The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-10 00:00:00

IBER.

OCT

Ne winarket 2 d October... 8
Hereford lB
Newmarket Houghton ...

Northampton ........... . 2
Lothians' Racing Club 3
Ryl. Cal. Hunt and Kelso 3
Bedford 4
NOVEMBER.
Lincoln
Liverpool
IRISH RACING FIXTURES.
SEPTEMBER.

Curragh
OCTOBER.

4,5, 6

Curragh 16,17 18
FRENCH RACING FIXTURES.

AUGUST.
Bourges...
Valenciennes
Moulins • 13, 14 Blois 26, 28
Cherbourg
Le Mans l9

SEPT

Baden-Baden 3, 5, 7
Chantilly

I Paris (Autumn) 23, 30

A Wholesome Remonstrance.

-e -

A London Reviewer comments thus severely and
emphatically upon the last volume of prurient and
libidinous poems produced by Mr. Algernon Swin-

burne :--

From the concluding verses of Mr. Swinburne's
new volume, we infer that most, if not all, of these
poems were written some years ago, when the author
was very young. We hardly know whether or not to
hope that this may be so. On the one hand, it would
be a relief to think that possibly the diseased state
of mind out of which many of them must have
issued may have passed away ; on the other hand, it
would be an additional pain (certainly not wanted)

to suppose that such corrupt and acrid thoughts
could have proceeded from the very spring and blos-
soming of youth. For we do not know when we
have read a volume so depressing and misbegotten
—in many of its constituents so utterly revolting.
Mr. Swinburne, in his address to Victor Hi.go,
speaks of having been brought up in France ; and it
would seem as if he had familiarised himself with
the worst circles of Parisian life, and drenched him-
self in the worst creations of Parisian literature (to
the exclusion of the better parts of both), until he
can see scarcely anything in the world, or beyond it,
but lust, bitterness, and despair. Being a poet, he
sees beauty also, of necessity ; and this is the one
redeeming feature in what would otherwise be a
carnival of ugly shapes. But even the beauty of
poetic expression, of which lie is so great a master,
cannot hide the truly horrible substratum of a large
part of the present volume. The writer seems to have
taken pains to shock in the highest degree, we will
not say English conventional morals, but the com-
monest decencies of modern lands. For the counter-
part of some of his subjects we must go back to the
writers of antiquity ; and even in them we shall not
find the jibing cynicism, the seemingly conscious re-
velling in the actual sense of evil, which throws such
a lurid shadow over many of these pages. Mr. Swin-
burne deliberately selects the most depraved stories
of the ancient world, and the most feculent corrup-
tions of modern civilisation, and dwells upon them
with a passionate zest and long-drawn elaboration
of enjoyment, which is only less shocking than the
cold, sarcastic sneer with which (after the fury of
sensual passion has vented itself in every form of
libidinous metaphor) he assures us that these are
not only the best things in the world, but better than
anything we can hope for or conceive beyond the
world. The strangest and most melancholy fact in
these strange and melancholy poems is, not the ab-
sence of faith, but the presence of a faith which
mocks at itself, and takes pleasure in its own degra-
dation. Mr Swinburne apparently believes in a God,
for he makes use of his name with unnecessary fre-
quency; but, quite as often as not, it is to revile
him for suffering the merest riot of the senses to end
in disappointment and satiety. He seems.to have
some idea of a heaven ; but he tells us in plain lan-
guage, and in several places, that it is a poor matter
compared with a courtezan's caresses. He speaks
of a hell, but says he would gladly encounter it
for one minute's hot enjoyment. To such faith
as this we prefer blank atheism. The atheist may
retain his belief in human nature, in goodness,
in :purity, in self-sacrifice, in the progress and
perfection of the world ; and may move onward
to the grave, in his sad hopeless way, with some-
thing of dignity and reverential awe. But a faith
that laughs at itself, that insults its own deities and
defiles its own temples—this is the wildest and the
dreariest aberration of all. There are indeed pas-
sages in Shelley (written in his less hopeful moods)
which seem to indicate that he believed at times in
some malignant persecution of the human race—and
these are very much to be regretted ; but they are
the exceptions. Dominant above them all rises the
poet's faith in the natural goodness of things, in the
accidental character of evil, in the undying and un-
quenchable aspirations of the soul after moral beauty
and nobility of living. Except as a system of ethics,
Shelley rejected Christianity ; but he neither
lowered humanity nor desecrated the world. Mr.
Swinburne will at times talk in the language even
of mediaeval faith, and the next moment will turn
round with a sort of Mephistophelian laugh, and
bid us revel like men in plague time, for there is
nothing so good either here or hereafter. And then
he will fall to cursing, because delight in excess has
loathing and despair for its twin brothers. This is_
literally the spirit of a large part of his volume ;11::
the truly beautiful and tender things he has
in other parts, only make us regret the
unhappy perversities by which they
acre aucceh°po ems as
It is impossible to deny the power46oL-
es Noyades,"
" Laus Veneris," " phleira,"„
Faustine," "Do-
inino7D
i:
" Anactoria," " Fragoletta,"
Anactoria" and
lores," Sze. ; but it is equaPYi
they should have been written.possible to see why
by sappho, and, beginning with
posed to be uttered
extravagance of passion, it ends in raging
4, Dolores" are espeeiallyhorrible. The first is sup-
an insane extrav
The second is a mere deification of
blasphemy
incontinence. Both are depraved and morbid in
degree.
the last