Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.
American Sonnets and SonneteersT
The same causes which have hitherto prevented the appearance in this country of any truly great poem—a poem like the masterpieces of English imagination, expressing the culture, the knowledge, the matured genius of a great nation—have operated to prevent also the cultivation of the legitimate sonnet. For the requisitions of the drama, nay, even of the epic itself, are not proportionably greater—as I think the former part of this work has proved—than the requisitions of this “little poem of fourteen lines.” A perfect sonnet cannot often be dashed off “at a heat,” but demanding the nicest polish, and considerable patience in its composition, the majority of our poets, influenced by the eager, restless spirit of their age, neglect it altogether, to embody their conceptions in more obvious and popular forms.
Unwilling to trust to the remote awards of posterity, tinged with the materialism, and sharing the intense unrest of his people, the American poet has seldom, like Coleridge, looked upon his art as “its own exceeding great reward,” nor has he been content to live and work as a poet only. Even where no constraining necessity exists, we find him in the ranks of some practical profession, devoting, in all probability, the best portion of his energies to labors which unfit him for the pursuit of the highest purposes of his art.
It is not thus with the painter and sculptor: why should it be with the poet? If he be poor,—and alas! genius and poverty, married ages ago, seem, notwithstanding their conjugal incompatibility to have no chance of a divorce,—the reason is plain enough; but what if he be rich, or possessed of a competence? Would it not be wiser in one thus circumstanced, feeling the “divine impulsion” within him, to labor serenely and with singleness of aim in his vocation, disregarding the transient fashions of his time, and slowly building up unto perfection poems with the pith of immortality in them.
Had this been done, we might not now have been destitute of
At all events, our literature would have been richer in poetry of a much higher stamp than that which at present distinguishes it. I feel assured that the Sonnet especially would have been amply and beautifully represented; that anybody undertaking the task which now employs me, instead of experiencing a sentiment akin to mortification, as he compares the sonnets by his countrymen—not few in numbers, but careless in structure, and often commonplace in thought and design—with the masterly performances of this kind which adorn the literature of England and the Continent, would, on the contrary, have had every reason to be proud of the national achievements in an admirable and unique branch of art.
As it is, the American poet, under the conditions implied, circumscribed in his efforts, and democratic in his principles, has been satisfied with the production of verses which, for the most part, are easily written and quite as easily read. He addresses the masses, not a select circle of scholars,—the audience coveted by Milton, “fit, though few.” The complex in thought and rhythm he has had apparently neither the leisure nor the inclination to cultivate. True, since the advent of Edgar A. Poe, whose influence on the poetry of the country was marked and peculiar, a taste for labored eccentricities of metrical mechanism has repeatedly displayed itself; but it has been confined to a host of imitators,—the poetasters of gazettes and magazines.
The architectural eccentricities of Poe’s system of versification it was not difficult to copy; and we have, in consequence, during the last decade, been tormented by legions of illegitimate “Ravens,” and been invited to enter so prodigious a number of “Haunted Palaces,” that they may really be said to compose a municipality of their own, governed by a genius of grotesque diablerie.
Perhaps a better mode could not be found of bringing certain classes of the literary public to a clear perception of what is the true and beautiful in poetic art, than by calling them to the candid study of such sonnets as those of Wordsworth in English, and of George H. Boker in American literature.
While the ear, if moderately correct, would be charmed by their rhythmical harmony, the pleasure derived from them, instead of evaporating in a sensuous delight, would be intensified by the communication of those “grave thoughts, great thoughts,” which are seldom more striking and effective than when delivered through the medium of a sonnet worthy the name.
My business, however, is not to regret that the legitimate sonnet has been neglected amongst us, nor yet to suggest a remedy for depraved literary taste, but to give as detailed a narrative of the earliest appearance and of the progress of the sonnet in America as my scanty materials will allow.
