At the time of their appearance these lines and the like of them were vastly admired; everybody read them, most people praised them. They were supposed to stir the English blood like a blast of martial trumpets. Here at length was the poet England had been waiting for. There could be no mistake about him; he had the authentic voice, the incommunicable fire, the master-touch. He had come to stay. At the present moment the bulk of his metrical work is just about as dead and forgotten as the coster-songs of yesteryear. He has not even made a cult; nobody quotes him, nobody believes in him as a poetical master, nobody wants to hear any more of him. His imitators have all gone back to the imitation of better men. If a copy of verses have a flavour of Kipling about it nowadays, editors drop it as they would drop a hot coal. So much for the poet of empire, the poet of the people, the metrical patron of Thomas Atkins, Esq. Another poet of empire--Mr. W.E. Henley--has fared very little better. "What can I do for England?" is, I believe, still in request among the makers of a certain class of anthology; but English poetry in the bulk is just the same as if Mr. Henley had never been. Even the balderdash about "my indomitable soul" has fallen out of the _usus loquendi_ of young men's Christian associations and young men's debating societies. _The Song of the Sword_ is sung no longer; _For England's Sake_ has gone the way of all truculent war-poetry; and out of _Hawthorn and Lavender_ perhaps a couple of lyrics remain. Mr. Henley attacked Burns when Burns had been a century dead. Who will consider it worth while to attack Mr. Henley in, say, the year 2002? Possibly the real, true English poet who will in due course put on the laurel of Mr. Austin is Mr. Stephen Phillips. Yet Mr. Stephen Phillips is a purveyor of metrical notions for the stage, and in his last great work--_Ulysses_--I find him writing as follows: ATHENE. Father, whose oath in hollow hell is heard, Whose act is lightning after thunder-word, A boon! a boon! that I compassion find For one, the most unhappy of mankind. ZEUS. How is he named? ATHENE. Ulysses. He who planned To take the towered city of Troy-land-- A mighty spearsman, and a seaman wise, A hunter, and at need a lord of lies. With woven wiles he stole the Trojan town Which ten years' battle could not batter down: Oft hath he made sweet sacrifice to thee. ZEUS (_nodding benevolently_). I mind me of the savoury smell.