MR. HENRY TAYLOR'S POEMS.*

THE fact that Mr. Henry Taylor is avowedly one of those con- scious artists who intend their writings to illustrate a theory ought alone to entitle him to some attention, even though he had been less successful than he has been in commanding the re- spect of a cultivated and reflective minority. Right or wrong, he is at least the apostle of a distinct faith. " I would have no man," he tells us, "depress his imagination, but I would have him raise his reason to be its equipoise." Much, of course, depends in this passage upon the precise significance of the word " imagi- nation." Mr. Taylor seems to confound it a little later down with an "impassioned temperament," and as the instances of irregular genius which he singles out for condemnation are those of Lord Byron and the " fantastic" Shelley, we may probably understand him to mean that art ought not to catch its inspira- tion from ungoverned feeling or from the power that works in dreams. Something more than a faulty definition seems to be implied in this conception of poetry. It is pretty much matter of indifference for all but more precise thinkers what particular name is assigned to that faculty which creates, divines, and prophecies, which is feminine in its subtle instincts and sympathies with humanity, and almost godlike in its power of shaping order out of chaos or hewing marble into life. But a workman who believes that all art is an affair of plummet and line may be an excellent geometrician, and even a good copyist, bit will break down when he * The Poetical Works of Henry Tailor, D.C.L. Linden: Chapman and Hall.

attempts original work. Mr. Taylor, of course, is less extreme in Yet never two of them can see together, his theory thanthe workman we have supposed, and is, moreover, Or gather them, and balance whet he sees

a gentleman of high culture and powers. He has written lines To make up one account ; a mind it Accessible to reason's subtlest rays, is which have passed into the language for th3 serene wisdom. of And many enter there, but none converge ; their thought, and passages of genuine feeling or real descriptive It is an army with no general, power expressed in faultless English. It would be difficult to An arch without a key-stone."

mention any one in whose works there is so little to blame. But The excellence of this portrait lies, however, chiefly, we on the one capital point of all we must give judgment against believe, in the fact that it is rather modern than medieval. It him that he is not a poet. is the description of a talker at a London dinner-tablef; and the In saying this we desire to try Mr. Taylor by his own same man educated at Paris in the fourteenth century would have standard. He condemns Mrs. Shelley's praise of her husband, had, of course, the same qualities of mind, but would have " every line and word he wrote is instinct with peculiar beauty," impressed his contemporaries differently ; would have received and remarks, to a certain extent justly, "let no man sit down to in his own despite some systematic training; would have chosen write with the purpose of making every line and word beautiful the most worthless of scholastic theories, and referred everything and peculiar." A picture rather than a mosaic or succession of to it ; would have been more disputations, less glib of speech, fleeting images is, in fact, the appropriate triumph of art. On the and more ostentatiously arrogant than Lois de Vat's is assumed other hand, the picture must have been conceived vividly if it is to to be. It is characteristic of Mr. Taylor that having given this impress the mind. Whether its colours be individually bright or clever psychological sketch he never vindicates it by introduCing undertoned is, in fact, unimportant if they are harmonious, and the man. Shakespeare dealt very differently by Polonius. Nor the contrasts of the tiger's skin, or of an autumn sunset over a is Philip van ArteveLle himself life-like or genuine. It was no marsh, are quiet as well as beautiful in comparison with the dull vulgar conception to make a man eminently reflective and green blind and salmon-coloured or drab whitewash of a suburban dispassionate the hero of a revolutionary crisis, with a foresight of villa. Mr. Taylor always seems to have thought out his des- the miseries that are gathering around him, with an intel- c4tions line by line, adding to them and touching them up as lectual contempt for the agents ho is forced to employ, and experience suggested, rather than to describe from some vision yet going on calmly to the end, because he has a heart to once and for all time. Ho analyzes the typhoid that visited feel for his fellow-citizens and a will to achieve what his reason Ghent during the famine as if he were lecturing to a clinical tells him to be best. But to make such a character probable

class :— might have tasked Shakespeare. We are haunted throughout by Then to his loins and strangury succeeds."

and thought, and thrown himself into heroic situations, he Contrast this with the picture of Ugolino and his children, as would yet have been helpless at the moment of emergency, as free from little prettinesses as M r. Taylor himself could wish it, and Mr. Kinglake assumes of Louis Napoleon. The real Philip was note how very differently Dante conceived the human incidents of a a soldier by training, and must have been more or less" a death agony. " Gaddo threw himself stretched out at my feet, demagogue by profession. Mr. Taylor's hero is one in his own saying, 'My father, why dost thou not help me ?' Therewith he language of the singular few

died, and as thou seest me I saw the three fall down one by one

between the fifth day and the sixth." In the whole passage Bear yet a temperate will and keep the peace." the thought of physical suffering is consciously subordinated to

the grief of father and children looking on one another's pain.

