There remain two or three considerable poets whom it is difficult to classify. Coventry Patmore cannot be placed in either the Pre-Raphaelite or the Spasmodic School, and though he has some points of affinity with the poets of the intellectual movement, they are not close enough to justify ranking him with them. Patmore is especially the poet of domestic love. His greatest work, _The Angel in the House_ (1854-1856), was meant to be a poem on married life. In the opening the poet congratulates himself that he, though born so late, has had the good fortune to discover 'the first of themes sung last of all.' As he proceeded however he found his mistake, and never carried out his design; but it imparted the characteristic tone of quiet domestic affection to his verse. He may be described as the Wordsworth of the home. He is seldom if ever great, but his verse at its best has a simple sweetness, with an occasional dignity, that is exceedingly pleasing. It is unfortunate that against the merits of the better passages of _The Angel in the House_ there has to be set the weakness of the letters of Jane. Patmore's purpose was to fit the thought to the character; but merely weak thought and merely weak character have no right to a place in poetry such as this. There is no dramatic realisation and no humour to justify them. _The Unknown Eros_ (1877) is a work strangely different from _The Angel in the House_; it is more lyrical and more ambitiously imaginative; and for this very reason it brings into greater prominence Patmore's weaknesses. There is a frequent sense of effort. The meaning is often obscure, and there are here and there, as in the earlier poem, surprising lapses of taste. The poem recalls Drummond of Hawthornden, not only by the rhythm, but also by a certain 'preciosity' of diction and imagery. [Sidenote: The second Lord Lytton (1831-1891).]