“The Sonnet is certainly the most difficult species of poetic composition; but difficulty, well subdued, is excellence. Mrs. Smith says she has been told that the regular Sonnet suits not the nature or genius of our language. Surely this assertion cannot be demonstrated, and therefore was not worth attention. “Out of eighteen English Sonnets, written by Milton, four are bad. The rest, though they are not free from certain hardnesses, have a pathos and greatness in their simplicity, sufficient to endear the legitimate Sonnet to every Reader of just taste. They possess a _characteristic_ grace, which can never belong to three elegiac stanzas, closing with a couplet.” I have pleasure in quoting the preceding Dissertation on the SONNET, conscious that there is no order of Verse, upon which so much erroneous opinion has gone forth, and of whose beauties the merely common Reader is so insensible. But when the Author of this just Treatise says of the assertion, that the legitimate Sonnet suits not our language, “its truth cannot be demonstrated,” he should perhaps rather have observed, that its fallacy is proved by the great number of beautiful legitimate Sonnets, which adorn our National Poetry, not only by Milton, but by many of our _modern_ Poets. Of the four of Milton's, justly disapproved by Mr. White, there is one evidently a _burlesque_, written in sport. It begins, “A book was writ of late, call'd Tetrachordon.” Doctor Johnson has the disingenuousness, in his Folio Dictionary, under the word SONNET, to cite _that_ Sonnet at full length, as a specimen of Milton's style in this kind of Poetry. Johnson disliked Sonnets, and he equally disliked Blank Verse, and Odes. It is in vain to combat the prejudice of splenetic aversion. The Sonnet is an highly valuable species of Verse; the best vehicle for a single detached thought, an elevated, or a tender sentiment, and for a succinct description. The compositions of that order now before the Reader, ensued from time to time, as various circumstances impressed the heart, or the imagination of their Author, and as the aweful, or lovely scenes of Nature, arrested, or allured her eye. TO MISS SEWARD, ON READING HER CENTENARY OF SONNETS. Dear are the forceful energies of Song, For they do swell the spring-tide of the heart With rosier currents, and impel along The life-blood freely:--O! they can impart Raptures ne'er dreamt of by the sordid throng Who barter human feeling at the mart Of pamper'd selfishness, and thus do wrong Imperial Nature of her prime desert.-- SEWARD! _thy_ strains, beyond the critic-praise Which may to arduous skill its meed assign, Can the pure sympathies of _spirit_ raise To bright Imagination's throne divine; And proudly triumph, with a generous strife, O'er all the “flat realities of life.” High Street, Marybone, Feb. 1, 1799. T. PARK. VERSES BY THE REV. H. F. CAREY, ON READING THE FOLLOWING PARAPHRASES.