Morte D'Arthur, will sufficiently guarantee the excellence of the latter to the numerous admirers of the most finished of modern poets. To those who see in Mr. Tennyson nothing but artificial perfection of language and rhythm, I trust that the passages I have cited from the romance will commend themselves by that forcible simplicity which such critics esteem above all the elaboration of art.

But I confess that, in my own mind, the effect of the re-perusal of these two parallel creations of mediæval and modern thought has been to increase my admiration for both. If it is art that has filled up the interstices of a mediæval structure, and transformed it into an edifice faultless to the modern eye, it is art which is akin to the originality of genius. On the other hand there is much in the bold irregularity of the earlier architecture which many will prefer to its more symmetrical modern development. I cannot do better than conclude by appealing to both schools of critics for their admiration of the moral suggested by this exquisite story, a moral which is expressed by Sir Thomas Malory in the pregnant words, "Love is free in himself, and never will be bounden; for where he is bounden, he looseth himself"; and by Mr. Tennyson in the fine lines

"Fair she was, my king,

Pure as you ever wish your knights to be,
To doubt her fairness were to want an eye;
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart-
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.

Free love so bound were freest, said the king,
Let love be free; free love is for the best:
And after heaven, on our dull side of death,
What should be best, if not so pure a love
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? Yet thee
She failed to bind, tho' being, as I think,
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."

T. M.

IDLE WORDS.

WHAT is an idle word? 'Tis like

An arrow drawn by careless hands
And aimed at nought, that yet may strike

The friend that by the archer stands.

Such is the idle rashly uttered word

That wounds the loving heart of him who heard.

'Tis like the down from thistle's top

That winds o'er many lands may blow,

Yet when it taketh root a crop

Of thorny weeds will from it grow.

Such is the idle word that lightly flies
And bears an evil fruit in hearts unwise.

'Tis like a stone dropped in the lake

That glassed God's heaven and hills and treesRough ripples all its quiet break

Distorting all its images.

Such is the idle word that bringeth grief
Of shattered faith and desperate unbelief.

'Tis like the dust a child may throw
Against the wind, that backward flies
E'en where the wayward breezes blow,

And blinds itself the thrower's eyes.
Such is the idle word we lightly cast,
It will return and bring us pain at last.

W. E. H.

NEW POEMS BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

O greater contrast has been afforded by modern literature than that between the glowing rush of Mr. Swinburne's sensuous poetry, and the even flow of the chaste measures of Matthew Arnold. From all time the human heart has been eminently susceptible to influence through the medium of the passions, but it is specially in the present age that intellectual culture has tended to prefer the ornate to the ornamented, and to mould the material itself into forms of beauty rather than to make use of extraneous ornament. The especial apostle of culture has offered us in his poetical writings a noble example of the severe simplicity he has preached. No gaudy colouring, no ingenious trick of words, no fervent rush of rhythm mars his perfect lines. His earlier poems bore traces of the hand which, now grown firmer, has crowned the poet's fame by the production of the present volume. The first poem in this collection is undoubtedly Mr. Matthew Arnold's greatest work of art; though, had not its surpassing merits attracted the attention of that greatest of modern English poets Robert Browning, the world would have lost, at least for a time, the enjoyment of this exquisite production. In the opening of this poem Empedocles, weary of the turmoil of the busy world, sick in heart at the illiberality and bigotry of his brother philosophers, galled by the persecutions of those who were unable to reach the lofty heights to which his genius had soared, perceiving the littleness of men below, and scarce believing in the existence of God

above, is made the subject of conversation between two of his disciples, who, seated in a forest on Mount Etna, seek some means of dispelling the gloomy mist of melancholy which has settled upon their revered

master.

The cold greyness of dawn has passed away, and the bright beams of the morning sun are gladdening the face of nature:

"The Sun

"Is shining on the brilliant mountain crests,
"And on the highest pines; but further down
"Herein the valley is in shade; the sward
"Is dark, and on the stream the mist still hangs;
"One sees one's foot-prints crush'd in the wet grass,
"One's breath curls in the air; and on these pines
"That climb from the stream's edge, the long grey tufts,
"Which the goats love, are jewell'd thick with dew."

The two friends, Pausanias and Callicles, arrange that the latter shall secrete himself, with his harp, in a neighbouring glade, while the former leads the philosopher where the entrancing strains of the sweet musician may, softly falling on the morning air, bring restful calm to the weary soul of the dejected sage.

In the second scene, Pausanias having led Empedocles to the appointed spot, Callicles is heard from below in a song which is too long to be inserted in its entirety, but the exquisite beauty of which it would be profanity to diminish by curtailment. He sings the cool fresh cattle-haunted glades, with the rippling stream babbling as it threads the mountain side, made more cool, more fresh by contrast with the bald head of old Etna blazing beneath the southern sun; he tells how Cheiron "in such a glen, on such a day" taught young Pelion all the lore stored up from the experience of years:

"He told him of the Gods, the stars,
"The tides; and then of mortal wars,
"And of the life which heroes lead
"Before they reach the Elysian place
"And rest in the immortal mead;
"And all the wisdom of his race."

And then, when the last echo has died away, Empedocles unburdens his soul and, to the solemn accompaniment of his harp, lifts the veil from the inmost recesses of his mind. His despair is not that of the feelings, but that of the intellect. For years he has gazed with wonder at the grief, the wrong, the sordid littleness with which the world is rife; he has felt that nobility, that holiness, that purity are not all a myth, and has sought with unutterable yearning after something higher, something greater than himself, in which he might find the embodiment of his ideal. But his yearning has not been satisfied, and the agony of a struggle which would have wrecked a weaker soul has now passed away. He sees before him a hopeless blank; he has learnt to believe that there is no help, no hope, no God:

"Fools! that in man's brief term

"He cannot all things view,

"Affords no ground to affirm

"That there are Gods who do!

"Nor does, being weary, prove that he has where to rest!" He has schooled his mind to gaze unflinchingly upon the dismal void, and rather to seek what little good may remain, than sadly to dream of what never could have been:

"But thou, because thou hear'st
"Men scoff at Heaven a Fate,
"Because the Gods thou fear'st

"Fail to make blest thy state,

"Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are."

"I say: Fear not! Life still
"Leaves human effort scope,

"But, since life teems with ill,

"Nurse no extravagant hope;

"Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair!" Then again borne upwards on the air bursts the sweet song of Callicles, who tells how

"Far, far, from here,

"The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay

"Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
"The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,

"And by the sea, and in the brakes.