fact, was in the sphere of creative capability. He had neither the imagination nor the grasp requisite to real inventive work, nor yet, indeed, that continuity of power absolutely essential to the typical forms of literary art. Hence his want of humor, of the facile and flexible qualities of verse; of adaptation to all classes and circumstances; of range of diction and method in fine, of intellectual expansion of genius.

As to Wordsworth's place in English poetry the most diverse opinions have been held. "For our own part," says North, "we believe that Wordsworth's genius has had a greater influence on the spirit of poetry in Britain than any other individual mind," while it is reserved for Mr. Arnold, in his criticism of Emerson, strongly to confirm this opinion as he says, "Wordsworth's poetry is, in my judgment, the most important work done in verse in our language during the present century." On the other hand, Jeffrey and his school ranked him as a third-rate versifier, in which decision Hood, his biographer, substantially concurs.

In each of these deliverances we fail to reach the exact truth. Wordsworth is not the genius which North and Arnold would make him, neither is he the poetic weakling of Hood and the Edin

burgh critics. He has, in a sense, a place of his own, and, if he must be classified, stands among the first names of England's second grade of poets.

He had too little genius to rank with Shakespeare and Milton; he had far too much to rank with Crabbe and Rogers and Campbell. Nor is this all. It was one of the high aims and results of Wordsworth's work to call attention to the need of natural verse, as distinct from the stilted couplets of the classical school. This he did by his fervent love of natural beauty, by his adoption of the common speech of men, and by his subordination of form to thought. Though not the founder of a new school of poetry, he was, in a sense, its central figure, and did a work, though possible to others, yet never attempted by them. We look in vain, from Cowper to Tennyson, for any one competent to its accomplishment. Coleridge alone had similar poetic instincts and aptitudes, but soon betook himself to prose and philosophy. Shelley and Keats, Southey and Scott, were working on different lines, while one of Wordsworth's most beneficent aims was to present a solemn protest in his verse against the sensuous lines of Moore and Byron.

In the light of such facts, criticism must be

somewhat cautious, lest it overreach itself on the side of depreciation and severity. English poetry, as indeed English literature, could ill spare his name and work. He had a high mission, and may be said worthily to have fulfilled it; nor can his influence as a poet be measured by mere relative position and specific poetic product. He appeared, and was prominent, just when he was needed, and left an impression on behalf of clean and thoughtful poetry that will last as long as our language lasts. Defamed and neglected at first, he came at length to just appreciation. Again allowed to retire for a time into comparative obscurity, literary history strangely repeats itself in that special revival of interest now discernible in all that pertains to his character and work.

While there is in his poetry, as suggested, a something lacking that we greatly need, there is, also, it must be conceded, a something present that we need with equal intensity of desire. It is that something lacking that excludes our poet, with all his excellence, from the innermost circle of English bards; it is that something present that, with all his defects, makes him essential to our literature and our personal culture.

Despite all adverse criticism, all acknowledged

limitation of faculty and function in the man and in the poet, we are still glad to indorse what we read on the tablet above his pew in the little church at Grasmere, "In memory of William Wordsworth, a true philosopher and poet, who, by the special gift and calling of Almighty God, whether he discoursed on Man or Nature, failed not to lift up the heart to Holy Things; tired not of maintaining the cause of the Poor and Simple, and so in perilous times was raised up to be chief minister not only of Noblest Poesy, but of High and Sacred Truth."

VI

TENNYSON'S "IDYLLS OF THE KING"

EVERY critic of Tennyson raises, at the outset, the question as to the appropriateness of the term "idyll" as used by the poet. Meaning, in its Greek form, a little image or representation, it is then applied to a short, descriptive poem of the lyric order, and especially adapted to pastoral themes. There is no reason, however, why such a poem should not be long as well as short; any more than that the lyric should always take the form of the sonnet, and never that of the extended poem, as "L'Allegro" or "Comus." What Tennyson evidently emphasizes in the poem before us is the quality, or literary type, of the verse, rather than its length its descriptive, symbolic, or pictorial character, while the term "idyll" that he uses is all the more appropriate, in that the poem is made up of a series, a gallery of word pictures, each in itself being entitled to the name “idyll,” applied to the poem as a whole. The name "The Divine Comedy," given by Dante to his celebrated

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