he linnets how to sing.

Miss Chapman's other poems contain a great deal that is interesting. The
most ambitious is The New Purgatory, to which the book owes its title. It
is a vision of a strange garden in which, cleansed and purified of all
stain and shame, walk Judas of Cherioth, Nero the Lord of Rome, Ysabel
the wife of Ahab, and others, around whose names cling terrible memories
of horror, or awful splendours of sin. The conception is fine, but the
treatment is hardly adequate. There are, however, some good strong lines
in it, and, indeed, almost all of Miss Chapman's poems are worth reading,
if not for their absolute beauty, at least for their intellectual
intention.

* * * * *

Nothing is more interesting than to watch the change and development of
the art of novel-writing in this nineteenth century--'this so-called
nineteenth century,' as an impassioned young orator once termed it, after
a contemptuous diatribe against the evils of modern civilisation. In
France they have had one great genius, Balzac, who invented the modern
method of looking at life; and one great artist, Flaubert, who is the
impeccable master of style; and to the influence of these two men we may
trace almost all contemporary French fiction. But in England we have had
no schools worth speaking of. The fiery torch lit by the Brontes has not
been passed on to other hands; Dickens has influenced only journalism;
Thackeray's delightful superficial philosophy, superb narrative power,
and clever social satire have found no echoes; nor has Trollope left any
direct successors behind him--a fact which is not much to be regretted,
however, as, admirable though Trollope undoubtedly is for rainy
afternoons and tedious railway journeys, from the point of view of
literature he is merely the perpetual curate of Pudlington Parva. As for
George Meredith, who could hope to reproduce him? His style is chaos
illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered
everything, except language; as a novelist he can do everything, except
tell a story; as an artist he is everything, except articulate. Too
strange to be popular, too individual to have imitators, the author of
Richard Feverel stands absolutely alone. It is easy to disarm criticism,
but he has disarmed the disciple. He gives us his philosophy through the
medium of wit, and is never so pathetic as when he is humorous. To turn
truth into a paradox is not difficult, but Geor