most every combination of rhymes might be found, verses were
occasionally lengthened or shortened, and the number of lines in the
poem, though generally fourteen, showed considerable variation.

The sonnet-sequence was also a suggestion from Italy, a literary fashion
introduced by Sir Philip Sidney, in his _Astrophel and Stella_, written
soon after 1580, but not published till 1591. In a sonnet-cycle Sidney
recorded his love and sorrow, and Spenser took up the strain with his
story of love and joy. Grouped about these, and following in their wake,
a number of poets, before the decade was over, turned this Elizabethan
"toy" to their purpose in their various self-revealings, producing a
group of sonnet-cycles more or less Italianate in form or thought, more
or less experimental, more or less poetical, more or less the expression
of a real passion. For while the form of the sonnet was modified by
metrical traditions and habits, the content also was strongly
influenced, not to say restricted, by certain conventions of thought
considered at the time appropriate to the poetic attitude. The passion
for classic colour in the poetic world, which had inspired and
disciplined English genius in the sixties and seventies, was rather
nourished than repressed when in the eighties Spenser's _Shepherd's
Calendar_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_ made the pastoral imagery a necessity.
Cupid and Diana were made very much at home in the golden world of the
renaissance Arcadia, and the sonneteer singing the praises of his
mistress's eyebrow was not far removed from the lovelorn shepherd of the
plains.

It may reasonably be expected that in any sonnet-cycle there will be
found many sonnets in praise of the loved one's beauty, many lamenting
her hardness of heart; all the wonders of heaven and earth will be
catalogued to find comparisons for her loveliness; the river by which
she dwells will be more pleasant than all other rivers in the world, a
list of them being appended in proof; the thoughts of night-time, when
the lover bemoans himself and his rejected state, or dreams of happy
love, will be dwelt upon; oblivious sleep and the wan-faced moon will be
invoked, and death will be called upon for respite. Love and the praises
of the loved one was the theme. On this old but ever new refrain the
sonneteer devised his descant, trilling joyously on oaten pipe in praise
of Delia or Phyllis, Coelia, Caelica, Aurora, or Castara.

But this melody and descant