The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-07-12
Fleshly Poetry.
swINBURNE's DEFENsE-A LA CHARLES
READE.

swINBURNE's DEFENsE-A LA CHARLES
READE.
The Worlds London correspondent gives
the following account of Swinburne's pam
phlet of compliments to his critics in which
he specially devotes himself to Robert Blu
chanan. 1t is rather too bad that Swinburne
should have felt it necessary to initiate the
disreputable Reade and declare with so much
effusion that he really is not nasty.
In his interview with your correspondent
on tine 9th of May last, the poet Swinburne
informed me. that he was then writing re-
ply to Mr.. Robert Buchanan's criticisms on
the ''Fleshly School of Poetry" This reply
has now appeared in the shape of a pamphlet
of eighty eight pages, entitled "Under the
Microscope" published by White, of Govern
try street, Haymarket-a locality, by the way,
where at night one seeking for types of
ssfieshly'' beauty would be apt to be embar-
rassed with the riches at his command. A
very nice pamphlet, indeed, is this of Mr..
Swinburne. No Young Mems Christian As
ISOLATION should be without it. If one de-
sires to speak very mildly of it, he may say
that it is free-spoken; if he wishes to tell
the whole TRUTH he should add that it is
abusive, terrible, savage, and, even for Mr..
Swinburne, almost incredibly coarse. The
most amusing thing about it is the evidence
it affords that man may lose his temper
while he is writing all alone in his own
room as easily as he may while engaged in a
personal controversy with foe. Mr. Swim
burne begins his pamphlet in a comparatively
calm mood, and he seeks to class his particu-
lar foe, Mr.. Buchanan, among other hostile
critics. Buchanan and others have assaulted
the school of poetry of which Mr.. Swiuburne
is the high priest. He now defends this
school. He claims that Byron, Tennyson
and Walt Whitman. all belong to it; and he is
no worse, perhaps somewhat better, than any
of them. Mr.. Swinburne says that Byron
lacks the divine harmony without which no
really great poet can exist; Tennyson, in his
opinion, is coarse; Whitman is at times true
poet but he mixes his poetry with the coars-
est and vulgarest commonplace. But this is
not the point; the point is that no poet is to
be blamed forwriting whatever is in him; if
he thinks blasphemy he should write
blasphemy, and no man should blame
him for it; if he thinks faith he should write
faith, and any one who objects is an ass and
a villain. Well, we have good authority
knowing that it is what comes out of a m
that defiIes him; and if man has nothin
but impurity in his mind it would be bette
for himself and the rest of us if he kept it al
to himself. Mr.. Swinburne don't think So
however; but this vindication of mans
right to say whatever he pleases is not the
chief purpose of his pamphlet. Its chief pur-
pose is to squelch Mr.. Robert Buchanan, and
and 1 must say that the squelching is done
in the most complete manner. There never
was very much of Mr.. Buchanan, and now
that Mr.. Swinbune has finished him off there
is nothing left of him. 1t is true that Mr.
Swinburne loses his temper over the task,
AMI lashes out in a manner that cannot well
be described, but he does his work and leaves
his enemy altogether used up.