mean little or nothing, but they have the ring of amiability. On the other hand, Lord Rosebery makes no concession to amiability in his criticism of Esmond. "The plot to me," he says, "is simply repulsive. The transformation of Lady Castlewood from a mother to a wife is unnatural and distasteful to the highest degree. Thackeray himself declared that he could not help it. This, I think, only means that he saw no other than this desperate means of extricating the story. I cannot help it, too. One likes what one likes, and one dislikes what one dislikes." An occasional reservation of this kind helps to give flavour to Lord Rosebery's compliments. It gives them the air of being the utterances, not of a professional panegyrist, but of a detached and impartial mind. Thus he begins his eulogy of Dr. Johnson with a confession that Johnson's own writings are dead for him apart from "two poems and some pleasing biographies." "Speaking as an individual and illiterate Briton"-so he makes his confession. It is as though the tide withdrew in order to come in with all the more surprising volume. One thing that must strike many readers with astonishment while reading these speeches and studies is that an orator so famous for his delicate wit should reveal so little delight in the wit of authors. His enthusiasm is largely moral enthusiasm. We think of Lord Rosebery as a dilettante, and yet the dilettanti of literature and public life make only a feeble appeal to him. He is interested in few but men of strong character and men of action. His heroes are such men as Cromwell and Mr. Gladstone. Is it that he is an ethical dilettante, or is it that he is seeking in these vehement natures a strength of which he feels the lack in himself? Certainly, as we read him, he casts the shadow of a man who has almost all the elements of greatness except this strength. He has been Prime Minister, he has won the Derby, he has achievements behind him sufficient (one would imagine) to fill three lives with success, and yet somehow we picture him as a brilliant failure as we picture the young man who had great possessions. These very Miscellanies bear the stamp of failure. They are the praises of famous men spoken from a balcony in the Castle of Indolence. They are graceful and delightful. But they are haunted by a curious pathos, for the eyes of the speaker gaze wistfully from where he stands towards the path that leads to the Hill Difficulty and the pilgrims who advance along it under heavy burdens to their perils and rewards. VIII MR. VACHEL LINDSAY Mr. Lindsay objects to being called a “jazz poet"; and, if the name implied that he did nothing in verse but make a loud, facetious, and hysterical noise, his objection would be reasonable. It is possible to call him a "jazz poet," however, for the purpose not of belittling him, but of defining one of his leading qualities. He is essentially the poet of a worked-up audience. He relies on the company for the success of his effects, like a Negro evangelist. The poet, as a rule, is a solitary in his inspiration. He is more likely to address a star than a crowded room. Mr. Lindsay is too sociable to write like that. He invites his readers to a party, and the world for him is a round game. To read "The Skylark" or the "Ode to a Nightingale" in the hunt-theslipper mood in which one enjoys "The Daniel Jazz" would be disastrous. Shelley and Keats give us the ecstasy of a communion, not the excitement of a party. The noise of the world, the glare, and the jostling crowds fade as we read. The audience of Shelley or Keats is as still as the audience in a cathedral. Mr. Lindsay, on the other hand, calls for a chorus, like a singer at a smoking-concert. That is the spirit in which he has written his best work. He is part entertainer and part evangelist, but in either capacity he seems to demand not an appreciative hush, but an appreciative noise. It is clear that he is unusually susceptible to crowd excitement. His two best poems, "Bryan, Bryan" and "The Congo," are born of it. "Bryan, Bryan" is an amazing attempt to recapture and communicate a boy's emotions as he mingled in the scrimmage of the Presidential election of 1896. Mr. Lindsay becomes all but inarticulate as he recalls the thrill and tumult of the marching West when Bryan called on it to advance against the Plutocrats. He seems to be shouting like a student when students hire a bus and go forth in masks and fancy dress to make a noise in the streets. Luckily, he makes an original noise. He knows that his excitement is more than he can express in intelligible speech, and so he wisely and humorously calls in the aid of nonsense, which he uses with such skill and vehemence that everybody is forced to turn round and stare at him: Oh, the long-horns from Texas, The jay hawks from Kansas, The plop-eyed bungaroo and giant giassicus, The varmint, chipmunk, bugaboo, The horned toad, prairie-dog, and ballyhoo, The whangdoodle, batfowl and pig, The coyote, wild-cat, and grizzly in a glow, In a miracle of health and speed, the whole breed abreast They leaped the Mississippi, blue border of the West. From the Gulf to Canada, two thousand miles longAgainst the towns of Tubal Cain, Ah-sharp was their song. Against the ways of Tubal Cain, too cunning for the young, The long-horn calf, the buffalo, and wampus gave tongue. In such a passage as this Mr. Lindsay pours decorative nonsense out of a horn of plenty. But his aim is not to talk nonsense: it is to use nonsense as the language of reality. As paragraph follows paragraph, we see with what sureness he is piling colour on colour and crash on crash in order that we may respond almost physically to the sensations of those magnificent and tumultu |