"The greatest mistake, at all events, is to suppose him ignorant or careless of the persuasiveness which lies in technical skill; though we can hardly be surprised that he has not escaped a charge which was freely brought against Browning, than whom, perhaps, no single poet was ever more untiring in technical experiment. Every poem of Browning's is an experiment--sometimes successful, sometimes not--in wedding sense with metre; and so is every poem of Mr. Meredith's (he has even attempted galliambics), though he cannot emulate Browning's range. But he, too, has had his amazing successes--in the long, swooping lines of 'Love in the Valley':-- "'Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light, Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.' "--In the 'Young Princess,' the stanzas of which are a din of nightingales' voices; in 'The Woods of Westermain' and 'The Nuptials of Attila,' where the ear awaits the burthen, as the sense awaits the horror, of the song, and the poet holds back both, increasing the painful expectancy; or in the hammered measure of 'Phoebus with Admetus'--a real triumph. Of each of these metres you have to admit at once that it is strange and arresting, and that you cannot conceive the poem written in any other. And, as I have said, their very asperities tend, with repetition, to pass into beauties. "But, in the end, he is remembered best for his philosophy, as the poet who tells us to have courage and trust in nature, that thereby we may attain whatever heaven may be. 'Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or Lo, there! for behold the kingdom of heaven is within you'--yes, and hell, too, Mr. Meredith wants us:-- "'In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.' "So, again, in 'The Woods of Westermain,' we are warned that the worst betrayal for man lies in the cowardice of his own soul:-- "'But have care. In yourself may lurk the trap.' "Are you at heart a poltroon or a palterer, cruel, dull, envious, full of hate? Then Nature, the mother of the strong and generous, will have no pity, but will turn and rend you with claws. 'Trust her with your whole heart,' says Mr. Meredith, 'and go forward courageously until you follow:" "'Where never was track On the path trod of all.' "The fight is an ennobling one, when all is said: rejoice in it, because our children shall use the victory. "'Take stripes or chains; Grip at thy standard reviled. And what if our body be dashed from the steeps? Our spoken in protest remains. A younger generation reaps.'" FROM A CORNISH WINDOW, _Thursday, Sept. 2nd_. "Hoist up sail while gale doth last. . . ."