Mr. Taylor is quite capable of transferring a portrait of this sort in softer colours to his own canvas. His sketch of Ukenheim with the dead children, " each with its arm about the other's fro by overpowering personal ascendancy. On the other band, neck," contains some of his most powerful writing. In describ-

Philip van Artevelde is too finely tempered for his work, Dun- ing the great common-places. of life and death, the pen easily stan in " Edwin the Fair " is too gross. The man who could con- becomes familiar with a terrible pathos. But because all had trive an imposture with a swineherd would never have had the been worked out intellectually, the unpleasant hospital diagnosis faith that shook England or the brain that governed it. We is added, and the sense of pity is stifled in repulsion. 'fake, may notice in passing that Mr. Taylor's dramas are remarkable

for small inaccuracies of historical detail. He covers England again, the occasional landscape-painting.

And rock it with a gargling sound,

Keel up it rots upon the strand, perpetually outside the times he is painting.

Here all is precise but nothing peculiar. The wreck of the parodied the Anglo-Saxon lays. The quaint antitheses of the boat might almost be sold at auction from the description given, Shakespearian poem undoubtedly lend themselves to abstract but how differently would Miss Brontë have sketched such a weird thought, but the want of passion or vivid pictorial power .comes skeleton and fixed it for ever in the memory! Nor will the words out all the more markedly. Mr. Taylor has caught one antique bear minute criticism. "Star-lit" is one of those epithets that peculiarity, and perpetually aims at an effect of mystery by hinting may be.used in half a hundred situations indifferently; "slender" instead of speaking out clearly. ThorbiorgOs lay about the sea- suggests the idea of an outrigger rather than of the skiff in which wolf, the most spirited of all, is still . an.unsounded depth to us. a girl would be trusted ; and the waves of a lake, if they ever But generally there is a want of simplicity about the songs and gurgle; which is really the sound of water struggling through a scattered stanzas, and they sound like the notes of a mocking- narrow passage like the neck of a bottle, can certainly not be bird, which we only half admire because we judge them as an said to do so when they sport. The heave and plash of which Mr. illusion. What, for instance, is the meaning of Tribolo's song in, Taylor is thinking have none of that conscious life in them which " A Sicilian Summer"?— could be connected in metaphor with the idea of mirth. . "Stand aside, the world is wide Take, again, the human elements of the dramas. Mr. Taylor's There's room for folly and plaCe for pride.

strength, perhaps, lies in the analysis of character, and his sketch Which is which ? of Lois de Vaux is admirable of its kind. Quoth the poor to the rich."

It is his pride to see things on all sides, mention any one in whose works there is so little to blame. But The excellence of this portrait lies, however, chiefly, we on the one capital point of all we must give judgment against believe, in the fact that it is rather modern than medieval. It him that he is not a poet. is the description of a talker at a London dinner-tablef; and the In saying this we desire to try Mr. Taylor by his own same man educated at Paris in the fourteenth century would have standard. He condemns Mrs. Shelley's praise of her husband, had, of course, the same qualities of mind, but would have " every line and word he wrote is instinct with peculiar beauty," impressed his contemporaries differently ; would have received and remarks, to a certain extent justly, "let no man sit down to in his own despite some systematic training; would have chosen write with the purpose of making every line and word beautiful the most worthless of scholastic theories, and referred everything and peculiar." A picture rather than a mosaic or succession of to it ; would have been more disputations, less glib of speech, fleeting images is, in fact, the appropriate triumph of art. On the and more ostentatiously arrogant than Lois de Vat's is assumed other hand, the picture must have been conceived vividly if it is to to be. It is characteristic of Mr. Taylor that having given this impress the mind. Whether its colours be individually bright or clever psychological sketch he never vindicates it by introduCing undertoned is, in fact, unimportant if they are harmonious, and the man. Shakespeare dealt very differently by Polonius. Nor the contrasts of the tiger's skin, or of an autumn sunset over a is Philip van ArteveLle himself life-like or genuine. It was no marsh, are quiet as well as beautiful in comparison with the dull vulgar conception to make a man eminently reflective and green blind and salmon-coloured or drab whitewash of a suburban dispassionate the hero of a revolutionary crisis, with a foresight of villa. Mr. Taylor always seems to have thought out his des- the miseries that are gathering around him, with an intel- c4tions line by line, adding to them and touching them up as lectual contempt for the agents ho is forced to employ, and experience suggested, rather than to describe from some vision yet going on calmly to the end, because he has a heart to once and for all time. Ho analyzes the typhoid that visited feel for his fellow-citizens and a will to achieve what his reason Ghent during the famine as if he were lecturing to a clinical tells him to be best. But to make such a character probable

