his judgment. It is indeed a great book, with solid 
learning behind it. But Kingsley, being a poet, was more 
creative than critical. The narrative in ‘‘Hypatia’”’ is never 
dulled by the erudition. It is an epical romance, all fused 
together in a passion of earnestness. This must be 
remembered when we hear it said that in 1860 a novelist 
was made Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. 
Kingsley was an impetuous fighter, but very modest. He 
never pretended to be a scholar, but it is a mistake to accept 
him at his own estimate. With him, as with his friend and 
master Maurice, we are apt to forget how much they read, 
because they both used reading as a means and not as an 
end in itself. Neither of them was an academic person. 
Cambridge accepted them both as Professors, with much 
advantage to herself and to the world. At any rate, the 
Cambridge Professorship in 1860, marks the beginning of 
another period which includes the publication of ‘‘ Water 
Babies ’’—an extraordinary book which might almost be 
credited with as tough a life as ‘‘ Hypatia ’’ and the Poems 
—a holiday in France and another in the West Indies. 
These holidays are mentioned because they appear in the 
poems, and for another reason ; they are symptoms of the 
strain upon Kingsley’s health which his eager life entailed. 
There were but four of them, and the last two were badly 
needed. Besides his preaching, teaching, and visiting at 
Eversley (all of which he did with tenfold energy), his 
consuming zeal for public righteousness, his lectures, and 
his controversies, it must be remembered that he never had 
much money, and that he wrote his books in order to 
educate his children. The freedom and glory of his poems 
is due in part to their not belonging to that necessary toil. 
The poems were holidays themselves. And yet the 
necessary toil went to the making of them; art always 
seems to thrive best when her purse is light. 
This Cambridge period ends with the Franco-Prussian 
War of 1870. These wars all stirred him to the heart. 
With his tense nerves he felt the horror of war more than 
most men, yet the gallant strain in him would not allow 
him to think of war as simply evil. And he had a 
re-assurance in that sense of God revealed in nature which 
is expressed in all his poetry. Let us interrupt this dry 
chronicle with the verses entitled ‘‘ September 21, 1870.’’ 
Speak low, speak little: who may sing 
While yonder cannon-thunders boom ? 
Watch, shuddering, what each day may bring: 
Nor ‘ pipe amid the crack of doom.’ 
And yvet—the pines sing overhead, 
The robins by the alder-pool, 
The bees about the garden-bed, 
The children dancing home from school. 
