POETRY AND ELOQUENCE 165 



from their field labors ; the village artisan eats ■with 

 relish his supper of herbs, or has strolled forth to the 

 village street for a sweet mouthful of air and human 

 news. Still summer eventide everywhere ! The 

 great sun hangs flaming on the uttermost northwest ; 

 for it is his longest day this year. The hilltops, re- 

 joicing, will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush 

 good-night. The thrush in green dells, on long- 

 shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing his glad sere- 

 nade, to the babble of brooks grown audible ; silence 

 is stealing over the Earth." 



What noble eloquence in Tacitus ! Indeed, elo- 

 quence was natural to the martial and world-subdu- 

 ing Eoman ; but his poetry is for the most part of a 

 secondary order. It is often said of French poetry 

 that it is more eloquent than poetic. Of English 

 poetry the reverse is probably true, though of such 

 a poet as Byron it seems to me that eloquence is the 

 chief characteristic. 



Byron never, to my notion, touches the deeper 

 and finer poetic chords. He is witty, he is brilliant, 

 he is eloquent, but is he ever truly poetical ? He 

 stirs the blood, he kindles the fancy, but does he 

 ever diffuse through the soul the joy and the light 

 of pure poetry ? Goethe expressed almost un- 

 bounded admiration for Byron, yet admitted that he 

 was too worldly-minded, and that a great deal of his 

 poetry should have been fired off in Parliament in 

 the shape of parliamentary speeches. Wordsworth, 

 on the other hand, when he was not prosy and heavy, 

 ■was poetical ; he was never eloquent. 



