It seems as though the first impulse of the poet were to set his back against the wall and deal with all his antagonists at once, by challenging their right to pry into his private conduct. It is true that certain poets of the last century have believed it beneath their dignity to pay any attention to the insults and persecution of the public. But though a number have maintained an air of stolid indifference so long as the attacks have remained personal, few or none have been content to disregard defamation of a departed singer. The public cannot maintain, in many instances, that this vicarious indignation arises from a sense of sharing the frailties of the dead poet who is the direct object of attack. Not thus may one account for the generous heat of Whittier, of Richard Watson Gilder, of Robert Browning, of Tennyson, in rebuking the public which itches to make a posthumous investigation of a singer's character. [Footnote: See Whittier, _My Namesake_; Richard W. Gilder, _A Poet's Protest_, and _Desecration_; Robert Browning, _House_; Tennyson, _In Memoriam_.] Tennyson affords a most interesting example of sensitiveness with nothing, apparently, to conceal. There are many anecdotes of his morbid shrinking from public curiosity, wholly in key with his cry of abhorrence, Now the poet cannot die Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry: Proclaim the faults he would not show, Break lock and seal; betray the trust; Keep nothing sacred; 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know. In protesting against the right of the public to judge their conduct, true poets refuse to bring themselves to a level with their accusers by making the easiest retort, that they are made of exactly the same clay as is the _hoi polloi_ that assails them. This sort of recrimination is characteristic of a certain blustering type of claimant for the title of poet, such as Joaquin Miller, a rather disorderly American of the last generation, who dismissed attacks upon the singer with the words, Yea, he hath sinned. Who hath revealed That he was more than man or less? [Footnote: _Burns_ and _Byron_.] The attitude is also characteristic of another anomalous type which flourished in America fifty years ago, whose verse represents an attempted fusion of emasculated poetry and philistine piety. A writer of this type moralizes impartially over the erring bard and his accusers, Sin met thy brother everywhere, And is thy brother blamed? From passion, danger, doubt and care He no exemption claimed. [Footnote: Ebenezer Eliot, _Burns_.] But genuine poets refuse to compromise themselves by admitting that they are no better than other men. They are not averse, however, to pointing out the unfitness of the public to cast the first stone. So unimpeachable a citizen as Longfellow finds even in the notoriously spotted artist, Benvenuto Cellini, an advantage over his maligners because