212 SWINBURNE'S TRAGEDIES. 



of Swinburne, but the voice is the voice of Browning. 

 With here and there a pure strain of sentiment, a genuine 

 touch of nature, the effect of the whole is unpleasant with 

 the faults of the worst school of modern poetry, — the 

 physically intense school, as we should be inclined to call 

 it, of which Mrs. Browning's " Aurora Leigh " is the worst 

 example, whose muse is a fast young woman with the 

 lavish ornament and somewhat overpowering perfume of 

 the demi-monde, and which pushes expression to the last 

 gasp of sensuous exhaustion. They forget that convul- 

 sion is not energy, and that words, to hold fire, must first 

 catch it from vehement heat of thought, while no arti- 

 ficial fervors of phrase can make the charm work back- 

 ward to kindle the mind of writer or reader. An over- 

 mastering passion no longer entangles the spiritual being 

 of its victim in the burning toils of a retribution fore- 

 doomed in its own nature, purifying us with the terror 

 and pity of a soul in its extremity, as the great masters 

 were wont to set it before us ; no, it must be fleshly, 

 corporeal, must " bite with small white teeth " and draw 

 blood, to satisfy the craving of our modern inquisitors, 

 who torture language instead of wooing it to confess 

 the secret of its witchcraft. That books written on this 

 theory should be popular, is one of the worst signs of the 

 times ; that they should be praised by the censors of 

 literature shows how seldom criticism goes back to first 

 principles, or is even aware of them, — how utterly it 

 has forgotten its most earnest function of demolishing the 

 high places where the unclean rites of Baal and Ashta- 

 roth usurp on the worship of the one only True and Pure. 

 " Atalanta in Calydon" is in every respect better than 

 its forerunner. It is a true poem, and seldom breaks 

 from the maidenly reserve which should characterize the 

 higher forms of poetry, even in the keenest energy of 

 expression. If the blank verse be a little mannered and 



