Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/139

Rh fruit, and all, or almost all, of his best work is to be found.

The Songs before Sunrise have been spoken of as Mr. Swinburne's highest lyrical achievement, and the second Poems and Ballads as his highest achievement in pure style and execution. His highest achievement in criticism is indisputably the Essays and Studies. But in all of them we are soon forced to feel the disquieting element of the transitional. He will not rest and give completion to his work. He is the Prodigal Son of our poets. If he has thrown away a pound to-day, why, what more does that mean than that he will throw away a hundred to-morrow? And with all this is the recurrent perception of the beauty of scholarship. Mr. William Rossetti speaks once of his friend's 'usual exquisite tact of diction, corresponding to a clear intellectual perception,' and calls him 'a perfect Hellenist.' This is what Mr. Swinburne likes. He protests over and over again that he is 'a student,' nay, a 'rational student.' It is quite comic! If it were not that the problematical joke about the Revue des deux Mondes