the word most removed from ordinary speech. In consequence of this,
poetic diction has become latterly a kaleidoscope, and one's chief
curiosity is as to the precise combinations into which the pieces will be
shifted. There is, in fact, a certain band of words, the Praetorian
cohorts of poetry, whose prescriptive aid is invoked by every aspirant to
the poetical purple, and without whose prescriptive aid none dares aspire
to the poetical purple; against these it is time some banner should be
raised. Perhaps it is almost impossible for a contemporary writer quite
to evade the services of the free-lances whom one encounters under so
many standards. {4} But it is at any rate curious to note that the
literary revolution against the despotic diction of Pope seems issuing,
like political revolutions, in a despotism of its own making.

This, then, we cannot but think, distinguishes the literary period of
Shelley from our own. It distinguishes even the unquestionable treasures
and masterpieces of to-day from similar treasures and masterpieces of the
precedent day; even _the Lotus-Eaters_ from _Kubla-Khan_; even Rossetti's
ballads from _Christabel_. It is present in the restraint of Matthew
Arnold no less than in the exuberance of Swinburne, and affects our
writers who aim at simplicity no less than those who seek richness.
Indeed, nothing is so artificial as our simplicity. It is the simplicity
of the French stage _ingenue_. We are self-conscious to the finger-tips;
and this inherent quality, entailing on our poetry the inevitable loss of
spontaneity, ensures that whatever poets, of whatever excellence, may be
born to us from the Shelleian stock, its founder's spirit can take among
us no reincarnation. An age that is ceasing to produce child-like
children cannot produce a Shelley. For both as poet and man he was
essentially a child.

Yet, just as in the effete French society before the Revolution the Queen
played at Arcadia, the King played at being a mechanic, everyone played
at simplicity and universal philanthropy, leaving for most durable
outcome of their philanthropy the guillotine, as the most durable outcome
of ours may be execution by electricity;--so in our own society the talk
of benevolence and the cult of childhood are the very fashion of the
hour. We, of this self-conscious, incredulous generation, sentimentalise
our children, analyse our children, think we are endowed with a special
capacity to sympathis