owards procuring its writer a
subsistence, and that it will probably not even yield him such a
return as would suffice to support a labouring man for one month out
of the twelve.[3] Tenets like these are not for the million. The
propounder they regard as talking at them, not to them. His principles
and practice, his canons of taste, and his literary achievements, are
far above out of their sight--his merit they are content to take on
trust, by the hearing of the ear, a mystery of faith alone.

Perhaps men shrewder than good Sir Roger de Coverley might aver that
much is to be said on both sides--that there may be something of
fallacy on the part of poet as well as people in this controversy. It
is possible to set the standard too high as well as too low--to plant
it on an elevation so distant that its symbol can no longer be
deciphered, as well as to fix it so low that its folds draggle in mire
and dust. If genius systematically appeal only to the initiated few,
it must learn to do without the homage of the outer multitude. For
its slender income of fame, it has mainly itself to thank. These
remarks apply with primary force to that class of contemporary poets
who delight in the mystic and enigmatical, and whose ideas are so apt
to vanish, like Homer's heroes, in a cloud--among whom Robert Browning
and Philip J. Bailey are conspicuous names; and in a secondary degree
to that other class, lucid indeed in thought, and classically definite
in expression, but otherwise too scholastic and abstract for popular
sympathies--among whom we may cite Walter Savage Landor and Henry
Taylor. Coleridge[4] tells us that, to enjoy poetry, we must combine a
more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents
contemplated by the poet, consequent on rare sensibility, with a more
than ordinary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and
imagination. This more than ordinary mental activity is especially
demanded from the readers--say rather the students--of _Philip van
Artevelde_ and its kindred dramas. Those who are thus equipped will
commonly be found to agree in admiring the writings of this author;
among them he is unquestionably 'popular,' if it be any test of
popularity to send forth a second edition three months after the
first. Scholarship can appreciate, pure intellect can find nutriment
in, his reflective and carefully-wrought pages. His heroes and
heroines, cold and unimpassioned to the man of society, are class