my purpose. Not the less does the wonderful prose of Ruskin illustrate its capacity for becoming in every way essentially poetic. Not wishing to appear merely as the champion of a literary theory, I have sought to interpret these authors from a much broader point of view, as well as from this special one, and to indicate their relations to the problems of the time. This, I take it, is a true and a legitimate work for the hand of the critic, and one of very great importance. My purpose has been, in this direction, to interpret the thought and spirit of the Victorian era in England, as they appear in the writings of these representative authors. The literature of any period is but a reflection of its life; and when we would fully understand any age we must turn to the men who have uttered its highest aspiration and given direction to its

sentiments.

My essays will every where betray my incapacity for finding the faults of the authors of whom I have written. If any of my readers should persist in regarding me as a critic, I am afraid he will turn from my pages with disap

pointment and disgust. I prefer being told that I have no opinions of my own to tearing to pieces the work of other men. The critics have too long acted as the vultures of literature, rending and devouring, and seeking only to satisfy their hunger by the task of their pens. A better criticism has arisen in these later years, the spirit of which is constructive and inspiring. For the critic of a broad and generous insight there is ever a need, and he can do the literature of any time a great service.

At present the greatest need of American literature is for a true criticism. We have nothing that is worthy of the name, though here and there are men whose work is of the best. We have turned away in disgust from the critic as a faultfinder, but we have not yet learned to cultivate the more philosophical and comprehensive spirit which may animate his work. A criticism of this higher kind would do much to elevate and develop the literature of the Republic. I have written in sympathy with such a criticism, even if I have not attempted to give it fitting expression. My effort has been less

ambitious, and can claim no attention except as the work of an amateur. As a lover of books have I written, and as one who finds his highest intellectual enjoyment in the company of the great masters of literature. I do not know that my book has any other merit than that which comes of this love.

DEDHAM, MASS.

1.

THE POET AS A TEACHER.

ALL good poets, epic, as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems, not as works of art, but because they are inspired or possessed. — Plato.

A MUSICAL thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it, named the melody that lies hidden in it, the inward harmony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists and has a right to be here in the world. Carlyle.

WHEREWITH bestirs he human spirits?
Wherewith makes he the elements obey?

Is't not the stream of song that out his bosom springs,
And to his heart the world back circling brings?

- Goethe.

POETRY interprets in two ways: it interprets by expressing with magical felicity the physiognomy and movement of the outward world, and it interprets by expressing, with inspired conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of man's moral and spiritual nature. In other words, poetry is interpretative by having natural magic in it, and by having moral profundity. In both ways it illuminates man; it gives him a satisfying sense of reality; it reconciles him with himself and the Universe. The greatest poets unite in themselves the faculty of both kinds of interpretation, the naturalistic and the moral. But it is observable that in the poets who unite both kinds, the latter (the moral) usually ends by making itself the master. - Matthew Arnold.

HE is the healthy, the wise, the fundamental, the manly man, seer of the secret; against all appearances he sees and reports the truth. Emerson.