Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/4

 lines, by some phrase which he can fancy a direct translation from the Greek while yet it is in its place both forcible and unaffected. The matter, although not really Greek in Its essence, is thrown with great cleverness into a mould which almost boguiles us into forgetting the author, and imagining that we are listening to one of the contemporaries of Euripides who sought to copy the manner of Hechylos. . . . He is, indeed, never more happy than in painting natare, knowing and loving her well, and inspired by her beauty into a vivid force and fulness of expression."—Sarvepay Review, 6f4 Boy, 1865,

"The passion of Althma is much the finest part of the play. The naturalism of maternal instinet straggling with the feeling of what le dae to the shade of her mother and her brothers, goes far beyond the struggle in Antigone or Orestes, Out of many noble passages depicting this feeling we chooee the last and most passionate—passionate beyond the limite of Greek passion, and too little ingrained with the Greck awe,-but still exceedingly fine.""—Sreetatog, April 15th, 1865.

"He is gifted with no small portion of the all-important Divine fire, without which no man can hope to achieve poetic success; he possesses considerable powers of deseription, a keen eye for natural seenery, and a copious vocabulary of rich yet simple English. . . . We must now part from our author with cordial congratulations on the suovess with which he has achieved so diffieult task."—Times, June 6th, 1865. . es

Atalanta in Calydon' is the work of a poot,. . . Let our readers say whether they often meet with pictures lovetier in themselves or more truly Greek than those in the following invocation to Artemis;. . . Many straing equal to the above in force, beauty and rhythmical flow might he cited from the chorus. Those which set forth the brevity of man's life, and the Garkness which enfolds it, though almost irreverent in their impeachment of the gods, are singularly fine In expression,. . . We yet know not to what poet since Keates we could turn for's representation at once so large in its design and so graphic in its particalars. In the noble hyperbole of deseription which raisee the boar into the veritable scourge of Artemis, there is imagination of the highest kind. . . A subject for many a painter to come—s grand word-picture, in which the influence of no contemporary can be traced,. . . In the fervour and beauty of his best passages we find no reflection of any modern writer,. . . We must not close without a reference to the Greek lines, plaintive and fall of classic grace, which the writer has prefixed to his work in honour of Walter Savage Landor,"—ATHENRUM, April 1st, 1865,

"The choruses are so good, that it is difficult to praise them enough. Were our space unlimited, we would transfer them without abridgment to our columns; as it is not, we can only give a few extracts; but we may fairly assume that every one who cares for poetry of a truly high order will make himself familiar with Mr. Swinburne's drama, . . . As we listen to them they seem to set themselves to a strange but grand music, which lingers long on the ear. . . . . Sometimes we are reminded of Shelley in the lyric passages, but it is more tho movement of the verse and its wonderful music, than anything else which