"9. Continuous sonority must be maintained from the first phrase to the last.
"10. The end must be more impressive than the commencement."
These rules of course represent the ideal of the strictest Italian form, and are by no means derived from the prevailing practice of English poets.
[36] On the structure and history of the sonnet, see Schipper, as cited above; C. Tomlinson: The Sonnet, its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry (1874); K. Lentzner: Ueber das Sonett und seine Gestaltung in der englischen Dichtung bis Milton (1886); Leigh Hunt and S. A. Lee: The Book of the Sonnet (with introductory essay, 1867); W. Sharp: Sonnets of This Century (with essay, 1886); S. Waddington: English Sonnets by Poets of the Past, and English Sonnets by Living Poets; Hall Caine: Sonnets of Three Centuries (1882); H. Corson: Primer of English Verse, chap. x.
[37] In 1575, when Gascoigne wrote his Notes of Instruction, he found it necessary to say: "Some thinke that all Poemes (being short) may be called Sonets, as in deede it is a diminutive worde derived of Sonare, but yet I can beste allowe to call those Sonnets whiche are of fouretene lynes, every line conteyning tenne syllables. The firste twelve do ryme in staves of foure lines by crosse meetre, and the last two ryming togither do conclude the whole." (Arber's Reprint, pp. 38, 39.) It is, of course, the English sonnet which Gascoigne thus describes.
[38] Shakspere also introduced sonnets into some of his earlier plays: Love's Labor's Lost, All's Well that Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry V. See Fleay's Chronicle of the English Drama, vol. ii. p. 224, and Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, p. xxx.
V. THE ODE
The term Ode is used of English poetry with considerable vagueness. The Century Dictionary defines the word thus: "A lyric poem expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion, especially one of complex or irregular metrical form; originally and strictly, such a composition intended to be sung." Compare with this the definition of Mr. Gosse, in his collection of English Odes: "Any strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and dealing progressively with one dignified theme."