instance of this frothy Celtic spirit which is unstayed by
human truth or relevance to life; and there is much of this in
contemporary Irish poetry. Mr. Yeats is not wholly free from it, but
he was conscious of the evil tendency, and subdued it, and the body of
fine poetry which stands to his name, taken as a whole, is unequalled
for clarity, feeling, beauty and felicity of expression by any large
body of poetry standing to the name of any other living poet.

But the Time-Spirit is active, or fickle perhaps, and Mr. Yeats has
already almost ceased to be a quite modern poet. He, like Mr. Gosse,
formed his technique in the nineteenth century, and the twentieth
century is casting about with feverish energy for a new technique and
new things to express. Mr. William Watson belongs quite as much to the
past as does Mr. Gosse, though it might be said of him that he could
belong to any age that knew its Milton and its Wordsworth. In him
assuredly there was no attempt at inventiveness; he has always
repudiated the idea that the poet should seek to innovate. He stands
for austerity and discipline in thought, style, and diction, for a
fine exactness which in his case was compatible with the old passion
for the idea of "freedom" no less than with that private,
self-communing spirit which the Victorians loved to express. Such a
poet as Mr. Maurice Hewlett, antiquarian as he often is in the
subjects he treats, is much more modern in spirit. In style and
technique he is one of those who have gone back, as men for four
centuries have constantly gone back, to the manner of the ancient
Greeks. Just as that clever experimenter in verse, Mr. Ezra Pound, has
created something of an effect by repeating the very metres, melodies,
and mannerisms of the Provencal troubadours, so Mr. Hewlett, modelling
his style upon the far finer Greek originals, produced an effect which
was better than Mr. Pound's in proportion as the Greek tragedians are
superior to the troubadours. In his execution he has really recaptured
much of the manner of the great Greek tragedians. In _The Death of
Hippolytus_ there is something of the aloofness, the blitheness, the
thrust of phrases, the grimness, the sedateness which we associate
with Greek drama. If he has little of the passion or fluency of
Swinburne, he has some of his phrase-making skill, and he is free from
that rhythmical lilt which in Swinburne was often excessive. We shall
never be carried away as by the mus