n
quality of exquisiteness, but this quality is and could not but be
unequally displayed in the short poems and the long. The latter can
hardly attain, with entirely competent and impartial judges, more than a
success of esteem. _Gebir_ is couched in a Miltonic form of verse (very
slightly shot and varied by Romantic admixture) which, as is natural to
a young adventurer, caricatures the harder and more ossified style of
the master. Sometimes it is great; more usually it intends greatness.
The "Dialogues in Verse" (very honestly named, for they are in fact
rather dialogues in verse than poems), though executed by the hand of a
master both of verse and dialogue, differ in form rather than in fact
from the Conversations in prose. The _Hellenics_ are mainly dialogues in
verse with a Greek subject. All have a quality of nobility which may be
sought in vain in almost any other poet; but all have a certain
stiffness and frigidity, some a certain emptiness. They are never
plaster, as some modern antiques have been; but they never make the
marble of which they are composed wholly flesh. Landor was but a
half-Pygmalion.

The vast collection of his miscellaneous poems contains many more
fortunate attempts, some of which have, by common consent of the
fittest, attained a repute which they are never likely to lose. "Rose
Aylmer" and "Dirce," trifles in length as both of them are, are very
jewels of poetic quality. And among the hundreds and almost thousands of
pieces which Landor produced there are some which come not far short of
these, and very many which attain a height magnificent as compared with
the ordinary work of others. But the hackneyed comparison of amber does
something gall this remarkable poet and writer. Everything, great and
small, is enshrined in an imperishable coating of beautiful style; but
the small things are somewhat out of proportion to the great, and, what
is more, the amber itself always has a certain air of being deliberately
and elaborately produced--not of growing naturally. Landor--much more
than Dryden, of whom he used the phrase, but in the same class as
Dryden--is one of those who "wrestle with and conquer time." He has
conquered, but it is rather as a giant of celestial nurture than as an
unquestioned god.

Even after enumerating these two sets of names--the first all of the
greatest, and the greatest of the second, Landor, equalling the least of
the first--we have not exhausted the poetical riche