Were it otherwise we could fill pages. We find in our favourite edition of 'Festus' more passages marked for approval or quotation than in any work of its class. The modern reader forgets, or has never heard, that on its first appearance Tennyson said he could scarcely trust himself to say how much he admired it for fear of falling into extravagance, that Thackeray, then a power in the land, said it had poetry enough to set up fifty poets; that, in fact, all the recognized critics whose opinions survive bore testimony to its supreme gifts. When one takes into account that it was written between twenty and twenty-three it may count as in its way unique. Unfortunately, it was at once blossom and fruit, and what its author subsequently accomplished is far from being of equal interest or value. . . .
"Many of the lyrics in 'Festus' are noteworthy, and one or two of them are inspired. Though a desirable possession, the first edition is not always the best form in which to read it. In later editions some crudities are rectified, and some metrical advance is recognizable."
Knight wrote an occasional poem himself, and his sonnet 'Love's Martyrdom' is No. CXIX. in William Sharp's 'Sonnets of the Century.' By the kind permission of the Walter Scott Publishing Company, I am able to reproduce it here:—
LOVE'S MARTYRDOM.
Sweet we will hold to Love for Love's sweet sake,
Seeing Love to us must be his own reward:
Haply we shall not find our task too hard,
Nor suffer from intolerable ache.
Yea, though henceforth our lives asunder break,
From every comfort-giving hope debarr'd,
Love may support his martyrs, and the scarr'd
And wounded heart may triumph at the stake.
Sweet not for us Love's guerdons : not for us
The boons which wont Love's constancy requite;
No whisper of low voices tremulous,
Kiss, or caress,; no breath of Love's delight:
Yet will we hold our joyless troth, and thus
Achieve Love's victory in Fate's despite.
Another instance of Knight's love of the sonnet is given in The Athenæum for the 13th of January, 1906, where he quotes the following sonnet of Félix Arvers, and afterwards "ventures on a free and inadequate" rendering of it:—
