PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE SONNETS. THE English Sonnet owes its origin to the poets of Italy. Dr. Newton had faid, that Petrarch has gained the reputation of being the first author and inventer of this fpecies of poetry: But this was a mistake; which Dr. J. Warton has corrected ; for, he obferves, Guittone d'Arezzo, who flourished about the year 1250, many years before Petrarch was born, first used the measure obferved in the Sonnet. Mr. Rofcoe, in his admirable Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, refers the reader, for a learned and curious difquifition on the origin of the Sonetto, to Annotazioni di Francefco Redi al fuo ditirambo di Bacco in Toscana, p. 99. He adds the following remarks, on this kind of compofition, by Lorenzo de' Medici; which are as judicious, he fays, as they are pointed and concife: "La brevità del Sonetto non comporta, che una fola parola fia vana, ed il vero fubietto e materia del Sonetto debbe effere qualche acuta e gentile fentenza, narrata attamente, ed in pochi versi ristretta, e fuggendo la oscurità durezza. Comment. di Lor. de' Med. Sopra i fuoi Sonetti, p. 120. ed. Ald. 1554." Concerning the introduction of the Sonnet into Italian poetry, see also an ingenious work, entitled "A Sketch of the Lives and Writings of Dante and Petrarch, with fome account of Italian and Latin literature in the fourteenth century." Lond. 1790, p. 78, 79. Dante has written a number of Sonnets. A critick of great taste obferves, with Mr. Warton, that Milton's Sonnets partake much more of the genius of Dante than of Petrarch; and further that, like thofe of Dante, they are frequently deficient in fweetnefs of diction and harmony of verfification, yet poffefs, what is feldom difcernible in compofitions of this kind, energy and fublimity of fentiment; for which qualities, and for vigour of expreffion, the Sonnets to Cyriack Skinner, Fairfax, Cromwell, and Vane, are remarkable; whilft thofe addreffed to the Nightingale, and to Mr. Lawrence, can boast both of melody in language and elegance in thought. See Literary Hours by N. Drake, M.D. 1798, p. 63. See also the concluding Note on Milton's fixth Sonnet. Yet perhaps Milton's first and last Sonnets difplay rather the sweetness and tenderness of Petrarch. I venture to enlarge thefe obfervations with a retrospect to the more diftinguished Sonnet-writers of our own country. The earliest Sonnets in the English language, which have been published, are thofe of Lord Surrey, to which are joined "Songes and Sonnettes of Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, and of Uncertain Auctours," in 1557. Lord Surrey's Sonnets have been juftly admired for the tenderness, fimplicity, and nature, which they exhibit. See Warton's Hift. Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 12. The Sonnets of Petrarch were, in Lord Surrey's time, grown into great fashion: They continued alfo, long afterwards, as models of compofition; witnefs the labours in this fpecies of writing by Sidney, Spenfer, Shakspeare, and Daniel; and by many other poets in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the first, little known to fame. See Notes before, p. 69, 70, &c. in the present volume. The late Mr. Steevens has commended the amatory poems of Thomas Watson, an elder and more elegant fonnetteer than Shakspeare:" The Paffionate Centurie of Love is the title of the Sonnets thus noticed, to which the character of elegance, at least, belongs. See fpecimens, in Hawkins's Orig. Eng. Drama, vol. iii. p. 213, and Gent. Mag. vol. lxiii. p. 558. But Henry Conftable has been termed the "first, or principal, fonnetteer of his time," Hawkins, ut fupr. p. 212. In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, he is thus characterised, A. i. S. ii. "Sweet Conftable doth take the wondring ear, And Ben Jonfon fpeaks of " Conftable's ambrofiack Muse," Underwoods ed. 1640, p. 196. A fpecimen of Constable's abilities in this kind of compofition has been given, in the exhibition of his Sonnet prefixed to King James the firft's Poeticall Exercises. It is alfo printed by Sir John Harington, in his Notes at the end of the 34th book of his Orlando Furiofo; and by Hawkins, in his Origin of the Eng. 'Drama, vol. iii. p. 212; and is highly |