fection.

The author cannot expect such a poem as this to be popular, to make a
"hit," to produce a "sensation." The public are but slow in recognising
the claims of Tennyson whom in some respects he resembles; and the
common eye scarcely yet discerns among the laurel-crowned, the form of
Shelley, who seems (how justly, we stop not now to discuss), to have
been the god of his early idolatory. Whatever inspiration may have been
upon him from that deity, the mysticism of the original oracles has been
happily avoided. And whatever resemblance he may bear to Tennyson (a
fellow worshipper probably at the same shrine) he owes nothing of the
perhaps inferior melody of his verse to an employment of archaisms which
it is difficult to defend from the charge of affectation. But he has not
given himself the chance for popularity which Tennyson did, and which it
is evident that he easily might have done. His poem stands alone, with
none of those light but taking accompaniments, songs that sing
themselves, sketches that everybody knows, light little lyrics, floating
about like humming birds, around the trunk and foliage of the poem
itself; and which would attract so many eyes, and delight so many ears,
that will be slow to perceive the higher beauty of that composition, and
to whom a sycamore is no sycamore, unless it be "musical with bees."

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

(1785-1859)

De Quincey has been said to have "taken his place in our literature as
the author of about 150 magazine articles," and, though chiefly
remembered by his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ and by his wonderful
experiments in "impassioned prose," there can be no question that his
critical work occupied much of his attention, and was nearly always
original. In many respects his point of view was perverse, and towards
his contemporaries occasionally spiteful; while his tendency to dwell
upon disputed points was apt to obscure the general impression.

* * * * *

It is interesting to compare his unmeasured condemnation of Pope with
Kingsley's eulogy: since both were, more or less, directly inspired by
the contrast of eighteenth century correctness to the poetical gospel of
the Lake Poets. From the two articles we can obtain a fair and emphatic
statement of "both sides of the case."

DE QUINCEY ON POPE

[From _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1851]

Whom shall we pronounce a fit writer to be laid before an auditory of
wo