at poets have always
been those who believed that poetry was by nature the worthiest vessel
of the highest argument of which the soul of man is capable.

Yet a poetic theory such as this seems bound to include great prose, and
not merely the prose which can most easily be assimilated to the
condition of poetry, such as Plato's _Republic_ or Milton's
_Areopagitica_, but the prose of the great novelists. Surely the
colloquial prose of Tchehov's _Cherry Orchard_ has as good a claim to be
called poetry as _The Essay on Man_, _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ as _The
Ring and the Book_, _The Possessed_ as _Phedre_? Where are we to call a
halt in the inevitable process by which the kinds of literary art merge
into one? If we insist that rhythm is essential to poetry, we are in
danger of confusing the accident with the essence, and of fastening upon
what will prove to be in the last analysis a merely formal difference.
The difference we seek must be substantial and essential.

The very striking merit of Sir Henry Newbolt's _New Study of English
Poetry_ is that he faces the ultimate problem of poetry with courage,
sincerity, and an obvious and passionate devotion to the highest
spiritual activity of man. It has seldom been our good fortune to read a
book of criticism in which we were so impressed by what we can only call
a purity of intention; we feel throughout that the author's aim is
single, to set before us the results of his own sincere thinking on a
matter of infinite moment. Perhaps better, because subtler, books of
literary criticism have appeared in England during the last ten
years--if so, we have not read them; but there has been none more truly
tolerant, more evidently free from malice, more certainly the product of
a soul in which no lie remains. Whether it is that Sir Henry has like
Plato's Cephalus lived his literary life blamelessly, we do not know,
but certainly he produces upon us an effect akin to that of Cephalus's
peaceful smile when he went on his way to sacrifice duly to the gods and
left the younger men to the intricacies of their infinite debate.

Now it seems to us of importance that a writer like Sir Henry Newbolt
should declare roundly that creative poetry and creative prose belong to
the same kind. It is important not because there is anything very novel
in the contention, but because it is opportune; and it is opportune
because at the present moment we need to have emphasis laid on the vital
element th