is that Francis Thompson has a richer natural genius, a finer
poetical equipment, than any poet save Shakespeare. Show me the
divinest glories of Shelley and Keats, even of Tennyson, who wrote the
'Lotus Eaters' and the songs in the 'Princess,' and I think I can match
them all out of this one book, this little book that can be bought at
an ordinary bookseller's shop for an ordinary prosaic crown. I fear
that in thus extolling Francis Thompson's work, I am grossly outraging
the canons of criticism. For the man is alive, he gets up of a morning
like common mortals, not improbably he eats bacon for breakfast; and
every critic with an atom of discretion knows that a poet must not be
called great until he is dead or very old. Well, please yourself what
you think. But, in time to come, don't say I didn't tell you." A
whole generation of men has passed away since these words appeared; but
they do not seem to be so fantastic and whimsical now as they seemed to
be then.

[Illustration: I said to dawn: Be sudden _Page 47_]

It can scarcely be claimed that the prophecies of Meredith, Mr. Garvin,
and Mr. Arnold Bennett were of the kind which ultimately assures the
event. The reading-world dipped curiously into the pages about which
there was so much conflict of opinion; it was startled and bewildered
by a novel and difficult form of verse; and finally it agreed with the
majority of critics that it was mostly nonsense--too Catholic to be
catholic. The poems sold badly, the 'Hound of Heaven' faring best. It
is a common mark of genius to be ahead of its time. Even Thompson's
coreligionists were cold. Indeed, it may be said they were the
coldest. If the general reading-public of the nineties suspected
Thompson of being a Victorian reactionary of ultra-montane mould, the
Catholic public feared him for his art. It was a wild unfettered thing
which took strange liberties with Catholic pieties and could not be
trusted to run in divine grooves. One can afford to extenuate the
attitude of reserve. It was a period when brilliant heterodoxies and
flaunting decadence were in the air. The fact is, that critics and
public delivered Thompson over to the Catholics; and the Catholics
would have nothing to do with him. Canon Sheehan could write of
Thompson in 1898:

"Only two Catholics--literary Catholics--have noticed this surprising
genius--Coventry Patmore and Wilfrid Meynell. The vast bulk of our
coreligionists have not even