Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
Wandering, and many a shape whose name
Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
And your own footsteps meeting you,
And all things going as they came." (Page 128.)
Apart altogether from the meaninglessness, was ever writing so formally slovenly and laboriously limp? I have no time to pile example on example; I leave that task to the reader, who will not have to hunt far or long for some of the worst writing in our language. Of a piece are such expressions as, "O their glance is loftiest dole!" "in grove the gracile Spring trembles;" "her soft body, dainty thin;" "handsome Jenny mine;" "smouldering senses;" "the rustling covert of my soul;" "a little spray of tears;" "culminant changes;""wasteful warmth of tears;" "the sunset's desolate disarray;" "watered my heart's drouth;" "the wind's wellaway;" "a shaken shadow intolerable;" "that swallow's soar" (a swallow, by the way, does not soar); "my eyes, wide open, had the run of some ten weeds to rest upon;" and a thousand others, as bad or worse, all to be found in Mr. Rossetti's small volume; besides the thousands upon thousands to be found in the works of his more fruitful brethren.
It would be wasting time to criticize details so worthless, save for the purpose of showing that insincerity in one respect argues insincerity in all, and that where we find a man choosing worthless subjects and affecting trashy models, we may rely on finding his treatment, down to the tiniest detail, frivolous, absurd, and reckless. The affectation of carefulness in composition is in proportion to the affectation of subtlety of theme; and the result is a lamentable amount, not of valuable poetic form, but of sound and fury, signify-
