Here is another trick of style, that is peculiar to one famous Italian, Tasso. The repetition of the first words of a line through (as in some instances) several stanzas, is a feature that is not only apparent to an English reader of Tasso, but is the principal feature commented on by writers of Italian literary history. The thing is glaringly artificial,-but it is just one of those things which would impress a contemporary who was in search for every quality that might be considered an embellishment to verse.

There are two subjects that Sidney has treated most successfully in this kind of metre,-The Story of Cupid, written in a half scornful, half playful manner, and rural poesie. This latter describes a beauty, using, however, only homely country similes,— cruddes, hay, sheep, etc. Had Sidney written no metre but this alone, his skill would have proved him a master. To the subjects already mentioned, another must be added, the tale of Nico (Arcadia, 377-80). Here is told a tale that is like one from Boccaccio, in which a man who loves another's wife makes her "chumpish" husband act as go-between to acquaint the lady with his desires. About it Grosart says, "there are such touches of circumstance and of individuality in the description of the courtier as to lead to the supposition that it may have been based on some scandalous story of those times." The two opening stanzas will indicate the character of both verse and story:

A neighbor mine not long ago there was,
(But nameless he, for blameless shall he be)
That married had a trick and bonny lasse
As in a summer day a man might see;

But he himself a foul unhandsome grome,
And far unfit to hold so good a room.
Now, whether moved with self unworthiness,
Or with her beauty, fit to make a pray,
Fell jealousy did so his braine oppress,
That if he absent were but half a day,

He guest the worst, (you wot what is the worst)
And in himself new doubting causes nurst.

Of the three sestinas, the two simple ones are better than the twelve-stanza double one. They are all in sound peculiarly like Italian sestinas, for all of them use the feminine ending.

The lamenting dialogue of Klaius and Strephon (double sestina), although perfectly easy reading, is somewhat spoiled by

the use of a number of hyperbolical tropes that were almost trite by Sidney's time. The sestina "Farewell" is peculiar in introducing rhyme into each stanza. The words chosen to end the stanzas are, light, pleasure, might, treasure, direction, affection, so that the first stanza is a quatrain plus a couplet, but as the words pass through their regular rotation, the rhyming words occupy varying places, now following immediately, now separated by the entire stanza. This is a feature of great beauty, while the handling of the thought is so managed that the idea rises in intensity until the envoi is a direct but passionate farewell:

Farewell, O sun, Arcadia's clearest light,

Farewell, O pearl, the poor man's plenteous treasure
Farewell, O golden staffe, the weak man's might;

Farewell, O joy, the joyfull's only pleasure,

Wisdom, farewell, the skilless man's direction
Farewell, with thee farewell, all our affection.

For what place now is left for our affection,
Now that of purest lamp is quencht the light
Which to our darkened minds was best direction?

Now that the mind is lost of all our treasure;

Now death hath swallowed up our worldly pleasure,

We orphans made, void of all public might.

Most of the longer poems use a readily recognizable stanza, so that they are not canzoni, in the strict sense. At first one might believe there was none in the collection, but on closer examination, one lyric proved to be such a composition, although very much disguised. Printed continuously, there is no clue to stanza, after failing to determine stanzas of 13, 18, 20, 22 lines I found that each stanza consisted of twenty-six lines with a concluding stanza, a true envoi of twenty-two lines, which is unmistakable, as it begins "My song, climb thou the wind."

The form is a particularly interesting one; Italian metrists say the stanza may contain from seven to twenty lines, while Dante mentions one in twenty-one lines. The only thing one could decide by was the rhyme scheme, which, however, regularly repeats its complicated structure through all of the five strophes. Labeled "A Country Song," it is a lament of the lad Philisides. for his Myra.

The strambotto has been mentioned as having been known to

Wyatt; in fact, he translated one. In Italian, during the early part of the Seicento, Poliziano had made the form a real work of art, distinct from the ottava rima, which it became when used in continuous narrative poetry. The Italian minor poetry is unknown to me, but my opinion and feeling are that the little stanza (Arcadia, p. 338) headed "An Octave by Gynecia" may be a translation or a paraphrase from the Italian. It certainly has in it several features of that spirit and diction that characterized the imitators of Petrarch:

Like those sick folks in whom strange humors flow,
Can taste no sweets, the soure only please;

So to my mind, while passions daily grow,

Whose fiery chains upon his freedom seize,
Joys strangers seem, I cannot bide their show,
Nor brooke ought else but well-acquainted woe;
Bitter griefe tastes me best, pain is my ease;
Sicke to the death, still loving my disease.

