st Book_; but it is impossible
not to hope that the time may come when an adequate representation of
that strange and great work may be something more than 'a possibility
more thin than air.' Then, and then only, shall we be able to take the
true measure of Beddoes' genius.

Perhaps, however, the ordinary reader finds Beddoes' lack of
construction a less distasteful quality than his disregard of the common
realities of existence. Not only is the subject-matter of the greater
part of his poetry remote and dubious; his very characters themselves
seem to be infected by their creator's delight in the mysterious, the
strange, and the unreal. They have no healthy activity; or, if they
have, they invariably lose it in the second act; in the end, they are
all hypochondriac philosophers, puzzling over eternity and dissecting
the attributes of Death. The central idea of _Death's Jest Book_--the
resurrection of a ghost--fails to be truly effective, because it is
difficult to see any clear distinction between the phantom and the rest
of the characters. The duke, saved from death by the timely arrival of
Wolfram, exclaims 'Blest hour!' and then, in a moment, begins to ponder,
and agonise, and dream:

And yet how palely, with what faded lips
Do we salute this unhoped change of fortune!
Thou art so silent, lady; and I utter
Shadows of words, like to an ancient ghost,
Arisen out of hoary centuries
Where none can speak his language.

Orazio, in his brilliant palace, is overcome with the same feelings:

Methinks, these fellows, with their ready jests,
Are like to tedious bells, that ring alike
Marriage or death.

And his description of his own revels applies no less to the whole
atmosphere of Beddoes' tragedies:

Voices were heard, most loud, which no man owned:
There were more shadows too than there were men;
And all the air more dark and thick than night
Was heavy, as 'twere made of something more
Than living breaths.

It would be vain to look, among such spectral imaginings as these, for
guidance in practical affairs, or for illuminating views on men and
things, or for a philosophy, or, in short, for anything which may be
called a 'criticism of life.' If a poet must be a critic of life,
Beddoes was certainly no poet. He belongs to the class of writers of
which, in English literature, Spenser, Keats, and Milton are the
dominant figures--the writers who are great merely