to Davies's _Wittes Pilgrimage_ (1610 ?).
{442a} Graphic illustrations of the attitude of Ronsard and his friends
to a Greek poet like Anacreon appear in _Anacreon et les Poemes
anacreontiques_, _Texte grec avec les Traductions et Imitations des
Poetes du XVIe siecle_, par A. Delboulle (Havre, 1891). A translation of
Anacreon by Remy Belleau appeared in 1556. Cf. Sainte-Beuve's essay,
'Anacreon au XVIe siecle,' in his _Tableau de la Poesie francaise au XVIe
siecle_ (1893), pp. 432-47. In the same connection _Recueil des plus
beaux Epigrammes grecs_, _mis en vers francois_, par Pierre Tamisier
(edit. 1617), is of interest.
{442b} Italy was the original home of the sonnet, and it was as popular
a poetic form with Italian writers of the sixteenth century as with those
of the three preceding centuries. The Italian poets whose sonnets, after
those of Petrarch, were best known in England and France in the later
years of the sixteenth century were Serafino dell' Aquila (1466-1500),
Jacopo Sannazzaro (1458-1530), Agnolo Firenzuola (1497-1547), Cardinal
Bembo (1470-1547), Gaspara Stampa (1524-1553), Pietro Aretino
(1492-1557), Bernardo Tasso (1493-1568), Luigi Tansillo (1510-1568),
Gabriello Fiamma (_d._ 1585), Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Luigi Groto
(_fl._ 1570), Giovanni Battista Guarini (1537-1612), and Giovanni
Battista Marino (1565-1625) (cf. Tiraboschi's _Storia della Letteratura
Italiana_, 1770-1782; Dr. Garnett's _History of Italian Literature_,
1897; and Symonds's _Renaissance in Italy_, edit. 1898, vols. iv. and
vi.) The notes to Watson's _Passionate Centurie of Love_, published in
1582 (see p. 103, note), to Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_, edited by Mr.
A. H. Bullen in 1891, and to the _Poems of Drummond of Hawthornden_,
edited by Mr. W. C. Ward in 1894, give many illustrations of English
sonnetteers' indebtedness to Serafino, Groto, Marino, Guarini, Tasso, and
other Italian sonnetteers of the sixteenth century.
{445} There are modern reprints of most of these books, but not of all.
There is a good reprint of Ronsard's works, edited by M. P. Blanchemain,
in _La Bibliotheque Elzevirienne_, 8 vols. 1867; the _Etude sur la Vie de
Ronsard_, in the eighth volume, is useful. The works of Remy Belleau are
issued in the same series. The writings of the seven original members of
'La Pleiade' are reprinted in _La Pleiade Francaise_, edited by
Marty-Laveaux, 16 vols., 1866-93. Maurice Seve's _Delie_ was reissued at
Lyons in 1862. Pierre de Brach's poems were carefully edited by Reinhold
Dezeimeris (2 vols., Paris, 1862). A complete edition of Desportes's
works, edited by Alfred Michiels, appeared in 1863. Prosper Blanchemain
edited a reissue of the works of Louise Labe in 1875. The works of Jean
de la Taille, of Amadis Jamyn, and of Guillaume des Autels are reprinted
in _Tresor des Vieux Poetes Francais_ (1877 et annis seq.) See
Sainte-Beuve's _Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poesie Francaise du
XVIe Siecle_ (Paris, 1893); Henry Francis Cary's _Early French Poets_
(London, 1846); Becq de Fouquieres' _OEuvres choisies des Poetes Francais
du XVIe Siecle contemporains avec Ronsard_ (1880), and the same editor's
selections from De Baif, Du Bellay, and Ronsard; Darmesteter et
Hatzfeld's _Le Seizieme Siecle en France_--_Tableau de la Litterature et
de la Langue_ (6th edit., 1897); and Petit de Julleville's _Histoire de
la Langue et de la Litterature Francaise_ (1897, iii. 136-260).