side-faced, silent
things," that come butting and staring with lidless eyes at the sunken
steam-engine. And although, in yet another, we are told, pleasantly
enough, how the water went down into the valleys, where it set itself
gaily to saw wood, and on into the plains, where it would soberly carry
grain to town; yet the real strength of the fable is when it deals with
the shut pool in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned
among slugs and snails, and in the company of an old toad. The sodden
contentment of the fallen acorn is strangely significant; and it is
astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the appearance of her
horrible lover, the maggot.

And now for a last word, about the style. This is not easy to criticise.
It is impossible to deny to it rapidity, spirit, and a full sound; the
lines are never lame, and the sense is carried forward with an
uninterrupted, impetuous rush. But it is not equal. After passages of
really admirable versification, the author falls back upon a sort of
loose, cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of Mr. Browning's
minor pieces, and almost inseparable from wordiness, and an easy
acceptation of somewhat cheap finish. There is nothing here of that
compression which is the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair,
perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side
with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very perfect poet;
and yet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture of a dog,
detailed through thirty odd lines, is frittered down and finally almost
lost in the mere laxity of the style, to compare it with the clear,
simple, vigorous delineation that Burns, in four couplets, has given us
of the ploughman's collie. It is interesting, at first, and then it
becomes a little irritating; for when we think of other passages so much
more finished and adroit, we cannot help feeling, that with a little
more ardour after perfection of form, criticism would have found nothing
left for her to censure. A similar mark of precipitate work is the
number of adjectives tumultuously heaped together, sometimes to help out
the sense, and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the
sound of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, that Lord Lytton
himself would defend the lines in which we are told how Laocoon
"Revealed to _Roman_ crowds, now _Christian_ grown, That _Pagan_ anguish
which, in _Parian_ stone, the _Rhodian_