THE
PETERIT VOL . V .
FEBRUARY, 1883 .
~.
No. 34.
SWINBURNE AND THE POETRY OF THE PERIOD.
C
ARLYLE'S maxim in " Hero Worship," that it is the age that moulds the poet, and not the poet that moulds the age, is pretty
:obviously a true one . That therefore this age can boast of no great 1 noet is entirely its own fault. Ilad we been more manly, we had not had the femininity of Mr . Tennyson ; nor, on the other hand, should we have been forced on to the rugged rocks of the poetry of Mr browning, or the sensuality of the earlier part of Swinburne's works, each of whom struck out his line, as it appears to me, in disgust at the excessive " supply of milk for babes," as Swinburne himself calls it, which they found when their poetical careers began. Mr . Tennyson was the first of the poets of our day to appear, and he began as one of the " moral milkwomen " of whom Swinburne complains . There was nothing in his first book of poems that ever attracted attention . Then came a second volume, in which was " The Dream of Fair 'Women, " " Q?none, " " The Lotos Eaters," " The Jliller's Daughter," and " Lady Clara Vere de Vere, " and others more or less known . From that time and with these poems his fame began and has been ever increasing up till the last five years, when his most ardent admirers were forced to confess that the time had come for him to cease writing . The fault of his poems, as I remember reading somewhere, is that there is no fault at all to be found—save one—that he is not great enough to commit a fault . His art is exquisite, his thought is wonderfully sweet and touching at times, he has the most perfect command over words ; his poetry is everything in fact, but great. It is nearly always pretty, but hardly ever sublime . Of course you may