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truth of tbeir wiitiugs. That the hist of gohi and the absorbiug pur- 

 suit of selfish gain is the one great aim of most at the present day, 

 cauuot be denied, and in raising his voice against this state of things 

 the hero is unquestionably iHght ; yet it is these passages that are most 

 strongly condemned by hostile critics, as if a false and malicious libel 

 had been uttered against the age. It is now, as in time past — we stone 

 the faithful prophets who rebuke us. 



But from this state of listless, inactive, morbid selfishness, the hero 

 is drawn by the power of love : the only influence that could be deemed 

 sufiBcient to produce such an effect. The only remedy for the natural 

 selfishness of the human heai't is to be found in the exercise of the 

 highest affection of man's nature ; and in the sympathy which he finds 

 in " Maud," he discovers the remedy for the selfish state of mind in 

 which he had previously been. 



After an analysis of the work the writer proceeded : — 



Such is the poem that has met with the usual amount of attack- - 



" From the long-necked geese of the world, that are ever hissing dispraise, 

 Because their natures are little;" 



an opposition similar to that which greeted " The Princess," and " In 

 Memoriam," when firet they appeared : pieces which are now held up as 

 sheM-ing the height from which the Poet Laureate has fallen. We do 

 not consider that this censure is deserved. The most serious charge 

 that is brought against " Maud " is, that it is morbid : now if the author 

 had stopped when the hero's mind was in that unhealthy state, from 

 which, however, he was finally rescued, this charge might have been sus- 

 tained. We mnst, however, remember the purely objective character of 

 the poem, that this is no lyi'ic effusion, that in the exhibition of morbid 

 natures the highest triumphs of poetiy have been won, and that a poem 

 can only be pronounced morbid when its aim and tendency is to produce 

 or encourage an unhealthy state of mind. But can this be maintained 

 of "Maud?" We trow not. What man would rise from its perusal 

 with an increase of selfish feeling, or a cynical contempt for mankind '? 

 Does it not I'ather prolong the key note, struck in " Locksley Hall.' 

 leading men to seek in self-denying action the true panacea for grief of 

 heart? Let it be carefully noted that the hero never goes back to that 

 selfish state in which he is first described. As Lear at length attains 

 to a clear perception of the errors he had committed, and by that 

 healthy discoveiy is restored to sanity, so in "Maud," the euhstment of 

 the sympatliies for a generous cause rescues the man who hitherto had 

 only lived for self; nor can we imagine how persons can pronounce this 

 poem morbid, and not include Hamlet and Lear in their censures. 