class :— might have tasked Shakespeare. We are haunted throughout by

"The patient's head is seized with racking pains, a sense that Artevelde in action is the unreal creature of dreams, Then shift they to his chest with change as quick, and that if such a man could have seen the need of great strokes, and thought, and thrown himself into heroic situations, he Contrast this with the picture of Ugolino and his children, as would yet have been helpless at the moment of emergency, as free from little prettinesses as M r. Taylor himself could wish it, and Mr. Kinglake assumes of Louis Napoleon. The real Philip was note how very differently Dante conceived the human incidents of a a soldier by training, and must have been more or less" a death agony. " Gaddo threw himself stretched out at my feet, demagogue by profession. Mr. Taylor's hero is one in his own saying, 'My father, why dost thou not help me ?' Therewith he language of the singular few

"Who, gifted with predominating power, Such a man in actual life might command the reverence of a small circle of friends, who perpetually wonder that he is not placed; but he could never have swayed a Flemish mob to and with the dead children, " each with its arm about the other's fro by overpowering personal ascendancy. On the other band, as

Philip van Artevelde is too finely tempered for his work, Dun- ing the great common-places. of life and death, the pen easily stan in " Edwin the Fair " is too gross. The man who could con- becomes familiar with a terrible pathos. But because all had trive an imposture with a swineherd would never have had the been worked out intellectually, the unpleasant hospital diagnosis faith that shook England or the brain that governed it. We is added, and the sense of pity is stifled in repulsion. 'fake, may notice in passing that Mr. Taylor's dramas are remarkable

for small inaccuracies of historical detail. He covers England again, the occasional landscape-painting.

"NO more is seen her slender boat, with monasteries at a time when there were only two in the Upon the star-lit lake afloat, . land, transports Benedictine monks to Byzantium, makes the With oar or sail at large to rove, Greek clergy talk Latin, and transfers the Iconoclastic con- Or tethered in its wooded cove. troversy from the eighth and ninth centuries to the twelfth. Mid gentle waves that sport around, These are small points, but they are traits of an artist who is Its gunwale sunken in the sand, As a lyrical poet, Mr. Taylor is consciously antiquarian. The Where suns and tempests warped and shrank songs of the Elizabethan dramatists appear to have been his Each shattered rib and riven plank." real models, though in " Edwin the Fair," he has once or twice Here all is precise but nothing peculiar. The wreck of the parodied the Anglo-Saxon lays. The quaint antitheses of the boat might almost be sold at auction from the description given, Shakespearian poem undoubtedly lend themselves to abstract but how differently would Miss Brontë have sketched such a weird thought, but the want of passion or vivid pictorial power .comes skeleton and fixed it for ever in the memory! Nor will the words out all the more markedly. Mr. Taylor has caught one antique bear minute criticism. "Star-lit" is one of those epithets that peculiarity, and perpetually aims at an effect of mystery by hinting may be.used in half a hundred situations indifferently; "slender" instead of speaking out clearly. ThorbiorgOs lay about the sea- suggests the idea of an outrigger rather than of the skiff in which wolf, the most spirited of all, is still . an.unsounded depth to us. a girl would be trusted ; and the waves of a lake, if they ever But generally there is a want of simplicity about the songs and gurgle; which is really the sound of water struggling through a scattered stanzas, and they sound like the notes of a mocking- narrow passage like the neck of a bottle, can certainly not be bird, which we only half admire because we judge them as an said to do so when they sport. The heave and plash of which Mr. illusion. What, for instance, is the meaning of Tribolo's song in, Taylor is thinking have none of that conscious life in them which " A Sicilian Summer"?— "Than Lois de Vaux there's no man sooner sees This is neither excitement, feeling, nor yet with the true Whatever at a glance is visible; What is not, that he sees not, soon nor late ; ring of a Shakespearian snatch. Yet we would not willingly part Quick-witted is he, versatile, seizing points, from Mr. Taylor in any seeming unkindness. We are half But never solving questions; vain he is— inclined to believe that he might have been greater as a prose-

Which more to writer than as a pact ; but he is at least a master of the

Present before him arguments by scores do he sets them on their corners. mechanism of verse, and whenever we seem to distinguish the Bearing diversely on the affair in hand, man from the poet, he inspires something like admiration and He'll see them all successively, distinctly, respect. Even among his lyrical pieces there are scattered ,...7"

here and t1ieresome stanzas which the world will not willingly let die. We quote one of the most complete from "Philip van Artevelde ":—

" Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife, To heart of neither wife nor maid, `Lead we not here a jolly life,

Between the shine and shade ?'

" Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife, To tongue of neither wife nor maid, Thou may'st, but I am worn with strife, And feel like flowers that fade.' "