Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/37



These ecstasies and others even more pronounced did not prevent Bailey from regarding with something like dismay the subtler and even more fervent utterances of Mr. Swinburne, Rossetti, and younger poets of their schools. The reputation he had won as an amourist faded in later days, and it is as a didactic poet that he has of late been most worshipped. In his gnomical utterances he has much in common with Walter Savage Landor, whom in single line and distich he occasionally recalls. There is little conscious imitation, the only poet whose method he directly follows being Milton. Where he talks of men

it is impossible not to recall the lines in 'Paradise Lost' concerning

and 'Paradise Regained,' when Agrican besieged Albracca,

Short passages of signal beauty and Landor-like grace of utterance are numerous. A few must suffice:—

a simile alike bold and happy.

"We are not now dwelling on the claims of 'Festus,' tempting as is the task in the case of a work which is slipping from the ken of modern readers, and for which is reserved a glorious revival.