"Sweet sorrow, and sweet joy, and then sweet pain, Sweet torture, zephyr, fire, and next sweet wounds; Sweet word, which in my ear most sweetly sounds, Sweet anger, and sweet rage, and sweet disdain." The sonnet in the use of Petrarch did not attain its highest dignity, for it was wholly appropriated to the praise of Laura, his love for whom whether real or fictitious has not yet been settled by the literary world. He died in 1374, aged 70.――The eminent English poet Spenser followed him after an interval of more than 200 years dying in 1598: he published 87 sonnets. Then Shakespeare, who died in 1616, published 154 sonnets; all of which by these two poets are devoted to love, but with a change of the Italian rhyme and form. The following shows the sonnet's structure by _Spenser_. "Men call you fair, and you do credit it, For that your self ye daily such do see, But the true fair, that is, the gentle wit And virtuous mind is much more prais'd of me; For all the rest, however fair it be, Shall turn to naught, and lose that glorious hue; But only that is permanent and free From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensew: That is true beauty; that doth argue you To be divine, and born of heav'nly seed, Deriv'd from that fair Spirit from whom all true And perfect beauty did at first proceed: He only fair, and what he fair hath made; All other fair, like flow'rs, untimely fade." It will be observed, that the last couplet is always a rhyme, which is not the fixed rule of Petrarch; and then he has changed the places of the rhymes and confused them by abolishing the stanzas. The following is a sonnet of _Shakespeare_. "O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odor which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses; Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly, When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: But for their virtue only is their show; They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth; When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth." Here also is an injurious change in the sonnet of Petrarch: the last couplet is always a rhyme, and it is separated in print from the 12 lines, which are very simple, composing three stanzas of distinct, alternate rhymes, much easier to compose than Spenser's or the Italian.