Those who are thus equipped will
commonly be found to agree in admiring the writings of this author;
among them he is unquestionably 'popular,' if it be any test of
popularity to send forth a second edition three months after the
first. Scholarship can appreciate, pure intellect can find nutriment
in, his reflective and carefully-wrought pages. His heroes and
heroines, cold and unimpassioned to the man of society, are classic
and genial to the man of thought. A Quarterly Reviewer observes, that
the blended dignity of thought, and a sedate moral habit, invests his
poetry with a stateliness in which the drama is generally deficient,
and makes his writings illustrate, in some degree, a new form of the
art. In all that he writes he stands revealed the true English
gentleman, 'that grand old name,' as Tennyson calls it,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soiled with all ignoble use.'
_Isaac Comnenus_--in which a recent critic discovers much of that
Byronian vein upon which Mr Taylor is severe in his own
criticisms--being little remarkable in itself, as well as the least
remarkable of his dramatic performances, need not detain us.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66