Skilful as Sidney shows himself in the forms we have already considered, varied in form, and beautiful in thought and expression as are his sonnets, the real power of the poet is clearly revealed in his handling of the terza rima. Few in English have been able to use this metre at all well. In fact, it is hardly considered to be an English metre, and no poet composes in it spontaneously. It is the metre in which, of course, every translator of Dante would like to render the sombre Florentine, but the best renditions,- those of Cary and Longfellow,-depend on the partial success in repeating the thoughts, with the sacrifice of the music. Byron has rendered the fifth Canto ("Paolo and Francesca") in halting terza-rima with very bad rhymes. Leigh Hunt, in his Stories from the Italian Poets, has translated this and other cantos in fair terza rima, while Dugdale has attempted the whole Cantiche in the same measure, not succeeding very well. Wyatt wrote some few poems in the same metre. But the first poet, and seemingly, the only poet, who wrote well and beautifully in it, was Sidney. His lines in this measure are a proof that English can adopt any metre and make it its own, if developed by such masters. Not only are the rhymes always well chosen, perfect and clear, but the sense is unimpeded, not cramped by the length of the line, not bound by

the demands of the interlinked rhyme, but running along as easily as blank verse should. No subject is beyond successful treatment in these lines,- from rebukes to fighting dogs, to recommendations to marriage; from dialogues of praise to songs of lamentations. Strangely enough, the characteristic feminine ending of Italian is not a fitting conclusion to the line in English, and those terza rima lines of Sidney that are most pleasing to the ear are those in which the masculine ending occurs. This is due to a variety of very evident causes.

As a sample of this verse may be quoted the first speech from the dialogue of Plangus and Basilius:

Alas, how long this pilgrimage doth last!

What greater ills have now the heavens in store,
To couple coming harms with sorrows past!
Long since my voice is hoarse and throat is sore
With cries to skies and curses to the ground;
But more I plaine, I feel my woes the more.
Oh, where was first that cruel cunning found,
To frame of earth a vessel of the mind,
Where it should be to self destruction bound?
What needed so high sprites such mansions blind;
Or, wrapt in flesh, what do they here obtain
But glorious name of wretched human kind?
Balles to the stars, and thrall to Fortune's reign,
Turned from themselves, infected with their cage,
When death is feared and life is held with pain.
Like players, placed to fill a filthy stage,
Where change of thought one fool to other shows,
And all but jests, save only Sorrow's rage.
The child feels that, the man that feeling knows,
Which cries first born,-the presage of his life,
Where wit but serves to have true taste of woes,
A shop of shame, a book where blots be rife,
This body is; this body so composed,

As in itself to nourish mortal strife;

So divers be the elements disposed,

In this weak work, that it can never be

Made uniform to any state reposed.

Grief only makes his wretched state to see

(Even like a top, which naught but whipping moves)

This man, this talking beast, this walking tree.
Grief is the stone which finest judgment proves ;
For who grieves not hath but a blockish braine,
Since cause of grief no cause from life removes.

One of the things mentioned in connection with Sannazaro's Arcadia was his use of terza rima with other metres in two eclogues. Sidney does the same thing in several instances. In a

dialogue of Dicus and Dorus the metre, after seventy-two lines of terza rima, passes into five-stress lines rhymed in threes and twos (rimalmezzo) printed out full. At line 107 terza rima is again employed, and so until the end. In another poem this same change is made, later a six-line stanza (a b a b c c) is introduced; the poem finishes in terza-rima. A few lines will serve to show how Sidney uses the Italian ornament of rimalmezzo (cf. Guido Cavalcanti):

If I had thought to hear blasphemous words
My heart to swords, my soul to hell have sold
I rather would, than thus mine ears defile

With words so vile, which viler breath doth breed.
O, herds, take heed, for I a wolf have found
Who hunting round, the strongest for to kill,
His breast doth fill with earth of others' woe.

Another very interesting and well-contrasted combination is with Alexandrine couplets, in which each terzine of the terza rima is allotted to a speaker. Best of all, is the "Song of Lamentation" (Arcadia, p. 427) written in stanzas of from twelve to twenty-one lines, each ending:

Your doleful times, sweet Muses, now apply.

As is to be

There remain to be considered now the sonnets. expected, there are more examples of this form than of any other, and Sidney has used almost as many various modifications as he has written sonnets.

The few sonnets from the Arcadia that are known from being in collections are the best, because most distinctively English in both feeling and form. They are not the ones that are important in our purpose, so we will consider those that appear to be merely bizarre, while in reality they simply follow Italian models.

The so-called Petrarchism finds examples in a hundred lines of these sonnets,-"outward force and inward treason" are contrasted; there is the old dialogue of the eyes and heart recriminating each other for allowing Love to pass and dwell within; "The eyes have played so false a part," the ideas of love, die, burn; of having a store, yet wanting,—all these things occur in the sonnets as well as in many of the other poems.

Some of the forms themselves, however, are the most wonder