THE POETRY OF HILAIRE BELLOC Far from the poets being astray in prose-writing (said Francis Thompson), it might plausibly be contended that English prose, as an art, is but a secondary stream of the Pierian fount, and owes its very origin to the poets. The first writer one remembers with whom prose became an art was Sir Philip Sidney. And Sidney was a poet. This quotation is relevant to a consideration of Hilaire Belloc, because Belloc is a poet who happens to be known chiefly for his prose. His _Danton_ and _Robespierre_ have been read by every intelligent student of French history, his _Path to Rome_, that most high-spirited and engaging of travel books, has passed through many editions, his political writings are known to all lovers--and many foes--of democracy, his whimsically imaginative novels have their large and appreciative audience, and his exquisite brief essays are contemporary classics. And since the unforgetable month of August of the unforgetable year 1914, Hilaire Belloc has added to the number of his friends many thousands who care little for _belles lettres_ and less for the French Revolution--he has become certainly the most popular, and by general opinion the shrewdest and best informed, of all chroniclers and critics of the Great War. There is nothing, it may be said, about these achievements to indicate the poet. How can this most public of publicists woo the shy and exacting Muse? His superabundant energy may now and again overflow in little lyrical rivulets, but how can he find time to turn it into the deep channels of song? Well, what is the difference between a poet who writes prose and a prose-writer who writes verse? The difference is easy to see but hard to describe. Mr. Thomas Hardy is a prose writer. He has forsaken the novel, of which he was so distinguished a master, to make cynical little sonnet portraits and to pour the acid wine of his philosophy--a sort of perverted Presbyterianism--into the graceful amphora of poetic drama. But he is not a poet. Thackeray was a prose-writer, in spite of his delicious light verse. Every novelist writes or has written verse, but not all of them are poets. Of course, Sir Walter Scott was first of all a poet--the greatest poet who ever wrote a novel. And no one who has read _Love in the Valley_ can hesitate to give Meredith his proper title. Was Macaulay a poet? I think so--but perhaps I am in a hopeless minority in my belief that the author of _The Battle of Naseby_ and _The Lays of Ancient Rome_ was the last of the great English ballad makers.