Poetry.

RITICAL literature has of late been much

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perturbed by the question, whether in

the brilliant ornateness of Shelley, or in the serene contemplation of Wordsworth, is found the greater poetic genius. Nor can the perturbation be confined within the girth of the original question; for, take what side you will, the mere assertion that certain lines are superior in poetic merit to certain others commits you to the proposition, that some measure, some test of poetic excellence, is possible.

And so, no longer contented with vague generalities, men seek for such a criterion, as will enable them to determine for any and all

examples of poetic endeavor, the order of their going.

It is not possible within the limits of these pages to review all previous definitions; but if we can find that among them there are two or more under one or the other of which all others may be included, we can expedite our discussion by confining ourselves to these, and so, building upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets of afore-determined truth, may be led to a definition of at least as great exactness and generality as any yet proposed.

Conspicuous among recent efforts in this direction is that of Mr. Matthew Arnold, who in the preface to his "Selections from Wordsworth's Poems" writes:

"It is important that we hold fast to this: that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life ; that the greatness of the poet lies in his beautiful and powerful application of ideas to life, to the question how to live."

In the "Contemporary Review," December, 1881, Mr. Alfred Austin combats this, and offers in its stead the following: "Poetry is a transfiguration of life; in other words, an

imaginative representation in verse or rhythm, of whatever men perceive, feel, think, or do." "The relative greatness of a poet depends upon the amount of life he has transfigured; in other words, upon how much of whatever men perceive, feel, think or do, he has in verse or rhythm represented imaginatively."

What, in simple, are we to understand. from these criteria? Mr. Austin interprets Mr. Arnold as declaring that it is in the criticism or philosophy of life, in the thought contained in any lines, that we must find the measure of the poet's work and genius, while his own may be fairly interpreted as declaring, that the poet evidences his genius in a special mode of representing the thought, or by his transfiguration" of the same. But what of this "transfiguration," for before passing judgment upon a statement, we must needs have some clear idea as to the meaning of the terms employed.

Among the many examples quoted in the course of Mr. Austin's argument is the following from Wordsworth's "Simon Lee the Old Huntsman:

'And he is lean and he is sick;

His body dwindled and awry
Rests upon ankles swollen and thick:
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him near the waterfall,

Upon the village common," etc.

"Need I hesitate to say," writes Mr. Austin, and we must perforce agree with him, "that, though written by Wordsworth, this is not poetry?" Farther on he Farther on he writes:"If any one wants to see how the same writer can lift narrative from the ground and endue it with the ethereal buoyancy of poetry, let him turn to The Leech-Gatherer.'

"Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven,

I saw a man before me unawares;

The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hair.

Himself he pressed, his body, limbs and face,

Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood;

And still as I drew near with gentle pace

Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old man stood,

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it move at all."

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"The peom is of some length," continues Mr. Austin," and therefore cannot be quoted in its integrity. But anybody can perceive at once, that the narrative is conducted at a different elevation from that of Simon Lee.' We are listening on the high mountain and the old man is transfigured." Now while all this is doubtless true, yet have we somewhat against the vague indefiniteness of the term-transfigured-since, like charity, it may cover a multitude of sins.

We would further urge, that the criterion. which is the outcome of this, not only contains "nothing novel, nothing strange," which were an indifferent fault, but what is more serious, it falls short, both in generality and exactness, of a criterion offered some three centuries ago. For as Sir Philip Sidney has written in his "Defense of Poesy: "-" It is not rhyming or versing that maketh a poet, but it is the feigning of notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by he coupleth the general notion with the particular example."

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