ity.
The soil may be thin and dry, but man's life is added to its own. He has
embanked the hill to make little platforms for the growth of wheat in the
light shadows of olive leaves. Thanks to the metayer land-tenure, man's
heart, as well as his strength, is given to the ground, with his hope and
his honour. Louis Blanc's 'point of honour of industry' is a conscious
impulse--it is not too much to say--with most of the Tuscan contadini;
but as each effort they make for their master they make also for the
bread of their children, it is no wonder that the land they cultivate has
a look of life. But in all colour, in all luxury, and in all that gives
material for picturesque English, this lovely scenery for food and wine
and raiment has that _little less_ to which we desire to recall a
rhetorical world.

MR. COVENTRY PATMORE'S ODES

To most of the great poets no greater praise can be given than praise of
their imagery. Imagery is the natural language of their poetry. Without
a parable she hardly speaks. But undoubtedly there is now and then a
poet who touches the thing, not its likeness, too vitally, too
sensitively, for even such a pause as the verse makes for love of the
beautiful image. Those rare moments are simple, and their simplicity
makes one of the reader's keenest experiences. Other simplicities may be
achieved by lesser art, but this is transcendent simplicity. There is
nothing in the world more costly. It vouches for the beauty which it
transcends; it answer for the riches it forbears; it implies the art
which it fulfils. All abundance ministers to it, though it is so single.
And here we get the sacrificial quality which is the well-kept secret of
art at this perfection. All the faculties of the poet are used for
preparing this naked greatness--are used and fruitfully spent and shed.
The loveliness that stands and waits on the simplicity of certain of Mr.
Coventry Patmore's Odes, the fervours and splendours that are there, only
to be put to silence--to silence of a kind that would be impossible were
they less glorious--are testimonies to the difference between sacrifice
and waste.

But does it seem less than reasonable to begin a review of a poet's work
with praise of an infrequent mood? Infrequent such a mood must needs be,
yet it is in a profound sense characteristic. To have attained it once
or twice is to have proved such gift and grace as a true history of
literature would show to