muse of antiquity. It has no place whatever in Homer. He stands, as it were, on a high pedestal before the world and proclaims aloud his inspiration-in fact, he fits his inspiration to the wants and wishes of his audience rather than to his own choice or likings. Such a poet will ever possess a more universal sway over the human mind, and over all time, than those who are purely subjective. In the case of Shakspeare we have the two conditions occasionally intermixed; but as a general rule he gives forth his utterances, so to speak, oratorically, and as it were from a lofty stage, with all humanity in full view before him. He is not self-absorbed, but liberal and expansive. The first instance we recognize of the high employment of this reflective quality in modern poetry is in Dante, the meaning of whose mystic unfathomable song" still remains in many of its parts a sealed book, even to critics of his own nation, who have formed different interpretations of his meaning. The question sometimes arises: Did Dante himself always fully comprehend the exact purport of his mutterings? This is a moot point; and for our part we incline to believe that the intense habit of self-communing tends, more or less, to mystification, and leaves behind either a doubtful or a double meaning. This must be regarded as an unquestionable defect, even in poetry. A poet's thoughts should not be dark, but flash like a Pharos light upon the page, unmistakable, pregnant, overpowering, in their clear illumination. In their best form they should be like the impression given by a first love at first sight-the most vivid and irresistible that ever occurs, though after-converse may develop qualities that did not then strike us. The loveliness of that impression never recurs; for things of beauty are like flowers-they only bloom once, however they may afterwards expand. So with the best effusions of the poet's mind, we hold that the effect must be instantaneous: where we hesitate to take in the idea, or have to deliberate about the meaning, it evinces rather a want of power than a potency of the mens divinior. Obscurity, therefore, must be regarded as an unquestionable defect in poetry; though there are certain minds-the German among others-which especially delight in unriddling the mysteries of subjective spirits. But the tendency is by no means confined to the Germans; for all Petrarch's sonnets are full of the same characteristics-showing a quality which in truth almost degenerates into a trick; for while the author professes to unfold to us the inner man, in reality he is most reticent, and reserves for himself the full esoteric revelation. This, we think, is hardly fair, and, to to make use of a French phrase, hardly consistent with savoir vivre: but

Ariosto never sins on this score, and therefore we love the man. In Milton's early effusions, such as Comus' and 'L'Allegro and Il Penseroso,' there is no trace of this quality; but the 'Paradise Lost' abounds in meditative self-absorption; to such an extent, that so good a critic as Dr. Johnson went so far as to pronounce it a somewhat dull book on the whole. He did not undertake to analyze the matter or to search for the cause, but we suspect it lies, not so much in the nature of the subject, as in the excess of the employment of the subjective faculty. Byron, as we have said, is by temperament and manner almost free from the charge; and where he indulges in it he has no concealments, but proclaims his subjectivity of thought with a loud voice to all mankind. Shelley is perhaps the frankest poet the world has ever seen. He is ashamed of no confession, either good or bad; hence sometimes we are delighted, and sometimes shocked. But, we may rely on it, those poets who can go out of themselves and consent to make the whole world kin, from Homer downwards, are for eternity, and will always hold the first place. We may profit much by overhearing the suppressed but fervent prayer of a good man on his knees; but assuredly we feel a higher sense of satisfaction-much more of the 6 sursum corda'-on receiving a benediction from the pulpit with uplifted hands in presence of a vast congregation of which we are permitted to form a part.

The leading characteristic in Milton's Lycidas' is his overflowing reminiscence of the Classics and their happy adaptation to some of the incidents of his college-friend's career; though we detect here and there the too nice search for gems, which, although choice in their way, do not come spontaneously, but are either more or less made use of as mosaic-work, and are the effect of study and reference. This disposition to borrow greatly developed with Milton in after time, when we find in some of his works almost literal translations from the Greek, or Greek imagery and allusions travestied. Of course we never tire of being reminded of the existence of this magnificent mine of wealth, but we are still forced to remember that it is neither original nor is the working of it entirely Milton's own. The man who most of all shook himself free from all indebtedness to classic sources, and even unconsciously rivalled them on their own ground, was Shakspeare, some of whose similes are truly Homeric as where he describes Mercury 'bestriding the lazy-pacing clouds' and mortals falling back to gaze upon him; or where the same god displays his ineffable beauty of form when he suddenly lights upon a heaven-kissing hill'; or where he designates the

