CHAPTER VII

THE SONNETS

ALTHOUGH the entire sonnet-work of Milton is not equal in value to that of Shakspere, or perhaps even to that of Wordsworth, if the latter's failures be overlooked, there are reasons for maintaining that he is the most masterly of all English sonneteers. For melodious sweetness, for power to analyze and express every phase of the passion of love Shakspere, with his exquisite quatorzains, is unsurpassed; but Milton is equally so in his command of the stricter sonnet forms, in his ability to extract noble music out of them, and in his adherence to the canon that the sonnet is a short poem adapted to an occasional subject. In other words, Milton uses the sonnet more regularly and at the same time more nobly than any other English poet does, yet he has also shown his originality by imparting a special movement of

his own to the stanza by omitting the pause after the eighth line that is necessary to the strict Petrarchan form. Furthermore, it is to be observed that none of Milton's sonnets is poor, that at least two-thirds are great, and that two, if not more, are grand as grand perhaps as a short poem can ever be. It is almost needless to say that these two sonnets are the XVIIIth, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," and the XIXth, "On his Blindness."

Counting the Italian sonnets and the elongated sonnet colla coda, "On the New Forcers of Conscience," we have just twenty-four pieces, to which the Italian canzone may be added as a twenty-fifth. They were written at odd times from 1630 to 1658, the first ten (or eleven, counting the canzone), as usually printed, appearing in the edition of 1645, the remainder adorning that of 1673, save numbers XV., XVI., XVII., and XXII., which were suppressed for political reasons until 1694, when Edward Phillips gave them to the world along with the life of his uncle. Their occasional composition is plain proof that Milton used them as a means of giving a brief relief to his overcharged emotions, espe

cially during the twenty busy years when he was cut off from elaborate poetical labors.

The first eight pieces, counting the canzone, are obviously to be classed as juvenilia so far as anything of Milton's can be thus classed. The first, "To the Nightingale" (1630?), is characterized mainly by charm, and hardly deserves Mr. Pattison's censure for the "conceit

that it contains. Any poet might have used the tradition about the cuckoo and the nightingale without danger of becoming a Marinist. But we must not forget to be grateful to Mr. Pattison for calling attention to the contrast Milton offers to most previous (and subsequent) sonneteers by his noble directness of phrase, his total avoidance of quip and quirk. This straightforward quality, both of expression and of feeling, is fully apparent in the second sonnet, "On His Being arrived at the Age of Twenty-three" (1631), which is as nobly autobiographical as any of the famous prose passages.

The five Italian sonnets and the canzone probably date from the continental journey and the shadowy Bolognese love affair. They are

all addressed to some unknown lady save one, and that tells Diodati how much she has enslaved him. It is hard to say how sincere they are, but those of us that are romantically inclined will prefer to think that they represent a genuine, if transitory, attachment. Competent Italian critics have detected idiomatic faults in them, which was to be expected. Even an amateur can notice that in the pauses and the arrangement of rhymes in the sestet, Milton has not followed the most impeccable models, since three out of the five sonnets end in the eschewed though not prohibited couplet. But in their general spirit and matter, these sonnets are no mere exercises in a strange tongue; they are real poems by a student of Petrarch who has caught not a little of that master's subtle charm.

Sonnets VIII., XI., XII., XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XXIII., and the sonnet colla coda, group themselves as especially concerned with Milton's life under the Commonwealth. The splendid petition bidding "Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms" not to lift "spear against the Muses' bower," serves as a prelude to the

noble encomiums on Fairfax, Cromwell,1 and the younger Vane; the sonnet on the "Massacre of the Vaudois" is the trumpet note of the collection; while the second sonnet to Cyriack Skinner is the proud appeal of the defeated champion of liberty from fickle humanity to an all-seeing and all-powerful God of Righteousness. Is there a nobler passage in literature than these lines?

"What supports me, dost thou ask?

The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied

In Liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe talks from side to side.

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask Content, though blind, had I no better guide."

Compared with these verses the three satirical sonnets in defence of his divorce tracts represent a much lower plane of thought and execution, but even these are fine in their way, and are proofs of Milton's astonishing mental and moral vigor.

Leaving out the grand sonnet "On His Blindness," which is too well known to require

1 Compare the great prose tributes in the "Second Defence."