The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-22

t1culAf8 although there are many others
az able or ADLER.
1t is interesting to know that John
Stewart Mill, the philosopher. was.
strange to say. n OF the very first OF
E~nglishmen to recognize Tennyson's
poetic genius-while literary men /
John G. Lockhart and Kit North were
damning the young poet. Mill praised
him warmly. A recent reviewer OF
Mils's Early Essays writes as fol-
lows:
lit is not by any means the least of
our obligations to the author OF these
SAY that he discovered Tennyson for
his generation and the reprint Of his
original review (now more than sixty
years old) Of Tennyson's first two vol
umes Of poems will most probably prove
to be OF more general interest than any
thing else in the
Swinburne in q recent critical essay
refers to the great Samuel Taylor Col
ridge as lone OF the very greatest poets
that ever glorified the world" 1t it not
the fashion now to write in 50 laud-
atcry a strain OF the author of two or
three OF the most original poems in
our language. DR.. Thomas Arnold held
that Coleridge had the highest mind Of
any Englishman since Milton. We do
regard Swinburne as a good critic
although a poet Of rare splendor
and perfection Of technique. He refers
to clever Leigh Hunt, a very enjoyable
as one Of the finest and surest critics
Of poetry, himself an admirable and
memorable poet, uneQualled in his own
line OF terse and pathetic narrative"
There is not much exaggeration in all
that. Hunt was more Of a genius than
accord to him.
Mr.. e. c.. Stedman promises to live
longer in his verse than in his famous
volume Of criticism upon the victorian
Poets" or In of his other prose writ
ings. We confess to but little acquaint-
ance with his poetry. What we have
read is picturesque, melodious, marked
with clarity and simplicity and yet in
tellectually impressive. He has a new
volume, as was mentioned recently,
called Poems Now First Collected"
The poet critic Stoddard says, and he
is fully entitled to speak:
There is one kind Of poetry in which
Mr.. Stedman so clearly all
American and English poets who have
cultivated it that it might seem at first
to be one in which best expresses the
individuality Of his genius-his natural
note, as one may say, and that is the
kind that occupies a middle ground
between the humorous and the pathetic
the kind into which the young Holmes
allowed himself to stray in "The Last
Leaf" the elder Thackeray in "Ho.
pretty page, with the dimpled chin,'
and Praed in his Everyday Charac-
example of it in Cousin Lucrece," and
a lesser but still charming one in
Huntington House,"
Mr.. Stedman is a purely lyrical
poet" says the critic. He is a poet to
cultivate for he has some high qualities
to commend him and interest the read
err of poetic taste. We have several of
his poems lying before US from the new
volume.
The novels that lead in sale in the
reading centres, the larger cities, for
August were "The Christian" The
Choir Invisible" "Soldiers Of Fortune"
"Ouo Vadis'' and "The Marian"
Bulwer still lives and deserves it for
his best novels are very fine. A new
edition of his novels is to be issued in
twenty-eight volumes, illustrated, price
$1.25 a volume. He is one Of the very
best novelists Of the second rank, and
many of them are extremely enjoyable.
E0NFE Tu0rU0