The Portland daily press., 1877-09-22
Swinburne as a Novelist.

So far as the measure of success of liter
ary work may be predicted previous to ac-
quaintance with even its earliest chapters-it
seems unlikely that Mr.. Swinburne's novel,
Il Years Letters, will add to his fame. He
is perhaps the man among poets who least
should lay down the Tyre to hold the mirror
up to nature as it exists in the social life Of
the present time. Literature has followed
the fashion of all other skilled labor, and its
departments seem more than ever to define
themselves; not that the poet is forbidden to
write prose, or the novelist to sing with what
skill he may-but that poetry has been of late
years perfected to consummate technical
beauty appropriate to itself only. Again, we
no longer depend upon the novel for excite
ment of incident or for notable rhetoric
journalism supplies the one and divides with
oratory the latter-but we look to fiction
chiefly for accurate, keen and powerful rep
resentation of actual, or at least possible,
men and women as every day knows them.
1t is possible to Mr.. Swinburne to create
characters full of lurid passion, or to bring
before US stately Greek women trailing after
them the plastic sweep of white robes-but
the frou.frou of modern fashion would be
foreign to his art. Neither is Mr.. Swinburne
a minute and tender observer of natural
scenery-a literary trait made attractive by
the example of some deservedly favorite nov
elists. With him landscape is family though
largely outlined background to harmonze
with, or throw into greater relief the action
and pose of his figures. If he makes list
of fowers-a task Shakespeare and Chaucer
touched so lovingly that the dew is let to
this day on the "daffodils that come before
the swallow dares." and the ''foures white
and rede, such as men callen daisies in our
toune'-it is of classic weeds and blooms
that he has found embalmed in the pages of
Greek idyls, whose ancient fragrance leads
him away to illusion and myth. Indeed, Mr..
Swin5urne is not given to detail of any kind !;
he treats subject with a large quality OF
vagueness which is the very atmosphere OF
poetry; shadowy splendor that is light
not on any land or sea. His gift is supreme
ly and inexhaustibly lyric; the variations
that he sings upon one slender theme are
astonishingly numerous and brilliant; and he
has an essential trait of antique directness
and simplicity of passion, partly derived
from classic models, but still more from the
natural quality Of his genius. All this is
clearly out of the line OF modern fiction;
and, the most admirable qualities of his Gift
being thus set aside, it is likely that its faults
would be very apparent, and less pardonable
in prose than when veiled by verse. More
over, to be successful novelist implies famil-
iarity with social life and Its forms, and con-
formity with the general tone of thought and
manners, that is not at all commonplaceness
but simply balance of behavior, a suitable
standpoint for comparison of individuals
with view to their portraiture-and if all
tales be true, Mr.. Swinburne's manners are
the reverse of usual. His imaginative and
enthusiastic temperament would find it hard
to record the sayings and doings of the char
acters in his novel with that impartial sum-
ming.up which is the best way to enlist and
hold the readers attention by giving him the
privilege of forming his own conclusions. In
fact, Mr.. Swinburne appears to lack nearly
every qualification for his task of novel
writing, while it will necessitate the tempo.
rary disuse of poetic traits in which he has no
living equal.