The sonnets of _Sidney_, which appeared in 1591 under the title of _Astrophel and Stella_, exhibit a variety of metrical arrangement; a few which rival, and several which nearly approach, the most strict Petrarcan form. The _octant_ in Sidney is often perfectly correct, while the _sextant_ presents us with the structure which, though not very common in Italian, has been, since his time, adopted more frequently than any other by our own poets; that is, where the first line and the third, the second and fourth, the fifth and sixth, rhime together; with this difference, however, that the moderns, in their _division_ of the sextant, have more usually followed the example of Surrey just quoted, in forming their minor system of a quatrain and a couplet, while Sidney more correctly distributes it into _terzette_. On this arrangement is by far the greater portion of Sidney's sonnets constructed; but the most pleasing of his metrical forms, and which has the merit too of being built after the Italian cast, consists in the _Octant_, of two tetrachords of disjunct alternate rhime, the last line of the first stanza rhiming to the first of the second; and in the _Sextant_, of a structure in which the first and second, the fourth and fifth, and the third and sixth verses rhime. Thus has he formed the following exquisite sonnet, which will afford no inaccurate idea of his powers in this province of the art:— "O kisse, which doest those ruddie gemmes impart, Or gemmes, or fruits of new-found Paradise, Breathing all blisse and sweetning to the heart, Teaching dumbe lips a nobler exercise. O kisse, which soules, even soules, together tyes By linkes of Love, and only Nature's art: How faine would I paint thee to all men's eyes, Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part. But she forbids; with blushing words, she sayes, She builds her fame on higer-seated praise: But my heart burnes, I cannot silent be. Then since, deare life, you faine would have me peace, And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease, Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me." Son. 81. In 1592, _Daniel_ produced his _Delia_, including fifty-seven sonnets, of which only two follow the Italian standard; the remainder consisting of three elegiac stanzas and a closing couplet. They display many beauties, and, being a model of easy imitation, have met with numerous copyists.