Shakespeare's Sonnets and the songs in his dramas are the best in this field, but many poets wrote exquisite artistic lyrics.

This sonnet is the theme of Varchi's Lezione.

We should, however, remember that the sonnet is only one type of the varied lyric expression of the age.

The present sonnet was probably the earliest of Lamb's printed poems.

" This sonnet is perhaps the only occasion on which Lamb, even in play, wrote anything against his beloved city.

But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it holds nothing.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, one hundred and fifty-four in number, are the only direct expression of the poet's own feelings that we possess; for his plays are the most impersonal in all literature.

" This sonnet, by Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow (1781-1829), an intense devotee of Sir Philip Sidney's muse, was a special favourite with Lamb.

The sonnets of both alike are contributions to philosophical poetry in an age when the Italians had lost their ancient manliness and energy.

This sonnet is therefore a sort of Mythopoem, figuring the process whereby true knowledge, as distinguished from sophistry, is derived by the human reason interrogating God in Nature and within the soul.

The following, not a sonnet, although it looks like one, measuring the lawful fourteen lines, is the closing paragraph of a poem he calls A Hymn to the Fairest Fair.

Constable was esteemed the first sonneteer of his time, and the following sonnet, prefixed to King James I.'s "Poetical Exercises" was the most admired TO THE KING OF SCOTLAND.

These sonnets are a diary of his life.

We may perhaps assume that this sonnet was the famous No. xxxi., from the last line of which every one could perceive that Michelangelo meant it for Tommaso Cavalieri.

His sonnets are virtually three-stanza poems with a couplet for close, and he allows himself as many rhymes as he chooses.

If people had spoken of 'sonnets' with the same accent with which they speak of 'music-hall songs,' a sonnet would have been a thing so fearful and wonderful that we almost regret we cannot have a specimen; a rowdy sonnet is a thing to dream about.

The French sonnets, however, of which there is a volume in the Marquess of Stafford's library, are spoken of by Mr. Warton, who has given a long account of them, with specimens, as possessing more merit.

The Sonnet as published by the Nephew is as follows: Ben sarian dolci le preghiere mie, Se virtù mi prestassi da pregarte: Nel mio terreno infertil non è

A sonnet on Thomson's grave is a fine specimen of empty sounds and solid nonsense:

" Her best work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, written after Browning had won her affection, is a series of love lyrics, strong, tender, unaffected, true, from the depth of a woman's heart.

"His sonnets inlaid in the Arcadia are jejune, far-fetch'd and frigid....

[The sonnet probably was Mitford's, which was printed in the June number (see above).

The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the compositions of his maturest years.