Herrick proved a true prophet in regard to the immortality of his verse, though _Hesperides_ made no great stir when it was published in 1648 and seems to have made no friends among critics till the end of the eighteenth century. But he never gave a wiser estimate of the quality of his work than those lines, in _When he would have his verses read_, where he bids us: In sober mornings do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse; But when that men have both well drank and fed, Let my enchantments then be sung or read.... When the rose reigns, and locks with ointment shine, Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine. This is the muse at play. It is absurd to speak of Herrick as though he were a great lyric poet. He is not with Shakespeare. He is not with Campion. But he is a master of light poetry--of poetry under the rose. II VICTOR HUGO It is easy to disparage Victor Hugo, but, in order to disparage him, it is necessary to abstain from reading him. Take down his books and begin to read, and, even if you do not agree with the verdict, you will understand before long how it was that a generation or so ago people used to regard Victor Hugo as one of the great names in literature. It was only Swinburne, perhaps, who could describe him as “the greatest man born since the death of Shakespeare,” but this did not seem an absurd exaggeration to the majority of readers at the time it was written, and even a crabbed critic like Henley accepted him as “plainly ... the greatest man of letters of his day.” His influence as well as his reputation was enormous and extended far beyond France. He was a great author for the great Russians. He was one of Dostoevsky’s favourite writers, and _Notre Dame_ was one of the books that influenced Tolstoy; even in his censorious old age Tolstoy admitted _Les Misérables_ through the strait gate of the best literature in _What is Art?_ and it seems likely, as Madame Duclaux suggests, that it was at the back of his mind when he wrote _Resurrection_. His greatest contemporaries, however, realised that Hugo was a charlatan as well as a man of genius. Madame Duclaux quotes Baudelaire’s comment, “Victor Hugo--an inspired donkey!” and his assertion that the Almighty, “in a mood of impenetrable mystification,” had taken genius and silliness in equal parts in order to compound the brain of Victor Hugo. She also quotes Balzac’s criticism of the first night of _Les Burgraves_: The story simply does not exist, the invention is beneath contempt. But the poetry--ah, the poetry goes to your head. It’s Titian painting his fresco on a wall of mud. Yet there is in Victor Hugo’s plays an absence of _heart_, which was never so conspicuous. Victor Hugo is not _true_.