own age.

The chief masters of former centuries have been accepted, with all their faults. It therefore requires no great effort of belief on our part, to stand up for them; but a genuine and discerning quality of belief surely is required, before we can heartily recognize and honestly stand up for the modern poets, when they are strong and deserving of high praise. And it would be well if in making such confession of faith, we could banish the reservation that, however good a modern poet may be, he is always at every point to be rated below Shakespeare or Milton, for example. Do we fear that, by adding to the figures in our pantheon, we shall cheapen its character, or lower the value of the laudation so long offered to the more eminent of the demigods? For my part, when I am moved to rate Tennyson's Bugle Song as high as any of Shakespeare's lyrics, with a distinct note besides, which perhaps Shakespeare could not have struck; or when I think one may see in Robert Browning a creative dramatic nature large and noble as Shakespeare's, as teeming with rich thought and often as superb in utterance, but different and new;-in these instances, I say, I do not feel that Shakespeare's glory is any way dimmed or impugned. Rather, it is augmented; and Shakespeare, with these later masters, is lifted to a still higher plane; because, in the light of the recent achievement, that human genius which they all represent is seen to be manifold, wonderful, inexhaustibly productive.

In this imperatively scientific nineteenth century, the mere disciple of belles-lettres finds only space enough to crawl around the edge of the earth, which is almost entirely covered and commanded by the Scientific Investigator's microscope. Happy, if he should not find himself glued to a strip of glass and placed under the scrutiny of that dread instrument of vision! For the poet is the only atom or insect which the exploring lens does not magnify. The scientific investigator treats the yellow - fever germ or the cholera microbe with

impressive respect, and enlarges its appearance artificially, that he may get a good sight of it. But without any artificial aid whatever, he looks upon the poet and, by the simple shrinking power of contempt, diminishes him to an imperceptible point. From Professor Huxley to Sir Lyon Playfair, apparently most of the chief priests of the new hierarchy agree that pure literature not only is unworthy of analysis, but ought to be discouraged. And, above all, should poetry be condemned. But why is it that, when we must have a scientific theory about everything else, and trace the evolution of human thought in all other modes and directions, we do not take the trouble to discover any scientific law of poetry?

Possibly it is because science is not equal to the task. Poetry can take up natural science in the hollow of its hand, examine it, estimate it—nay, is often able to forerun experiment and give the first hint of the greatest theories or discoveries to which science afterwards more methodically lays claim. But science is as yet quite unable to account for poetry. The imagination which prompts all forward and farseeing movements of scientific research partakes, in the first place, of the poetic quality. But the purely scientific method of thought never can generate a poem. Which ought we to place foremost-the active, directing, creating impulse of imagination, or the passive one of systematic scrutiny?

The suggestion is here made humbly, that if we are ever to understand scientifically the meaning and function of poetry, we must begin by abolishing superstitions. One of these superstitions is, that we must make unreasoning reference of all new work to the standard of supposed flawless examples produced in the past. The rational development of poetry cannot be a climbing backward along the slope that leads to some peak far behind us. No; it is a march forward; or, we may say, a ceaseless growth, which is just as important to us in its latest ramification or upward springing, as in its older trunk and roots. Writers are continually forced

"

back into contrast with the old models, and advised to pattern their own work by them. The moment they do this-as in the frankly avowed case of Matthew Arnold-critics say: 'How much better it would have been if you had simply trusted to yourself, followed your native inspiration, expressed things in an independent, inartificial way!" Thus the counsellors go backward and forward on one line, but never arrive anywhere. They guide us to no real progress. Nor is it enough that we have a species of "scientific" criticism introduced by M. Taine. This touches merely the surface. It is not enough, that we should concern ourselves with the moment or the milieu-the influences affecting literature at various epochs. True scientific criticism will go into the heart and soul of the matter, and teach us how to discern and feel the genuine, interior quality of living poets.