The first American sonnet was written—at what precise date I have no means of ascertaining—by David Humphreys, LL. D., who was born at Denby, Connecticut, in 1753. He ranks among our Revolutionary heroes, and was educated at Yale College, with Barlow, Dwight, Trumbull, and others of historical fame.
Griswold, in the “Poets and Poetry of America,” informs us that, soon after being graduated, in 1771, he joined the army under General Parsons, with the rank of captain. He was for several years attached to the staff of Putnam, and in 1780 was appointed aid to General Washington. He continued in the military family of the Commander-in-Chief until the close of the war, when he went abroad with Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson, as one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate treaties of commerce with foreign powers.
On his return to the United States, in 1786, he renewed his intimacy with his old friends, the authors of the “Columbiad” and “McFingal,” and with Dr. Samuel Hopkins, with whom he engaged in writing the “Anarchiad,” a political satire, in imitation of the “Rolliad,” a work attributed to Sheridan and others, which he had seen in London.
Colonel Humphreys subsequently filled many military and diplomatic offices. He died at New Haven, in February, 1818, at the age of sixty-five.
An interest attaches to the first known sonnet produced by an American author, as well as to the author himself, entirely independent of the artistic merits of the one, or the amount of poetical genius possessed by the other. Colonel Humphreys’s sonnet, however, on the subject of “The Soul,” is by no means a contemptible performance. It shows the writer to have been a clever versifier, and a correct thinker. Its conclusion, particularly, is stately and sonorous. One other sonnet by him has come down to us, in the form of an address to the Prince of Brazil, whose acquaintance Colonel Humphreys made during his residence as Minister in Lisbon. It bears the date of July, 1797, and is a manly, unaffected effusion, expressed in scholarly terms, and with some musical and rhythmic facility.
The next American sonnets, in the order of time, are those by Richard B. Davies, a native of New York, who died when quite a young man, in 1799; and those by Robert Treat Paine, a poetaster, famous in his generation, whose verses have long since deservedly sunk into oblivion. His sonnets, like everything else he wrote, are formal and lifeless, though ambitious. No feeling more intense than vanity seems to have inspired them, and in, execution they lack both taste and imaginative force. I have reproduced them, together with the sonnets of Paine’s immediate predecessor, Davies, as literary curiosities only.
From the period at which we have now arrived to the rise of those generally considered the fathers of our poetic literature, namely, Allston, Dana, Bryant, Longfellow, etc., I have been unable to find, after consulting all the sources at my command, a single sonnet, good, bad, or indifferent. It is therefore with the sonnets of Washington Allston that our critical task properly begins.
One would have supposed that a man of Allston’s delicate and true feeling for beauty, his fine yet vigorous imagination, and the opportunities he enjoyed of studying Italian poetry among the scenes and associations that gave it birth and passionate life, would naturally have shown some partiality for the sonnet in its highest, most artistic forms. When, however, we examine the few sonnets he has left us, we are disappointed, not merely in the paucity of their numbers, but in their want of constructive care.
The thought is always appropriate, often suggestive, occasionally full of the insight and force of imagination characteristic of the writer in his happiest moods; but the same sort of dissatisfaction which Mr. Hunt expresses while reverting to the sonnets of Milton is apt to be felt, I think, after an impartial perusal of those by Allston. He could have done so much better, had he willed it. His genius, endowed with the constructive faculty, might have found herein one of its fittest modes of strictly poetical expression; and, indeed, after very just deduction from the merits of his sonnets, as they now remain, they are perhaps the best specimens of his poetic works.
