THE POETRY OF EDMUND GOSSE It happened the other day, in the library of a remote house, that I lighted upon a shelf of old _Blackwoods_, from fifty to sixty years old, and, being confined to the house by wet weather, read largely in them. Christopher North was at his glory then, with his flagrant egotism and stupid bellowings. But what struck me most in the old pages was that, with all his loud Philistinism, he was penetrated with a profound respect for poetry. It is hardly too much to say that poetry was the staple product of the magazine. Almost every number contained long, nightmare poems in Cowperian blank verse by Delta or some other tedious unknown. Mrs. Hemans fluted monotonously. Almost every number, too, contained an article of poetical criticism; even the terrible _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ are full of low verses. All this contrasted sharply, I will not say painfully, with modern tendencies. I do not think we are less wanting in respect for really great poetry now, but there is a large class of persons writing verses now which for feeling, expression, and execution beat Delta and Christopher North's favourites out of the field. At the same time, the minor poet is the perennial gibe of the journalist, who would have us believe that the only audience that exists for these amiable singers are themselves. And this is not impossibly the case. But all who take a serious and hopeful view of literature will believe that there are shadowy instincts in the human heart which even journalism cannot satisfy, and the large class of persons--youthful, perhaps, and, as Praed says, "so thankful for illusion"--which the earth is constantly producing, will continue to be grateful to any one who "from the soul speaks instant to the soul." But between the greater and the lesser lights there are a few living poets who, without captivating an unwilling public, have, at least, extorted a recognition from it: those gentlemen whom the _Westminster Budget_ not long ago represented in a genial caricature as trying the effect of a laurel wreath on their more or less scanty locks before a mirror. And one of these was Mr. Gosse. His poetical work extends over a period of some five-and-twenty years. His first book, _On Viol and Flute_, written when the author was hardly out of his teens, was instantly welcomed by the critics as an offshoot of the Rossetti school, but untainted by any of the uncomfortable irregularities of that fellowship. Since then he has produced _New Poems; Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems; King Erik_, a literary tragedy; while, last of all, there appeared, in 1894, a volume entitled _In Russet and Silver_. This essay will treat exclusively of Mr. Gosse's poetical work, although the present writer may freely confess his conviction that Mr. Gosse's true vehicle, in which he works more spontaneously, is melodious and amusing prose.