hen asked,
'Have you read the _Giaour_? and what do you think of it?' Lord
Jeffrey, a shrewd judge of the world, employed himself in telling it
what to think; not so much what it ought to think, as what at bottom
it did think, and so by dexterous sympathy with current society he
gained contemporary fame and power. Such fame no critic must hope for
now. His articles will not penetrate where the poems themselves do not
penetrate. When poetry was noisy, criticism was loud; now poetry is a
still small voice, and criticism must be smaller and stiller. As the
function of such criticism was limited so was its subject. For the
great and (as time now proves) the _permanent_ part of the poetry of
his time--for Shelley and for Wordsworth--Lord Jeffrey had but one
word. He said[36] 'It won't do'. And it will not do to amuse a
drawing-room.

[36] The first words in Lord Jeffrey's celebrated review of
the _Excursion_ were, 'This will never do.'

The doctrine that poetry is a light amusement for idle hours, a
metrical species of sensational novel, has not indeed been without
gainsayers wildly popular. Thirty years ago, Mr. Carlyle most rudely
contradicted it. But perhaps this is about all that he has done. He
has denied, but he has not disproved. He has contradicted the floating
paganism, but he has not founded the deep religion. All about and
around us a _faith_ in poetry struggles to be extricated, but it is
not extricated. Some day, at the touch of the true word, the whole
confusion will by magic cease; the broken and shapeless notions cohere
and crystallize into a bright and true theory. But this cannot be yet.

But though no complete theory of the poetic art as yet be possible for
us, though perhaps only our children's children will be able to speak
on this subject with the assured confidence which belongs to accepted
truth, yet something of some certainty may be stated on the easier
elements, and something that will throw light on these two new books.
But it will be necessary to assign reasons, and the assigning of
reasons is a dry task. Years ago, when criticism only tried to show
how poetry could be made a good amusement, it was not impossible that
criticism itself should be amusing. But now it must at least be
serious, for we believe that poetry is a serious and a deep thing.

There should be a word in the language of literary art to express what
the word 'picturesque' expresses for the fine arts. _Picturesque_
m