The sonnets by William Cullen Bryant are only four in number. Of these, the subjects have been drawn chiefly from impressive aspects of the natural world, associated with the moral ideas and feelings of which such aspects are suggestive. They are delicate and beautiful productions; belonging, it is true, to the illegitimate school, yet so thoroughly possessed by “the laconic soul of the sonnet” that none but a hypercritical reader would pause to note the defect of form. Nevertheless, turning hypercritical ourselves for the moment, we venture to hint how much all Bryant’s sonnets would have gained in melody, if the concluding terzettos had not invariably been burdened by a couplet. The effect of such a close, even in sonnets in other respects perfect, is to give an incongruous tone to the versification, very much resembling the discord that would follow upon the introduction of a deep bass note at the end of a lyric that should be sung throughout in tenor. As for the sentiment, the fancy, the genuine philosophical perception of Bryant’s sonnets, they could hardly be overrated.
In a somewhat different strain are the sonnets of Longfellow. As might have been anticipated from the peculiar genius and culture of the poet, they have generally adapted themselves to the legitimate model, and are, moreover, admirable specimens of a rare descriptive power and picturesque imagination. The too frequent desire to illustrate by material images and comparisons what is abstract in thought and emotion—as when, for example, the “stern thoughts and awful” of the Florentine are likened to “Farinata rising from his fiery tomb”—constitutes, perhaps, the only reasonable objection that can be brought as an offset to their unquestionable grace, purity, and “purple richness” of diction. For gorgeousness of color and language “The Evening Star” is remarkable.
Believing thus in original genius, unrestrained and unmodified by the moulding powers of art, it is not astonishing that Percival should have left so little poetry—considering of course the quantity of verse he has published—that is likely long to survive him.
His sonnets are beautiful productions. Illegitimate in form, they yet show a true conception of what the sonnet ought to be, in tone, general structure, and character of melody. In several cases the poet has invented a form of his own, by a novel and a not ineffective disposition of rhymes, as, for example, in the following:—
I have thought it right to bestow thus much consideration upon our elder and best known poets, although none of them—not even Percival—are to be looked upon as professed sonneteers.
I now come to a late period of our literature, which, fortunately for us, exhibits some specimens of the sonnet that would do no discredit to the art, taste, and genius of the classic writers of Italy and Great Britain.
Abandoning anything like an attempt at chronological order, I shall in the first place introduce to the reader those—very few in number—who have earned the right to be called Legitimate Sonneteers; and, secondly, those—not so few in number—who have practised, with more or less success, the diverse forms of the illegitimate sonnet.
Among the former class, George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, better known as a dramatist of great merit, deserves in my judgment the most prominent position. His sonnets (seventy-eight of which appear in the second volume of his “Plays and Poems,” published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1856) are, with hardly an exception, composed in accordance with the established Italian rule. Wordsworth himself was not more scrupulous in following the classical standards.
But Mr. Boker has not pursued a conventional system of versification from any blind reverence for authority, but because of the evident sincerity of his faith in the variety, flexibility, and beauty of the English tongue. With those, indeed, who are accustomed only to the more prominent rhymes, and the more marked forms of verse, the melody of these sonnets may often fall as on a dull ear. But to a cultivated taste, and to the secret sense of hearing, apt for the music of poetry, we would cheerfully commit almost any one of Mr. Boker’s sonnets, without an apprehension that the sweetness and variety of its harmony would pass unheeded. He has vindicated the justness of his views, by the production of sonnets as perfect in structure as they are instinct with thought and beauty.
Mr. Boker’s sonnets may be divided into three general classes: first, the political sonnets, or those which treat of topics nationally important; second, the philosophical; and third, the love-sonnets. There are also sonnets of a miscellaneous kind.
Of the political sonnets, it may be fairly said, that they are full of a vigorous spirit, hardihood, and energy. Never overstepping the modesty of Nature, and always with “a reserve of power in their passionate expression,” they appeal to the enthusiasm that is latent in all healthful blood, quickening the pulse, enlivening the brain, and imparting the heat of a fine lyrical fire to every impulsive or susceptible nature. “What!” the poet exclaims, referring doubtless to some period in our history when the fear prevailed of a European invasion,—
None of Mr. Boker’s sonnets, whatever the subject, are without a firm “body of thought.” Having mastered his idea, he clothes it with language “simple, sensuous, passionate,” developing its cognate relations with a clear, logical sequence, an admirable appropriateness of illustration, which give to his poems in this form the charm of great natural force, directness, and lucidity.
