But to return to the sonnet itself. Landor, to whom as to Thoreau, Milton was the greatest English poet, thought that the blind Puritan had made good his offence against the Psalms of David, by the sonnet on the slaughtered saints of Piedmont. “Milton,” he says, “was never half so wicked a regicide as when he lifted up his hand and smote King David. He has atoned for it, however, by composing a magnificent psalm of his own, in the form of a sonnet. There are others in Milton comparable to it, but none elsewhere.” And then the wilful critic goes on to say, putting his words into the mouth of Porson: “In the poems of Shakespeare, which are printed as sonnets, there is sometimes a singular strength and intensity of thought, with little of that imagination which was afterward to raise him highest in the universe of poetry. Even the interest we take in the private life of this miraculous man, cannot keep the volume in our hands long together. We acknowledge great power, but we experience great weariness. Were I a poet, I would much rather have written the ‘Allegro,’ or the ‘Penseroso’ than all those.” Monstrous as this comment seems to us, there is a certain truth in it, the sonnet in large quantities always producing weariness; for which reason, as I suppose, Dante interspersed his love sonnets in the “Vita Nuova” and the “Convito,” with canzonets and ballads. His commentaries--often of a singular eloquence--also serve as a relief to the formal verse, as his melodious Tuscan lines do to the formality of his poetical metaphysics. A person, says Landor, “lately tried to persuade me that he is never so highly poetical, as when he is deeply metaphysical. He then quoted fourteen German poets of the first order, and expressed his compassion for Æschylus and Homer.” Dante’s metaphysics were of a higher cast, and so interfused with love and fair ladies, that they only weary us with a certain perplexity as to where are the limits of courtship and of logic. Mr. Alcott also is quaintly metaphysical in Dante’s fashion; like the sad old Florentine, but with a more cheerful spirit, he addresses himself “To every captive soul and gentle heart,” (A ciascun alma presa e gentil core,) and would fain inquire of those who go on a pilgrimage of Love (O voi che per la via d’Amor passate) and of the fair ladies who have learned love at first hand (Donne che avete intelletto d’amore.) His doctrine is that of the wise man whom Dante quotes and approves in the “Vita Nuova,”-- “One and the same are love and the gentle heart.” (Amor e’ l cor gentil sono una cosa.) Other Americans have written sonnets in this ancient faith,--as he, who thus (in that happy season so aptly described by Mr. Alcott, as “Youth’s glad morning when the rising East Glows golden with assurance of success, And life itself’s a rare continual feast, Enjoyed the more if meditated less,”) addressed his own _cor gentil_:--