oral and spiritual right) against the arrogant might of the
Prussian Octopus,--it is well to remember that it was from Italy the
Sonnet first came into England. The word _sonnet_ in fact, is from the
Italian _sonetto_ (literally "a little sound"), and the _sonetto_ was
originally a short poem recited or sung to the accompaniment of music,
probably the lute or mandolin.

Whether its birth should be attributed to Italy or Sicily,--or to
Provence, the cradle of troubadour poetry,--is a subject on which the
learned may still indulge in pleasant controversies. But in Italy,
towards the end of the thirteenth century, it had already become a
favourite mode of expression; and some forty years later, in a
manuscript treatise on the _Poetica Volgare_ (written in 1332 by a Judge
in Padua), sixteen different forms of sonnet were enumerated as then in
current use.

But despite the continued vogue of the Sonnet, and its association with
the names of such masters as Dante, Petrarch, Tasso and Michelangelo in
Italy; Ronsard in France; Camoens in Portugal; Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth and Rossetti in England--to say nothing of a host of minor
poets, who, though one star differeth from another in glory, yet
constitute a brilliant galaxy--it is remarkable that even now the
average non-literary reader when asked "What is a Sonnet?" seldom gives
any more explicit reply than to say it is "a short poem limited to
fourteen lines."

The rules for the structure of those fourteen lines, and the labour and
patience entailed in producing a poem under these limitations, are not
always realised even by those who enjoy the results of the poet's
concentrated efforts. The more successful a sonnet, the more the reader
is apt to accept its beauty as if it had grown by a natural process like
a flower. This, perhaps, is the best compliment we could pay the poet;
but if the poet is one who boldly essays a most difficult and complex
form, in a language which for him is foreign, then we should pause a
moment to consider what it is that he has set out to accomplish.

Taking the structure first (though for the poet the spirit and impetus
of the central idea must of course come first)--a sonnet on the Italian
(Petrarchan) model must consist of fourteen lines of ten syllables each,
and must be composed of a major and minor system, i.e. an octave and a
sestet.

In the octave (the first eight lines) the first, fourth, fifth and
eighth lines must rhyme on th