first consequence to make the sense as plain as possible to the reader at the first glance, while rhyme makes itself apparent to ear and eye, however printed. So jealous was DANTE; so fearful lest the train of his thoughts might escape, or be misapprehended by the student of his Sonnets; that in the Vita Nuova, as I have before remarked, he follows up each poem by a minute analysis and division of its contents; of which the following (the analysis of the last Sonnet) may stand for a specimen.

"This Sonnet comprises five parts. In the first, I tell whither my thought goeth, naming the place by the name of one of its effects. In the second, I say wherefore it goeth up, and who makes it go thus. In the third, 1 tell what it saw, namely, a lady honoured. And I then call it a" Pilgrim Spirit," because it goes up spiritually, and like a pilgrim who is out of his known country. In the fourth, I say how the spirit sees her such (that is, in such quality) that I cannot understand her; that is to say, my thought rises into the quality of her in a degree that my intellect cannot comprehend, seeing that our intellect is, towards those blessed souls, like our eye weak against the sun; and this the Philosopher says in the Second of the Metaphysics. In the fifth, I say that, although I cannot see there whither my thought carries me—that is, to her admirable essenceI at least understand this, namely, that it is a thought of my lady, because I often hear her name therein. And, at the end of this fifth part, I say, "Ladies mine," to show that they are ladies to whom I speak. The second part begins, "A new perception;" the third, "When it hath reached;" the fourth, It sees her such;" the fifth, " And yet I know." It might be divided yet more nicely, and

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made yet clearer; but this division may pass, and therefore I stay not to divide it further."

One word, before concluding, upon the quantity of quotations, and especially classical quotations, with which these pages abound. It is hoped that the nature and locality of the subject,-'ALMA MATER’— and of the audience whom alone I can hope to secure, will sufficiently justify what might otherwise be set down to pedantry or affectation. The passages, it is conceived, are apt, and for the most part but little hackneyed: they are certainly of no small intrinsic worth and beauty in themselves. Some may think that I should have done better, had I thrown all the quotations into a body of notes at the end of the volume; but I have been unwilling to separate the Sonnets from their illustrations, because they serve to assist that suggestiveness which it is one of the duties of the Sonnets to create. It is but seldom that the quotations have suggested the Sonnet; they have been mostly jotted down from memory, or as they struck me in the course of reading. They will repay the perusal of the scholar, whatever may be the value of the Sonnets.

If the Sonnets have been justly compared to miniatures, may not my illustrations be looked upon as their setting?