ot necessary to be biassed by Matthew Arnold's musical epicede of
"Thyrsis" in order to admit, nor should any bias against his theological
views and his rather restless character be sufficient to induce any one
to deny, a distinct vein of poetry in Clough. His earliest and most
popular considerable work, _The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_ (the title
of which was originally rather different,) is written in hexameters
which do not, like Kingsley's, escape the curse of that "pestilent
heresy"; and the later _Amours de Voyage_ and _Dipsychus_, though there
are fine passages in both, bring him very close to the Spasmodic
school, of which in fact he was an unattached and more cultivated
member, with fancies directed rather to religiosity than to strict
literature. _Ambarvalia_ had preceded the _Bothie_, and other things
followed. On the whole, Clough is one of the most unsatisfactory
products of that well-known form of nineteenth century scepticism which
has neither the strength to believe nor the courage to disbelieve "and
have done with it." He hankers and looks back, his "two souls" are
always warring with each other, and though the clash and conflict
sometimes bring out fine things (as in the two pieces above cited and
the still finer poem at Naples with the refrain "Christ is not risen"),
though his "Latest Decalogue" has satirical merit, and some of his
country poems, written without undercurrent of thought, are fresh and
genial, he is on the whole a failure. But he is a failure of a
considerable poet, and some fragments of success chequer him.

Frederick Locker, who on his second marriage took the additional name of
Lampson, was born in 1821 of a family long connected with the Navy and
with Greenwich Hospital. He himself held for some years a post in the
Admiralty; but he was much more addicted to society and to literature
than to official work. His first marriage with Lady Charlotte Bruce
strengthened his social position, and his second gave him wealth. He
published, as early as 1857, a volume of light verse entitled _London
Lyrics_, which, with the work of Prior, Praed, and Mr. Austin Dobson,
stands at the head of its kind in English. But--an exceedingly rare
thing for amateur as well as for professional writers in our time--he
was not tempted either by profit or fame to write copiously. He added
during his not short life, which closed in May 1895, a few more poems to
_London Lyrics_. He edited in 1867 an anthology of h