still life or vision in his artistic tenderness of conscience and scrupulous self mastery of hand he so closely mr as once at least to provoke the same doubtful sense of jealous and admiring a notable instance of this refined william excess in conscience is the exquisite of the originally exquisite second line in the to evening such things will make us now and then whether some subtle and noble scruple may not in this case also have robbed us of jewels only less costly than two from the text of the miller s daughter full of the colour and breath and of a april twilight if not even of some rapture as rare and precious as we are now forbidden to renew by of the far and fairy light the clear melody of the once revealed and long yet i think and trust he would hardly have left so lovely and a child of his early genius to fade into compelled and unnatural forgetfulness while the brother poem beside which this had appeared as a sister was so refreshed with new blood and into beauty of more wide and deep delight as were the revived and but may claim of us a yet note of praise than this and it is one which could hardly have been sounded by the mouth of his good and true friend johnson he was the first english poet after milton s voice for the upon earth fell silent to blow again the of republican faith and freedom to with the passion of a rapture the divine right and the duty of he too in the high toned phrase of mr like milton and was with us they watch from their graves and on this of the summit of fair fame he stands alone between the of milton and the sunrise of i hardly think there are much nobler verses in all english than those in which the new fancy indeed has sung the sword that rid the sunlight of the first for all her evil report among men on the score of passive obedience and culture oxford has now and then turned out � in a double sense we might say with reference to � sons who have loved the old cause as well as any reared by the nursing mother of milton there is yet another memorable bond of communion which the fame of with that of milton in the past and with that of in the future between the on edward king and the on john came the far and softer note yet full of sweet native purity and sincerity by which set the seal of a gentle on the grave of the the english poets a note to be as gently echoed by in of his own sweeter song and end the mention of s name reminds me of another but a casual coincidence between the fortunes of that great poet s work and of this his and s in both cases the generally accepted of their labour seems to me by no means the poem acceptable as such mr with the loyalty and sound discretion of a wise has noted as much in the case of it is no less a truth in the case of as surely as for instance the to duty is a work of greater perfection and more perfect greatness than that on the of immortality the on the passions is a work of less equal and purity of excellence than for example is the to evening yet of course its grace and vigour its vivid and dexterity of touch are worthy of all their long inheritance of praise and altogether it holds out admirably well to the happy and harmonious end whereas the very to liberty after an worthy of milton s or of s es a that as from beneath the hand of the thunder bearer steadily through many noble but ever less and less noble verses towards a final showing not so much the of failure as the of living both in an age and after an age of critical poetry always alien alike from the better and from the worse influences of his day has shown at least as plentiful a lack of any slightest critical instinct or training as ever did any poet on record in his to on that worthy knight s edition of shakespeare but his though inferior to gray s are generally spirited and competent as well as and smooth the direct sincerity and purity of their positive and straightforward inspiration will always keep his poems fresh and sweet to the senses of all men he was a solitary song bird among many more or less excellent and he could put more spirit of colour into a single stroke more breath of music into a single note than could all the rest of his generation into all the labours of their lives and the sweet name and the memory of his genius could only pass away with all relics and all records of poetry in england charles william to who shall awake the and call in solemn sounds to life the youths whose locks spreading like in sullen hue at once the breath of fear and virtue shedding freedom loved of old to view what new fancy shall sing the sword in at wisdom s shrine awhile its flame concealing what place so fit to seal a deed renowned till she her brightest round revealing it leaped in glory forth and dealt her prompted wound o goddess in that feeling hour when most its sounds would court thy ears let not my shell s power e er draw thy sad thy tears no freedom no i will not tell how rome before thy weeping face with heaviest sound a giant statue fell pushed by a wild and race from off its wide ambitious base when time his northern sons of spoil awoke and all the blended work 