it changes from grave to gay without desecrating what should be solemn, or disenchanting that which should be graceful. And Mr. Clough was the first to prove this, by writing a noble poem in which it was done.

In one principal respect, Mr. Clough's two poems in hexameters, and especially the Roman one from which we made so many extracts, are very excellent somehow or other he makes you understand what the people of whom he is writing precisely were. You may object to the means, but you cannot deny the result. By fate he was thrown into a vortex of theological and metaphysical speculation, but his genius was better suited to be the spectator of a more active and moving scene. The play of mind upon mind; the contrasted view which contrasted minds take of great subjects; the odd irony of life which so often thrusts into conspicuous places exactly what no one would expect to find in those places,these were his subjects. Under happy circumstances, he might have produced on such themes something which the mass of readers would have greatly liked; as it is, he has produced a little which meditative readers will much value, and which they will long remember.

Of Mr. Clough's character it would be out of place to say anything, except in so far as it elucidates his poems. The sort of conversation for which he was most remarkable rises again in the "Amours de Voyage, " and gives them, to those who knew him in life, a very peculiar charm. It would not be exact to call the best lines a pleasant cynicism; for cynicism has a bad name, and the ill-nature and other offensive qualities which have given it that name were utterly out of Mr. Clough's way. Though without much fame, he had no envy. But he had a strong realism. He saw what it is considered cynical to see, - the absurdities of many persons, the pomposities of many creeds, the splendid zeal with which missionaries rush on to

teach what they do not know, the wonderful earnestness with which most incomplete solutions of the universe are thrust upon us as complete and satisfying. "Le fond de la Providence," says the French novelist, "c'est l'ironie."* Mr. Clough would not have said that; but he knew what it meant, and what was the portion of truth contained in it. Undeniably this is an odd world, whether it should have been so or no; and all our speculations upon it should begin with some admission of its strangeness and singularity. The habit of dwelling on such thoughts as these will not of itself make a man happy, and may make unhappy one who is inclined to be so. Mr. Clough in his time felt more than most men the weight of the unintelligible world; but such thoughts make an instructive man. Several survivors may think they owe much to Mr. Clough's quiet question, "Ah, then, you think?" Many pretending creeds and many wonderful demonstrations passed away before that calm inquiry. He had a habit of putting your own doctrine concisely before you, so that you might see what it came to, and that you did not like it. Even now that he is gone, some may feel the recollection of his society a check on unreal theories and halfmastered thoughts. Let us part from him in his own words:

"Some future day, when what is now is not,

When all old faults and follies are forgot,

And thoughts of difference passed like dreams away,-
We'll meet again, upon some future day.

"When all that hindered, all that vexed our love,
The tall, rank weeds that clomb the blade above,
And all but it has yielded to decay,—

We'll meet again, upon some future day.

"When we have proved, each on his course alone,
The wider world, and learnt what's now unknown,
Have made life clear, and worked out each a way,-
We'll meet again; we shall have much to say.

"Irony is the basis of Providence."

"With happier mood, and feelings born anew,
Our boyhood's bygone fancies we'll review,
Talk o'er old talks, play as we used to play,
And meet again, on many a future day.

"Some day, which oft our hearts shall yearn to see,
In some far year, though distant yet to be,
Shall we indeed - ye winds and waters, say!-
Meet yet again, upon some future day?"

WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, AND BROWNING; OR, PURE, ORNATE, AND GROTESQUE ART IN ENGLISH POETRY.*

(1864.)

WE Couple these two books together, not because of their likeness, for they are as dissimilar as books can be; nor on account of the eminence of their authors, for in general two great authors are too much for one essay: but because they are the best possible illustration of something we have to say upon poetical art,- because they may give to it life and freshness. The accident of contemporaneous publication has here brought together two books very characteristic of modern art, and we want to show how they are characteristic.

Neither English poetry nor English criticism have ever recovered the eruption which they both made at the beginning of this century into the fashionable world. The poems of Lord Byron were received with an avidity that resembles our present avidity for sensation novels, and were read by a class which at present reads little but such novels. Old men who remember those days may be heard to say, "We hear nothing of poetry nowadays: it seems quite down." And "down" it certainly is, if for poetry it be a descent to be no longer the favorite excitement of the more frivolous part of the "upper" world. That stimulating poetry is now little read. A stray schoolboy may still be detected in a wild admiration for the "Giaour" or the "Corsair" (and it is suitable

* Enoch Arden, etc. By Alfred Tennyson, D. C. L., Poet Laureate. — Dramatis Personæ. By Robert Browning.

to his age, and he should not be reproached for it); but the real posterity, the quiet students of a past literature, never read them or think of them. A line or two linger on the memory; a few telling strokes of occasional and felicitous energy are quoted, but this is all. As wholes, these exaggerated stories were worthless: they taught nothing, and therefore they are forgotten. If nowadays a dismal poet were, like Byron, to lament the fact of his birth, and to hint that he was too good for the world, the Saturday Reviewers would say that "they doubted if he was too good"; that "a sulky poet was a questionable addition to a tolerable world"; that "he need not have been born, as far as they were concerned." Doubtless, there is much in Byron besides his dismal exaggeration; but it was that exaggeration which made "the sensation" which gave him a wild moment of dangerous fame. As so often happens, the cause of his momentary fashion is the cause also of his lasting oblivion. Moore's former reputation was less excessive, yet it has not been more permanent. The prettiness of a few songs preserves the memory of his name, but as a poet to read he is forgotten. is nothing to read in him: no exquisite thought, no sublime feeling, no consummate description of true character. Almost the sole result of the poetry of that time is the harm which it has done. It degraded for a time the whole character of the art. It said by practice-by a most efficient and successful practice that it was the aim, the duty, of poets to catch the attention of the passing, the fashionable, the busy world. If a poem "fell dead," it was nothing: it was composed to please the "London" of the year, and if that London did not like it, why, it had failed. It fixed upon the minds of a whole generation, it engraved in popular memory and tradition, a vague conviction that poetry is but one of the many amusements for the enjoying classes, for the lighter hours of all classes. The mere notion, the bare idea, that

There