verse are given, which reveal an absolute
incapacity for the process, without apparently the smallest instinct
for rhyme, metre, or melody,--the very lowest sort of slipshod amateur
poetry.

After Shorthouse had once tasted the delights of publication and the
pleasures of fame he wrote too much, and fiddled rather tediously upon
a single string. Moreover, he attempted humorous effects, not very
successfully; because one of the interesting points about, _John
Inglesant_ is that there is hardly the slightest touch of humour from
beginning to end, except perhaps in the fantastic mixture of tragedy
and comedy in the carnival scene, presided over by the man who
masquerades as a corpse; and even here the humour is almost entirely of
a _macabre_ type.

Of course one would not assign to Shorthouse a very high place in
English literature, beautiful as his best work is. But a writer may
have an interest which is out of proportion to the value of his
writings. The interest of Shorthouse is the interest which attaches to
the blooming of a curious and exotic flower in a place where its
presence is absolutely unaccountable; he probably will not maintain his
hold upon the minds of a later generation, because there is no coherent
system of thought in his book. Inglesant is a mere courtly mirror, the
prey of his moods and his surroundings, in which beautiful tones of
religious feeling are engagingly reflected. But to all who study the
development of English prose, Shorthouse will have a definite value, as
a spontaneous and lonely outcrop of poetical prose-writing in an alien
soil; an isolated worker foreshowing in his secluded and graceful
talent the rise of a new school in English literature, the appearance
of a plant which may be expected in the future, if not in the immediate
future, to break into leaf and bloom, into colour and fragrance.

LII

I found myself the other day in the neighbourhood of Wells. I had
hitherto rather deliberately avoided going there, because so many
people whose taste and judgment are wholly unreliable have told me that
I ought to see it. The instinct to disagree with the majority is a
noble one, and has perhaps effected more for humanity than any other
instinct; but it must be cautiously indulged in.

In this case I resisted the instinct to abstain from visiting Wells;
and I was glad that I did so, because, in spite of the fact that most
people consider Wells to be a very beautiful place, it i