From his philosophical sonnets we have only space to quote the ensuing, directed against that “hollow fraud” of consolation which professes to extract from all grief some precious healing balm:—
It is impossible to read such sonnets without marvelling at the manner in which their author has identified himself in spirit with the great models he has chosen. For example, might not the following sonnet be mistaken—so far as the cast of thought and the nature of the imagery are concerned—for an amatory sonnet by Spenser, nay, by Spenser’s master?
Of the beauties of thought and diction scattered all over them, let me collect and comment upon a few. The possible decay of love is thus described:—
There is something very impressive in this comparison of waning love to the “evening of a boreal day,”—
In a description of opening Spring, we have some lines which partake of the animated picturesqueness of Chaucer:—
Of the affectation of a backward and somewhat cold mistress, whose “vague words and shy looks never touch the heart,” it is said:—
We must here take leave of Mr. Boker, satisfied that enough has been said and quoted to justify the high estimation we have placed upon his sonnets; but equally satisfied that their merits can only be appreciated to the full by the reader after a close study of the poems themselves.
The sonnets of James Russell Lowell are chiefly, like the foregoing, legitimate; but they cannot, like them, be divided into particular classes, because of their miscellaneous character. They treat a variety of subjects, and are distinguished for subtle thoughtfulness, sensibility, and a delicate grace of imagination. The love-sonnets, of which he has written a few, contrast remarkably with those by Mr. Boker; for they celebrate an assured affection, an affection placed above the throes of doubt, jealousy, passion, and are exquisitely earnest and confiding. Although of a subjective tendency—as such poems must be—they have the merits of an enlarged suggestiveness and reflection, whereby the special love of the individual is made significant of love itself; and a moral of universal force and value is elicited from a personal experience.
Here is the last of a trio of sonnets, which partially illustrates what we mean:—
The cynic is counselled to “look inward,”—to look into the depths of his own soul.
Not only grand as a sonnet, but truthful as a criticism! The electric suggestiveness of which poetry is capable is admirably shown in the first terzetto, and it is worth pages of tame prose disquisition. Almost every phrase is typical, comprising a picture of not merely some peculiar trait of Keats’s character and genius, but by its emphatic appropriateness bringing vividly to sight the whole man, as man and as artist. The prominent features of Lowell’s sonnets may be briefly summed up, as extreme sensibility to moral and spiritual beauty; imagination, not so bright in its coloring, as clear, defined, harmonious in its outlines; insight, metaphysically acute; and, finally, in their mechanical construction, a degree of care and scholarly finish, which we often fail to perceive in his other and longer poems.
Of the American writers of the illegitimate sonnet, in its countless multiplicity of forms, I do not think it necessary to speak at length. Their number, as intimated, is considerable; but their productions exhibit, on the whole, so little saliency, that I shrink from the task of individually criticising, or attempting to criticise them, that is to say elaborately. It is, however, essential to my plan that something should be said, in a cursory way, of the merits and demerits of these authors.
Mr. George Hill—a native, Mr. Griswold tells me, of Guilford on Long Island Sound, and an eminent graduate of Yale College—is, I believe, the eldest of them. The style of his poetry, as exemplified in his dramatic piece, called “Titania,” and in a poem on the “Ruins of Athens,”—in the Spenserean stanza,—justifies Griswold in terming it “severe”; but Mr. Hill’s sonnets are somewhat loosely composed; and, moreover, they lack originality, both in the subjects selected and in the poet’s mode of treating them.
Mr. Jones Very, known as having formerly filled the post of Tutor in Greek in Harvard College, is responsible for a larger number of sonnets than any other writer of New England. Mr. Very is also the author of three essays,—on “Epic Poetry,” “Shakespeare,” and “Hamlet.” They are “fine specimens of learned and sympathetic criticism.” His sonnets appeared in a collection of his works in prose and verse, issued in 1839, and belong to the extreme conventional type of the illegitimate sonnet.
