Mr. George Meredith in his gorgeous lyrics strikes the nail too often and too hard, until he dints the panelling. Could he only hold his hand! On any given subject he will breed you a round dozen of stanzas, large and over-ripe, to one more acid berry. Mr. Bridges, the sober, majestic lyrist, with his grave russet effects, his almost stilted dignity, is the one writer, next to the two fixed stars, to whom we are disposed to give unstinted praise for his solemn reticence, his strong, full music; and to him Mr. Gosse must yield the palm in verse; Mr. Bridges has behind him the force of woodland seclusion and the unique devotion of a strong spirit to a slender art, while Mr. Gosse has social claims, artistic and literary criticism, poetical and historical exegesis, and almost unrivalled biographical gifts to drain his spirit. Mr. Watson in his best poetical work is the sublimation of the philosophical critic of poets. For Matthew Arnold, Shelley, Tennyson, Wordsworth, he has done, we think, what Milton did for "Lycidas," and it is impossible to believe that such cool and spacious writing can ever be superseded. Mr. Austin, like Mr. Gosse, is penetrated with Virgil's "inglorious passion for stream and wood." Mr. Aubrey de Vere is the poet of secluded grace, monastic thrills; Lord De Tabley goes to and fro, like Circe, before his stately loom: Mr. Lang is as his own porcelain, foam frozen into crystal. Among younger writers, Mr. Le Gallienne has the elfish voice of a spirit, airy, whimsical, but full of rapturous phrases; Mr. Yeats the eerie wailing of the winds in a haunted Celtic twilight; yet of these two, so essentially spiritual, it is hard to predict anything--like the wind, their prototype, they blow whither and whence they will. But these both are, so to speak, on the tree-tops, while Mr. Gosse treads the earth. Mr. Henley, again, in some of his vehement, rough lyrics, reaches a poignant fervour of which our graceful bard knows nothing. Lastly, among the undoubted chiefs of song, must be mentioned Miss Rossetti, with whose tender, remorseful, almost conventual outlook Mr. Gosse has no common fibre. No greater contrast could indeed be devised, for Miss Rossetti is at heart a _dévote_ and Mr. Gosse a pagan.