Part 20 (1/2)

Take Burns's song, ”It was a' for our right-fu' King,” and set it beside the Jacobite song quoted above, and it is clear at once that with Mr Swinburne we pass froeneral and abstract And in this direction Mr Swinburne's muse has steadily ave Pallas the lordshi+p of Athens--

”The lordshi+p and love of the lovely land, The grace of the town that hath on it for crown But a headband to wear Of violets one-hued with her hair”

Here at least ere allowed a picture of Athens: the violet croas soland, we have to precipitate our iht at her glance took flight: the strengths of darkness recoiled and sank: Sank the fires of the ony writhed and shrank: Rose the light of the reign of right froulfs of years that the darkness drank”

Or--

”Change darkens and lightens around her, alternate in hope and in fear to be: Hope knows not if fear speak truth, nor fear whether hope be not blind as she: But the sun is in heaven that beholds her iirdled with life by the sea”

I suspect, then, that a hundred years hence, when criticiss, she will find that his earlier and e of his blade, and such volumes as ”Astrophel” the heavy metal behind it The former penetrated the affections of his countryh the outer tissues of a people notoriously pachydermatous to abstract speech And criticisht sufficient impact to drive the wholein the Void

At present in these later volu in the void For, fit or unfit as we rasp the elusive substance of his strains, all er to be divine At once in the range and suppleness of hispoets, but incoes for a rival, and no other But no aes of music that from first to last has not a flaw Rather, his has so ain and again in this voluht as the soul of light, for wings an eagle, for notes a dove, Leaps and shi+nes froh thy soul froht whose fire is the fount of love”

These lines are written of Sir Philip Sidney Could another man have written them they had stood even better for Mr Swinburne But we are considering the reatfascinated Mr Swinburne, it reat merits That I dislike it is, no doubt, my fault, or rather my misfortune But undoubtedly it is a metre that noa monotony varied only by discords

A MORNING WITH A BOOK

April 29, 1893 Hazlitt's Stipulation

”Food, warmth, sleep, and a book; these are all I at present ask--the _Ulti desires Do you not then wish for-- _a friend in your retreat Whom you h: gone, still better Such attractions are strengthened by distance”

So Hazlitt wrote in his _Farewell to Essay Writing_ There never was such an epicure of his ht add O in the wilderness”

But this addition would have spoiled Hazlitt's enjoyment Let us remember that his love affairs had been unprosperous ”Such attractions,” he would object, ”are strengthened by distance” In any case, the book and singer go ill together, and most of us will declare for a spell of each in turn

What are ”The Best Books”?

Suppose we choose the book What kind of book shall it be? Shall it be an old book which we have forgotten just sufficiently to taste surprise as its felicities come back to us, and remember just sufficiently to escape the attentive strain of a first reading? Or shall it be a new book by an author we love, to be glanced through with no critical purpose (this ), butthe fa happy, perhaps, at the success of a friend? There is no doubt which Hazlitt would have chosen; he has told us in his essay _On Reading Old Books_ But after a recent experience I aree with hihts of the best minds is a pretty counsel, but one of perfection, and is found in practice to breed prigs It sets a ht of the best hest culture Who is the hts of the best minds To escape from this foolish whirlpool, some of our stoutest bottoe--Popular Acceptance: a harbor full of shoals, of which nobody has provided even the sketch of a chart

Soo, when the _Pall Mall Gazette_ sent round to all sorts and conditions of e lists of ”The Hundred Best Books”--the first serious attempt to introduce a decimal system into Great Britain--I re so wonderful as their unanimity We were prepared for Sir John Lubbock, but not, I think, for the host of celebrities who followed his hygienic exa Vedas to bed with theether their replies afforded plenty of material for a theory that to have every other body's taste in literature is the first condition of eminence in every branch of the public service But in one of the lists--I think it was Sir Monier Williaht that Mr TE Brown's _The Doctor_ was one of the best books in the world

Now, the poems of Mr TE Brown are not known to the es, Mr Brown has always had a band of readers to whoed classic I fancy it is a case of liking deeply or scarce at all Those of us who are not celebrities may be allowed to have favorites who are not the favorites of others, writers who (fortuitously, perhaps) have helped us at some crisis of our life, have spoken to us the appropriate word at the moment of need, and for that reason sit cathedrally enthroned in our affections To explain why the author of _Betsy Lee_, _To-Eyes_ and _The Doctor_ is more to me than most poets--why to open a new book of his is one of theliterary events that can befall me in now my twenty-ninth year--would take soht poorly satisfy the reader after all

My Morning with a Book

But I set out to describe awith a book The book was Mr

Brown's _Old John, and other Poems_, published but a few days back by Messrs Macarden overlooking a harbor Hazlitt's conditions were fulfilled I had enjoyed enough food and sleep to last ine, have complained of the cold, these last feeeks: and the book was not only new to me for the most part, but certain to please Moreover, a small incident had already putdown to read, a s came down the harbor with a barque in tohose nationality I recognized before she cleared a corner and showed the Norwegian colors drooping frolass and read her nained Mr Willia-staff and dipped the British ensign to that naians on deck stood puzzled for a ave me a cheerful hail, while one or two ran aft and dipped the Norwegian flag in response It was still running frantically up and down the halliards when I returned toto beauty in the distance--for, to tell the truth, she had looked a crazy and not altogether seaworthy craft--as I opened my book, and, by a stroke of luck, at that fine poem, _The Schooner_