346 HENRY KIRKE WHITe's EEJIAINS. 



may be looked for amongst the Provencals, who left 

 scarcely any combination of metrical sounds unattempted ; 

 and who, delighting as they did in sound and jingle, 

 might very possibly strike out this harmonious stanza 

 of fourteen lines. Be this as it may, Dante and Petrarch 

 were the first poets who rendered it popular, and to 

 Dante and Petrarch, therefore, we must resort for its re- 

 quired rules. 



In an ingenious paper of Br Drake's *' Literary 

 Hours," a book which I have read again and again with 

 undiminished pleasure, the merits of the various English 

 writers in this delicate mode of composition are appre- 

 ciated with much justice and discrimination. His vene- 

 ration for Milton, however, has, if I may venture to oppose 

 my judgment to his, carried hira too far in praise of his 

 sonnets. Those to the Nightingale and to Mr Lawrence 

 are, I think, alone entitled to the praise of mediocrity, 

 and, if my memory- fail me not, my opinion is sanctioned 

 by the testimony of our late illustrious biographer of the 

 poets. 



The sonnets of Drummond are characterized as exqui- 

 site. It is somewhat strange, if this description be just, 

 that they should so long have sunk into utter oblivion, to 

 be revived only by a species of black-letter mama, which 

 prevailed during the latter half of the eighteenth century, 

 and of which some vestiges yet remain ; the more espe- 

 cially as Dr Johnson, to whom they could scarcely be un- 

 known, tells us, that " The fabric of the sonnet has neye/' 

 succeeded in our language." For my own part, I can say 

 nothing of them. I have long sought a copy of Drum- 

 mond's Avorks, and I have sought it in vain ; but from spe- 

 cimens which I have casually met with, in quotations, I 

 am forcibl}^ inclined to favour the idea, that, as they pos- 

 sess natural and pathetic sentiments, clothed in tolerably 

 harmonious language, they are entitled to the praise which 

 has been so liberally bestowed on them. 



Sir Philip Sidney's *' Astrophel and Stella" consists 

 of a number of sonnets, which have been unaccountably 

 passed over by Dr Drake and all our other critics who 

 have written on this subject. Many of them are emi- 