This is the brief of my argument; to which I will add only what Mr. Stedman has so well said, in his thoughtful and interesting volume on The Victorian Poets: "The fact that a man is not yet haloed with the light that comes, when in death or hoary age, he recalls the past, need not debar him from full recognition. A critic must be quick to estimate the present."

It is now time to review the witnesses, and let them give their evidence.

II.

They number threescore and ten, and their evidence is given in something like three hundred poems. The choice of the pieces by which they prefer to be represented is in some cases unexpected, perhaps. But, in a privileged ramble through the studios, when portfolios are opened and sketches brought forth; and when the pictures that turn their faces bashfully to the wall are persuaded out of their hiding, to give us a silent welcome; it is often the rapid ébauche in black and white, or a confused mass of lines and color in a

study, or some small, unpretending work carefully elaborated, which proves to be the artist's favorite. A collection of poems by many hands has a certain resemblance to an exhibition of pictures; and, according to the way in which they are placed together, they may be made to yield various effects or give a new impression. This is one of the uses of a collection; and since no collection can be made that will satisfy all persons, it is pleasant to know that we have here one which ought at least to satisfy the poets themselves. They make a reception for us, in their studies; they take down a volume from the shelf, or extract an old magazine from its coign of oblivion-as the painter turns his picture from the walland read us a few of the poems they would like us to hear.

We find in these a reflex of nearly all the characteristic moods of daily life; we find the airy forms of elusive thoughts, so delicately netted in the web of language, that they seem to be felt by the eye as the sight of a solid body. We find ballads, idyls, narratives stirring, pathetic, elevating; and things described that exist only to the imagination, but by it are made true and real-such as Aldrich's "Identity," or Matthew Arnold's "Forsaken Merman." There is much penetrating philosophy, also, subtle and terse, drawn out in a single line-like a thread of gossamer, which yet may reflect all the glory of a sunbeam-and drawn with the certainty that is possible only to poetic insight. There are many exquisite verses pencilling the page with colors of the outer world which we call nature. variety of subject is a noticeable fact of the book, when one considers the much plaint we commonly hear made as to a prevailing dearth of themes. One of the contributors exclaimed in "A Song Before Singing," published anonymously a few years since :

"Give me a theme to sing in man's behoof,

As full of purpose as my faith, O God!-
Red with our life-blood, firm in warp and woof,
A homely product of the common sod.

shapes and

Indeed, the

"Or else let silence and primeval night

Reign, as God reigned within his holy dark,
Eons on eons till he called the light,

And the first poet wakened with the lark."

Yet he himself is represented in the volume by the "Countess Laura," one of the noblest poems, of its length, that America or even England has given us within a generation. It is as natural to long for a great theme, as is it for a river to find a channel; but the river makes music as it goes; and so our poets, though their desire may not always be fully gratified, roll forth an abundant stream of song, with no lack of subjects which are valuable to us in various ways.

De Quincey, in his essay on Wordsworth, concluded that, since the advent of that master, meditative poetry must have a stronger hold than any other kind upon the more reflective generations who were to occupy the future. No doubt Wordsworth's indirect influence may be seen in much of the verse brought together in the following pages. There are many of the shorter pieces which belong peculiarly to our period, in motive and in tone; which could hardly have existed before Wordsworth, because the taste for them hardly existed. But if this collection be significant, a fair review of it will not warrant the belief that the trend is chiefly towards meditation. We have De Vere's vigorous monologue of the Bard Ethell; Tennyson's "The Revenge; "Dobson's dramatic miniature, "Babette;" Edwin Arnold's wild “Rajah's Ride;" Howells's "Pilot's Story"-than which there have been few more thrilling poems written on Western themes.-Jean Ingelow's famous "High Tide;" Holmes's "Old Ironsides;" Mrs. Stoddard's spirited and touching ballad, "The Captain's Shield;" John Hay's "Jim Bludso;" and enough more to convince us that the impulse to give dramatic characterizations, or to produce strong, swift-moving narratives and impassioned lyrics, is still very thriving. Foremost of all stands Browning, in illustrating a tendency the reverse of meditative, albeit so much of deep meditation is involved in his depicting.