v.] MELAKCHOLY HOURS. 347 



nentlj beautiful. The works of tliis neglected poet may 

 occupy a future number of my lucubrations. 



Excepting these two poets, I believe there is scarcely 

 a writer who has arrived at any degree of excellence in 

 the sonnet, until of late years, when our vernacular bards 

 have raised it to a degree of eminence and dignity, 

 among the various kinds of poetical composition, which 

 seems almost incompatible with its very circumscribed 

 limits. 



Passing over the classical compositions of Warton, 

 which are formed more on the model of the Greek epi- 

 gram, or epitaph, than the Italian sonnet, Mr Bow^les and 

 Charlotte Smith are the first modern writers who have 

 met Avith distinguished success in the sonnet. Those 

 of the former, in particular, are standards of excellence 

 in this department. To much natural and accurate de- 

 scription, they unite a strain of the most exquisitely ten- 

 der and delicate sentiment ; and with a nervous strength 

 of diction and a wild freedom of versification, they com- 

 bine an euphonious melody and consonant cadence un- 

 equalled in the English language. While they possess, 

 however, the superior merit of an original style, they are 

 not unfrequently deformed by instances of that ambitious 

 singularity which is but too frequently its concomitant. 

 Of these the introduction of rhymes long since obsolete is 

 not the least striking. Though, in some cases, these re- 

 vi vals of antiquated phrase have a pleasing effect, yet they 

 are oftentimes uncouth and repulsive. Mr Bowles has al- 

 most always thrown aside the common rules of the son- 

 net ; his pieces have no more claim to that specific deno- 

 mination than that they are confined to fourteen lines. 

 How far this deviation from established principle is jus- 

 tifiable may be disputed ; for if, on the one hand, it be 

 alleged that the confinement to the stated repetition of 

 rhymes, so distant and frequent, is a restraint which is not 

 compensated by an adequate effect ; on the other, it must 

 be conceded, that these little poems are no longer sonnets 

 than while they conform to the rules of the sonnet, and j 

 that the moment they forsake them they ought to resign 

 the appellation. 



