he ineffable, the divine intoxication which only the _di majores_
of poetry can communicate to their worshippers. Once again, after all
these generations, it became unnecessary to agree or disagree with the
substance, to take interest or not to take interest in it, to admit or
to contest the presence of faults and blemishes--to do anything except
recognise and submit to the strong pleasure of poetry, the charm of the
highest poetical inspiration.

I think myself, though the opinion is not common among critics, that
this touch is unmistakable even so early as _Queen Mab_. That poem is no
doubt to a certain extent modelled upon Southey, especially upon
_Kehama_, which, as has been observed above, is a far greater poem than
is usually allowed. But the motive was different: the sails might be the
same, but the wind that impelled them was another. By the time of
_Alastor_ it is generally admitted that there could or should have been
little mistake. Nothing, indeed, but the deafening blare of Byron's
brazen trumpet could have silenced this music of the spheres. The
meaning is not very much, though it is passable; but the music is
exquisite. There is just a foundation of Wordsworthian scheme in the
blank verse; but the structure built on it is not Wordsworth's at all,
and there are merely a few borrowed strokes of _technique_, such as the
placing of a long adjective before a monosyllabic noun at the end of
the line, and a strong caesura about two-thirds through that line. All
the rest is Shelley, and wonderful.

It may be questioned whether, fine as _The Revolt of Islam_ is, the
Spenserian stanza was quite so well suited as the "Pindaric" or as blank
verse, or as lyrical measures, to Shelley's genius. It is certainly far
excelled both in the lyrics and in the blank verse of _Prometheus
Unbound_, the first poem which distinctly showed that one of the
greatest lyric poets of the world had been born to England. _The Cenci_
relies more on subject, and, abandoning the lyric appeal, abandons what
Shelley is strongest in; but _Hellas_ restores this. Of his comic
efforts, the chief of which are _Swellfoot the Tyrant_ and _Peter Bell
the Third_, it is perhaps enough to say that his humour, though it
existed, was fitful, and that he was too much of a partisan to keep
sufficiently above his theme. The poems midway between, large and
small--_Prince Athanase_, _The Witch of Atlas_ (an exquisite
and glorious fantasy piece), _Rosalind and H