omething might have been expected; Thomas Woolner, a sculptor of great,
and--in _My Beautiful Lady_, _Pygmalion_, etc.--a poet of estimable
merit, whose first-named volume attracted rather disproportionate praise
at its first appearance. As one thinks of the work of these and
others--often enjoyable, sometimes admirable, and long ago or later
admired and enjoyed--the unceremoniousness of despatching them so
slightly brings a twinge of shame. But it is impossible to do justice to
their work, or to the lyrics, merry or sensuous, of Mortimer Collins,
who was nearly a real poet of _vers de societe_, and had a capital
satiric and a winning romantic touch; the stirring ballads of Walter
Thornbury (which, however, would hardly have been written but for
Macaulay on the one hand and Barham on the other) and the
ill-conditioned but clever Radical railing of Robert Brough at
"Gentlemen." But if they cannot be discussed, they shall at least be
mentioned. On three others, Frederick Locker, Arthur Hugh Clough, and
"Owen Meredith" (Lord Lytton), we must dwell longer.

Clough has been called by persons of distinction a "bad poet"; but this
was only a joke, and, with all respect to those who made it, a rather
bad joke. The author of "Qua Cursum Ventus," of the marvellous picture
of the advancing tide in "Say not the struggle," and of not a few other
things, was certainly no bad poet, though it would not be uncritical to
call him a thin one. He was born at Liverpool on New Year's Day 1819,
spent part of his childhood in America, went to Rugby very young and
distinguished himself there greatly, though it may be doubted whether
the peculiar system which Arnold had just brought into full play was the
healthiest for a self-conscious and rather morbid nature like Clough's.
From Rugby he went to Balliol, and was entirely upset, not, as is
sometimes most unjustly said, by Newman, but by the influence of W. G.
Ward, a genial Puck of Theology, who, himself caring for nothing but
mathematics, philosophy, and play-acting, disturbed the consciences of
others by metaphysical quibbles, and then took refuge in the Church of
Rome. Clough, who had been elected to an Oriel fellowship, threw it up
in 1848, turned freethinker, and became the head of an educational
institution in London called University Hall. He did not hold this very
long, receiving a post in the Education Office, which he held in various
forms till his death in 1861 at Florence.

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