remaining, as far as possible, a contented outlaw from the domain of accurate periodic construction, proceeds in the main from want of intellectual Truthfulness. An analysis of Wordsworth's style as compared with that of most modern poets would be absolutely necessary for a full illustration of that Truthfulness which belongs to his poetry; but it would require an essay in itself. The general plainness of that style is a common complaint with those whose taste has been vitiated by the over-flavoured poetry common in recent times; but it was often with the poet a matter of deliberate choice, as is proved by the richness and majesty of his language on suitable occasions, and by the fact that hardly any poetry abounds so largely in memorable lines. The plainness of Wordsworth's style results from the greatness of his thoughts, and his contempt for the tricks of literature.

V

HENRY TAYLOR'S POETRY

PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE

PART I

THE present century has been a great age of English poetry-greater unquestionably than any which preceded it, except the Elizabethan. But there is one great difference between the Elizabethan poetry and that of the nineteenth century. Our poets of the sixteenth century in the main bore to each other a considerable resemblance,-not in detail, but in spirit. The English poetry of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, has unconsciously divided itself into different schools, as remote from each other as were those of Italian painting.

One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with Mr. Taylor's poetry is the small degree in which it can be classed with any of those schools. Like Wordsworth's poetry, it is thoughtful in an unusual degree; but its thoughtfulness is never abstract or metaphysical, still less mystical. In moral gravity it has some affinity with Southey's poetry; in

scholarly and periodic construction of sentences, with Shelley's; in precision of form and compactness of diction, with Landor's. But in the case of these poets the resemblance to Mr. Taylor is far less than the dissimilitude; while with most of the recent poets he stands in striking contrast. There exists, it is true,

one characteristic in common between the authors of Childe Harold and of Philip van Artevelde: in each case there is a strongly-marked ideal of human character, with which the author is plainly in sympathy, and with which he has a singular power of making men sympathise. But in all else they are absolutely opposed to each other. Lord Byron's ideal is largely that of a man wielded by his passions, and inspired but by his wrongs; one whose strength, like that of a projectile, is not a strength inherent in him, but one to which he is subjected. The ideal exhibited in Philip van Artevelde, while equally of this world, is a nobler conception. It is that of one whose passions are under the control of the intellect and moral will, however little these last are themselves ruled by a divine principle. But here the analogy ends. Lord Byron constantly delineates the same ideal in his various works; a proof that, despite the great ability of his dramas, his genius was not dramatic. Mr. Taylor's ideal may be found adumbrated in Isaac Comnenus, his earliest drama, while it is completely delineated in Philip van Artevelde; but in the latter work, and still more in his two later dramas, characters cast in the most different moulds are illustrated with

almost equal power. His union of vigour with classic grace is his chief characteristic.

Mr. Taylor's poetry is pre-eminently that of action, as Lord Byron's is that of passion; or rather, it includes action as well as passion, thus corresponding with Milton's definition of tragic poetry as "high actions and high passions best describing." It is this peculiarity which has made him succeed in the drama which most of our modern poets have attempted, but almost all unsuccessfully.

Wordsworth wrote a play in his youth which he published in his old age: Coleridge wrote two; but, though they bear the impress of genius, we feel in reading them that the author was not in natural sympathy with action, and that it was to him a dramatic necessity, not a thing to be valued for its own sake. He could analyse what lay still, not exhibit the fleeting. His characters are metaphysical conceptions, worked out with a conscious exercise of the philosophic faculty, not with that spontaneous energy and instinctive felicity which belongs to the genius essentially dramatic.

We should have felt certain that Scott could have excelled in the drama had he not made the attempt and failed. He could both conceive character and compose a story; but he lacked apparently the fiery intensity of the drama, and though a true poet, he is dramatic chiefly in his novels while in his poems he tends more to the Romantic Epic. Landor has written dramas and numerous dramatic scenes. They

abound in passages of high thought and refined sentiment; and they are characterised, now by the imperious eloquence, now by the antique majesty of that great writer. Yet they are not dramatic; the plot halts, as if the author had not thought it worth his pains to elaborate it; the fact being that where a genuine sympathy with dramatic action exists, the instinct of art forces the dramatist to take pains with the plot—which a celebrated author once confessed that "he always left a good deal to Providence."

As an exception to the undramatic character of modern English genius, the Cenci of Shelley may be named. An extraordinary vigour and skill are shown in the treatment of a subject so forbidding as to be unfit for our times, despite the precedents, which are but partially such, of Pagan Greece. Shelley in this work remarkably exhibits the faculty of self-control that belongs to genius. On all other occasions his imagination not merely dealt largely with metaphor and image, but lived in a world of such. He piles image upon image, and the object he describes is sometimes reflected from so many different mirrors that the dazzled reader walks in a sphere where it is hard to distinguish between substance and semblance. It was only by putting an absolute restraint upon himself that he could even hope to write a drama; and in the whole of the Cenci there is but one passage that can be called figurative. The imagination selfsubjected to this restraint became strengthened for severer toils than usual, and moulded the work into a