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the metropolis, as exhibited at the theatres, where they often combined a great deal of undigested learning with not a little of debauchery. In such a career there was more to develop the animal intelligence than that part of our being in which the intellect and the moral sense blend; that part of it from which the most permanent poetry proceeds. It is likely that, at least for some departments of poetry, the training of professional, public, or official life, may be as auspicious as either of the other modes. It occupies the mind seriously, and not for the purpose of diversion, with persons at once and with things, and thus disciplines, while it elicits conjointly, the faculties of observation and reflection, supplying an undesigned aid doubtless to the writer of dramatic poetry which at heart is ever a serious thing. In the university poetic the aspirant takes many degrees; and the author of these dramas had early "proceeded" Statesman-a title borne by one of his ablest volumes.

IX

MINOR POEMS

A LONG poem, if fortunate in its theme, has its advantages over short ones, especially those of comprehending a larger sphere of interest, employing a greater number of the poetic faculties, and including more various elements in a richer harmony. On the other hand, it is seldom conceived, as a whole, with the completeness which belongs to the design of a short poem; and that portion of it which did not enter into the original conception is in danger of hanging about it clumsily. Again, no amount of executive skill can wholly atone for defects in the subject matter; and the subject of a long and elaborate composition is apt to reveal, at the last moment, some defect, as provoking as the black spot which sometimes comes out in the marble, when the statue is all but finished.

A short poem has several advantages over a long one. It is rendered buoyant by a fuller infusion of that essential poetry which pervades, rather as the regulating mind than the vivifying soul, a body of larger dimensions. The particular beauty which results from

symmetry is most deeply felt, when the piece lies within so small a compass that the grace of proportion is recognised by an immediate consciousness, and not merely detected by patient analysis. Poems consisting of a few lines only, for the most part, will have been suggested by something experienced or observed, and thus touching nature at many points, will draw strength from contact with their native soil; whereas a longer work, even though not abstract in its subject, joins thought on to thought and image to image, without remanding the poet to the common ground of reality; and being thus "carved out of the carver's brain," is apt, if not of firstrate excellence, to meet with a cold response from men whose associations are different from those of the poet. It may be added that short poems bring us more near to the author; and to impart and elicit sympathy is among the chief functions of poets, who may be called the brotherconfessors of mankind-for however devoid of egotism he may be, he must unavoidably present more aspects of his own many-sided being, when expatiating on many themes, and in many moods, than when engrossed by a single task. Their brevity also makes them more minutely known, and more familiarly remembered.

Mr. Taylor's short poems are characterised by the same qualities which distinguish his dramas. That strength which belongs to truth, and that grace which flows from strength when combined with poetic beauty, are exhibited in them not less distinctly. Their

subjects, as well as their limits, exclude Passion in its specific tragic form; but, on the other hand, they are wrought out with a more discriminating touch than his dramas. There is in them a majestic tenderness ennobled by severity; and, at the same time, a sweetness and mellowness, which are often missed in the best youthful poetry, before time has seasoned the instrument, as well as perfected the musician's skill. Retaining the same peculiar temperament, light, firm, and vigorous (for true poetry has ever a cognisable temperament, as well as its special intellectual constitution), their moral sympathies are wider, and respire a softer clime. They are uniformly based upon those ethical qualities, simplicity, distinct purpose, and faith in man's better nature, which are not less essential than any intellectual gifts to excellence in poetry. Modern poetry includes many Elegies. Here is one written in the rare and exquisite metre of Lycidas, and worthy of it. It is called "Lines written in remembrance of the Hon. Edward Ernest Villiers "

A grace though melancholy, manly too,
Moulded his being: pensive, grave, serene,
O'er his habitual bearing and his mien
Unceasing pain, by patience tempered, threw
A shade of sweet austerity. But seen
In happier hours and by the friendly few,
That curtain of the spirit was withdrawn,
And fancy light and playful as a fawn,
And reason imped with inquisition keen,
Knowledge long sought with ardour ever new,
And wit love-kindled, show'd in colours true
What genial joys with sufferings can consist.
Then did all sternness melt as melts a mist
Touched by the brightness of the golden dawn,

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condoned to make up for the neglect under which they had long lain. But the interests of literature itself require that in all cases justice should be done. The sins of our dramatists in the reign of Elizabeth and James the First were not exceptional, nor were they but superficial blemishes. The plays of Charles the Second's time were so far worse, that they possessed no compensating merits; but their positive offences could hardly have proved more injurious, both to the cause of poetry and of society. In multitudes of our early plays the whole plot turns upon vice in its grossest forms, or a second and foul plot is joined to a sound one, like a dead body bound to a living form. Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess is rich in poetry from which Milton borrowed in his Comus; yet it is disgraced by whole scenes of ribaldry; and in the Maid's Tragedy the grief of the forsaken Aspatia is similarly dishonoured. Massinger offends less than most of the other dramatists, yet in his Fatal Dowry sin almost rejects the plea of temptation; and even his Virgin Martyr is deformed by the excrescence of scenes which were reverently omitted in a recent and separate edition of that play.

Such offences have commonly, when not condoned by the false charity of indifference, been regarded only from the moral point of view. The boundless injury inflicted by them on literature has hardly been adverted to. The Greeks were so well aware of the relations between virtue and the liberal arts, that even when the morals of Paganism were at the lowest, a high

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