Mr. Very’s tone is deeply devotional. No matter what his topic, he unconsciously imbues it with the religious sentiment. The old metaphysical rhapsodists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Donne, Herbert, Vaughn, &c., are evidently his poetical models. He has studied them with faithful attention, and has reproduced their style, more in its faults, however, than in its excellences. Donne, I take it, is his favorite. He could not, in many respects, have chosen a worse master. Mr. Very shows no real power of invention, and his “range of subjects,” like his range of thought, is “limited.” Nevertheless, in his highest moods, he is sincere, tender, fanciful; and the flow of his verse, though at one time monotonous, at another involved, is for the most part musical and pleasing. Nevertheless, his great fault, as a sonneteer, is a vague mysticism of reflection, encouraged by, if not absolutely derived from, his too familiar acquaintance with the poets we have mentioned. The sonnets which bear his name in this collection have been chosen because of their freedom from this characteristic obscurity.
Mr. Park Benjamin was the first American, so far as I can learn, who employed the sonnet as a vehicle of humorous description. A keen sense of the absurd and bizarre is displayed in the following:—
This is not, however, a characteristic sonnet. There are others among the few Mr. Benjamin has written which—beside being more nearly adapted to the right sonnet-form—are, in themselves, clever and thoughtful poems. Here is one of them, addressed simply to
The most original and salient of the irregular sonneteers of the South is William Gilmore Simms, whose fertile genius has contributed so much to the vindication of the intellect and patriotism of his part of the country. His sonnets are numerous and of every variety of construction. Their chief merit resides in the character of the thought, which is seldom otherwise than strong, suggestive, and perspicuous. A rugged and impetuous power, and, where the topic admits of it, a passionate intensity of feeling, rising almost into vehemence, leave the author no time to consider the “proprieties of verse”; he rushes on with the energy of the improvvisatore, so that frequently he constrains himself to make use of the sonnet as a stanza, the limit of fourteen lines appearing to be insufficient to the full exercise either of his imagination or his enthusiasm. Yet many of his sonnets are complete and “rounded,” possessing a fine metrical balance, and leaving consequently little to desire in reference to their construction. The following is a good example:—
“The thing,” as Wordsworth expresses it, becomes “a trumpet in his hands,”—when he would awaken the dormant patriotism of his people; or it serves him as the medium of philosophical inquiry in those regions of speculation which only imagination, sublimated by faith, should dare to enter.
In a word, the sonnets of this writer are valuable, not as matured art-products, but as stern embodiments of individual will and passion, no less than as specimens of genuine subtlety and reach of thought.
Henry T. Tuckerman is the author of about twenty-eight sonnets of a miscellaneous nature, written in the form of three quatrains, concluded by the usual heroic couplet. Griswold says that “Mr. Tuckerman’s sonnets display some of the most perfect examples of that kind of writing that adorn American literature.” I cannot subscribe to this assertion, which proves how superficial Griswold’s knowledge of the sonnet, and its requirements, must have been; nor do I believe that Mr. Tuckerman himself—whose candor as a critic equals his ability—will quarrel with me for denying it. Let us admit, however, that his sonnets, if not worthy this degree of praise, are unquestionably graceful, polished, and pleasing compositions. Every line seems to have been carefully revised, and the ultimate effect is a Pope-like ease and flow of rhythm, and great propriety of diction, not without a special charm of their own. I call the reader’s special attention to the sonnets entitled “To One Deceived,” “Freedom,” “Sleep,” and “The Balcony,”—all included in this work, and all confirming, I think, what has been said.
