In literature, as in all else—in work, in love, in trade, in every kind of action or acquisition the Germanic nations are gluttons and drunkards. We want everything, as we want our food and drink, in savage profusion. And, by the same token, we rule the world. 1903. ENGLAND’S LAUREATE Doubtless there are competent critics of poetry in this country, but it is Mr. Alfred Austin’s luck not to have drawn their attention. Mr. Austin is not a great poet, but he is a poet. The head and front of his offending seems to be that he is a lesser poet than his predecessor—his immediate predecessor—for his austerest critic will hardly affirm his inferiority to the illustrious Nahum Tate. Nor is Mr. Austin the equal by much of Mr. Swinburne, who as Poet Laureate was impossible—or at least highly improbable. If he had been offered the honor Mr. Swinburne would very likely have knocked off the Prime Minister’s hat and jumped upon it. He is of a singularly facetious turn of mind, is Mr. Swinburne, and has to be approached with an orange in each hand. Below Swinburne the differences in mental stature among British poets are inconsiderable; none is much taller than another, though Henley only could have written the great lines beginning, Out of the dark that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul— and he is not likely to do anything like that again; on that proposition You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager. I wonder how many of the merry gentlemen who find a pleasure in making mouths at Mr. Austin for what he does and doesn’t do have ever read, or reading, have understood, his sonnet on LOVE’S BLINDNESS. Now do I know that Love is blind, for I Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth, No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth, Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh. Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky, Seres Spring’s maturity, checks Summer’s birth, Leaves linnet’s pipe as sad as plover’s cry, And makes me in abundance find but dearth. But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou With orient eyes dawnest on my distress, Suddenly sings a bird on every bough, The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less, The ground is buoyant as the ether now, And all looks lovely in thy loveliness. The influence of Shakspeare is altogether too apparent in this, and it has as many faults as merits; but it is admirable work, nevertheless. To a poet only come such conceptions as “orient eyes” and feet that “flutter the dark.” Here is another sonnet in which the thought, quite as natural, is less obvious. In some of his best work Mr. Austin runs rather to love (a great fault, madam) and this is called LOVE’S WISDOM.