[58] A. Dobson, in Ward's English Poets, vol. iv, p. 240.
[59] On the Spenserian stanza see especially Corson, pp. 87 ff. Lowell's characterization of Spenser's use of it is interesting: "In the alexandrine, the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward after that which is to follow.... In all this there is soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses—now at the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of the fourth—he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it certainly is to become languorous" (Essay on Spenser). See also Mackail's chapter on Spenser in Springs of Helicon; and Shelley's praise in his Preface to the Revolt of Islam: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity; you must either succeed or fail. This perhaps an aspiring spirit should desire. But I was enticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure."
[60] See also the collection of Sonnets on the Sonnet, edited by M. Russell, London and New York, 1898.
[61] On the origin of the sonnet in Italy (Sicily) see the references in Alden's English Verse, p. 267. Still a standard work is C. Tomlinson's The Sonnet, London, 1874.
[62] Elaborate rules for the sonnet are given by William Sharp in the introduction to his Sonnets of the Century, and by Mark Pattison in the introduction to his edition of Milton's sonnets. There is valuable matter in the Introduction of J. S. Smart's The Sonnets of Milton, Glasgow, 1921. Compare also the 'divisioni' of Dante's sonnets in the Vita Nuova.
[63] "In the production of a sonnet of triumphant success, heart, head, and hand must be right." Corson, p. 145.
[64] Two of these are irregular, the 99th, with fifteen lines (ababacdcdefefgg) and the 126th with twelve (aabbccddeeff). Milton's On the Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespear, still traditionally miscalled a sonnet, resembles the latter, with its aabbccddeeffgghh or eight couplets. The 16-line stanza of Meredith's Modern Love (abbacddceffeghhg) is sometimes loosely called a sonnet.
[65] Quoted by permission of Dodd, Mead & Co., owners of the copy-right.
[66] The rime scheme of the Progress of Poesy is: strophe and antistrophe a4b5b4a5cc4d5d4e5e4f4f6, epode aabb4a3ccdede4fgfgh5h6. The formula is three times repeated. Note the unusual arrangement of parts in Collins' Ode to Liberty and Shelley's Ode to Naples.
[67] J. A. Symonds, Blank Verse, London, 1895, p. 23. (This little volume contains a valuable, though incomplete and somewhat extravagant, summary of the history of English blank verse.)