_ge_ [gamma epsilon], meaning "very much"
or "very good," as where he so oddly calls the North-East wind "the wind
of God." And he betrays a most unclerical interest in physical torture
and physical voluptuousness (_Hypatia_, _The Saint's Tragedy_, _Saint
Maura_, _Westward Ho!_), though it is true that his real nature is both
eminently manly and pure.

As we have done all through these estimates of great writers, we have to
take the great writer at his best and forget his worst. It is a
melancholy reflection that we so often find a man of genius working
himself out to an unworthy close, it is too often feared, in the thirst
of success and even the attraction of gain. But at his best Charles
Kingsley left some fine and abiding influences behind him, and achieved
some brilliant things. Would that we always had men of his dauntless
spirit, of his restless energy, of his burning sympathy, of his keen
imagination! He reminds us somewhat of his own Bishop Synesius, as
described in _Hypatia_ (chap. xxi.), who "was one of those many-sided,
volatile, restless men, who taste joy and sorrow, if not deeply or
permanently, yet abundantly and passionately"--"He lived . . . in a
whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of
action; and as soon as there was nothing to be done, which, till lately,
had happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty for past excitement
in fits of melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style, not
without a vein of self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness,
racy humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and moral; with a
very clear practical faculty, and a very muddy speculative one"--and so
on. Charles Kingsley must have been thinking of his own tastes when he
drew the portrait of the "squire-bishop." But he did more than the
Bishop of Cyrene, and was himself a compound of squire-parson-poet. And
in all three characters he showed some of the best sides of each.

[1] Amongst other difficulties it may be observed that such words as
"and," "is," "are," "the," "who," "his," "its," "have," "been"--words
without which few English sentences can be constructed--do not form the
short syllables of a true dactyl.

IX

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

Some of our younger friends who read the name which heads this essay
may incline to think that it ought to be very short indeed, nay, be
limited to a single remark; and, like the famous chapter on the snakes
in I