Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/359

 A STRANGE BOOK 343 the spirit's own. Here our musical analogy must be changed. We ask Dr. Wilkinson, How is it that, many spirits as you allege breathing very different tunes through you, they all come out your own one favourite tune? And if he should reply (for your spiritist, dealing with the unsubstantial and unpro- duceable, can never be at a loss for an explanation beyond disproof as it is beyond proof; though, fortu- nately for our general sanity, such as it is, the onus of proof lies on him, not the onus of disproof on us), that the Spirit constrained these spirits to reveal themselves in their naked verity, we should merely felicitate the doctor on the remarkable fact that the verdicts of the Spirit of the Lord always coincide with his own. However, it seems clear to me that the volume ought to have been entitled, " Improvisations from the Spirits," or "from the Spirit and certain human spirits," or in some such style marking variety of dictation. And, now, what of the poems themselves, thus strangely produced? Perhaps the first thing that strikes one is what so struck Mr. Rossetti, their remarkable resemblance to Blake's; not in themes, not in doctrine, yet in essence. None indeed are quite so lovely as Blake's best lyrics ; none so turbid and turbulent as his Titanic wildest in the prophetic books ; none approach in depth and original daring the " Marriage of Heaven and Hell." But the more limpid are very like Blake's, in style and cadence, in artlessness and occasional laxity, in primitive sim- plicity, as of the historical or legendary childhood of our race, though with Wilkinson the childlike some- times becomes childish. I find the pieces "of a