The connecting link between Landor and his young admirer is sufficiently apparent. In genuine accomplishment, the imaginative literature of our era has produced no one comparable to Landor, save only =Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837- )=. Mr Swinburne has written well in several languages other than his own. In his own he has written tragedies of wider purpose than those of Tennyson, of equal insight with those of Browning. He has written noble sonnets, lyrics of exquisite melody, and one poem, "Ave atque Vale," which takes rank among the imperishable elegies of our literature. He has abundant spontaneity and a marvellous gift of rhythm. Added to all this, he is a critic of almost unequalled learning and distinction. He was the first to give adequate recognition to the poetic genius of Matthew Arnold and Emily Brontë. He knows Elizabethan literature with remarkable thoroughness, and he knows the literature of many ages and many lands better than most of the professors. His appreciation of Charles Lamb endears him to English readers, and his eulogies of Victor Hugo command the respect of Frenchmen. A great poet and a great prose writer, Mr Swinburne is perhaps the most distinguished literary figure of our day. Only when in the distant years his country has lost him, will a great folly be generally recognised. Why, it will be asked, did we not spontaneously call for him--arch democrat and arch rebel though he may have been--as the only possible successor to Lord Tennyson as Poet Laureate?