Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/17

Rh the more passionate speeches, this starched ugliness of ruff and rebato will be felt to stiffen and deform the style of the same page which contains some of the sweetest and purest English ever written.' On taking up the little book again in after years, he will also discern the perceptible influence of Leigh Hunt in some of the stories."

There is much truth in this criticism, though it seems strange for a poet to object to poetic prose which, however youthful, is choice and dignified, a not unworthy setting of the nobility of thought and feeling which characterises the whole book. One may also forgive the occasional Euphuism for sake of the earnestness and real passion. Shakspere himself will not escape rebuke if the charity of our imaginations cannot tolerate Wells' English kings and Tuscan dukes in the place of "kings of Lyonesse and princesses of Garba." We do not quarrel with the sea-coast of Bohemia, nor mind anachronisms in Cymbeline or a Win-