common standard of form, any type of
metre? The purists doubt as to the style of Carlyle as a "model," but
no one denies that the _French Revolution_ and _Hero-Worship_, at least
in certain passages, display a mastery over language as splendid as
anything in our prose literature. Exactly the same might be said also
of _Esmond_, and again of _Silas Marner_, and again of the _Seven Lamps
of Architecture_. Yet all of these differ as widely as one style can
differ from another. _Fifine at the Fair_, and _The Angel in the
House_, have each fervent admirers. No! there is no recognised "model"
either in verse or in prose.

In truth, we have now both in prose and in verse strongly-contrasted
types, each of which commands admiration and following. Both in prose
and verse we have one type which has carried subtle finish and a purism
studied almost to the point of "preciousness," alongside of another
type which crowds its effects without regard to tone and harmony, and
by its side a third type which trots along breathless in its
shirt-sleeves. Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ has that exquisite polish of
workmanship which we find in such poets as Virgil, Racine, and
Milton--that perfection of phrase which we cannot conceive the poet
capable of improving by any labour. Put aside for the moment any
question about the ideas, inspiration, or power of the poem as a whole,
and consider that, in all those hundreds of stanzas, there is hardly
one line that is either careless, prosaic, or harsh, not a single false
note, nothing commonplace, nothing over-coloured, but uniform harmony
of phrase. This perfection of phrasing is not always to be found even
in the greatest poets, for Aeschylus and Dante at times strike a fierce
discord, and Shakespeare, Calderon, and Goethe sometimes pass into rank
extravaganza. But this scholarly and measured speech has impressed
itself on the poetry of our time--insomuch, that the Tennysonian cycle
of minor poets has a higher standard of grace, precision, and subtlety
of phrase than the second rank of any modern literature:--a standard
which puts to shame the rugosities of strong men like Dryden, Burns,
and Byron. There is plenty of mannerism in this school of our minor
poetry, but no one can call it either slovenly or harsh.

The friend, contemporary, almost the rival of Tennyson, one whom some
think endowed by nature with even stronger genius, on the other hand,
struck notes of discord harsher, louder,