Mr. Epes Sargent, in his “Summer Voyage to Cuba,” has employed a stanza of fourteen lines, the last line of which is invariably a rhymed Alexandrine,—which brings his stanzas technically under the head of the most irregular of quatorzens. Some of them are so picturesque that I have thought proper to extract them into our volume.
The younger poets of America, who have won distinction in other departments of their art,—I refer here particularly to Bayard Taylor, Aldrich, and Stoddard,—have published few sonnets, but those few are meritorious. I instance Taylor’s manly and earnest dedication to George H. Boker, which introduces his “Poems of Home and Travel,”—a sonnet not unworthy of Boker himself; also his sonnet to “Life,” and “To the Mountains.”
Since this essay was planned and almost executed, Mr. T. B. Aldrich has risen so rapidly into poetical fame, through the deserved honors bestowed upon him both in this country and in England, that I would call particular attention to such of his sonnets as I have quoted from his “Poems,” published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields in 1865. Hitherto Mr. Aldrich has been distinguished for the exquisite beauty of his lyrics, and the grand passages to be found in his Scriptural poem of “Judith,” rather than for any achievements in the peculiar and difficult branch of poetry of which I treat. I think, however, that a careful consideration of the sonnets hereafter quoted will convince the reader that Mr. Aldrich occupies no second rank amongst living sonneteers, and that the care and polish which he has bestowed upon his works give promise of a higher future excellence in this department. I refer to the sonnets entitled respectively “Egypt” and “Accomplices,” as admirable specimens of Mr. Aldrich’s powers. According to the strict rules laid down by the Italian writers, these sonnets are not constructed on the legitimate model, but they approach it so nearly in form, and are so far elevated above mere forms by the genius which embodies them, as to disarm extreme criticism, and content us with their own beauties. A further study and cultivation of the “Sonnet’s scanty plot” will add not only to Mr. Aldrich’s growing reputation, but to the literary wealth of America in a branch of refined poetical art in which she grievously needs representation.
The following to “T. B.”—Bayard Taylor, I presume—is one of the best of the few sonnets which Richard Henry Stoddard, the American Keats, has as yet written:—
Amongst the poets of the South, Paul H. Hayne occupies a pre-eminent place, not only as a sonneteer, but as a writer of narrative and lyrical poetry. In the year 1860 Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of Boston, published a volume of poems by Mr. Hayne, entitled “Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos, with Poems Lyrical, Miscellaneous, and Dramatic,” which contains about sixty specimens of his sonnets. They treat of the whole range of subjects to which the Sonnet can be properly applied. In the selection of his subjects Mr. Hayne exhibits the rare taste and judgment of the true sonneteer; since there are certain subjects, and certain subjects only, that naturally fall within the limits of this form of poetry. Mr. Hayne has studied faithfully the structure and capabilities of the Sonnet; and the result, as shown in his writings, has been, that, although he has not chosen to adhere strictly to the Italian rules of composition, he has nowhere permitted the spirit of his great models to escape him. His sonnets are genuine sonnets in everything, except in the mere arbitrary disposition of the rhymes and the grammatical pauses. Considering the poverty of our language in rhymes, when compared with the Italian, an English sonneteer should perhaps not be held culpable in seeking to escape from their hard trammels at a sacrifice of form. Many examples may be shown where even the greatest of English poets have been obliged to wring their language until it winced, in order to preserve the due succession of rhymes so readily obtained by their Italian teachers. If this be a defect in Mr. Hayne’s sonnets, it is greatly overbalanced by the display of all the other merits which he found in his prototypes. Simple, passionate, direct, neither overloaded with ornament nor without its graces, each one of his little poems stands before us as a complete work in itself, owing nothing to an epigrammatic turn of surprise, nor to the too ponderous weight of the last line. His political sonnets are filled with patriotic fire and martial vigor; his philosophical sonnets are imbued with serene thoughtfulness and a far-reaching insight into the secrets of humanity; his personal sonnets are touching with the tender self-denial of pure friendship, or vivid with the burning flame of a righteous scorn; and his love sonnets are passionate with the instincts of youth, colored with the glow of early imagination, and subdued by the delicate modesty of a chastened yet evident desire.
