igh standard and to a
strict judgment. Sainte-Beuve relates that Napoleon one day said, when
somebody was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan: 'Charlatan as
much as you please; but where is there _not_ charlatanism?'--'Yes,'
answers Sainte-Beuve, 'in politics, in the art of governing mankind,
that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art, the glory,
the eternal honour is that charlatanism shall find no entrance; herein
lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man's being.' It is
admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is
thought and art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honour, that
charlatanism shall find no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept
inviolate and inviolable. Charlatanism is for confusing or
obliterating the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and
unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true. It is
charlatanism, conscious or unconscious, whenever we confuse or
obliterate these. And in poetry, more than anywhere else, it is
impermissible to confuse or obliterate them. For in poetry the
distinction between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only
half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true, is of paramount
importance. It is of paramount importance because of the high
destinies of poetry. In poetry, as in criticism of life under the
conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and
poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we have said, as time
goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay. But the
consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of the
criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of power in
proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than
inferior, sound rather than unsound or half-sound, true rather than
untrue or half-true.

The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have
a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can.
A clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and
joy to be drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can
gather from a poetical collection such as the present. And yet in the
very nature and conduct of such a collection there is inevitably
something which tends to obscure in us the consciousness of what our
benefit should be, and to distract us from the pursuit of it. We
should therefore steadily set it before ou