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inhabitants of Olympus as the perpetual sober gods'-a phrase which is at once Homeric and Lucretian. Milton, however great his instinct of resorting to the sacred source, certainly never improved upon the classics; but, although the declaration may sound like heresy in the ears of scholars, we venture to affirm that Shakspeare hardly ever touched a classical allusion which he did not improve or beautify: and just as such Grecians as Gibbon could always read Pope's Homer' with pleasure and pronounce it to be an incomparable work, so the most recondite scholar in the world may take delight in the refreshing classicism evolved out of the seething imagination of the great dramatist. Milton is at best only one who gives us a gentle reminder of the richness of the ancient source, and no one does it better or more learnedly; but let us at least accord the praise where the praise is due. It is not overdone; but it adds nothing to his fame as a poet. Shelley too was classic in his way; and his handling of the translation of one of the pseudo-Homeric Hymns is a real masterpiece. But the classical allusions in his poetry generally are on the whole modest and unpretentious, and we would even wish to see more of them; but then his supreme faculty of transfiguration makes him wholly independent of all such imagery, and he has no difficulty in making a theogony for himself. This power of transfiguration, which seems akin to the painter's art, is seen at its highest and brightest in the 'Adonais,' and nothing can be more vivid and spirit-stirring than those descriptions in which he makes pass in long procession before us the leading genii of the hour, who almost seem to have shared the fate of the mourned one, as they rise as it were from their graves like phantoms, after 'Sorrow with her family of Sighs,' Lost Echo,' Pale Ocean,' and 'The young Spring wild with grief,' have made their sign. Here he gives the first place to the nameless Byron-'The pilgrim of Eternity' who conies.

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'Veiling all the lightnings of his song.'

But the most impressive and interesting figure in the whole picture is where Shelley introduces himself, and certainly in no very flattering terms:

But although gentle in his motions, and even fantastic in his

weeds of mourning, all stand aloof in a sort of stupor or hesitation, and feel an obvious want of confidence regarding the apparition-doubtful whether they should pity or condemn; until Shelley decides the point for them, and relieves their painful suspense

"Who art thou?'

He answered not, but with a sudden hand

Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow

Which was like Cain's or Christ's-Oh, that it should be so!' The forlorn repentant spirit of the last words almost absolves the poet from the charge of that impiety into which his search for the sublime and the memory of his sufferings had led him. It is no discredit to the Poet Laureate to say that he has never reached this high flight-never so moved or harrowed us as Shelley has done in the 'Adonais.' Shakspeare alone has possessed this electric power, as where he makes Romeo at the tomb of Juliet embrace the man whom he has just slaughtered, on discovering that both were the admirers of the same idol-brothers in affliction-names writ together in sour misfortune's book.'

When we turn again to Milton, we see how finely he runs over the whole scale of allusions, bringing in artistically all the happy memories of their union and friendship, and associating impassive nature and dumb animals in the common grief. He reaches perhaps his highest flight where he alludes to the bright promise given by the culture and genius of his friend, and points to the vanity of the pursuit of Fame, which is at once the spur to great actions and 'that last infirmity of noble minds.' But all such hopes are perishable things; for just when we are about to triumph, then

'Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears

And slits the thin-spun life!'

There is something both sweet and sad in the picture he gives of the general sorrow which overspreads the face of naturenot coming in gloom and dejection, but mourning her worshipper in her choicest attire-the cowslip hanging its pensive head, and the daffodils filling their cups with tears. Nothing is harsh, nothing complaining, in his song, except indeed the backward glance he throws at the growing superstitions of the Church- the grim wolf with privy paw' which eats up the food the great shepherd has provided. Milton's harshness, as we all know, followed not long after, when he himself underwent a second fall, when he became Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth, and when he was terribly outraged at the idea of mercy being shown to kings. The conclusion of the

'Lycidas' is by far the most hopeful of the three; for we see that there is a rehabilitation not far off Though the day-star may 'sink in his ocean bed,' yet on the morrow he will repair his drooping head,' rising brighter than ever. And so Milton, shaking off all signs of care, as if half-ashamed of his weakness, rises with a serene brow, bids us weep no more for Lycidas; for in his loss there is compensation,

'Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.'

And accordingly he cheerfully leads the way, beckoning us to 'fresh woods and pastures new.' We also think Milton has preserved the finest balance in the expression of his regret, and that his poem must be considered the most perfect in the harmony of its construction and in artistic finish, as well as the most consistent with the nature of the subject, the pure character of the subsisting friendship, and the apparent resemblance between the characters of the living and the dead. We will close this section by observing that Milton had not the advantage of having a model to work from, as in the case of his two successors, who may have had their eyes upon him. Spencer's 'Elegy of Astrophel' hardly comes within the category; and even had Milton followed it, the intimation would not perhaps have been fortunate.

Tennyson's monody obviously suffers from its want of connection and continuity, being portioned off into separate stanzas. We cannot even take upon us to say, that it was all written at the same time. Its desultory pauses bear evidence to the contrary; and no one for a moment will doubt that the Introductory Stanzas, dated 1849, sixteen years after the death of his friend, are much freer in their flow, and show a greater mastery over the language, than those which follow. The subsequent stanzas seem like jottings written down, as fitful memories and thickcoming fancies rose upon him. The In Memoriam' certainly marks a new departure in his style and manner of writing. The ideas may be nearly the same, but the treatment is different. He has here renounced the abandon of his nonage, and resolves to be for the future more reticent and involved. Perhaps the sneers of some inconsiderate critics, and the jealousy of one author of a wide reputation in imaginative prose composition, may have impelled him in this direction; but we are inclined to think it was an unfortunate choice, and that Tennyson's moral courage-if he really did yield to the pressureshould have risen above all this. Henceforth, no recurrence