along life's way, who has little ability for comprehending the word spoken by the Dante, or the Goethe, or the Milton. He finds them too far aloof and aloft. Some of them, too, will but ill repay our climb up to their oracular cells, because they use their gifts ill, and the word they utter is not the word of truth or helpfulness. Then comes along some humble singer, who can "sweetly soothe and not betray"; he sounds his gentle lyric or agreeable tale, and straightway he "holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner," chases away gloom and dries up tears. Does he not fulfil Sidney's celebrated characterization of the Poet even more often than his illustrious brother? And do not also the fastidious and the cultured decline upon his pages much oftener than they are ready to confess? But one of them has very agreeably confessed it, and we must quote from his words :—

In our hearts is the Great One of Avon

Engraven,

:

And we climb the cold summits once built on

By Milton,

But at times not the air that is rarest

Is fairest,

And we long in the valley to follow

Apollo.

Then we drop from the heights atmospheric

To Herrick

Or our cosiest nook in the shade is

Where Praed is,

Or we toss the light bells of the mocker

With Locker,

Or let us venture to add on our own account

The bard that our fancy just lobs on

Is Dobson.

For undoubtedly Mr. Austin Dobson, the author of these lines, is a very agreeable specimen of the minor poet.

Longfellow and even Mrs. Hemans-when they are doing the work that really suits them-scores of Irish lyrists who have written in English, scores of German lyrists, and others from elsewhere, will afford us further and varied illustration of the valuable services that minor poetry can render of the verse-making that lightens the load of life, makes truth agreeable and duty acceptable, supplies for the unspoken jest and the absent friend.

It will be noticed that the names of certain writers have been mentioned in connection with two or three of our classes. There is nothing strange in this, as all our explanations may have helped to show. We might go further and show how it is just conceivable that one and the same person might, according to his moods and manners, figure, not only in two or three, but in all five of our categories! As thus: he might be (1) a Great Poet, by virtue of an unquestioned masterpiece or two, (2) a Poetaster, in some lamentable lapse or lapses from power and taste, (3) a Versifier, in his "potboilers," his Court odes, or his party-pamphlets, (4) a Mediocre Poet, in some ambitious semi-failures, (5) a Minor Poet, in some stage of his career, perhaps the earliest or the latest, when he essayed only small poetic tasks and succeeded in them perfectly. This (I say) is a conceivable full account of a poet's career; and the notion of its possibility might warn us against hasty and rash summings-up of men's work as being all this or all that. As a rule, however, things will be simpler: the great man will not often forget himself, the small man will cling to his modest condition, the humbug will write--humbug!

The fourfold classification that we have sketched out in this paper will be still more useful should it help to restrain from hasty bracketings-together of writers and work that really belong to different categories. I also hope it will give encouragement to shy talent which fears to venture out because it is not a supreme and big talent. I have tried to show how respectable and how useful minor poetic powers may be in their employment, if they are wisely exercised and kept free from the taint of falsetto and insincerity. Be yourself, I would, in conclusion, say to every young writer of prose or verse who has followed these remarks; but study to develop your selfhood in the best and fullest way. Put before you, in every sense, St. Paul's great precept: "Be zealous for the better gifts." Yet do not forget La Fontaine's little maxim of good sense :

Ne forçons point notre talent;
Nous ne ferions rien avec grâce.

VOL. XLIII.-No. 508.

47

HER COMING

A long white lane,

And the green hedge sombre by either side:
Robin singing, and singing again.、

Low and wide,

Dew-grey cloud on cloud overhead :
Heaven's sapphire all undescried.

Thinly spread,

Dust on the way is smooth and soft-
A tapestry spun from a spider's thread;

Or, -as oft

You may see it-pollen on the gold crown
Of a moon-daisy there in the croft.

Rich, sun-brown,

Quiet as sleep the meadows lie

From the top of the dusky hill-slope down.

Quiet, said I,

Yea, but they breathe as a sleeper does-
Sigh their ease in the ear of the sky.

And it leans close

As a mother over her children's bed-
Who, kissing the sleeping face of those,

And no word said

But the thing being done, moves content away The love of her mother-heart full-fed

So, I will say,

The dove-like heaven leans down and kisses
Her babes, as she goes in her robes of grey.

Be sure that bliss is

Abroad this morn: if in sober guise-
Rose-red and lily-white, who misses?

But lo! I surmise

A presence and turn me about-to you
With the sombre mouth and the shining eyes!

Grey eyes, not blue:

So, mating well with the morning tint,
With the quiet meadows, with the sheen o' the dew

I haven't a glint

Of knowledge about you, nor whence you are— But you're something worth meeting: that's plain as print.

The morning-star

May have glimpsed you coming over the hills
If he caught, for a minute, cloud-gates ajar;

Or the dew, that thrills

The greensward through, may have felt you pass;
Or Robin can tell a tale if he wills.

But gates of glass

Are shut on the star; and the dews are mute;
And Robin keeps faith as a lad with his lass.

So where's the fruit

Of questioning? Then, 'twere but little gain
The way of your coming abroad to bruit.

'Tis a long, white lane,

And just a woman walking alone-
Enough to go on with, I maintain.

A monotone

In the picture? Well, who will so declare
Turn aside. I'd as lief have it all my own,

To muse on, and stare

At the greys and browns; the mysterious shade In the pallors; the gleams in cloud and hair.

Calm, undismayed,

I count little lines by the mouth and cheek,
Limned by an artist: deftly laid

On the forehead meek;

Under the eyes, too, they softly sit
Half-hid by the shadowy lashes' streak.

Herein is writ,

In Runic characters mystic and strange,
A life, and the uttermost woe of it.

Beyond my range

To read? That's the point. If I state your case What will you give me in exchange?

Let me read your face

Just to prove how rapidly I will do it,
Then fit you in here with time and place.

Love-the heights drew it

To the heavens, sun and star encrust'-
Back to murk earth the cold winds blew it.

So, hope in the dust,

And the blue all cobwebbed over your head,
You lived your days as lone women must.

But (to end as I said)

Mark the dust here. Tis a tapestry spun

From silk: else 'tis flour o' the bees' gold bread!