We have said that a new school of poetry is at hand, and the remark may, at first sight, appear extravagant when we consider the stagnation which has been exhibited for years. But betwixt the decline of one school and the rise of another, there is always a pause. When Milton wrote, a lustrum had elapsed since Shakspeare died. After the decay of Pope, a half a century of barrenness ensued before Cowper brought in a more masculine verse. The poetic soil, during these interregnums, seems to be worn out, and to require to lie fallow until it can recruit its energies. Only a few sparse flowers bloom upon the waste. But these, although insignificant in themselves, serve to betray the changes in the soil. They are premonitory of the coming harvest. They give us a clue to the character of the approaching school, and although often vague and contradictory, they afford us hints for which we would in vain seek elsewhere. We do not say that, from such hints, the nature of a school can be certainly predicted. The public taste, to use a phrase from the geologists, is in a transition state, and what the result may be, will, in a measure, puzzle the acutest mind. But we can still approximate to the truth. And even now we may hazard a conjecture respecting the characteristics of the school which will supersede that of Byron. It will resemble, in many particulars, that of the old poets. It will have the same calm, enduring enthusiasm. It will be marked by a like earnestness of purpose, by the same comprehensive love for “suffering, sad humanity.” It will have none of the jaundiced views of Byron, and little of the _petit maître_ style of Pope. It will be intellectual, and, we fear, pedantic also. It threatens to be disgraced by conceits. Circumstances, it is true, may occur to give a different turn to the character of the new school, or a Messiah may arise to do away by a single dispensation with all former types; but, so far as we can foresee now, the Tennysons, Longfellows, and poets of that cast of mind, will give the tone to the coming change in the public taste. Indeed they are already bringing about a revolution. Men are first acted on singly and then in masses, and the masses have even now begun to feel the influence of Longfellow and Tennyson. Wordsworth, too, is not to be disregarded in this revolution, but his influence, though powerful so far as it goes, will never be general. He is the poet of the few, not of the many. He is the priest of the metaphysicians, the seer of the refiners of fine gold. He writes poems, but his followers write twaddle. He cannot found a school. He cannot do this aside from his peculiarities. We will explain.