AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 251 



ing him, of leaping and dodging and turning sharp 

 corners to overtake his meaning, is too much for 

 me. It makes my mental bones ache. It is not 

 that he is so subtile and profound, for he is less in 

 both these respects than Shakespeare, but that he 

 is so abrupt and elliptical and plays such fantastic 

 tricks with syntax. His verse is like a springless 

 ■wagon on a rough road. He is full of bounce and 

 vigor, but it is of the kind that bruises the flesh 

 and makes one bite his tongue. Swinburne has lilt 

 and flow enough, certainly, and yet I cannot read 

 him. He sickens me from the opposite cause: I 

 am adrift in a sea of melodious words, with never 

 an idea to cling to. There is to me something 

 grewsome and uncanny about Swinburne's poetry, 

 like the clammy and rapidly-growing fungi in na- 

 ture. It is not health, but disease ; it is not inspi- 

 ration, but a mortal flux. The "Saturday Eeview," 

 in noticing my last volume, "Signs and Seasons," 

 intimates that I might have found better specimens 

 of sea-poetry to adorn the chapter called "A Salt 

 Breeze " in Mr. Swinburne than those I have 

 given, and quotes the following stanzas from him as 

 proof : — 



" Hardly we saw the high moon hanging, 

 Heard hardly through the windy night 

 Far waters ringing, low reefs clanging, 

 Under wan skies and waste white light. 



" With chafe and change of surges chiming, 

 The clashing channels rocked and rang 

 Large music, wave to wild wave timing, 

 And all the choral waters sang." 



