"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." William Watson (1858- ), a London poet, looked to Milton, Wordsworth, and Arnold as his masters. Some of Watson's best verse, such as _Wordsworth's Grave_, is written in praise of dead poets. His early volume _Epigrams_ (1884), containing one hundred poems of four lines each, shows his power of conveying poetic thought in brief space. One of these poems is called _Shelley and Harriet Westbrook_:-- "A star looked down from heaven and loved a flower, Grown in earth's garden--loved it for an hour: Let eyes that trace his orbit in the spheres Refuse not, to a ruin'd rosebud, tears."[4] Many expected to see Watson appointed poet-laureate to succeed Tennyson. Possibly mental trouble, which had temporarily affected him, influenced the choice; for Alfred Austin (1835-1913) received the laureateship in 1896. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Watson disliked those whom he called a "phrase-tormenting fantastic chorus of poets." His best verse shows depth of poetic thought, directness of expression, and a strong sense of moral values. The Victorian age has provided poetry to suit almost all tastes. In striking contrast with those who wrestled with the eternal verities are such poets and essayists as Austin Dobson (1840- ), long a clerk of the London Board of Trade, and Arthur Symons (1865- ), a poet and discriminating prose critic. Austin Dobson, who is fond of eighteenth-century subjects, is at his best in graceful society verse. His poems show the touch of a highly skilled metrical artist who has been a careful student of French poetry. His ease of expression, freshness, and humor charm readers of his verse without making serious demands on their attention. His best poems are found in _Vignettes in Rhyme_ (1873), _At the Sign of the Lyre_ (1885), and _Collected Poems_ (1913). In choice of subject matter, Arthur Symons sometimes suggests the Cavalier poets. He has often squandered his powers in acting on his theory that it is one of the provinces of verse to record any momentary mood, irrespective of its value. His deftness of touch and acute poetic sensibility are evident in such short poems as _Rain on the Down, Credo, A Roundel of Rest_ and _The Last Memory_.[5] [Illustration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. _From the drawing by himself, National Portrait Gallery_.]