Nor should I see thee girded with a sword

Not thine, and with the stranger's arm contend

ing,

Victor or vanquished, slave forevermore.

In 1690 was formed the society of "Arcadians," under the leadership of Crescimbeni, poet and historian, and the organization has survived to the present time. Founded for the purpose of cultivating a pure taste in poetry as opposed to the Marinesque order, it appears not to have encouraged greatness in the lyric art. Its members enjoyed idyllic meetings in those old days, wearing the names and garb of shepherds and shepherdesses, granting each other tracts of land in an imaginary Greek Arcadia, and gathering in sylvan groves or gardens to recite poetry. The idea appears ridiculous to all who have not seen the countrymen of Boccaccio, social, frolicsome, impulsive, ready to throw all the heart into such simple amusement as would only provoke a disdainful smile from more phlegmatic peoples. Still, not a few English scholars of Italian literature were made members of the" Arcadia." Pius VI. gave it a room in the Vatican, and so the Arcadians have drifted fortunately down the years, building Castilian mansions on imaginary estates in Greece.

Of later Italian poets of virility, may be mentioned Alfieri, Foscolo, Pindemonte, and Monte. These, with Leopardi and Manzoni, stand out from many lesser lights, including the Italianized "Della Cruscan " Englishmen who doubtless fell under the sweeping denunciation of the proverb already alluded to.

Treading these stepping-stones, or century-stones, formed by a merc category of prominent poets of Italy, one gets some impression of how the sonnet grew when grafted upon the strongest stocks of Italian genius. But, of the minor sonneteers, one can only ask the imagination to picture their under-chorus of song; the little, love-laden compositions that may have flowered and died in a single night, sung in gondolas rocking in moonlight under latticed windows, in serenades borne up to languorous Dulcineas on the strains of the lute. Bard and serenader, and lovely lady and impassioned sonnet, sleep in oblivion; but the charm of their one hour of glory and passion and music may still seem to invest the little poem for those who can detect its spirit as well as its form.

It has been observed that the periods of the greatest brilliance in English poetry have been times when there was the greatest interest in Italian literature. It seems as if many of the best sonnet-writers have owed a debt to an infusion in one way or other of Italian study or feeling. One need but instance Milton, who visited Italy and wrote sonnets in Italian; Mrs. Browning, a Florentine by adoption; Keats, who died in Italy; Rossetti, of Italian blood; and Longfellow, the translator of the Divine Comedy. Instances of the apparent benefit of Italian study or sojourn would be easy to select also from living sonneteers.

Before passing to the sonnet field of English literature, so surpassing in its interest, especially to the American student, one can but glance at the conquests of the sonnet in other lands and tongues. It adorns French literature, sometimes distorted

in form and trivial in spirit, and again memorably fine. The French sonnet has usually an octave of Petrarcan arrangement and a sestet of three rhymes, the first two lines rhyming together in a couplet. Bellay, Ronsard, and others helped to foster the sonnet at first in France. Felix Arvers has written a celebrated sonnet, "Mon ame a son secret," and De Musset inscribed one of pleasing quality to Victor Hugo. The grace and courtliness of the spirit of old Pierre Ronsard is embalmed in a sonnet, of which there follows a faithful and clever translation, by Miss Katherine Hillard, not heretofore published. Béranger and Thackeray have both paraphrased the sonnet, which is as follows:

TO HÉLÈNE.

WHEN by the fire, grown old, with silv'ry hair, You spin by candle-light, with weary eyes, Humming my songs, you'll say with still surprise, "Ronsard once sang of me when I was young and fair." Then as your maidens hear the well-known sound, Though half asleep after the toils of day, Not one but wakes, and, as she goes her way, Blesses your name, with praise immortal crowned. I shall be dead and gone, a fleshless shade, Under Elysian bowers my head be laid;

While you, crouched o'er your fire, grown old and

gray,

Sigh for my love, regret your past disdain.

Live now, nor wait for love to come again, Gather the roses of your life to-day!

(PIERRE RONSARD.)

The genius of Camoens makes the sonnet a perennial delight in Portuguese literature, where

over three hundred appear of his composition. It has bloomed since the sixteenth century in Spain. under the tendance of no less a hand than Lope de Vega, one of whose sonnets must be imbedded here:

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

SHEPHERD! who with thine amorous, sylvan song
Hast broken the slumber that encompassed me,
Who mad'st thy crook from the accursed tree
On which thy powerful arms were stretched so long!
Lead me to mercy's ever-flowing fountains ;

For thou my shepherd, guard, and guide shalt be;
I will obey thy voice, and wait to see

Thy feet all beautiful upon the mountains.
Hear, Shepherd! thou who for thy flock art dying,
O, wash away these scarlet sins, for thou
Rejoicest at the contrite sinner's vow.
O, wait! to thee my weary soul is crying,
Wait for me! Yet why ask it, when I see,

With feet nailed to the cross, thou 'rt waiting still for

me!

(TRANSLATED BY LONGFELLOW.)

Here, too, is an excellent translation of a sonnet by Camoens, praising the eyes of his inamorata, Catarina Cornaro, who has received a fine tribute in Mrs. Browning's poem, "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."

SONNET BY CAMOENS (No. 186).

Os olhos onde o casto Amor ardia.

THOSE eyes from whence chaste love was wont to glow,
And smiled to see his torches kindled there;
That face within whose beauty strange and rare
The rosy light of dawn gleamed o'er the snow;

That hair which bid the envious sun to know

His brightest beams less golden rays did wear; That pure white hand, that gracious form and fair,— All these into the dust of earth must go.

O perfect beauty in its tenderest age!

O flower cut down ere it could all unfold

By the stern hand of unrelenting Death! Why did not Love itself quit Earth's poor stage, Not because here dwelt beauty's perfect mould, But that so soon it passed from mortal breath? (TRANSLATED BY T. W. HIGGINSON.)

Nor was the sonnet neglected in German literature, when that literature was at its best. Goethe's sonnets are charming to read, not only in the original but in the translations of Bowring, and it is amusing to hear him, when nearly sixty, acknowledge his surrender to the sonnet as follows:

NEMESIS.

WHEN through the nations stalks contagion wild,
We from them cautiously should steal away.
E'en I have oft with ling'ring and delay
Shunn'd many an influence, not to be defiled.

And e'en though Amor oft my hours beguiled,
At length with him preferr'd I not to play,
And so, too, with the wretched sons of clay,
When four and three lined verses they compiled.

But punishment pursues the scoffer straight,
As if by serpent-torch of furies led

From hill to vale, from land to sea to fly.

I hear the genie's laughter at my fate;
Yet do I find all power of thinking fled
In sonnet-rage and love's fierce ecstasy.