What is Poetry ? By Edmond Holmes. (John Lane. 3s.
6d. net.)—Mr. Holmes is himself a poet, and though he has not caught the ear of the multitude, and probably never will, he has secured the suffrages of not a few excellent judges. This achieve- ment gives a special interest to this essay. We are told why and how one poet, at least, writes. But we must frankly say that his definitions do not satisfy. They do not include, it seems to us, a whole class of such poets as Horace, Pope, and the like. "Poetry is the expression of strong and deep feeling" is one of his initial postulates. But there is a phenomenon which has to be accounted for,—the extraordinary simulating power of genius. When Mr. Holmes gives us detailed criticism of poetry, he is quite admir- able, as in the comparison he draws between an elaborate word picture which he quotes and Matthew Arnold's exquisite vignette of- " The sweet spring days With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling tern,
And blue-bells trembling by the forest ways, And scent of new-mown hay."
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