Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/98

82 rhyming was not due to this cause we have her own words to prove.

Of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" Edgar Poe, no careless critic, said that, with the exception of Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," he had never perused a poem "containing so much of the fiercest passion with so much of the most ethereal fancy." "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" he somewhat too dogmatically pronounced to be "the only poem of its author which is not deficient, considered as an artistic whole. Her constructive ability," he added, "is either not very remarkable, or has never been properly brought into play. In truth, her genius is too impetuous for the minuter technicalities of that elaborate art so needful in the building up of pyramids for immortality."

It is but justice to Poe to tell that, after a full and frank exposition of her faults and her fancied faults, he gives ungrudging praise to her merits, not only deeming her poetic inspiration to be of the highest, the most august conceivable, but declaring it to be his deliberate opinion, "not idly entertained, nor founded on any visionary basis," that she had "surpassed all her poetical contemporaries of either sex, with a single exception," the exception being Tennyson. Poe's most enthusiastic admiration for Miss Barrett led him to do his best to spread a knowledge of her works in the United States, where, indeed, he was the pioneer of her fame. He dedicated to her—"To the noblest of her sex"—his last and most valuable volume of poems. Something of what the lady thought of him will be learned later on.

The story told in "Lady Geraldine's Courtship,"—"A Romance of the Age," as it is sub-titled—is devoid of sensational episodes or romantic incidents.