nnot but suffer from the reminiscence. We
might have something to say on the metrical construction of
Swinburne's blank verse, for he shares with Tennyson, though in a
minor degree, the distinction of having enlarged its scope and varied
its measure. But the subject would demand careful comparative
examination and analysis of different styles, such as is to be read,
with profit to all students of the art poetic, in Mr. J. B. Mayor's
_Chapters on English Metres_.

It will be understood that this article attempts no more than to
review the salient characteristics of Mr. Swinburne's poetry, to
indicate in some degree their connexion and development. It cannot but
fall far short, obviously, of being a comprehensive survey of his
contributions to English literature. We have made no reference, for
lack of space, to his treatment of chivalrous romance in _Tristram of
Lyonesse_, which Mr. Swinburne has rightly called 'the deathless
legend,' though, since its fascination has made it a subject for three
other contemporary poets, a comparison of their diverse manners of
handling the story would be interesting. It is with regret that we
have been compelled, also, to refrain from any adequate notice of Mr.
Swinburne's prose writings, for in regard to the poetry of his own
period the dissertations and judgments of one who combines high
imaginative faculty with scientific mastery of the metrical art must
have special value. Of the ordinary untrained criticism, the 'chorus
of indolent reviewers,' to use Tennyson's phrase, he is, we think, too
impatient. From a passage in his Dedicatory Epistle we gather that
some of the tribe have ventured so far as to insinuate that poetry
ought not to become a mere musical exercise. Mr. Swinburne's rejoinder
is that

'except to such ears as should always be closed against poetry,
there is no music in verse which has not in it sufficient fulness
and ripeness of meaning, sufficient adequacy of emotion or of
thought, to abide the analysis of any other than the purblind
scrutiny of prepossession or the squint-eyed inspection of
malignity.'

Apart from the wrathful form, the substance of what is here said
merits consideration, for undoubtedly the most musical of our poets,
from Shakespeare and Milton to Coleridge and Shelley, are those whose
verse has embodied the richest thought and has been instinct with the
deeper emotions. We must muster up courage to remark, neverthe