f a few out of many ornaments of Moore's muse will of
course irritate those who object to the "brick-of-the-house" mode of
criticism; while it may not be minute enough, or sufficiently bolstered
by actual quotation, to please those who hold that simple extract is the
best, if not the only tolerable form of criticism. But the critic is not
alone in finding that, whether he carry his ass or ride upon it, he
cannot please all his public. What has been said is probably enough, in
the case of a writer whose work, though as a whole rather unjustly
forgotten, survives in parts more securely even than the work of greater
men, to remind readers of at least the outlines and bases of his claim
to esteem. And the more those outlines are followed up, and the
structure founded on those bases is examined, the more certain, I think,
is Moore of recovering, not the position which M. Vallat would assign to
him of the greatest lyrist of England (a position which he never held
and never could hold except with very prejudiced or very incompetent
judges), not that of the equal of Scott or Byron or Shelley or
Wordsworth, but still a position high enough and singularly isolated at
its height. Viewed from the point of strictly poetical criticism, he no
doubt ranks only with those poets who have expressed easily and
acceptably the likings and passions and thoughts and fancies of the
average man, and who have expressed these with no extraordinary cunning
or witchery. To go further in limitation, the average man, of whom he is
thus the bard, is a rather sophisticated average man, without very deep
thoughts or feelings, without a very fertile or fresh imagination or
fancy, with even a touch--a little touch--of cant and "gush" and other
defects incident to average and sophisticated humanity. But this
humanity is at any time and every time no small portion of humanity at
large, and it is to Moore's credit that he sings its feelings and its
thoughts so as always to get the human and durable element in them
visible and audible through the "trappings of convention." Again, he has
that all-saving touch of humour which enables him, sentimentalist as he
is, to be an admirable comedian as well. Yet again, he has at least
something of the two qualities which one must demand of a poet who is a
poet, and not a mere maker of rhymes. His note of feeling, if not full
or deep, is true and real. His faculty of expression is not only
considerable, but it is also disti