of Casti's Giuli Tre may wonder that he did not close his book with a sonnet of the species before-mentioned, called the sonnet with a tail. It is one commencing with the usual fourteen lines, but possessing an unbounded privilege of adding to their number; so that the poet might have dismissed his book into space, like a paper-kite, furnished with a tail beyond that of a comet. Of this tailed species of sonnet, more anon. follows the sample of Casti :

Ben cento volte ho replicato a te

Questa istessa infallibil verità,

Che a conto mio da certo tempo in quà

La razza de' quattrini si perdè.

Tu, non ostante, vieni intorno a me
Con insoffribile importunità,
E per quei maledetti Giuli Tre
Mi perseguiti senza carità.

Forse in disperazion ridur mi vuo',

Ond' io m' appicchi, e vuoi vedermi in giù
Pender col laccio al collo? Oh questo no.
Risolverommi a non pagarti più,

E in guisa tal te disperar farò,
E vo' piuttosto che ti appicchi tu.

I've said forever, and again I say,

And it's a truth as plain as truth can be,
That from a certain period to this day
Pence are a family quite extinct with me.
And yet you still pursue me, and waylay,
With your insufferable importunity,
And for those d-d infernal Giuli Tre
Haunt me without remorse or decency.
Perhaps you think that you'll torment me so,

You'll make me hang myself? You wish to say,
You saw me sus. per coll. —No, Giuli, no.

The fact is, I'll determine not to pay,

And drive you, Giuli, to a state so low,

That you shall hang yourself, and I be gay.

Here

Of the Tailed Sonnet, or sonnet with a coda, Englandhas been in possession of a specimen for these two hundred years, without knowing it. The author is no less a person than Milton, and the sonnet has received an abundance of notes from his editors, though, strange to say, not one of those gentlemen, albeit they included readers of Italian, knew what it was. They all put it under the head, not of his Sonnets, but of his Miscellaneous Poems. Warton, it is true, speaks of it as forming an "irregular sonnet"; but this only shows that he was not aware of its being a regular one; for such, of its kind, it is. It is a comic sonnet after the regular Italian fashion, in all its forms; that is to say, a composition consisting of fourteen lines of the usual structure, followed by a coda or tail, of one or more joints of eight syllables rhyming with its precursor, and two others of the customary length rhyming by themselves. Generally the tail is shorter than the body; sometimes, as before observed, much longer. I have a comic sonnet of Berni's now before me, with a tail extending beyond a couple of pages.

The inventor of this class of sonnets was moved by a genuine comic impulse. Humor is by its nature overflowing. The writer felt a disposition to run out of bounds; the bounds themselves produced a temptation to break them; the very restriction thus became a warrant for the license; and the form of the grave sonnet was preserved, in order to enhance the gayety of its violation.

It is curious, that the solemn and stately Milton should have been the first English writer to introduce a comic stranger to his countrymen. The stranger how

ever, it must be owned, has become unusually solemn in his company. He jests; but his jest is too fierce and bitter to have a comic impression. The sonnet is the famous attack on the Presbyterians of the Long Parliament, beginning

"Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord.”

The present book would have contained it; but as ladies, it is hoped, as well as gentlemen, will read the book, and the sonnet of the indignant poet contains a word, which however proper for him to utter in his day, and with the warrant of his indignation, is no longer admitted into good company, the effusion has been left out. A similar objection, oddly enough, applies to the only other sonnet of the kind in our language. It contains a phrase equally warrantable on the writer's part, yet equally difficult to read aloud.* Another stately poet, Tasso, has a comic sonnet of this description on

* An oath, to wit, of an honest seaman, who thinks that the eyes of Italians have no right to be saved, if they look with scorn on the fogs of his native country. The sonnet, which is full of humor, is addressed to a Fog. It appeared in the first volume of Bentley's Miscellany, page 371 ; and was written by my lamented young friend Egerton Webbe, whose wit, scholarship, and rare powers of reflection, would have rendered him one of the ornaments of the nation. Mr. Webbe was as thorough a gentleman in his own language as in every other respect; but when describing characters, he thought it incumbent on him, like Smollett and others, to omit nothing characteristic that pens were considered privileged to repeat.

[On reflection, I have put this sonnet in these volumes, leaving a space to be filled up, or otherwise, by the reader with words of his own, according to his notions of propriety. Ladies themselves, or their brothers for them, can easily find some three monosyllables as innocent in their eyes as the originals are in those of the seaman.]

Cats. At least, he intends it to be comic; and it would have been particularly appropriate for insertion in this part of the Essay, because it closes with an analogy between the tails of cats and the tails of sonnets. But it is too poor; especially in comparison with his other and famous sonnet to Cats. The only other specimens of the Tailed Comic Sonnet, to which I can refer at present, with one exception, are those in the collection of poems called the Parnaso Italiano, and are chiefly the production of Berni, the greatest Italian master of burlesque ; but they are too full of local and personal allusion to interest the general reader, — indeed, are not thoroughly intelligible to anybody without the help of notes; and the editor of that work, like too many editors of his nation, had an absurd habit of seldom giving any headings to what he selected. You read sonnet after sonnet, and ode after ode, without knowing the persons to whom they are addressed, or, often, what they are about. therefore take the specimen furnished me by the same critical work, in which I found the sonnet on Varchi. It is the production of Grazzini the novelist; and is one of those caricatures of a personal discomfort, which, having a foundation in truth, please us the more, the more they are exaggerated by the animal spirits, which thus enable us to bear the annoyance.

Io vo farvi saper, caro Bettino,

Com' io sto, e qual è la vita mia :
La febbre credo averla tutta via,
E non posso patir nè pan, nè vino :
Non vo' del corpo punto, ne miccino.
La notte poi, quando dormir vorria,
Sento far le zanzare armeggeria,
E le mie gote sono il Saracino.

Altre ne l' aria si stan borbottando
Un certo orribil suon, pien di terrore,
Che farebbe paura al Conte Orlando.
Altre dipoi ne vengono a furore

Inverso il viso mio, forte ronzando ;
Mi dan trafitte che ne vanno al cuore ;
Io per l' aspro dolore,

E per farne vendetta, con gran furia
Mi batto il ceffo, e fommi doppia ingiuria ;
Elle tornano a furia,
Trafiggendomi più di mano in mano,
Ed io mi dò ceffate da marrano.

E questo giuoco strano

Mi convien far per fino a lo mattino;
Che venir possa il canchero a Bronzino.

"Dear Benedetto,

not to let you pine

For want of news of me, this comes to say,
My fever grows upon me day by day,

And bread I can as little bear as wine;
Judge how I must detest your turkey and chine.
At night, when I would sleep, to my dismay
I hear the gnats arming them for the fray,
And all they burn for, are these cheeks of mine.
Dread note of preparation! hideous hum!

*

First comes in air an awful mustering sound, Fit to have scared Orlando from his blast; Then, raging, upon eyes, nose, mouth, they come, Each trumping louder betwixt wound and wound, Setting my wits and very soul aghast.

Fairly made mad at last,

I start up in the bed, and to the rout

Put them too well, by cuffing my own snout
They, madder, turn about,

And rage as if they said, 'You rout us! - Never.'

I sit on, cuffing myself worse than ever :

* When he blew his horn in Roncesvalles.