Steinburne : a Lecture. By J. W. Mackail. (The Clarendon
Press, ls. net.)—Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, and William Morris have helped to make the list of Oxford poets some- what more worthy of the University, and Professor Mackail has done well to make this formal appreciation of the greatest of the three. It is an admirable piece of criticism which it would be unprofitable to examine in detail. It abounds with good things,—many the lecturer's own, some chosen with rare insight from the utterances of others. A brother-poet said of Swinburno, what might indeed have been said of himself—the words occur in a letter of William Morris—" Swinburne's work always seemed to be grounded on literature, not on Nature." Possibly an exception should bo made. This is the passion for the sea which at one time in Swinburne's poetical life might have been said to dominate him. IIero the poet came into direct contact with Nature. Something might have been said 'about it in this lecture. Swinburne's chief literary weakness is patent enough. As Professor Mackail puts it, "language intoxicated him." He made English words do what they had never done before ; but sometimes their movements were almost antics. Yet as we read the intoxication seems to overpower us. It would be impossible to state definitely the meaning ; " the words are as a charm, but a charm of singular potency."
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