If genius systematically appeal only to the initiated few,
it must learn to do without the homage of the outer multitude. For
its slender income of fame, it has mainly itself to thank. These
remarks apply with primary force to that class of contemporary poets
who delight in the mystic and enigmatical, and whose ideas are so apt
to vanish, like Homer's heroes, in a cloud--among whom Robert Browning
and Philip J. Bailey are conspicuous names; and in a secondary degree
to that other class, lucid indeed in thought, and classically definite
in expression, but otherwise too scholastic and abstract for popular
sympathies--among whom we may cite Walter Savage Landor and Henry
Taylor. Coleridge[4] tells us that, to enjoy poetry, we must combine a
more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents
contemplated by the poet, consequent on rare sensibility, with a more
than ordinary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and
imagination. This more than ordinary mental activity is especially
demanded from the readers--say rather the students--of _Philip van
Artevelde_ and its kindred dramas.
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