I call the reader’s attention to these sonnets, with the assurance that he will find them amongst the best that have been written in America, and that a perusal of them will send him to Mr. Hayne’s volume in eager search for more poetry of the same high quality.
In a volume of charming poetry, by Henry Timrod, which appeared about a year since from a Boston house, there are fourteen sonnets, which, for richness and grace of imagination, beauty of thought, and a warm, natural glow of sentiment and of passion, are not surpassed, I think, by the most perfect sonnets in this collection. Mr. Timrod has been long distinguished for his rare poetic gifts, and all the sonnets I have mentioned are nothing more than fair illustrations of them. Here is one of his sonnets on “Love,” remarkable for subtle suggestiveness and harmonious diction:—
Those of Mrs. E. Oakes Smith and Mrs. Kemble come first in the order of selection, because among the published poems of these ladies the Sonnet occupies a position of unusual prominence. In reading them, one is struck by their general similarity of feeling. They seem to be the offspring of disappointed, if not gloomy spirits. Betrayed affection, aspirations overthrown, the nothingness of human deeds, and the vanity of human desires,—such are the favorite themes of these two sonneteers.
If the true purpose of poetry were to enervate and depress, instead of exalting the soul, I should commend such strains in terms of no measured praise. As it is, I think them false to nature, and false to art. Let me not, however, be unjust. Whenever these writers permit themselves to rise into more healthful regions of thought,—whenever they cease to cry aloud “vanitas vanitatum” and to amplify the mournful proverb thus,—
The sonnet, for example, by Mrs. Oakes Smith, called “The Wife,” is touching and graphic; and that on “Wayfarers” embodies a truth as old as the world, in language very natural and expressive.
Noticeable as a collection of happy conceits is Mrs. Kemble’s sonnet commencing,
To Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale the credit is due of having bestowed more than ordinary pains upon the construction of her sonnets, all of which are legitimate. They treat of the domestic affections, and of the sphere and influence of Woman. The titles she has given them—such as “The Daughter,” “The Sister,” “The Wife,” “The Mother”—indicate clearly enough their scope and purpose.
Of the higher (perhaps I ought to say, the essential) elements of poetry—invention, imagination, passion—Mrs. Hale’s sonnets are destitute; but their feminine tenderness, and the universal value of the sentiments they inculcate, must always invest them with a certain interest and value. No one can doubt their earnestness, and they furnish a gentle voice to feelings that are common to our race, and are in themselves everlasting.
Mrs. Mary Noel McDonald, of New York, is one of the most copious of our sonneteers. A quick eye for the picturesque, and a capacity to grasp and describe correctly the obvious aspects of nature, have rendered her sonnets locally popular. Beyond these excellences, they have no poetical, and but little artistic, value. Their phraseology is of the conventional type, reminding me of “the peculiar poetic diction” of Hayley and the Della-Cruscan school. She describes the butterflies of June as “flying like winged jewels ’neath the skies”; and the summer rills are to her fancy “like chains of liquid diamonds.” Gaudy, artificial similes occur so frequently in her verses as greatly to mar whatever merits they may be deemed to possess.
The remaining sonnets in our collection, by various female authors, exhibit so little individuality of thought or structure, that to characterize them particularly would be a tedious and useless task. Three of these sonnets, however, the productions respectively of Mrs. Emma C. Embury, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellett, and Mrs. Anna Maria Lowell, strike me as being worthy of mention.
The first, by Mrs. Embury, beginning,
I trust, therefore, that my readers will make the due allowances. Had I exercised a severe critical judgment, the American portion of the volume would have been greatly reduced; but in that case, many hundred lines of really respectable verse would have been excluded, leaving hardly a sufficient number of sonnets to justify their publication in connection with a work like that by Mr. Hunt.