luminous meteors of criticism, pungent epigrams at times. But the whole mass is, what Carlyle might have called "fuliginous." The work evolved is confused by blotting and re-blotting, by interpolated sentences, by eddyings around the subject, by superfetation of thoughts. Grammatically, Mr. Noel's method of composition reveals itself in a profuse employment of qualifying terms-" yet," "though," "however," "still," and so forth, recurring with bewildering frequency in the same paragraph, and indicating the oscillation of an intellect engaged in working out its thought on paper, instead of presenting clean-cut thought in final form or in a succession of modulated propositions. Something of the same incoherence, very perceptible in "Behind the Veil," survived to the last in his poetic work; and it is perhaps the reason why this has not obtained those suffrages of cultured people and that sympathy of the majority, which its material deserves. There is, besides, a noticeable pre-occupation with things which do not signify in criticism; the opinions of supposed detractors and antagonists, the views of schools with whom the writer disagrees, of people whose ways of thinking and feeling he does not appreciate; mere scoriæ and rubble, spouted forth from his Vesuvian nature to the detriment of sterling truths and lucid observations. Otherwise, his attitude towards men and art and literature is invariably noble, generous, high-minded. Differ as we may from him in single points of critical judgment, we cannot fail to feel ourselves in contact with a large and liberal nature. What is more, the vital atmosphere of philosophic thought breathes through his writing. We commune, not with a pedant or mere literary student, but with a man who has reflected profoundly and felt keenly about life, humanity, the universe. In Mr. Noel's criticism, art of any sort is always correlated to that from which art springs, which art attempts to represent, the underlying forces of the world, the spirituality inherent in it and in us, the reality which dwells and burns behind the veil of appearances and tangibilities, which gives to us and things around us permanent value in the universal scheme. This brings me to speak of Mr. Noel as a philosopher. The best of his prose-writings, in my opinion, are his contributions to philosophical speculation, not yet collected into volumes, but scattered through periodicals. In these essays he cast aside the polemical flippancy, and surmounted the stylistic incoherence, which I have indicated as blemishes upon his literary criticism. I will not say that he was a systematic thinker. But he took the subject to be dealt with in a serious spirit, and tackled the problems it presents with real cerebral energy. Two essays on Schopenhauer, published in the Academy, might be cited as excellent specimens of his analytical and argumentative faculty. As a theorist, Mr. Noel belongs to the school of transcendental idealism; but this, in him, is so modified by the poet's vivid sense of nature, by the man's keen sympathy with suffering humanity, by vehement passions, and by the prevailing instinct that, for us at least, the concrete is the only real-idealism, I repeat, is so modified in Mr. Noel by qualities which the pure logician and the thinker rarely possess, that it assumes a form of mysticism, difficult to seize, elusive, incapable of presentation in a paragraph or even in a treatise. His philosophy is more a religion, an enthusiasm, than an organised scheme of speculation. This gives it a peculiar value at the present time, when so-called materialism has abundantly declared itself in systems, which ignore as insoluble the problems offered by the greatest fact apparent to us, the soul. Such thought too lends itself better to poetical than to prose utterance; and by right of this, then, Mr. Noel ranks as the first philosophical poet of our times in England. In artistic quality Mr. Noel's work steadily improved, until it culminated in "A Modern Faust." His blank verse strengthened; his lyrics grew in sweetness and fluidity; his command of metre developed in various directions. To a great extent also, he got rid of those awkward grammatical constructions and uncouth phrases, which are a stumbling-block to educated sensibilities. He tried many species of composition, but not with equal success. He does not seem to me to have possessed the dramatic gift, and for this reason "The House of Ravensburg" must be considered a comparative failure. Satire, in the strict sense of that word, was not his forte, although there are powerful passages of satirical description in "The Red Flag," "A Song of Civilisation," and "A Modern Faust." His real strength consists in the combination of full sensuous feeling for the material world with an ever-present sense of the spirit informing it and bringing all its products into vital harmony. This enabled him to paint such pictures of voluptuous beauty and concrete form as "Ganymede," "The Nymph and the Boy," The Triumph of Bacchus"; and at the same time to chant the mysteries of life and the universe or in "Pan," "The Dweller in Two Worlds," "A Vision of the Desert," and "A Modern Faust." In my anxiety to present a tolerably complete image of Mr. Noel's genius in its scope and compass, I have left myself no room for minute criticism. Those who care to study my expressed opinions, will find them in three reviews of "Beatrice," "The Red Flag," and "A Modern Faust" (Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 9, 1869; Academy, Jan. 1, 1873, and Jan. 19, 1889). But, what is far more important, Mr. Noel's books lie open to the public, and deserve attentive study. He is not a poet who can be appreciated in specimens and extracts. It is the volume, matter, variety of his work-not merely its finish, its occasional beauties, or its verbal felicitieswhich give him a considerable place in English litera ture. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. Mr. John Addington Symonds died at Rome on the 19th of April, 1893, and the Hon. Roden Noel died at Mayence, in Germany, on the 26th of May, 1894. The above article was written in 1890, during the lifetime of the poet. A few changes of tense have been made.-ED. A VISION OF THE DESERT. HON. RODEN NOEL METHOUGHT I saw the morning bloom A solemn wilderness illume, Desert sand and empty air: Yet in a moment I was aware Of One who grew from forth the East, It swung with silent, equal stride, An ample mantle did enshroud, Save where through stormlike rifts there came Then I beheld how on his arm |