"Very beautiful," says the Briton; "but why call this a 'Jacobite Song'?" Some thorough-going admirer of Mr. Swinburne will ask, no doubt, if I prefer gush about Bonny Prince Charlie. Most decidedly I do not. I am merely pointing out that the poet cares so little for the common human prejudice in favor of concreteness of speech as to give us a Jacobite song which, for all its indebtedness to the historical facts of the Jacobite Risings, might just as well have been put in the mouth of Judas Maccabæus. Somebody--I forget for the moment who it was--compared Poetry with Antæus, who was strong when his feet touched Earth, his mother; weaker when held aloft in air. The justice of this criticism I have no space here to discuss; but the difference is patent enough between poetry such as this of Herrick-- "When as in silks my Julia goes, Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows The liquefaction of her clothes." Or this, of Burns-- "The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, The boat rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my bonny Mary." Or this, of Shakespeare-- "When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight." Or this, of Milton-- "the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb, Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Fesolé, Or in Valdarno...." And such lines as these by Mr. Swinburne-- "The dark dumb godhead innate in the fair world's life Imbues the rapture of dawn and of noon with dread, Infects the peace of the star-shod night with strife, Informs with terror the sorrow that guards the dead. No service of bended knee or of humbled head May soothe or subdue the God who has change to wife: And life with death is as morning with evening wed." Take Burns's song, "It was a' for our right-fu' King," and set it beside the Jacobite song quoted above, and it is clear at once that with Mr. Swinburne we pass from the particular and concrete to the general and abstract. And in this direction Mr. Swinburne's muse has steadily marched. In his "Erechtheus" he tells how the gods gave Pallas the lordship of Athens-- "The lordship and love of the lovely land, The grace of the town that hath on it for crown But a headband to wear Of violets one-hued with her hair." Here at least we were allowed a picture of Athens: the violet crown was something definite. But now, when Mr. Swinburne sings of England, we have to precipitate our impressions from lines fluid as these:--