Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/339

 of the name of the seller—ought to be widely read.… On the whole, the interest and attraction of the volume are of the most considerable, though we cannot help wishing that Mr. Thomson had read Shakespeare more, and Leopardi less."—George Saintsbury, in the Academy.

"'In the Room,' a dialogue between the articles of furniture in a darkened and unopened room, leading at last to the disclosure that the occupant is lying dead upon the bed, having died by his own hand, has a fine gradual horror, which is masterly in its way; while the poems, entitled 'Sunday at Hampstead' and 'Sunday up the River,' strike us as being as fresh and original as anything we have read for a considerable time.… Such songs as 'Drink! Drink! Open your Mouth,' and 'As we Rush, as we Rush in the Train,' have the best singing quality, and do no small credit to their author."—Notes and Queries.

'It is a certainty that Mr. Thomson is a poet. He is not a writer of verses merely. Whoever has read this strangely powerful volume must feel that it is not to be dealt with with that ever-rising flood of recent verse. He is no imitator, no writer of polished lines inspired by Wordsworth, or Mr. Tennyson, or Mr. Swinburne, who has so much sham poetry to answer for. Here we have the note of genuine poetic feeling, and the medium of communication in the most exquisitely skilful and vigorous verse. Not since the days when Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Morris startled the reading world has any volume called forth more decided and sterling praise than this one before us. Each piece in it is dated, and it is curious to observe that many of the finest poems were written before the Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Morris aforesaid were known.… Mr. Thomson is a poet of despair, a pessimist of the most determined character; and he has appropriately dedicated his volume to the Italian Leopardi (B.V.'s translations of Leopardi's fine prose were a striking feature in the democratic journal above mentioned), who somewhere says that 'all is a mystery except our grief.' The longest piece in the book, 'The City of Dreadful Night,' is nothing but an allegorical representation of the misery and hopelessness of human life. It is fragmentary, and far from perfect as a whole; but its constituent parts are of singular beauty, and some passages need fear no comparison.… 'The Naked Goddess' is a fine allegory, showing how they drive off the Goddess of Nature who seek to clothe "her in the garments of our city life.… One of the most beautiful for wealth of imagery and symbolism, and ease of construction, is 'The Lord of the Castle of Indolence.'… The two idylls, 'Sunday up the River' and ' Sunday at Hampstead,' are grotesque and intentionally vulgar, and at times abounding in passages of great beauty.… Mr. Thomson is a thorough democrat and proud of his class, yet his true sphere is a high one, and he returns naturally to a lofty